canyonwalker: Uh-oh, physics (Wile E. Coyote)
Yesterday the hammering and grinding started. Whump-whump-whump against the wall from next door. Then GrrrrRRRRrrrrrRRRRrrrRRRR. The both, with the grinding wailing away while the whump-ing kept the beat. Our neighbors are having their windows replaced, and workers were grinding through the stucco.

At first I just toughed through noise while working from home as it was mostly coming from the other side of the house. But then it moved to the side where my home-office is, echoing through a wall less than 10' from my desk. I grabbed my computer and moved to another room.

This morning the grinding and thumping started back up around 8:30am so I decided to move workstation temporarily. I moved to the corner of the living room, downstairs and to the other side of the house.

I temporarily moved my home office downstairs because of construction noise (May 2025)

I've set up down here a few times in the past. It's kind of my "Summer Home... office" 😂, a place I retreat to occasionally when a summer heat wave makes the 3rd floor too hot during the day.. Last time I did it was a bit more fancy, with my spouse clearing off her crafting desk so I could set up my desk there. This time, because I only expect to be here for a day or two, I left her desk alone and simply set up my stuff atop a card table I hauled out of the garage.

One nice thing about this temporary setup is having the sliding glass door that opens onto our back patio there. I left the curtains closed this morning as the sun was shining in too strongly, but it's nice to open them for natural light after 11-noon or so when the sun rotates around the side of the house.

Speaking off 11-noon or so, when I went out for lunch today I spotted the workers climbing down off their ladders between tasks.

Stucco work on the neighbors' house is noisy (May 2025)

I chatted with them about the job being done. I mentioned the noise was disruptive but emphasized I wasn't asking them to stop; just to let me know what their schedule was. "Oh, we're done with the hammering," they assured me. "We just finished!'

So my temporary relocation may be very temporary. I could have moved back within an hour! 🤣 But I think I'll keep my temporary desk set up a bit longer, to enjoy the change of scenery. Already a few of my colleagues have remarked on seeing the different scene behind me on videoconferences. In addition to having the different scene myself, it's nice to be noticed.

canyonwalker: Sullivan, a male golden eagle at UC Davis Raptor Center (Golden Eagle)
There's been a discussion on an email group in my neighborhood about hiring a contractor to replace windows and sliding glass doors. One neighbor, "Chu", asked for recommendations. A few businesses were suggested, including one that my spouse and I hired years ago for some window repairs. We didn't give this recommendation, though we do consider the contractor an knowledgeable and fair professional. Many people in our neighborhood have hired them for window repairs, as they've been in business in our community for decades.

Chu wrote back to the group that the contractor had come through with a $33k bid that she thought was too high. Moreover, they didn't itemize the cost proposal to identify specific materials and units of labor.  At first the amount of $33k struck me as large, too— our bill for window repairs years ago was more like $1,000— but then I saw Chu's description of the work she wants done. She's asking for 13 windows and 2 sliding glass doors to be replaced. ...Not just repaired, like fixing a pane of glass (which is what we did year ago) but replacing the whole window/door 15x.

A few of our neighbors pointed out that, yes, this project will be costly. The contractor has to cut into the exterior wall in numerous places, remove the old windows/doors, set the new casements in, then not only patch them up to the interior walls but seal them to the exterior, redoing the stucco and exterior paint.

Chu is upset that the contractor didn't provide a price breakdown and hasn't responded to her request to provide one.

I gotta say at this point, I understand where the contractor is coming from in kind of ghosting her request. For one, quotes can take time to prepare. I know in my company, there's a process around it. And when a prospective customer starts requesting multiple quotes, it triggers concern that the customer is aggressively looking for ways to argue for discounts and/or shrink the size of their order but still get the favorably unit pricing entailed in a bigger order.

Also, in any business situation, you've got to understand the market dynamic. Are the vendors hurting for work, or are they all booked up? If the vendors have staff idling for lack of work, they'll respond quickly to inquiries (they're not busy with other projects!) and they'll lead with discounts or offer them quickly to secure a deal. OTOH, when there's more demand than supply, the vendors hold the cards. They don't need to return calls lickedy-split. They don't need to write multiple quotes for choosy buyers or entertain bargain-seekers.

I believe that right now, in terms of home renovations contracting, we are facing an under-supply relative to demand. There are only so many contractors, especially good contractors. And a lot of people want to hire them. In this area there's almost always a supply-demand imbalance for skilled contractors that favors the contractors. It's a high-cost-of-living area, and people want home improvements. In addition, with home sales slow because of high interest rates the past few years, more people are paying to renovate where they live instead of moving.

