Only got like 3 hours, ish, of sleep last night. Super tired. I’m falling asleep while I’m chewing. That’s… interesting. Up early, running and gunning, so to speak, with stocks. I made one trade, and I should have made money on it, but somehow my stock trading software got goofed up, so even though I was ready to sell and make money, I had software issues, and by the time I got it figured out and was ready to sell, I was in the rears $50ish dollars. Being down $50 isn’t much, but when I made the correct choice to buy, and I was ready to sell at a profit, had it not been for the software hiccup, or whaterver it was.
Ugh. I’m this close to ditching Fidelity. I’d do some research fso I sold, and… well… here I am.
Moving on…. Today was not a car cooperation day. Every single one turned out to be a bigger issue than expected/hoped.
First job was 4 batteries for four service vehicles in a particular fleet. 1st one went ok, but it was low on coolant. Not a big deal but something more to them.
Second car was 2008 Kia Sorento that wouldn’t start. They thought it was the starter, and they’d taken off a bunch of stuff trying to get the starter out but with no luck. So there I was. Had they just gotten a diagnostic first, It’d have been cool. Took a long time to figure out what they’d done and what I was seeing and how to interpret it.
Third car. 2008 Dodge nitro (again). They charged the battery, got a new key fob battery, and whatnot, but issue was still the same (crank but no started). Today I didn’t charge for going out and gave an updated tentative diagnosis of needing a fuel pump.
Fourth car was the a box truck that wouldn’t start, and it turned into a hellish 6ish hours. I was just supposed to be doing a diagnostic, and I went to do the compression test, My adapter piece stayed inside the threaded spark plug well, and wouldn’t come out.
So I spent like five hours trying to resolve the issue. I didn’t know there was a problem until I went to put the spark plug in, and it made some funny noises while I was tightening it, so I took it out and found that the spark plug was now damaged, and it was damaged because the adapter was still in the spark plug’s normal position.
It took probably 2 hours to invent a way to get it out, as every option I had wasn’t working. So I found a really long, really fat bolt, and I ground the ends down with my grinder, and I used a sledge hammer to get it wedged inside the adapter, and at that point, it came out.
Wahoo!
Then I spent the next three hours or so trying to clean out the broken spark plug pieces (ceramic) and the metal shavings from the adapter that had fallen inside the combustion chamber. It. Was. Awful.
Awful.
Last car was a fuel pump job, but he’d bought a used pump, so after I’d put it in, the new one turned out to be faulty. The old one had a bad pump. The new one had bad electrical connectors.
So… yeah… rough day. Left one customer hanging waiting for me, and by the time I finished the last job before them, it was really late. I texted anyway, offering to still come by tonight, even though it was after 11, or I could come back another day.
So so so so tired. I’ve fallen asleep multiple times while writing.
It’s time to crash. Goodnight, folks.
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 