Sunday, June 13, 2010

back to the salt mines/car stuff

OK, not really, but I did come back from my vacation today and start work again. Did I get much accomplished that I intended to, or bother to post on here while I wasn't at work? Of course not.

Got rid of a few more books, sold a few CDs, but of course I picked up more.

Car trouble has mostly been keeping my mind off of music, anyway. Haven't gotten the full prognosis yet (or the bill, for that matter) but there always seems to be something... was going to have to take the car in to fix the check engine light anyway before I have to go through the stupid yearly emissions shit this state makes you do. Hopefully it was just a malfunctioning sensor and nothing major, since it seemed to run fine and the light only came on intermittently. Brakes needed repaired, too...

I like cars, but hate the fact that I don't know how to work on them myself. I can change my own oil, change a flat tire, use jumper cables - and while that's more than some people can manage, I'm still deeply envious of everyone with enough mechanical aptitude to not need to have a mechanic do everything else. A friend of mine used to work at one of the national parts store chains, and always tells me I should try to do as much work myself as I possibly can. But part of the problem is lack of time, and lack of a good workspace. No garage means no place out of the weather to even try to work on anything. Also, everything that sounds simple and straightforward when I read the steps in the Haynes manual tends to become a huge disaster in actual practice. Parts don't fit right, or it doesn't fix the problem, and then I'm stuck bringing it into the shop anyway! Maybe if I could afford a simple, older car to practice on - find an old beater and try to teach myself how to fix it when things go wrong - and if I didn't get it fixed right away I'd still have my daily driver so I wouldn't be stuck with no transportation?

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