Bogieblog

Now Winter Visits

Put the truck in the shop Tuesday evening - only a bit of rain in the forecast. Thursday  at lunch, the forecast was a light dusting over a couple hour span around noon Friday. Thursday evening the forecast was 1-3" starting shortly before the morning commute and ending right about lunch time.

By noon, I knew I wouldn't make it home - 8" and still another 3-5" forecast. There is no way I can drive the Focus in this so have to get a hotel room.  More snow to come on Sunday and on Monday.

Already cancelled the Sat 7 am appointment to get the Focus inspected. Which means I won't even have a legal vehicle to drive next week.

My life just keeps finding different ways to eff with me.

UPDATE: Well, where hotel rooms are available (not close to here), they are $360 for the night. The elections are next week. decided to try the drive home and made it alive. Actually had less snow at my place, although the roads were a bit worse. Called and re-established my appointment in the morning, so should be legal for driving next week.

Bogie Luck Strikes - Literally

I have had the Explorer a grand total of less than 3 months. And someone went and ran into me Thursday night. First accident I've been in since sometime in the early '90's (someone ran into me there too).

II had gotten home after a 12 hour day and decided a dump run was in order. I was in the center of town behind several cars stopped at the light (3-4 blocks from home). The other driver turned from the cross street into the oncoming lane, ran over the curb on her side, turned and drove directly into my SUV. It looks as if she hit the center of my front, driver’s side wheel with the front, driver’s bumper of her car.She wedged the corner of her car between my wheel and wheel well so had to jockey several times to get unstuck.

There doesn’t seem to be any cosmetic damage. However, I am concerned about any damage she might have done that can’t be seen. When I bought the SUV in November, a new steering rack was installed and I have no idea if that, or other parts, could have been damaged by the impact. At the very least I will need an alignment, which is 4-wheel alignment since it is a 4WD. If it had been the Patriot, there would have been a lot of damage and I might not have been able to drive to work the next day.

Thankfully, no one appears to have been hurt.

After dealing with the police, I completed my mission then on my way back I noticed she was still there waiting for the tow truck, with no one else waiting for her. So I offered her a ride home since she lives about 1/4 mile further down my street.

Emailed my insurance agent when I got home, then called Friday morning. Still waiting for the adjuster to contact me. Bad timing since I am supposed to put long hours in again next week, so getting it somewhere to have the underneath gone over will be difficult and I will have to take off at least half a day to do so.

RIP The Patriot

Sold the Patriot today. Can't justify the money it would have taken to put a tranny in it.Probably the last new vehicle I wil ever buy. I've bought 3 brand new, and the Patriot lasted for less than 6 years, the Nissan less than 5. For the cost of new vehicles, I can buy used every couple of years and come out ahead. Besides the fact that anything 4WD is stupid expensive (even AWD is prohibitive).

FIA

What is Old is New

Over the last several weeks, the Jeep has not been doing so well. I believed it to be a transmission issue so I asked my local mechanic to check into getting a re-manufactured tranny for it. Seems that it is super special and there are none to be found (combination between it being fairly new - 2010, manual instead of automatic, and a 4WD instead of AWD). In fact, one of the mechanic's distributors said that he had been searching for the exact same tranny, for someone else, for 2 months.

On 11/3, as I was driving it to the mechanic for him to check out, it got way worse. After he took it for a test drive, he told me he wouldn't even try to drive it home if he were me.

So, I drove to the local Ford dealer and started looking at the used vehicles they had. I ended up test driving a 2004 Explorer that had just been traded in with 130,000 miles. Not having time to search other venues (and not having other venues within walking distance to check out), I decided that the price was something I could live with. We agreed upon a price, with the stipulation that they would do all work needed to pass inspection (I already knew that the steering rack needed replaced), and  they set up the work order.

I rode my bike to work the rest of the week, used it to get groceries over the weekend, and rode to work on Monday and Tuesday of this week. Those last two days were a chilly 24 and 26 degrees in the morning - which was a fine time to find out my heated gear controller no longer worked (hadn't used it but a couple of times since I got it last year). Oh well, I didn't freeze to death so I can't complain too much.

Tuesday night the Explorer was ready for me to pick up so I walked part way to meet up with the salesman, who drove me the rest of the way to the dealership.

It rained the rest of this week (or most of it), so I was glad to have the truck. Tomorrow I should actually see what it looks like in daylight - I've only seen it in the dark of morning or evening.

I'll have my mechanic continue looking for a tranny for the Jeep. It would be nice to get it fixed since it gets twice the gas mileage as the Explorer and is more suitable for everyday driving. However, the Explorer will be good for hauling a trailer, should I ever get one, and can haul a bunch more pellets both volume and weight wise even without a trailer, so will be handy to have regardless if I can ever get the Jeep fixed.

Disappointment

Saturday I started dragging the future bathroom cabinets into the house. There were two reasons for this; I need room in the garage to store pellets and I had already discovered that the cabinets were not polyurethaned to my satisfaction. So I moved the smaller cabinets into the basement and gave them another layer of poyl so they can stand up to a moist bathroom environment better.

When I decided to go ahead and bring in the big piece, the 36" vanity, I moved the smaller pieces to the craft room and finished them with a second coat of poly there. But, when I removed the vanity from the packaging, this is what I found.

