I woke up this morning after I finally getting a decent night’s sleep for the first time in a little while. That was nice. Slept out in the van in Rebecca’s driveway because it’s just… So much more convenient and comfortable to sleep in the van– at least, as long as it has a bed. I’m spoiled with a bed in the vehicle. 😆
I think easily more than a year of my life has been spent sleeping in the cars of different kinds and sizes. Maybe closer to a year and a half or two years of my life. 😆
Anyway, this is easily the most comfortable I’ve been in any of my vehicles ever, I think.
That said, when I lived in my Geo prism, I had it down to pretty darn good science, half my body in the trunk, half my body in the back seat, lots of padding, “curtains” set up to keep the sun out… That was a pretty darn good setup. 🙃
Been a long time since those days.
Anyway, after waking up, I spent a good little while on my knees talking to God. The transition back to where I used to be is both crazy easy, and also challenging. It’s crazy easy, because I’ve been here before, and I know exactly what to do, and it’s pretty natural.
It’s challenging because I’ve been out of the habit for so long that even though it’s familiar and natural, it’s also different because I have some different perspectives than I did before.
But I talked to God for a while. It’s definitely felt like one way communication. Not like the old days When I felt like there was almost a conduit between myself and God, but I’m honestly not expecting much right now.
It’s like I’m both a veteran and an newbie at the same time.
It’s weird.
It was Zach’s birthday today, and though I was still in the van, I saw him leave for school in the morning, so I yelled through the van window to wish him a happy birthday. 🥳
When I was ready to get up for the last time, I went in the house, and I chatted with James for probably 30 minutes to an hour or so. Good conversation. Good to hang out with him.
A little after 9:00 a.m., My mom and I drove away from kelseyville back towards Sacramento, destination Davis.
We chatted about marriage as she drove, with me asking a little bit about what she felt like the purpose of marriage was.
It’s an interesting topic. For I don’t know how many years now, I’ve had the perspective that one shouldn’t get married until their motivation for getting married is to give and to serve, their focus outward, and not inward. If you’re getting married to get something out of it, then I don’t think you should get married. I think you should get married to give, and specifically, to give love. To give your whole self in love to someone else.
That’s not exactly how I want to say it, but it’s late, and I’m tired, and I don’t feel like trying to word Smith it right now. So stream of consciousness voice to text will have to do. 🙃
Being with the boys in Davis was a blast. We missed Ali, but she’s super busy, and wasn’t going to be able to be around at a time when our schedules would jive. We’ll have to catch her on the next one.
In the meantime, we had a great little chat with Brandon and Daniel at their little apartment. And then Jason came c and we had another little chat, enjoying each other’s company for a little while. Those boys have grown up so much. Jason is a full-on man, and it’s just nutty to see.
The twins are men as well, although young men, just sophomores in college. Still, it’s crazy.
The twins were having some issues with their car, so Jason and I started to work on diagnosing it. It was having trouble starting, and Jason had originally thought that maybe it had issues with the battery cables, so he cleaned those off, and he tested the alternator, and it tested fine, but it was still not starting after leaving it overnight. They didn’t think the batter was a problem because it was a relatively new battery.
All that was before today, so today Jason and I dove in, and I taught him and the other boys how to figure out what was going on. I told them that given everything they were talking about as having happened, the most likely issue was that the battery was simply bad. I said there could be other things, but almost certainly it was a battery. So I walked them through the other things that we needed to test, including testing to see if there was a parasitic draw, and then charging the battery up to full strength and then testing the battery to see if it was strong while trying to crank the engine over.
They were low on coolant, so we had to get some coolant before we could let the car run long enough to fully test whether the alternator was functional once the car was hot. As you know, sometimes an alternator won’t show that it’s bad until it gets hot, so you wait for the car to get to its normal operating temperature, and then you check the alternator just a double check for sure that it’s working properly.
It was, and so with a functional alternator, no significant parasitic draw, good connections at the battery, etc, you’re pretty much looking at battery.
So once the battery was charged up, I instructed them to turn the headlights on for a little bit, and that drained the battery down quickly, which was a sign right there that it was almost certainly a bad battery. And then I had them start the car with the multimeter testing the voltage, and the voltage dropped to 7 volts while it was cranking, which is far too low.
So we drove 20 minutes away to the nearest AutoZone, had them test their battery, which turned out to be a bad battery, and then they replaced it for us.
We went to a Mexican taquería as sort of a fun celebration lunch, and then we went back to their apartment, slapped the battery in, took some pictures as memories for our little short visit together, and then Mom and I drove back to Rebecca’s house in kelseyville.
We’ve done so much driving. 🙃
And California gas is… Really expensive. We thought we were doing really well to find a gas station that was $5.15, because a lot of places were $5.60 something cents or $5.70 something cents, etc.
We did see some that were actually cheaper than $5.15, but we had already filled up the tank by then.
Things are just absolutely crazy over here. I don’t know how anybody lives in California. The Exodus away from the state has actually gotten so bad that companies are changing their billing policies for things, requiring people to pay their car insurance 6 months in advance, for example, etc.
The boys one bedroom apartment is nearly 1700 a month. Car insurance for two cars is $700 a month. It’s absolutely nutty. The utility bill is like 7 or $800 a month.
It’s just mind-boggling how much money things cost here in California. I mean prices are skyrocketing everywhere, but prices in California are just jaw-droppingly ridiculous, and these aren’t even the expensive areas in California.
Jason was mentioning that his two bedroom apartment was 3100 when he lived over by Santa Cruz.
😶😶😶
Anyway, we got back to kelseyville and had dinner and a little birthday celebration for Zach. It’s his 16th birthday today. Sweet 16. 🙂
He’s such a good kid. Such a good kid.
So we had dinner, celebrated Zach’s birthday, he got a super sophisticated Lego set that’s for ages 18 plus. I had no idea they had Lego sets like that!!!
I gave him a multimeter in preparation for his first car that he’s saving for. He won’t really be able to use it much right now, and hopefully, he won’t have to use it much even once he gets his car, but it should be good preparation. 🙂
Zach and I joked around and played around, bouncing his birthday balloons all over the house, chatting a little bit about what’s going on in his life. Fun conversations. Serious conversations. Good stuff.
Chatted with Mom and Bec for a little bit, and then called it a night. It’s actually James’s birthday tomorrow.
Well, folks. I’m tired. Life is crazy right now. But honestly, I’m actually doing a lot better than I have been. There are some things I’m pretty sad about, but overall I’m doing better.
Hopefully that continues. 🤞
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 