Entropy, It's a Winner

The car shopping continues (RIP Toyota minivan) and the engine light has reared its ugly head on the Mazda dashboard, our dog probably needs surgery for bladder stones-- but we're putting it off and trying a special diet and hoping for a miracle-- and while we were able to replace one window (out of the three we wanted to replace) it seems the other two were installed incorrectly by total incompetents back in the 1980s and will require major construction to be swapped out . . . entropy always wins (and in case you were wondering, I checked and there's already a t-shirt with this phrase on it).

It Rhymes if You Drawl

Right now my life feels like a bad country song-- a bad but slightly liberal country song-- my Toyota minivan is dead and gone and my dog's bladder is full of stones. 

One Van Left Behind

 

Another action-packed family vacation in Sea Isle-- Alex and Matt defended last year's random draw cornhole title (and so only Greg and I and Alex and Matt have won back-to-back . . . so we played them and we did beat them-- but they were probably cornholed out from their tournament run . . . they will have to split up next year) and while we're taking plenty of memories back to central Jersey we will be leaving one important member of the family behind-- our 2008 Toyota Sienna Minivan overheated and the engine went, so she is headed to the junkyard, but at least she will spend the remainder of her days at the beach-- a well-deserved vacation from all the family trips, soccer jaunts, teenage shenanigans, work commuting, and general utilitarian duty . . . she served us well, all hail the minivan-- but I can't wait to get a smaller car that doesn't smell so bad, isn't held together by various kind of tape, and contains fewer wasps and spiders (and we were lucky enough to find out the bad news from the garage just as my parents were leaving yesterday, so Catherine jumped in their car and drove them home-- where, serndeipiotusly- our Mazda was because Ian drove them to the beach-- and then she turned around and brought the Mazda to Sea Isle, which barely fit all the stuff-- but we were able to send Alex and Ian home with my brother and they took the train from Hamilton to New Brunswick, quite the game plan . . . we were going to rent a box truck to take our stuff but the garage said they're all out on Saturdays delivering linen).

Safety = Not Warped and Trippy at All

The super-classy/super-distorted-$9.99 eBay-stick-on-funhouse-replacement-side-view mirror is no more . . . our mechanic replaced it with a genuine powered crystal clear authentic Toyota Sienna mirror-- and where's the fun in that?

Mike the Mechanic: Hero!

If you're in the vicinity of Highland Park and you need a great mechanic, Mike at Edison Automotive is your guy-- he just resurrected my dilapidated 2008 Toyota Sienna minivan-- which was spewing out error messages like a ninth grader's first Python program-- and not only that, once he replace the fuel pump and put in a new ignition coil cylinder, he had his guy run it over to the inspection station (I failed a few days ago) and it passed!-- and he got this done just in time for us to take the van on vacation-- we were going to have to try to stuff everything into the Mazda, which would have been very tight-- but now to minivan is rolling again (and it seems to have some pick-up and it doesn't veer to the left like it did) for one more beach vacation-- and that inspection sticker is good for two years (and . . . bonus . . . I covered up the cracked sideview mirror with a cut-out adhesive replacement mirror . . . classy).

A Fun Wedding (Sort of)

