Coming up on 120 a.m., and I’m in Springdale Arkansas at the CNG station filling up my van at the end of a long day. I got started late, and I’m ending quite late.
Seven cars today. Well, eight cars, but only seven that I charged for.
I slept in again a bit, getting up maybe sometime around 9:00. My first job of the day was a semi truck that had a bad starter on the refrigeration unit. I told him that I couldn’t do semi truck work, but he said that he would do the job and would pay me my service call fee if he could use my tools, so, of course, I went out there, and he did the job using my tools. 🙂
I took the time to clean my van. 🙃
Second job was a Mazda 3 that he wanted help with brake light issues. Turned out that the only thing wrong was that both bulbs had burned out. Probably had one burnout a long time ago, and was driving with one brake light without knowing it until the second one burned out and someone told him that he had no brake lights. After I figured that out and replaced his bulbs, he asked if I could help him with his driver’s window that was not working properly, when rolling up, the glass would pop out of it s frame and go in a really odd diagonal upward trajectory. I pulled the door apart and found that the bolt that held the glass to the regulator was missing on one side and the other bolt was loose. So I pulled everything apart, found the bolts in the bracket that was missing as well, put it all back together, and got him going there. Once I finish that, he asked if I might be able to look at his AC because it wasn’t blowing very strongly through the vents. I found that he had two extremely filthy cabin air filters. It blew better after that, but it also has an issue with the blend door actuator I believe, so he’s going to need some more work. I had too many cars to do to stay and keep working on that one. he seemed happy that I got at least that much done, though.
Third car was an Acura RDX that needed an alternator. So I put the alternator in, and then the customer said that he wasn’t able to get money because the banks were all closed, so he didn’t have any money to pay me, so I had him give me his mountain bike as collateral which I took with me to my next job. He talked to his bank and found one branch that was open a few miles away, so he went over there, got cash out, and met me at my next job, gave me the money, and I gave him back his bike. 🙃
I’m glad he had a bike with him, as I was crazy busy and couldn’t follow him over to the bank.
Fourth car was a pre-purchase inspection on a 2011 Toyota highlander. Had a few things here and there that it needed, but otherwise it was in really good shape.
Fifth car was putting that alternator back in the Hyundai Sonata that apparently has some weird electrical issue and isn’t just a bad alternator. So I put that back in, I left her a break pedal stop switch bushing to fix her brake light issue, and headed on my way to the next one. I did have one concern, as it seemed like the intake actuator might have broken while I was putting the alternator back in. I couldn’t tell. I heard sort of cracking or giving way sound, and I’m not sure what that was about. So I let her know what all I took apart when I put back in and let her know to let me know if any issues came up with the things that I removed and reinstalled. Cross your fingers. I didn’t actually see anything broken, just heard a noise and noticed that the intake actuator lever seems to move differently than I thought it had before. Could just be my imagination. Might not be anything wrong at all. Crossing fingers and hoping that’s the case.
Six car was a 2018 Honda Accord 1.5 sport that had a leak. I went over there, and the oil change company that did his oil change hadn’t worked down his drain plug. So it was finger loose and leaking. Fortunately, it shorts down just fine, so he’s good to go and have lost very much oil. Lucky. That could have been a blown motor in a hurry if that drain plug had come much more undone.
7th car was a 2018 Kia Sportage that needed the driver’s fender well and the engine undercover replaced. I guess you must have run over something that tore it all out. She had the parts, and I installed them.
Last car was a 2012 GMC Acadia 3.6 that wouldn’t start. It had a bad starter, so I replaced that, only to find out after I was done with that a little past midnight, that it needed a battery as well. Fortunately, I had brought a battery with me, so I was able to replace the battery, although it was a pain in the butt to replace because it was one of those ones that’s in the floorboard, and they have kids, and the kids apparently spilled soda into the battery tray, so the battery was glued to the battery tray. 🙃 Couple that with having a car seat on the seat right next to the battery, and it was quite the ordeal just to change the battery out. But, I finished sometime around 1:00 a.m., and they were grateful as they needed to go somewhere in the morning.
So there you go. It’s 1:35 a.m. I now have gas, of the compressed natural kind, and I’m on my way home dictating my journal via voice to text, if you were wondering why I seem to be adding weird words for I’m not making much sense. Hopefully it’s dictating at least somewhat accurately, as I am not looking to check. 😁
I’m tired 🙂
All in all, pretty decent work day today. Nearly 10 billable hours out of the 13 or 14 that I was out working today, so that’s pretty good. I should have charged the Acadia people more, but I didn’t charge them anything for the battery replacement. I didn’t expect it to be that big of a deal, but is what it is.
Grateful for my headache medicine. I went to bed last night feeling like I was over the edge and going to crash, so somewhere around 2:00 or 3:00 a.m., I ate a little bit of food, took a pill, and went to bed. I woke up feeling fine. I think this has been pretty well solved. For some reason, I get fasting migraines now. Don’t know the cause. Don’t know how migraine medicine can fix it, but I’m grateful that it can.
Been losing a lot of weight, I think, working so much and not eating very much. If I remember to bring anything with me during the day, it’s usually a few apples and bananas, and then I come home and take out when I get home. But that’s still not enough food to keep me maintaining my weight.
Grateful to have a day off tomorrow. Grateful to have gotten as many jobs done as I got done today. Grateful for people reaching out well thanks to all of you. Hope things are going just swimmingly for all y’all.
Loves and hugs to all.
Lift the World.
~ stephen
Lift the World 