A Couple Weeks of Things Breaking
Many pithy sayings exist about possessions:
- “A Boat is a hole in the water you throw money in”
- “Boat is an acronym that stands for Break Out Another Thousand”
- “If it has wheels or wings, it’s trouble” (There’s another variant, but this is polite company)
To this I’d suppose to add: “A House is a mechanism to kill you, but at least you get to sleep there. That’s why it’s called a ‘mortgage’.”
I’m still workshopping it, but the past month or so has been tough.
Blessings and Curses
We were extraordinarily lucky during the Texas Floods, mostly from my wife and I having a healthy respect for water. We chose a property that drained well AND which sat on top of a hill. We weren’t near a stream or a river. Even the 10" of water we got in 6 hours didn’t really phase our proprerty.
That being said, it certainly stress-tested our house. We’d just gotten a new roof in January and several contractors had callouts bout the chimney cap, as in “look into getting that replaced.” But they followed-up with “That’ll only become an issue if we have a REALLY insane amount of rain.”
Well, cue July 4th-5th.
I get a call from Whitney we had a leak in our roof. I get out my handy moisture gauge, stick it in the ceiling and the drywall besite the chimney read 75% moisture.
Yaaaaaaaaay.
So, the roofing contractor comes out, complete with open carry sidearm with which he enters my house with only my wife at home, caulks the chimney cap, tells my wife his life story for 2+ hours, and so far that’s that.
As we sit today, we haven’t had a follow-up second opinion. Yet.
“It. Doesn’t. Start”
It’s the call every parental unit wants: “Car won’t start”
Her 2023 Corolla was doing the “rur-rur-rur” dance. Candidly, I always wondered what the push-button start brigade of cars would even DO if there was a low battery. Now we know.
Anyway, I came home and attached my volt meter to the car. Ten volts. That’s NOT going to cut it, so I jumped it with the Tundra (whee…) and then drove it to autozone for the inevitable diagnosis.
The diagnosis that did not come. “Your battery is fine. Your starter is fine. Your alternator is fine.”
Well, something wass leading to this thing with a low-volt condition, but I said okay. Maybe one of the kids left a light on or something (but, doubtful…interior lights are all LED these days and use less power than a lightningbug fart).
In the following 2 days, Maria reported increasing trouble with the car starting leading me to take it to Cedar Park Toyota last Wednesday.
By Wednesday evening, they’d diagnosed the battery (bad cell) and also a problem with the infotainment leading to a reflash. Picked-up Thursday afternoon for $0 (even the battery was covered under warranty)
Needing to vent
This one’s short, except for “I hate ladders”.
As readers of this blog may remember I have a phobia of ladders. Somehow when I was 8 I managed to get on a platform between two ladders about 10-15 feet in the air while my Uncle Donnie was helping paint our polebarn. I got stuck. Like, frozen. Anyway, from that day until now I’m not good on ladders. Or roofs.
Whitney wanted replaced ment of all the 12"x8" registeres in the ceiling of our greatroom. The HVAC guys would probably charge $250 for the visit, so I said I’d do it.
I bought the registers at Home Depot in Georgetown, and rented a solid aluminum 22’ adjustable ladder. Sucker was HEAVY
Install was uneventful took maybe 15 minutes. Total cost: $100 for 4 registers, $46 for the ladder rental, probbly $16 for gas for the truck
Cutting Up
So yesterday, I get a call at work asking me about this:
Big yikes. All 4 tires are roughly 1/2 worn-out, so there’s really not a good option
This morning was deciding among 3 bad options
- Buy 1 tire: Possible, but this would lead to tires on the same axle having different diameters. That’s hard on front axle/differential.
- Buy 2 tires: This is what I was leaning towards, and would run about $500. Still, there’s be an axle set that would be significantly more worn than
- Buy 4 tires: This is what we ended up doing. We’re paying about $50 extra per tire doing it at the dealership, but they go us in immediately today and they have the same brand that came with the car.
If the above seems odd, it is. I LOVE tires. I love researching and finding just the perfect tire and my tastes are Tiffany: Michelin, Bridgestone, Yokohama. However, Maria starts school Monday so we don’t have the time to mess around.
In any case, we’re blessed to have the savings to cover
Can you hear me, Wifi?
Our Wifi is….unh