Monday with Volvo Repairs

Monday started with me rising after 7. I had slept all night and woke early as I had to get Air Volvo to a local auto repair shop within walking distance of the Volvo Cave: TV Highway Automotive. The local Volvo dealership could not provide service until September. I would need to try the locals. The shop was highly rated online (meaning very little). They had run a diagnostic and said that the Air Volvo was driveable and said to bring it on Monday.

I quickly ate a banana and had half a cup of coffee. I checked the news, which was mostly political and uninteresting. My Quicken setup downloaded all the transactions, and I saw that my Ford (F) stock was improving. Ford’s regular stock pays over a 4% dividend (as the price goes up, the dividend percentage reduces) and is appreciating (finally!) as I think Ford has finished finding new ways to screw up. However, Tesla’s ugly silver truck was reported to be out-selling Ford’s electric truck, and I also read that Michigan reduced its corporate welfare (my words) payments to Ford after Ford announced that it would reduce the output of its new battery plant. Be warned, if you are enchanted with Ford stock after my summary, it is not a risk-free investment by any measure.

I collected my walking gear and laptop, boarded Air Volvo, and took the short trip to the repair shop. I filled out a new customer form, and Alex took over Air Volvo and landed it in a bay to work on. I found a chair in the tiny lobby, took a stool that was not in use and planted my laptop on it. I used my phone as a hotspot for Internet access. I prefer to use that than acquiring some Wi-Fi, which may be a hacker’s paradise. My phone signal was weak, so I did have a slow connection, but I could make it work.

Aside: Get the hotspot technology working on your phone when you travel and use it instead of hotel or other friendly Wi-Fi connections. The risk of grabbing some fast, unknown Wi-Fi and being hacked is too great now.

The repair shop’s staff let me know that they were having trouble isolating the issue and would need to start charging me for the diagnosis work. I agreed. They went on to say that getting parts for the Volvo was hard and may take some time (another supply chain issue) and that the parts were expensive. I smiled; they did not want to charge me for high-cost repairs and parts, and I told them if you own that, pointing at Air Volvo, you pay a lot, and I agreed and understood. They laughed with me.

They next did a smoke test, looking for an air/exhaust leak. They pumped smoke into the engine. The staff told me to see this. Smoke was whispy and coming around a round cup-like item on top of Air Volvo’s engine. It was the first time I had seen under the hood–I am not a car guy. We talked about it, and a new part would be ordered for the leaking cup, new spark plugs would be installed, and an oil change would be done. This should cover the unlikely problem that a bad plug was a secondary cause (65K miles on the plugs was enough). Two hours later, the engine light was gone, and the problem was solved. The o-ring on the oil fill cap was the problem, f**k. TV Highway Automotive staff apologized for the $43 charge for the new oil fill cap, as the o-ring was a precise size and could only be acquired with a new cap. I escaped with less than a $700 charge–a light bill for Air Volvo.

I drove to Carl’s Jr and had a celebration Western Burger, but I could not finish it. Next, I headed to Reedville Creek Park and managed to put three loops in. I was stiff from sitting and also tired from all the standing yesterday when I cooked the hotdogs for church. I could not do the last loop in the heat and back pain. I tried walking a loop, reading a chapter, and restarting the walking. The heat and back pain had me stop. I would reach 4,000+ steps for the day.

I did travel to a nearby Lowe’s and walked through it to find tankless water heaters. I want to convert the bathroom, which is far from the natural gas water heater to something fast and efficient. I have to run the sinks and showers for a while to get hot water. It seems a terrible waste (the Machine and new dishwasher are not far from the existing hot water). This would mean getting 220V lines there and revising the plumbing. It is not that I have drunk the EV kool-aide (which is what my Republican readers are thinking), but I hate to waste water, and I like the showers hot. I am aware that there will never be a payback for this change. I believe that the tax credits have expired. This was a “just looking” moment on house upgrades.

Tired but enjoying having Air Volvo back and feeling that it was running slightly better, I returned to the Volvo Cave. I rested and read for a while. Depression rose.

Depression, for me, is the feeling of deep sadness that has no source and, thereby, no fix. My mind becomes deeply sad, and everything is now discolored or colorless by this deep sadness. Many people suffer from this much more often and may be facing depression every day. And while I do not welcome it, I am now blessed to understand depression and why it has devastated so many lives. My depression started after cancer and may be the result of the drugs or just the stress. Brain surgery and the trauma of healing are also likely a cause. It is transitory and soon fades. It leaves me frightened as I can’t predict it, and I am terrified it will stay.

I understand that there are certain self-made chemicals (dopamine comes to mind) that help us stay balanced and happy. People (and now possibly myself) develop a deficiency in the production of these chemicals, and depression comes. If my condition worsens and the sadness becomes part of my days, I will get help. Please have sympathy for those who face their own personal darkness.

