Lord of the Castle

I finally made it over to my mechanic’s to get the master cylinder fixed. I asked him to change the oil and oil filter while he was at it.

Everything went pretty much like he predicted. He then asked for the key to start the engine up just to give the car the once over before I paid him and took off.

When he turned the car off, everything changed…

It sounded like a dog was taking a leak on the floor…but there was no dog in the shop!

It was my car!

He had forgotten to put the oil filter on!

He didn’t cuss, but boy, did he want to!

“Boy, that makes me so mad!…I could just kick myself!”

I think that the only reason that he didn’t try was because he was afraid he might slip in the oil and end up on his…

Posterior!

I felt bad for him. I tried to cheer him up by telling him this.

As I was talking, I was standing in front of his tool box. A magnet held a series of pictures printed out from the Internet titled “Murphy’s Law Revisited”.

I took them down and started looking at them. (click on the pics to get a larger view)

Did you notice that there is a guy standing IN the water? Did you see the tires behind him? He is standing on a car! Now, that’s a problem!

“Fine…we’ll just get a crane and pull it up out of the water.”

“There you go…That wasn’t too hard.”

OOOOPS!

When I saw this one, I doubled over in laughter!

When I recovered, I looked at it again and doubled over again! I could almost hear ‘Mater’s voice (the tow truck) from the movie “Cars”!

The van is BACK in the water AND the crane is in the water! Now, THAT is a problem!

“What are we going to do now?”

“We could get a bigger crane…”

“I think we’ll have to…”

We’ve been here before so let’s wait and see what happens…

Good. That went pretty smoothly. Now let see about that other crane…

“This baby’s got plenty of power…You just got to hook it up and go!”

“We’ll have this buttoned up and be out of here in just a few more minutes…”

When I saw this, I laughed so hard that my stomach convulsed. I was reduced to squatting down on the floor with only my hand keeping me from completely falling over. Oh, was I in pain! Thus the new acronym Down On My Knees Nearly Falling Over Laughing So Hart It Hurts!

When I recovered, I told my mechanic that if he wanted to feel better, he just needed to look at this! He does not have any problems!

You can find the original pics here. The man who deserves the credit for taking the shots is here.

We attended our first home group with our new church.

It was pretty interesting.

First, the room was filled with people who really love God.

Second, I don’t think that we were the youngest people there, chronologically speaking. However, we were clearly the youngest people there! I guess all of those years mentoring young people and fathering my children has preserved my wife and I.

Third, it made me even more grateful for my spiritual heritage! Wow! It is not as though I haven’t realized this before, but I am so grateful for where God saved (CA), the time that I was saved (1981), the ministry that He used to reach me, and the pastor and peers that he gave me. My wife and I have been spiritually privileged people!

I knew what I was doing all along…

When I started driving the Nissan last Monday, I noticed that it needed brake fluid.  I stopped by my mechanic the next day and he determined that the master cylinder was leaking. He called and ordered the part while I was there and told me to come by after work on Friday since the job would only take an hour.

On Saturday morning, I went to my first men’s meeting at our new church. Since the church is about a mile from the mechanic, I decided to slip on over to get some things out of the trunk of the Toyota.

As I lifted the trunk lid, I remembered that I had completely forgotten my Friday appointment!!! When Friday afternoon came around, I was so excited to see my wife at the apartment complex movie theater, I just headed straight home.

I called and left him a message.

He didn’t call me back. I called him today…

It turns out that he forgot about it too. He never picked the part up!

So, if I had remembered, he wouldn’t have been ready anyway. I am officially off the hook!

In fact, I actually did him a favor by forgetting!

I had to do something uncomfortable this morning…

For the past two months, the pastor of our new church has been calling me by the wrong name.

I haven’t said anything because he has really gone out of his way to make us feel welcome. Besides, it has usually been just a quick handshake in the middle of the worship service.

But today I met has I was heading into the men’s meeting. He was shoveling snow off of the sidewalk.

Once again, he called me by the wrong name.

I thought, “I’ve got to bring this up sometime and now is as good a time as any…”

But how do you address this? and still be cool?

Oh, that’s right. I just remembered…I don’t have to worry about that last thought.

I decided to just dive in. I put my hand on his shoulder, looked him in the eye and said, “I’m not offended, but my name is Lord.”

He was so embarrassed and apologetic.”No worries.”

Oh well, now he knows.

On the way home from church, I drove by the little frozen waterfall…

As I drove by, I thought that it was worth taking another picture. So…

I started backing up…

Made sense to me. Evidently, my wife didn’t think so.

As I put it in reverse, Bunch said, “What are you doing?”

“Backing up.”

“You can’t back up! That’s illegal!”

I kept going…

“You can’t back up on a curvy road like this! It is SO dangerous!”

I kept going…I could see down the road. In fact, a car did come by and I had plenty of time to pull safely off to the side of the road to let him pass.

And then I resumed backing up…

“This is so unsafe!”

By now, we had made it back to the waterfall and pulled off to the side of the road. If women had their way, we wouldn’t have any fun…

Well, not exactly any…

but…

you know what I mean!

As I was getting out of the truck, she said, “What kind of an example are you setting?”

“A terrible one…Not only was it ‘unsafe’, ‘illegal’ and a bad example, you forgot to mention that I am a 50 year old man dressed in a suit on a Sunday and that I had my wife and daughter in the car while I did it!”

I got her with that one. She laughed and laughed.

