2021-08-24 — ‘Nother Dragger Down, ‘Nother IdeaPad

Well, it’s 1:50 a.m. I would have been home probably an hour and a half ago had I not had to deal with more poorly-manufactured parts.

I spend probably an hour and a half or two hours trying to modify the new radiator and the old fan on this last job to get them to fit properly together..

Ugh.

But it’s done, and I’m heading home from fayetteville.

It’s been a pretty productive day. Got up and ran right out the door to meet somebody in pea Ridge to check out a computer they were selling. I’ve been surviving with my no screen laptop plugged into the big-screen TV in my room, but that makes it really hard to multitask the way I’m used to. I’m used to being able to have up to four viewable windows at once, the big screen split screened and my laptop split screened which makes it really easy to be on top of complicated projects, which is a lot of what I work on.

Cross your fingers, I think I might have gotten a good computer. It’s another Lenovo ideapad, which is a make and model that I’ve liked quite a bit. If it weren’t for the fact that I keep on dropping my computer, one from the top of my car while driving down the road after leaving it on the top accidentally, and the other one in my room dropping it on something that shattered the screen, I’d still have some pretty good computers. But I got this one for only $120, and she barely used it at all, so I’m pretty happy about that.

I got it all set up for me while I was out working today, so I can just go home and plug it in and use it tonight.

Now I just need to find a new cell phone. 🙃 That’s proving quite a bit harder. The only phones that get good reception for me here in Arkansas are ZTE brand phones, but they don’t make the amazing for your money phones like they used to, by the looks of it. ZTE have been absolutely fabulous phones for me over the years. No other antenna has been able to hold a candle to them. The reception and every other brand phone I’ve tried has just been crappy. Moto, lg, samsung, etc. Hopefully I’ll find a good phone soon. This one still works, but it has some issues because it’s an older operating system. I think it’s stuck on either Android 8 or 9, so some of the apps and browser stuff don’t work like they’re supposed to, which waste a lot of time for me while I’m working, so it cost me money.

Anyway, hope I’ll be able to find one soon.

Don’t remember how many cars I did today. Guess I’d better look. First one was a battery job in a Chevrolet Equinox. Ended up fighting with that one quite a bit because it was so corroded and nasty I had the Jimmy rig one of the connectors.

Second car was another battery job, but this one was in a Corvette ZO6 7.0. nice car.

Third car was another battery issue, but I just recharged it and even though it was testing bad, I think it’s salvageable, so I just told him to run it for another hour or so to see if it would charge itself up and resurrect itself.

Fourth car was finishing up another of the jobs that’s been waiting for a week or so. This one was the 2011 Kia Optima that had the broken alternator bracket. Got that one all squared away and done, so that’s nice to have that one off the plate.

Fifth car was a 2000 Chrysler Concorde that had a whole bunch of different issues. It wasn’t starting, but it was a no crank no start when I got there, and that’s what the complaint was, so I figured out why it wasn’t starting, the battery was low on juice, the positive cable connector was loose, the negative cable post on the straight Tower was loose, the last mechanic who worked on it last week didn’t tighten up the alternator belt properly, so it was super super loose, and probably wasn’t even really charging much at all, it was so loose that it was shredding, and half the belt was missing. That’s a mechanic replaced the AC compressor, but they left the AC compressor belt on it, but the belt was so bad that it could have broken at any time. It was cracked nearly all the way through all the way around the belt. Not only that, but they put the belt on sideways. 😶😶😶

I had to pick shredded belt out of various police and whatnot, they’re still shorted belts stuck around the crankshaft pulley. But I got that all figured out, tightened down what was left of the shredded belt so that I could verify that there wasn’t any issues with the alternator before I replace the belt, but when I went to try and start it, it just cranked and cranked and cranked and wouldn’t ever start. So after all that, it turned out to have multiple issues, and I’m thinking that there might be an issue with the timing belt. When I tried to start it with brake cleaner, it backfired twice. Ain’t supposed to do that. So… Anyway, that one’s going to need more diagnostics. I walked her through how to do it herself if she wants to do a compression test, which is the next thing that I would do. It’s got codes for either a crankshaft sensor or a camshaft sensor, but it doesn’t specify which.

Sixth car was a 2004 Honda Element 2.4. had a blown radiator, so that’s the last job I did tonight, taking a lot longer than it should have for the reasons I mentioned starting out this post.

So there you go. On my way home and dictating my journal as I drive. Just got gas.

Body isn’t very happy with me, and my knees hurt for some reason. Not sure why my knees and hips hurt. Maybe there’s been a pressure change.

We’re super hot today, but the humidity wasn’t terrible, so I survived fairly decently with my canopy and the breeze that was blowing.

Going to be another hot one tomorrow , as well as the next day after that, I think.

Grateful for grocery delivery. Groceries came this morning again. We have a delivery every Tuesday between 8:00 and 9:00, so that’s really helpful. I buy most of the food, mama does the cooking, and she puts the groceries away when they come. Grateful for her and for her cooking and taking care of the food.

Had 10.5 billable hours today. Grateful for that. If you count what I’m going to end up claiming as a labor claim for the massive issues that I ran into with the radiator, then I’ll have probably more than 13 billable hours for the day. Not too bad, but it has been a very very long day.

Looking forward to eating when I get home. Looking forward to my sister Heather and her husband hans’s visit sometime either later this month or early next month, I think. That’s going to be cool. Haven’t seen them since about this time last year. They just sold their house, so they’re on the move around the country looking around to see where they might want to settle down.

I’ve been looking at land lately myself.

Tired. Hungry… angry. 😕 Probably lonely, too, so that’s all 4 of ’em.

Doesn’t bode well.

Oh well.

Hope you all had uplifting days. I’m just a few minutes away from home, so I’m going to wrap this up, eat some food, and crash into bed.

Good night.

~ stephen