Category Vehicle Maintenance

So after my crazy road trip to Plant City on Thursday I designated Friday as chore day.  I wanted to get everything around the house done so my weekend was void of must do’s.

It really is amazing how much different cleaning is with one less person and two less dogs in the house.  The amount of scuzz that I pull out of the carpet is dramatically less and I didn’t even need to run the Scooba, the tile areas were totally fine.

It was also the first time I used my new mini-Dyson to vacuum the entire house.  It did just fine although there were a couple draw backs.  The smaller vacuum head means a lot more passes to cover the rug.  Also it’s smaller size translates into a shorter power cord, meaning I have to do more unplugging and plugging than I used to.  Neither thing is a big deal, just different.

Since I mowed on Tuesday I was totally done with everything by early afternoon.  I sat down and decided to peruse my newly connected HBOGO service on my 360 (courtesy of my buddies’ Comcast credentials)  I saw “Game Change” pop up, the movie about the 2008 presidential campaign and specifically that idiot, Sarah Palin.

Julianne Moore did a FANTASTIC job of portraying Palin.  Not only did she look like her she sounded almost identical.  Woody Harrelson was great as McCain’s campaign manager and Ed Harris made a pretty believable John McCain as well.

The movie did a great job of just portraying how overmatched Palin was being thrust into the role of potential VP.  Her overall lack of knowledge was comical as was the campaign’s staff realization that they were dealing someone that had no business being there.

I knew very early on that Sarah was a joke so this film did nothing but to reaffirm that existing opinion.  However if you are one of those people that still think Palin is the political answer to ANYTHING besides cancelled reality tv shows, please take two hours out of your life and watch the movie to free yourself of that silly belief. It gets an A.

I was unsure if I wanted to drag myself out of bed to do the club run on Saturday morning.  I was still feeling sleep deprived from the way my week went, especially Thursday when my day started at 4am and didn’t end until after midnight.

Well I set the alarm anyway and drug myself out of bed, cursing myself all the while.  I arrived at the start point of the run with 15 minutes to spare.  When I saw Christy and Michelle show up I figured since I was feeling like my batteries were half full, I would just run with Ali and them.  There was one problem, Ali wasn’t there. Ali came speeding into the parking lot just as the group had started walking out on to the main road.

So we started running at the rear of the pack.  I ran with the girls for a little bit but their pace was just a little too slow for me so I slowly pulled ahead.  I forgot my GPS so I had no idea what sort of pace I was actually running.  At the halfway point I met back up with Matt and ran back with him so I am sure overall I had a negative split.

After I finished I hung out waiting for the girls to get back.  I had asked Ali the night before if she had any interest in going to a game for the arena football team.  After her run she said she would go.  At first she sounded like she wasn’t all that interested in going but when I asked again she said it was a better option than sitting home.  I told her how the tickets were only $7 and we could park for free at the outlet mall next door.  It would be cheap entertainment.

My main task of the day Saturday was to thoroughly clean the SSR.  The inside and outside of it was a mess from the drive to Plant City.

I spent a good two hours thoroughly cleaning the truck.  One of the areas that required extra elbow grease were right behind the passenger side wheel wells where there was rubber residue from the retread I inadvertently drove over. One spot I was able to get off with just soapy water, the other spot required follow up with Goo Gone.

After the clean up I laid down for a much needed 90 minute nap so I wouldn’t be completely dead for the football game.

I headed over to Ali’s early.  I told her I would spring for the pizza and we could catch up on the latest Biggest Loser.  While I was there we took the girls for a long walk around the lake in Ali’s community.  As we walked it started to rain progressively harder but neither of us really cared.

I also brought my clippers with so Ali could repair my self inflicted haircut.  I tried to give myself and straightline across the rear of my head while using a mirror.  Instead I succeeded in giving myself a ridiculous looking jagged edge.

We left probably earlier than we needed to.  By the time we parked at the outlets and walked across to the arena it was 6:30, a full hour before the game was scheduled to start.  We just bought two 7 dollar tickets at the box office, knowing the place would not be very full based on our past arena football experience.

You see Alison and I had season tickets for the first two seasons of the first arena football team in our area, the Florida Firecats, who folded a few years back.  After two seasons of indoor football we sort of knew what to expect.

The new team is called the Florida Tarpons.  They evidently are pretty damn good as so far they are undefeated.

The first thing we did was grab a beer.  I was surprised that Ali ordered a Bud Light as well, she has never been much of a beer drinker at all.  We then walked the around the concourse a bit just to see if there were any significant changes to Germain Arena since we were there last.

We then found our $7 seats which were at the very top row.  Even being up top, the place is small enough that it isn’t a big deal.  Plus I was positive we would be able to easily move down as the game progressed.

I did find myself annoyed that a bunch of people sat down right next to and in front of us.  It seemed ridiculous that they would need to seat people shoulder to shoulder when there were so many empty seats.

So we just hung out in the seats and watched the Tarpons warm up.   Later on the opposing team, the Mississippi Hounddogs came out.  My eyes were immediately drawn in like lasers to number 60. He was not just fat he was SUPER fat.

This dude was so fat that the biggest jersey they had did not fit him.  He had to wear a supersized shirt underneath his jersey to cover his humungous stomach.

Both Ali and I were amazed the guy was even on the field.  The impact on his joints if he tried to run had to be tremendous.  I also pitied any ball carrier that found himself underneath this guy.

It turned out number 60 only played sparingly during the game.  I think we may have seen him in 4 or 5 series tops.  He made zero tackles but he did sort of run around a bit. Ali felt bad when the PA system played the Fat Albert “Hey, hey, hey…” a few times when big boy was on the field.

Well the Tarpons didn’t waste much time showing why they were undefeated, jumping out to a quick lead.  I found it interesting that in arena football you score a point if your kicker can boot the ball through the narrow uprights on a kick off, something the Tarpon kicker did two or three times.  I don’t recall that rule in the other league.

As planned we steadily improved our seat position during the game.  After half time we tried to really get greedy, moving down into the padded seats that include cupholders.  Well unfortunately the old lady seat attendant walked over and asked we had tickets for that section.  I told her we did, just a few rows up.  She said we had to move.

It sort of pissed me off.  Yea I understand we paid for $7 seats and were probably sitting in seats that cost $20 or more but really, who cares?  If these seats are not sold, it isn’t like I am costing the team money by sitting in an unsold seat.

To me, with a new franchise that is trying to build a following, they should tell the seat nazi’s to chill out.  If I am sitting in somebody else’s seat, sure tell me to move.  But in my eyes, moving to an unsold seat is a no harm, no foul situation.  If anything it makes me more likely to attend another game if I know I can improve my seat position with out getting hassled.

The Tarpons set a new standard for ugly mascots. Timmy the Tarpon was just fugly, no two ways about it.

The cheerleaders for the team, “The Reel Girls” were surprisingly good.  They did a number of dance routines that seemed solid.

The Tarpons absolutely smashed the Hound Dogs, winning by a final score of 58-26.  Ali and I ducked out with a little less than 10 minutes to go in the game to beat the traffic.   Ali and I both had a good time overall, the game delivered pretty solid bang for the buck.  I would go again.

I told Ali I had ideas of doing a bike/swim combo Sunday morning however the rainy forecast put it in doubt.  I told her I would let her know in the morning if I was going to do it or not.

Well Sunday mornings weather radar looked bad, rain was definitely coming so we scrapped the plans.  Instead I asked Ali if she wanted me to grab the dogs on my coffee run to take them to the house.  Ali wanted to clean her place thoroughly and having the dogs out of the apartment would make it easier.  She took me up on my offer.

So after picking up the girls we headed back to the house.  I let them immediately out into the back yard.  I can tell they really appreciate being able to roam around leash free now although during our walk at Ali’s place they also seemed quite happy strolling around the lake too.

My main Sunday project was to finally install the new spark plugs and spark plug wires I have had sitting on my workbench for the Tacoma for over a month.  I was sort of putting it off since the truck had been running ok although I know at 138,000 miles and 13 years old, the plugs HAD to be changed.

So I decided Sunday was finally the day.  I moved the SSR over and pulled the front end of the Tacoma into the garage to work on it.  It had been raining off and on for most of the day.

Getting access to the plugs on the passenger side was not bad, I basically just had to remove the hose that runs from the air box to the throttle body.  I was glad I invested in a magnetic spark plug socket.  The plugs sit deep in tubes, the socket was able to grab hold of them easily once I loosened them up.  The tool was equally useful in putting the new plugs in to prevent them from dropping down the hole and damaging the electrodes.

Getting access to the plugs on the driver side was a bit more challenging. I had to remove a few brackets and move some wires.  I was also very fortunate to have bought a swivel extension bar set a couple months go.  If I didn’t have it I am not sure if I could have done the plug by the firewall.

The plug wires were a new experience for me.  The last time I did plugs and wires on a vehicle was probably my 69 Firebird back in the early 90’s.  Back then you had one wire per cylinder. Well with the Tacoma, despite there being 6 cylinders/spark plugs, you only have three wires.

There is no distributor, instead each wire connects to a coil on the other side of the engine.  That coil controls the spark for two plugs.  I almost miswired two of the plugs but luckily realized my error before firing it back up.  I was quite happy that when I turned the key the engine fired right up an ran normally.

When I pulled the old plugs it was confirmed the job was way overdue.  The center electrode on the plugs was worn away from millions of ignition cycles over the years.  I am doing a new mileage test to see if the new plugs and their better spark translates into better mpg.

