New month, different car.

I go through cars like some people go through rolls of paper towels. I was driving back from a day trip to the Oregon Coast when the KIA Rio went---jerk, tat-tat-tat-tat-tat.... I pushed in the clutch as right away as I could and coasted several hundred yards till I finally found a turn out on the forest road.

I didn't try to re-start the car because I feared (rightly as it turned out) that the timing belt had failed. The KIA was at 63,500 miles, give or take, and the 60K required service includes a timing belt change. I really was going to get it changed at the end of the month, but it seems that I didn't have 4000 miles to wait to get it done after all.

This was on an isolated two-lane high way between Pacific City and Highway 18. I had a cell phone but no signal. So I started walking to get to civilization or cell phone service, which ever came first. As I walked, from behind me (on the opposite side because I was facing on-coming traffic), a police car went down the road. I tried to flag him down, but he must not have seen me in his mirrors, or just didn't want to stop, because the car went on around a conveniently located curve in the road and was gone.

Finally, I came to a gated driveway, and since they had signs about woodcrafts for sale, I figured it wouldn't be inconceivable that some stranger might knock on their trailer door. I knocked and an older man and woman were inside along with an amazingly noisey dog. I explained that I had broken down and asked if I could use a phone. This being an isolated home in 2008 America, I said I didn't need to come inside if they'd just make the call for me, and they handed me their wireless phone to use on the porch.

I called AAA (life saver, that), and they actually had a tow truck out in just over half an hour. Then we drove back the quarter-mile to the KIA and hooked it up and towed it back into Newberg and dropped me at home and the car off at my usual mechanic.

The next day I called the mechanic and told him the story. After he looked at the car, he said the engine was ruined. Replacing it would be around $5K to $6K, so we really should look for a different car.

I did look and ended up buying a Ford Escort ZX2 from a private party. The previous two cars bought from private parties have been surprisingly excellent. This one turned out to need another $600 dollars of work right away when the mechanic looked at it. Still, considering his first check up of the car made him think it might need a clutch and some variable valve work that would have run up the costs to possibly $3.6K, we were pleased and relieved.

The engine rough running that the mechanic thought might be sludged valves (an $1.8K job), turned out to be healed with a software update to the engine from Ford. The clutch that he thought might need to be replaced (a $1.1K job) turned out to be worn linkage and a bunched up floor mat on the driver's side. The wheel bearing that he thought needed to be replaced and repacked (because of a noisy ride) ($700 or $800) turned out to be healed by the software update smoothing the engine running and filling all the tires to even pressure.

So all that left was the (expensive) maintenance of flushing the engine cooling system, flushing the transmission fluid, and an oil change. Still, it should be gold for a while now.

While I'm glad it didn't need the more expensive work, I've got a little niggling concern about the mechanic thinking it did until he started getting in there. If we had done his initial inspection as a "pre-buy inspection" as he and everyone recommends, I likely wouldn't have bought the car, and yet when it was all done, the car wasn't much worse than the two used cars bought before were at the time of their purchase.

KIA has gotten some bad press about reliability, and in one way I can agree--the cursed belt giving way in 3500 beyond its 60K service seems a bit picky to me. If it was going to be likely to fail at that mileage, they should have had it scheduled for replacement at 50K or 55K. But I feel bad about me, too. I mean I knew there was a risk waiting until I had the money (planned for the end of this month) to do the timing belt replacement. The KIA was a 2003 car, making it the newest car I've ever owned. The Ford which has 59K miles on it now is a 2001. So everything about the KIA was newer than this except that the KIA engine is trashed. Still, the Escort is more comfortable to ride in, so that's an improvement.

Also, the Escort has working cruise control. So, while I can't drive speed limit without cruise control (I can't. I just can't. I keep edging more and more above speed limit until I look at the speedometer and get scared that I'm going to get pulled over) I can set it for a smidgen above speed limit and leave it alone. Gas mileage seems to be about as good as the KIA Sephia that I owned which was totaled in an intersection, but not as good as the RIO: 32 and a quarter MPG, as opposed to 34 and a smidgen in the RIO highway.

Well, that about catches us up for this interval. Hope your doing well. Sorry I've been so long in writing

Gambling for money is a bad career choice for me

Doing some quick snacky shopping tonight (pint of milk, pint of strawberry milk, reduced price quart of chocolate milk, bismark filled donut, and a roast beef sandwich from the deli case) I discovered again why I need to stay away from gambling.