My wife and I almost had a fun and relaxing time at my wife's niece's wedding yesterday afternoon . . . almost . . . the wedding was down the shore in Asbury Park at the Asbury Hotel and we were sleeping at my brother-in-law's house in Long Branch-- a beautiful spacious place with an ocean view (and we pretty much had the run of the place because Bob and Wendy were staying at the hotel-- father-of-the-bride stuff) and it was a beautiful day and we read our boys the riot act-- we wanted to have a relaxing time without incident-- Ian was supposed to help Alex move out of his dorm-- drive the minivan over and help him clean out his room- and then Ian was supposed to go to a sleepover and Alex was going to take care of the dog and then return to his dorm for the night-- but during the wedding service-- which was lovely and happening on the rooftop of the Asbury Hotel-- we got a call from Alex . . . he was getting some of his girlfriend's stuff on College Ave and then he needed to come over Landing Lane Bridge-- a skinny bridge full of traffic and he cut the turn too sharply and hit something on the edge of the bridge and popped the tire and so then he drove the van into the park on the flat tire and parked it but the spare was at home in the storage area-- we gave up on trying to get the spare back to where it belonged because the 2008 Toyota Minivan has the most inaccessible spare tire contraption known to man-- we've already had our problems with this thing-- and we had the spare in the back of the van for a while but then when tennis season started I removed it because it took up too much space-- and we didn't want Alex waiting forever in the park for roadside assistance so he walked back to his dorm and then biked home to take care of the dog-- which-- if he communicated with Ian-- he didn't need to do because Ian's sleepover was cancelled-- Ian was home and now going to a party around the block and we weren't all that happy about this development because we knew that party would be out-of-control and it seems it was-- but what could we do? we were down the beach . . . anyway, everyone survived their ordeals (although we're pretty sure Ian had too much to drink at this party) and the wedding was wonderful and the band was great-- so we had a good time, despite worrying about the kids and the state of the van-- and we rushed home in the morning, headed straight to the park, found the van, removed the warning ticket, managed to change the tire-- despite some very tight lug nuts (next time bring a rubber mallet!) and get the van to Mavis, where they replaced three of the tires but could not do the fourth because Alex bent the rim so badly that the car needs to go to an actual mechanic tomorrow to get that fixed-- so now we are driving it on the spare and hoping we can finish this project tomorrow (we did need new tires so this expedited that purchase -- yuck) and the moral is just because your kids are in college (or nearly in college) doesn't mean that they are smart.

More Vehicular Woes! And a Nice Lake Swim . . .

We made it up to Hancock, Maine without mishap-- stopping for Bissell Brothers beer and Salvage BBQ in Portland-- and while our rental is a bit cluttered, it's in an amazing location, near some tidal falls full of pools dotted with pink starfish-- yesterday, we took a ride out to the Schoodic Peninsula and there was a scenic pull-off in Sullivan and not only were the views of Mount Desert Island and Cadillac Mountain majestic, but there was also a grass tennis court just below the hilltop; this was too much stimulus for the driver (yours truly) and I turned a bit too late to park and hit the curb-- which turned out to be a very high and sharp curb made of granite-- so I popped the tire and bent the rim of our last remaining vehicle; luckily, Alex and I knew how to access the spare tire in the van (because he popped a different tire on a sewer grate a month ago and we learned that 2008 Toyota Sienna's have the most inaccessible spare tires in the auto world-- you need a five sided hex nut because of a weird recall, to lower it down from a wire from directly beneath the car-- even the Triple A guy didn't have one, so the car had to be towed, but after the first flat, I bought one on Ebay and put it in the glove box) and so while Catherine called Triple A, Alex and I tried to change the tire-- and it was hot, REALLY hot . . . and we finally got the tire loose from the bottom of the car, and it was really rusty (from being under the car) and it was very difficult to remove the tire from the wire-- the metal part that held it eventually just fell apart and then we tried jacking the car up, but forgot to put the parking brake on, so it titled over-- meanwhile, Catherine found out the wait for Triple A assistance was over and hour, so we pulled the car up a bit, got the jack in the right spot, put on the brake, and slowly and sweatily jacked the car up, pulled off the old tire and put on the donut-- and then we headed to Complete Tire Service in Ellsworth, where they could have gouged us or made us wait-- they were busy-- but they were so friendly and accomodating and got a new rim and new tire on the car in less than an our and charged us a total of $237-- could have been far worse-- and then we ate lobster rolls and seafood at Jordan's, headed back to our place, let the dog out, and then got back in the car and drove to the beach at Donnell Pond, a scenic sandy cove at the end of a large lake in the mountains (and later in the evening, Ian beat me twice in a row at cornhole, which I blamed on tired forearms from jacking the car up).