Later, I hung outside with the dogs several times, walking around the yard and watching them play.

I also watched all Game of Thrones episodes, I am now current except for the latest episode.  I really like the show. Sadie and Nicki slept in the bedroom with me while I watched the shows.

I asked Ali if she wanted to come out to pick up the dogs instead of me dropping them off.  She hadn’t been back to the house since she moved out in early April.  I told her I had some pasta in the freezer I could make.  She accepted the offer.

So when Ali arrived I had already started working on making a salad for dinner, something that used to exclusively be Ali’s duty.  I actually did 100% of the meal prep, it just seemed like the appropriate thing to do.

Ali watched the latest Celeb Apprentice with me while sitting on my new, used, furniture for the first time.  She said the sofa’s were pretty nice and overall she said I did a nice job of arranging things in the house to make up for what was taken out.

When it came time for Ali to leave she was upset which upset me.  It’s hard for her to be leaving like another house guest.  It was hard for me too.

Over the course of the weekend we talked about if us seeing/interacting with each other as much as we have been since we separated is a good thing in the big picture.  If we continue to act like a married couple that simply has two different addresses it probably isn’t the best thing long term. However this is a hard time for both of us and I think we both find comfort in each other’s company.

It’s early yet, we still have a lot of sifting through the trees till clear daylight is ahead.

So I set my alarm for 4:15 am so I could be out the door by 5 for the drive up to Plant City in the SSR.  I had been both looking forward to and dreading the drive at the same time.  I was afraid whatever the source of horrible rattling noise under the truck was, it would cause the truck to die on me en route during the nearly 180 mile trip.

It was rather chilly out Thursday morning with temps right around 60 so I decided to leave the top up for the drive up.

The drive required two DD coffee stops, one at our local location and again up at Siesta Keys.  I also inadvertently ran over a retread that was on the highway after not seeing it soon enough in the pitch dark.  I later discovered the tire fragments left rubber marks along the bottom of my truck which I will have to get off later. Other than that the drive went fine, the truck, despite the rattle, drove like a champ, just as it has since the noise started.

I had a little issue locating Lonnie’s shop, Sinister Kustoms, even though I had the address punched into the GPS in my Pioneer 930BT.  Once I got into Plant City the GPS had a hard time tracking me and as a result I found myself being told to turn onto streets I already had passed.  Eventually I just pulled over and called Lonnie to get final directions to his place the old fashioned way.

I actually beat Lonnie to his place, arriving a few minutes before 8.  Once he and his wife Lauren arrived he opened up his 4 garage doors, revealing a vast collection of cars in various states of completion.  Lonnie does incredible work and routinely fabricates components from scratch.  It was really impressive seeing the various projects he had going on.

So after pulling a couple project cars out of the bay that has his lift he got to work along with his other mechanic, John.

Lonnie noticed I had stock running boards.  He told me how he sells modified brackets for the running boards which pulls them down so they are even with the bottom of the body line and tucks them in so they are less of an obstacle when stepping into and out of the vehicle.  He said they only cost $100 installed and he had a spare set on hand.  I told him to go ahead and do that as well.

Now in addition to the Corvette flywheel/clutch swap that was being done I had brought up a number of parts I have had for over a month to be installed as well.  They were all piled in the bed of the truck.  My plan was to work on them while Lonnie did the more complicated work.  Well it turned out the only job I truly did myself was installing the front air dam which is a no brainer.

As John worked on getting the transmission area pulled apart for the swap, Lonnie worked on some of the smaller jobs like installing the running board brackets and replacing my bent panhard bar. I was glad to see that Lonnie wasn’t at all bothered by my hanging around. I told him  I had no issue getting dirty if he needed help with something.

Relatively early in the process a straight body pulled up to Lonnie’s shop, it was his exhaust guy, Jim.  Jim basically has a rolling welding shop, complete with most anything he would need to do most exhaust work.  Jim was a nice guy as well and seemed to share Lonnie’s passion for custom vehicles, describing several projects of his own he is working on. Jim first installed the new muffler and then the monster sized exhaust tips.

So after most of the the auxiliary jobs were done the main focus became the clutch swap.  I pitied John as he struggled to get the old stuff out, it looked like a real pain in the ass.  Once the transmission was separated from the bell housing Lonnie was turning the shaft on the tranny and heard some gear noise that he wasn’t sure was normal or not.

He called up his transmission guy for some advice.  The advice was to pull off the front of tranny and take a look inside to see if anything looked abnormal.  Of course this had me a bit nervous.  I was already concerned because a visual inspection of the old flywheel/clutch did not reveal anything broken that would have been causing the rattle.

So I got my first opportunity to get some real grease under my fingernails when I helped Lonnie and John lower the tranny out from under the SSR and onto a table. Actually it wasn’t so much grease as it was transmission fluid spilling everywhere.  Lonnie, despite never having ripped into a SSR 6 speed transmission before had no qualms in doing so.  He removed the bolts holding the cover on and popped it off.

Both of us looked at the various gears, bearings and pinions over and did not see anything that looked damaged or scored in the least.  So Lonnie put the tranny back together.  Despite seeing nothing wrong in the tranny I still had a bad feeling in my gut that when everything was put back together the noise was going to remain.

During the day we took a lunch break, Lauren had ordered a couple pizzas that Lonnie said I was welcome to enjoy with them.  I thought that was really nice.  I could tell very early that both Lonnie and Lauren are just good people.

So during most of the afternoon the reassembly process took place.  By this time Lonnie knew I was fine with helping so he utilized me a few times as a third set of hands.  I also got to learn a whole bunch about the underside of the SSR and how stuff goes together and comes apart.

One of the things I learned was the truck obviously was hit in the rear at some point and time.  Lonnie first mentioned that the rear emblem’s “R” was not positioned the way it normally is.  When I was walking under the truck I saw the passenger side rear quarter obviously had been pounded out at some point and time.  Evidently whomever repainted that section of the truck didn’t take note of how the old emblem was attached.

So eventually after a lot of effort the new Corvette parts were installed and the transmission and drive train were put back in.  Lonnie started the truck up and the only noise I heard was what sounds to be idler pulley stuff that has been there since day one.  However I told him that I have noticed that the noise is not always heard when the truck is first started up however after only driving it a couple miles I can hear it.  So Lonnie took the truck for a quick spin around the block.

Well that was all it took, as he pulled back into the garage I could hear the death rattle had returned.  My heart sunk.

Lonnie heard the noise clearly and said we should put it back on the lift to listen to it better.  One thing I like about Lonnie, he never gives the impression that he is flustered or he can’t handle an issue.  You always get the feeling he is in control.  It is much the same attitude I take when it comes to my job, just a quiet confidence that despite obstacles, you will always find a solution.

So I get in the truck and ride in it upwards on the lift.  I start it up so Lonnie can listen closely.  He said the rattle sounds like it is definitely coming from the transmission.  Shit, that was EXACTLY what I didn’t want to hear.  My bill was already approaching stratospheric proportions, the prospect of a transmission repair on top of it was really, really depressing.

Lonnie called back over to his tranny guy and asked if we could bring the truck over for him to listen to.  His shop was maybe 15 minutes away so I rode shotgun while Lonnie drove.

This transmission place had car lifts, big ones, all over the place, most of them outside.  Evidently this place even does full size tractor trailer size truck transmissions.

The owner hopped in the SSR and rode it up in the lift with it running to hear the noise for himself.  After a few seconds he said, “it’s notthe tranny’, trusting his expert ear.  One of the other mechanics walked under the truck with a stethoscope and took the “pulse” of the SSR trying to verify where the noise was actually coming from.  He said the noise was coming from the exhaust pipe that runs right under the transmission.  He said something must have broken in one of the catalytic convertors and that was the rattle.  Lonnie listened with the scope himself and verified the same diagnosis.

Well this was some good news indeed, replacing the catalytic convertors although, not cheap is a less expensive and far less time consuming option to a tranny overhaul.

I had to laugh as when we pulled out onto the main road from the transmission shop Lonnie lit up the tires to put on a show for the guys who requested it.  The SSR sounded like a pure beast with the new exhaust components in place.

Ok, so by now it was getting late in the afternoon.  Lonnie called back Jim to see if there was any way he could come back to replace the cat’s.  At first the response wasn’t good.  Jim had a baseball game to attend at 7 and he wasn’t sure if he had cats that would fit on his truck.  He said something to Lonnie about not being able to do it until after 3 o’clock on Friday.

Now I actually had made provisions for staying a night up in Plant City, packing a small bag just in case things went long but I certainly wanted to avoid it if possible.  After verifying that Jim actually did have the cats he would need on his truck, he said he could come back and do it around 9 after the game.  Ok that was fine with me, I could hang out, eat dinner somewhere and get the work done.  A late night drive back to Naples wouldn’t kill me.

Then just as I was getting ready to head out Lonnie says Jim called back and said he thinks he can come over before the game and get it knocked out, perfect!

So as we were waiting for Jim to arrive Lonnie opened up another one of his storage bays to show me some more of his projects.  The most amazing of all was a totally custom vehicle that started off as a Honda S2000.  I told Lonnie it first looked like a Lotus to me from the rear.  He said he actually was going for the look of an old Lamborghini.  This thing was absolutely incredible.  I was awestruck as he described how he fabricated the body of this vehicle, making many parts and inserting parts from other vehicles to make it all work.  The truck latch was from an old Camaro, the tail lights were from some old Caddy I think.

I just can’t wrap my head around the skill, patience and talent that Lonnie possesses to make these sort of creations.  Lonnie and my uncle would get along great.