Returning to the story, I am out of eye night grease (yes, grease) that keeps my left eye safe when I sleep (it may not close completely). I head to the nearby Walgreens, and they are not restocking their eye items, f**k. I find something like what I use and pay too much for it. The cash register guy suggests I join their club to get a better price. I do. I saved three dollars (or I would say I was being overcharged by $3 to keep my privacy–f**king evil corporations). I grab my stuff (including old-fashioned graph paper to draw a map of one of my Dungeon and Dragons adventures), and then the clerk runs out after me and hands me my phone. In our current world of corporate overreach, we humans need to look out for ourselves, and I thank him. It makes his day, I think, to help someone.

The Aloha Carts are there in the drug store parking lot, and I stop by Bombay Chaat House, and the gals are happy to see me. “Michael, we have missed you,” was their response to my order. I explained that I was trying to lose weight and that eating out was not good for that. They agree, and I learn that they, too, are fighting weight gain. We chat about walking and traveling and walking.

Soon, I had all of the veggie Indian-style food with a chai, which was so hot I could not hold the cup without a napkin. I let it cool and then enjoy it. A pair of forty-something women are loudly discussing job interviewing and layoff issues. I try to ignore them (wishing I had brought noise-canceling headphones); I want to give them their privacy. I eat, start writing, and stay for a few hours. The food, the friendly humans, and the work make the depression fade and then disappear.

I head to the Wildwood Taphouse and soon order a beer “dark like my life.” JR is there, and he suggests the best of the dark–not sweet. JR and I catch up, having not seen each other in months. This is my second visit to the taphouse since my surgery (it is hard to lose weight if one is enjoying their excellent beer products more than once a week!). I share some of my experiences and learnings from certain events that JR shared. I don’t tell other people’s stories here.

I wrote more, found my groove, and made some improvements to my Dungeons and Dragons adventure. I also changed the version number and saved a new version. I do this to protect myself from loss and to recover anything I decide later was a poor change; an undo button, if you like. I am no longer just editing and fixing mistakes. In a 19K word 30-page document that is quite technical, the mistakes are manifold and require long hours to find them all and correct them (and correct the fumbled corrections), and it took long hours to get the document this clean. I am improving and clarifying the process of running the adventure. I include boxes of text that cover how the adventure played and suggest changes for the Dungeon Master (DM, the person who runs the adventure as opposed to running a character in the adventure). I need some drawings of the complex to finish this. I might contact an artist to make a cool cover for it and maybe a few scenes from inside.

I wrote and revised it for a couple of hours. When I am running, I can handle the complexity, but it does not really add more to the player’s experience. I dropped the complexity from the text, and this will make the adventure easier to execute.

I paid my bill after having some chips and salsa and a glass of water. I am not used to heavy beers, and the water and the chips help. I headed out after chatting with JR some more. Air Volvo got me home without the engine check light reappearing. Excellent.

I read Maisie Dobbs, the final book of the series. I noticed the author reintroducing the past for those who have read the previous fifteen books and providing one more mystery for Ms. Dobbs after her retirement (now Mrs. Scott in the stories) to solve at the end of WW2. I am apprehensive while reading as the author, Jacqueline Winspear, has killed or wounded her supporting characters in previous books, and one of them has already expired in this book. Will Maisie pass like Hercule Poirot to end the series with the last words being in an explanatory letter? What will happen to her adopted daughter? It is hard to read when you know there is a sword hanging above–this is the last book.

I do like the execution and the mix of characters. Ms. Dobbs’ stories, while often telling what she is thinking, are not completely in the first person. I would carefully look at these books if I started to write a detective novel. The mix of narration and self-reflection seems perfect to me. The use of many and varied supporting characters is more true to life and prevents the creation of a superhuman-powered person like Sherlock Holmes or Poirot with his “little gray cells.” Recommended (some books more than others).

Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Armand Gamache’s murder/crime novels, set in the present, are my current favorites.

Later, I discovered that the new eye grease at Walgreens is not the right stuff–more drops than goo. I used it anyway, and it helped some. I will visit other, hopefully restocking pharmacies for more of the correct product.

My plans for Tuesday were to donate Susie’s wedding dress to Brides for a Cause, but they no longer take older dresses. I know Susie would have loved the idea that her 1990 wedding dress and hats were headed to people who would reuse them, but alas, that will not happen on Tuesday. I will look for other solutions.

I read and soon was asleep. I dreamed of being back at Nike, and all the family folks, including Susie and Dad, were there for a BBQ at the WHQ. The food was awful, but everyone was still having a good time.

Thanks for reading.