Well yesterday was a challenge-

Yesterday was one of those "I love it when a plan comes together" days that left me worn out with tasks unaccomplished and my wallet lighter than I planned. Ugh! The first part of the day went fine- I had to go to the VA hospital in Salt Lake City to go to a Pulmonary Clinic appointment to get my new CPAP machine. After that, the plan was to try to locate a cheap car for the eldest son.

The appointment went perfectly. The nurse practioner, Liz was terrific and a great advocate. She got me hooked up with a mask and promised that all the paperwork would soon catch up and that my pending disability rating would be approved in the very near future. The guys in the Prosthetics department issued me a machine and set up the appointment for the respiratory tech to come to the house to get everything set up.

Lunch afterwards went ok too; a stop at Arby's then next door to the coffee shop for internet access for some updated car adverts and then, back to the truck to go shopping.

And- nothing. The truck won't start! It doesn't even try to start! Dammitall! Ok, take a deep breath. I take a look at the battery, the terminals are cruddy with corrosion. I poured some Pepsi on the terminals, maybe getting them wet will clear enough corrosion to make it work. Nope. I'll try some percussive maintenance with a jack handle, maybe that will clear the corrosive block. Nope, still no electricity flowing. Hey! I've got AT&T roadside breakdown service! So, I call. I tell them I need a jumpstart, they promise to send somebody. Time enough for a cigar.

The jumpstart guy shows up and goes to work. Of course the truck still doesn't change its behavior one electron. Jumpstart guy gives up and goes away, leaving me to call the breakdown service- again. Now I need a tow truck. Time for another cigar while I wait. Find a garage to have the truck towed to while I wait. There's a Firestone Service not too many blocks away. The rollback truck and two helpful guys show up and the truck goes on the wrecker without drama.

At the Firestone shop the truck comes off the rollback truck and straight into a bay. Jennifer checks me in and a tech goes right to work. Inside of 45 minutes, the tech diagnoses a bad solenoid and a new one is delivered and installed. The screw that I found stuck in my tread earlier turns out to be very short and didn't penetrate the tire, so there's no repair needed! But my wallet gets lightened by more than $100 for the troubleshooting and repairs but I'm back on the road.

Its too late to go car shopping. But I still need to drive across town to take my drain cleaner snake to Kye's place and to buy some epoxy to fix the snake handle that I broke in the morning. Kye's not home… I leave the stuff on his doorstep, he can do the repair on the handle. I finally make it home with a bag of Carl's Jr. burgers at 7:30 PM.

Ugh, I was tired! On a brighter note, and I can't wait until I get some minutes to look at my charts, Wasted Electrons had its most popular day ever on Thursday after my Open Letter post was publicized by several other much more relevant bloggers. The hit counter had spun up to 1898 hits before I went to bed last night!