Bowlcut’s little piece of the world

Well I did basicly nothing this weekend.  Which is somewhat odd, I barely even did any work which is the mostly odd thing.  But it was kinda odd and felt just as odd.  One thing I did today was replace the emissions part on the Altima.  I drove it for a while today, usualy when I reset the ecu it pop’s the check engine light within the drive home which is about 12 miles.  I drove atleast that much of stop and start, then cruising speeds.  So far it hasnt come back on so I think that got that.

The thing right now is, I think Im super sensative to the car.  Because Im feeling every little bump, every little lurch, every little hickup.  I cant tell what is normal and what isnt.  I cant totaly tell if the car has been fixed totaly yet or not.  I do need a new valve cover gasket.  Pulling the plug wire today didnt yield the pool of oil I was expecting.  So my thought that the oil was fouling the plug still causing the miss isnt happening.  This is now a mystry.  Is it really missing, or is it just normal.  3rd and 4th gear heavy load full throttle, I cant feel anything abnormal.  I would think a miss would really show up in that situation.  Only time I really feel anything is light accleration or steady state cruising.  So is that just normal stuff, bumps in the road, or a real miss.  I am going to do some highway driving here in a day or two and see how crusing on the interstate.  Trying to figure out if my butt is just super sensative, or Im just a tard…thats something hard.

I have to get this fully sorted out in 2 weeks.  Cause on the 7th or before I plan on going to Atlanta.  So I need to make sure everything is good.  If not, Ill be renting a car going one way in it each day and just rely on my friends when Im there to haul me around, which should work.  I just dont want to do that, and dont want to have an unreliable car.  So thinking I may have to cruise out somewhere to a friends place one way or the other on the interstate this week to test the car out.  meh…ok back to doing nothing

Well my pockets are quite lighter today.  Had to renew the tag’s on the NX, that was 80 dollars over the 10 for emissions testing which blows.  Then 200 dollars for the tune up parts and emissions equipment I needed to fix the Altima.  And my back is now very tired, thinking of an early retirement to the bed.

I dont dare say its running well, mostly cause there are still things I have to do.  I need to replace the valve cover gasket now.  When pulling the plug wire off number 2, i got a big sucking sound…to be greeted with quite a lot of oil.  The inner gasket had failed at some point.  So she was full of oil.  Had to remove the valve cover to get the rest of the oil out, and parts of the plug wires.  But an hour later I had completed everything and the car fired up.  She runs way smoother than before, well when it really messed up.  She runs as smooth as she once did.  I still have to crawl under it sometime this weekend to replace the emissions piece.  That should be an easy fix, maybe an hour.  But…its running again.  Drove it home, leaving the NX in the parking garage.  Brett and I will do musical cars tomorrow sometime.  Now…I think Im going to lay down.

Well I was talking with a friend today.  Stating that my main car is like a tank, it just runs well all the time.  I even thought about what I was saying and rebutted it with “most of the time she runs well enough,” hoping that was enough.  Little did I know, I had already cursed myself.

I head out at a reasonable time from work.  Thinking, get in the car, call my friend for a quick chat on the drive home, make my way home, warm up my dinner, and set down to a relaxing evening.  Oh…that was the idea.  What reality was, get about half a block from the office and the car is noticeably rough.   Dipping into throttle makes it really sputter.  Light throttle she goes along but isnt nice.  I think well its done this before just push though.  About half a mile down the road…figure its not going well, turn around and head back.  I get on the road back to the office and clutch in coast all the way back just in case.

I pull into the parking garage, thinking to leave it near the bottom just in case I need a tow so I can roll it out side easily.  So I get down and pull the codes off the ECU.  Have Calum look them up, cylinder 4 miss fire.  Pull the cap of the distributer off, it looks ok.  Rotor looks ok as well.  So go to pull the plug wire, its really tough to get off but with a little force, read in here use the handle of the pliars as a lever, to pop off the wire.  I dont think I damaged it, but when I put the multi meter to it there was no continuity across the wire.  Thats I guess the bad thing here.   So looks like that car is telling me its time for a tune up.

