White Lightning Axiom: Redux

Another Monday, another week to be ground down like an old graphite pencil. The drive in today was merciful for me, not so much for others. A tractor-trailer dumped a load of steel rolls on the east bound turnpike between my exit and US Route 1. Fortunately for me, this did not add to my woes but assisted me a bit. The truck managed to spew debris on the westbound lanes as well which gated some of the fellow automotive pilots who I would be competing with for space. Closed down the turnpike ... what a mess. Other than that, the work day was fairly uneventful. Just a couple nibbles that I swatted away with my usual concise and curt statement of facts. The real excitement happened near the end of the day. I have a couple of purchases that I needed to return to the Local Home Depot Temple here in KOP. I had purchased an attic fan (version 3 - class 7 tornado power) and a motor for the fan that was dying in the upper attic. Initially, I was going to replace the motor and put a new fan in the lower attic but found an ad in one of the local trash mags that peaked my interest. Apparently, you can buy solar powered attic fans! The concept is actually quite sound. You only need the fan going when it is hot and it is only hot in the summer when the sun is baking your shingles. If it is covered with snow in the winter or it is cloudy it should not be running anyways. The downside is that you have to buy this from an authorized dealer. They apparently cost 400-500 a pop but have a really good warranty if needed. On top of that, I get a discount for having the silly coupon from the magazine. The guy is coming out next weekend at 1000 hours to do a 'first take' to see what he has to work with. I'll see if I can pressure him into cutting down the price a bit since I could probably install the one fan that will be replacing the old fan.

One last thing ... the SuperSaturn is starting to act up. It has had a problem with the key alert bell dinging even though the keys are not in the ignition and NOT dinging when the lights are left on. Now, the rear defroster is no longer working and the windshield fluid pumps are frozen. Not sure if this is the beginning of the end or just another bump in the road. I would really like to keep the car till we have the Family Tank paid off but this may not be in the cards. I'm no longer hot for a diesel ($2.65/gal!?), however, I am considering a Ford Escape Hybrid. They are actually fairly competitive given their size and all. We'll see. Perhaps if the weather heats up a bit (it was 8 this morning) this will 'go away'. My inspection is not till February so I'll have a pretty good handle on our financial state by that time. If repairing the heap costs more than 300$ then it is a wash and the car is going to have a short lifespan in the vehicle fleet.

# posted by mdmhvonpa @ 8:39 AM