I miiight be a redneck… Ok, boys and girls, gather ‘round for another chapter of"I Hate My Car!" Yesterday, while driving around, I heard a thud followed by a series of smaller thuds. Upon arriving at our destination, I checked it out and found out that the muffler strap that I just had put on 18 months ago had rusted through. The original muffler strap lasted 5 years. The replacement lasted a year and a half. Damn it. ...
So we wake up this morning to a phone call. The first thought that goes through my head was…“Oh, shit! Who died now??” As it turns out - nobody died. Joe got in a car accident this morning out in North Royalton. It seems he was hit in the tire. (yeah - in the driver’s side tire. That’s it. To look at the car, you’d never know anything was wrong - no body damage at all.) The tie rod is all bent at a 45-degree angle and the strut is bent too. Luckily, the lady that hit him admitted fault completely and turned everything over to her insurance company. He had the car towed to North Olmsted Dodge, and we went out to North Royalton to pick him up. He’s getting a loaner car on Monday, so I’m playing chauffeur all weekend. ...
A Super Bowl and a Super Bill. So we went to Divot’s for the Super Bowl last night. We had a designated driver, so I’m lucky I even remember the final score. Had a great time, hung out with family and friends and even had my picture taken with my heroes: IM000338.JPG This morning after the worst part of the hang-over had passed Carrie and I finally dragged ourselves out and took the car to Firestone to see what the hell that grind-y, clunky noise was. ...
Those of you who know me, know how much I love my car. (See: I’m Scared of My Car for a refresher). So a couple of weeks ago I started noticing odd noises coming from the back of the car. Sort of a squeaking sound, not unlike the sound my computer chair makes when I lean too far backward in it. Even Carrie started hearing the noise about a week ago - so I know I’m not crazy, it’s getting worse. At first, we thought that there was something rolling and banging around in the trunk. I checked and repacked the spare tire and jack. Still noisy. I moved all the crap we keep in the trunk around a little and tried to recreate the noise by shaking things. Nothing. ...
I installed Linux again. This is like the fourth or fifth time. This time I found a new distribution: Mepis. I tried it out on my CrapTop(tm) at work (yeah - I scavenged an old low-end laptop to experiment on) and I got it working! So I brought the CD home and hooked up a spare 20 gig hard drive and installed it at home. Carrie was a little scared at first - but I assured her that I didn’t touch our Windows install. Long story short - I’m making this entry from Firefox on my new Linux installation. ...
It’s no secret I hated my 1997 Saturn SL2. Shortly after I bought it, I started having troubles with it. I also started having stress issues that took me years and years to work through. Now, I’m not saying the car made me crazy. But it helped. A classic (in my own mind). I have had a lot of problems with my car and am admittedly way too obsessed with it. Writing this helped me through one of those times when I was ready to drive it back to the dealership and put a bullet in it. ...