2022-06-02 — Ups and Downs

It’s… been an interesting day. Woke up late after being up crazy late. I did four cars, but I spent a lot longer than what the four cars should have taken. Two days in a row like that.

It was an interesting day, though. After replacing the starter in a 2008 Honda Accord, I was chatting with my customer about my phonetic stuff after finding out that she was a speech language pathologist. We chatted about my phonetic stuff, and she seemed interested in participating in the project. We’re probably going to get together to talk about it more.

Second car was a 2009 Ford Focus that had issues with a draining battery and a whole bunch of things not working. In the end, I think he’s got a bad junction box, so I found a way to bypass the shifter, so he could drive it to a shop to confirm my diagnosis and have it repaired (the repair requires reprogramming the system, something I don’t do)

Third car was a 2007 Hyundai Santa Fe that had a bad alternator. Fortunately for the customer, I found that it was actually a recall issue, so he can take it to the dealer and get it fixed for free. So… that was actually a quick one (the starter job took a lot longer than it should have because one of the starter bolts was damaged, and my die apparently has lost its ability to cut, so it took a while to fix the bolt so it could go in cleanly. Weird that a bolt that I’d guessed had never been removed had damage to it. Starter looked original. No reason to remove the starter for anything else. And the Focus electrical job was just… awful. I thought I’d fixed it, only to get everything back together and have it stop working right after I got it back together… So it took a bunch more testing to get to where I ended up).

Anyway, it was nice to have a quick one.

Last car was a 2015 Ford Focus that was having electrical issues, cutting out and dying randomly. It also was having weird idle issues. The dealer quoted her over $9000 to fix a bunch of random issues. What did I find? Well… the weird dying issues was because there was a mega fuse that was blown but partially still connected. If the car went over a bump, it could disconnect sometimes, turning the car off while driving down the road.

Never seen anything like that before. So… they needed a new fuse (which they’ll have to buy from the dealer or order online). I taught them how to replace it. That will fix the starting and dying issues.

Then I found that there was a TSB specifically related to the odd drop in idle periodically, a completely separate issue. Apparently, all that is needed is to update the car’s software, and boom, that’ll be fixed to. It’s a 20-minute job for the Ford dealer.

Disgusting when dealer’s cheat people like they do… when any shop does. Disgusting. It’s theft, as far as I’m concerned. You tell someone they need work done that doesn’t need to be done. That’s theft, no?

Anyway, guess what? My last customer of the day was also in the field of reading disabilities and whatnot. In fact, she’s on the state’s board for special education. Once again, we got into the topic of what I was doing with the phonetic stuff, and she was super interested. She’s going to be talking to some people tomorrow about it.

That’s really what I need, experts to help me design the actual alphabet symbols to be optimal for all the issues. Two really good connections in one day. Pretty amazing.

So that was interesting and cool. Cross your fingers. Might see some good things coming of it.

Also paid my nephew to drive up to Joplin, MO to pick up a 40-foot extension ladder that I found on Facebook Marketplace. So that was waiting for me when I got home. That’ll make cutting the widowmakers out of trees a lot easier and safer.

Then I… perhaps foolishly… decided to look at Tesla stock just to see what it did today. And… that’s when I learned the fallout from my choices yesterday. Because I couldn’t leave well enough alone yesterday when I should have, I closed my trading accounts again, so I wouldn’t lose anymore money. Had I followed my rules yesterday, I would have been there for today, where Tesla went up nearly $60 in an absolutely amazing uptrend that I would have made thousands and thousands of dollars on.

So… the fallout from yesterday’s choices led to losing a bunch of money and not being there for today when the setup was magnificent.

(sigh)

A bit hard not to feel disappointed again with all that. To know what is available to me that I can’t access because I can’t discipline myself to only trade good setups. It’s so easy logically. Only trade x setups. But… I, a supremely logical brain generally, find myself incapable of holding myself to the rules I know will work.

Anyway, so that’s… interesting, too.

Good night, folks.

Lift the World

~ stephen