So as we were walking back to the main shop a kid pulls up in an old Camry with a dented in trunk.  He wanted to know how much it would cost to get it fixed.  This kid was pure central Florida.  Although he was very young, he had a very defined section of white/gray hair towards the front of his hairline.  Inside his Camry there were various items including a bowling ball, jumper cables and three angle grinders he just bought for $9 a piece.  Oh did I mention he was also wearing spurs? Yes, spurs.

So anyway the kid described how his trunk has never been able to open in the two months he has owned the vehicle because of the dent.  Lonnie told him that it would make more sense to replace the trunk lid instead of trying to fix because of labor costs.  The kid then asked if Lonnie might be able to get the trunk open.  Well Lonnie dove right in and in the span of a few minutes was on his back inside the trunk, working on the latch via the fold down rear seats.  He eventually was able to get the mechanism to release and showed the kid how to do so himself in the future.

The kid was very grateful and Lonnie didn’t charge him a dime.

So while Lonnie was finishing up on the kids car Jim had arrived and wasted no time getting to work.  He was able to replace the both cats in less then a half hour.  When he pulled off the driver side cat he shook it, it sounded like a baby’s rattle.  There was the noise culprit.

I thanked Jim several times for going out of his way to accommodate me by coming back.  After he left I said my goodbye’s to Lauren and Lonnie and again thanked them for everything.  What a great team.  I just wish they weren’t so far away since I have struggled so much finding quality mechanics.

Despite the clutch swap not being the actual fix for the problem and the additional costs I felt very good about the entire experience.  I wanted the day to be memorable and it was indeed.  I just will be extremely frugal during the month of May to try to lessen the impact of the big bill.

Just before I got on I-4 I spotted a Carrabas and decided to treat myself to a dinner for one at the bar.  I took the only seat available at the one corner, right next to a group of four women whom were obviously out for a girl’s night.  Three of the four were very attractive.

I couldn’t help but overhear their conversation since they were right next to me.  It seemed like at least two of them were recently separated/divorced and were complaining about various aspects of their relationships and men in general.  The group laughed when they saw my reflex facial reaction when one of them said her ex didn’t know how to “use his equipment” .  She blushed when she saw I heard it.    I interacted with them a little bit but I did not stay long since I had a long drive back to Naples to complete.

I had the top down for the entire drive home with my Linkin Park Pandora channel blaring on the radio.  The truck felt GREAT.  It wants to just get up and go.  The new exhaust provides a deeper, meaner, “you better get the fck out of my way” sound that I find very endearing.

The SSR is BACK.

If you want to see all of the pictures from the day, go here.

Saturday morning I drug my sleepy ass out of bed at 4:30 am to do the club run.  The weather radar wasn’t all that favorable, it looked like if it wasn’t raining in Naples now, it would be later.  I didn’t really care, rain helps keep me cooled off. Ali and Christy were supposed to be there as well.  Neither of them showed.

I was a bit bummed because originally I had ideas of running with them at a slower pace, something more favorable with the sleep deprived state my body was in.  Well instead I wound up running again with Matt.  We did run a slower pace than last week, exactly one second per mile slower according to my GPS. 🙂  Oh well in the big picture going harder is always the preferred choice for me, even if I don’t realize it sometimes.  It did rain lightly for part of the run but it never let loose.

On the way back to the house I stopped at Ali’s and grabbed the dogs.  I figured they could hang out while I worked on stuff.  It also gave Ali a break as she had plans to dig into her remaining unboxing duties in earnest.  The dogs were quite surprised to see me and as excited as ever.

So the girls and I headed home to continue on my chores.  I got a head start on Friday night, cleaning Tuki’s cage and cleaning the bathrooms. During the bathroom cleaning process I almost got into a fight with the toilet paper holder.

I was down on my knees completing the glamorous job of cleaning the toilet.  I was reaching down along the right side of the bowl.  As I reached I also dropped my head down to get a better vantage point.  As I did I smashed my head into the corner of the toilet paper holder.  I instantly went into Hulk Smash mode.

I had my fist clenched and was mere moments away from uppercutting the holder off the wall.  Thankfully I took a couple breaths and unclenched my fist before any damage was done.  I was also quite lucky that the corner of the holder was rounded off and not sharp.  I would have been bleeding like a pig.

Well the rainy skies on Saturday took care of one potential chore item, mowing the grass.  I figure I will try to knock that out after work some night this week.

I tended the garden, weeded, put out some bird seed (a $3.50 bag) for the first time in weeks and repaired the section of pool cage screen that was ripping out.

I then turned my attention to the Tacoma, completing my zero dollar oil change.  I had $30 in Autozone gift cards that were a throw in when I bought the IAC valve online so that covered the oil change materials cost.

I had talked to Ali about coming over to her place later in the day on Saturday to help her with some more items, I got over there in the party van with the dogs sometime after 3.

When I came up the steps I immediately knew Ali had made some significant progress by the large collection of flattened boxes piled up.  The main living area looked to be almost empty of boxes at this point.  One of my first chores was to collect all of the cardboard and throw it in the back of the van to deposit in the recycling bins.  Ali helped me do it.

We had talked about running out to a few spots for stuff Ali needed.  I had brought part of my robotic cleaning crew along, the Scooba, to work on the large amounts of tile that covers Ali’s kitchen and main living space.    The floor felt very dirty from the moving process.

I set the Scooba up and let it run while we headed out to run errands.

The first stop was right up the street at Staples and then Target where Ali returned one item and picked up a couple more.  We then headed a few doors down to a place called World Market.  I have never been in the store before.  It is an odd combination of things that include furniture, accessories, food, beer, and clothing.

Well Ali saw some furniture there that was really nice but not horribly expensive. One was a stand that would be much better suited for her TV and A/V equipment than her hope chest.  She also liked a matching shelf that would be a good fit for the top of her steps.  We had the Camry so we decided if she still liked the stuff we could drive back in the van and get it.

We headed to Lowes where she grabbed a few other items and used a coupon that was sent to her as part of a move in pack.  She decided she definitely wanted to get the furniture so we dropped the Camry off at her place and headed back out in the van.

The two boxes fit in the folded down bed of the van but not completely, the back doors didn’t close.  Since we were only going about a half mile down the road we used Ali as a supplemental door restraint.  She laid on top of the boxes and held the doors in place.  It looked funny but worked well.

Now I have a lot of experience with put together furniture, it typically looks ok but obviously the quality is not up to par with conventional furniture.  Well this stuff from World Market was way different than something you would get in a Sauder box.

There are only a few parts to assemble, most of the furniture is already intact.  You are basically just attaching the legs with a number of allen bolts.  The new stuff looks GREAT.  I would challenge anyone to walk in Ali’s place and guess the stuff came in a box.  It looks that good.

The Scooba had done an amazing job of cleaning up Ali’s tile, the floor felt noticeably cleaner on our bare feet.  When I dumped the waste water out of the robot it was almost chocolate milk dark.  I have a feeling the Scooba will be making some regular road trips.

I also brought over the Dyson Animal vacuum cleaner.  Ali asked if she could borrow it.  The vacuum we bought her is good for step cleaning but it doesn’t have nearly the brute sucking power of the Dyson.   This was confirmed when Ali ran the Dyson in just her bedroom, closet and office and pulled up a ton of gunk.

I told Ali she could just keep the Dyson, saving her the expense of buying one herself.  I had located a used Dyson on Craigslist that I plan to pick up tonight.

We also made time to partake in a Tivo/Biggest Loser session, the first time we did such a thing out of the confines of the four walls of the house.  Doing it at Ali’s place felt a bit weird but it was enjoyable none the less.

During the time I spent at Ali’s place I discovered three ticks on the floor.  The tick problem has not subsided.  Ali took the dogs to the vet last week to get a thorough once over.  While she was there she got some good news and bad news.  The ticks are not deer ticks, the type that typically carry Lyme disease.  However the dogs had a total of 7 or 8 ticks on them, including two more on Nicki that were filled with blood.

The vet put flea collars on both dogs as a backup to the monthly Advantix that is already applied.  The collar and Advantix is supposed to repel/kill the tick if it actually chomps down on the dog however it does nothing to keep the ticks from getting on them in the first place.

Even with this double layer of protection, I pulled another full tick off Nicki later in the weekend.  Ali obviously is still freaked out about the ticks and again said something to the community staff about it.  They said they would talk to the grounds maintenance although they again claim they haven’t heard any serious complaints from other dog owners which seems unbelievable.   I have never heard of a tick that exclusively adheres to black female lab mixes.

So I left Ali’s place with plans to come back the next day to attend to a few items I didn’t get to handle yet.

Sunday morning I finally got to extend my sleep session, staying in bed till an unheard of 7:45 am.  It felt good to not be jarred out of sleep by the alarm for once.

I had a few items to attend to to finish up my duties around the house. My plan for the rest of the day was to head back to Ali’s to finish up and then drive up to Fort Myers to pick up my used Dyson, I originally made arrangements to meet the guy between 4 and 5PM.

I got over to Ali’s place later in the morning and got back to work.  I hung a 4 foot shelf in her small utility/laundry room, giving her a much needed storage option in the small area.

I was going to hang a few of her bigger items on the wall but Ali halted the process when she saw my anchor kit included silver screws.  Having silver screws against the black metal of the wall pieces would drive Ali crazy.  I told her we could pick up some black drywall screws to solve the problem.

So, we made plans to again head out on the road to score some additional items.  The first stop this time was Pier 1 where Ali was juts sort of cruising to see if anything caught her fancy, nothing really did.

