Erin's Blog

Link/Tip of the day:

I posted some pictures that I took of the Pacific Northwest on my website for a friend. She didn't believe me when I was telling her how beautiful Oregon was when I lived there. See, here in Colorado, everything is brown, dead, covered in snow and/or brown. Did I mention that everything here is a shade of brown of some sort? When I told her how green Oregon was, she wanted to see some pics. Luckily, I had some.

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More boring stuff about my life....

Work is going well. I am getting decent hours in, which is nice. I worked last night, which is usually one of my days off. I don't mind though, because it will add 12.5 hours to my paycheck on Monday. Schweet.

The past few days I've been helping my friend Ci with her car. She needed brakes she said. The "simple" brake job turned out to be much more complicated. Well, let's go back to the beginning....

On Friday of last week, D, Ci's partner called and left a message. She said they wanted to hang out on Saturday. Well, I wanted to hang out too, but work had asked if I could work on Saturday, a day I usually have off. I had already told them yes, so I had to do something.... I called work and re-arranged my schedule so I would be off by 8pm. D called me and I told her that we could hang out.

I worked. I brought a change of clothes so I could go directly to Dream from work. I left work at 8:15pm and arrived at Dream around 8:25. D and Ci were already there, in line. See, Saturday night, from 9p - 10p, the drinks are free, and the first 100 people get in free. It was cold as ass, so there _wasn't_ a line yet. D and Ci saw me arrive, so they got out of their car and we waited in line.

We got in the club and drank a few drinks and talked. Whilst talking, the brake job came up. Also, D wanted me to work on their computer. Then they invited me over after the club. Then D wanted me to spend the night, like a slumber party. I agreed, then we went to Detour and had some food. On the way back to their place, we stopped at Argonaut and picked up a case of beer.

We went back to their place, drank a few beers and worked on their computer. Turns out the problem was that D wanted to play a game, but they game only worked with certain video cards, of which she didn't have one. Oh well.

Then I crashed on their couch.

When I woke up, I went home and changed my clothes and picked up my tools. I went back to their place and then we went to buy brake parts. Ci said that she needed her rear brakes done, so we bought pads for her rear brakes. Then we went back to her place and went to work.

It was a real bitch to get her wheels off. See, her car lived its' first two years in the salt-land that is Michigan. The wheel was literally rusted to the brake rotor, and would not budge. We went back to the parts store and bought a can of PB Blaster at the advice of the counter tech. Damn if it didn't work! I let the wheel soak in WD-40 with no success, and this PB Blaster stuff really did work! So, I get the wheel off, and then I come to a Torx headed bolt that I didn't have the tool for. Before buying another tool, I used my little flashlight and looked at her rear pads. They looked almost brand new! I asked her when she last did her brakes, and she whipped out a receipt saying she had done the rear brakes, and not the front ones, as she had thought. Doh. So it turns out she needs FRONT brakes.

So, we go back to the auto parts store, return the rear pads, get the front pads, check out the Torx tool, get a clamp to compress the caliper, and while there, pick up a side-view mirror for Ci's car and a pair of headlight bulbs for D's truck. I am sure the auto clerk, Marty, was loving us by now. I don't know if she made commission on the parts or not, but if she did, I am sure she loved us!

By the time we get home, it is dark and I don't have a drop light. I install the headlight bulbs in D's truck, then we eat dinner. Dinner was yummy -- D is a professional chef, so we had some home-made alfredo sauce with angel hair pasta, a nice Caesar salad, and for dessert chocolate cake and chocolate ice cream.

I went back the next morning to get to work on the front brakes. Using the PB Blaster again, we loosed the front wheels from the rotors. The front brakes didn't require the Torx bit -- instead, they used a 16mm socket. Sweet. Or so I thought. The bolts that hold the caliper on won't budge. More rust. I PB Blastered the bolts, and while I let it soak in, I put on her side-view mirror. Then I went back to the bolts. I couldn't get them to budge. I used a hammer, a bar for leverage, etc., all to no avail. Blah.

We went back to see Marty at the parts store and asked if she had any ideas. She suggested we go up the street to a small shop that she deemed trustworthy to ask if they could hit the bolts with an impact wrench. So, we go to the shop, where we are greeted by a 67-year old Korean man. He says that he will charge just one hour of labor to put on the pads, so we told him to do it.