Oh yeah, the waterfall…

I took a picture because it was sporting a Laurel and Hardy mustache…

When I walked outside early this morning, I did a double take…

I couldn’t quite figure out what I was seeing.

It snowed last night. That’s not really news any longer. After all, it is winter and this is the Midwest!

But, it was how it looked..

.

(click on the pictures)

Our apartment complex looked like it had become a very large coloring book! Snow perfectly blanketed the streets and the sidewalks but not the grass!

Whoever did the coloring did a very good job of staying in the lines! Only the stones were covered on the walkway to the sidewalk!

Actually, it was too perfect…

As I headed back inside, I started looking for cameras…

I wonder if our apartment complex is really just another set on the “The Truman Show”?

Yesterday, I tried to link to a post about my most recent problem with my MacBook Pro laptop computer. I didn’t succeed because I never told you the story!

I back up my entire computer semi-regularly onto my Time Capsule. However, that is still a hard drive and, therefore, is subject to failure. So, about twice a year, I make a DVD copy of all of the files that I have personally created.

About three weeks ago, I decided that January seemed like a good time to do that so I popped in a DVD and got the following error message…”media error”!?!?

Fine. I’ve got four more disks…

I got the same message with five different disks!

Now, I can believe that one disk might be defective, but five…??? I don’t think so…

I did a smart thing when I bought the computer nearly two years…

I bought Apple Care. That means that Apple will fix anything and everything (well almost) for the next three years.

So I made an appointment at the Genius Bar and headed down to the Apple store.

“It’s not your disks. It’s your DVD burner.”

“Is this a covered repair?”

“Absolutely. Let me get your computer checked in.”

“How long will you need it for?”

He looked up from his screen and saw me visibly wincing, smiled and said, “Hold on a minute…” and disappeared into the back of the store.

Five minutes later, he came back and said, “I talked to a guy in the back who said that he will do it while you wait.”

Folks, I walked in for my 5:45 appointment trying to find out why I couldn’t burn a DVD and walked out at 6:30 with a new DVD burner installed in my laptop!

Go Apple!

I confessed something to my wife a few days ago…

“It might seem corny, but I REALLY like using my computer.”

Three weeks ago, while I was waiting for my MacBook Pro DVD drive to be replaced, I bought Apple’s latest operating system, “Snow Leopard”. It is faster and more powerful than the “Leopard” operating system that I currently run.

Before I could load it, I learned that Apple was going to unveil the “iPad” in a few weeks.

“Hmmm…I wonder what else they might release?”

I decided to wait just in case they pulled a surprise and released another new operating system.

While I was waiting these last two weeks, I found two pieces of software that REALLY make using my computer an enjoyable thing. In fact, the last time that I was this excited about computing was 23 years ago when I bought my first MacPlus and learned how to program in Hypercard.

Then I realized that my happiness was creating a dilemna…

Two of my favorite pieces of software are not compatible with the new software.

“Do I really want to upgrade to ‘Snow Leopard’?”

It is a little like selling a house that you really love and moving out of a great neighborhood just because you can get a great deal on a “nicer, bigger” one in some other part of town.

I took Snow Leopard back.

If the software that I really like gets upgraded to be compatible, I will upgrade. Until then, I like where I live.

My little rough patch continued today..

Last night, I was so preoccupied with learning how to set my clock radio so I could fall asleep while listening to a jazz CD that I forgot to turn my alarm. I woke up in time to take a shower, get some food and head out the door.

Then, as I drove to work, I noticed that my eyes were blurry. It seems that my super-duper, bubbling contact lens cleaner has run out of juice.

When I got to work, I decided to clean them the old fashioned way: with some liquid and my fingers. That worked great for the right lens. I tore the left one in two.

At lunch, I went to the local Costco to see if they had a replacement lens in stock that I could purchase…

They didn’t. Evidently, the general population’s eyeballs are round. Mine looks like a football.

Back to work…

One half hour later, my vision started disappearing in my right eye! That generally means that a storm called a migraine headache is trying to develop inside my body. Two Extra Strength Excedrin were able to fight it off to a draw. It never got so bad that I had to go home but it never completely went away either.

Anyway, I am looking forward to sleeping tonight!

The Toyota’s engine is toast…

I can’t say that I am surprised. I thought there might be real trouble when I first heard the knock.

The thing that is really trying to eat away at me is the cause…

I didn’t check the oil! How basic can you get?

I have replayed it over and over again in my mind.

The car wasn’t leaking oil. With all of the snow on the ground, that would have been VERY obvious.

It wasn’t burning oil as far as I could see. In fact, the car was running great!

And I had the oil changed 3,300 miles ago. I was due to go back in this week.

This is starting to sound like a Hardy Boys mystery…”The Case of the Missing Oil”.

When I called my wife to tell her the news, she tried to put a good spin on it…

“Well, you’ve got a great teaching lesson for your children.”

“What’s that?”

“To make sure they check the oil in their cars. You’ve told them in the past but I don’t think they really take it seriously”

I didn’t quite know what to say so she continued…

“I mean I’ve never heard of this happening to anyone in my entire life!”

Gosh, Bunch…thanks…I feel so much better now!

Anyway, $15 worth of missing oil is now looking like it will cost me about $1500!

Once again, I am forced to face the fact that I am not the sharpest tool in the shed!

I’ve got to go now…

I have to try to nurse my wounded ego back to health!