2020-05-13 — An All Over Day

Just a heads up… this is gonna be a “meh” entry tonight. It’s 12:07 a.m., and I’m just now sitting down to start writing this post, and I’m super exhausted, so getting much of anything out of me right now… yeah.

It’s been a long day. Not necessarily a bad day (no, every day is a good day), just a long one. My alarm went off at 6 a.m. after a short night’s sleep. I got my 14 minutes of servicise (pat myself on the back there) in with the hedge trimmer in the woods. I got the morning stuff done that I needed to get done before heading out for the day.

First up, it was the 3 hours of driving, I think, to get that Civic picked up from the auction place in Prairie Grove, AR. I managed to make it there in decent time, and I got the car all loaded up.

The car was actually worse than I’d hoped.

Yeah. Not good at all. This is what some people have called paying the stupid tax.

…and I just paid it.

The paint is terrible. Hail damage was so bad it’s like someone took a hammer to it. Usually, the hail damage is like a bunch of tiny dings that you see if you catch the angle just right, but this… this is like someone sat their with a hammer and just went to town.

What else… The windshield is cracked, the rear quarter has a big dent. The rear bumper cover has a big cut in it. The bottom of the radiator support has been smashed in from a previous front-end collision, putting the fans right up against the super hot exhaust manifold

It’s been through the ringer.

I didn’t have time to mess with it while I was there. I picked it up and drove it home, fortunately having an uneventful rive home. I tried to make it up the driveway, but no dice there, so I drove it up to park it near the barn, but there were other cars in the way, so I ended up driving through the freshly plowed field and got stuck badly enough that I had to roll the car off the trailer in order to get my friend’s truck and trailer out of the mud. Tires were spinning, mud was kicking up everywhere, I wish WordPress made it easier to add pictures, or I’d post one for you.

It was quite the sight.

Anyway, on the bright side, the radio code was written on the owner’s manual (Hondas used to have their stereos stolen all the time, so they added a stereo anti-theft code to try to discourage thieves from stealing the stereos. If the battery is disconnected, you can’t use the stereo again until you enter the security code. So I’m grateful that at least that part is okay.

It also did’t cost me a kidney to get it started, but more on that later.

Anyway, as far as the day went… I directed David where to go and hung out at Miguel’s shop for a while talking to him and to his employee Jose.

…Just fell completely asleep. Not sure how long I’ve been out, but it’s 12:26 now. Don’t think it was very long.

I tempted fate another way the other day by saying yes to working on another RV. I did because it was a no crank no start job, and that should be relatively easy, and thank heaven it was: Somebody just didn’t put the battery cable back on properly.

I helped David with a job, I did a freebie for somebody who was stuck at Autozone with a no start car (turned out to be a bad battery ground. They drove in but couldn’t drive out. It probably took 30 minutes for me to get it figured out, but I did, and I was again happy with myself today for figuring out a less obvious issue.

I did two more customer errand things, and then I headed home to work on the Civic I just bought before finding myself plopped down right here.

I’ve gotta do gratitude. I’m about to crash for good tonight. Can’t stay awake. No joke, I’ve probably fallen asleep 10 ties writing this. Soooooo ready for bed. 🙂

#1. I’m grateful that picking up the car went well. I’ve never strapped a car to a trailer before, that I can think of. Makes me wonder what I did to secure the car I hauled from California back to Utah when I was in college.

#2. I’m grateful that no kidneys were needed to get the civic started. It was the starter, like I’d thought it might be–such a common problem on both the 4-cyl accords and civics.

#3. I’m grateful that it was a lighter load for me today, fixing cars wise. I only did 1 paying job, one helping job, and one freebie. I still worked what, 16 hours or so today, but just a couple actual diagnostic efforts.

Asleep again.

#4. I’m grateful to be able to hop into bed in a few minutes.

#5. I’m grateful that though this Civic was a bad purchase, it appears it won’t be a total loss. With it running and seemingly doing fine (at least driving maybe 1/3rd of a mile from where I diagnosed and repaired it over to my house).

Goon night, peeps. Thanks, folks!

38, 46, 37, 11, 5

Lift the World

~ stephen