The week began in pain, and will no doubt end in pain as well. The old foot is starting to feel a bit better, but the head - oh! the head! - is starting to feel as compressed as a valve lift spring.
You do know what a lifter is, don't you? Oh, come now! Just because cars have become so complicated that no one bothers to work on their own engines anymore - except you die-hards, hobbyists, and mechanics, that's no excuse to avoid popping the hood and seeing what kind of damage can be done with a crescent wrench and a screwdriver.
The only reason this makes any sense at all - and it hardly makes any of that - is that, just as I was starting to feel better in the foot, my car got ill.
It first became obvious that something was amiss on my way to work the other day when the temperature gauge didn't move. Much. It moved a little bit, just over the ambient temperature line, then stopped. Huh? Then I checked the output of the heater through the defrost vanes, and it was ... vaguely warm, not really hot. And the temperature lever was cranked over to Maximum.
Oooh. This doesn't look good.
It had been awhile since my last adventure with car engines, so I consulted the Book of Armaments, Chapter 1. OK, actually it was the shop manual for the Toyota. It confirmed what I had suspected: something was wrong.
Specifically, the thermostat was bad. And needed replacing. Which means the radiator has to be drained. And the new thermostat has to be bought. And a gasket to go with it. Which means - there goes Saturday!
But I can handle it. I've done car work before. Of course, the car never ran quite the same afterward, but, hey, it's all about experience, right? And this should give me plenty of experience. Walking home. In the dark. And cold. And snow. With the Toyota parked by the side of the road. Stuck. Dead. Not moving.
The rest of the week has been dandy as well. I've had this User Manual overdue for a week now, and a customer here for training, and people coming by every hour or so to ask, "Are you done yet?" And my car troubles just add spice to an otherwise boring life.
2 comments:
that's a nasty piece of work there. bring on the healing!
did you not have that ankle xrayed? whatever are you thinking? At least an elastic bandage for support might help. I thought I taught my kids that doctors are to see to things like that. Of course it may be only sprained but unless you twisted it when you slipped that is probably not the case. You may have some ankle bones out of place or broken. Perhaps I am just a worry wort. The ankle looks like Jan's ankle did when she hurt it at Idlewild one year. Not fun healing that one up. (It was only a sprain)
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