I just don't learn!

In the past 6 or 8 months, I have been beguiled to buy a carton of chocolate milk that had a hugely reduced price sticker on it because it was its very "sell by" date. The first time, it was a half-gallon in Safeway, and when I got it home, it was weirdly sour. I mean it was foul and I severely regretted putting it in my mouth.

A while later, I saw another half-gallon of chocolate greatly reduced at Safeway. I picked it up, but this time I asked at the checkout if I could try it right there because the last one I had bought like this was foully sour. The checker said yes, and Yechh!!! It was foul again!! At least that time I got my money back because it was still there in the store.

So tonight, months later in a completely different store, a completely different brand of chocolate milk, and even a different size: 1 quart instead of 1 half-gallon; still, you know what happened: it was foul!!! I just threw it away again.

But I've got to remember: don't buy chocolate milk after the sell by date. It goes foul. Maybe it's just me picking it up just then, but whatever the proximate cause, the result is foul, foul, foul after the sell by date.

Fortunately, not everything works that way. Many products at least taste wholesome at their sell by date and immediately afters.

But not chocolate milk, not for me.

Remembrance of ponytails past

Today I rose up from my bed of sickness, and got my ponytail cut off to donate to Locks of Love. It was
11.5"; the one I donated (years) before was 13", but this seemed like an auspicious time to hit reset and send off what I have.

I still have the cough, but I'm getting better.

hallucinating more words

I was driving behind a car and it had a university decal in the back window.

It read, "Pestering Question University."

I thought that was pretty funny, and apt in an idealistic/ironic way.

But when I looked again, it read Western Oregon University.

Not nearly as amusing.

Words from somewhere in the Lawn

About once a year I seem to have to learn a lesson that one would think I should have already learned: once spring hits or even nearly, mow the wretched lawn when you get home. Don't let it sit for a couple weeks because you feel lazy; don't skip the sunny day because it's too hot, and then skip the rainy day because it's too wet (although certainly a rainy day is too wet, so do it first!).

All of this driven home because I have mowed for about 4 and a half hours today, not counting the time spent walking to the hardware store and back for a mower spark plug. And there are still 2 spots out front that were too high/dense to finish cutting today, as well as the parking strip on the side that is not as bad but is only about half done because I worked most of the time out front except for when I ran out of gas and had to go to the back to re-fill: then I'd mow the side on my way back out to the front.

Also, the stupid mower (the machine, not just me) is years old. It goes well enough on normal one-week grass, but it bogs right down on the 3-4 week denser stuff. I think much of the weariness I feel now is from pulling the tortuous start rope every time the thing bogged down in spite of my efforts to mow small bits and keep it running.

I'm off to bed to sleep the sleep of the exhausted if not the just.

Don't Try this at Public Property

This was a somewhat imaginative & creative act on a library statue. I suppose it was technically recycling, given that the bicycle helment was actually cracked and of no further use as a protective device. There may be some mundane justification in as much as May is bike to work month.

Still, the officious one in me says this is just a step away from valdalism. If adding a bike helmet was good, perhaps one might think changine the paint scheme would be better. No.

(And in fact, as soon as person in charge realized the statue had value-added wardrobe, person at work was asked to remove it.)

bon mots and bagatelles

Gene Wilder's short novel (176 pages) The Woman Who Wouldn't is an amusing and tender tale about a musician who has a break down during a concert and subsequently goes to a sanatorium in Badenweiler, Germany. The story takes place in 1903, includes visits with Anton Chekhov who is there dying of consumption.

Without writing any spoilers, I can only say that the book has a lovely sentimental touch. Some may indeed find it ultimately too sweet, but it pleased me and made me cry. Interestingly enough, it even has a couple of sex scenes, but they're not pornographic nor erotica in nature. I think that's a little difficult to pull off. They are also intrinsic to the story; short as the book is, extra- gratuitous words aren't really there.

If we have to give it stars, I'd say 3 out of 5. It's worth reading. I'm doubtful that I'd read it a second time--not because it was bad, but because I've done that now. And part of the impact of the book is in going through for the first time and experiencing it as it develops. But be fair: I don't read many mysteries a second time either and they're perfectly fine reading the first time.

Finally, if you have the chance, listen to the audio book read by Gene Wilder himself. As both an actor and the author, he catches everything just right with his voice.