We then headed across the street to the recently opened Trader Joe’s, a place I have heard a lot about but have not checked out as of yet due to the huge crowds.  Well evidently 1PM on a Sunday is not a good time to shop there either.  I hypothesized that it was the post church crowd, the place was just clogged with old farts.

I just wanted to take a quick look.  I heard from my mom and a couple other people that Trader Joe’s has a wide selection of healthy frozen meals for one that are not stuffed with chemicals and preservatives yet are reasonably priced.  I confirmed this was true although I didn’t pick any up.  I figure I will grab a handful some other time when it is less crowded and when I don’t have additional stops to make.

We then went back to Lowes, Ali had more coupons to use up.  We grabbed Ali a new detachable shower head, a small stand/table for her master bathroom, a towel bar for the guest bathroom and the black drywall screws.

Once we got back I dug into installing everything as well as using the drywall screws to hang items in a visually matching manner.

I had gotten a call back from the used-Dyson guy saying he was going to be stuck over in Miami later than he planned, we agreed for him to let me know when he was leaving so I could decide if I wanted to make the drive Sunday night or not.  I had asked Ali if she minded if I just hung at her place until I heard from him since it would give me a roughly 12 mile head start to Fort Myers.  She of course didn’t care.

Once all the work was done we actually had some free time.  We took the dogs for an extended walk which they seemed to really enjoy and later Ali and I went over to the main community pool to hang out.  It was the first time since moving in that Ali has gotten a chance to enjoy any of the amenities.

I hopped in the hot tub for a little bit and soaked my aching old bones.  Ali chose to just relax on the awesome padded chaise lounges and read a book.  The pool area at her place is simply awesome.

As we were out on our walk earlier Ali mentioned how it almost feels like we are still married, just a modified version of what we experienced for the last 14 years.  I agreed, the frequent visitation does make it seem at this point like this is simply Diet Marriage or Marriage Lite.

I think though the large amount of assistance that Ali needed in coordination with the moving project has had a large contribution to that.  I know that part of this process needs to eventually be less contact while maintaining the caring bonds where we have each other’s back when push comes to shove.  It’s necessary that we both continue growing outward/forward.

I have been watching Game of Thrones Season 1.  You ask how am I doing this since I do not have cable tv or a HBO subscription?  cokeandpopcorn.com  I am using the site to stream past episodes via a PC.  I extended the viewing to my bedroom last night by attaching a laptop to the tv.

I see why the show has gotten so much acclaim.

As I was paying the bills on Sunday I just happened to run a report showing my gas expense for the last month.  I almost fainted when I saw the number, $609.  Granted that period includes some of the tail end of Ali’s gas expense but still, that is an incredible amount of money to spend on gas in a month.  I will be doing whatever I can to minimize that expense going forward.  The roughly 50 mile round trip to work I put in everyday is a real killer.

So as I mentioned before, tonight after work I am heading directly to Fort Myers to score my used Dyson.  I am hoping the thing is in good working order, supposedly it is only two years old.  Our Animal is over 5 years old and still doing great.  I will put it through a suck test before handing over the cash.

I have a brief three day week, taking Thursday and Friday off for my SSR repair/upgrade adventure.  I am actually looking quite forward to it, as long as the truck makes it all the way to Plant City on it’s noisy flywheel.

Last Friday we made arrangements to drop the Camry off at the dealer for a 100,000 mile look over.  It is amazing to me the Camry already has 100k on the odometer considering it was purchased in November of 2006.  The car has served us quite well.

Anyway, ever since about the 65k mile mark I have been doing the oil changes and other routine maintenance on the car to save a few bucks.  However since Ali is going to be on her own we both thought it good to have the car officially serviced at this milestone mileage mark.  Looking at the factory maintenance schedule I saw the car was due for an oil change, coolant flush and a solid overall inspection.  I also told them to swap the spark plugs awhile even though they are not actually due to be replaced until 120,000 miles.

We actually dropped the car off the night before so they would have access to it first thing.  We however made a dumb mistake, telling the service advisor that we didn’t really need the car back until the next afternoon, automatically shifting the Camry down on their priority list.  He told us the car should be done by 3pm.

So as 3pm the next day approached I asked Ali if she heard anything yet, she had not.   Then about 20 minutes after 3, neither of us had heard a peep yet, but Ali was on her way to the dealer to pick up the car. I decided to call just to confirm the car was done, assuming it would be since it was there all day and the work that was being done was minor.

Well I talk to Mark, the guy that promised the car would be done by 3pm.  He tells me they just pulled the car in a little while ago.  I reminded Mark that they said the car would be done by 3.  He acknowledged that and apologized for them getting backed up.  Of course I knew that we gave this loophole by not telling them to do the work asap.  I told Mark that my wife was about 20 minutes away from picking up the car.  He told me that she might have to wait “a little bit”. I asked what a little bit was.  Mark said no more than 15 minutes.  I asked Mark if he could make sure to expedite things as much as possible.

So I called Ali back and told her the car wasn’t done and also told her about the “little bit” wait that was indicated.  Ali was familiar with what a little bit means in dealer talk, it means a long ass wait. I told her she should just go to the grocery store and go home, I would go to the dealer after work to pay for it and we could pick up the car later.

So on the way there about 5:15, I get a call from Mark, telling me the car was done.  WTF, if Ali was actually waiting there she would have been twiddling her thumbs for 90 minutes.   Mark informed he did not do the coolant flush as requested because they found the water pump is starting to leak.  Part of the pump replacement procedure is to drain the coolant so he said it was pointless to do it now.

I was not thrilled to hear about the leaky pump but I was annoyed because if they worked on the car in a timely fashion they would have been able to do this right away, now it was too late in the day, meaning a return trip would be necessary.  Hearing the estimate of $430 to replace the pump did nothing to brighten my spirits either.  I guess the good news was at this point the leak is very minor and not in need of immediate attention.

I was surprised when I went online and searched “Camry Hybrid water pump” and hit upon a ton of people that have had their water pumps start leaking as well, some in as little as 40,000 miles.

So over the weekend I took a look at where the water pump is located in the Camry and initially wrote off the idea of replacing it myself due to what appeared to be very tight quarters.  Well last night the idea of spending that much money, especially considering our short term money outlook, did not sit well with me.

I hopped on Autozone.com and checked out what a water pump (non-oem) would cost me, wow, only $50.  Add in the couple gallons of anti-freeze and some RTV sealant I would need to complete the job I am still under $100, potentially saving myself $350 in dealer labor.   I then found a post on Toyotanation that outlined the steps to replace the pump in a pretty clear manner.

Part of the process is to remove the alternator, the passenger side front wheel and a small cover to get better access to the pump, something I didn’t realize when I eyeballed the job.  At this point I haven’t decided if I want to tackle the job myself or not.  The most invasive procedure I have done on the Camry so far is replacing the front and rear brake pads.  I am pretty sure I could pull this one off though.

So with the SSR potential flywheel problem the most agreed upon advice is to have the stock set up ripped out and replaced with the clutch and flywheel from a Z07 Corvette.  The factory clutch set up in the SSR will be nothing but problematic, one owner has had the factory set up replaced 5 times so far.

There just happens to be a fellow SSRFanatic that specializes in this swap, he has done 15-20 already and has had great success with it.  His shop is located in Plant City, about 3 hours away, close to where the Tough Mudder was held.

I called and talked to the guy yesterday, he was real nice and extremely knowledgeable about all things SSR.  His personal SSR is tricked out beyond belief.

With him being that far away the question becomes how would I get my truck there?  I asked him his opinion on the chances of me making the trip successfully based on the noises the truck is making now.  I told him that the truck still appears to drive/shift normally at this point, I only notice the noise when I am stopped with the clutch in or the SSR in neutral.  Lonnie said it’s hard to say but there is a good shot I will be fine.  If not he said as long as I have AAA (I do) I could always get towed the rest of the way in.

I thanked Lonnie for the info and told him I would be contacting him to set something definitive up.  He said the swap takes about a full day, 8 hours of work.

So my mind is made up that is the best long term solution to the problem, the issues are two fold, money and getting the vehicle there/what to do once it is.

As far as the money goes, I am going to wait and see where my money levels are once Ali is safely moved into her new place.  Once that happens I can make a more sound decision on the money.

As far as getting up there, I initially asked Ali about possibly following me up to Plant City on some weekday.  I’d just burn a personal day.  Ali said she was fine to do it.  I am not sure if I will take her up on that offer or not.

I feel kind of bad asking her to drive all the way up there.  If I did it solo I could just drop off the truck with Lonnie and watch the process take place, possibly picking up a tip or two along the way.  I could also rent a cheap motel room and stay a night if need be.  It could be a fun little adventure.

So we will see what shakes out in a couple weeks.

My neighbor has put me in a precarious situation.  As I mentioned last week, he was having his house painted by Rhinoshield, the same company that did our place that we were/are very happy with.

Well in addition to painting his house, he also contracted with them to paint his entire concrete driveway, the concrete border that surrounds the house, the pool deck AND the aluminum pool cage frame.  It is a TON of work and he is paying a ton for it, double what we laid out almost.

Well the job was supposed to be wrapped up on Saturday.  It wasn’t close to done.  My neighbor had been squabbling with the company over what they exactly agreed to do.  They wanted to do one coat where the neighbor agreed to two coats, the paint used on the pool cage was in question and several other small items.

Well my neighbor had to fly back to Michigan on Sunday and the job was still not complete.  He was holding final payment for the job, you paid a portion up front and then the balance upon completion.