I absolutely don't fault Chu for wanting to shop for 1-2 competing offers. She absolutely should. But given the first company she called is well reputed and known to be fair, I wouldn't be surprised if the other offers either come in higher or would entail cutting corners that spell trouble a few years down the road. (If you cheap out on exterior sealing you get leaks, with inside-the-wall damage!) I hope she sees that quality work isn't always compatible with getting the lowest price, and that contractors who are busy because they're good aren't going to bargain down their price.

canyonwalker: Driving on the beach at Oceano Dunes (4x4)
It was time to buy new tires for "Gumbo", our Nissan Xterra 4x4. The old tires were getting worn down, and some of the tread lugs were chipping and cracking. Since we don't drive our own cars a huge amount— Gumbo has rolled only about 5,000 miles in the past 12 months— the old set of tires were ready to replace on the basis of age if not also wear. And this week seemed like a good time to do it as we'd just finished one road trip and were about to embark upon another— another that would involve  a few days of driving on dirt fire roads to get to/from remote hiking trailheads.

Gumbo gets new shoes (Jul 2024)

Alas the latter road trip, over this July 4 holiday weekend, got canceled due to extreme heat. It was a tough choice for us to make, but we concluded (reluctantly) it was the right one.

It was just as well we canceled that trip because the tires we bought a week earlier and had sent to shop for installation on Monday weren't ready. ...Well, three of the four tires were ready. The fourth tire was mislabeled at the warehouse and was the wrong size. 🙄 The shop ordered another one and suggested we could come back on Friday to have it installed. That would've been a day and a half after we left.

I pressed for the second appointment sooner on general principles. The shop had appointments Wednesday afternoon, so I took one. It was a pain having to waste our time going back a second time for what should have been one fix-it visit, but Hawk drove a bargain with the shop manager to comp us one of the tires. Saving a few hundred bucks sure softened the blow.

Gumbo's new shoes (Jul 2024)

"Why 'Gumbo'?" you may ask. Well, it's a Nissan Xterra Pro 4X.... That's a lot of Xs, so we decided to name it after one of the X Men. I wanted to go for Professor X— it's kind of like Pro four X— but Hawk wanted something more physically capable since it is our all-terrain SUV. So we went with Gambit. Nickname Gumbo.

As for the tires, we've been running BFG AT KOs for as long as we've had the car. This time around I switched to Goodyear Wrangler Ultraterrain ATs. They're in the same category of tire, fairly aggressive all-terrain (AT) tires but not mud-terrains (MTs). BFG ATs have a great reputation in the offroading community. They're pricey, though. The Goodyear ATs were significantly cheaper at regular retail price and were on sale. The price difference worked out to around $400 for the set even before we got one comped for the warehouse's screw-up.

How are the new tires? Well, I've only driven them a handful of miles, and all on paved roads, but immediately I'm impressed by how they ride so much more smoothly and quietly than BFG ATs. I'll see how they handle dirt trails as soon as the heat cools down and we find free time for our next roadtrip.

canyonwalker: My other car is a pair of hiking boots (in beauty I walk)
Alaska Travelog #11
Asea in Kenai Fjords NP - Sun, 16 Jun 2024, 11am

I've got to hand it to him— our cruise captain MacGyvered a fix for the engine problem that was hobbling the ship. It turned out seaweed had gotten into the coolant intake pipe and made it past the filter. The ship's engines use sea water as coolant. Seaweed got wrapped around the impeller, which is like a rapidly spinning gear cog that pulls water through the pipe, causing it to overheat and start to break down. This further caused too little cool water to reach the engines, causing them to start to overheat. There were replacement impeller wheels aboard the ship— the first mate explained that carrying a variety of replacement parts for hot-swaps at sea is standard when I expressed surprise— but the captain also had to improvise tools to pull the seaweed out of the long supply pipe. Well, long story short, we were under way again about an hour after the problem first appeared.

The captain pushed on ahead to Spire Cove to help make up for lost time. Normally he might have gone slower looking for aquatic wildlife, but we'd already seen a lot. There was a bald eagle right at the marina and playful otters just outside that. Then we saw humpback whales, too. The video I tried capturing of them didn't turn out well. But hey, I was talking about Spire Cove....


