Three-Letter Acronyms & Four-Letter Words

Let me first give my thanks to the guys over @ Brake Specialists Plus in Cedar Park for getting the Corolla fixed up in time for me to get to Dallas.

I was afraid that they would not be able to get the car done in time, as they did have to remove major parts of the engine and transmission to replace the rear seal that was leaking oil.

While I was there settling up my bill of $993 (and change) a guy from AutoZone stopped by and was attempting to pitch them on buying parts from AutoZone. One of the things that I heard come up in conversation was the quality of the work that Brake Specialists Plus. I took the opportunity to chime in that they have always done really good work for me, and to thank the guys for fixing up my car.

I then proceeded to drive to Dallas. Luckily I had almost a full-tank of gas, as I was running late and stopping to fill-up the tank would definitely make me later than I wanted to be.

I did however manage to make it to Dallas in time for the Mavericks game. It has been a significantly long time since I had attended an NBA game. The last one that I can remember attending was at The Palace (in Aurburn Hills), watching the Pistons play someone that I cannot remember. That had to have been 15-17 years ago.

I went to the game with the President/CEO of NetworkIP, Pete Pattullo. (NetworkIP is the parent company of Jaduka.) He ask me if I had been to an NBA game lately, as to prepare me for the amount of advertising that I would see at the stadium and during the game. He also prepared me for the 'Vegas Show' like nature of the game, as during every break they had some sort of thing going on.

Now, the most interesting thing that I saw in regards to advertising and filler content was, the 'Merchandising Special of the Night'.

Ummmm, so here is the thing. There are shops, selling various forms of Dallas sports memorabilia, that is cool. But the 'Merchandising Special of the Night' was like a live 30 second infomercial for whatever product they are attempting to sell more of. That night it was a book written by the coach of the Mavericks.

It was presented by a nice lady, whom I assume is some sort of Mavericks celebrity (unknown to me), and one of the Maverick's cheerleaders.

But the kicker, the real coup de grace was that at the end of this short infomercial, they announced that 'This Merchandising Special of the Night is brought to you by Adidas."

OK, your fscking kidding me. The live infomercial was sponsored. More power to the Mavericks advertising sales people. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the kids with the mops and towels that keep the floor clean during the game were sponsored by JaniKing.

The Mavericks beat the Clippers 103-90.

Anyway, I did not notice any oil leaks under the car. And the car most definitely had full electrical power. The car also seemed to be a little bit quieter. In case I have forgotten to mention the Corolla was once VERY noisy, but since they tuned the timing belt, the Corolla had instantly become a lot quieter.

Well, I am finally taking a couple of days off. Gina is going to the Philippines soon, so I have taken today and tomorrow off.

Laterz

So for the last couple of weeks I have noticed that there is some oil leaking under my car. While more noticeable than a little drip, it was not enough for me to panic and rush the Corolla into the shop. They had just replaced some belts and tuned my timing belt, so I know they had to open up part of the engine that has oil in it, I figured that something just needed to be tightened.

This morning at 8:10 am I found out that is not the case. We had dropped the Corolla off at the shop last night after dinner and a trip to CostCo. But for a reason relating to copper and electricity. The alternator in the Corolla had finally died.

For the past couple of months (possibly three months) the little battery shaped light on the console has been flashing (or sometimes just stayed on). The battery (despite looking very bad) is fine. This meant that the alternator was on it's last legs.

Well, last night after dinner, Gina dropped me off @ CostCo (we had left my car there earlier). I started it up and turned on the lights and cranked the radio. I noticed that the console lights looked dim, I dismissed it as possibly just my own slightly neurotic issues with light and visibility. However, after cranking the dimmer up to the max brightness the lights still did not get to what was their normal brightness.

I was cruising down the access road of 183 about to merge over and get onto the highway, when the radio rebooted.

