Make some noise

My car is making a noise. It's a new noise, one it hasn't made since I've owned it.

It's a hard to describe noise. One of those "You'll know it when you hear it..." noises.

I, of course, hear it all the time.

I couldn't tell if the noise was doing damage or not, so I took it to my mechanic to have it checked out. Here's the funny part: he couldn't get the car to make the noise.

He kept it for two or three days, but it was no go. My car was as quiet as a church mouse and purring like a kitten when he drove it. So I went back, picked it up and drove it home. And guess what? It made the noise all the way home.

I thought to myself if my independent guy can't find it, maybe someone who has a lot of experience with my model car day in and day out would have better luck. So last Thursday, I drove my car to the dealer. I picked it up today. For those of you keeping count, that's six days they had to find the noise.

They couldn't find it.

Here's my theory. I believe, much like Stephen King's Christine, that my car is alive. Somehow it's found out I've been online looking at new cars to replace it, and now it's decided to punish me for it.

With a noise no one else but me can hear, it's made me think twice about selling it. I'm afraid when I'm least expecting it, the car will let the noise rip while every prospective buyer takes it for a test drive. I could always trade it in and take the financial hit, but I'm sure just as they were pulling it into the garage it would do it again and they'd offer me even less than they normally would.

As far as I can tell, I have two choices: run it into the ground, or wait and see if the noise disappears over time (just like my high school girlfriend).

Whichever road I decide to take, I'm sure you'll hear about it. If the car wants you to.

At least it's not a Prius

I'm sure your photographic memory of all things Rotation and Balance will remind you I've already posted in the past about getting a loaner car, and a hybrid loaner at that.

Well, it's happened again.

Apparently the air conditioning in my car decided to give up its relentless pursuit of perfection just in time for some record-breaking March heat. I took it into the dealer because, you know, it was that or run down the middle of the street tearing up twenty-dollar bills and throwing them in the air. They diagnosed it as a broken blower motor (I'll wait while you insert your own joke here).

It's going to take a couple days to get the part. So the dealer, obviously sensing my green lifestyle and unwavering commitment to saving the planet, gave me, yet again, a hybrid to tool around in while I wait for my blower motor to be swapped out.

This time it's the Lexus CT200h F Sport. And against every instinct that's good and holy, I have to say it's pretty fun.

It has two modes, eco and sport - just like my high school girlfriend. BAM!

Eco is like dragging boulders uphill against a hurricane, and goes from 0 to 60 in, well, it hasn't reached 60 yet.

Sport mode however is another story. Turn the dial over to sport, and a tachometer appears on the gauge cluster, and the lighting changes from white to red. Suddenly, it's the little hybrid engine that could. And it hauls.

The picture up top doesn't do it justice. It's actually considerably more on the bad boy side of quirky looking in real life.

What I like to do is pull my fire-engine red loaner up next to a Prius. Then, when the light changes, leave them in my environmentally friendly, high mileage, low carbon emission dust.

I take my thrills where I can find them.

The car is smaller than mine. And since I'm a, um, fuller version of my younger self, the fit is a little tighter. Still, once the leather sport seat wraps its arms around me, space considerations are forgiven. I have the nicest go-cart at the track.

I'll be glad to get my own car back Monday or Tuesday. But until then, I'll be enjoying this attention-getting red hybrid in a way I never thought possible.

From behind the wheel.

The big dipper

The photo is slightly misleading since this post is about my kitchen floor, and not a giant sinkhole. But if I don't do something about it soon, it could wind up like that.

When we first bought our house, we did the traditional walk-through before we closed. That's the part of the transaction where you notice all the little things that are wrong you didn't notice before, and the sellers - along with their mother who's acting as their real estate agent - tell you why it's not really a problem so they can close the deal and move on to their next home in Newport Beach. Then you take them to arbitration for trying to pull the wool over your eyes, and you get a judgement in your favor for $10K. How you like me now Duleep and Jamie?!

I may be getting off point here.

Anyway, during the walk through I noticed a small, shallow, hardly worth mentioning little dip in the kitchen floor just in front of the dishwasher. I wasn't even sure I'd felt it, and no, I won't be using the high school girlfriend joke here.

Fast forward sixteen years later, and that dip in the floor is now a small canyon.

We don't know whether to fix it or add a viewing platform.

We're leaning towards fixing it.

The problem is, our house was built in 1949, and the kitchen floor is tiled with linoleum. So, one thing leads to another. If we're going to fix the dip in the floor, we have to tear up the linoleum to do it. Which means not only do we repair the subfloor, but we put in a new floor over it. Also, we've been planning to remodel the kitchen since we've lived here, so it would only make sense to do all the cabinets and appliances first and then tear up the floor.

