Slept in again. Still not back on my routine. The good thing, though, was that I actually felt rested a bit this morning for the first time in a long time.
I think I slept for like 8 and 1/2 hours?
🥳
I won’t get that tonight, but it was nice last night.
Did I mention that I changed my bedtime in my routine? The new goal is in bed by 8:00, so I can hopefully be asleep by 8:20.
🤞
If I can fall asleep by 8:20, then that’ll give me 8 hours of sleep when My alarm goes off at 4:20.
Funny thing happens when I get more sleep. I’m more patient. I’m more relaxed. I’m slower to get frustrated.
Imagine that. Sleep. The wonders… 🙃.
It was snowing when I woke up this morning, which wasn’t a surprise. The forecast called for snow from between 5:00 a.m. And 9:00 a.m., or something like that. Snow had stopped by the time I drove away at like 9:30 or so. Gratefully, though it was a little sketchy at the very top of the hill, I was able to make it up DeGraff from our property up the steep hill in my work van. It was just probably the last 50 yards that were a little sketchy, as the wheels started spinning a bit, but they kept gripping at least enough to keep going.
Card number one was a 2013 Chevrolet Sonic with the 1.8 ecotec motor in it. As with all of those little cars, it was a cooling issue. She had just spent 17 or 1800 on the cooling system just a few months prior, but now her radiator and water pump were both leaking.
Good gravy. If she gets this fixed, she’ll have spent as much money in the last few months as the car is worth.
Replacing the radiator and water pump for her would be about a 1,500 bill, and that’s after knocking off like $400 because the parts prices are just stupid expensive.
Card number two was a 2017 Jeep compass that wouldn’t start. I had helped them back in March of last year, and they needed a new auxiliary battery. This time they needed just the regular battery.
Did I mention I like battery jobs?
With this one, I didn’t even need to change it, as he wanted to go do that himself.
Card number 3 was a 2012 Honda Civic down in Fayetteville. I had helped her a couple years ago with her car when it needed a starter. This time, it just needed a battery.
Another battery job. I’m getting spoiled. 😁
So I drove up the road to the AutoZone, grabbed the battery, grabbed some parts for another car I need to work on next week, swung back to the Civic, installed the battery after cleaning up a pretty corroded battery cable, and then headed out to Elkins to grab some burn barrels for the hill here. I ended up buying five. I’ll keep one down at Haven Hill Creek Park. One here at our house. One for Liz, one for Jim, and a spare one for… Stevie if he ends up wanting one or just for a backup for me or whatever.
After that, I headed to car number 4, which my friend John who died last summer owned. His wife texted me yesterday and asked if I would come out and look at it. So I went out there and chatted with her for a bit. It’s a little weird being over at their place without him there as well.
Such a good guy.
I Guess when you have friends who are a little older, it’s a bit more likely that you’re going to have some of your friends pass away.
Anyway, the truck had a completely drained down battery. Nothing reading at all. When I tried to jump it with my jump box, it made a really awful noise, and my jump box was drained down lightning fast to the point that it couldn’t jump the truck at all.
I got to looking around, and it looked to me like the alternator had cooked. The sticker that’s on it look like it had charred from getting super hot. It also looked like there was some powdery residue on the electrical connector that looked like something that would be caused by smoke or something like that.
So I pulled the belt off the truck and disconnected the main power cable from the alternator, to isolate it from the system, hooked the jump box back up, and the truck started.
So I pulled off the alternator, chatted with my friend’s wife for a bit, and then headed north.
The last car of the day was a 2020 Dodge ram diesel that needed both batteries replaced. He had already bought one, but I bought the other one, brought it over, and installed both of them.
His truck was lifted pretty high off the ground, so I had to climb up on the tires to access anything, and then the slots the batteries go in, especially the passenger side, are a little harder to access. The passenger side one is really hard, and the driver’s side is relatively simple comparatively. Super tight slot, really odd angle, off the ground balancing on a tire, trying to slot in a 40 or 50 lb battery, or whatever it weighs.
Not easy.
But hey, just a battery job. 🙃
That’s one of the nice things about winter time–lots of battery jobs. And we’ve got a pretty good cold snap coming up, so they’re a likely be a decent number more of batteries in the coming weeks. Though I’m not sure if I want to work all that much when it’s as cold as it’s going to be. Low 40s is okay. High 30s as well, I think, but get below freezing, or anything after dark, and it’s pretty miserable with the humid cold. Heck, with the cold in general. 😅
I’m late for bed. It’s after 11:00 now, not 8:00. Part of my getting to bed late tonight is because I ate way way too much right at my bedtime. I ate so much that I was uncomfortably full, so… Going to sleep right away wasn’t really realistic.
I’m going to take most of the next 4 days off. I worked 3 days in a row. None of them were really long days. Today was the longest, and I didn’t reach my goal for the week for billable hours, coming up five short, but that’s okay.
I’m going to spend some of tomorrow going around and looking at real estate. I’m going to work with Jim on the deck at Haven Hill Creek Park. And I’m going to work on my pretty lengthy to-do list.
I’ve been happy to see two of my good friends in Utah both making some positive progress that they are happy about. One of them set aside one room in her house as a sort of celestial room, and that’s been a really beautiful experience for her to have, and one of them is just steadily moving forward towards some really great things that I’m excited about for him.
Good stuff.
Love and hugs!
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 