Hola amigos y amigas, familiares y extranjeros! Buenas noches, y bienvenidos al resumen de mi dia! 😊
To my reader who messaged me asking for this information: The answer is creamy, without hesitation. Crunchy just… no. And though strawberry and grape have been what I’ve been using lately, I think apricot either takes the top spot or is tied for the top spot on my list of PB&J’s top jelly/jam choices. Love me my apricot. 😁
Let’s see… what else of note? Well… I haven’t given any numbers updates on my various personal challenges in over a week, I think, so here’s the current tally, if you happen to be interested:
| Sweets Free | Journal Entry | Porn Free | TV/Movie Free | Exercise | Premeditated Swearing |
| 75 | 83 | 74 | 48 | 35 | 11 |
The “no swearing, period,” is obviously the next goal, but realistically, I’m not far away from that already, as I’ve been able to hold my tongue in some very tongue-provoking experiences (and today was yet another day with plenty of opportunities to practice holding my tongue, and I passed just fine); so at the moment I’m thinking about what ought to be next. I’ll give the cursing stuff another two weeks or so, so I don’t overwhelm my self, but… I’m pretty pleased with the progress I’m making. On the one hand, it doesn’t seem very fast, but on the other, time is flying, and honestly, I feel like I’ve come pretty far in a short amount of time, much of that success due to have y’all to report to, as I’ve mentioned a number of times.
I’ll probably make a list of the things I need to work on, and then I’ll pick one that will be a challenge but one I can realistically do without straining myself too hard, leading to a crash and burn in several areas. Could be something like: Accomplish the day’s 3 Most Important Things items on my to-do list. Man, would things in my life improve if I could just discipline myself to do that. Sooooooo much forward progress would be made in my life if I were consistently doing that (or even accomplishing it sometimes!).
Changing course…. As for the day, it was one of those crappy good days. We started the day with something like 12-15 either scheduled or quite likely cars. The first car canceled right before I was getting ready to head their way. The second car did the job themselves because I couldn’t get to him fast enough for his needs, the third car canceled, not having the money for the repair (though they messaged me later in the day and asked for us to come out after all)
I’m falling asleep. ‘Tis 1:01 a.m.
So that pretty much threw the whole day out of whack right off the bat, and I even brought a helper with me today, which would have been great for a super busy work day, but it turned into a bit of a frantic try-and-salvage-the-day kind of day.
I didn’t succeed very well at salvaging the day. The next stop was sort of positive/negative. I went to a customer’s house to give a refund. I’d either gotten a diagnosis wrong, or I’d only found part of the problem, and it appeared the issue was going to be more than we do as mobile mechanics in my company. My customer was super cool about it. She didn’t want me to refund her the whole amount I charged her, citing that I had been her consultant quite a bit through the process, so she only wanted me to refund the price for the part. That was nice of her. That was a positive interaction and a loss of $60 at the same time. Not too worried about it, but that was my first actual stop.
Then, instead of going to the other job that I thought I was doing up north, I ended up heading south. Meanwhile, a job I though my tech might be able to do backed out, then the next job he went on, the guy decided he didn’t want my tech working on the car, complaining that he was on his phone wasting time (our service manual information is on our phones, so we’re on them all the time.). Anyway, the guy basically told David to leave after, and I’m just guessing, an hour of working on diagnosing his system. He didn’t pay, and just cheated us. ☹️
Of course, I have to pay my tech for his time. It’s not his fault… so… I lost more money there. At that point, I was losing money paying my helper to help me make… no money.
It was… interesting. 🙃
The next job seemed pretty straightforward, just an alternator that was overcharging, but after replacing the alternator, we still had the same problem, which pretty much leaves a bad PCM/ECU as the issue, so I again, ate the cost of paying my helper to be with me, made no money, and this time also ate the cost of the alternator, which was close to $200 itself.