Well he called and asked me for a favor.  He wanted me to hold the checks for him and only present them to the contractors after I CONFIRM that all the work was done and done adequately.  I told him I wasn’t real comfortable with that responsibility since it his money and I didn’t like the idea of saying the work looked ok and then having my neighbor come back down and see things he wasn’t happy with.

He said he trusted my judgement so I reluctantly agreed to be the check holder, quality control inspector.  Originally the job was supposed to be completed Monday but when I checked last night they still had not done anything with painting the pool cage.

To be honest, painting that cage looks to be a job that would be incredibly tedious.  They are supposed to paint the entire cage, both the inside and outside of the frame.  Doing so requires them to tape and mask off each and every screen panel before spraying.  A decent wind will rip the taped paper right off.

Then there is the issue of how exactly they plan to paint the high areas of the cage that are over the pool directly?  Short of bringing in a temporary scaffolding I don’t see how it can be done. It just looks like an awful, awful job.  I am sure the painters hate the sales guy that said this could be part of the job.

I am not really looking forward to playing mediator in the soap opera.

Last night after giving the dogs much needed baths and eating dinner Ali embarked on her first serious session of packing.  I had a few things to take care of on my pc but afterward I figured I should be helping her pack, there is a lot to do.

Her and I tried to be somewhat systematic in the packing process although it is a bit tough to do, especially at first.  It becomes overwhelming when you start to grasp just how much stuff needs to be packed up only to be unboxed again 15 miles away.

For the first time in several days I felt emotional several times during the process.  Undoing things that we have set up together over the years hurts. There was no way I could get my mind to ignore the pain I felt as I took Ali’s medals off the wall or boxed up other personal items that have been part of our shared environment for as long as I can remember.

The dogs were also confused by the process.  Sadie would sit right in front of me, just staring.  Nicki was under Ali’s desk, looking sad.  It almost seemed like she knew something bad was coming.

I did my best to bring my mind back to center and not dwell on the symbolism of the packing process.

We got the office and the dining room stuff she will be taking boxed up for the most part.  We will be going room to room, doing our best to be as ready for Saturday as possible.

I already took next Monday off from work to have extra time to help Ali get settled as well as do the various rearranging that will happen at the house once her items are removed.  It’s going to be hard to keep dry eyes this weekend.

I talked to Todd last night, he called about a new Iphone problem.  I found it odd that he did not mention my separation with Ali even though I did not tell him first hand.  I only told my parents directly, figuring the word would filter down from there.  Well although my dad, mom and sister know, none of them relayed the info to Todd during any of their recent interactions.

He was surprised to hear of the upcoming split but had no real advice to offer based on the 4-5 year plus quagmire of divorce proceedings he is mired in.

I forgot to mention earlier this week I found a replacement for my rapidly deteriorating lunch box.  It is a blue model that appears to have similar dimensions to mine.  It is used but I could care less.

I have already decided that I won’t be tossing my old box in the recycle bin, at least not yet.

After work I took a shot at normal mode of this month’s Bar-barian challenge which is dips after a 20 second static hold.  My 25 reps was a little less than I hoped for but I absolutely had nothing left at the end, my tri’s were shaking.

Last night I finally got around to making some fresh juice for dinner, something that just hasn’t happened lately for a few different reasons.  Last night the mixture included carrots, beets, celery, tomato, spinach and apple.

The stuff I was watching yesterday about the insidious nature of wheat was pretty eye opening.  Finding out that a piece of whole wheat bread has a higher glycemic index than a spoonful of pure sugar puts an entirely new spin on things.

Plus the fact that wheat has undergone the same process as soy and corn where the plant is modified to be able to survive exposure to highly toxic weed killers is just more gas for the fire.

Our food chain is just full of landmines wherever you look.  Corn has been turned into the backbone of the mess between it’s use to fatten up livestock to it’s utilization as the world’s most insidious sweetener.

Soy, which has been pitched as a great meat replacement by the companies that profit by growing it, is actually not very good at all for you when you do some digging around into what it actually does when ingested.

And now I can add wheat and it’s “wheat belly” effect, causing  blood sugar spikes higher than if you were swallowing teaspoons of sugar.

Now short of growing your own food exclusively, there is no way to escape the evil food empire. The best course of action is to practice moderation as much as possible.  If you are slamming bread, even wheat bread or other grain based products like it is going out of style you definitely are not doing your body any favors.

During the week lately I hardly see Alison at all.  Since she has a triathlon coming up in two weekends she has been adding on to her group training sessions.  In total she has been doing 6-7 group training sessions per week. When she does come home at night she is typically has little energy to do much more than eat and go to bed. It surely doesn’t make for much quality interaction/communication.

Last night was pretty much par for the course, our main interaction was when I noticed Ali’s latest impulse purchase, a new pair of cycling glasses.

I asked her about the purchase, questioning the need to buy ANOTHER pair of glasses when she already owns no less than 5 pairs of sport glasses.  Ali’s logic was much the same as her purchase of a “swimming parka”, these glasses were specialized, and automatically change their tint level as daylight changes. If there is one thing she loves, it is specialization.

This weekend I have a race to time on Saturday.  This is my least favorite race of all to time because it is literally held on a beach.  Sand gets everywhere.  Sand and electronic equipment just do not mix very well.  I really would like for this race to not be chip timed . The hassle/benefit ratio just does not work.

I have a new set of plugs and spark plug wires for the Tacoma.  After 136,000 miles it is way, way overdue. I watched a video on the basic procedure to remove/replace them which appears to be a mild pain in the ass but nothing I can’t muddle through.

I think we will be doing a bike ride on Sunday but I won’t be swimming laps yet.  Although the pain in my ear is gone it still does not feel 100% normal.

On Friday I received another hard drive to put in my Tivo Premiere.  Our unit has been having some pretty regular lock up problems that are typical of hard drive problems.  Hell I was considering if I even wanted to spend the money to fix it. Tivo at this point is really on the fringe of necessary items with my use of internet provided video via Hulu, Netflix and Playon.tv.  Really the ONLY reason I still have the Tivo is the convenience of being able to access the latest versions of our shows with only a couple button presses and the ability to completely bypass commercials in a couple seconds.  To pay $15 a month for this minor convenience seems less and less feasible all the time.  To be honest if Hulu Plus was a bit more user friendly and had no commercials I would have totally dropped Tivo awhile ago.

Anyway I have done a lot of work on my Tivos over the years.  Hell back in the early 2000’s I had a second, hacked Tivo that I had hooked into an assortment of tools running on my local pc that provided guide content on the down low.  I also have replaced/upgraded Tivo hard drives many times.

Now in the past, replacing the hard drive required me to utilize my PC and a special Linux boot CD.  I would boot to the cd and use a series of commands to perform the hard drive operations.  This time I tried a new approach, using a hardware based SATA disk duplicator.

Now if you were upgrading your hard drive to a larger capacity drive this would not be a good choice since it will only duplicate what is on one drive to another, it will not expand the partition on the destination drive.  Since I was replacing my drive with the exact same size drive this was a viable option.

It worked great.  After removing the old drive from the Tivo I placed it and the new drive in the duplicator and hit the start button before going to bed.  I woke up Saturday with a perfect copy on the new hard drive which worked perfectly once I installed it back into the Premiere.

On Friday my ear was still hurting me badly so I had our health clinic call in a prescription for an oral antibiotic.  I was surprised that the medicine cost me exactly ZERO dollars at the local Publix.  Evidently there are certain generic meds that you can get for free, Cipro is one of them.

Anyway it didn’t take long for the pills to start working, I was already feeling better on Saturday and went the entire weekend without having to pop any Advil, something I lived on for the previous 4 days.

Although I was feeling better, I opted out of doing the Saturday club run just to be safe.  I also knew that Ali was talking about that 90 ride / 60 run thing on Sunday so I figured I would save myself for that anyway since I don’t want to run on back to back days if I don’t have to.

Before mom left for work Saturday I ran over to her place with the dogs in the van.  I had her taxes paperwork and some extra vegetables to give her.  It was a quick visit where I got a brief update on how things have been going.  Her job has been very busy during season which is good from a boredom standpoint.  Since mom has started working there the shop has had it’s highest grossing sales ever.  I wish the shop owner would reward my mom a little more for her contribution,  some sort of small commission in addition to her hourly wage would sound more fair to me.

Mom recently had routine normal blood work which had some less than good numbers.  The doctor told her that smoking is one of the reasons. If mom would have only taking my hiding her cigarettes as a child as a cue that maybe she should quit once and for all, I wonder how her health would be today? Sigh….

As is the norm, I kept quite busy on Saturday.  I rotated the tires on the Tacoma, you know the service I was promised by Tire Choice that they forgot about?  Spending some time around the bottom of the truck reveals how just how long in the tooth it is becoming. It is really starting to look like an old vehicle, complete with a shoddy looking exterior and an under carriage that is showing it’s age.

After completing the tire rotation I had ideas of installing the new plugs I bought online for the truck.  These were supposed to be part of the treatment of the warm starting issue although they obviously were not the cause.

I was a bit confused when I looked at the engine.  The drive side of the motor had what looked to be conventional spark plugs in conventional locations.  However when I followed the spark plug wires over to the passenger side of the vehicle I saw they terminated in modules that are adjacent to the plugs on that side.  When I casually looked at these modules over the years I assumed they were fuel injectors. They are not.

