I’ve let it slip too long.

And I apologize.  Especially to those who check in here from time to time,  thinking I might have something worthwhile to say.

As if.

Life goes on.  There are a few things that happen, but it’s mostly the “same old”,  so I tend to leave the blog alone.  Tomorrow, (‘cause tonight I’m feeling a bit “rode hard and put up wet”),  I’ll throw up some pictures and maybe add a word or two.

Thanks for your indulgence.

I’ll be back.

 

And thanks for looking.

Well, that was a day.

I’ll just post a couple pictures, and you can figure out how we spent our exciting morning.

 

Now the thing is,  we posted the ad to say that we were starting at eight,  and of course,  there are always those who show up early. 

I have to say,  I was a little crusty.  When you ask,  “Am I too early?”, and you know full bloody well that you are, (7:15?  seriously?) you might expect to get a slightly terse reply.

Oh,  and we were duly warned about the old ladies.  They’re the worst.  I don’t mind haggling, but don’t be a pain in the a$$.

Anyway,  it was fine.  Really.  Not many people haggled.  Still seemed to be left with a lot of stuff,  but the upstairs room is just about cleaned out. Well,  of the stuff that’s not supposed to be there.

Managed to sell off my old single stage dust collector,  a couple palm sanders and an old drill.  All very old tools,  and worth every bit of the two bucks or so that I got for each.  Well,  a little more for the dust collector,  but I was happy to see it get trundled down the driveway.

Palm sanders are pretty much an abomination,  and I simply refuse to use them anymore,  since it doesn’t take much to make parts of me ache,  so I sure as heck would just as soon not go out of my way.  Besides,  I’m thinking I need a new random orbit sander, much like the one we bought for Daughter Number One’s household.  I had sander envy right around Christmas time,  but whatever.

Garage sales are way too much work,  as far as I’m concerned. 

Gawd,  seems like we were at it for days.  Pricing things.  Hauling out cr*p er,  I mean,  fine outstanding sought after items.    It’s all about those fine outstanding sought after items.  That nobody actually buys. 

I’m always surprised though at what people do buy.  Fake flower arrangements for example,  or as I like to refer to them as,  “dust collectors”.   Does that count as a segue?  Maybe not.

Had three of them.  They all went.  Full price.  I’m not kidding.

DVDs?  Not a one.  Guess everyone watches Netflix,  or one of their brethren.  Or they download media files.  They are among the things that won’t be going to the Reuse Centre.

That’s the deal,  see.  Once it’s outside for the garage sale,  it can never come back into the house.  There are some exceptions,  like the DVDs.  Oh and,  my little camp stoves.  Need some serious money to dampen the sentimental value.  Everything has a price,  and sentiment is pricey.

 

Now I’m starting to ramble.  And not saying much.

 

I’m out.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

If you have a feather.

You could knock me over with it.

For the last couple of days I haven’t had too much to say except that,  I really should make sure to re-read previous posts before even opening Live Writer, since I was just a wee bit repetitive recently. 

I beg your indulgence.

I was just now out in “the shop” mucking around with the end cabinet, installing shelf supports,  that kind of thing, when the phone rang.

Much easier done if it’s on its side.

 

Having that handy dandy “call display” out there is certainly the way to go.  And who was it?  Why, it was the yet unnamed dealership where the defective part was installed.

Some lady.  Said her name.  “Leslie”?  “Lucy”? 

Doesn’t matter.

Had some paperwork in front of her.  Wanted to know if I would prefer to come and pick up my money,  or have a cheque sent to the house? 

Yes, I’m not kidding.  They came through.

I do recall reading something about the boss wanting to change their “corporate culture”.  I guess it’s started to trickle down.

Of course,  since I’d really rather not have to go back there,  I opted for the “send it to my house” program.  I did have to eat the extra cost of the tow,  but that was my choice.  I suppose I could have pressed them for the 27 bucks,  but sometimes you just need to call it a day.

She also mentioned in passing that the “regional warranty manager”  was by,  and had given the “go-ahead”.  See now,  this is why it costs you so much to go to these places.  How many freakin’ managers do they have?

 

 

So I’ll be checking the mail. 

 

Bit of an interesting day here at the Ponderosa,  weather wise.  Had some thunder and lightening,  along with a couple torrential downpours.

I hear they had a great night on the water last night.  I wasn’t out. 

Instead,  T.C. and I had stopped by St. Mary’s Hospital in Kitchener yesterday afternoon to check on my oldest brother who it turns out,  had had a mild heart attack some time towards the end of last week. 

 

 

Hard to pin it down in terms of when exactly things started to go south, since the symptoms were at first rather vague.  Not feeling quite right,  but then some pressure in his chest.  Took himself to the emergency in Goderich,  and they kept him there.

The heart Doc basically said,  “Usually when guys have that situation,  they keel over.”   I’m paraphrasing of course,  but that about sums it up.

Anyway,  that’s where we spent our afternoon.  They had him there for an Angiogram,  and it turns out that he’ll need bypass surgery.  Luckily enough,  even though he has a couple nearly complete blockages,  there was no damage to the heart muscle.   They put him on Plavix and ASA right away,  and he’ll have to stop taking that five days before the surgery, so it could be a couple weeks. 

Nothing much else new here at the Ponderosa. 

