Minor Win thread - Life is good!

This minor win is a couple days old but it was cool so I'll share.

Over the weekend the power went out, my kid was upset because it was during his alloted time to play video games and the game he wanted to play was coming off of game pass that day. I hooked the Xbox, TV, router, and modem up to the generator and he was able to play until the power came back on. It wasn't a big deal and only took a few minutes but I know it meant a lot to him.

Bonus prize to this my other kid helped me hook it all up and he was happy to prove that he could set the generator up by himself and get the power going if dad wasn't available.

I finally got the crank pulley off the Miata. 

So depending on the car, it should just pull off by hand. Nope. 

Depending on the car, the timing pulley has some tapped holes that you can rig to a puller. Nope.

Drilled and tapped for M5, pulled off without too much trouble. 
 

I managed not to break a bit or a tap! It was a Labor Day miracle. LOL

It even looks like I drilled and tapped the pulley reasonably square. Miracle! 

2 months into playing bass. I've been taking lessons at a local School of Rock. They invited me to check out one of their adult bands.

That was way more fun than I expected it to be! I thought I'd be lost not knowing the songs yet, but they intentionally picked simple songs good for a beginner group, and everyone is fine with having the bass just playing root notes.

They were also excited to have me because bass player. Their guy playing bass is a guitarist who is half grudgingly filling in that role. Although he knew their songs already, I could tell pretty quickly that I have a better sense of bass.

Got to experience that sense of synching up with the drummer, locking in, and just feeding off of each other. Felt great.

Looking forward to more of this. Going to check out a different location though. I started going to this one because it's 2 blocks from work. There's another one about 10 minutes from my house though, which makes a difference on an evening practice.

Doing my synchronous class at my wife's office late last night. Wifi went out an hour in and discovered that my phone hotspot is capable to fill in, so that's cool. Win though is that a barbershop quartet just started their rehearsals down the hallway and so I got to do the last half hour of class while listening to 4 part harmony of Sweet Caroline, et al.!

In reply to P3PPY :

I'm guessing you mean "Sweet Adeline"... but now I wan to hear a barbershop mashup of "Sweet Adeline/Caroline".

In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :

I don't think I know the song Sweet Adeline, but they were for sure singing the lyrics of Neil Diamond's song is all I know

Had a good evening with the kids, radio came in for my courier, and then I went out and cleaned up/organized some in the garage. Not a massive difference, but it's better. 

In reply to P3PPY :

"Sweet Adeline" is the most iconic barbershop song.

If they were doing "Sweet Caroline", that is pretty sweet though.

I sold my 30' travel trailer and replacing it with a '90 Westy. Photos and "project" thread coming soon. 

In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :

Yeah I just played the video and it was definitely Caroline. I talked to them afterward and got a tentative schedule so I'll post back with a video someday. 

Six hours and over 800 miles as the crow flies and new pupper is home. Nice to have done this in an airplane. 
 

She's got about 100 lbs of growing to do. 
 

In reply to Karacticus :

I've flown into and out of GLW! Visiting the Federal Mogul plant just outside the fence.

Yesterday, I bought this:

Karacticus said:

Six hours and over 800 miles as the crow flies and new pupper is home. Nice to have done this in an airplane. 
 

She's got about 100 lbs of growing to do. 
 

Irish Wolfhound?

In reply to Antihero :

Yes.  Wife says pup's name is Leni. 

In reply to Karacticus :

"My, what big paws you have..."

2nd day of my remaining 10weeks of leave! 
 

Replaced our furnace vent for ~$25 in materials after being quoted $800 earlier this year. Going to thrifty with my wife and then do more chores or work on the car!

I got great feedback on my homework from last week:  "it was a real pleasure to read through your polished bibliography. If you were to write a paper on this theme (and I think that you should while you're at NKU), I am confident that it would be excellent. As. matter of fact, I would also bet that you'd find some interest in getting such a work published. Keep up the excellent work." 

Maybe I should have been a History major instead....

