I own a one man auto/truck repair shop in Oakland, CA.I write adventure fiction with a political slant, and unconventional poetry. Using my day-job to keep me going, I continue my assault on the publishing world with each action packed day. Any questions or comments you'd rather not make public, please use the address below. Sock Puppets welcome. :)
E-Mail: nilson_brothers@hotmail.com
Have you noticed since the Socialist Health Care Plan they’re pushing on us, many hitherto desperately necessary tests and procedures have suddenly been heralded as elective. Yearly physicals, annual gynecological exams, prostate exams, colonoscopies, and now mammograms are all of a sudden not so vital. The genius so called medical experts claim now even self breast exams are not recommended. This is in addition to making hip and knee replacement surgery elective (as long as the painkillers are working don’t worry about it). Wow, and they discovered all these revelations in time for government run health care. It appears many of us won’t have to worry about the fake global warming theorists’ claims the planet will soon be frying in a ball of flame at the rate our benevolent leaders are destroying our health care system. As I’ve always said, socialized medicine is for the healthy. The rest don’t survive long enough to complain about it. Here’s a lady who can attest to it.
The world wide global warming scam artists have already begun testing the waters of how far they can tax us for something the government can charge for without ever spending a nickel to produce: hype. The UK Telegraph outlined Lord Smith of Finsbury’s plan to give each person an individual carbon number. Every poor sap will have to hand in the card with the number so any purchase can be debited in carbon credits. When it falls to zero, the dastardly consumer will have to buy carbon credits, which of course are imaginary. You’ll need to read this to believe it – coming here soon, folks: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/carbon/6527970/Everyone-in-Britain-could-be-given-a-personal-carbon-allowance.html
Here in the USA, Congress is looking at a carbon tax much like Oregon has been trying to screw their citizens with - a tax on the mileage everyone drives, in addition to the federal and state gas tax. This is of course listed as a save the environment tax. I’m certain the mouth breather sensor for calculating the CO2 us pesky living organisms are exhaling and killing the planet with will soon be on the market. Maybe we could barter for leniency on the tax if we agree to hold our breath for five hours a month. :)
The drawbacks of being a one man shop were in evidence this morning. A customer made an appointment with me on Friday to have her vehicle checked out for a squealing noise in the front wheels. I was clear on the phone she would have to leave the vehicle off. However, when she came in she expected to wait for it. I explained I can’t do that and perhaps another shop would be a better fit. The reason for this is I greet all my customers, write up the invoices for estimate, check the vehicles out, get the okay for the work, order the parts, do the job, close up and test drive the vehicle, call the customer and take payment. In between I do maintenance jobs such as oil and filter changes that don’t require ordering parts or a test drive while the customer waits. This may sound impossible but I’ve been doing it for a very long time. It is impossible if all the people having repairs done are waiting in my office.
This customer understood. Since I heard her driving in and I’m quite knowledgeable on the sound of disc brake sensor tang rubbing on the rotor noise, I told her she needed disc brakes and gave her an approximate price if only the pads needed replaced. I told her to give me a call if she couldn’t find a place that would do the job while she waited. She was happy to know what the sound was although she said the people who checked the vehicle the month before said the brakes were fine. I’m sure she’ll find a place where they’ll do it while she waits in these grim times, but the times are still not grim enough for me to start doing these repairs while the customer waits. There are just too many variables. And besides, I’m old. :)
I have some timeless quotes for this Veteran’s Day post. I’d like to begin with this story from my blog archives though.
I remember reading about two marines in the Pacific who won the Medal of Honor, one of them posthumously. The story was in a Time-Life Book series I bought about World War Two. It told the story of a Marine Special Weapons Platoon, in charge of guarding the Zanana beach supply area from being retaken by the Japanese on New Georgia. The Platoon put together a couple of 30 caliber machine guns from spare parts and established a rear guard post. Corporal Maier Rothschild and Private John Wantuck volunteered to man the guns. The platoon came under attack from a Japanese battalion, and retreated individually back to the beach, regrouping to face the next charge. It never came. In the morning, the Marines found Wantuck, and Rothschild had been cut off. They found these two Marines with more than a hundred dead Japanese littered around their spare-parts machine gun positions. Wantuck lay dead next to his empty gun, encircled by dead Japanese he had killed with his knife and grenades. Rothschild, wounded, lay surrounded by dead enemies. A Japanese General’s attack failed because of two bad ass American Marines.
Since the Marine Corps just celebrated their birthday, I used this one of many incredible true stories of America’s vets to remember this Veterans’ Day. Thank you all for your dedication, honor, and patriotism. Thank you all for our freedom.
And this Theodore Roosevelt quote:
“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly…who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who have never known neither victory nor defeat.”
British Philosopher, John Stewart Mills said this: ‘War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself’.”
God Bless the men and women defending our freedom!
Tahoe Ignition Switch above with faulty internal section feeding AC/Heater, Cruise Control, 4 Wheel Drive, and Anti-loc brakes
It’s time for another inside baseball episode of auto repair. I ran across a very interesting case yesterday. A customer brought in his 1999 Chevy Tahoe SUV with 5.7L engine. Everything had been fine until he stopped at the store for a moment. When he got back in it to go home a few minutes later the AC/Heater blower, cruise control, 4 wheel drive and anti-loc brakes weren’t working and his anti-loc brake warning light was on. When something like this appears the first step is to find out if all the circuits were being fed from the same power source. They were - the ignition switch to the fuse panel and then to the circuits. The fuses were fine but reading very low voltage as was the power lead from the ignition switch. Since the other power functions were fine from the ignition switch, I figured rightly it was a bad section in the ignition switch. I’m blogging this in case someone out there with one of these vehicles (the Tahoe ignition stayed basically the same well into the 2000’s) would not miss the ignition switch as a culprit. Only a professional should attempt the replacement of this type of ignition switch as it means removal of the air bag module, steering wheel and special tools for the ignition switch fasteners.