Evidently the Tacoma has these weird (to me) coils that serve two plugs each, one on each side of the engine.  To remove the plug on the passenger side requires you to remove this coil module first and then the plug is buried underneath that.  I was somewhat deterred from performing the swap when I realized this. This was compiled with difficult access to the plugs on the driver side which looked like they would require me to use my recently acquired wobble socket extensions.  I also was concerned that since these are probably the original, 13 year old plugs that they would be practically welded in the sockets at this point.

Well I had the new plugs, I may as well jump in, or so I thought.  I ordered the new plugs online from Autozone at the same time as when I ordered the new IAC valve.  At that time I plugged in my vehicle specs to make sure I got compatible plugs.  I even went upscale and got the Bosch Iridium plugs.

When I pulled a plug out of the box I scratched my head, it was a single electrode plug.  On the timing belt cover on the truck it specifically says to ONLY use twin electrode plugs in the engine.  WTF?  Well that was enough to scuttle the project for me until I could find out exactly what model plugs I should put in the truck.  I figure I should also grab plug wires while I am at it this time.

I then turned my attention to the van, adding some antifreeze.  As long as I have had the van it has always had a smell of antifreeze coming from the engine compartment although I have never seen any apparent leak.  I once again filled up the reservoir tank, started the van and looked for any signs of leakage.  Once again I saw nothing.  I am wondering if the smell is coming from the radiator cap which is in poor shape.

After completing the normal indoor chores I turned attention to my desk, specifically my top two desk drawers.  These drawers have become a dumping ground for various items over the past decade.  For whatever reason I decided it was time to finally clean them out.

Methodically I went through the various items.  There were a lot of screws, computer parts and other knick knacks that I just didn’t need so into the trash they went.  After about 45 minutes of sorting/organizing I had the drawers cleaned up to my satisfaction.

I found some old ID cards during the process, including my Meridian security id that I used when doing PC maintenance back in the 90’s.  It’s always weird seeing old pictures of yourself.  It feels hard to believe that this picture is now 17 years old, geezus…

Saturday night we went to a birthday party for one of the elder statesman of our running club.  He will be 80 years old this week.  Despite being around for going on eight decades he is still very active and mentally all there and then some.

The party was held at our running club president’s home, I had never been there before.  All I can say is wow, the house was borderline palatial.  It was just massive and beautiful.  The house needed every available square foot of space though because there were a TON of people there.  I bet the number was damn close to 100 at one point.

Of course big crowds and I don’t typically mix very well.  I tried to address the problem by drinking a few beers, including a brand I never tried before, Stella Artrois?  It wasn’t good with a bitter after taste but it had the required ingredient of alcohol.

I didn’t go balls to the wall like I did at the GCR Xmas party since I knew I wasn’t going to let Ali relearn stick shift in the SSR if I was too hammered to drive.  I had maybe 4 beers total, enough to take off some of the edge.

Even with the alcohol it was a lot of people, I just have a rough time functioning well in that environment.  After the cake was cut and happy birthday was sung Ali and I headed out.  She was fine with leaving as she was tired and we had the plans to be at the water park at 7:30 am Sunday to do the 90/60.

So I woke up with the alarm at 5:30 am on Sunday.  It was not one of those pop out of bed mornings.  I was feeling pretty low energy and lightly motivated, something that has plagued me for the majority of this month. (more on that later) Regardless, I drug myself out of bed with the orders to wake up Ali around 6:15.

After I informed Ali it was her designated time she came out to me in the office a few minutes later and asked me how invested I was in doing the workout.  I told her that I didn’t really care as I was feeling pretty crappy myself between the alcohol the night before and residual ear issues.  We officially called it off and Ali went back to bed.

Even though I told Ali I was fine with missing the workout, which I thought I was, it bothered me for whatever reason.  When I saw 7:30 come up on the clock I thought how we would be getting ready to head out and then when it was 9:30, how we would be well into the run, on the way back to the water park.

The fact that we decided to bow out of the work out made me feel like a failure as odd as that seems.  It’s just the way I am hooked into exercise I guess.  My entire Sunday felt somewhat tainted by the omission of our morning 90/60, which was supposed to be followed by some hanging out at the water park.

Late in the morning we decided we would take the dogs to the swamp.  We had a nice walk although the dogs both were obviously struggling with the temperatures that shot up quickly to the low 80’s.  We saw several gators, a turtle, a hawk and a number of butterflies.

Sunday afternoon I decided to tackle another long standing organizational task.  I wanted to clean up the workbench/pegboard that I have in the garage.  I use this area frequently, as a result it has become a bit of a mess from stuff haphazardly being piled/hung wherever I could find space.

After pulling both vehicles out of the garage I set up our fold up table as a temporary holding spot for the tons of stuff I had in the workbench area.  I decided the best plan of attack was to pull EVERYTHING off the bench and pegboards to start fresh.

This method also allowed me to do some additional housecleaning, getting rid of many worthless or unneeded items.  It seems like over the years whenever I had some left over fasteners from an item or project I kept them for a rainy day.  Well a huge number of those things wound up in the trash since I still have thousands of various size nuts, screws, nails and washers waiting to take their place.

I tried to be more thoughtful and logical when putting stuff back into the area.  I was pleasantly surprised that when I was done I actually had a little spare peg board real estate available for future expansions.  I probably spent around two hours on the project altogether.  Cleaning shit up feels good.

I tried to make up for not doing the cardio session in the morning by taping my first attempt at hard mode for this month’s Bar-barian challenge.  The 17 reps I managed weren’t great, but not horrible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFL6gmjhFk8

I think my beloved lunch box that has been my trusty sidekick for somewhere around 22 years is getting close to kicking the bucket.  The plastic that surround the handle inserts is deteriorating rapidly.  Today walking in from the parking lot the box abruptly dropped off the handle onto the asphalt below.  I am sure I looked like an idiot to the passing vehicles as I reassembled my lunch box on the spot.

Once I got inside I tried to McGyver the lunch box by applying some super glue to the broken plastic to try to reenforce it.  At best I expect this to only buy me a little more time before the box becomes completely unusable.  In the past I have searched for a replacement box but only saw smaller models at retail stores that would not serve my needs.

I did a new search today, I saw some used boxes that appear to be the same size as my beloved lunch box.  I would have no issues buying a used box since I know how long they can potentially last.  Regardless of my ultimate direction, the day I dump my old lunch box in the recycle bin will be a sad day indeed.  I’ll always remember when it was a brand spanking new red box sitting by my side as I rode around in the Goodwill delivery truck picking up old shit that other people didn’t want.  This box has been by my side for literally half of my life.

My March has been pretty crappy so far.  It started out nicely with my surprisingly good performance at the half marathon, soundly knocking out one of my 2012 fitness goals.   However after that the month has slid downward.

I had the annoying issues with the Tacoma, culminating with the inflated bill to ultimately fix it at a garage.  The ear infection of the past week was a downer as well and knocked my sense of well being down several notches.

But even without those items I have just been feeling like I am lacking otherwise.  My motivation level feels low and my overall outlook on things is not rosy.  The rut is feeling pretty deep.  I am not sure where to turn.

So like I said, yesterday I finally broke down and took the Tacoma to the garage to get looked at for it’s warm starting problem.  I have been trying to resolve the issue myself  for more than 4 months at this point and had had enough.  Trying to drive the truck after a warm start had become blatantly dangerous.

I took the truck to Master Tech Imports, a place that is run by two ex-Toyota dealership mechanics so they know Tacomas.  I have used them several times over the years based on a recommendation by a co-worker, a co-worker whom doesn’t use them anymore either.  They are a competent garage and have always resolved whatever problem I have presented them with.  The problem is what they charge to do so.

I stopped using them a couple years ago when I tired of never being able to get out of there without spending at least $500, no matter what the issue seemed to be.  Since that time I have done a lot more hands on work on my vehicles and have a better understanding of what is and is not involved in some aspects of their repair.  I am now the type of person that a place like Master Tech doesn’t really want as a customer since I know what stuff SHOULD cost.  I will be granting them their wish. Read on.

So their garage evidently was not busy on Monday as they said I could bring the truck right over.  I got a call from them a couple hours later saying they found the problem, a bad upstream 02 sensor.  They said to fix it would be $250 plus $90 for the “scan charge”.   When I first heard the scan charge the bullshit meter went off the charts, thinking they were charging me $90 for reading the CEL code, something I can do myself with my cheap code reader or something a place like Autozone does for free.

I later got a clarification that they actually hook the truck computer up to a dealer style diagnostic computer that not only reads codes but also shows real time status of the various engine electronic components to assist in troubleshooting. Ok, well that’s nice but making that scan a separate $90 line item seems excessive.

So I authorize the inflated repair cost, at this point I just want the issue to go away.

I get a call back an hour or two later.  There is still a problem, now they show the mass airflow sensor is ALSO bad.  He throws out a quote of an additional $285 to replace the MAF.  That is when I threw on the brakes.

I replaced the MAF myself maybe a couple years ago. The idea that it was bad again seemed improbable.  I tried to logically talk through the problem with the guy, saying it didn’t make any sense to me that the sensor would work fine if I started the truck cold and then drove until the motor was hot but not if I simply started the truck when it was hot.

The guy was not able to logically offer anything besides this is what his computer is showing him.  Of course the idea that both the O2 sensor and MAF would be bad at the same time was highly unlikely as well but when I mentioned that improbability I was once again only offered, “that is what the computer is saying”.

Ok fine, but now I moved on to what they wanted to charge me to replace the MAF.  I told him I was going to check on the price of the part, $285 sounded outrageous.  A quick check on Autozone revealed I could get a MAF for $79.99, I laughed out loud.

