Brian Crosses the Equator – Sitting in the Drafts Folder since October
Previously on The West Wing – Dreamland
VRBO – Probably short story length, maybe novella
Working Days – Retirement themed, probably not much longer than the title
Brown Socks – Another retirement themed post
Trash Compactor – Weird behavior
How I Learned to Hate the X-Files – May have to resort to The West Wing thing
Ten months ago, when I bought my Smarty Pants phone Donna thought it would be a good idea to buy the insurance Cricket offered on it, just in case I dropped my unfamiliar device. So, on top of the $40 a month for 3GB of high-speed data we added another $7 to help defray the cost if something bad ever happened. Tuesday, I thought maybe it might be good if I canceled the insurance for two reasons.
First, I could save some money. In the ten months of ownership I have spent nearly half the original cost of the phone on insurance. I was definitely approaching the point of diminishing returns. And second, I hadn’t dropped it yet.
But I hesitated and didn’t pull the trigger, figuring I’d wait a couple more months. Wednesday when I was getting my coat off the back of the chair at Dunkin Donuts after finishing breakfast, the phone feel out and dropped 3′ to the tile floor below.
SMACK!
It made that particular sound because it landed perfectly flat on the floor with the jelly side up causing no damage at all. You can bet though, if I had canceled the insurance the day before that sucker would have hit corner edge first and broke the screen, the glass back panel, bent the case and probably breaking the motherboard.
Yesterday about half way home from work, the check engine light come on. Not on the Mini this time, but the Miata. Just like in the Mini though, there was no discernible reason for it and the car showed no drivability symptoms at all. When I got home I hooked up the bluetooth OBD2 scanner and read the code – P0455 – which translates to ” EVAP Emission System Leak Detected Large Leak.”
The most common cause is your gas cap is too loose. I opened the filler door and twisted the gas cap and when I did it may have moved just a tiny amount. I reset the CEL and we’ll see if it comes back.
On the forum, they say if you just tighten the gas cap and keep driving the light will reset after about 30 miles of driving, so I wonder if it takes 30 miles to show up. We filled up the CTBNL last Tuesday night, so it made 3-1/2 round trips to work and one quick run to the bike store on Saturday, which is roughly 30 miles, before lighting.
A couple months back I started keeping track of how may work days I have left. I have a letter-sized whiteboard on the side of one of my hanging file cabinets that I use to track some things and on the bottom of it, in the lower right-hand corner, is a two-digit number that is decreasing in size. It is on the side that faces away from the door so I’m the only one who sees it. Every morning. First thing, I subtract one from the number there.1
I have not made it a secret that I am hanging up my spurs here at the Valve Store, but I’ve only really shared it with just a few people. Everyone in my department, my cubical neighbors and HR of course, but word is starting get around. Seems like every other day now that I’ll get asked, “Is it true you are retiring this year?” I’ll answer in the affirmative and then tell them the number that is on my white board.
Now that the number is in the thirties, I’m starting to feel a little like a pitcher with a no hitter going. I know what is going on, everyone in the dugout knows what is going on, but nobody is saying anything for fear of jinxing it. So when I say the number out loud…
Like with the Miata, the Mini has a forum for answering questions and bragging about how cool your car is. Well the other week I was poking around in the General Mini section when I came across a thread about some promotional stickers that the Mini marketing company produced back in the beginning of the “New” Mini, circa 2002. Somebody wanted to know where they could get some of them. The thread started back in 2014, but someone had resurrected with the same question just before Christmas.
I chimed in that I thought I could probably print some out on a plain vinyl sticker and put them in my CafePress store for a couple bucks. I spent a couple hours cleaning the image up and because of the size of the sticker and the available space I got to add another column of 4 sticker images from a different picture in the post. The base cost of a 3″ x 5″ sticker from CafePress is $2.99 and then they add $1.99 just to mail it to you. I added 2 cents to the base cost to make the total cost an even five bucks.
Before I posted a link to my creation on the forum I wanted to buy one and see how the finished product looked. My toggle switch label stickers arrived Friday. Yesterday I cut out a few and stuck them on the lower toggle switch panel. They actually look better in person than in the photo shows. Now all I need is 250 other people to buy one of my 3″ x 5″ labels and I’ll have recouped my cost of buying the sample one.
One of my collateral duties here at the Valve Store is Banner Maker to the People. Birthdays, Anniversaries, Baby Showers, Retirements, etc, if someone asks they will get a 3′ x 4′ full color banner printed out on my 42″ wide HP800 plotter. I have a few stock ones that I drag out, but most of the time I try to design something unique with a fancy font and incorporate the person’s personal interests somehow.
It was a slow Friday afternoon so today I decided to go ahead and design the last retirement banner I’ll ever print.
At about three o’clock I got a call from Jason at Newton’s Automotive, the Mini was ready to be picked up. He did a little research about the P2177 code on Minis on some auto mechanic forums and found the same thing I did on the enthusiast’s forums; the code is always associated with cars that have a very rough idle or failing to start. Neither of which the Ladybug suffered from.
He cleared the code, took the car for a spin and the light didn’t reappear. He told us that if it does come back, bring the car in and leave it for a while to give him a chance to do some in depth troubleshooting before he starts changing things out.
So, with our shiny new oil filter and four and a half quarts of pristine synthetic oil, Donna in the Mini chased me in the Miata back home.