2020-04-13 — End of the Subaru Era

Well, I’ve got about 50 or so minutes left on my drive home from my last job of the night. It’s just after 9:30 p.m., and I’m going to see how well I can do dictating my journal while I am driving. Let’s hope I can be both safe and coherent. 😊

It’s been an interesting day. I woke up with a little scare sometime around 5 or so a.m. remembering that it was supposed to freeze during the night and that I had left the hose hooked up. So I got out of bed, went outside, disconnected the hose, went back upstairs, and crawled back into bed.

For those of you who don’t know me very well (or just may not know this about me), I am a super super super light sleeper. You don’t even have to make a noise. Even if you just walk into the room, some extra-sensory whatever in my brain goes “ooh ooh ooh, a person, a person!!!”

And I wake up. 🙁

In addition to being a light sleeper, or perhaps it’s part of it, if I have to do much moving or thinking after waking up, it’s really really really hard for me to fall back asleep.

Sooooo…. in an effort to keep myself as asleep as possible, I didn’t just run outside in a panic… No… that would build up too much adrenaline, and I’d never fall back asleep 🙃. No, I tried to keep my eyes mostly closed and to not move very fast while I did the deed of disconnecting the hose and crawling back into bed. Picture someone almost sleepwalking, and that’s what I force myself to do 😊.

Gratefully, the effort paid off, and I never woke up so much that I couldn’t fall back asleep.

Bonus.

Anyway, I had to get up a bit earlier than I wanted to anyway in order to get parts ordered for my tech who had a really early job, but at least I didn’t lose all the sleep between 5 ish and when I actually did have to get up.

As far as the work day went,, I ended up doing two and a half jobs today, and my tech did two and a half jobs as well. I did a battery job first sing in the morning, and I just finished an alternator job. My tech did a battery job and then a belt job, and we both worked on a 2008 Toyota Tundra that the poor gentleman had put gas from a gas can in the truck only to realize that his gas was mixed with water. My tech spent a couple hours on that job, and then I went and rescued him and finished it off.

He was able to get it to the point where it was starting and running again after it had died from being run on water, but it still had a very bad misfire in cylinder 7 that he hadn’t figured out yet. I got there, and we cleaned out another four gallons or so of gas, and then I sent him home to work on a car he was doing for someone else on the side, pulled the fuel rail, cleaned everything out, put it all back together, and it ran beautifully 😊.

Yay 😁

Oh! the guy came to pick up the Subaru today! That is now two cars in the last week.

Time for me to list some more 😊

Well, I am probably about 20 minutes from home now. It’s probably a good time to do gratitude 😊.

#1. After Saturday’s work debacle, it was nice to make quite a bit of money today. I’m grateful for days like today that can make up for days like Saturday.

#2. I am grateful for my step sister Liz, who rescued me earlier today when the guy came up to pick up the Subaru, and I was not there. I called her, and she ran over at the drop of a hat and got all the paperwork signed and whatnot. So now the end of that era, the Subaru Legacy Outback era, has come. the gentleman who bought it is actually going to pull the engine out of it and put it in his Volkswagen bus 😁.

#3. Knock on wood, but I think I might have fixed my mom’s Durango. She’s letting me use it as my work vehicle now that my last two work vehicles have both decided to retire early. The Durango has been surging significantly while idling, and while driving down the road, sometimes it’ll shift super hard. I changed the throttle position sensor, and, knock on wood, it’s been fine all day today.

Cross your fingers 😊

#4. I am grateful to have a much less stressful day today. It’s busy, and I have plenty of people waiting on me, but it wasn’t crazy stressful like Saturday was.

#5. I am grateful that none of the jobs today turned into major ordeals.

One thing I have to be thinking about is whether or not I’m going to keep my current tech. He’s a really nice guy, and he’s been able to do most of the things I’ve asked him to do. However, his work isn’t quite up to the standard that I would like, and I’m also concerned that he’s a bit of a liability. he started that car on fire the other day, and then today working on the tundra, he just let fuel dump everywhere by disconnecting the line while it was still under pressure. Fuel dumped and puddled up all over the engine block. I had hoped he would have learned from the last job not to let fuel everywhere. Unfortunately, it appears that he did not learn anything from that.

he also tried to Jimmy rig a fix for the AC compressor connections the other day, doubling up O-rings in an effort to create a tight seal. He was able to seal it, but that’s not work that I want under my name. We do the job right. We do it the way it’s supposed to be done. I don’t want to Jimmy rig something that might work now, but might stop working a few months in the future. And I don’t want anybody coming after me pulling things apart going who in the heck worked on this last time? this is terrible!

Anyway, couple that with a handful of other things, and I’m fairly concerned. Honestly, I’m about ready to let him go, but I’m going to give him one more chance. We are going to have to have a bit of a talk, and then I’m going to have to put my feelers out and see if I feel like I can trust his promises.

Anyway, tough stuff. Not the easiest thing in the world to be weighing someone else’s future in the balance. But I also have to look out for my customers and my own business and reputation.

Well, folks, I’m coming up on the dirt road that leads to the property. I’m not dead, so that’s good 😊. And hopefully this journal entry coherent 😊.

if you read this before I go to bed tonight, perhaps you can send some positive vibes my way that I managed to make it from the truck to my pillow without doing anything stupid on the computer in between.

I also need to eat and drink, as I don’t think I’ve had anything to drink all day, and my body is right on the edge. I’m going to have to be crazy careful to not fall off the cliff. 😬

Wish me luck. 😊

Good night, Neverland 😊

~ s