Ive priced it out, about 80-100 dollars for the tune up parts using Nissan parts.  Haven’t priced out O’Reilly’s yet but dont know if I want to.  Then that emissions control valve will be atleast 90 dollars as well.  Great stuff, hope this fixes the car.  I have to get it working by the weekend.  The NX I have to go get tagged tomorrow so I can drive it without worry.  But its eating gas like mad, think a bad o2 sensor.  And it needs me to align it.  Since removing the old suspension, it changed the toe…and its a bit off at the moment.

So lesson learned here….dont ever say your car is running well….its a curse.

I remember, every Saturday growing up from about 6 till I was probably 15 or so.  You wake up and watch real, real cartoons.  Loony Toons and various other things, days before these “live action” shows came around.  Then get ya a sandwich and some soup and sit down for the afternoon PBS shows.  Shows like the Frugal Gourmet, This Old House,  New Yankee Workshop, and the Woodwrites shop.  So I grew up watching the original home improvement shows.  But lately I’ve come back upon them.  They are now setup in the DVR for recording.  I literly have sit here all weekend watching This Old House.  Odd…I know.  And I grew up with Steve Thomas, tho I remember Bob Villa.  So…this new guy has me kinda meh.  But cant go wrong with Norm Abram.

Some know what Im talking about, most probably dont.  I am a HUGE fan of RSS.  I love the idea of going to one place, in my case Google reader, and reading up on all my sites.  I get to quickly skim what i want with over 200 sites.  Yes 200 sites.  But when its easily displayed for me, its great.  So some places in an attempt of driving more eyes back to their sites for more ad revenue, dont display the full content on their feed.  You get a snippit.  That would be like giving you the first 3 lines of an article in a magazine, then go to the back to read it, hoping you will stop and see some ads on the way.  So I am now going though my feeds and unsubscribing from all feeds that dont have full feeds.  I dont have the time nor care to go look at a site for the same content I can get somewhere else in a full feed.  So all you webmasters out there….take this as a note….people want full feeds.  Hell put your ads in the feed, you can do it I dont mind.  I just dont want to have to go navigate your site…period.

Is it sad when you clean and find money?  Not like change but dollar bills.  Oh well, found some…score for me?  I have to clean up this apartment before Friday night.  Living room is livable.  Id like it cleaner but with the clutter and just vast amount of crap I have, its not going to get much better.  Ive tried selling things to my friends, even giving it away offers, but I cant get rid of it.  I hate throwing things away, but thats how its going to have to be.  Here soon Im going to load up and take stuff to the dump or to Goodwill depending on the stuff.  Oh well…Ill just continue to tuck things away.

Cooking up another pot roast.  nothing like a huge hunk of cheap meat long cooked with some veggies to really elongate the budget.  I think each hunk was like 10 bucks, each could feed me for 3 maybe 4 days depending on how long I care to keep it.  Last piece was 3 days but today I figured it was time to finish it off since it had been in the fridge for a few days.  Best part….its a set it and forget it type of deal.  Always good.  Ok…now to fold some laundry, or fold up into a ball on the bed…

You know the feeling.  Waking up not knowing what day it is.  Still go to work and feel like crap.  Then get home and wonder…why did I go though all that.  Oh well.  Its over with now.  But no cravings today, just hungry on the drive home.  Being almost 6 hours since lunch, its understandable.  Had a little bit of crabby attitude today, tho I think it will be worse tomorrow.  We will see.  Again same food as yesterday, thats just how I roll…

I dont know what I was craving but on the drive home…I knew I wanted something.  Not entirely sure tho.  Im not really a sweets person so it wasnt like sweet.  I think maybe just lack of food late in the day ment the blood sugar was off and I knew it.  But right now Im doing decently well.  Made a pot roast for lunch and it was decent, probably could have cooked it longer, needed to start it sooner.  Then some chicken salad for a small snack.  And then some steak’s for dinner, yes steaks.  They are small eye of round steaks so two isnt bad.  I am feeling a bit of a headache coming on.  Not sure if its caffeine or not, just because I still havent drank a lot of caffeine.  But I didnt make it to the gym, thats still tough.  I had hoped to go for a walk.  But right as I was trying to leave work an issue came up that kept me there longer  Going to try to stop that.  But maybe tomorrow…maybe