Daylight Saving Time: Catastrophe and Miracle

Yesterday, I was running late-- of course-- because we had just sprung ahead for fucking Daylight Saving Time and though I was bleary-eyed, I still noticed (possibly because it was dark) that ALL the interior lights were on in my van-- and they had certainly been on all night; luckily, the battery was okay and the car started but I couldn't get the lights to turn off, even when I was driving; my son had borrowed the car the day previous and he was the last to drive it so he had obviously done something egregious, but I didn't have time to run in the house and wake him up and ask him, so I called my wife (waking her up, as she was taking a day off) and told her to get Alex on the phone; Alex denied pressing any buttons and while all I could say was "THINK!"-- because I was driving down Route 18 with a bunch of other over-tired drivers-- but my wife actually thought for a moment and told Alex to go down to the computer and search how to shut the lights off on a 2008 Toyota Sienna; miraculously, he figured out what he had done . . . there is a weird button with three settings behind the steering wheel: OFF/DOOR/ON; this button toggles the interior lights from always off to turn-on-when-doors-are-open to always on . . . and he had somehow hit this button-- this button that no one has ever pressed in the history of driving-- and permanently turned the interior lights on (why this button exists confounds me, it is as equally unexplainable as the existence of Daylight Saving Time . . . which may be headed the way of the dinosaurs . . . which would make me very happy, almost as happy as when I put a piece of duct-tape over this idiotic button so that no teenager can ever press it again).

My Older Son Was of Use

Yesterday, with the help of my older son, I replaced the hydraulic hatch supports on my Toyota van-- there was only one moment of panic, when Alex did something weird to the ball joint-socket . . . but he was able to hold up the tailgate-- which is quite heavy-- and I was able to pry the hinges loose with a flat-head screwdriver and slip the balls in the sockets and now the back hatch of my van is no longer a death-trap dull guillotine.

First World Problem #23,444

I've taken a perfectly good first world car (a 2008 Toyota Sienna minivan) and turned it into a vehicle that would look appropriate driving the streets of war-torn Aleppo . . . several parts of the car are taped together, it's missing a hubcap, the car possesses a multitude of dents and scratches, and now-- finally- the electric motor on the back door latch has finally gone kaput (it's been sketchy for a while) and this happened yesterday afternoon while I was starting to pack the car for our trip to Sea Isle City, which is a very involved packing job-- but I figured out how to get the back hatch open and closed, I opened a panel on the inside of the back hatch and got access to the (broken) motor, and there's a little lever you can pull in there to manually open the latch and I lassoed the lever with a shoelace, pulled the slipknot tight, and hung the lace from the ceiling of the car and now if you crawl into the back and pull up on the shoelace, it releases the latch and you can open the hatch . . . so that's how we'll roll for this vacation and then I can hopefully get that motor replaced and have a power latch again.

I Look Generic (and So Does My Car)

I was stopped at a light on Woodbridge Avenue today, and I heard a short "BEEP" but I didn't think it was intended for me; at the next light, I heard the same short, lighthearted "BEEP" and I turned my head and the beep was coming from a postal truck-- the driver, an African American dude that I did not recognize, smiled, flashed me the peace sign, and then drove off . . . I think he thought I was someone else, which is understandable, as I'm pretty generic looking and I drive a gray Toyota Sienna minivan.

Dad, Alex and Malcolm Gladwell Trump Mom

After my son and I listened to Malcolm Gladwell's "Blame Game," I decided it was time to take logical and necessary action-- the podcast dissects the Toyota "uncontrollable acceleration" scandal of 2009 and Gladwell places the blame squarely on the humans operating the vehicles, not the vehicles themselves-- and so I told my thirteen year old son it was time he got some practice behind the wheel of an automobile, so he could familiarize himself with the controls as soon as possible and avoid the tragic situations described in the podcast . . . Alex was very excited about this, but my wife did not think it was a good idea-- but she also knew there was no persuading us-- the podcast is a very powerful piece of journalism-- and so she simply requested that we not tell her about our plans (and not use her car) and we tried to honor that request as best we could, and yesterday morning at 6 AM (my son set his alarm!) I drove to the large parking lot behind the Sears on Route 1 and Alex pulled the seat all the way forward, turned the ignition key, and navigated his way around several parked cars, between two parking lot islands, and avoided all the light poles-- I didn't realize there were so many obstacles in an empty lot . . . flashes of Tina learning to drive ran through my head-- but he was a good listener and did a great job on his first time around, then parked the car by a big tarp with a bunch of junk heaped under it, and learned to reverse, use his mirrors, and turn the car around from the reversed position, did one more lap without incident, and then I drove home . . . my wife did hear us come in and we told her the news and while she didn't want to hear the details, she was happy that we didn't use her car.