Well,  I did take care of a mouse that came out from under a cabinet in the shed the other day.  Gave me a bit of a start.  Hate when they dash out like that.

I have zero tolerance for them.  They crap everywhere, chew on things for no reason that’s apparent to me anyway,  and could very easily stay the hell outdoors.  It’s nice out!  What are you doing in my shed? 

 

That’s it.  I’m empty.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

The jury is out.

Well,  there has been some “fun” over the last few days with car issues.  I really and truly think there wouldn’t have been any problems at all if we had stayed completely clear of the GM dealership here in town and simply ignored the dire warnings having to do with the THREE recalls on my daughter’s Saturn.  

Oh,  and there used to be a joke that Saturn stood for “Supposedly American, though unfortunately really Nissan.”   Too bad that wasn’t really the case.  But let’s not get all the die hard GM fans worked up into a lather. 

One of the recalls had to do with some sort of potentially dangerous situation with the steering/ignition assembly,  and apparently people have died when their cars have suddenly quit working and flown off the road. Something to that effect.

So fine,  don’t really want my kid ending up dead at the side of the road,  so we took it to the Stealership.

And,  this is how it looked the next day.

 

Such a great way to spend my Friday morning. 

Not.

Something up with that steering alright.   Too bad it was working just fine until the dealer…er,  Stealership got a hold of it.

Naturally,  (in keeping with their Corporate Culture)  the Service Manager didn’t think the coffee grinder kind of noise it was making every time the steering wheel was turned had ANY thing to do with their fine outstanding work,  so I naturally had it taken to a mechanic I could trust.

I mean,  why would I take it back to them??

 

Little plug here:

Took it to these guys.  SWC Automotive.   Highly recommended.

They’ve done service work on the Merc.  Didn’t take all day,  like the Mercedes Stealership,  and the bill was about a third of what it would have been had I gone there.

But I digress.

 

So sure enough,  here’s the part they replaced under the recall.

And it is indeed “to do with the power steering”.  It’s not supposed to do this:

 

Oops.

I think that shaft needs to be a little beefier.  D’ya think?

That’s what was making that coffee grinder noise.  It was the motor trying to spin the shaft.

So I paid a little visit to the Stealership this morning with their part in a box,  and the invoice that I had to take care of on Saturday.  Good thing the boys at SWC were willing to sort it out on Saturday.  Otherwise I’d be doing some chauffeuring,  or there would be a whole lot of scrambling for rides.

 

Anyway,  we’ll see what comes of it.  I’m certainly not going to try and tell them how to run their little empire. 

Oh and look,  let’s all “Buy American”.    Seems that “American” is spelled,  “JAPAN”.  

Wasn’t when I went to school.  Some sort of new spelling.

 

Stay tuned.

Not the day I had planned.

And that’s not to say I had any big plans.  I’m not a big planner,  so to speak.

Anyway,  things have been fairly quiet around here since getting back from our “Guys Weekend”.  I should say though, that I’ve had a “beer moratorium” ever since getting home.  There are quotas after all,  and I’m pretty sure I met and exceeded mine for at least a week or three.

 

The above sad looking thing is my daughter’s car.  It’s an 04 Saturn Ion.  It’s hasn’t been a terrible car,  but I’ve had better.

Well,  as some of you may be aware,  GM has had a few issues with recalls in the last well, forever,  and there were three recalls that were “urgently needed to be addressed”.  

I’m paraphrasing,   but you get the idea.

Oh and,  when inquiries were first made about these recalls,  none of the dealerships had any parts. 

Such a smooth operation.

So fine,  this was all sorted out yesterday at the stealership,  and today lo and behold,  the very next morning,  there’s a problem. 

I don’t believe in coincidences, so when the steering wheel won’t even turn and makes a horrid coffee grinder type of sound when you try to do so,  I think it *might* have something to do with the work they did on the steering system yesterday??   This is despite assurances from the “Service Manager”  that it couldn’t possibly be the case.

Whatever.

We didn’t choose to have the car towed back there anyway,  since whatever monkey was working on it,  is probably still working there,  and we just don’t need that grief.  So it went to a place where I actually trust the owner and the mechanic.  I’ve taken the Merc there,  and they do a fine job.

Bottom line,  I just don’t like dealerships.  There are too many monkeys running around. 

You can take issue with that if you want,  but I’m sorry,  (My Blog.  My opinion.)

I want to TALK to the mechanic who is doing the work,  and not some “service representative” sitting at some desk.  Do you talk to your dentist?  Or do you only talk to the receptionist?   Think about it.

 

Anyway,  we’ll find out what’s wrong in due time.  I can actually phone where we sent the car and not have to punch a bunch of numbers to try and get through to someone’s “mailbox”.   If I really wanted to,  I could wait a few minutes,  and the guy who answers the phone would put the mechanic on.  What a concept!

 

Oh and,  I’m not going to mention any “stealership” names,  but let’s just say that one of my “Guys Weekend” buddies just had a less than stellar experience there.   

We’ll leave it at that.

 

That’s my little rant.  Feel free to talk amongst yourselves.

 

I was going to talk about sailing on the new boat,  but I have some other stuff to do this afternoon,  so I need to put down the keyboard.

I’m out.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

Oh,  and I just hit “publish”,  and all seems to be right in Blog Land.   This is good.

 

 

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