stormdog | Entries tagged with car

I'm panicky about the cost of car work.

I used to do my own brakes, but I don't think I'm up to it physically and I don't have the right tools and stuff. I used to replace just the pads unless the rotors looked damaged too, but the shop says the rotors need to be replaced along with the pads. Reading online suggests there are arguments for and against automatically replacing rotors with pads, but it seems like newer rotors are thinner and/or less machinable, and they are cheaper, and replacing both is recommended sometimes by some people.

I am not an expert and am doing what the shop says I should do, but it's a lot of money. I miss not having to own a car.

I'm feeling like I need to find work since my student loan payments are also going to resume soon, and I'm going to start doing therapy too, but I'm scared about finding something that doesn't introduce more risk of Covid exposure for Miriam and myself. And I have to be honest, I know I'll really resent having to be around other people for something I don't necessarily really want to do, and then *not* being able be around people when I *want* to be. This is hard to deal with and I'm really tired of it.

This may be the tightest parking space I've ever squeezed into! I must have done my approach *juuuuust* right; I don't think there are more than two or three inches to spare on either end.

...I hope one of the other two cars will have left by the time I do!

Current Mood: impressed
Crossposts: https://stormdog.livejournal.com/1296053.html

My friend Erik drove an hour from his place to rescue me by getting me out to buy a battery! Thank you so much! *hugs* We got to hang out and be social for a while too. It was nice to catch up after a while.

After he left I went back to my workbench.

My function generator and frequency counter work! *bounces* Well, the square wave on the generator doesn't seem to work, but no biggie. The frequency labels on the generator bear only a loose relationship to reality, but I can check the frequency on my scope and compare/confirm with my counter.

Generator Range | measured frequencies

1-10hz | .8 - 18
10-100hz | .6 - 192
100-3khz | 156 - 4.1k
3k-65khz | 333 - 7.1k
65k-1mhz | 58.8k - 740k

And my frequency counter seems to read "0" above about 99khz even though it's supposed to be good to 75mhz. For test equipment that cost me less than $15 a pop, I can live with that for now.

Oscilloscope and Frequency counter in a dark room

Current Mood: excited
Crossposts: https://stormdog.livejournal.com/1279031.html

ETA: Well, funny enough I just got off the phone with the dental clinic. Turns out they'd left me a voice mail (which I missed) saying the doctor couldn't make it today. Maybe her car wouldn't start? Anyway, I'm not missing an appointment after all. I'll have to schedule another one and trade a weekday for a weekend with someone at work again, but I can do that.

---

It looks like I am not getting to my dentist appointment today. Maybe I can get the car to start on a warmer day to drive out to get a battery.

Current Mood: cold
Crossposts: https://stormdog.livejournal.com/1278884.html

I was going to use my jump-start box to start the car and go out to get a new battery this morning. I didn't try to start it last night because I was worried I'd be stranded at the shelter if it wouldn't start again.

This morning though, even with the battery box, I couldn't get it to start and I used up most of the charge. I'm letting it charge so I can try it one more time. If that doesn't do it, I might have to cancel my dentist appointment today and beg a ride from someone to an auto-parts store to buy a battery. We shall see.

I've known the battery was going for a while. Once again, we see the costs of deferred maintenance and/or squeezing the last bit of life out of your important stuff.

It is so cold out there right now I can't even tell you.

Current Mood: frustrated
Crossposts: https://stormdog.livejournal.com/1278644.html

Due to various car and bike issues, I'm just going to walk to work tomorrow! It's about 3 miles, so it should take me about an hour. I probably haven't walked that far since my last photo-venture, so I plan to relax and enjoy it!

The car needs new pads, rotors, and calipers. At least when I pick it up on Monday morning my check will have deposited so I'll have the $730 in the bank.

Current Mood: content

I almost forgot. I'm interested in selling my car. It's a Chevy Lumina. I think it's a 1999. It has about 160 thousand miles on it. It has numerous annoying issues, but the drivetrain is sound. I'm hoping to get about $500. If you or anyone you know are interested, let me know?

The turn signal indicator is flaky; you have to pull back on the stick to make the turn signals work correctly. Since the brake lights are wired through that switch, you also have to pull back on the turn signal indicator to make the brake lights work correctly. I've been pulled over for this once.

The gas tank and pump were recently replaced. However, the filler neck is rusted, and if you fill the tank all the way full, gas splashes out on the ground. (My fix; don't fill it all the way full.)

I got a low-voltage warning a while ago, but I haven't seen it come on in a long time. I don't know what caused the blip. I put new tires on it last Summer. It gets about 22 miles per gallon. I've been pretty good about oil changes, but it burns a little bit of oil. It has the big engine; 3.8 litre V6 I think.

Current Mood: hopeful

I've been away from LJ for a bit. I've posted a few snippets on Facebook that I thought about posting here, but snippets don't feel like they fit the form here. (I didn't always feel that way.) Plus, I've been pretty busy with school work, or with procrastinating about schoolwork by refreshing Facebook.

Oh, Facebook. I really need to spend less time there.

That said, here are a few bits from over there, collected and slightly rephrased for your convenience, and/or for posterity.

I'm wondering whether anybody can point me at sources for men's Elegant Gothic Lolita or Elegant Gothic Aristocrat clothing. I've wanted for a long time to have a few things that are more dressy for going to conventions and such with, and I think this might the way I want to go. But I'm kind of new to this sort of thing.