Link: watch video on YouTube

Spire Cove is interesting for the tall, rocky spires jutting up from the sea. This is a situation where the morning's foggy weather was both good and bad. It was bad because it foiled long-distance views and muted out the colors around us. Those colors would've been striking in the sun, especially with all those wildflowers and trees improbably growing atop the spires. The good side of the fog was that it created a certain aura of mystery around the spires.

Will the fog lift by the time we get to the glaciers? I certainly hope so, because that's a place where long-distance views absolutely will count, and I want to see the glaciers. For me that's the number-one reason to spend the time and money on this cruise.

The crew says that this fog is a convective fog. It's caused by warm air over cold water. Yesterday was an extremely warm day for Alaska— we enjoyed 74° highs up in Anchorage! So now this is like our punishment for having such a nice day yesterday. 😧


canyonwalker: Uh-oh, physics (Wile E. Coyote)
Alaska Travelog #10
Asea in Resurrection Bay - Sun, 16 Jun 2024, 10am

Things are not exactly... ship shape... on our cruise today. We're idling out in Resurrection Bay about an hour out of Seward because one of the ship's engines is overheating. It seems that the coolant impeller has gotten gummed up with seaweed. The captain is belowdecks in the engine room trying to wrangle the problem. His first approach to fixing it didn't work, so we limped over to a spot with mobile reception so he could call an expert engine mechanic for advice. He's said he's hoping he can McGyver a solution here at sea. I hope he can, too, so today's 8 hour tour doesn't become a 3 hour tour. A three hour tour!

canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
Today we're in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. We arrived late last night. This morning we slept in a bit then around 10 drove over to visit with my sister at her house a few miles away.

Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin (Jun 2024)

It was just me, Hawk and my sister B. for a while at the house. B.'s daughter was going to a friend's party in a town park, and her husband was dropping her off.

B. gave us a quick tour of their home. They've lived there for several years, though it's our first time visiting.

It's an old home, over 100 years old. It was one of the first two houses in town, she explained. The one next door was originally the general store, and this house was built by the station master for the train station when the railroad came through. The home is small but has been added onto a few times over its history. That much is obvious from the front room, where the floor is sunken because there's no foundation beneath it— "They enclosed the front porch," I suggested— plus the whole second floor seems added on as the stairway is steep and crooked. Oh, and speaking of crooked, there pretty much isn't a plumb line anywhere in the house. Every window frame is crooked. Many of the doors don't close. Some of the walls are visibly leaning. None of the floors are level. And I don't just mean slightly off level; you can see where the floors dip and rise by inches across the width of a room!

While hanging out at the house we felt a sudden shake in the floor accompanied by a loud "THUNK!" sound.

"Whoa, was that an earthquake?" I asked. "In Wisconsin??"

"I think something exploded!" my sister responded. "We need to leave the house!"

"No, it's not an explosion," I assured her. "With an explosion there'd be more sounds and smoke and fire." (Yes, I know, I'm so reassuring. 🤣)

"I felt the floor under me drop one or two inches," Hawk noted.

The three of us agreed whatever it was, it came from underneath the house. "My guess is a support beam cracked," I suggested. We agreed to go down to the basement to check.

"I'm still scared of an explosion," B. said as we peered into the darkness down the steep stairs that looked like a set from the opening scenes of The Wizard of Oz.

"If something exploded down there, we'd see light from the fire and smoke coming out," I helpfully reassured her again.

Downstairs I found something similar to what I had guessed 30 seconds earlier. A metal support jack that was supporting a floor joist had rusted out and fallen over. The loss of the support created the sudden drop in the floor we felt. The "THUNK!" sound was a combination of the wood beams settling and the 6' tall steel jack hitting the concrete floor.

B. is fortunate that she and her family are renting— so it's not their problem to fix, it's the landlord's. Furthermore, they're lucky the landlord lives next doorand is an engineer. She called him on her cell phone. He came over a minute later, walking through the hedge in the back yard. And once he saw the busted support jack he was like, "Yeah, I've got a spare." I figured his house needs them, too. He probably bought a three-pack last time he needed one. 😅
canyonwalker: Hangin' in a hammock (life's a beach)
It's been over 3 months since we used the hot tub in our townhouse complex. A bit of that is because in December we got out of the habit of using it... then the last week of the year we were traveling anyway. Once back in January we looked to use it, though... and it was broken! The heater was busted. It took a long time to get it fixed because there were problems with our previous pool vendor. The homeowners' association had to go through the process of soliciting bids from new vendors for repair and ongoing maintenance. The whole thing took many weeks. But late last week the good news arrived: the new vendor had replaced the heater, and the hot tub would be reopened Saturday!

