4-29-01

Here is my list of things I would pay more attention to if I had to buy a $3000 used car again:

• Ask to see the receipts for repairs or maintenance to:
  • Timing belt
  • Wheel bearings
  • Fuel filter
  • CV joints
  • Muffler
  • Air filter
  • Coolant
  • Distributor cap and rotor
  • Front end alignments
• Ask who their mechanic was, or if they did their own work, do they have the $60 mechanics book for the car.

Because I didn't ask these questions, I am spending at least $500 dollars answering them now. Yesterday I bought $220 worth of parts, including the $65 dollar cap/rotor/wires set, the air filter, the fuel filter, the differential gear oil, spark plugs, oil filters and a special “T” wrench for the bizarre location of the spark plugs. Tomorrow it is going to my mechanic for a front engine seal which includes replacing the timing belt, the water pump and any idler bearings that may be bad. Yesterday I tried to replace the spark plugs and wires. I got them out no problem, but after I had put the first new one in, the socket got stuck on the spark plug. What's weird about this engine is that the spark plugs are accessed down at the bottom of a 6 inch tube that runs through the head, or top, of the engine. I had a spark plug socket with a rubber liner in the back that held onto the spark plug as I lowered it down the tube. I screwed the spark plug in, but when I tried to pull the sparkplug socket off the plug, it separated from my 6 inch extension. Peering down the 6 inch tube at the socket stuck on the plug, I experienced a moment of panic. Visions of tow trucks coming to tow my pretty little “new car” off to the repair shop, or worse, the junk yard, raced through my mind until I realized that this must be a common problem. I simply had the wrong tool. Off to the parts store I went, again, to buy a “T” wrench. This is a clever tool that has a better plug grabber socket, a U-joint instead of a removable extension, and a narrow handle on the top that prevents you from over tightening the plug. They also recommended some anti seizing goo to put on the threads for the aluminum block...or head...not sure which and some silicone grease for the plug boots.
 
Back at the ranch, I found that the new tool worked wonderful. After the plugs I tackled the air cleaner. Forty five minutes later I realized why the previous owner had never changed it. Until you figure out the trick, it appears to be quite impossible to remove. Underneath the air cleaner I caught a glimpse of the fuel filter. Like the distributor cap, rotor and air filter, it also had the markings of original equipment: 149,000 miles old. On the phone he had told me that he believed in taking care of cars, and didn't understand people who didn't. Apparently believing and doing are two different things. He may not have been lying about changing the oil though, the spark plugs looked quite healthy, no build up of oil or other signs of problems.
 
After removing the air cleaner assembly and the charcoal cannister I was finally able to access the fuel filter. It was the scary kind that is connected with bent metal tubing, similar to a brake line. I'd been warned to take extreme care with the formed, bent metal tubing, or have very deep pockets. The metal in the connecting threads had fused over the years and miles. Even Clint with his superman biceps couldn't loosen the nuts. When I was almost ready to give up, I soaked both top and bottom in WD-40 and took a break on the couch. When I came back, I found a better angle to position the wrenches, and with Clint giving me counter pressure to avoid bending the metal tubing, was able to break the nuts loose. It got easier after that. I pulled the battery and scraped off the one quarter inch of corrosion underneath, then, for my final hurrah before getting it ready for the “real mechanic” in the morning, I bled the brakes. The entire time I was working outside on the car this weekend, it was raining or blowing or both. I had rigged a tarp from the house over the front of the car, but the rain managed to creep along the ground, or drip off the car, either way, I was laying or walking in mud. Why do I do this? Because I was too inexperienced at buying used and got taken advantage of by a slick yuppie. But once the damage was done, I had to make the repairs as cheaply as possible, and no one works as cheaply as me.

4-26-01

“Let's get in the car and talk about this,” I said, “I don't want to flash all this money around”.
 
K agreed and we sat down in his car, or the car that used to be his, since I was making him an offer. I pulled out the envelope full of one hundred dollar bills the bank had given me.
 
“So, the mechanic who inspected the car here said it has a slow leak on the seal behind the timing belt. That is slowly wrecking the belt, which you've admitted you can't remember changing in 100,000 miles. That will cost me around $400 tops to fix. You want $3500 for the car...Now don't take this as an insult, but I am just going to throw out a number and see what you think. How does $2900 dollars sound, cash right now?”
 