That dip is slowly turning into a money pit.

We haven't decided exactly what to do yet or how much we want to spend on it. We do know we're in a race against time, because we're only probably a couple months away from someone stepping through the floor and being hip deep in linoleum.

It'll probably be me since I'm the one who loads the dishwasher all the time. It's not because I want to. It's because, and I'm not bragging here, I'm a dishwasher savant. I know how to maximize the space. It's like that movie A Beautiful Mind, except in my version, instead of seeing equations in the air John Nash sees how all the dishes fit in the racks.

I know the entire family will be happy once the kitchen is done. It's really the last problem we have with the house. Then, we can all sit back and enjoy this house the way we've wanted to since we moved in.

Besides, I'm sure the lights blowing out when we run the washer, dryer and dishwasher at the same is fairly common.

Call it a loaner

Yesterday, my car started making what I like to call an expensive sound.

When I hit the gas – or as we say in my country, accelerator – there’s a loud clunk as the car moves forward.

At first I thought something in the trunk was being thrown back against the lid. But since the clunk was coming from the front of the car, since this isn’t 1973 and since I don’t drive a VW Super Beetle, I quickly ruled that out.

Next I did what you’d think I’d have learned by now not to do. I went on the interwebs to research the noise. If I wasn’t filled with wallet anxiety before I went on, I sure was after.

Googling (I don’t care how large that company is, it’s still a stupid looking word) the sound and my car model brought up 11,300 results - everything from transmission to power train to wheel bearings to differential to radiator cap (?) and more.

The good news is when I took my car into the dealer this morning, they gave me a loaner to drive today while they gouge, I mean, figure out what’s wrong with my car. The loaner, like the above picture, is this year’s model of my car which coincidentally I’ve been wanting to drive. And it’s a hybrid.

Now, if you know anything about me - and you should, because really, we don't have secrets between us - you know I’m not a fan of hybrid cars. But I’m just going to say it: this one is awesome. Just as much power as mine, all the new model’s gadgets and gizmos, and, most importantly, that new car smell.

I'm also in advertising and understand the meaning of upsell. I realize it's no coincidence they gave me a loaner that's a newer model of a car they already know I love, and would probably want to have the latest model of with all it's bells, whistles and new body styling.

Damn if it's not working. Ad people are the most gullible even when we know the tactics.

Anyway, while I’m hoping and praying my clunking noise turns out to be something minor and inexpensive, I’m also hoping it takes them overnight to figure it out so I can enjoy the loaner just a bit longer. Which I'm sure it will.

After all, that's how loaners turn into keepers.

Drip dry

If you follow me on Facebook - and really, haven't you had enough of me by now, I know I have - you may have noticed the post I did this past Thursday when I accidentally spilled water into my laptop.

Not my proudest moment. Besides having teenagers in the house, few things will make you feel as stupid.

It wasn't a complete submersion. I was opening the screen, and either a) forgot, b) didn't notice or c) didn't care about the plastic cup of water behind it. When the screen hit it, I heard the cup tip over and immediately shifted into that slow-motion feeling you go into when you're either in a really bad accident or have done something monumentally, inexcusably stupid (that one).

It felt like hours before I lifted the laptop up to prevent any more water from getting on the bottom of it, but in reality it was probably only a second or two. Fortunately, it wasn't a direct hit.

The water spilled on my desktop, and seeped under the laptop, which I'd just turned on a moment before. I immediately wiped the bottom of the laptop off, held it upside down to let any water that may have gotten in through the cooling vents run out, and then logged in.

It fired up (poor choice of words) just swell. Everything looked fine, and I figured I'd dodged a bullet. Right up until the screen started getting these static-y lines running through it. The second I saw them, I shut down. The good news is it didn't just crap out, it actually went through shut down and turned off. So I took that as a good sign. Then I went on an agency desktop, and started reading the interwebs about laptops that get water spilled on them and what to do.

The answers ranged from get it to Apple right away, let it dry out for three days, and start praying. The most optimistic were the ones that had let it dry out.

They said if you kept the computer upside down, somewhere air could circulate around it and let it dry for at least three days, often it would turn on fine and be like nothing had happened. So, as you can see by the picture, that's what I'm doing.

I won't turn it on until Sunday afternoon, but I'm hopeful. At the very least I'm hoping it'll come on long enough for me to back everything up to Time Machine, which, coincidentally, I was going to do Thursday morning before work but I was running late. Lesson learned.

I'll let you know how it works out.