I called back the garage and told them of the price discrepancy, made more egregious by the fact I was quoting a RETAIL price, I am sure the garage pays significantly less than that.  They said that if I wanted to provide them the part they would install it and just charge me labor.  Ok great.

So I now borrow my bosses vehicle, go to Autozone and then drive to the garage to drop off the part.  After verifying I got the right thing he said he would call me and let me know the result.

It was now getting late in the afternoon. I was getting nervous that I was going to be getting another call saying the problem still was not fixed after two overpriced sensor replacements. I called back asking for a status update.  The garage said that he thought they had the problem fixed, they just needed to do a another test drive to verify it, great.

So I got dropped off at the garage after work and saw the truck was indeed done and parked out front.  The total bill for the repair was just under $500.  The one owner quickly added up the line items, I signed off and got the hell out of there without making an additional fuss as I should have. After getting frustrated all day I just wasn’t in the mood to bang my head against the wall again.  However when I got home I took the time to analyze the bill line by line.  It looked like this.

Engine scan – $90
Labor to replace O2 sensor – $90
Labor to replace MAF sensor – $117
O2 sensor – $159
Misc expenses – $12.50

The $90 to scan the engine (hook it up to their computer) still seemed ridiculously expensive.  I am quite sure the problem could have been diagnosed with a normal engine code reader as well.

However two other line items REALLY annoyed me.

The $159 part charge for the O2 sensor was almost double what I saw the same part go for at Autozone.  Again knowing the garage probably is paying wholesale for their parts means they are marking them up to the customer by almost 100%, that is just inexcusable to me.

Second, charging $117 labor to install the MAF sensor was a joke.  Again my insight into the process since I did it once myself, meant I knew it took at most 15 minutes if you are going slow.  The labor charge for the O2 sensor was actually less ($90) so that was probably even easier.

The bottom line was for the repair, that probably cost the garage maybe $75 in parts, I was charged $500.  Sure every business needs to make money but this sort of price gouging is offensive. On top of the large amount of dollars that were sucked out of my pocket, the interior of my truck reeked of cigarettes. Evidently whomever was doing the test drives is a chain smoker whose clothes stink from cancer sticks.  I drove with both windows all the way down, all the way home to try to air the Tacoma out.

I was annoyed enough to make a follow up call this morning to the garage about the bill.  Once again there wasn’t a hint of compromise from the garage perspective on the labor since they charge book rate (although of course the customer never sees the book) for repairs instead of basing it on the actual time spent on the repair.

When I asked about the inflated parts pricing I was once again told they just charge whatever the “standard” price is. Lol, yea whatever dude.

Hell I have doubts that the O2 sensor was even bad at all.

This scenario is exactly why I tried to avoid going to a garage for the issue in the first place.  I knew in all likelihood I would get overcharged for whatever services they provided. Trying to get a garage to change the price of a repair based on your understanding of the true cost/time of a repair is fruitless.  They are far too accustomed to preying on the automotive ignorant, charging them inflated dollars to perform repairs.

My only real recourse is to speak with my wallet and not frequent Master Tech Imports in the future.  Since I moved to Florida I have tried at least a half dozen different mechanics, trying to find one that was the right mix of fair pricing and competency.  My search continues.

So over the weekend I had a chance to test my latest repair effort on the Tacoma, which was replacing the engine coolant temperature sensor on Friday.  I brought the engine up to temperature, turned it off and back on and once again, the horrible sputtering idle returned.

I have now officially given up diagnosing the problem myself and am taking the truck to a place I have used before that is run by two ex-Toyota dealer mechanics.  It just isn’t worth the hassle/danger I have been dealing with since the problem started several months ago.

Saturday morning I got up bright and early with Ali who was going to the club run.  I wasn’t going to the run but I had an early morning destination as well, I was heading back to Tire Choice.  I wanted to have something simple done, the slow leak fixed in the driver side front tire of the SSR which has been a problem since I bought the truck.  Every week or two I have to add air to the tire as the pressure drops all the way down to 20 PSI.

You may recall I ranted about my last Tire Choice visit where I wound up waiting nearly three hours for them to fix a nail in a tire after being told it should take about 90 minutes.  I followed up that visit with a complaint email to their offices which was responded to apologetically.  I even got a call from the manager at that location saying they were interested in making it up to me.

So anyway, I looked online and saw the garage opens up at 7AM.  My plan was to get there right after they opened, figuring it should be an easy fix.  I pulled into their parking lot at 7:08 and walked into an empty customer area.  The chime on the door prompted the clerk to come out to greet me.

I told the guy that I simply had a slow leak I needed fixed.  The guy tells me there are already two people ahead of me, two people that evidently were not waiting in the lobby I assume.  When I asked him how long it would take to get in he said 90 minutes to two hours.  Once again he used the line I have heard almost every time I walk in the place, “I only have one guy here right now”

I pushed him about this since I hear this line so much, asking if someone called in sick.  He said no, they only schedule one guy first thing in the morning and then bring in other crew as the day goes on.  What really got my annoyed was he said this after a few sentences ago he stated that they are ALWAYS busy first thing in the morning, especially on a Saturday.  He said it is normal to have people waiting at the door.

Well what the fck then?  If you know that it is always busy first thing in the morning, why do you not staff for it?  It is like you are deliberating creating a back log first thing in the morning. That is ridiculous.  I told him I couldn’t wait that long and got the F out of there.

So on the way home I knew there was another garage/tire place that I could check out.  Maybe they would be able to do the repair without a massive delay.  Well this place was even worse.  I was told they only worked by appointment on Saturdays and the earliest they could look at my slow leak was 11:30, some 4 hours in the future.  Haha, f that, no thanks.

Well I was ready to take my slow leak back home with me when I remembered there was another garage, a Tuffy, right around the corner.  As I pulled up I saw one thing that looked promising, there were at least three mechanics there.

So I went inside and met up with Brad, whom I later found out was the manager.  Brad’s first impression was not good, not good at all.  I asked him if he could look at the slow leak and without so much as a “hello” or “can I help you”  he just blurts out “give me your keys”.

Well although I was put off by the lack of a friendly greeting it was balanced by the fact they were going to take my SSR in right away to look at it, cool.  My view of Brad didn’t get much better when a guy came in stating his wife got an oil change there recently and now the check engine light was on.  Brad was very indifferent about the issue and sort of just mumbled something although once again, he immediately took the keys from the guy and took the SUV in to look at it.

As I was waiting in the lobby with the oil change guy we traded different war stories of dealing with local garages, it seems like shitty service is more the norm than the exception.   As we were talking Brad came back in and joined the conversation.  He offered up a few opinions about other garages.

For example when I told him that Tire Choice told me there would be a two hour wait to look at my slow leak, Brad said that was because they don’t want to do that sort of work, there is no money in it.  However he said he approaches it differently.  He thinks that if he takes the time to handle the little issues that customers will come back for the bigger issues as well which will benefit him in the long run.

I was quite surprised to hear that come out of his mouth based on my interaction with him up to that point but it made me all of a sudden view him quite differently.  Despite his outward indifferent/grumpy exterior maybe he actually gets what makes a service industry work?

As an example, Brad said he didn’t plan to charge me for the slow leak repair.  I was shocked by this, and told I have no problem paying for it.  He said it was fine, as the manager he has the ability to do this in certain situations.  Maybe he just liked my cool truck? 🙂

My additional reservation by oil change guys issue was lessened when Brad found out his wife did not JUST get the oil change, it was a month ago and the check engine light was simply due to a loose gas cap.

The mechanic that was working on my wheel called me out to the garage area to take a look at the bare rim.  The inner surface was pock marked with severe pitting/blistering, another side effect of the poor quality chrome job that was laid over the original factory satin wheels.  The blisters were preventing the tire from forming a good seal.

The mechanic said he can grind the blisters off to fix the seal.  He and I agreed that the other three wheels surely have something similar going on inside.  I really need to get some factory chrome wheels at some point for the truck.

So in all I bet the shop spent between 30-45 minutes fixing my problem and true to his word, Brad didn’t charge me a penny.  The only thing he asked was I take one of the cards on the counter that had their website on it so I could fill out a positive review which I did shortly after getting back home.  The reviews on them were about a 50/50 split negative to positive.

When Ali got home I relayed my surprising story of good customer service.  She could hardly believe it either.  You just don’t see many places that go out of their way to impress a customer.  I plan to give the place a chance to further impress me in the future with my other auto repair needs.  With a fleet of four vehicles those needs come up pretty routinely, even with me trying to play junior mechanic from time to time.

Ali was going back out during the afternoon to help at a social event.  I stayed behind to buzz through various items at home.  I was QUITE busy.  I even attended to some low frequency maintenance items like changing the oil in the tractor and generator.

The dogs got to go on two different rides in the process.  The second ride was to pick up some more sod to put in a couple areas of the yard that had ugly looking bare spots that used to be occupied by weeds that died off during the winter cold snaps.

I finally took the time to redo the neighborhood email list sign that was looking ratty.  Originally I used stick on letters covered in packing tape.  The weather conditions eventually made them almost completely fall off.  After removing the old letters I redid the sign by painting the info on.    I originally was going to use stencils to do it but could not find the set I bought awhile back.  Instead I just drew the outline in magic marker and then painted inside the lines.  No it doesn’t look classy but it will get the job done.

Saturday night I suggested to Ali we check out Zookie’s, a sports bar that is not too far away from us.  The place is always busy at night, Ali and I commented multiple times we needed to check it out so we finally did.

