Bad Day to Weigh 8 lbs.
I tore a hole in one of my new rims this weekend thanks to a Massachusetts pothole. I got one of my old rims on there until the replacement rim that I ordered comes in. That tire is now losing air at a relatively fast rate.

I am not a lucky man when it comes to my 8 year old car.

The one good thing out of this experience is that I got to change my tire. While it’s nothing, it’s nice to work on my car, even if in a very minor way. I actually miss having a fucking driveway and working on it. I’m a little tired of winter and I’m ready to get on with spring and fixing something.

I really need a goddamned project.

Anyway. The only thing that really made me relax a little is the punk-o-matic where I created this:

..which can be loaded into the game by copying and pasting. I just sat there for hours staring at the little punk rockers playing random music.

Network
I picked up a PS2 Network adapter to play games online, figuring the online players might be harder. I won the 1st two races and shut the goddamned thing off. Oh well. The Network adapter seems to have an IDE controller on it, meaning I should be able to install a HD and use it as an MP3 player or some crap. Who knows? Not a very worthwhile project if you ask me…

All work and no projects makes Jon go something something.

This was the day that I was going to put on the new rims and tires that I got from the TireRack. Given that the weather was fall-like, it didn’t bother me to waste a bit of sunshine on some automotive work. Putting on a set of rims that have already been mounted and balanced should be about a 30 minute job for anyone with a jack and the advanced knowledge of “lefty loosey, righty tighty.”

I was rather excited about the prospect of the tire swap for the following reasons:

1. I have Eagle G/Ts on the fronts, which are all season, but could not make it up a 5% grade in snow. These tires S-U-C-K. The new ones are Dunlops, which have been my tire of choice for the last 4 sets.
2. My stock Acura rims weigh 15 lbs each. The new rims weigh 8 lbs. That’s half the rotational weight, which translates to improved acceleration
3. New tools, baby!

I estimated that the prep for the transfer was going to take a bit of time, because I was going to buy a set of locking nuts for the hub, and I wanted to pick up a torque wrench. That meant a drive out to Dedham to get the locking nuts at Claire Acura, and a trip to Sears tool department. The 3/8″ drive torque wrench was about $70 and the locking nuts were around $50, and cost about 2 hours of drive time.

I got the car into the garage at an angle as there is a piano partially blocking one side, and some kayaks on the other. Guided in by my beautiful assistant, I got in enough that I could do three out of four tires, the fourth being blocked by the piano. You’re thinking that this is going to go bad just because of the piano, aren’t you? Yes you are. I can see it in your face. Well, the hell with that, naysayer. You’ll see. The piano had nothing to do with it.

Front Driver’s side: I borrowed a floor jack (mine’s in storage), got the drivers front tire off, smoothed the contact surface, counted my nuts (1, 2, etc.), removed the warning stickers, and mounted tire number one, torqued to owners manual specification. 10 minutes.

Front passenger side: Push like a mother on nut #1…then 2…then 3…then 4. None Budge. I stand on breaker bar. It bends. I stand on torque wrench. It breaks. I pace. I borrow another 3/8″ breaker bar. It breaks. I use all my mighty strength on a typical 4 way breaker, and manage to loosen…

One nut. One lousy nut.

I check all the other tires. With some work, they loosen, but the passenger front will not budge. As it’s really unsafe to drive with tires with different treads, I had to take my freshly mounted driver’s side tire off, and replace the stock tire. By then, it was 5 PM. I headed down to a gas station to see if they could use a pneumatic drill to crank the lugs off. After 15 minutes at the first station, it was evident that the guy did not have a 19mm lug. No mechanics are around at 6 on a Saturday, but if I gave up, the simple process of swapping out a set of tires had beaten me.

That could not happen.

