Ups and Downs

I bought the Stanza. It is older, and has some issues. The transmission, which was somewhat recently replaced, was not behaving well. That was the most annoying problem. Also, I was getting only 14 mpg. That was truly annoying since it's a 4 cylinder. I was about to park it to use only as spare transportation, but decided to run it through a quick-lube place and see if they found any fluids low, etc. After an oil change and a new air filter, the car runs really well again. I was low on gas, so I was going to get gas at Sam's when I was there, but they had the pumps blocked off. I looked and still had some gas according to the gage, so I decided that I'd just stop at the station on the highway home. Well, on the interstate I ran out of gas. The gage is very sensitive, it gets close to E and it stops. I called Oddball, and he answered the phone saying "I hope you aren't calling to tell me you are stranded by the side of the road in the Stanza", and I said, "well...." He was still at work, so I called Mom, and she said she'd be right down with some gas. It was raining and I was about 2 miles from a station. I decided to try to get the car rolling a bit to get further away from traffic (which you basically can't do in an automatic transmission car). I started it and it sputtered. I figured out that you can't start it while it's in any gear but park (give me my manual transmission!), so put it in park and hoped I could shift fast enough to move some. I started it, and it wouldn't go into reverse. After a bit I realized I need my foot on the brake to be able to shift out of park (grrrr), and then also realized that the motor was still running. I put it into drive, and managed to drive it to the gas station. I called mom and told her not to come. So, from now on I don't let it get below 1/4 tank. Also, after driving approximately 50 miles after the service of 228 miles on the tank of gas, I got 19 mpg. So, maybe the gas mileage will go back up to where it needs to be. The joys of older cars. It is fun to drive a car again, though, except for the automatic transmission.

I haven't done anything about selling the house yet this week. I am catching up on other things. I already have 2 days of the 3 day weekend booked doing things elsewhere. Saturday I need to be up at James Cave to help with some trash removal. The rotten wooden stairs were taken out of a section of the cave, and there is a major push to bring the wood out to a dumpster. Lots of folks who haven't shown up for a trip in ages (like me) will be there, so it should be fun. Then on Sunday there is a push to finish wiring the hotel where Phreaknic is held. When we finish all the rooms will have hardwired network connections along with wifi. It will be a good time to bond with the computer geeks a bit. When it rains it pours. I don't do anything socially for months, then this all happens in the same weekend.

I am working on myself this week. I say I'm on an 8-week self improvement plan to be stunningly perfect by Phreaknic. Well, there are a lot of loose ends in many areas that I'd like to have tied up by the end of October, so this is a good excuse.