K winced, as if I'd zapped him with a cattle prod.
 
“The wife and I were talking about how low we would go last night, and we agreed on $3400. But that was before we knew about the timing belt...how about $3200 and we call it even?”
 
“Alright, how about if I just count out this money, so you can see it and think about it,” I said as I counted out 31 - 100 dollar bills into his waiting hands.
 
“The car needs some serious work, the tires are 80% worn, both front headlights are punctured with stones, at $100 a piece, the cv joint on one side is throwing grease, and the timing belt and bearings could cost as much as $400. Do you want to go ask your wife what she thinks?”
 
“I really don't want to talk to my wife right now,” K said with a grimace.
 
“Alright,” I said, handing over another hundred, “let's call it a deal so we can both get back to work.”
 
After work I faced the weird problem of getting two cars home, with only one driver. I put the new one in the parking garage and walked up to Lloyd and Wilsons Automotive repair where I had left the rust bucket. I drove over to Sue's school, parked and roller bladed the 6 miles back downtown to the garage, arriving at dusk, just as the nightlife was revving up. 30 minutes later, as I backed down the driveway, the whole family peered through the front window drapes to see our "new" 1991 Toyota Corolla station wagon.

4-22-01

The door to the sleazy used car lot office opened as I walked into the small lot, and a tall man in a cheap suit came down the stairs toward me.
 
“How ya doing today, my name's Pat,” he said, thrusting out his hand, “and you are?”
 
“My name is Mark,” I said slowly, wondering if there was any harm in him knowing my name. I'd parked the rust bucket a block away, and in my printer overalls (for crawling under cars) he was probably having a hard time pigeon holing me.
 
“So, what can I help you with today,” he said expansively, gesturing at the 15 shiny, freshly detailed cars in his small lot.
 
“I'm interested in this Accord here. What can you tell me about it?”
 
“Well now, this little car is a real gem,” he said, as he got in, turned it on and popped the hood. I walked around to the front, opened the hood and looked for the prop. Feeling kind of stupid, and wondering if Honda's had a cantilevered hood, I stood there puzzled as to how the hood was supposed to stay up.
 
“Here you are,” he said, holding up the hood prop in his hand as if it was perfectly normal for it to be in the trunk. He stuck it in various holes near the radiator, trying to figure out which one it fit in. Finally I asked him to simply hold up the hood for me while I inspected the engine with my pen light. For 150,000 miles it was strikingly clean, clean enough to eat off in fact, and smelled like finely scented soap. The car idled a little rough, like it was running rich or had retarded timing.
 
“This car sounds like it has a carburetor,” I said, studying the unfamiliar engine, “I thought this model year had fuel injection.”
 
“Oh, I'm pretty sure that's fuel injection,” he said, “isn't that the injector system there?” pointing toward what looked like the round canister an air cleaner goes in on top of a carburetor. I took a closer look and recognized a carburetor very similar to the one on my rust bucket.
 
“Hmmmmm, this looks an awful lot like a carburetor,” I said. “and it sounds like it needs adjustment.”
 
“Well, you could be right, I'm no mechanic.”
 
On closer examination with my pen light, I could see small areas the detailer had been unable to reach with his steam cleaner and solvent brush. They showed up as thick islands of oil encrusted grime next to the shiny steam cleaned engine castings. The coolant hoses had a coating of fresh oil that made the old oxidized rubber look brand new, in a cheezy sort of way. We shut the hood and I crawled under the car, shining my light up into the chassis, looking for rust. The badly worn tires had an obscenely thick coating of the cheezy oil and coated my hands when I leaned on them. Seen from the bottom, the car went from cherry clean to run down and filthy. The ball joints and transmission had the road grime of every one of those 150 thousand miles, and looked like they hadn't seen a mechanic since leaving Tokyo. The muffler was on it's last legs and the grime under the engine was soaked with a steady seep of engine oil. Still, I was reasonably impressed with the car. Even with the doubtful maintenance, it was in better shape than my rust bucket. The engine's layout and design had a much more modern and well thought out appearance than my '82 Tercel.
 
