Weekend in Review

Since, I have several things to post about, I felt that title fit best. While getting ready for church today, I found a very cute situation developing in the bathroom and snapped a quick pic to share:

Michelle was doing her hair and makeup, Jacob was playing with his toothbrush, and Lizzy was enjoying a bathroom-floor adventure of finding new things to put in her mouth that at times can rival what you find in a toilet in terms of gross-factor. Isn't family life great!

Here's Jacob quietly looking at a dinosaur (which he affectionately calls "saucasores") coloring book on a relaxing Sunday afternoon -- too cute for words:


Here is something I saw today that sums up autumn in Kansas City pretty well:


This final picture tells the story of my weekend adventure:

It started Friday night on my way home from the hospital in Lexington, MO. I had just got done filling up my tank at $1.79 a gallon (jealous?--don't be, that was the only good thing about that evening). I had just finished a 12hr shift in the ER and wanted nothing more than to come home and enjoy a half-hour with the family before going to bed. Well, the Honda which I had been driving event-free for months decides it doesn't want to start. So, I thought "Fine, not bad, I'll call AAA and get a jump-start. It's probably just a bad battery due to leaving the lights on one-too-many times. I'll be set back about a half-hour. I'll just pickup a new battery tomorrow."

So, I got ahold of AAA and was told that it would take about 45 min for the person to get there. It got down to about 36 degrees that night, neither my car nor my heater were running, and I was still in scrubs from the hospital which don't hold in heat very well. I did have my winter coat however (luckily I park far enough away from the hospital that I felt the need to bring it that night). It was still pretty cold waiting for help to arrive. The guy gets there, hooks up the starterpack, starts the car, has me sign the form, and then bids me farewell.

I get into the car and turn on the headlights . . . and the car dies. Of course, the car had only been running a couple of minutes and the battery still didn't have enough juice to start. I was also kicking myself because we had a portable starter pack in the other car which I recently took out of the Honda. I figured at this point that it was most likely the alternator which was bad which meant that I wouldn't be making it home on my own that night. So, I called AAA-- again, and I had them call that person back out for a tow. So, I fought another 30 minutes of trying not to freeze too stiff until the guy gets there. Well, my membership only pays for the first 3 miles of towing, and I still had 40+ miles to go, so this was not a cheap option but it was one of very few. The other option was to have them tow it back to their shop and have it fixed there. I figured that I knew my way around the car engine enough to buy the alternator myself at more-than-likely a cheaper price than they would find, swap it out without having to pay for labor, not force michelle to pack up the sleeping kids at 11pm and come get me then drive back out there again at a later date, and come out better-off money-wise. So, I sucked up the initial cost of towing it back to the house.

I was relieved to finally get home and sleep in a warm bed next to the woman I love so dear. So, Saturday I had the privilege of figuring out how to get the car with a dead alternator into the garage so I could do the work without freezing into a perfectly shaped human popsicle. The alternator had barely enough current to keep the spark plugs working, so any other electrical item running would cause it to die. The problem I then had is everytime I closed the driver's door it would sputter and die because of the automatic shoulder harness (which I could not turn off).

Well, I now had the help of our portable battery from the other car which up until that moment I was using to start the car. So, I thought if it's got enough juice to start the engine it should have enough to give extra power to the electrical sysem to keep the spark plugs working while the stupid shoulder harness did it's thing. The problem was that I could not drive with the hood up-- kinda hard to see. So, I figured out a way to situate the portable battery over the engine so that I wouldn't get too warm nor fall out nor disconnect from the terminals and lower the hood enough to see where I was going. Well, I felt like Jed Clampett for a few minutes . . . but IT WORKED!!!

Well, I began to get on a roll, and things were working like clockwork. The alternator was easy to disconnect and dismount (socket wrenches are a God-send BTW, a must-have when working on cars), and this was accomplished within a half-hour. I was feeling pretty good about myself, until I realized that while I had gotten it loose from the engine, I had NOT figured out how to get it out of the engine compartment. I knew it would be a long drawn-out nightmare getting it out the top because of all the stuff in the way that I would spend hours disconnecting and reconnecting, so I then decided on trying from the bottom of the car which while still very cramped for space and still requiring the removal of additional hardware, it would be the lesser of the two headaches (much like the decision-making process for this 2008 presidential election...but I digress).

About 3 hours later of trial'n'error with battling very stubborn partially rusted bolts in a 18yr old car engine along with the purchase of $6 14mm 3/8" drive deep socket, the additional hardware was removed and the alternator slipped out like a charm! That picture is the old alternator that gave me so much grief this weekend. The car runs like a dream now -- like any rusted-out 18yr old car without A/C, power-steering, power windows/locks, and an annoying automatic shoulder harness would. Did I mention the annoying shoulder harness (that lovely contraption that came and left in the early 90's car models).

So folks, the moral of the story-- learn to laugh at yourself, don't take yourself or your situation too seriously, learn to enjoy the adventure while battling through trials, keep your stick on the ice, don't throw rocks at old people, and make sure you tell your loved ones that you love and appreciate them-- they can never hear that too often.