Friday, July 27, 2012

Go Fast

I had an early hockey game the other evening, so Aimee and Evelyn came to watch. Even though it was an early game, it started at 8:30. Evelyn was certainly tired before the game even started. When she gets tired she frequently talks a lot. After we lost our game, got dressed, and returned to the car, Evelyn was chattering at full speed. On the way home she pretended to be a driving instructor in the back seat, educating me on the proper way to drive a car. Mostly I just focused on driving until I heard her instruct me to use the "motorfast handle". "What is a motorfast handle?" I wondered. Seeming to read my mind, she dropped her instructional air and asked me "Dad, what is your hand on right now?" "It's the shifter, honey."

Monday, July 9, 2012

Easily Confused

I bought a car last week against the advice of my brother who observed that the car is impractical and that I paid too much. Of course, that kind of nagged at the back of my brain. On the day I drove it home I had an incident in a parking lot where it wouldn't start. It turned over like a champ, but refused to start. I opened the gas cap, tried again, and it fired right up. Now I really started to worry. What if my brother was right and I'd been taken? The same thing happened again yesterday morning. It was sickening. Naturally I pulled out my smart phone and started searching for similar problems. Someone mentioned an issue with the chip in the key going bad, others complained of a blocked fuel filter. I decided to start with a filter replacement in the near future. Later in the day we drove to Lansing and it refused to start up once we got there. This time I checked the dash for the theft indicator to see if it was the chip in the key. Sure enough, the theft indicator was flashing! So I turned the key around to see if that helped. Nope. Then I looked more carefully at the key. It turns out that the trunk key will fit the ignition, and even turn the engine over. It just doesn't have the chip to get the engine to start. Not surprisingly I have not had any issues since I took the trunk key off my keychain.