The hot tub is back in business! (Mar 2024)

Well, today is Saturday. And after months of waiting for a soak in our hot tub I wasn't going to wait even one more day. I did wait several hours, though. Instead of jumping in the hot tub first thing in the morning— which, come to think of it, I totally could have done!— I waited until after a good hike nearby in this weekend's beautiful, Spring-time weather then jumped in after dinner. Update: the hike was a beautiful and challenging trek to the top of Flag Hill.

Enjoying the hot tub at home for the first time in over 3 months (Mar 2024)

It's time to get back to doing this more often.

canyonwalker: Uh-oh, physics (Wile E. Coyote)
Monday was a day without a car. Well, so were Saturday and Sunday and part of Friday. I didn't notice us temporarily being a one-car family over the weekend since we did mostly take it easy. On Monday, though, it hit me when I made (solo) plans to go out for lunch, walked down the stairs, and realized... there's no car in the garage!

The car was in a garage, just not ours. It was at the shop... where it had been for 10 days while the insurance company dragged its corporate feet. Actually, counting the weekend and Monday it was up to 13 days.

Solo lunch wasn't hard. I simply changed my plans to walk out to a restaurant 0.6 miles away. And while I was eating I got good news: my car was ready to pick up. ([personal profile] some_other_dave  gave me a ride later in the day to get it.) While that was good news it also pissed me off again because it put back into sharp relief how much foot-dragging the insurance company had done. They caused my car to sit, unusable, for nearly two weeks. Once they gave the green light to go forward the shop fixed it in half a day.

Money-wise, at least insurance agreed to pay for the repairs, less a $500 deductible. The damage, which was caused by a road hazard, is officially recorded as "Driver hit stationary object," though. That's gonna jack my rates for the next few years. 😡


canyonwalker: WTF? (wtf?)
After the BMW dealership rooked us on a ridiculous price for basic service we definitely weren't going to trust them for the more expensive repairs our car needs. I took it to a trusted local independent BMW specialist on Tuesday.

The situation is that the AC hasn't been working recently. We first noticed that when those 113 days of March weather suddenly turned to July 10. The dealership traced the AC problem to a damaged radiator which caused the coolant pump to fail. That was their diagnosis. They said they found a pebble lodged in the radiator, and removed it. They were emphatic that it was a pebble. They repeated that word several times. Well, here's what the trustworthy independent shop found:

There's a STICK stuck in our radiator! (Jul 2023)

A stick. There is a stick jammed up in the radiator. The dealership either didn't see that mother fucking 6 inch stick hanging out of the car... or maybe they stuck it in there as payback for me using a 4-letter word with them. (Remember, that word was rook.)

The independent shop also thinks that the coolant pump isn't actually busted but simply got shut down by the car's computers because of abnormally low pressure. The radiator definitely needs replacing. "Sticks and stones may break my bones... and my damn radiator, too."

But seriously, how do you not see a fucking stick hanging six inches down beneath the engine?

canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
This week I received the replacement parts I ordered for my 10 year old electric shaver. They're a pair of blades (there are two inside the shaver) and a cutting screen.

With these replacement blades and screen my 10-year-old electric shaver works better and even SOUNDS better (Jun 2023)

Removing the worn parts and snapping these in took less than a minute. I tried the shaver out after that and it cuts much closer now. One or two passes leaves the skin on my face smooth. Previously I had to shave over the same area 4-5 times.

The shaver even sounds sharper. 😅 The blades make a higher pitched sound as if they're moving faster... possibly because there's less friction with the screen.

I'm buying new parts for this 10 year old shaver (Jun 2023)

So far I'm glad I spent the ~$50 to refresh this shaver. $50 is a big fraction of the original $75 I paid to buy the shaver 10 years ago... though a smaller fraction of the $125-150 it would cost to replace today. It's a good case of repair vs. replace.

As parts for this older shaver become harder to find and more expensive I wondered if I should buy ahead with a second and even a third parts kit. I decided against that. I figure by the time my need for the next parts kit comes around in a few years, the shaver's battery might be kaput (unable to hold a charge very long) or some of the plastic switchgear might be broken. At that point I'd have to buy a new shaver anyway.

canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
Recently I noticed that my electric shaver hasn't been giving me as close of a shave as I expect. It's missing a lot of hairs even when I work it over the same spot on my face or neck a few times. It worked way better when it was new. That means it's time to throw it out and buy another one, right? Wrong! Key parts on electric shavers are replaceable!