The carton was not damaged so I believe that this happened at the manufacturer. Monday I called HD and they reordered the vanity. The original pieces took 5-6 weeks. I got a message Thursday that the replacement should only take 2 more weeks - so there is that. They will pick up the cracked piece when they deliver the new piece.

I guess it could be worse, I could actually have a contractor interested in doing my bathroom project and have it on their schedule.

More to Share, but Can't

I took a bunch of pictures last weekend, but can't share them with you right now. Sunday I went to download them and the card wouldn't read in the camera or thru the desktop. Cang, and I don't even remember what I had taken pictures of. The good news is that I had another card, so I can take pictures in the future. Hopefully I can figure out how to temporarily fix the old card and download those to see what I missed.

Hiccups

Monday morning I got up and there was nothing exciting happening outside when I let Fuzzy out. 15 minutes later when I let him back in, it was snowing. That wasn't unexpected. Then by the time I left for work it had turned to sleet. That was not what I was hoping for.

Then, on the way to work I suddenly realized that my new auto insurance comapny had not yet sent me a bill. Two months ago I had called my agent informing her that the EX and I needed to split up our auto insurance. She did some research and found a company that would cost me $300 less per year than if I stuck with my old company. I don't know why they do that - the old company would rais my cost by nearly $300 becasue I was no longer insureing 2 vehicles with them. That is even though I insure my house with them. Stupid because they lost a customer. Anyway, the old insurance expired on 11/5 (or 15, I'm not sure). New insurance I hadn't gotten anything from. And seeing all the idiots on the roads that wanted to ride my bumper even though I was going the speed limit (and salt trucks were not out for the most part).

Called my insurance agent, who to her credit was in the office at 7:45 (I was planning on leaving her a message). She looked it up and the sign up was still "pending". However, she informed me that I did have insurance and sent me a temporary card by emial just in case I needed it. Great agent who I really appreciate. Finally got a bill yesterday, so I am feeling better about this small issue.

Then, I got home Monday evening and eagerly looked at the bathroom ceiling. The sleet had changed to rain, and we had gotten plenty of it thu the day, so it was a good test for the new boot the contractor put in place a couple of weeks ago. Hey, no wetness - Halalluha! I did catch wiffs of dampness, but didn't see anything amiss, so figured it was my imagination

At 9:15, I was getting ready for bed; brushing my teeth and washing my face. I turned off the sink water and realized I still heard running water - NOT GOOD. I then realized that water was pouring out of the door to the vanity - REALLY NOT GOOD.

I opened the door and started searching for a buste water pipe. Nope, no such thing. Then I saw this:

 

Okay, the paper towel wasn't there, but the drain pipes had separated. I moved everything out of the cabinet, including drawers, mopped up all the water, place the paper towel in the lower pipe to block off sewage smells, placed a mixing bowel in the sink in case I turned the water on in the morning, and went to bed.

During lunch on Tuesday I ran to the local Lowes (it is a mile away from work) and picked up a couple of flexible flanges as that is what broke. I had to study plumbing stuff for a while before I understood what I need since I have never done any type of plumbing work before. Put the flange on that evening, and it is holding fine. So although I had a bit of bad luck, I think it all turned out al right.

Well That was Short Lived

I got the small pellet stove hooked up a couple of weeks ago. On a couple of nights, it got cool in the house so I ran it for a short time (maybe 1.5 hours each time).

Then last weekend I started it up and just as the pellets caught fire, the combustion moter failed so it went into shut down mode. Okay, I can take a hint (I left out a few exciting details - let's suffice to say we all survived and the house did not burn down).

So, after an ad on CL, it is back to the upstairs being in the low 60's while downstairs is toasty from the big pellet stove. Damn, and it really hasn't even started getting cold yet. Guess I should have bought a new stove instead of a new (to me) bike.

Sigh

More Changes to Bogies Life

So the big news for Bogie is that since life hasn't thrown me enough curve balls in the last 10 months, I apparently needed one more - I have lost my job. The Company has decided to mothball the plant as the market conditions for our product make it impossible to make money. I thought since I worked for a huge company with deep pockets, it would be safer. But somehow smaller companies are still able to get investors to keep  them afloat, while the mother company is no longer willing to invest. Which is weird since the plant has not even been open for 2 years, and we lost less money last year than we were allowed.

So, once again, for the second time in 16 months, I am hitting the pavement. I really wish I could find a position with the same parent company as I would be able to keep a decent amount of vacation time. Speaking of vacations. A long time ago I mentioned how every time I have a vacation planned (other than to see family), something comes up to keep me from taking it. Yep, had a vacation planned for July with good riding in new territory with people I have known on-line for years. That got cancelled in a hurry. Only good news was I hadn't made airline reservations yet.

The closure announcement was sudden. The decision was made late Friday, and announced on Monday. It was so fast that there wasn't any time for rumors to fly, so everyone was taken completely by surprise.

Last day of work was Tuesday (that was actually exit orientation) and by yesterday afternoon I had 4 resumes out. But these days even if they really like you, it takes at least a month to get hired since they have to do background checks, drug tests and physicals.

Dang, if this had happened before I bought the house, I would have had options (like relocating to another state and working for the same company if a position becasme available). But now my hands are tied as there is no way I could get what I had to put out for the place - all stemming from the way I financed it. The good news is that I don't have to worry about a house payment, so can survive quite a while withouth that worry.

Wouldn't want my life to be stress-free now would we?

Pretty Much Sums it Up