Update: The problem was indeed the part that I suspected so I was able to revive the refrigerator. I had to buy a “universal kit”, so I have parts left over; but, it’s working which is the most important thing.

I’m not superstitious, but I don’t like Friday the 13th. I somehow lost my badge/access card to the office building that I work in on Friday. We’ve haven’t been able to find it even though we’ve turned the house upside down. It will probably turn up after I’ve paid the replacement fee and had a new one made.

The Girl moved herself back from college this week. I didn’t do anything except put money in her account to pay for gas. She’s 18 so she should be independent; but it definitely made me feel a LOT older than I did the day before.

Blogger seems to slowly be returning to life. This whole debacle has been frustrating and I’m just a visitor. I can’t imagine how aggravating it must be for people who use the service; especially the lack of timely information.

Today (Saturday) was a lot better. I replaced the belt with a brand new one in our warm, dry garage. I also replaced the belt on the other car even though it wasn’t due, just in case, since the college The Girl goes to is far away and we would have to pay someone to do the repair if it broke while she was at school. I also finished my “repair” of the shift interlock which is to say that the faulty part is in a drawer of my tool box. The car is “old school” now. You can shift it out of park without having your foot on the brake (even though that would be really, really stupid). No one seems to make a replacement part, both the manufacturer and their dealer network went out of business years ago and I wouldn’t trust a part from a junk yard to not do the same thing. It’s kinda an idiot switch; but I still reminded The Girl to be careful. She should always apply the brake before shifting anyway since you have to for all our other cars so I’m not too worried; but I would be happier if a replacement part were available.

PS. I’m ODing on jelly beans now that I’m done working on things.

First, we discovered that the air conditioner to our SUV wasn’t working when we got back in the vehicle after a warm hot Sunday morning run. I purchased some Freon at the auto store; but, when I went to put it in with the new manifold gauges that I purchased, I discovered that the coupling was defective, and of course the store didn’t have another one in stock for exchange so I would just have to guestimate how much to put in. Which turned out to be zero, since the AC compressor wouldn’t run so the car would not suck in the Freon.

So, I gave up working on the car and decided to cut the grass with the newly repaired riding mower. It turned out that I received a faulty/incomplete wheel assembly. The manufacturer doesn’t make the specific item I need any more so they sent a substitute part. The “identical” substitute turned out to be missing a few key components; but, I couldn’t tell when I installed it since it was a completely different design. Unfortunately, it was only when the wheel came off while I was in the middle of mowing the yard and I was able to look at how it broke that I was able to determine that the “new and improved” wheel was not the full assembly. So, I dragged the mower back into the garage and cut the rest of the front yard with my push mower.

Most all of my free time today has been spent trying to recover from Sunday. It turned out the dealer didn’t reconnect the pressure switch to the AC compressor when performing the work for their “Customer Satisfaction Program” was which is why it wouldn’t run, so I was ultimately able to recharge it. Unfortunately, despite spending 75 minutes on the telephone and talking to seven different people in customer support, I still don’t have the missing parts to the wheel. Not because they don’t want to help; but because no one can figure out the part numbers of the missing items so they can send them to me. All of their schematics (which are referenced by model number) pull up diagrams of the old wheel and no one can locate an exploded parts diagram of the new wheel. It really shouldn’t be that hard; but I’m planning on spending a long time on the telephone on Tuesday. The worst part is that the recorded message that played for people on hold is only 37 seconds long, so I heard it over and over and over. By the time that I finally hung up while waiting to talk to the eight different person, I almost wanted to gouge out my ear drums.

P.S. I’ve been struggling with my Droid most of the evening since it hung while I was synching music and corrupted the data on the memory card; so we’ve won’t be publishing our Two for Tuesday post until Wednesday evening. If it wasn’t such PIA it would be funny. Data in the mp3 folder is cross-linked so the music is randomly run together; switching tracks in the middle of songs.

We’ve got three new guys starting a work who need to be trained; but, of course, no deadlines have changed. And, we’re losing the best guy to another project.

A big ice storm is on the way. California Girl and I are all stocked up; but, unlike a week ago, it will get too cold to stay here if the power goes out.

At least today is the last day of January. Hopefully we’ve only got another month or so before cold yucky weather.

All is not yet well. The tech swapped the box in the home theater (which was being recalled) with one we can’t change the channel on. It turns on and off; but, no matter what key is pressed, it stays on the same channel. So now I’ll need to make arrangements to exchange it for yet another box. I’m already having problems with some of the equipment so this is yet one more thing that I’ll need to take care of. And, of course, we missed the national championship game on Monday night. Plus, California Girl works from home, and there isn’t muchanything she can do without an internet connection. So she is way, way behind in her work. And, to make it a totally crapastic day, when I was walking back to work after my lunchtime boxing class, someone whizzed through a big puddle of slush in the curb lane and threw goo from the road all over me.

As I always say, tomorrow is another day. I’m really hoping that it will be a better one.

P.S. Since this day hasn’t been much fun, our normal Tuesday feature will appear on Wednesday.