Columbus day - Due to a teacher training day in combination with the Columbus holiday the girls had a four day weekend. I took today off to help Michelle out. The girls spent a lot of time playing with neighborhood friends, including a few new ones.
Abby - Saturday I took Abby to her first piano lesson. Currently Abby is the instructor's youngest student. She said it had been a while since she took in a 6 year old. I'm hoping that with the persistence and patience Abby shows with the computer and her other "projects" she can work on this with the same ethic. I took her ten little practice songs and programmed them into the piano for future playback and practice. I learned a lot about recording MIDI tracks, quantizing the notes, assigning instruments to the tracks, etc. in the process.
Autumn - We are very near peak autumn color today. Thanks to the vacation day, the pleasant weather, and the need to keep an eye on the kids, I got to spend a lot of the day outside. I haven't taken many pictures of the scenery, but the drives around the area have been inspiring.
Pellet stove - So far I've been very impressed with the pellet stove. We've recently had some chilly evenings getting down into the 40's and 50's. I turn it on after the boys go down to bed, set it at a rate of 1 to 2 pounds per hour, and shut it off in the morning. I put in a new 40 pound bag of pellets about 3 times a week. So far we haven't used the house's furnace. I'm amazed that even though we've burned a few hundred pounds of wood, there's only about 2 cups of ash at the bottom. It's such a controlled burn compared to our fireplace which would produce more ash after a single bundle of wood. The heat exchanger built into the unit also does a good job at making sure a large portion of that heat goes into the house and not just up the chimney. There's also the nice effect of reducing the propane usage (or as the politicians like to say "our dependence on foreign oil") and using a renewable source (scrap wood) in its place. Next thing you know, I'll be driving one of those biodiesel cars that run on restaurant grease.
Accord - My car is going in on Wednesday to get its alternator replaced. It's at the early stages of failing - still generating electricity but not as consistently and making an additional whirring/whistling noise. I can't get over how much alternators cost. It's not rocket science, it's an alternator! We've been generating DC electricity on these same principles for a century now. What gives?! Everywhere you look online a new alternator is $440. A remanufactured one runs $110. Tempting...
$440.00 for an alternator!!! Sounds like those Japanese are still trying to get even with us for WWII. They may have lost the ground war but they are making great progress on the economic front!!!
Dad
And while Peters' Honda parts department *has* remanufactured alternators, the service department won't install them.
You know, for a dealer service center, they're skating on pretty thin ice.
Perhaps instead of "reducing my dependency on foreign oil", I should be reducing my dependency on dealer service and just find a reputable shop in Milford.
Posted by: Scott at October 12, 2004 02:04 PMThe story gets even worse. I had reported that the oil was leaking after Friday's service visit. They said that the threads to the drain hole had been stripped by a third party lube service and I needed a new oil pan. Cha-ching. So now I have a new oil pan and an overpriced remanufactured alternator. It's as if they want to say, "see, using our service for oil changes is cheaper in the long run". Makes me want to change my own oil. How much are a pair of auto ramps?
Yes, a *remanufactured alternator*. Turns out that Honda charged about ~$425 for the alternator *installed*. It included the parts (at about double the going rate of a remanufactured alternator) plus labor fees. All I can hope is for that kind fee, they stand behind the part and work with some warrantee.
The good news is that the slight whir/whistle from the alternator's failing bearings is gone and my SRS light is no longer flashing on and off on my dashboard (as the voltage in the car started dropping out). By tomorrow morning I'll check the garage floor and check that there is no longer an oil drip.
I'm just hoping that this is it for the car for the winter season.
Posted by: Scott at October 13, 2004 04:13 PM