“If you want to see another nice engine, take a look at this '95 Civic over here, my wife traded this one in. I know the history of that car inside and out. ”
 
We left the idling Accord and walked over to an extremely clean white Civic. I marveled at the beautiful design of the engine and intake manifold. The routings of the lines curved around the engine compartment with the precision of a metropolitan train yard. Polished tubing arced elegantly around the compartment, stainless steel tubes and formed rubber hoses branching off with geometric precision to the various engine components.
 
“Boy, those Japanese are sure smart people, we're lucky they don't make military equipment like they did 50 years ago, it would put ours to shame,” I said.
 
“And it goes forever,“ he said, ”why I have an old 81 Civic beater with over 300,000 miles on it. I've never even changed the oil. All I do is pour in a quart every now and then and it just goes and goes. ”
 
“Why don't you change the oil?” I asked puzzled, “My Tercel has 240,000 miles, and I still change it every three thousand miles. That has me wondering how often you changed the oil on your wifes Civic here.”
 
His expression took on the look of someone who has just swallowed a bug as he realized what I was thinking.
 
“Why, it's just a beater, it wouldn't matter if it died...but to get back to the subject at hand, this Civic of my wifes was very well taken care of.”
 
After pondering that little piece of logic, I wandered off to the next in a several mile long string of used car dealers out on South Tacoma Way's infamous “used car row“. There were several nice looking Corollas and Civics at prices at or below the numbers I have seen in private party ads. Not all of the dealers were sleazy, and several seemed quite human. I asked how they could be selling nice used cars at private party prices. They explained that they buy trade-in cars from dealerships at the wholesale rate. These are the cars that are too old and risky for a Dealership to renovate. They take them as trade-ins at below market value. Because they acquired them so cheaply from unsuspecting new car buyers, they can sell them to used car dealerships at a low enough price for a mark up that includes a profit. I was pleased to see and compare a number of similar cars in the model and year I was looking for. To do that private party, I would have had to drive a hundred miles or more in all directions. Still, when I get serious, I plan to buy private party. I've learned I'm a pretty good judge of character and want to use that skill to find a caring car owner.

4-20-01

My week started busy and ended slow. Early in the week I was putting the finishing touches on, and making last minute changes, to a web site we have had in development for a few months. My boss left for the presentation on the East coast on Tuesday, and our client was still bringing in changes on Wednesday. That afternoon we had to burn the site on to a CD and ship it FedEx to New York in time for my boss to present it to the customer Friday morning. I had to make a big change to a tightly wound 8 button JavaScript controlled drop down layer, then apply it to 58 different files using Dreamweavers find and replace function. Fortunately one of the partners came to my rescue, having done that type of large find and replace operation often.
     After that project left on the plane, things got pretty quite. I put together an in house PowerPoint tutorial on using Photoshop 6 and ImageReady 3.0 to make buttons featuring some of the cool tricks this excellent program has to offer. Today I worked on the company web site which is an extremely tightly wound DHTML concept featuring a wrap around bleeding interface with a DHTML scroll bar on the left. It was fun learning how the JavaScript measures the browser window, then dynamically positions the layers according to which brower is reading them.
     Clint had the stomach flu earlier this week, and now Sue has it. I feel fine so far, but can see it coming down the pike. I got my tax refund...now I have to find a quality used car. I've never bought a used car before, other than from my dad. I've owned 4 cars total, and bought 3 of them new. I put 240,000 miles each on the Gremlin and the Caravan by changing the oil every three thousand miles. Now the Windstar has 90,000, and my dad's '82 Tercel, bought from him in '92 with 70,000 miles has 230,000 miles. All of these miles were put on original engines. I stopped in to talk to a mechanic on the way home from work. In talking to him about how to find a good $3000 used car, he made the analogy that cars are like kids: you determine how long a car (or kid) will last during the first few years. If you lavish attention on them from the day they come out of the dealer they can have long happy lives. If, on the other hand, you never change the oil, avoid mechanics and drive with a heavy foot, you could have a problem child. Try to adopt it in mid life and you'll have a handful. He advised me to look for a well maintained Toyota, Honda or Subaru Legacy being sold by the original owner. He said to pay special attention to the owner, and try and gauge how carefully he cared for the car.