This freaked me out, as I had been in a car before when the battery had completely died (after the alternator died) and surprisingly the vehicle will come to a complete stop, quickly. Not wanting to repeat that event, I immediately shut off the radio and even removed the faceplate, seeing as it was shining quite brightly in comparison to the console lights.

I stayed on the access road, in the hopes that if the Corolla did finally drain the last of the battery I would at least be able to get the car into a driveway, rather than have to call a tow truck while on the side of the expressway.

I also immediately called Gina who was probably about 5-10 minutes ahead of me. I asked her to wait for me to follow me home, so that in case I was stranded, I wouldn't be alone.

The battery lasted long enough for me to make it to the Brakes Specialist up in Cedar Park (my mechanic of choice).

I woke up early this morning and headed over to the mechanics to drop off the keys and inform them of what needed to be done. As I also was due for an oil-change, and wanted to inform them of the oil leak that I had noticed.

When they called me this morning shortly after eight o'clock, they informed me that the 'rear seal' between the engine and the transmission had busted (I forget the word he used). He informed me that there was oil all over the under-side of the engine and that I should have noticed it earlier.

Well, so my theory on this is as follows.

They recently tuned my timing belt, in doing so they gave me 'more power'. This tuning had two effects on the car, I do indeed have more power between 10 and 50 miles per hour, I can feel the car accelerate faster. It also made the inside of my car a heck of a lot quieter.

I believe that because the timing belt on my car had been in that state for so long in the 'less power' mode that when it got 'more power' it broke the seal. Because, I didn't notice any oil immediately after they did their work, but a couple of days later.

Well, the damage bill for the alternator + rear seal (and I assume the oil-change) is about $900.

This price tag brings to mind the idea of a new car.

However, $900 isn't too bad considering I don't have a car payment now. And even if you combine the alignment and other work I had done when they were doing the tuning of the timing belt, that makes the 2008 care charges about $1400 (including the alternator&seal).

That is still well below a $300 a month car payment.

So I am willing to give the Corolla one more chance. Brake Specialists are currently doing whatever they are doing to fix everything.

I am hoping they will have all of the work completed by 3pm. However, I am expecting a call from them around 2pm to tell me that they won't be able to finish it all. This means that I will need to rent a car this afternoon.

Because, I am driving to Dallas this afternoon (hoping to be on the road by 3pm) for some meeting tomorrow.

I am glad that the alternator decided to finally die yesterday, rather than while I was on my way to Dallas.

Anyway, back to the grind.

Laterz

Let me first apologize to everyone out there for the lack of updates.

It has been a crazy three months.

So, I am on my way back from the ETech show that just wrapped up in sunny San Diego, CA.

I ended up waiting until almost literally the last minute to book my flight out here.

In looking for flights that were not going to cost me the company an arm and a leg for my screw-up, I found several flights that were OK in price. There was one absolutely STEAL of a deal, like $250. However, it was going to be leaving too early for me to assist with the breakdown of the tradeshow booth and what not.

As it turns out there would also have been another problem with that flight as well. It was going through Dallas (if memory serves).

Dallas, is currently experiencing what we in Michigan would call a normal day of snow (mixed with a little bit of sleet).

Now, I am not saying that planes are better at landing in snow and sleet in Michigan than they are in Dallas, but I know that the airports in Michigan are equipped and experienced on how to handle that kind of weather.

I took an early flight from San Diego to LAX, hoping to catch an earlier flight to Austin.

No such luck. When I scanned the departures board for a flight to Austin, I was dismayed that I saw a TON of canceled flights to Dallas (DFW).

My co-workers Bill and Jack are based in Dallas and quite possibly will not be making it back home tonight.

I feel for them. But I am very happy that I didn't end up with a flight that would have gone through Dallas.

So, back to me being at LAX for 5 hours.

Seeing as I caught the earlier flight out here, that meant that I consolidated my time here at LAX, rather than breaking it up between the hotel lobby, San Diego commuter terminal and then LAX. I was already going to have about a 2 hour layover here anyway.