I'm buying new parts for this 10 year old shaver (Jun 2023)There are two parts that can be replaced on many electric shavers, the blades and the screen. The screen is the mesh cover up at the top. Underneath it are the blades. The blades are the cutting tool, and they oscillate back and forth rapidly via the electric motor. They naturally dull over time and don't cut as closely. The screen covers the blades so they don't touch your skin. When the screen wears down it can result in the blades getting too close, causing skin abrasion, or not getting close enough, causing less effective trimming.

I looked up the model number on Amazon. The first thing I saw is that I can buy a new one of the same model for $125. That seemed like waaay more than I paid years ago. Out of curiosity I clicked through the link... and on the product page Amazon helpfully told me, "You last purchased this item in 2013." Wow, 10 years!

I searched my 2013 orders and found that I originally bought this shaver for $75. First of all, wow, I thought I spent way less than that. I usually buy an inexpensive shaver because I don't need fancy features. Though ISTR choosing the Panasonic even though it was more expensive than certain other brands because I'd had a good experience with a previous Panasonic after poor experiences with 2-3 other major brands. Second, $125 today vs. $75 ten years ago doesn't seem so bad considering inflation. But OTOH, third, this is now a 12 year old model.... Shouldn't it be cheaper now? Well, it kinda is... the newest models are $150 all the way up to $400. 😳

It took some careful shopping but I did find replacement bits. Amazon helpfully remarked above the product image of a blade replacement "Purchased Aug 2017". The manufacturer suggests replacing blades every 1-2 years, not 4-6. Well, here I am now. And I'm replacing the screen for the first time in 10 years AFAIR. I found a blades-and-screen combo for $47.

I paused for a moment before ordering. On the one hand, $47 seems like a lot of money to spend renewing a 10-year-old, $75 item. OTOH, it's less than one-third the cost of the cheapest new, current generation technology. And it seems quite likely it'll rejuvenate my old shaver well enough that I'll be satisfied with it for at least another few years. I bought it.

Now the only problem is the parts have to ship from England. 😂 They'll take 2 weeks to arrive.

canyonwalker: My old '98 M3 convertible (cars)
Yesterday afternoon I replaced two tires on our convertible. They'd burst when Hawk hit a bad pothole while driving on I-880 Monday. The tires are run-flats so she got to work and back home okay, but by Monday night the front tire especially looked low enough that we agreed not to drive the car further. That meant I got to stay home for lunch for a few days. It also meant when our replacement tires were ready on Friday I called AAA for a tow.

Fixing not one but TWO flat tires (Dec 2022)

The local tow service AAA contracts out to in this area is awesome. The drivers are always courteous and skilled, and they arrive fast. I didn't care so much about waiting 10 minutes vs. 45 on Friday evening because I was home, but that difference is huge when you're sitting in a parking lot or on the side of a road.

Well, getting two tires replaced was relatively drama free... other than all the time it took. And it definitely wasn't cost free. Two tires with all the associated fees and taxes set us back over $650.


canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
Well that fast. After I took my computer to the Apple Store last Friday for repair I thought it wouldn't be back from the shop until Thursday. I got a text message today around 3:15pm that it was back at the store, fixed, and ready for pickup.

I decided to wait a few hours before driving to the store. Meanwhile I already started composing in my head the glowing review I'd write about Apple's customer service, with how their repairs were so speedy and everyone who assisted me in the process was highly trained and took responsibility immediately without making me argue to get warranty coverage. Then I had a series of bad interactions at the store.

First, the door greeters were busy lip syncing songs on their headphones. They were so into their music they didn't notice I was looking at them, speaking to them, and waiting for a response. "Go sit over there," one of them finally said. Then when I sat where indicated, "No, not there, over-there over-there!"

After a few minutes another staffer came out with my computer. He had me sign for the repair and then disappeared. "Hmm, I should verify the computer works before I leave the store," I thought to myself. It's a good thing I checked— because it didn't. My password wasn't working, and there was no documentation about what it was changed to.

I flagged down another staffer, interrupting her from reading her Instagram. "I just got my computer back from repair, and my password has been changed," I explained. "I don't know what the password is now."

"Let's see," she offered. But then quickly argued, "They don't change the password."

We went back and forth a few times about how, no, really, I do remember my password and had tried (and failed) multiple times to log in already. She told me we'd have to reset it and went back to reading her IG while my computer reset.

It took a few minutes and a few reboots to complete the password reset process. The whole time I was splitting her attention about 50/50 with her social media.