4-16-01

My apologies for not writing for 5 days. We went climbing in Leavenworth this weekend, our first trip this year. I am still so tired I can barely think. We were all very rusty and my son Clint had issues with being up high, something he had gotten over last year. In watching him climb, I realized I was expecting too much of him. He has only climbed on top rope and almost entirely on short bolted face climbs. I am also beginning to wonder if he even has the mind set for the sport. It takes a certain kind of personality to climb rock. You need to have a desire for excitement, and not be afraid to step way, way out of your comfort zone. Sue and I talked about it on top of the cliff. She speculated that his lack of boldness on rock is related to his life style during the week. He already jumps his BMX bicycle every few days and may get all the adrenaline he needs without rock climbing. He didn't like the easy friction climbs we started on, saying they were to wide open and exposed, so I took him up a 60 foot hand jam crack. He thought it looked like something he could muscle his way up, and god knows he has plenty of muscles. Unfortunately even Arnold Schwarzenegger couldn't get up this climb without some basic jamming technique. Clint hasn't learned the complex skill of hand jamming and stalled below the overhang.
     After working the move for half an hour he lowered off and Sue tried to clean it for me. She was able to follow it but, because she hasn't climbed much the last few years, had to rest on the rope a lot. If you are not a climber, resting on the rope means she lets go of the cliff. Instead of falling to the ground and dieing a dreadful death as portrayed on TV, she simply hollers at me up on the top of the cliff to take up all the slack in the rope and hold her tight. I lock off my belay device and hold her weight until she is rested enough to climb again. This isn't nearly as hard as it sounds. For one thing, my belay device is attached to my waist harness, so all the strain is taken by my legs, with my hands merely controlling whether the device is locked or not. Plus the friction of the rope as it travels up the rock face adds some holding power of its own. Sue has the technique but doesn't have the upper body strength anymore. It was sad looking over the edge of the cliff at my lovely wife thrashing her way up an overhanging crack. 18 years ago in her climbing prime she led the route. Now, she couldn't even follow it. The trouble was, she had to follow it to remove the gear I had placed for protection while leading the route. The sun was going down, the temperature was dropping 10 degrees every half hour and the wind was sucking the heat out of me like a hot dog stuck in a snow bank. She either had to rescue the gear or I had to rap off and leave $150 worth of protection.
      Like Clint, she had to pull on the friend (spring loaded camming device that grabs the rock like a piton) at the crux, but unlike Clint, she was able to get the perfect jam above the friend and haul herself over the bulge. After 2 people using it for a handhold, the spring loaded cams had opened up backwards. When she lowered me down to try and retrieve the stuck friend, I found the cams so distorted that it would not come out with out disassembly. I had no tools or time for that, with hypothermia waiting in the wings. I said good bye to the little unit that had protected me so reliably for 20 years. Sue belayed me up to the top of the cliff, and I in turn belayed her down to the safety of the firm ground. She placed protection below all the hard moves in case I slipped and I carefully climbed down, removing the last of the protection pieces.
     Before driving out to the campground we stopped in to see my Uncle who lives a mile from the climbing area. I'd called them in the morning to say we would drop in that evening. By the time we got there it was almost dark and they were (quite rightly) worried we had gotten stuck up on the cliffs. They are wonderful people whose children all live hours away and were happy to have some family to visit. They invited us to eat dinner with them and we had some good laughs about old times. They are a happy couple, living out their golden years with a grace that is amazing in a large house they built themselves, blasted back into the rock of the hill side. My uncle has always had a huge funny bone and his wife of 49 years is a perfect Laurel to his Hardy. If Sue and I are half that happy at their age we will be doing well.

4-11-01

Working a lot of overtime lately. Our client has a big presentation to give to his client and we are a big part of the presentation. I've been reading a web design book and visited some of the sites. I got depressed by all the talent out there. I am beginning to wonder if a graphic design education is the only way to learn good design. I don't have any doubt that I can draw or paint with traditional media. But creating digital art that helps to sell a product or service doesn't come easy for me. I do like what I do and all, I'm not complaining...just wondering. One of our programmers feels the web should all be black type on a grey background. I am fond of dark type on white or pastel backgrounds. Art to me is something that ads beauty to your life. While using it to sell seems crass, we all have to make a living, and if someone is willing to pay a designer to add some creative beauty to their selling effort, where's the harm in that? But an artist should focus on creating art, not designing advertising to sell other people's products...or should he? Should I? I need to get out and do some landscape painting on one of these coming dry weekends. It's such a perfect fit for me. When I get going on a good landscape I get in a zone where time and everyday cares are suspended. It's a feeling of...purpose fullfilled...destiny? Words can't describe it. The results speak for themselves.

