I took off the driver side tire, and surprise, there was no pad left. The outside of the driver side rotor has to be turned, and possibly needs to be replaced. The wear isn't even, which could mean that the caliper needs replacing also. Not having time to commit to that, I just replaced the pads last night. The other stuff will have to wait until the weekend.
Knowing that I had free lifetime brake pad replacement, I borrowed a car from my folks, and drove up to Autozone to get the new brake pads. It took the guy helping me about 20 minutes to figure out which items should be replaced. They didn't have them in stock. He looked for me, and the closest store with them in stock was Kaysville. So our journey continued.
When we got to Kaysville, I explained the situation, and helped the clerk navigate their "Warranty System" to find my brakes. Due to the extremely poor condition of the pads, the clerk had to get a manager's approval to process the return. The manager reminded me of this guy:
I have to say the kid was really nice, and very helpful. It was weird to see the older guy being deferential to him, and the black rubber bands on his braces didn't help the situation. It turns out the "warranty" I had were for an old part they don't carry anymore. The price has gone up, but the manager refunded the old part, and discounted the new brakes, so I wasn't out any money. Very happy!
When we got home, the wife made my oldest son come out to "help" me install the new brake pads. I talked him through the process, and let him install the driver's side pads. He thought it was pretty cool, and kept telling me how complicated cars are.
The reason we had to get the brakes fixed, besides stopping the car, was that our refrigerator isn't staying cold. The freezer of our frost free fridge has been frosting up. This might not seem to have anything to do with car brakes, but stay with me for a minute. Now I have to have a flashback.
Doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo (picture Wayne and Garth waving their hands down by their faces, and the picture becoming wavy for a minute.)
The wife: "Honey, why is there water dripping down in the fridge?"
Me: "No idea, put a bowl under it to catch it."
Doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo (back to the present.)
That was my idea of fixing the fridge. In doing some research on refrigerators, I found that my problem is probably related to one of two items. First, it could be that there is a problem with the defrost cycles. This could be bad, it might require an actual repairman. Second, it could do with the fact that the cold air from the freezer is not circulating down into the fridge. Since I can now see ice stalactites hanging down from the vents at the back of the fridge, I'm betting on the second. I also found the reason for the water dripping, ice stalactite developing problem in our fridge. It seems that the condenser hose at the back of the fridge is plugged. I guess this is pretty common. Since the moisture cant vent out, it is building up inside. I'm hoping that by clearing out that hose, and letting the fridge thaw for a few days our problems will be fixed.
The big problem is what to do with all of our perishable food for the next few days? My mother has a "spare" fridge in her basement. It's pretty small, but would hold our food for a few days. She demanded that we borrow it, so I had to get to her house to move a fridge (see there is a tie in.)
We successfully relocated the fridge into our kitchen, just in time for me to get the kids to bed. This sounds simple, but anyone who has children, or was a child knows this is not true. After dealing with about 30 minutes of child wrangling, everyone was in bed and being quiet. I consider this success.
This leads me to the next adventure of the night, my new job as church bouncer. Our Elder's quorum is responsible for building security this month. Unfortunately we didn't get cool black t-shirts with the word "SECURITY" on back. Basically, two members of our quorum go over every night, and make sure all the doors and windows are shut and locked, and that everyone is out of the building. Last night was my turn.
I used to think it was really spooky walking around a dark church at night, but it wasn't too bad, I did have backup. We had to kick some guys out who were playing basketball, and one lady who was updating a bulletin board. Although we were very polite, and let them finish their activities first.
Between all of this excitement, I didn't get a chance to go to the gym, but since I was so active I don't feel bad. This morning I officially hit 30 pounds lost. I still have a lot more to go, but I'm getting there.
UPDATE: I just reread this post, and have to apologize for the gratuitous use of quotation marks. The sad thing is, I wanted to use more.
Quotations, the gateway to other punctuation!
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