Monday, November 29, 2004
It’s Spreading!
My brother’s “new” van died. Luckily it was local, after having driven to New Hampshire and back just fine. It was rainy and dark, so he left it in a parking lot and got a ride home.
By new van, I mean a used conversion van someone gave him when they would otherwise have sent it to the junkyard. A full van, not a minivan. His old one gave up the ghost, so he had spent a few weekends making the new one usable for non-handicapped and fixing whatever most ailed it, then started driving it just recently. Naturally this is the second or third time it’s done this kind of thing, where the old, crappy looking van only stranded him once.
Anyway, he called my mother, only to find her car is in the shop. Oops. So he called here while I was doing the “pick up a few groceries” run that was needed after we got home.
I offered my van for him to borrow, if he wanted to fix the loose wiring to the starter. Not the day to do it, of course, having been pouring. It was sufficiently wet to make the Sentra act up a little coming home from Vermont. It hasn’t done that in ages. He expected the Sentra, but since we know it runs and it is all setup with the car seat, just as well.
Apparently the car trouble is spreading. Along with the computer trouble.
I went and got him, we made easy work of getting the van running, and his theory is that it wasn’t the starter at all. The connections to it were all tight. He thinks it was the transmission lockout being out of whack, so it thinks the car isn’t in park or neutral when it really is. If it’s in gear, it won’t start. Whatever happened, the thing was repeatably startable in the driveway.
He visited for a while, played with Sadie, talked movies and stuff with us, and went on his way in my now - apparently - working van, with a duplicate copy of Double Jeopardy I’d been meaning to give him or someone. I goofed and bought it twice. He hadn’t seen it and had wanted a copy, so it was perfect.
Damn cars.
Spammers too. I need to go through the comment spam and delete it, which is weird not being on my own computer.