4-8-01

I'm making progress on my diet again. I thought I had a downward trend before, but soon put the pounds back on. This time around I decided to stop eating. All food ever does is make me fat. I am exercising as much as my worn out old joints will let me. Food was the only culprit in sight. I was simply taking in more calories than I was putting out. I think that has been my problem since way before I got this sit down job. In reading some of my entries from my days as an active press operator, I noticed I was fighting the same 16 pounds of excess I have now. My latest diet scheme is based on being constantly hungry. I read somewhere that if you never go long enough between meals to feel true hunger, your body loses track of when it really needs to eat. You eat more out of boredom, stress or habit. Or, if you're like me, you eat whenever food presents itself, like doughnuts by the coffee maker at work, or cookies at the gas station. Reading this was sort of an epiphany for me. I realized I couldn't remember the last time I had been truly hungry. For the last 2 weeks, I have been eating half servings at all my meals, with absolutely positively no snacking...ever. I eat a boiled egg or half a bowl of granola for breakfast, an apple and a cheese sandwich at lunch, and at dinner, I eat a small plate full of whatever Sue is cooking, with no or minimal second helpings.
     I am hungry all the time, even after dinner. As before, the pounds have come off, from 170 down to 164, but this time they came off gradually instead of in a weekend of fasting. When the hunger overwhelms me, I have a cup of tea or coffee. It seems to be an attitude thing. As long as I look on the hunger as my friend, I can live with it in my life. Can I keep it up...or down as it were? Time will tell. Climbing season is here and we will be out there humping our rock gear up the steep trails the cliffs. Nothing was more natural than stripping off our shirts to cool off before beginning the climb. I'll never be 20 again, but I think a reasonably firm body is still attainable.
     We have had typical spring weather this weekend. A few hours of sun, then an hour of rain, followed by brisk wind and more sun. I took two 30 minute bike rides up the steep roads nearby and Sue ran along this morning while I roller bladed around the development. I wrapped up and shipped off my taxes the e-file way, repaired our 16 year old, 4 man camping tent and cleaned up some loose ends on this web site. Last night Lisa and I looked at some of our old slides. I don't dig out the old projector very often. But last night I had this hair brained idea that I could project some of our best images (all slides) on the screen, shoot them with the digital and load them into the computer. It didn't work, but I did get to spend some quality time with Lisa who loves looking at the old family photos of her and Clint as toddlers. Sue and I captured some truly gifted images of a couple of very cute kids (no bias here). We couldn't ever afford a professional photographer back then, so we took a couple classes in photography, kept my two 35 mm Pentaxs loaded and shot pictures whenever they were having fun. Usually we were lucky to get three or four good shots in 36. But over the years, you can fill up a lot of carousels with those good shots. Some day I will get a film scanner. Hp makes a nice one for three hundred something that will even do 4x5 transparencies.
     Clint discovered the game of pool at a friends house. I'm thinking about squeezing a cheap ping pong table into the house as a way of keeping the kids around more. I loved the game when I was their age, playing it with my friends until I showed some talent, then challenging the adults at family gatherings. My uncle and I would have serious games, competitions that were more battle than game every Thanksgiving. He could beat me in my junior high years, but as he grew older, and I grew up it became a more evenly matched duel, and one the whole family looked forward to.

