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It's after 11 a.m. and I should be taking advantage of my 3-day weekend to GET STUFF DONE. Instead, what have I been doing all morning? Drinking tea, reading online comics, posting to message boards, and now, updating my journal. Bad Layla, very bad.
Yesterday had its ups and downs. I found a gas station that has a pump for heating oil and filled 2 5-gallon cans -- it turned out that the only thing wrong with the crawlspace heater is that it was out of fuel, so it ran beautifully last night and actually did help a little bit in knocking the chill off the house. It got down to about 20 degrees last night and we had our first good hard frost, but the house didn't freeze up. Woo!
And the bad ... the Suburban died on the Mitchell Expressway, after I'd filled my gas cans and while I was heading out to my storage unit to get a load of stuff. It was just cruising along at 55 and then all of a sudden completely lost power ... my speed plummeted, pushing the gas pedal down did nothing. I pulled over to the side of the road thinking "[expletive][expletive][expletive]" -- I thought it was the transmission, which for all I know may be part of it, but it's more likely something on the engine, because by the time I'd come to a complete stop, the engine was dead and would not start.
AAA is my friend. If you don't have AAA and you do a lot of driving, or have an old car, GET IT NOW. If you have to be towed or need a jump ONCE in a whole year, it pays for itself -- and they do all the work; you just call the AAA-HELP number and they find and contact a tow service in your area. No futzing with phone books (most pay phones in the Lower 48 don't even seem to HAVE phone books anymore, to my everlasting annoyance) or trying to find someplace that's open on weekends.
I also broke down by the airport -- the Mitchell Expressway does a big loop around the end of the Fairbanks airport. Abandoned vehicle at the end of the runway ... the airport police were not happy about this. I walked over to a grocery store about a mile away to call AAA, and coming back, saw flashing red-and-blue lights and cops all over the Suburban. I jogged back to it, explained the situation and after running my license they were very nice about it, and offered to come check on me and make sure the tow truck came to pick me up on time.
I had the Suburban towed home rather than to a mechanic because I suspect that it's not going to be something easy and cheap to fix, and frankly, as old and crappy as that thing is, it isn't worth putting a new engine or something in it. Nothing is visibly leaking, smoking, dangling or dripping, which about exhausts my automotive troubleshooting know-how. It may be nothing more than a blown vacuum hose (all the rubber stuff on the engine is shot) or the flaky gas pump finally giving up the ghost, but I just don't have the cash to get it fixed or the time to try to do it myself.
Speaking of time, I better quit procrastinating and go get busy.
Yesterday had its ups and downs. I found a gas station that has a pump for heating oil and filled 2 5-gallon cans -- it turned out that the only thing wrong with the crawlspace heater is that it was out of fuel, so it ran beautifully last night and actually did help a little bit in knocking the chill off the house. It got down to about 20 degrees last night and we had our first good hard frost, but the house didn't freeze up. Woo!
And the bad ... the Suburban died on the Mitchell Expressway, after I'd filled my gas cans and while I was heading out to my storage unit to get a load of stuff. It was just cruising along at 55 and then all of a sudden completely lost power ... my speed plummeted, pushing the gas pedal down did nothing. I pulled over to the side of the road thinking "[expletive][expletive][expletive]" -- I thought it was the transmission, which for all I know may be part of it, but it's more likely something on the engine, because by the time I'd come to a complete stop, the engine was dead and would not start.
AAA is my friend. If you don't have AAA and you do a lot of driving, or have an old car, GET IT NOW. If you have to be towed or need a jump ONCE in a whole year, it pays for itself -- and they do all the work; you just call the AAA-HELP number and they find and contact a tow service in your area. No futzing with phone books (most pay phones in the Lower 48 don't even seem to HAVE phone books anymore, to my everlasting annoyance) or trying to find someplace that's open on weekends.
I also broke down by the airport -- the Mitchell Expressway does a big loop around the end of the Fairbanks airport. Abandoned vehicle at the end of the runway ... the airport police were not happy about this. I walked over to a grocery store about a mile away to call AAA, and coming back, saw flashing red-and-blue lights and cops all over the Suburban. I jogged back to it, explained the situation and after running my license they were very nice about it, and offered to come check on me and make sure the tow truck came to pick me up on time.
I had the Suburban towed home rather than to a mechanic because I suspect that it's not going to be something easy and cheap to fix, and frankly, as old and crappy as that thing is, it isn't worth putting a new engine or something in it. Nothing is visibly leaking, smoking, dangling or dripping, which about exhausts my automotive troubleshooting know-how. It may be nothing more than a blown vacuum hose (all the rubber stuff on the engine is shot) or the flaky gas pump finally giving up the ghost, but I just don't have the cash to get it fixed or the time to try to do it myself.
Speaking of time, I better quit procrastinating and go get busy.