Oh NO to the Smart Phone

I think that, as Kersten has found more to post on, I have found less. I am not sure if there is a sum total that a family can blog on and she is just using the lion's share of it, or if life is not that exciting these days. it can't be the latter, since I got the van back from "Marty" this week. I can't tell that anything has changed, except that it doesn't make the clicking sound anymore. The transmission generally feels worse to me, but who knows; I think that when things seem like they are going bad, everything seems bad and visa versa. Probably a good lesson for life.

Maybe it is a good time for some unfinished business here on the blog. Remember the great "Ode to the Smart Phone"? Well, I never got to finish that story. Several (and it was at least 2) months after purchasing the phone, I got the bill. At work, we have a very handy system where we can get our cellphones for one low rate and have the billing done automatically. This has generally saved us money. Back when I was investigating the phone, I was assured that it probably would be "free" because I was opening a new account. Looking on the website, trying to work through the cryptic math (if you buy the phone, are signing up for a new plan, middle name starts with "S" and liked the epic 1980s fantasy flic "Willow", your price will be $200), I found that the phone probably would not be "free" but more likely $200, my outside guess for what "free" could mean. Fast forward two months, I got my paycheck at home which looked like the time when, back in college, Tamsin's and my paycheck got mixed up, except in the opposite direction. By the way, I really was excited when I found a couple of thousand in my take-home instead of the measly $400 that I was used to. As you might imagine, it didn't last long. Anyway, when I saw what was withheld, I had one of those vertigo-ish dizzy spells that only a guy referred to as "Nickel" by his close friends can have. When I talked it over with those with whom I had discussed the price with before, they all assured me that they had told me the actual price in our earlier conversations and it was MY memory that was going bad. I was stuck. I had nothing to prove my point. I didn't want to rock to boat of an already tenuous cellphone arrangement, and it had been so long since I got the phone that I could not send it back. If I had wanted to pay THAT much for a phone, I WOULD HAVE BOUGHT AN iPHONE!!!

Speaking of Willow, with our new home theater and Netflix account, we were destined to queue up that movie for the kids to watch. Upon arrival, I realized that all but Emily probably were a little young for it, so she and I sat and watched it together a couple of weeks ago. It reminded me of two things. First, my first red-head love (slightly embarrassing, my second was better looking and has stuck around much longer) and Cecily's poster on the ceiling of her downstairs Fisk St. room. Yes, she had a picture of Mad Mardigan (Val Kilmer, ahhh!!!) on her ceiling in all his long-haired glory. It is funny how times change and what a terrible look that was. Emily opined that we were all crazy back then and have all come to our senses now. I am currently trying to convince her that as bad as we look in the annuals that she is often perusing, she will equal that in 25 years. She doesn't buy it.

Transmission's falling out

It's not really that I am avoiding the blog, more that I just don't have much to say. It must be that I haven't traveled in a while so things have slipped into a blissfully happy pace. This week were planning on tripping down to the in-laws to spend the end of spring break week. As usual, I made sure I procrastinated my going down to the local repair shop to two days before the trip so they could not possibly tell me it was anything worse than a loose fan belt. What was it that was concerning me? Recently, while driving out mini-van, I notice a clunk that sounded like the transmission was falling out, then every time I coasted down the hill, I heard a clicking on the front left side of the car. I was hoping that this would one of those stories with a happy ending where what I felt like was the transmission falling out was really something simple, like a rock in the wheel. Marty, my pusher from the garage, who talked me into more than $800 in repairs just 8 months ago on the same delinquent transmission, called to give me the bad news. He even said that. The differential that is tied into the transmission has a pin on it that sheared off and blew through the side of your transmission. Or something like that. All I heard, in retrospect, was $2000. A reoccurring nightmare that I am only too happy to relive again by buying those blankety-blank Chrysler vehicles. I think that I should be going into some kind of hall of shame somewhere after having replaced not one but two transmissions (two different cars). Most normal people would have never purchased another car by the same manufacturer. Me, I was sure that it was just a problem with the 92's. To add insult to injury, several people have kindly suggested that my new transmission is probably worth more than the van. Thanks, very comforting. Helps me sleep better. I am not sure how they envision me driving around a transmission. Ryan and Rachel, quit fighting over that third gear, one of you has to sit on the fourth. Doesn't make much sense to me. Maybe in todays thinking, a new car would really save on a new transmission. I don't think so, however. If you don't fix the car, it is worth nothing. And at 97000 miles, seems like it still have some miles left in her. At least enough to make get me to replace a third transmission.