As the girlfriend was with me at the time, this was a bad time to start losing my mind. I started driving in circles torn between the ideas of finding another garage, racing up to Auto Zone and buying the biggest goddamned breaker bar hopefully with a blow torch attachment, or heading home, giving up, and trying to recover the evening. Grudgingly, I agreed to give it up. Physically, I was heading home. Mentally, I was buying a flamethrower. As I sat at a light watching a truck pull past me, I mumbled rather incoherently, and heard the girlfriend yell, “STOP!” As I wanted to stop thinking about it, I thought this was a good idea and…

BANG!

She was not telling me to stop mumbling but to stop the car, and the truck wasn’t going forward. I was going backward. I had rolled backward into a brand new BMW 325. Yep. Not good. I got out apologized to the lady and began looking at her bumper. There was no damage, but I offered her my papers, anyway. She refused, so I offered my phone number in case she found something when she got home. She refused that, too. The she asked if I was new to driving the car. Oy. I told her that I was just having a very bad day, to which she replied that she hoped that it got better.

From there, I thought that things had to look up. Rather than helping me to torch the car and buy a new BMW, the GF dialed up Sears to see when their auto center was open. It was open until 10. They said that they could take the tire off, but it would be a couple of hours. Cool. The day was looking up. Instead of a fiery wreck, we had a plan. I showered, and we headed out.

I returned my torque wrench for a replacement, but they didn’t have a replacement for the borrowed broken breaker. I would have to come back on Monday. Feeling good about the hassle-free return, we headed for automotive to have the lugs loosened. When we got there, they refused the car saying that they could end up snapping the posts, and they wouldn’t have time to fix it. They were being real dicks, too. Because the tires had been off a week before, I knew that the posts hadn’t seized, but had been merely torqued on too tight, so I told them that I didn’t care if they snapped them. If they snapped them, I’d take a cab home. Big deal. I just needed them to try.

One guy stepped up and said he’d take care of it, despite the dirty looks of the other mechanic there. He had the lugs off in about 5 minutes. When asked what should be done next, I told him to put them back on with a torque wrench, and I thanked him profusely. He didn’t charge me a dime. It was 8 PM.

From there, the joyous couple went to the restaurant formerly known as Brew Moon. I can’t remember what it’s called now, and god knows what it will be called next month. The appetizers were good, the key lime pie was great, and everything in the middle was expectedly fair. The facially elf-like waitress provided excellent service, and was compensated justly. I love great service. From there, we returned a movie that was most likely late, and headed home.

The saga was over for the day.

Sunday morning, I got off one of the tires and realized that a metal wire in the new tire had remained behind when I had replaced the original rim, scratching the crap out of the mounting surface. Oy. No biggie. I got still got all four rims on in record time. My assistant had lugs ready, and provided me with manly necessities like water to spill all over the place, coffee to spill on my shirt, and encouragement for attempting to do manly things, even though the results thus far had not been very good. Now that’s what an assistant should be.

After all the tires were on, I cleaned out the car, and mowed the lawn. Given the amount of stuff covering the driveway, you’d have though that a caravan of nomads had set up a shanty town. After an hour or so, you’d have thought that there was only a couple of gypsies living under my car. Another half hour, and it was spic and span, and I headed in to clean up. After I showered, I torqued the tires to 80 ft/lb as specified in my trusty service manual, and took the car out for a test drive.

Within a block, I pulled over and was retightening the lugs because they were squeaking. Another couple of blocks, and I was retightening again. Something was not right. Screw it. I was going to tighten the goddamned things to 100 foot pounds. They still squeaked and came loose. I tightened them one last time, and we headed for Fort Revere in Hull. The fort is an old artillery battery that has great views of Boston Light and is so well hidden that I’ve driven by it numerous times, never even noticing that it was there. Ahhhhhhh. The view was great, the breeze was nice, there were no tires up there, and you couldn’t see my car.