During one of the waits I asked her to explain the way the repair was documented on the invoice. "This description of the problem sounds like they're saying I dropped or somehow caused severe physical damage to the machine," I explained.

She looked at the invoice briefly and, instead of explaining what the failure code meant or admitting that she didn't know, mocked my question. "Well, did you pay for it? ...No, you didn't. So obviously we don't think you dropped it, because if we did we wouldn't fix it for free."

Next I tried opening some picture previews to ensure that the display was fixed. When I tried opening an image file on local SSD the system hung with the spinning hourglass icon. No files would open in preview. I called the staffer's attention away from IG again and asked her for help.

"Oh, you're probably running too many applications," she shot back.

"I'm literally not running any applications. You just saw me reboot this machine."

"Okay, let's open your Activity Monitor and see what you're running."

"I'm literally not running any—"

"Well, you're running a Window Server," she said, seizing on the first name on the list of services. "That's your problem!"

"I'm not running any application called Window Server," I explained. "That's a built-in part of MacOS—"

"Hey," she interrupted, "It's your computer. I don't know what you're doing with it."

"I'm telling you, it's a part of MacOS, which you should know— You know what, nevermind, I'm good." I closed my computer and walked out of the store.
canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
Not even three months after getting a new MacBook Air laptop the computer is now in the shop for repairs. Actually I could've taken it over a month ago— that's how soon after purchase the problem appeared— but I delayed as the problem wasn't severe enough to overcome my procrastination in dealing with it. What's the problem? The screen is covered with thin, gray horizontal lines stretching all the was across. There's also a fat, dark vertical stripe near the right edge. Apparently it's a bad connection between the display and the graphics card, and it's not uncommon in the new M2-powered MacBook Airs.

I put off starting the repair process for weeks primarily because I feel like dealing with the morass of suck that modern customer service is. Like, how many times was I going to have to say, "Yes, it's plugged in! That's why I'm saying there are stripes all over the screen instead of saying, 'Duh, everything's covered in black!'" I didn't have the energy for that. My anticipation was unfounded, though, as Apple customer service was its usual way-better-than-average self. To wit:

  1. When I called phone support yesterday, my wait time was less than 2 minutes.

  2. A phone support agent quickly acknowledge the problem is a hardware problem and that it would be covered under warranty.

  3. The agent booked me an in-store appointment for today to have the computer sent to a repair center. I also had the alternative of waiting for prepaid shipping materials to be sent.

  4. At the store today I did have to wait for about 30 minutes— but that was because I was early for my appointment, and the store was very busy.

  5. The in-store agent quickly confirmed the problem is a hardware problem and started the process to send the computer off for repair.

  6. They'll overnight it both ways to/from the repair center; I may get it back as soon as Wednesday next week.

For now I'm back on my older computer. Yes, it's the one that's now almost 7 years old. I'm glad I still have it & that it works!
canyonwalker: Driving on the beach at Oceano Dunes (4x4)
The car breakdown we suffered last night turned out to be a simple repair. Barely 5 minutes after I left the shop the owner called me back to say the problem was solved. I missed his call because I was still walking home (it's a 6-7 minute walk) and didn't notice the phone ringing in my pocket. 🤣

The problem was even simpler than the starter motor. It was a bad battery. That was weird because the battery still held charge, could power the accessories, and could turn the starter motor. But the mechanic replaced the battery, and everything worked normally.

Now if only I could find someone that skilled and quick to fix our broken Internet connection— which has been busted for 72 hours and counting, and won't be fixed for at least another 8 hours. 😡

canyonwalker: Sullivan, a male golden eagle at UC Davis Raptor Center (Golden Eagle)
I'm taking a quick pause from my series about our Olympic National Park trip last weekend to update on an issue from a few weeks ago. Recall that earlier this summer I dropped one of my camera lenses and it broke. I sent it in for repairs 3½ weeks ago. Today I called them back to check status. I was surprised I hadn't heard from them. I know from delivery tracking they received my lens 17 days ago. Why hadn't they emailed or called me with even a confirmation of receipt?

The good news was the agent on the phone quickly confirmed they had my lens and had already diagnosed it. They were waiting for my authorization to proceed. With them not emailing or calling me for going on 3 weeks I was concerned they'd lost it. The not-so-good news is when I pressed about why they never bothered to contact me, the agent hemmed and hawed about how a) sometimes their computer "glitches" when trying to send email, and b) with Coronavirus there aren't enough people in the shop to check up on these things. 🙄

Whatever. At least now we can move forward.