Dave Fixes His Car! With Tape!

Before

If you've been following my life lately (which you should) then you know that I tore a hole in the side panel of my Toyota Sienna; I caught the lip of a guardrail while trying to squeeze out of a tiny parking lot adjacent to the Landing Lane Bridge (and I was in this lot for good reason: I was going for a run with the dog on the towpath, and this lot has the quickest access to the path . . . if you park in the lot on the other side of the bridge, in Johnson Park, then you have to walk across the bridge and the bridge walkway is covered with glass shards, so I was worried about my dog's paws) but I got some Auto Body Repair Tape (eleven dollars on Amazon) and my van is as good as new.

After!

Dave is Never Too Old to Learn Stuff (but He'll Never Have a Nice Car)

I went for a run with the dog this morning on the towpath (the narrow park between the Raritan River and the Delaware and Raritan Canal) and I learned several valuable lessons:

1) if you are several miles out on the towpath, and your dog poops, and you bag the poop and then put a plastic bag filled with poop in your pocket (because the canal is a watershed, so you don't want to leave poop near it) and you then run several miles, you'll forget you have poop in your pocket (it cools down) and you'll eventually stick your hand in your pocket to see what's in there-- luckily I tied the bag shut, so I didn't end up with a hand full of poop (although I did smell the bag, in the name of science, and despite the fact that the poop is sequestered inside plastic, it still smells like poop);

2) it's not worth parking in the tiny Landing Lane lot, right next to the towpath, because it's an extremely sharp turn out of the lot and there is always traffic on the other side of the road . . . I cut it a little too sharp and caught the lip of the guard rail and tore a hole in my van . . . I'm going to attempt to fix this hole with some auto body repair tape-- ten bucks on Amazon-- which leads us to lesson number three . . .

3) I am a terrible car owner-- fans of this blog know the stories of my infamous Jeep Cherokee, and I am doling out the same kind of abuse to my Toyota Sienna . . . when it comes to cars, I just can't have nice things.

Your Opinion About Dave Is Not Your Own

Perhaps the easiest way to happily plunge into the surveillance state is to embrace the comforting notion that your mind is not your own, because if you're just along for the ride, then there's no reason to care what anyone (or anything) knows about you-- your deepest darkest most private thoughts are formed by the circumstances surrounding you, and thus there's no escaping them, nor are you responsible for them; Jonah Berger explores this wonderful new way to think and live in our modern world in his book Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Behavior . . . it's a fast, breezy read consisting of summaries of compelling studies and vivid anecdotes which complement the science-- you won't be able to put it down; Berger doesn't really get into the philosophical implications of these ideas, he simply wants you to note them and understand the cliché: everyone thinks these forces affect other people, but no one thinks that they ever fall prey to them, but as you read, you'll slowly agree that your decisions are usually made so you can fit in, stand out, or achieve some desired combination of the two-- and competition, when it's close, may spur you on, and when you're being crushed, may destroy your soul . . . I learned that I'm more working-class than upper-middle-class with my automobile selections, as most upper-middle-class drivers try to select a car that's a little different from their peers-- they want to differentiate themselves, but working class folks don't mind some unity in their selection, and my family drives the two of the most common cars on the road (a Honda CRV and a Toyota Sienna minivan) for good reason, they are extremely reliable and well-rated, and they are easy to get fixed, because there are plenty of parts and all mechanics are familiar with them . . . but with music, I'm a typical hipster douchebag: I only like the early stuff . . . before they sold out, or else I'm listening to jazz . . . and then only this album, etcetera . . . anyway, there's also plenty of the research that indicates that where you are born has a major influence on your thoughts, decisions, and how much money you earn, and so there's no better program to help the poor than Moving to Opportunity, because it's not the money, it's the invisible social forces surrounding children that make them successful . . . anyway, I'm going to take this to heart, and stop getting all freaked out by Benjamen Walker's Surveillance State mini-series and just do whatever.

