T G I M !

I sometimes joke that I look forward to Mondays so that I can come to work and get rested up from the weekend. But today I am not joking. I am so thankful that it is Monday and that I survived the weekend. I thought about doing a Thankful Thursday post on Monday but then I decided to tell what happened and get if off my chest. But before I do that I do want to Thank God for getting me through a difficult weekend. I may be grey haired but at least I am not bald….Yet.

It all started on Friday when my son called me to tell me that the computer modem quit working. If you recall this is the second one that failed this year. The last time I sat on the phone for an hour trying to convince the guy in India that I knew it was the modem but he insisted on sending out a service rep anyway. When the service rep showed up he said; Looks like the modem has failed, that will be 80.00.

Anywhoo, before I left work, I did a google search for my modem to see if there was a replacement. Now I’m not going to say any names or rat out the company but I will tell you that if you google search the words “junk modem” This particular type will take 3 out of the first 10 spots. I’m serious. They also told why it was junk and how to load a new one but I wasn’t smart enough to print it out.

Saturday rolled around and it looked like it was going to be a great day. Everything went well at the market up until two dog owners let their dog leashes get tangled up. It happened right in front of us and the owners tried to pull the dogs apart but only succeeded in pulling them closer together. A big dog fight broke out and the owners had to grab each dog by the collar to pull them apart. It was lucky no dog or person got hurt seriously. It could have been worse. Unfortunately for the owners, the entire incident was witnessed by none other than the man in red. I know two people who are now on the naughty list.



Yes that’s right Santa himself showed up at the market and our neighbor got her photo with the big guy. That reminds me, there are less than 100 days until Christmas. Better get shopping.

So my son and I were on the way home from the market and I start smelling radiator fluid. Not good!! So we drove a little further and are stopped at a redlight when steam started pouring out from under the hood. We drove off the road and let the engine cool off a bit before making a mad dash for our house. We made it about two miles before the engine cut off. My wife came and pulled us home. I could see that the radiator was cracked so I knew we needed a new one. But without the computer I had no way to search for one.

We headed into town around 6 in hopes of getting a new radiator and modem. The radiator cost me 130.00 but I did get one. I threw a fit in the store that sold the modem and they gave it to me for free. That’s right, free!!! I think they wanted to get me out of the store. We had been noticing a funny noise coming from my wife’s car and when we left the modem store it began getting worse. We again headed for home with hopes of getting there before the car totally died. We made it Yea. By the way if you are keeping track of my weekend mileage, it is 25 miles to town one way.

Sunday morning, I got up at 430 to start working on cars. What’s that saying? If the mule is in the ditch…. Well I had the entire wagon train in the ditch at this point. I do think that God got me up at 430 becase there is no way I would have on my own. I got the old radiator out by 6 am and then started looking at the other car. It turned out to be a wheel bearing so we packed up and headed to town again for bearings and hoses to go along with the new radiator. I got the bearings for a measly 40.00 and then attempted to install them. No luck. After fighting with them for over two hours, I gave up. So we installed the radiator and hoses and filled up the fluid. Water shot everywhere so we now think we have a blown head gasket and that is the best possible answer. It could be worse, I don’t know yet.

Next we headed for the library to use the computer because I can’t get the new modem to work and I need to get some help with the bearing. At the library, I found out that all I had to do was enter my password to get the modem to work and I also found out that you can’t replace those bearings. You have to install the entire hub. So we came home and then it’s back to town time again. This time we bought the hub for 140.00 and I took the bearings back.

At 6 pm last night, after working for over 13 hours, I got my wife’s car running. My son took my truck to school driving with one bald tire with a nail in it. So life could be worse. Now we just have to get some new tires and get his car fixed. Does anyone know a good mechanic that works cheap?

Have a great day,
Greg