Ron's posts with tag: battery
Yesterday morning, my car wouldn't start. It's still got the original little battery under the hood, which is about 4 years old, so I guess it's time. I hooked up my battery charger, and after a minute of 15A charging, it started right up. I made sure I had jumper cables with me, and headed to work. At lunchtime, it started right up, so I thought maybe I hadn't closed the door all the way and the dome light had been on all night or something. Unfortunately, at the end of the work day it didn't start again, and a coworker gave me a jump start. I headed over to Sears to buy a new battery. I arrived at Sears a little after 5:30, and they told me they did have a DieHard that was only a little bit bigger than the motorcycle battery that was under the hood, and it would fit the tray. I paid the bill, and they told me it would just be a few minutes. While I waited, I noticed that all their mechanics seemed to be involved in beating on a spare tire that was hanging under a Yukon. I spoke to the owner, who was livid. Apparently, they'd put the spare back into the compartment upside-down, tried to force it, and had now bent something or other, and couldn't even get it back off. The lady had even told them they were installing it wrong, but they'd ignored her. She was there with three young daughters, was throwing a retirement party at her house the next morning, and clearly had other places she'd rather have been. There's a group of men from my church that play dominoes once a month. We gather at someone's house at 6:30. The host provides a main dish and we all bring snacks, side dishes, and the beverage of our choice. The games start around 7:30. So I was a little anxious about getting done at Sears, and commiserated with the owner of the Yukon. At about 6:15 I asked if I could take the battery with me and get a refund on the labor to install it. I got home about 6:30 and called the dominoes host to let them know I'd be a bit late, and see if they needed anything (I have a few sets of dominoes and a bag of train markers). They were good, so I grabbed a couple beers from the fridge, some salsa and a bag of chips and headed out the door. You guessed it, the car wouldn't start. So I'm about to hook up the battery charger again, when I realize I've got jumper cables and a brand new battery sitting on the floorboard. So I gave myself a jump start. And repeated the process after the dominoes game in order to get home.  First order of business Saturday morning was to install the new battery. Then I worked on cleaning up some stuff in the backyard in preparation for the BBQ this weekend. While I was working, the lawn mowing service showed up, so I took a break and went inside to get some laundry started. The owner of the company that installed my patio sent me some information about joint sand stabilizers and sealers, so I went to Home Depot to try to find something. I searched for about an hour and didn't find anything. During that time, I couldn't find a single employee on the floor that wasn't working a cash register. I guess I'll try Lowe's tomorrow. And maybe it's time to sell that HD stock, too. Last week I bought another propane tank for my BBQ. When you get one of these things filled or exchanged, you always pay for a full tank, so it's wasteful to turn one in that's not completely empty. But if you empty it, you're probably going to end up with something sitting on the grill that's half-cooked. So with a spare tank, I figure I can swap it out when one gets empty, and then taking my sweet time refilling or exchanging the empty one. So I took the new tank to get it "purged" and filled. After dinner, I went to a birthday party at my church. Libby turned 105 years old today. Quite a lot of people turned out. They were playing music and some folks were line dancing, and I'll be damned if Libby didn't get up and do one of the dances. I can only hope I'm as nimble, quick-witted, and healthy as she is by the time I'm 60.
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