In the mean time, I'm going to be careful not to spill any more drinks. Especially the one I'm going to have if I find out I have to buy a new computer.

UPDATE: This afternoon I fired up "'Ole Sparky" and I'm extremely happy to report it's working just fine. Nothing but grateful. Of course, I'll never get that hour I spent in the Apple store yesterday back, but it's a small trade-off.

Bumper. Car.

With cars, as with life, sometimes you're the bumper and sometimes you're the bumpee. In this picture, my car is the bumpee.

While I was stopped in a strip mall parking lot near where I live, questioning what this beat up Chevy Tahoe angled in front of me was going to do, the Tahoe gave me the answer. It backed up into me. No one was hurt, my car was still drivable, and the Tahoe driver was insured. All good right?

Not so fast.

As we were exchanging information, the woman's husband who apparently worked at one of the businesses in the mall - and didn't see the accident - came out and joined us. They were both just as apologetic as could be. They had a short conversation between themselves, and I happened to overhear him say to her, "You're going to lose your license over this."

Clearly there were implications and incidents I wasn't privy to. By the way, Implications & Incidents - great band. Saw them at the Roxy in '98 (Note to Rich: you're welcome).

After apologizing again for hitting me, the husband asked me how I wanted to handle it. I said I wanted to go through my insurance company, but he had another idea. He said, "If you're open to it, I'd like to pay out of pocket for it. I have the cash, and I know a body shop you can go to."

Sounds perfectly legit - I know, right?

You know what body shops are like in California? I'll give you a clue: everyone has one.

Even though every instinct I had was screaming not to do it, I told him I was willing to get an estimate on the repair and bring it back to him. He could look it over and give me an answer that night. If he agreed, he'd have to meet me at the bank in the morning to get a cashier's check made out to the body shop.

Here's what I learned: in my next life I want to own an auto body shop. The estimate for this seemingly minor damage was $1703.00. After I brought it back and he saw the total he grumbled a bit, then said he'd talk to his wife and call me that evening.

When the phone rang at 8:30, I was frankly a little surprised since I figured I'd never hear from them again and wind up going through insurance anyway.

It was all very civil, she apologized again for hitting me, and said she'd called her insurance company and I'd hear from them. I said fine, I'll call my company and we'll go from there.

I'm with Mercury. Have been for almost as long as I've been driving. They've never been anything but amazing in past dealings, and they were just as awesome in this one. They took the information down and had a claims adjustor call me this morning.

After going over a few things with the adjustor, we got into a discussion about how they might change their story. She said she'd call the woman who hit me and find out.

You'll never guess what happened next? No, really, you'll never guess.

Apparently her new and improved version is that we collided. I told the adjustor that if by collided she meant she backed her big fat SUV into the side of my stopped car, then yes.

So it's going in the body shop tomorrow, I'll have some awesome rental for about a week, and the insurance companies will duke it out. But I'm pretty sure mine will win. The thing is to get the kind of damage my car sustained, I would've had to have driven sideways into her. The Lexus comes with a lot of options, but not that one.

Frustrated, I told my adjustor that you'd just hope people would do the right thing.

In that world weary voice only insurance adjustors who've heard it all have, she replied "I hope that every day."

The hidden damage

Ever since my car crash, I've been thinking about a particular term the insurance company and body shop have been tossing around: The hidden damage.

It's the damage to the car that's not readily apparent. It's hidden beneath the surface. It's the kind of damage that can't be revealed until you do a complete tear-down. Strip away the outer layers - bumpers, panels - and see what's waiting underneath. Once that's done, light can be shed on the problem and it can be seen clearly.

Of course, they have to be willing to recognize it when they see it.

I've always been one to criticize some of my blogger friends for going all new-age whammy jammy in their writing. I try to avoid that. Still, it seems to me the metaphor is hard to escape. Everyone carries around some hidden damage. If you're alive at all, how can you not?

It comes to each of us in different forms: heartbreak, death, sickness, addiction, disappointment - with ourselves, our families, our friends - and other things, some so difficult to put into words they're almost justified remaining hidden.

I know, I just light up a room don't I?

My insurance company said once hidden damage is discovered, there are questions that have to be answered. Is it a total loss? Is it repairable? And at what cost.

The very same questions that need answers with our own hidden damage.

Some people keep driving for years until they finally break down, because either they didn't know it was there or knew but just ignored it.

The truth is there's always hidden damage that can use some attention. Often, if you're willing to put in the work, it can be repaired. Maybe not as good as new, but well enough to work.

But first, like the guy at the body shop said, you have to look for it.