I heard a disturbing sound!

My boss has been in a weird mood far the last week or so.  

We've all done our best to keep our heads low and stay out of trouble, but eventually we found out what the anxiety was about.  Our insurance, Health and Dental, was going up by 18% for the third consecutive year.  

?

SPEAKING OF A RACKET!

So we've been driving with a valet key.  You buy a used car you buy other people's problems ya ya ya. We finally bit the bullet and took the car in for a second key.

and because, you see, car manufacturers in their infinite wisdom have decided that keys aren't good enough: they need computer chips!  So you have to buy the fucking key from the dealership for 50 dollars, and then it needs to be programmed so that the car will start for 60 dollars plus taxes.

But when you bring a car to the dealership and say "I have an appointment to have a key made for my '01 Jetta," service department man says "That's funny, your appointment doesn't seem to be in the computer." And then after fifteen minutes of tedious data entry, we stroll around the car counting the tires. And then instead of making the key as per our request they take the god damned wheels off. 

I know the car has mismatched tires in the back.  This pains me but I deal with it.  Not a word.  The prognosis is that the Timing belt is 15,000 miles past scheduled replacement, my spark plugs need replacement same with a tie rod and both tie rod ends.

But dammit the car has brand spanking new iridium plugs in it already. And our belts were checked by our regular mechanic just 1,000 miles ago. And 400 dollars for tie rod ends seemed a lot excessive. And we should replace the perfectly functional waterpump.

This is not the kicker though.

Matters of money service man spoke to me, mentions of safety to my wife.  We stopped going to Eriks because of shit like that, why would it be tolerated now. Finally after an hour and a half Schmelz Volkswagen returned our car to us and asked for some money in exchange for the now two keys. What a waste of an otherwise nice morning. 

On a more positive note: we drove 150 miles on a quarter tank of gas during the weekend.

more assembly required

I forgot the camera at my folks, so pictures tomorrow.

The brakes were a pain in the ass.  Compared to the front derailleur though, they were a walk in the park on a moderate and sunny day.

This is because it was missing. Somehow I missed that...and then the SBR lacked a front one that fit. So I tried to make one fit with a nylon shim which worked at first.  And then every time I changed gears, the derailleur would wriggle down the tube.  Till it hung up on the large chainring and went crazy wonky.

After two hours of fighting with that we called it a night.

This has been a weekend of discoveries though:

1.  I really like some of these wicking shirts.  I haven't bought anything nike since middle-school till the shirt I am wearing right now, and it was cool and comfortable all day long.

2. I might like canti brakes.  I've defended the old sidepull brakes forever, but the cantilevered brakes were easy to adjust. And move on more axis than my brakes on Frenchie.

3. With the addition of a tin snips to cut cables and housing, I had all the tools I needed in my tool wedge.

That just happened

We just watched Talladega Nights.

I think 

it 

was terrible.

Old School wasn't bad, Stranger than Fiction was five minutes too long and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang didn't have Will Farrell in it at all.  

I'd sit up and curmudge more but I think I'll go to bed.