Zomg teh Blargs! - random

car troubles begone for the most part

nospam@example.com (Evan) — Fri, 6 Feb 2009 10:39:15 -0500

I charged my booster pack and tried the car again Tuesday morning. Opening the hood I saw a squirrel jump out. Not good, heh. It turns out that I'd forgotten that my booster pack has a switch on the back for the jumper cables (a realization I came to at 4am Tuesday morning, which left me feeling like a total idiot). Unfortunately, the ~75% left in the booster pack was not enough to start the car but at least it turned on the accessories.

I finally got a jump Wednesday morning and the car started. I proceded to the local GoodYear shop (open at 0730, and relatively close) where they determined that my 10 year old battery was indeed dead. I told them to do the oil change, trans fluid change, and coolant flush previously ascribed by them. Trans change was a PITA because the fluid add point on a 91 (and many years of) Escort with manual trans is the speedometer sensor/sender thing. An old wise mechanic and a pair of vice grips later and they got it out without breaking it (no discount on labor for me holding the flashlight, unfortunately). From said wise mechanic's remarks on said speedo unit, the trans fluid has never been changed. Eh, the fluid still looked somewhat red coming out and no metal chunks/flakes were obvious, so I'm not that worried.

Then, after the new battery was installed, I drove home. The next morning at work, the car wouldn't start (WTF!?!). I heard a faint squeaking from the dash and noted that the fan for the heater/vent was on notch '1'. The booster pack worked fine on the new battery and I was off and running. When I got home I confirmed that the blower for the vent is staying on when the ignition is off. This explains how the old battery was drained over the weekend. So now I must be careful to turn the fan off when I park the car. I've been told by UFies that I should be looking for a stuck relay but I haven't looked at the wiring diagram to figure out where that is so for now I'm just making sure I turn that off. My booster pack is charged (almost overcharged cause I forgot to unplug it when I went to bed yesterday) and I really don't want to deal with this crap again, so I'm paying attention.

Financially, since all of the above cost me nearly $400, I'm waiting till I have $4-5k for a down payment on a new car cause hopefully the crapscort will keep kicking for some time. The next time this thing crosses me though, it's going to be push-pull-or-dragged to my nearest VW dealer and I'mma get me some 09 TDi lovin. 45+ MPG from a new car that's fun to drive? Why yes, I'd like some of that please. Woo turbodiesel!

I'd make some joke about unpimping my auto but if my 91 escort was any less pimped it'd require Flinstones-esque foot movement to keep it going, and it's just barely above that point now.

I hate cars.

nospam@example.com (Evan) — Tue, 3 Feb 2009 01:06:02 -0500

Well, ok, It's only my car that I hate right now.

Stuck the key in the ignition and turned it. Nada. No dash lights, no beeps, no click, no radio. Nothing. The headlights were not left on. Good thing I have a booster pack. Hooked that up, still nothing. Nada. The booster pack measures 75% charged and doesn't go down when connected to the battery in the car. BLARG.

Call work, I'll be late, blah blah. Tried to call coworker but he was already almost here.

Try starting a couple more times. Nada. Check fuses: all fine (including 100A main fuse). No smells of electrical burnination. Just nothing.

Fortunately my other coworker hadn't gone to bed yet and was kind enough to give me a ride in.

Of note: This is a 1991 Ford Escort Pony with a 1.9l HO I4, a 5 speed manual, no AC, power steering, or much of anything else. Bone stock, only aftermarket mod is the addition of a tape deck (about 14 years ago; no radio included in the car, it's that bare bones).

I did hear an odd sound when I first opened the hood that could have been a solenoid or relay ticking but it went away. The battery cables are tight on the terminals, and nothing changed when I tried the (-) of the booster on ground instead of the (-) on the battery. There's nothing I can think of otherwise wrong with the electrical system on this car. It behaved perfectly normally when I drove it home from work Friday morning. (I carpooled Sunday night).

I'd hoped to use this as a trade-in if/when I buy a new car in a couple months, now I'm thinking the new car may not be an 'if' and 'when' may be as soon as the IRS direct deposits my refund. Blarglefargle.

I hate names

nospam@example.com (Evan) — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 10:33:22 -0500

My brain sucks with names (and faces, and associating the two).

It seems to index by first letter, number of syllables, and general complexity/uniqueness. Gender's in there somewhere, too.

So, Mark and Mike are equivalent in my brain. This is annoying when my boss' boss is Mark and one of his underlings that's in charge while he's away is Mike.

Fortunately, last names are far easier to index by the above method, and due to the nature of my job many of my coworkers are former military and don't look at me strange when I refer to people by last name without a Mr. in front.

That being said, I have many of the access card numbers of various overseas LAN techs memorized (from typing them in when LAN/server rooms are held open).

So why can't everyone be a number?

and now, an entry from my g1

nospam@example.com (Evan) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 08:34:58 -0500

I'm blogging from my phone.

Is this a great country or what?

-- ETA: I need to work on the css to make the colors a tad higher contrast for this screen.

I r teh voterated!

nospam@example.com (Evan) — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 11:06:03 -0400

I decided (mostly on a whim) to take advantage of the early voting and do it today instead of on 'lection day proper.

It took about an hour (40 minutes of standing in line to get into the room) but it was pretty painless.

This way, I'll be able to go to bed right after work on the 4th and get up early for my first night of my first classroom class in over 5 years.

Now where's the 'ignore' button for all the political stuff?

pcHDTV card came in the mail

nospam@example.com (Evan) — Fri, 5 Sep 2008 01:38:31 -0400

Got it out of the mailbox last night.

Too much stuff to do in the morning though. Breakfast. Driving coworker to airport. Taking care of his cat for the week. Drinking beer.

And homework is turning out to be far far more reading than I thought. Yes, it's a 400 level class, but it's only 3 credits, it shouldn't be this many hours of reading.

I don't do politics

nospam@example.com (Evan) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 22:08:52 -0400

Other than second amendment stuff, I will probably never post anything about politics here.

That being said, I think we should go back to the way the VP used to be chosen: whoever gets the second most votes in the presidential election.

For this year, that'd likely mean McCain/Obama or Obama/McCain, which would probably make most people pretty happy, or at least appeased.

Yes, it probably means not much would get done. That's just fine with me.