Once I got home, I looked at my torque wrench and noticed that it said in/lbs instead of ft/lbs. That meant that I was using 1/12 of the torque to hold the tires on than I was supposed to. Instead of 80 ft/lbs I was using 80 in/lbs, which translates to about 7 ft/lbs. ARGHHHHHHH. INCH POUNDS! INCH POUNDS! WHAT THE FUCK ARE INCH PUNDS! WHO IN THE FUCK NEEDS INCH POUNDS! WHAT. GARBA. BIDDA. DIP. DOOP. GAK. In my rage, I torqued the bejesus out of those lugs and drove back to Sears for a wrench that measured in FOOT pounds. For an even exchange, I got my wrench, and torqued on the goddamned wheels in the parking lot.

To the proper spec.

Two days late.

My car turned 100,000 miles old today. I picked up on it on the way to work when it was 100,002. Damn it. I actually thought about smashing the dashboard and rolling the number back with my index finger.

The last time this happened, my car died within a week. The computer, the tranny, the brakes, the water pump and the alternator went all at once. I sunk $1100 into it before getting fed up with the all the problems of my beloved 1987 Chevy Celebrity. Weighing my options, I thought that I’d either put monster truck tires on it, paint Celebrasaurus down the side in fancy letters, paint a big, scary mouth on the front, and take on BigFoot And GraveDigger in the Monster Truck Nationals on Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY! …or possibly just donate her to a charitable organization.

Given my lack of cash due to an unheathy music habit, and lack of parking due to the Quincy bachelor pad, the Celebrasaurus dream was a little out of reach. I called a Jewish temple in the Quincy area, telling them that the I had a car that they could have free, but it couldn’t be driven more than 10 feet. After 15 minutes of explaining that I wouldn’t drive it to them, tow it to them, or push it to them, that it was free, and he didn’t have to take the car, the guy from the Temple grudgingly relented and said that he’d come over and pick it up while I was at work. The next day, the car was gone.

Three days later, the guy calls me up furious, and yelling at me about the poor condition of the car…

Him: Are you aware that the brakes in that car you donated are a mess?
Me: Uh, yea. I told you the brakes were a mess. That’s why I donated it instead of selling it.
Him: Are you aware that the transmission needs work.?
Me: I told you that.
Him: You didn’t say how much work!
Me: Did I pose as a mechanic?
Him: No, but this thing has problems…
Me: It was free.
Him: …and the brake lines had no pressure
Me: It was free.
Him: I had to tow it from your house, and my mechanic is still working on it.
Me: I told you that you’d have to tow it. Did I mention that the car was free?? Do you want a refund or something?
Him: You ought to take better care of your car.
Me Look, thanks for calling, but although amusing, this is a big waste of my time. I gotta go. It’s time for a smoke break.
Him: But, I…
Me: Really. Thanks for calling.
Him: You…
Me: Bye now.

While I sat there smoking in my tiny bachelor pad after the call, I could only laugh. Some people feel that they are entitled. To what, I don’t know.

My car trouble was the brake switch as I had determined. It took the dealer all day to figure it out. I told them what the problem was, they said to bring it in, and then they didn’t even have a brake switch in stock. If a man can explain taking apart his dash in detail, chances are he checked the fuses and the bulbs, and doesn’t need to know where the vanity mirror is. If he’s driving over an hour to get there, at least humor him enough to have the fucking part in stock before telling him to bring the car in. Don’t make him wait all day for a 15 minute fix. Oh, and if you ask if he wants the car washed and vacuumed, and he says, “Wow, great. Yes. That’d be great. Yea. Thanks,” that means “Yes.” Don’t offer and then blow it off. Hey, they picked me up and dropped me off at work, and the brake lights work. Can’t complain.

Although, I sat for 3 hours reading happily in perfect silence with seven or eight other people, until a well dressed woman in her late 20’s named Mrs. Gorgeous (no kidding) came into the waiting room. Her presence was as ill suited as her name. She was unattractive and pudgy, yet carried herself as if her stylish clothing were representative of her skin. She had big, gold hoop earrings, and a houndstooth coat. She entered from the doorway, and made a bee line for the TV.

