(no subject)

There was excitement with my car this morning. I mean that in the worst sense, unfortunately.

The alternator seems to be non-functional on the Neon. moiracoon called me at six o' clock to come jump the car. I got over there in the KIA and did so, but it wasn't long before it stalled again. The ScanGauge shows the voltage at about 11.5 to 12 after the jump, but it quickly slid down, past ten, nine, and eight, to seven, where it died.

I jumped it again and let it charge via cable for about ten minutes and tried to drive home, but I only got .38 miles down the road (according to Google Earth) before it stalled again. I had Moira drive me home and take her car, which is still in need of replacement tires and having some clunking noise issues, but seems to be largely ok.

I'm debating whether I want to wait until Andrea gets home to use her car to pick up the battery from the Neon to charge on the charger here, then try and drive it home this evening. Alternately, I could just call my mechanic and have them tow it and fix it. A tow from in town should be relatively cheap, right? I hate to throw money away if I can get it there under it's own power though. I wonder if sitting for ten hours with little charge is enough to permanently damage the battery anyway.

Amusingly, today is the exact date of my last payment on the Aveo; a short payment of about 46 dollars. At least we'll have a little extra money for car stuff now, as my intention is to put the same amount of money per month into savings dedicated to a replacement car and/or car repairs. How did the Neon know? It's uncanny.

At least I can wash clothes today, so it's not all bad. And I got extra time with my sweetie this morning, which is always nice, regardless of the circumstance.

Love you Moira!

(no subject)

The picture of the day is another from my trip through the Keweenau peninsula last year.

I love vintage advertisements that you see painted on top of brickwork. It grabs my imagination to walk through a city like Chicago, full of glass-and-steel behemoths, and come upon the side of an old brick building, perhaps recently exposed due to construction or demolition, that has an ad for corsets, or wagon repair. It really makes me feel a sense of connection to the history of the place I"m in.

I don't know how old this sign actually is; it looks much less faded and weather-beaten than most. But it definitely has a vintage feel to it that made me stop and make a picture.



This sign is in Houghton, Michigan, a town that sits on the south shore of Portage Lake, part of the waterway that connects Lake Superior across the base of the peninsula. Houghton is home to a bunch of neat places, including a vintage movie theatre, the Lode, which I didn't get a very good picture of, unfortunately. I'll probably add a picture when I put together a set of movie houses anyway.

(no subject)

I was vaguely aware of this 'Verified by Visa' thing as something I had to mess with once before, but I'd entirely forgotten about it until trying to order tires today. I even still had the password for this yet another annoyance-of-a-process from the last time, so I copied and pasted it in.

It didn't work. I tried other possibilities and locked it out. Oops. Fortunately there was a number to call on that page. So I called it. And got transferred to another department. Who transferred me to another department. Whee.

Having made it to the right person, I had to answer some security questions to get my account unlocked. The first one was easy; choose from a list of vehicles which one I'd owned. Then there was a list of addresses that I had to pick one from that was associated with me or my family. I'd never heard of any of them before so I chose none of the above. The same happened with the second list. I swear, I've never heard of any of these addresses in my life.

But that was the wrong answer. So, I am unable to get my password reset without visiting a branch. I'm mildly annoyed, but will deal with it when I have a working car I guess. Amazing how these things all come together at once, isn't it? I can order the tires with my other debit card. Assuming I don't have the same problem with it, it being a Visa too.

But what I'm really curious about is where the heck these addresses come from!?