Got this from sportswriter friend Cedric Golden of the daily. Made me laugh. Reminded me of the mechanic the other day at the dealership who was amazed at the 5-speed in my Honda CRV. Hardly ever see them, he said, but he heard they were fun to drive. If you know how, sure. Even Mr. B.’s driving lessons are strictly with an automatic. Manual is a complete mystery to him.
I finally did it. I backed the CRV into the closed garage door, hard enough to break all four glass windows and crack the wooden panels and punch them outward in three places. Of course now the door won’t open and until I can get an estimate on fixing it and have the work begun, I can’t get the car out of the garage.
Fortunately the Honda is not damaged. The covered spare tire that hangs off the rear door took the brunt of it. After long minutes of colorful cursing, I swept up the broken glass and called a company that worked on the door more than a decade ago for the previous owners. Was surprised to find they are still in business. They’re sending a guy out to look at it this morning.
There’s some comfort in knowing a lot of people do this. But not much.
UPDATE: Three carpenters refused to tackle it, saying it would be hard to ever again insure the structural integrity. And a fourth one, who looked promising, said, well, he could fix it but it might fall apart in half a year. And he added that it would a lot cheaper to buy a new metal door, and he might be able to get me a good price. So, we’re mulling it. Damn.
Comments Off on Feeling stupid
Posted in Rancho Roly Poly
Trying to figure out why the muffler on the Honda CRV sounds like it has a box of rocks in it, a noise that only began this week. After Googling the problem, and discovering that mufflers have nothing like rocks inside, duh, I started the engine, which got the sound to resume, then got out and, just for the heck of it, nudged the muffler with my shoe. Not a kick, just a nudge. The sound has stopped. Weird. It’s off to a muffler place first chance I get.
We were going to take the newish Honda CRV and drive out to the Hill Country near Fredericksburg to see if any summer peaches are left for sale. But the radar shows big green blobs of rain headed that way from west of San Antone. Guess we’ll try Lake Travis, instead. Looks like the rain won’t get there for hours yet. Reprieve due this week, according to some forecasters, with sun and highs in the mid-90s. I’d take highs in the mid-100s, at this point, if it meant the rain would stop for a few days.
Comments Off on Dodging rain – as usual
Posted in Texana, Weather/Climate
Tagged Fredericksburg peaches, Honda CRV, San Antone, summer 2007 Central Texas weather
Mr. B. and I bought a pre-owned vehicle yesterday, a 3-year-old silver Honda CRV with sun/moon roof and fulltime four-wheel drive. He rode along on the test excursion, searching the backseat area for damage (finding none) and using his keen, non-cigarette-damaged sense of smell to ferret out anything untoward. He didn’t smell anything bad, except what he pronounced a little mildew from all the rain we’ve been having. He liked it back there. More room, he thought, than in the old Jeep Cherokee, although that’s unlikely since the CRV is shorter and narrower. Nevertheless. His reward? A can of Big Red soda pop. He thought it was worth it. Also liked the tinted windows, which will let him play his Leapster in the back seat without interference from the sun.
This morning I plan to head south to a Honda dealership to check out their stock of used (pre-owned, as they say nowadays) Honda CRVs. I’ve finally gotten a grip and decided to get one of these mini, four cylinder SUVs to replace the Jeep Cherokee. Don’t like the new ones, however, for reasons other than price. They look like minivans. I’m hunting for a 2006 or earlier, the ones with the spare tire mounted on the rear door. All I’ve found so far is black ones. Nothing more ludicrous than a black vehicle in Texas, even with sun-reflecting tinted windows. Even dark blue and burgandy are pretty dreadful in the summer. A normal summer. But even they are better than the one I found at one dealer yesterday. It was silver, and looked good and the price was right. So I got in to try out the seating and almost gagged. Essence of dog. Large dog, by the smell. Tobacco smell is bad enough. But I find dog smell infinitely worse.
Comments Off on Car shopping redux
Posted in Rancho Roly Poly, Scribbles
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 