So by that time, I was in the whole hundreds of dollars for the day, having done no paying jobs myself to that point and my tech only with one, and having lost money on three different cars already and having several other cars cancel. It was totally an aberration and a mess of a day.
It got a little better after that. My tech got two more small jobs done that went normally. We went and did a freebie, my helper and I, a cleanup job from an error that my tech had made the other day, so we didn’t get paid for that one, but I was still paying my helper…
Then I went to a job that I probably shouldn’t have taken, but I gave it a try anyway. I even bought a special tool for that job alone (replacing a stretch belt on an N62 BMW 8 cyl. motor. I bought the special tool, but on that particular motor, there was an extra AC brakcet in the way, requiring the removal of the AC bracket, and the service instructions came with a warning that damage could be done to the system when removing the bracket, and at that point, I just gave up. I left the gentleman better than I found him, having figured out that his old shredded belt was wrapped around his water pump on the inside where you couldn’t see it, so I got that cleaned out for him, but I didn’t do the job soooooo. Yep… I didn’t charge again. So I’m 0 for 4 at this point on the day.
Anyway, my tech ended up with two more relatively quick jobs that went fine, as best I can tell, and my last job of the day was not promising. It was a Toyota Prius (hybrid vehicle), and I’m not trained in hybrids, but I accepted the job anyway, knowing it was a big risk. Fortunately, that car, the one that, looking at the schedule at least, was probably the most at risk for being a waste of my time because I couldn’t figure out the issue, turned out to be the only car I worked on today that I actually didn’t lose money on! 🙃
She had water in her cylinder 1 spark plug well that had fouled up the coil and was causing a constant misfire in that cylinder and was screwing with other cylinders as well. Instead of just replacing the nasty corroded coil, I took it apart, cleaned it, got all the crap out of the spark plug well, put it back in, and guess what?!?! No more misfire issues. 😁
Buuuuuuut… on the way back during the test drive, the main hybrid warning light came on, and the car died and wouldn’t restart, actually having to push it the last few feet into the parking stall. 🤪
It had some new codes I’d never even heard of before, let alone knew what were, but I was able to find in my Identifix stuff that people had that code when having issues with the mass airflow sensor (MAF) on that car, so I pulled out the sensor and cleaned it in the hopes of catching a break and having that be the issue, and?
It was!!! Car fired right up after cleaning the MAF, and it ran great. 😁 So… the least likely car of the day to have gone well turned out to be the only one I got paid for of the cars I worked on. Between all the jobs and paying my tech and my helper, I actually lost about $300 or $350 dollars today.
Ouch.
You know what, though? At the moment, I really don’t care. You win some. You lose some. I’ve won plenty lately. Tomorrow’s a new day. Maybe it’ll be the smoother kind of good day as opposed to the crappy good day that today was.
Either way, it’s a good day, though, like always 😊.
So, folks, I’m gonna be grateful and sign off. It’s after 1:30 now.
#1. I’m grateful to have been able to be there for my friend today who was dealing with some relationship issues.
#2. I’m grateful that I was able to figure out that Prius and end the day on a good note.
#3. I’m grateful for the ladies that bookended the day, the one who wouldn’t let me refund the whole amount, and the Prius lady who brought us a pizza and waters. That was super sweet of her.
#4. I’m grateful that I’m in good spirits and shrugging off the “lose some” day, which was a good day because it gave me practice in taking hits well, and I think I actually did really well today. I’ve been doing much better lately at taking financial hits when they come. I can’t promise I’d be the same way if I had more constraints on my budget, had lots more responsibilities, and was scraping by, but it’s still progress for me personally vs. where I’ve been, I think.
#5. I’m grateful to have had a good conversation with one of my Utah readers. Good friend of mine, one of the best you could hope for. Good stuff.
Well… good night, my lovelies. May you sleep, or continue sleeping peacefully and happily.
Loves and hugs.
Lift the World.
~ stephen
Lift the World 