Wheels

Last night we got snow of the likes I haven't seen since living in New York. The official amount is 15.3 inches in a 24-hour period. It was accompanied by thunder, lighting and low visibility that made the street lights look pale and far away.

The snow started at around 6:00 PM while I was at work and caught me without a ounce of weight in the bed, not even a tube of sand. We had to get some grocery shopping done so snow or not I went shopping after work and I'm glad I did. After barely getting home I awoke early to find our street and driveway buried.

Joe had his Explorer in the garage and couldn't even get fully out of the garage much less get to work. Thankfully they closed shop for the day, my work place closed as well. Heck, almost every business closed. Even the University of Missouri Columbia Campus closed on account of snow for the third time in its entire history.

Tomorrow I'm going to walk the 5 miles into town and try to buy a scoop shovel. I’ve got no choice as Monday will come, everyone will have to go back to work and this snow will be by no means melted.

And if I don't find that S-10 body a Jeep is starting to look like a reasonable pick.

Wow what a great evening. Last night a friend and I drove 120 west to Kansas City for a little get together at Sam and Michelle's home to see Three Pints Gone (http://www.3pintsgone.com/). For those of you who like Celtic folk music this band is quite the treat, so check them out.

And what has this to do with Wheels... I'm getting there. My friend Joe whipped out his laptop and I saw for the first time Microsoft Street and Trips.

Generally speaking laptops are not the greatest computers. The only reason to own one over a desktop is if you travel a lot on business and or cannot live without E-mail. Microsoft Street and Trips or another G.P.S. system may become the third reason to own one.

Joe doesn't get to Kansas City often and for myself it's a once or twice a year thing. It's a big sprawling city with a lot of ways to get lost. About 30 miles out we pulled into a truck stop and Joe set the G.P.S. sensor on the dash and launched Street and Trips. Almost instantly the program we were on a map showing our location. Typing in the address a route quickly appeared marked in green. The software gave us distance and a estimated time to arrive plus a turn by turn break down.

If you travel and own a laptop you should take a good look, you may never be lost again.

What a rough couple of weeks starting with the snow and going downhill from there. I was hit with a computer worm that would not give up. Thinking a change of antiviral software might do the trick I went out and paid 110 bucks for Norton System Works Deluxe 2006 (money I didn't have to spare) and hoped the high dollar software would save me. Not only did it fail to save me from the worm, Norton Ghost hung up and the resulting mess caused me to have to re-install Windows.

Thank You Norton (sarcasm)

I've used and loved Norton's back in the early years of computing, but it's become a fat cow. So here we go scrounging the corners for my disks and re-installing software and while it's yet finished, the machine is back and online.

I'm doing this while working overtime. Not enough overtime to get fully caught up mind you, just enough to stretch out the misery. You can eat a sandwich every day and still slowly starve to death.

On the way to work the truck broke tossing the belt. On the way home from work I ran out of battery juice, reduced to driving without lights at night. My Chevy S-10 has a single serpentine belt. This belt is tightened by a spring loaded idler pulley. Overall it's a good idea as you never have to adjust the belt tension and even changing the belt is reduced to a 5 minute quick process. However someone in the past replaced the pulley that comes in contact with belt with what has to be the cheapest made part available. Someone installed a plastic pulley with pot metal bushing. I've seen better parts installed on lawnmowers. After just getting home I pulled battery and put it on a slow charge and removed the belt tensioner assembly. A quick trip to the local parts store and 24 dollars later I installed the new steel pulley from Gates Manufacturing which uses a roller bearing.

Inkjet went dry, just at the wrong moment. It's not like it was a crisis, it was only 18 dollars to have refilled. But it was 18 bucks on to of buying software, fixing the truck, Christmas shopping which I still have not finished and tight schedules because of the overtime and damn it I just did not need one more aggervation on my plate to deal with.

Last and certainly not least my left knee is giving me problems. Christmas is not turning out well this year

As a father facing 50 the time spent bonding with my two son's is at a premium. When it comes to bonding, there is little like working on a car or truck to cement those bonds. My oldest son drives a 1993 Dodge Shadow. It's his first car, a family hand me down with a lot of miles. Like any 13 year old car, it needs a little love and attention.

During the last cold snap my son attempted to roll the window down and the glass slid down inside. The practical sort he knew one quick cure, ducktape.

Having never done this job before he asked for my help in opening up the door. It's a simple, straight forward job yet it can intimate someone who's never done it before. Last Sunday we opened the door and discovered door lift channel broke. The door lift channel is riveted to the bottom of the door window. While this will be a simple job, getting this part wasn't going to be easy.

When it comes to belts, sparkplug, brakes and suspension parts you can walk into any part store and have it by the next day by the latest. Try and order body parts and even the largest parts jobbers can look very small. With some diligent searching we found the part online and it should arrive this week. Next Sunday, we will have it fixed and something else, a shared moment of two guys fixing a car.