She turned it on to a religious channel that was as loud and as unwelcome as she was. She then stood in front of it for a few minutes playing with the remote, as if trying to figure out which button Consuela pressed to get her TV working at home before giving up, grabbing a magazine and sitting down. Did I mention that the religious show is blaring? It is. Old guy steps in. He’s going to change the channel to the golf channel or somesuch, but can’t remember if this is the same type of remote that his son showed him how to use back in ‘92. He stood there, inches from the TV, confused as hell, too. He gave up and shut the TV off. He left the room.

Back to reading. Everything going fine until the nice man from the office decides to help out, and puts the TV on NECN, so we can all enjoy some local cable news. No one looks. Then slowly, as if injected with barbiturates, certain people stopped mid page or mid stride to stare. Brains were shut down, mission was accomplished. It was at the right volume for ignoring.

Until Pudgy got up, blasted the volume, and sat back down to review the scintillating “sex secrets that every man wanted her to know.”

In this period, I covered nearly 150 pages. Proof that I need no outside entertainment, can ignore nearly anything, and may be autistic.

Jon is up pre 7:30, with coffee, no less. Today, he is going to get a thousand things done. NOt only is he going to get a million errands done, but he has noticed that his brake lights are out, and he is going to fix them. Foolishly, he figures it’s a fuse. He tears apart his house for his service manual, and can’t find it. Rather than travel to his storage space in Quincy (1.5 hours round trip), he checks every fuse…only to find it’s not a fuse. He inspects a tail light bulb. It looks OK, but for a buck, he figures he’ll buy a bulb. He drives to Weymouth (40+ minutes round trip). He gets a bulb. He goes home…to find that the original bulb was fine.

He starts tearing apart the house again for his service manual. It’s not to be found. He figures it’s at his storage space in Quincy. He drives to the storage space. He tears the place apart looking for his service manual, and hears a thunk in the process. He has his keys in hand, so he dismisses it and climbs out. No manual. He once again heads home.

He then tears apart the house for the service manual a third time. After an hour, he locates it at the absolute bottom of a box full of useless crap. He feels dumb. He reads that he should test the brake switch for continuity. He grabs his trusty digital multimeter (ta-dah!) and turns it on. It squeals. It dies. The batteries are no more. They are obscure batteries, too. He heads to Brooks, Stop & Shop, CVS, and eventually Staples. None have the batteries, but he buys some that are pretty close. He buys some paper that will allow him to make a T-shirt on his computer. His will say, “Why Me?” He heads home.

When he is nearly home, he looks at the car clock, which tells him it’s 3 PM. It’s 11. After a minute he realizes that he pulled the clock fuse. He goes to check his cell phone for the correct time…

Not there. The thunk he heard finally connected. As he was one foot on a pile of boxes, and one foot on a crate high above his piles of crap when he heard the thunk, he figured that his cell phone should be about dead-center-bottom of the entire 6 foot tall pile of shit that he calls his stuff.

He gets home, weeps gently, and sacrifices one of the more unfamiliar neighbors to the god of cars. He will get the phone later, when he is sane.

He puts the fresh, new, 2 hour journeyman’s batteries in the multimeter, and it says:

bleat

…and dies. Then it comes on. Then it dies. Then it comes on and stays on long enough to check the continuity of a screwdriver. It’s continuous. He adds more O.J. It’s more continuous.

He goes to his car and tears apart the dashboard, only to find that Japanese hands must be much, much smaller than his, because even with the dashboard apart, he can’t unhitch the switch, nevermind test it. He might be able to do it with some pliers, but the last time he used this as a child labor persuasion tactic, the brat nearly got him thrown in the clink. Then he figures even if it is broken, he isn’t exactly sure how to replace it, nor are any Acura dealerships’ parts departments open. It is now 4:45 PM.

Jon is broken. He eats an apple, a nutrageous, some cookies, and makes some tea. Rather than drive around with no brake lighs like he had been doing all day, he figures he’ll just sit back, relax…

…and unwrap that new copy of GRAND THEFT AUTO:VICE CITY that he accidentally purchased on Friday.

(All’s well that ends well.)