A few minutes after the mechanic takes apart the brakes, he comes in and tells us that: 1) the pads we bought are the wrong type -- the correct ones have some sort of sensor coming out of the pads; 2) The rotors were bad as well as the pads; 3) he couldn't just turn the rotors, if he did so, they would be out of spec; 4) the reason Ci needed brakes in the first place is that one of her calipers had failed, and that we would need to replace both calipers.

So, Ci and I walked back to Marty with this information. She looked up the calipers in her computer system, and the earliest she could get them would be in three days, because they would have to be shipped from Roanoake, Virginia. She did have the rotors and the correct pads with the embedded sensors, though. So we bought the parts, and took what we had back to the shop.

The mechanic took the parts, and asked us where the calipers were. When we told him it would take 3 days, we also asked if we could just come back with them when they came in. He said that he wouldn't put the old ones back on. The old Korean man called a few parts places and found a set of calipers at a NAPA. But, because it was a holiday (MLK's birthday), they weren't delivering, so we would have to go pick them up.

Well, my car was back at Ci's place, which was quite a walk, so the old Korean man says he will give me a lift to get my car, but that his back seat was full of stuff, so only he and I could go. I found out why he said this. On the way to pick up my car, he grabbed my arm and said I was "meaty," LOL. I told him I'd rather be strong, but he said that he "likes his women meaty." Then he tried to hold my hand.

As he is doing this, he is telling me of his non-existent sex life with his wife. Apparently, the last time they "did it" was 6 years ago, and he couldn't finish. Because of this, he said he "lost face" with his wife and hasn't tried since. Um, thanks. I needed to know that.

I successfully avoided him trying to hold my hand, so then he puts his hand on my leg. Just as he is putting his hand on my leg, I tell him he is missing his turn. He stops abruptly in the middle of the intersection and makes the turn. Scary. Thank goodness my car is right there -- if we had spent much more time in his car, who knows what he might have touched next!

I got my car and went back to the shop to pick up Ci. We got directions to the NAPA, and went there and paid for the calipers. Then we had to go to their Will-Call window at their parts warehouse, which was even further away. At this point, I commented to Ci that the whole situation felt to me like we were rats in one of those mazes....

So we bring the parts back, and the mechanic calls us over to look at a few more things.... Apparently, one of the wires that the brake pad plugs into is missing. In searching for it, he noticed one of the engine pulleys was a little loose. The old man called a Mercury dealer to ask about the wire. While he's on the phone, the mechanic says that he will have to finish Ci's car the next day, because it is almost 6pm. The old Korean came out to tell us that the Mercury dealer wanted $1336.00 for the wire that ran from the brake pad to the brake sensor box. Riiight. We'll buy a gross of those, please. We skipped it and the pulley. The pulley wasn't even squeaking yet. I told Ci that when it starts to squeak, it will be time to replace it.

So, we went back to Ci's place in my car, leaving her car there for the night. What a freakin' adventure.

I need to call her to find out if she got her car back and if it is in good shape....

My legs are sore from all of the kneeling and wrenching I did working on her car. I went to get out of my seat at work last night, and I almost couldn't stand. I need some Tylenol.

Well, it is 6:20am. Time for me to hit the hay so I can get up at 2pm and go back to work.

'Night. Or, morning. Or, whatever.

_erin

Link/Tip of the day:

You're not Dave Chapelle, and you're not funny.

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More boring stuff about my life....

Dammit. It's been a while now. I am being a slacker recently.

Jackie and I broke up. It was coming, I guess. I told her the truth and she got mad at me. What should I have done, lied to her?

Work goes.

My friends Ci and D called me to hang out on Saturday, but I had to work. Bummer. They wanted to go to Dream, the only club I've ever been escorted out of (long story, LOL!).

I am going through all of my CD collection and creating MP3s out of the songs that I like. I am creating two versions of the MP3s -- a high-quality version for listening on the computer, and a lower-quality version for use on the iPod. The iPod has limited space (I've already run out, eek!) so I need to compress the songs a bit in order to fit more songs on there. So far I've gone through about 1/4 of the CDs that I have, and that took three nights.

In the process of going through my CDs, I am "re-discovering" some artists I haven't listened to in quite a while. ::yay!::

When I got home from work this morning, I had the beginnings of a headache. Now it is a full-on headache. Ouch. I need to get to sleep, but the pounding, throbbing head will make it hard.

_erin