One Last Epic Day in Utah

Our last full day in Moab we:

1) got up at the crack of dawn and drove into Arches one last time-- we hiked through the Windows region and saw a big-eared jackrabbit . . . for pictures, head to Captions of Cat;

2) drove through dirt, gravel, sand, and rock to Mill Canyon Dinosaur Trail and Copper Ridge Dinosaur Trail . . . Mill Canyon is the place to see a lizard sitting on a rock that contains giant leg bones of his long extinct cousin-- if a lizard could understand irony, would this be irony?-- and Copper Ridge is the place to see giant Diplodocus footprints right next to perfectly preserved Allosaurus footprints, you can see the claw indentations of the Allosaur and you can see where the herbivore made a sharp right turn, possibly to check out the lurking predator . . . this happened 150 million years ago but the footprints, pressed deep into the shale, look like they could have been made minutes before . . . kudos to our Toyota Sienna minivan for making it out to these sites, as the roads are suggested for only high-framed four-wheel drive vehicles;

3) drove out to Canyonlands National Park and hiked to the Mesa Arch, which sits atop a five-hundred foot cliff, and then climbed on top of Whale Rock, which offers panoramic views of the entire region-- you feel like you are on top of the world . . . and, as a bonus, the rock really does look like a whale, blowhole and all;

4) ate at the Moab Diner, which has great green chile verde sauce . . . I am sampling the chile verde sauce everywhere we stop, and this stuff holds up, though my favorite batch so far was at Snooze in Boulder, with a close second at Jilbertitos #1 in Glenwood Springs;

5) endured another dust storm, apparently whenever the weather is pleasant in Utah, it's not actually pleasant, it's foreboding.

Dave vs. The Fuzzy Green Ball

Everything seems epic when you're sick, and so yesterday, during my drive to the MedExpress while running a fever (turned out to be bronchitis)-- I fought an epic battle against a worn out tennis ball; the ball kept rolling under my feet while I was driving down Route 18, and I was worried that it would become lodged under the gas or brake pedal, and so I repeatedly bent down and grabbed the ball from under my feet-- temporarily obscuring my view of the road-- and then tossed the ball to the back of the van . . . and moments later it would come rolling back up again, like it had a mind of its own, and so-- finally-- and, as I said earlier, I was running a fever and my mind was cloudy, I thought to put it in one of the many cupholders my Toyota van possesses, and this was a perfect fit-- the ball will stay lodged in there until my kids decide to remove it, so they can play catch in the car (and it is possible that this fairly obvious idea didn't dawn on me for so long because my old car, a Jeep Cherokee, had no cupholders and so I had to use the sneaker which resided in the passenger seat . . . there were rarely passengers brave enough to ride in the "deathbox," and I'm too sick to do any research-- so I'll leave this work to Sentence of Dave fanatics-- but I wonder how many automobile accidents are caused by unrestricted rolling tennis balls . . . I'm guessing this is at least as dangerous as trying to clip your dog's nails as a stoplight.

It's Happening Again

I am rapidly turning my newish (2008) Toyota Sienna minivan into my beloved and but heavily abused 1993 Jeep Cherokee . . . three years ago, when I bought the van, it was in perfect shape, but now it is missing a hubcap, there's a big scratch on the side from when I scraped my friend's car in the school lot, and the back latch is broken so you can't open the hatch, so I have to get all my soccer stuff out through the sliding doors . . . I'm worried that soon enough I'll be crawling in through the passenger side and using a boot as a cup-holder.

Do You Drive Your Car, or Does It Drive You?

I drive my Toyota minivan like a 1993 Jeep Cherokee Sport (because that's what I drove for the twenty years before I got the van) but I saw a lady in the high school parking lot with a brand new sporty Jeep with a jacked up frame and removable doors, gingerly poking in and out of her parking spot to avoid rolling one of her giant tires over a low concrete lip (not even a curb).

There's One Place Like Home (And It's Home)

After two mammoth driving days, we made it home . . . and the house was still standing . . . so a big thanks to all the folks who made this possible: house-sitters and dog-sitters, mail-getters and garden-watchers, my adventurous wife and kids, and-- most importantly-- the biggest thanks of all to our 2008 Toyota Sienna, for putting in over 6000 miles of fast, wild, and bumpy driving without a flat or a hiccup or a breakdown.