More good news/bad news: The bill for repairs and return shipping will be $323. Actually that's both good news and bad news. It's good news because it could have been worse. If the lens were unrepairable buying a new one would cost $1,000. Even buying a used one would cost more than this repair. A quick check on eBay shows auctions ranging from $400 to over $700. But it's also bad news because $323 is still a lot of money. And while $323 is less than the cost of a new lens, what I get for it is not a new lens. I get back a 7 year old, previous-gen lens that's been broken and repaired.

canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
Two months ago I dropped and broke one of the nice lenses I have for my camera. It happened when I was hiking the Beehive in Acadia National Park. On a steep trail that involved climbing rungs blasted into the bedrock like this...

The trail up the face of the Beehive gets tougher with iron rungs to climb. Acadia National Park [Jun 2021]

...So I could get to spots like this to enjoy the vista...

It's a traffic jam ascending the Beehive but the views make the waiting not suck. Acadia National Park [Jun 2021]

...The lens popped out of my pack. It dropped about 2m to the ground.

Good News, Bad News

A Good news: It dropped only 2 meters, landing on a ledge right below me. If it had rolled off that ledge it would've dropped another 100 meters and I never would have seen it again.

Good news 2: It was just the lens that fell, not a camera.

Good news 3: I brushed the dirt off the lens and attached it to my camera, and it worked!

Bad news: After 30 minutes it stopped working.

Bad news 2: A week or so later I checked on the cost to replace this lens. It's more expensive than I expected— new ones sell for $1,000!

For nearly two months after that I did nothing about my broken lens. I didn't act on replacing it. As good as the new model lens is, I really don't want to spend $1,000 on this.

We can fix it. We have the technology.

A few weeks ago it occurred to me that repairing it is an option. The manufacturer, Fujifilm, has a repair center. I sent a broken camera to them years ago, and they fixed it just fine. It cost somewhere in the range of $250 - 300. If I could repair this lens for, say, $300, instead of replace it for nearly $1,100 (a grand plus tax) that'd be great!

Alas, I put off acting on that for a few weeks. I knew that the repair shop took cameras, but it wasn't clear from their website if they also fixed lenses. I left the site opened in a browser tab, meaning to call their toll-free number to check. That tab sat there for days before I made the call. Finally I called this morning.

Boxed up and ready to go (Aug 2021)

For all my inexplicable procrastinating up to this point, I got myself in gear and acted swiftly today. I confirmed the shop repairs lenses, confirmed the process, printed a repair form, packed my lens in a box for shipping, and dropped it off at the post office during my lunch break.

I estimate I'll have a repaired lens back in my hands in 5 weeks if all goes well. That includes 2 weeks for shipping it across the country and back, a week for diagnosis, and 2 weeks for the actual repairs.

What if all does not go well? Well, one alternative the phone agent explained is that if Fujifilm determines my lens can't be repaired cost effectively they may offer to sell me a refurbished lens. I'd definitely be interested in that— assuming it's well less than the $1,000 retail price of the newer model lens. Unfortunately the rep couldn't give me a cost estimate on refurbished gear. He said it depends on availability.

Well, the lens is in the mail now. I should hear back from the repair shop with a cost estimate in about 2 weeks.

UPDATEThe repair bill is $323.

Flat Tire!

May. 19th, 2021 11:01 pm
canyonwalker: Uh-oh, physics (Wile E. Coyote)
Inland Empire Travelog #11
Lake Pend Oreille, Idaho - Sat, 15 May 2021. 6pm.

On our way to our fifth and final waterfall trek of the day today we caught a flat tire. We were driving up a remote forest service road about 10 miles out from the shores of Lake Pend Oreille when POP! A rock on the gravel road punctured our left front tire.

For a moment I wasn't sure if anything had happened, but then the Hsss... Hsss... Hsss sound told me we'd likely caught a flat. The tire pressure alert light came on a few seconds later as I was already looking for a wide enough, flat enough spot on the remote, dirt-and-gravel road to replace the tire.

Changing a flat tire in remote Idaho [May 2021]

For a lot of people nowadays a flat tire is a case of, "Uh-oh, better call for help!" I did consider the possibility of needing to call for help... as a worst case scenario. And it would need to be a worst case, as out here we were 10 miles of primitive road away from cell reception and hadn't seen other people for at least the past 5 miles. We would need to be self-rescuing princes and princesses.

Fortunately it wasn't more than 100 yards or so to a flat, wide spot on the trail. We pulled the spare and tools from the trunk and I got to work.