My wife calls her cousin in Jackson, TN (about an our from us) every Sunday and mostly listens to Ann talk for an hour or so. She's 85 and and has been doing the books at the local Ford dealership forever. Among her other news was the fact that she never goes to the grocery store on Saturday but had this time. She bumped into or was bumped into by a gentleman who apologized profusely over and over. When she got to the checkout, she noticed that she was behind the same gentleman. She heard him say "put this toward her groceries." Ann thought it was a $20 and tried to refuse it but he wasn't having it. It turned out to be a $100. So she gets outside and sees him again and thanks him over and over and they chat a minute. At some point she told him about working at the Ford Dealer. "By choice, I hope" was his response. Ann replied that it was a little of both. When they parted Ann says he handed her a wad of cash and absolutely would not take it back or listen to her. When she got home she counted it. $1600.00!

How-to videos are one of the most unambiguously good things about the internet. My C63 had its first failure this week. Suddenly the entire left rear tailight assembly didn't function at all. I open up the rear panel and find that one of the wires going into the Molex plug is scorched, and the socket melted away. My first thought is "berkeley, now I have to get a new plug and replace the light plate. But wait, this shouldn't happen. Maybe its a factory defect and there's an easy repair path already figured out." Yep, sure enough, Mercedes undersized the ground wire on those and it gets hot enough to cause the plastic parts around it to fail. I find a charming Australian guy who explains how to solder on a heavier gauge ground wire and bypass the harness altogether. A couple dollars worth of wire and solder and bam, the fix that would cost me several hundred dollars -or more at the local Mercedes shop is done in about 45 minutes. (and that's slow, because I'm a lousy mechanic). Thank you internet. And thank you, random people who share your knowledge there!

In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :

I saw a quote once that's motivated me to upload a number of how-tos to Ifixit or YouTube: "Have you given back to the internet yet?"

I started an internet system restore on my Mac mini, and went off to have dinner. When I walked back to my office to check on it, it said "less than a minute left" and rebooted exactly as I sat down.

Was tasked with doing 480v 3-phase wiring for some machines at work. Managed to do it without blowing anything up. I'll consider that a win for someone that studied mech e and has only learned electrical stuff by osmosis

A minor win 5 years in the making:

When car shopping in 2019, I didn't go test drive an Alfa Romeo Giulia.

The story:

At the beginning of this year, my boss traded his 2022 Audi RS3 for a 2024 Alfa Stelvio because the RS3 was too small.

In mid-June, with about 10,000 miles on it, he took it in for a routine oil change.  They said it had an oil leak and they needed to replace an oil sensor, under warranty.  They gave him a loaner and ordered the part.

Something like 2 weeks of radio silence later, after he called to check status, they told him it needed a new engine.  Also under warranty.; no real reason given.

It took about 2 months to get the engine in.  In the meantime, the dealer gave him almost zero information.  In fact, they almost never call him except to demand that he bring their loaners back because he's putting too many miles on them.  Mind you, he's just driving the way he would have driven his car if it was in his driveway.  Eventually they put him in a cheap-ass rental Cherokee.

They got the new engine in and installed it, finally.  Then they called to tell him they have to take it out again.  I don't know how the drivetrain in these is configured, but apparently, somebody left some plastic caps inside and the front axles won't go in.

Another week for them to R&R the engine a second time, and they gave him his car back.   They had it more than 90 days, so he initiated a Lemon Law proceeding.  His lawyer told him he has a case and filed it, but it will be next year until it gets heard.  Alf Romeo still hasn't informed him about why it needed a new engine.

Oh, and the car now has a shimmy it didn't before.  He took it back and they tell him they can't repeat it.  Throughout this entire ordeal, getting information out of them has been difficult at best.  He believes they have put 1200 miles on his car but he doesn't have record of the mileage when it went in, so I'm not convinced about that.

Over the weekend it went into limp mode for no apparent reason.  He's in another rental and they're coming to get the Stelvio out of his driveway again.

So my minor win is that I didn't get seduced by a sexy but problematic Italian car.

I got a bill from my frenectomy from last year, $100.

I was told at the time that I was paying in full, allowing the provider to submit to both medical and dental insurance for me. They could not tell me how much insurance would cover, if any. I called both insurance companies, gave them the codes, and they still could not tell me how much would be covered. Annoying, but fine. I paid $869 out of pocket.

This new bill was for the office visit and consultation. Apparently they forgot to bill it.

I called and reminded them of the above. They never submitted it to either insurance company, and now it's too late.

They sent a refund check of $769. No kidding.