MIT

AKA, Moron-in-Training.

After the school thing, my folks came over and spent time with us. I also had my dad listen to the attempt to start Mrs.' minivan.

Why, might you ask?

Well, someone I am related to either by birth or blood seems to have left one of the lights on in the van all Shabbos. Naturally I couldn't turn it off, so it stayed on. Right after shabbos I went and turned the light off and the car on, and it started right up. I should've left it running, but I didn't, turning it off after a minute or so. Yesterday morning, rushing to get to school... tick tick tick tick.

We take my car instead, and when I get home I ask dad to take a listen to make sure it's not something more serious. It is, as you car people know, just the battery. The car had been to Honda a few weeks back, and the guy told us there was a battery problem. He jumped it enough so we could pass inspection, but I told Mrs. not to have him change the battery - there's no point in letting them charge me $95 labor when I can do it myself. Incidentally, the terminals were crusted with crud - I don't understand why the Honda guy couldn't take two minutes with a wire brush to clean it off, but I guess that would've been another $95.

So off to AutoZone, where as it turns out I had bought the thing originally. He tests it, and I don't know how many amps it is supposed to turn out, but near as I can tell it was actually producing less than one. He checks the record, and the battery is about 2 1/2 years old. Not new enough for complete replacement, but enough that they gave me $30 off the cost of a new one. Went home, got the battery in, and then skinned several knuckles trying to get the stupid hold-down bar thingy into position. I've done this replacement several times in the past, and this part is always the one I hate. It always comes off easy enough, but never back on.

Thank the Lord for barbecue tongs - I had to use them several times to retrieve various bits & pieces that fell into the engine compartment. I'm clearly not cut out for self repair of major items. I had enough trouble with the minor ones. The other dopey part is Honda's security code for the radios. Like a lot of others I imagine, they protect the radios by requiring a security code before it can be used. Naturally, every time the battery is disconnected, you have to reset the radio. No problem, as I wrote the code down on the computer somewhere.

Didn't I? Wait, I know it was in this file? Or this one? Where is the &*^%$ thing?

Happily, it was still buried in the back of my head, and on the third try I got it right. I am going to write it down again, but we'll have to see if I can keep track of it this time.