I did create a Pinterest board with a few things that have caught my fancy. I wish I could figure out the Japanese sizing for some of these things a bit better.

The fan in my car stopped working on my way home from Chicago on Sunday evening. Have I told you what my car's motto is? Lisa suggested it. "You should probably get that checked." Columbia the Lumina continues to live up to that motto. Did I mention that, since my return trip from Oklahoma, there's an issue where, when I fill the gas tank up all the way, at the same time the pump stops, a small but noticeable amount of gasoline splashes on the ground near the port? I think there might be a hole in the filler neck. Still, one of the cars I drove while I was in Michigan actually had a hole in the gas tank, so I'm one up on that.

Hey, I haven't given you my doctor update yet. The short version is that I saw a neurologist. She doesn't expect to find anything, but she's having me do an MRI, an MRA, an EKG, and wear a holter monitor. I get all that done on Wednesday.

I saw my primary to follow up on the neurologist saying I should ask him about the elevated bilirubin my bloodwork showed a while back. I found out I was supposed to have had a liver function test done, but it somehow got overlooked. So I got that done, as well as an x-ray of my knee that's been sore. I haven't heard back on any of that yet.

One of the best things about Spring for me will be when the weather is warm enough that I can stop wearing my synthetic insulated long underwear under my jeans for my commutes. I'm getting so tired of the cold. I've actually started taking a shorter, more direct route up a busy street on the way to school. It cuts a mile off of my trip, and traffic is relatively light at the time of the morning I'm on it.

Have you ever spent a couple hours writing something while feeling really uninspired, then look at it and think 'this is such drek'? That's me today.
But at least I'm making progress. I want to get this short paper done this week and start playing with designing one of my posters for presentation.

I've started, just this week, trying to eat more green leafy things. I bought a package of baby spinach and am putting some on my sandwiches I make for lunch. Plus, this afternoon, I put some on top of the the pizza I reheated in the microwave. Kind of a pizza salad I guess. It was ok, and it gets me to eat spinach.

Well, that about does it. I have some more stuff in my brain that I need to write about at greater length. Hopefully I'll have time to do that this week. I think for now, I may get to bed early.

Current Mood: okay

Let's add a rusted-out gas tank at approximately $200 to that car bill! That makes it about $900. Yeah, still a good thing I saved on that tow. And a good thing my Spring financial aid disbursement is coming up.

I'm really wondering whether this car is worth it. But this is really not the time to go car hunting.

Current Mood: complacent

Well, nothing wakes you up like a phone call to tell you your car requires $661 worth of repairs! Good thing I saved money on that tow, huh?

I didn't ok the work right away, but I guess it really makes sense to go ahead and do it instead of hunting for a new car. I should call them back...

Current Mood: shocked

Danae pointed out, in her comments on one of my statements of intent, that I wrote "The program's focus on program analysis...."
Yeah, that would benefit from a rewrite. *laughs*

Comparing prices and benefits, I found that my car insurance provider, Progressive, offers roadside assistance that covers an unlimited number of tows up to fifteen miles per instance (among other things) at about $20 per year. I added that to my coverage effective tomorrow so I can get my car to the shop to be looked at on Monday.

I tried starting my Lumina up again this morning, and he ran for about fifteen seconds before dying again. Do fuel pumps fail intermittantly? I guess I'll find out.

(The roadside assistance commentary was sort of a follow up to the following post on Facebook. Then I realized that I hadn't put the Facebook post here because it was intended to be more of a request for my aunt to pass on thanks to my grandmother. But anyway, I thought I'd put it here for my own purposes, since I use LJ as an archive of sorts.)

My grandmother is a wonderful person who I love very much. She gives me the sweetest cards on my birthday, for Christmas, and for just about every other holiday that exists. I wish she was on Facebook so I could tag her, but maybe *I tagged my aunt* will show this to her?

Her gifts will end up paying for a AAA membership for me (to cover future tows) and some of however much it costs to fix my car. I'll give her a call and tell her she is helping make me mobile again. *grins*

Current Mood: content

My parents got back from the hospital at half-past midnight last night. Lisa and I greeted them, packed up, and headed to her place. We arrived at close to two. I'd planned to head back home right away, but I sat down for a bit and realized how tired I was.

I napped with Lisa until nearly six, when I awoke, sobbing, from a nightmare. I can count the dreams in the last ten years that were bad enough to remember on the fingers of one hand, so I think I must be really stressed. Lisa, despite being three-quarters asleep, was a huge comfort.

I was scared to go outside after I'd packed up. I don't think that's ever happened before. I walked out the door of her apartment building and was shocked by the fabric-wrapped tree I'd looked at three other times that day, which had apparently turned into a giant person who wanted to assault me. The half-block walk to my car was anxiety-ridden, and after I got in the car and closed the door, I heard a sound that I instantly thought was someone pulling the passenger door handle, but there was no one there. (Nor, I might add, was there a bloody claw hanging from the handle when I arrived home....)

But I'm home now. My parents just went off to the hospital again so the eye doctor can check on my dad's progress. Turns out he has a scratch on his cornea and they want to see if the antibiotic is helping. I think that's a part, though not all, of last night's dream trigger. Though it didn't really shape the content.

Myself, I'm going to get a shower and put my brain back together. Maybe I'll work on my take home final, or my personal statement, or a resume/CV, or a poster abstract, or do some reading, or study for in-class finals, or try to figure my car out. Or maybe I'll go back to bed.