But ultimately, I think I much prefer to be able to find a place to sit down and catch-up on stuff, rather than have to worry about getting from one place to another in a set amount of time. That same mentality could by why I get flustered when playing RTS games when the 12 year olds that I always end up playing against (when not playing against Jeremy) rush me and win the game. Too much going on at once to concentrate on, plus I am absolutely sure they are cheating.

I have had the opportunity to catch-up on some work while I have been here. I need to find a power outlet, because even though I now have a 12-cell battery, there is always the Eternal Search For Power.

I need to write up a more formal post and put it on the Jaduka blog about my ETech experience.

But I will say this, I think it was a good tradeshow for us, the conference sessions were wildly diverse, and I did not have to look for a power plug while in the conference sessions (they were under the chairs). However, I did not have a lot of luck finding a chair in the couple of sessions I was able to attend (standing room only in the Google:Android session).

Laterz

Update: Found power at a "Samsung Mobile Charging Station" I will upload a picture later.

I hope that it doesn't happen until I get back from Dallas, but the conditions are getting right.

There is a cold front that has been lingering around Austin, dropping the temperature down to the freezing mark. Just before the cold front came through we had quite a bit of rain.

They are predicting some rain and sleet for the rest to show up later in the week.

I am heading up to Dallas tonight for some customer meetings tomorrow.

I am running about an hour behind schedule, so I definitely need to cut this post short and hit the road.

Entry from Ice Storm 2007.

Laterz

Even though we just had pizza the other night I settled on Pizza again tonight.

I know Blogs aren't supposed to be about what you had for dinner or lunch and such.

But I felt that this was a good way to start the conversation on something what I just went through.

My Hotel here (Wyndham Garden) has a restaurant downstairs. However, honestly I am not that impressed with their breakfast spread so ordering up some room service didn't sound that good to me.

I Turned to their directory/book of info they give you (subsequently the same book with the room service menu) and didn't find any suggestion on local dining or delivery.

I was in the mood for Chinese food, except the only place nearby is a horrible, horrible buffet (literally next door).

So I turned my search to the Internet, oh yeah, I forgot to mention that usually at Hotels without room service they give you a list of places that deliver (and usually give you menus too). Now the Internet is powerful, but there Dallas is huge, hence why they call it the Big D.

This means simply doing a Google search isn't going to be very helpful. This means I needed to hit up sites that specialize in food.

My immediate thought was Yelp. I have used it before and the community review part is helpful, usually you get useful tidbits of info on what to avoid or what to try.

Unfortunately, Yelp was not very much help.

Then I turned my search of to CitySearch (ba-dum-bump), some good results. Unfortunately, while it was able to provide me more options than Yelp, I was left with the notion that aside from the place next door there were no places nearby (thus very unlikely there would be delivery).

That led me to look over Yellowbook.com and Yellowpages.com, oddly enough and yet not oddly enough, they both returned the same data. For some reason I expected a difference in the return of data, not so much more restaurants in one than the other, but more information about the restaurants in one vs the other.

Now, the one commonality across all of these was mapping. Some of them used MapQuest, some of them used Google Maps, another one used something I couldn't identify and the last used a Microsoft Live Search power map.

In the end I ended up deciding that Pizza was going to be what I would have to settle for instead of Chinese food.

But then, I ended up having to resort to the specific pizza websites. I haven't had Hungry Howie's in a long, long time. And I was thinking that their famous flavored crust would hit the spot.

But their closest one was about 12 miles away, so I didn't even bother calling.

When I was checking in, I remember the front desk telling another guest something about Domino's.

So In the end that is who I called.

The search went full circle.

I cannot fault the Internet, it isn't Google's fault (or Yelp, or CitySearch, or the IYP directories).

Anyway, the pizza just got here.

Just think about everything I went through, the next time your traveling.

Did you have a hard time finding something to eat, or worse yet delivered?

Laterz