Improvising a wheel chock to change a flat tire miles from a paved road [May 2021]

When raising a car on a jack it's important to block the wheels so they don't roll. Otherwise the car could pivot off the jack and cause damage and injury! Now, wheel chocks aren't a thing cars come with. Owners manuals advise blocking the wheel with a handy loose brick, but if you're not the kind of person who has loose bricks hanging around (really, who does?!?!) you have to improvise.

We improvised with my hiking boots!

With the boots in place plus the hand brake set I got to work on jacking the car.

I hope this 50/50 spare will get us back to a paved road & cell reception! [May 2021]

Fortunately this car's tools were in good condition, if a bit undersized for the weight of the vehicle. The spare was a temporary tire, though, a "50/50" — as in designed for up to 50 miles of use at speeds not exceeding 50 mph. Also as in, 50/50 are your chances of getting back safely. 😨

Getting back safely was the main thing on my mind. This road had already claimed one regular tire on the way up. Would we be able to get back down without further mishap? Would the skinny, barely treaded 50/50 tire handle safely the gravel road? It was 10 miles back to the nearest paved road and fringes of cell phone reception.

Well, from the fact I'm writing this, you can tell the answer is Yes, we did get back safely. 😅 The tire made it back down the gravel road.

We're now at the shores of Lake Pend Oreille, on the phone with the car rental company's emergency roadside assistance. We're on hold. "Wait times are over 15 minutes," the robot informs us. 😠

We don't expect the rental company to send a tow truck out to us, BTW. We're just checking with them for instructions on how to proceed. Including, particularly, where is the nearest depot or repair shop we can go to. With that 50/50 spare already getting us down the mountain we don't necessarily have a lot of runway left!

Keep reading: How far can we push our luck with 50/50?


canyonwalker: Uh-oh, physics (Wile E. Coyote)
After Hawk took our BMW to the dealer for service on Thursday for some engine trouble we got bad news. The engine problem we thought would be covered under warranty was not. We'd need to spend $1,200 out of pocket.

"Wait," you may say, "Haven't you had this car for a long time? Isn't it way beyond the warranty period?"

Our BMW convertible, "Hawkgirl" [Pic from 2016]

Yes, "Hawkgirl" has been around a while. She's a 2008 model we've owned since 2012 and has nearly 150,000 miles. That's all waaay beyond the normal warranty. But in the auto industry, manufacturers occasionally put out things called Technical Service Bulletins or Service Information Bulletins. They're like mini recalls. They're not filed with the government, and the company doesn't contact you proactively or fix it proactively, but if your develops the problem that matches the TSB/SIB, the manufacturer pays for it. Our independent mechanic found an SIB that matched the engine trouble codes Hawkgirl was displaying and recommended we go to the dealer. We were right under the line on eligibility, too— this specific, unadvertised warranty is good for up to 15 years or 150k miles.

The dealer, unfortunately, disagreed with the independent shop's reading of the SIB. They said it didn't apply to our car. We had a copy of the bulletin so we argued back and forth a few times with the dealer's service department. No dice. I even called BMW USA's national customer support number to ask if the SIB covered our car. Also no dice.

Well, we're not not going to fix it. Yeah, spending another $1,200 to keep this car running is a pisser, but we can afford it. And it's cheaper than buying a new car. We're thinking we can get another 2 years out of this car. Heck, maybe we can drive it to 200k miles!


canyonwalker: Driving on the beach at Oceano Dunes (4x4)
After transmission problems developed in our Nissan Xterra on a trip several days ago I dreaded how much it would cost to fix. Even a simple fix would start at a few hundred dollars, and significant transmission trouble could easily run a few thousand. I doubted it was significant trouble, but still.... With the recent mud-in-the-sensors problem and now this, I worried it was the start of a series of expensive repairs. The car's almost 10 years old and at 103,000 miles so it's not necessarily worth keeping through multiple costly repairs.

Before even making a service appointment with the mechanic, though, I decided to do a bit of research online to educate myself on what the problem could be. I found a few chat boards where people discussed having the exact same symptoms, and one of them had a link to an extremely useful YouTube video on how to DIY the repair. ...DIY being Do It Yourself, as opposed to the equally valid Damage It Yourself.

I decided to DIY and see which "D" I ended up with. Here's my helpful YouTube video!


TL;DW: It seems to be working now, and all I needed were common household tools and a few minutes of effort.



Profile

canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
canyonwalker

June 2025

S M T W T F S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930     

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jun. 2nd, 2025 03:18 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios