Some updates - Day 1371 (Year 4, Day 276)

Williamsburg, VA

First, about the truck.... spoke too soon in my last post, as they fixed something but not the right thing.  When Mitch took the truck out the next day, he got to his location and then couldn't get it started up again.  However, after about nearly 2 hours of waiting for a tow to arrive, he was able to restart it.  So apparently, the problem actually lies in a part (sensor?) that controls the fuel flow and temperature, and it's telling the truck that when the engine is warm to shut off the flow.  So this part needs to be replaced.  It was explained the reason they didn't diagnose this the first time is because the engine was cold, so not only couldn't they get a diagnostic code, but couldn't recreate the problem (since they didn't take it out for a test drive).  When Mitch got it restarted, he drove straight to the mechanic, where they were able to get a code as the engine was now warm.  So the truck is driveable as long as you don't shut the engine off, and if you do, you have to wait about 2 hours until it cools to start it up again.

This happened last Thursday (March 7th).  Mechanic allegedly ordered the part either Thursday or Friday, allegedly had it overnighted.  We dropped the truck off on Sunday night (he needed to work on it with a cold engine).  By Monday afternoon, the part still had not arrived, so Mitch picked up the truck so he could at least work on Tuesday.  Long story short, today is the following Friday (1 week, 1 day later) and still no part.  Allegedly it was shipped on Wednesday and should arrive today.  So we'll see how that goes.  Mitch has been working but has been leaving the engine on the entire day (taking an extra set of keys so he can at least keep the doors locked).  Frustrating not only because of the air pollution it's causes, but who knows what it can do to the engine (we will have the mechanic give a run thru to check for any potential clogs or lack of lubrication).

One other problem we experienced this week was part of the refrigerator door broke off.  It was a little plastic piece on the inside door flap.  It's all one unit and would cost about $400 to replace the flap that attaches to the hinge (the piece of plastic where the screws go in).  So Mitch took it off, used superglue and duct tape and put it back on.  That kept for a few hours but broke off again.  He tried once again, this time with special epoxy and an added layer of tape.  It's been 2 days and so far it's holding.  Hopefully it will continue to hold.

On a more positive note, last Sunday was a milestone birthday for me (#60).  For over a month, I have been trying to figure out how I wanted to celebrate.  Ideally, I would have liked to have a party surrounded by family and friends, but alas, due to everyone being so spread out and we in the middle of nowhere, that wasn't meant to be.  So I explored several local indulgences such as going to a spa, or staying in a fancy hotel for the weekend.  At the last minute, however, I decided it wasn't worth the expense and decided instead to treat myself to 2 meals out and a movie in between (the major indulgence here being going off my low carb diet).  The plan was for an Indian buffet for lunch, seeing Jumangi (there was nothing playing in the theaters that we really wanted to see; this was kind of the least worst), then going to Food for Thought - a literary-themed restaurant with a huge vegetarian selection.

Realize, however, that the truck still hadn't been repaired.  We went for lunch, but of course, the truck didn't start so we had to sit in it for about an hour (we anticipated this and thus brought along our phones and tablets for entertainment).  Suddenly, Mitch realized that we had Jumangi already downloaded, so I suggested that rather than spend $20 in the theater, we should just go back home and watch it there (maybe even put up some popcorn -- which we didn't after all).  Then we could decide if we wanted to go back out to the restaurant or perhaps just order something in.  Of course, the movie had not been fully downloaded so we just hung out and did computer stuff for about 2 hours.  (I'm also glad we didn't see it in the theater; it was not that great a movie!)  By the time it was over, I was no longer in the mood to go out but I still wanted to indulge, so we ordered some pasta (baked ziti and eggplant parm).  Also shared a bottle (or 2) of wine. All in all, not a fantastic celebration but a mostly pleasant day anyway.  Monday it was back to work and back to the diet!

One other note: there have been 3 Nor'Easters in the past 2 weeks, most of which hit with feet of snow further north.  One day, however, we did get a little snow (here's a video).  It was actually quite beautiful to watch falling.  Fortunately, it only covered the grass and trees - no accumulation, although Mitch had a weather day off as the ground was too wet to work in.