We arrived around 6:15 to a predictably full parking lot.  Our initial experience with the hostess was not a great one, she appeared to have poor communication skills.  We walked in, she asked for our name but didn’t say anything about a wait and then walked over towards a table so I assumed we were supposed to follow her.  She then rather rudely told me, “Um no, there is a wait”  Ok whatever, Ali and I had a seat at the large bar.

Looking around there were a couple dozen tv’s, lots of memorabilia, a pool table and a few other games.  In addition there is a no frills conventional seating area.  I was pleasantly surprised when the tab for my draft beer was only $2.25.

The poor people skill girl came up to the bar maybe 10 minutes later and said indifferently, “There is a table open now if you still want it”  Of course we want it.

One thing that was obvious from looking at the almost entirely female staff was Zookies was trying to steal a page from the Hooters formula.  Every woman was wearing short shorts with a top that emphasized whatever they were carrying up above.  Hey why mess with a formula that obviously works, T&A in a sports bar?

Thankfully our waitress although very busy, was nicer than the hostess.  Ali ordered a custom thin crust pizza and I got some tomato basil pasta.  We both were very pleased with our meals.  Unfortunately I wound up wearing a nice portion of mine when a piece of pasta dropped off my fork and rolled down my shirt.  I have a long history of food collateral damage.

We boxed up our left overs so we had room to split a piece of very good peanut butter pie. We both left there with an overall positive outlook of Zookies and I am sure we will frequent it again in the future.

Sunday morning Ali was supposed to do a big brick involving 90 minutes of bike time followed by 60 minutes of running.  She was surprised that I offered to do the entire thing with her, especially since I was banged up early in the week from the half marathon.

We got started early since we had two and a half hours of cardio in front of us, we arrived at the water park around 7:30 am.  The time felt even earlier due to the time change this weekend.

We hopped on the biked and headed down the road to the near by neighborhood area that Ali prefers to bike in.  I let Ali set the pace which for the most part was on the slow side, but fast or slow, sitting on the bike for that long isn’t much fun.  By the time we got back to the water park 90 minutes later we had put in between 21 and 22 miles.

Christy had agreed to come meet us to do the run portion of the brick which would be the big 10k Oakes loop around the park.  After hydrating, changing our footwear and taking a Goo we headed back out.  I wasn’t looking to break any land speed records.  I just wanted to run at steady pace and hope my legs would feel ok, which they did.

After we stopped to drink the water we planted ahead of time around the halfway mark Ali ran ahead and I stayed back with Christy who was feeling a bit fatigued.  Since I was just taking it easy I had no problem keeping her company.

When we got back we thanked Christy for running with us and then headed into the water park.  I wanted to make my training day to be similar length-wise to an Olympic distance triathlon which includes a 25 mile ride, 10k run and .9 mile swim (1500 meters).

I hopped in the pool and knocked out 1600 meters in something like 34:45, completing the circuit.  It was a tough swim since I have done very, very little swimming in the last 6 months.  To be able to pull off a 1600 out of the blue was encouraging.

After I was done I was understandably beat.  Ali was nice enough to wait in the incredibly slow moving food line at the water park while I vegged out at a table.  After eating our lunch we headed home with a pit stop at Dunkin Donuts for an XL coffee that I hoped would help replenish my energy stores.

Ali retired to for a nap shortly after we got home.  The coffee helped me for a short period of time.  I even had ideas of starting my garage/workspace clean up/organization project.  Well as soon as the caffeine surge wore off I was dead and retreated back to the bedroom as well for a two hour nap.  I was quite glad I got everything done on Saturday because very little got accomplished around the house on Sunday.

Last night I pryed my eyes open until 1:15 am watching season 2 episodes of 24.  I am getting close to the end, it’s very addictive.  Yes, I am tired.

So last night Ali needed to get down a container from the hobby room.  She came out with a confused look on her face.  She asked me if I bought her some Under Armour shorts.  I had no idea what she was talking about.  She took me into the hobby room and showed me three pair of UA shorts that were on top of the container.  Then I remembered.

I bought those shorts when I went to the outlets with Randall.  They were indeed intended to be Christmas presents for Ali, I just forgot that I stuck them up there as a hiding place.  Well I wished Ali a Merry March Christmas.

So this morning I had to stick around the house to wait for the wind mitigation inspector to show up.  He had a window between 8AM-11AM.  I figured the odds of him showing up right at 8 was very low so I decided to make my spare time productive.

The first thing I wanted to do was put in the new ECT (Engine Coolant Temperature) sensor I bought for the Tacoma.  I am hoping this sensor will succeed in fixing my warm start issue where the IAC valve failed.

Replacing this sensor was a bit of a challenge.  I had a hard time just getting room to pop the electrical connector off the sensor.  In order to do so I had to temporarily remove a small piece that connects the two sides of the fuel rail together.

Once I got the connector off I had another issue, my 19MM socket was nowhere near deep enough to fit on top of the sensor to turn it out.  I grabbed the dogs and made a quick run to the hardware store where I found a deep enough socket and a 1/2″ extension bar.

With the proper tools removing the sensor wasn’t very tough.  I really need to get a good torque wrench though, doing this by “tight enough” feel is not a great thing.  Putting the fuel rail connector piece back on was a bit of a challenge because of the tight space and dual washers that are used.  After about 10 minutes of futzing around I got it back on.

The truck started back up and ran fine, but it always does when it the engine is cold.  I can only hope I have finally squashed the warm start problem.

Another less annoying issue has been my Hayward pool cleaner.  I have had an issue for awhile where it is moving about very slowly in the pool, not coming close to covering the entire area.  So far I have made two attempts to fix the problem, first by replacing the rubber feet on the bottom of the cleaner and then second by replacing the vacuum tubes since the old ones were brittle and had plastic breaking off in the connector portion of the hoses. Neither of these things fixed the turtle-like pace of the cleaner.

I just bought a maintenance kit that includes the feet, the wings, the front and rear flapper and the “pods” which are all of the items that get worn from the friction with the pool.  If this doesn’t fix it I will be giving up and buying another pool cleaner.  I don’t think I will be going the Hayward route if I do.

So the wind inspector guy showed up about 9:45.  Originally I had anticipated a somewhat confrontational encounter with this guy as I viewed him as the enemy, sent out by the evil insurance company to try to f me out of money.  It took me all of 15 seconds to change my viewpoint.

Mark was a big, chubby, friendly guy who let me know right up front that he is just contracted out to do the inspection, he was just there to document what we have.  He let me know that my self installed anchor/plywood system which successfully protected our house through various storms in 2005 would be flagged.  He said that they want anchors EVERY 6 INCHES!  I laughed out loud, that sounded just ridiculous.

His inspection was very simple.  He just took some pictures around the house and in the attic.  He said he wouldn’t think this inspection would reveal anything different than what the state funded inspection did since nothing significant has changed in that time period.  He was a nice guy, we talked pretty much non-stop as he walked around the house.  I definitely got no sense he was going to try to screw me in anyway whatsoever.

Of course the same can’t be said about my insurance company.  It will be quite interesting to see if they try to ramp up my rate based on what the inspection did or did not show.

This weekend we have no races to run or time.  I am hoping we get to go to the water park at some point.  I have stuff to do around the house but not a mountain size collection of items.

I saw Peyton Manning’s news conference yesterday announcing he would indeed be waived by the Colts instead of them paying him a scheduled 28 million dollar bonus.  I thought Peyton handled it very well and was very genuine in his statement/answers.  I would expect no less from him based on the way his career has been.

In the big picture I can understand Irsay’s decision I guess.  If Manning’s health was not an issue then I don’t think paying the bonus would have been even discussed.  However there is a huge question mark on Peyton’s long term viability.  Spine/neck problems in a violent contact sport is not something to be taken lightly.  Rolling a 28 million dollar pair of dice is something not many people would do.

On the flip side, I am really surprised that year in and year out high ranking college QB’s are routinely touted as “can’t miss”.  NFL history is stuffed full of these can’t missers that turn out to be a big bucket of suck in the NFL.   Tim Couch, David Klingler, Akili Smith, Andre Ware, Rick Mirer, Heath Shuler, JaMarcus Russell, and of course the King of Suck, Ryan Leaf are some shining examples of this phenomenon.  To hang your hat on the idea that Andrew Luck is the next Joe Montana is just foolish in my eyes.

It will be quite interesting to see where Peyton winds up.  As long as he is healthy I am sure he has a solid half decade of ball left in him.  It would be kind of exciting if he came to Miami, right across the alley.

So yesterday after the gym I returned to my Tacoma, hopeful I would be able to turn the key and have the engine fire right up with hardly a stumble.  Instead I swore out loud as once again the fcking truck sputtered and wanted to shut off.  The new IAC made no difference.

So I did even more in depth research on the problem.  The more you dig the more confusing the possible solution becomes.  I have seen 6 or 7 different solutions for the symptoms I am experiencing.  One solution that sounded plausible was a defective engine coolant temperature sensor.  This sensor is what the truck computer utilizes to know if the engine is warm or cold and adjusts the intake accordingly.  If this sensor goes bad it can send a signal to the computer that the engine is cold when it actually is warm, causing it to dump too much fuel, which is what the truck acts like when the condition occurs.

The sensor was only $20 so I grabbed one on the way home and will be installing it as soon as I get a chance.  This problem is like a thorn that keeps growing as it is inserted into my side.  Every time I sputter away from my parking space I get more and more pissed off.