4-6-01

I had a project due in the morning yesterday and my mouse wouldn't move. It would move normally horizontally, but not up and down. That's not quite right. It moved up, but only in tiny increments if I spun the trackball around and around very much like a slipping clutch in a car. I shot an email off to Kensington and swapped the slipping 1 year old mouse with it's newer twin brother from home. That worked perfectly. Today, I got a friendly email from tech support with a link to a very detailed web page with explicit instructions and pictures on how to take apart and clean the $80 mouse. I had heard they made a good product and had excellent tech support. When push came to shove, they were ready to ship me a new one, no hesitation. But the cleaning worked beautifully. I've seen the insides of a lot of mice, but this one is in a class by itself. The large heavy ball rolls on stainless steel bearings which have reflective grooved sides. Tiny lights shine on the grooves. The moving reflections are captured and magnified by the miniature 3 millimeter wide lens (removable for cleaning) and sent to a mirror like light sensor 1 inch away. When I see clever design like this, it renews my faith in the human race.
     Ever since I started working here, I've listened to the crew play foosball at quitting time in the rec room. I tried it once or twice, but sucked so bad I didn't want to repeat the experience. It's a sport most commonly learned through long hours spent in taverns or sports bars. I look down on it for that reason, never having enjoyed the life of a lounge lizard. But listening to them whooping and hollering night after night I began to realize I was missing a good time. Occasionally I stopped to watch for a while on my way out and noticed one of the company partners wasn't quite as good as the others. I asked him how he could stand to play with the rest of the crew, since they were so much better.

“Well Mark,”he said, “you just have to be able to handle the testosterone as they strut around after the game.” He took a few amusing strides with his legs wide apart and his hands cupping an imaginary pair of cantaloupe sized balls.

“If you can ignore all that crap and concentrate on learning the game, you'll be fine.”

I stayed late tonight, and by the time they got around to a game, I was ready for a break from puzzling over JavaScript. I was surprised to find myself enjoying it. Attitude makes a huge difference. A wise man once said, “Your altitude in any given company (or foosball game) is determined more by your attitude than your aptitude.“

4-4-01

Rollerbladed on the waterfront today at lunch. It was warm enough to skate in shirtsleeves. When I pulled into the parking area a train was going by 30 feet away. One of the rails was loose and whenever the axle of one of the train cars would go over the loose rail, the rail would snap up and down about an inch with a loud bang. I used to live next to a retired train engineer who warned me not to pull up close to railroad crossings when a train is going by. He had seen enough derailings to be very leery of crowding a train at a crossing. I seem to be getting tension headaches or something at work. Maybe it's just that the stages of this particular project I am working on are scheduled to be shown to the client at about 4 day intervals. I've gotten spoiled by not working to deadlines or maybe I'm coming down with Sue's cold. It could also be eyestrain, I'm several years overdue for an exam.
     I've been prowling around town looking for a quiet place to start another lunch hour drawing. I need a place close to the office without much foot traffic where there is sunshine, a bench and something interesting to draw. I've pretty much decided to simply do the statue from another angle. One of the guys at work has a wife who is due in a couple weeks. Each time she comes in to visit she grows an inch. Today it was hard to believe she could walk around comfortably. She seemed quite cheerful. Sue whined up a storm both times she got that big.
     Standing out in the kitchen tonight heating up my dinner, I saw the laptop sitting on the desk. It was off, and the lamplight reflected off the black screen in a not unattractive fashion. I haven't really come to terms with this whole computer thing. After my years of printing, its weird making a living pushing pixels around on screens. They don't do anything. They just sit there. All the doing is in our minds. We write the words, or create the pretty digital pictures, but without someone else to look at them, they have no value. Someone could pour their entire life into computers. Yet when all is said and done, it's nothing but static in a metal box. Unplug it and what have you got?

4-1-01

Fell asleep on the couch after dinner tonight. I've been pushing myself pretty hard all weekend to get my projects done:

• Balance checkbook and pay bills online
• Transfer web design content to new free server
• Respond to 4 emails
• Install TaxCut and do taxes
• Replace bad heater hose in the rust bucket
• Update web site
• Dig mud out of front parking area
• Eat half portions with no snacking between meals
• Try not to get bit by the bird

In between all of the above I spent some quality time with the family and took a couple walks with Sue. Today Lisa accompanied us on a walk along the Purdy spit. The weather went from raining and blowing to balmy and sunny during the 45 minute walk. Through it all, the two old fishing boats swung slowly in a one hundred and eighty degree arc as the tide went from going in to coming out. A mile down the spit at the bridge, the water looked like a river as it streamed out of the Burley lagoon into Henderson Bay through the narrow cut spanned by the old bridge . We stood for a while reading all the graffiti written by a decade of high school students. Lisa seemed unperturbed by all the x-rated comments and drawings. After the storm, the sun lit up the water and sparkled like thousands of tiny diamonds across the 30 mile fetch toward Olympia.
     

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