Reader

Tuesday, October 22nd

So it seems the Dimetrodon's engine has a bad lifter. It was probably a bad part from the beginning—this is the second engine we got from this company after the first was defective—but this was not apparent until after they'd run it for a bit, and now it's developed a bad tick. ATC are very generously doing the repair on it out of their own pocket since it's now past its 6 month warranty. They will have to tear it open and put in a new lifter, maybe new cams. That means probably at least another week's delay.

Monkey is being quiet today, and now on the penultimate day of our quarantine, I need to figure out our next move. I'd figured the remaining repairs couldn't possibly outlast the quarantine, but I guess I was wrong. It might be nice to move to a nicer hotel while this is going on. Looks like we're going into November now. Still need to figure out how the DMV is going to work as well. And towing my Jeep. So much fun.

Most dogs have fairly simple needs. Keep them well-stocked in food and water, give them a comfortable place to sleep, provide their daily allotment of walks and scritches, and they'll be happy. Coonhounds on the other hand have an entire Maslow's hierarchy. It's sometimes difficult to tell the difference between the bark meaning “I'm hungry” or “I have to pee,” and the one meaning “I'm suffering from spiritual emptiness due to feeling like my life lacks purpose.”

Monday, October 21st

3:02pm: After over a week waiting to hear back from the engine company on warranty service for the bad lifter, they said it's out of warranty cause it's been more than 6 months (I'm pretty sure it's been something like 6 months and 1 day at this point since they got that engine), so there wasn't really a whole lot of point in waiting for them anyway. The owner of ATC is out today, but he will be back in tomorrow, and then we can formulate a plan for fixing the lifter and finally getting moving.

Today has been quiet. The wifi at our hotel has been down cause apparently the phone company is doing some work on the lines, so haven't been able to get much done. Monkey has actually given me some peace and quiet, which has been nice, but I'm sure he'll rouse any minute. Last night, I had to turn the lights off and get in bed around 10pm just cause it was the only way to get him to understand it was quiet time.

1 day and a wake-up left in quarantine.

Update 3:12pm: Monkey has, in fact, woken up.

Saturday, October 19th

The last week has been mind-numbingly dull. Have mostly hung around the room. Monkey has been very needy, which I can understand cause he's missing his friends. Though he seems to decide every time I get out of bed that I need to be taking him out and not doing anything that isn't paying attention to him, so I haven't been able to get any work or much of anything else done, since I only get any peace when I'm laying in bed not doing anything. Though I did finish setting up our WriteFreely instance and put my past logs online. Today I installed the permanent wiring kit for the dashcam, so the next time someone decided to give us trouble, we should be assured of having a recording of it. Our mechanic is still waiting to hear back from the engine manufacturer on whether they want them to fix the Dimetrodon't lifter, or if they want to warranty it again. If the Dimetrodon needs another engine replacement, I don't know what we're going to do. May just have to say fuck it and deal with it as it is.

4 days of quarantine left.

the trivial case

how many ways can you arrange nothing

sit with nothing for a while and it's clear there's more than one permutation

Tuesday, October 15th

Quiet, uneventful, boring day. I can't really do anything except hang out in my room on my computer. I took Monkey out now and then to do his business, but I can't really take him on any long walks to any parks or hiking trails where there might be other dogs, cause he has to stay away from other dogs during his quarantine. We did make a trip out to Wal-Mart this evening and got some much needed supplies delivered to the car, and I brought in all of our various bins of stuff off of the roof, so that's done at least. I still don't see a refund from Staybridge on my card, not even a pending one, so I may have to call them if I don't see it soon, and if that doesn't work, I'll have to put a chargeback on my card. They did very quickly charge a $250 extra cleaning fee. I can't imagine what that could be for, but I really don't feel like arguing with them about it. I talked to my mechanic today, and he said they'd been in touch with the engine maker and sent them the info they'd requested, but hadn't gotten a response. He said he was going to call them to let a fire under them and let me know the result by end of day today, which he didn't do, so I guess I'm calling him again tomorrow. 8 days of quarantine remain. This would be a good time to contact the Iowa DMV to see if they'd be willing to give us temporary plates for the Dimetrodon. If they won't, that will make our return journey a lot more interesting.