RROTW (Rachael Rant of the Week)

Well it's a rant and a status update all in one.

This summer has been great so far. I don't feel like I have been wasting time in front of the TV like I did during inter-term. Even though I have been spending quite a bit of time watching TV with my father, playing facebook games, and playing World of Warcraft.

I have been starting to read the books I need to have read for Torrey Cambridge. Poetry always takes so much longer than I expect it to. I should have had 100 pages read by Tuesday of last week; I have 30 pages left to read. Grr.

I, along with Elizabeth and Jenn (last names preserved for privacy [that's right "preserved" not "reserved" because I'm cool like that]), have been learning to quilt over at Nikki's (the archery coach's) place. The pattern is called Autumn Leaf and I am using purple and yellow fabrics, not because I am very fond of those colors, but because Nikki had a lot of extra fabric in those colors and they work well together. Later this summer, I'm going to get Elizabeth to teach me to crochet and will hopefully make the other three sun dresses that I have had fabric for for over a year.

I am planning on doing NaNoWriMo this year. Maybe at some point Meru I could borrow that book your sister got you :D

Later this summer, after Cambridge, my father and I are going to get a puppy so he can have a dog and I can have one.

I still don't know if I've been accepted to Cal State Fullerton. But to occupy my time I've been working on a Yahtzee project with one of the math professors for about a year and we're still working on it. Hopefully soon we'll have it published in some sort of journal.

And now to the part everyone has been waiting for.... The RANT:

So, my father and I think that we have found the problem with my car. Recall: the problem where it doesn't start in the rain and if I drive through a puddle it shuts off. We think it was the starter solenoid (it puts power to the starter in a car). So, being the poor little family we are, with my dad being very mechanically inclined, we go and buy a brand new starter... which I HAVE TO REPLACE MYSELF!!!

Meaning I have to cram my arm into a tiny space, suffering multiple scratches and bruises, to unbolt the old starter. Then we have to jiggle it around and maneuver it very carefully to get it out of the tiny space it rests in. Then we unbolt the bracket that holds some wires to it and buy the new starter. Well, now I have forgotten which way the bracket attaches and looking at the car isn't helpful, neither is the manual which is for the 1990 CRX, but I have the '91 (and the Honda dealer said there was no difference, boy were they WRONG!). Okay, so we just didn't attach the bracket and I put the new starter back in. This means that I had to shove my arm back into that tiny space, suffering more scratches and bruises whilst replace the bolts of the starter.

Alright, that problem has been taken care of. Now onto the battery terminal which has been corroded beyond all recognizable shape. I take that off and put a new one on. Not too bad.

And the piece d'resistance (that's French ;D) is the radiator. Which has been broken for two years. The tank up top was cracked so it would hold antifreeze for a while until the pressure became too much and then it would blow the antifreeze out the crack at the top. So every two weeks or so I had to put a cup of antifreeze in my car to keep it topped off. Well, dad decides that since I'm working on my starter I may as well learn how to replace a radiator too. So, I crawl underneath the car and take out the plug to let the old radiator drain.

The trouble is, that on the bottom of my car is a plastic shield. So the radiator doesn't drain straight into the pan, the antifreeze hits the shield and travels further back underneath the car. Well the shield is black so I can't see where the antifreeze is draining to until it starts overflowing the shield. Let me tell you, that was sooo messy!! Okay, so the radiator has been drained. Time to unplug all of the electronics, but leave on the two fans attached to the radiator. Then I take off the two huge hoses attached to the radiator, so far so good. Then we unscrew it from everything it was attached to. Done.

Then we pull the radiator out of the car... then we Pull the radiator out of the car... then we PULL the radiator out of the... s#@t, it's not coming out of the car. So I get on my back and crawl underneath the car, unscrew that stupid plastic shield, get antifreeze all over me because it had drained fully from the radiator but not from the shield, and try to find the problem. Turns out, one of the fans attached to the radiator slides into a connector on the bottom of the radiator. That connector is stuck ON THE METAL FRAME OF THE CAR!!!!! So I have to lever the connector back out from under the frame with a HUGE screwdriver while my father yanks and pulls with a crow bar on the radiator from above.

Finally we get the radiator out of the car. It can't get any worse right? But wait  - there's more!!! We had ordered a radiator from AutoZone (I knew all along that was a big mistake); AutoZone being an hack of an auto parts store masquerading as a "speed shop" (what speed shop carries spark plugs for a lawn mower? Seriously?). So we take the new, shiny, aluminum (that's actually a great feature) radiator out of the box... and we compare... and we take the fans off of the old radiator and try to fit them to the new one.... and try to fit them to the new one... and try to - you can see where this is going right? So, the new one is the wrong one.

It turns out that the new one was for an automatic without air conditioning (contrary to popular belief my car does have an air conditioning system, it just doesn't work that well). But when we had called them and ordered it we told them I had a manual car with air conditioning. They told us *imagine a sickly sweet voice here* "Oh, it doesn't matter, the radiator is universal". It's not.

We went to six different places to find the radiator we needed. Obviously the first five places didn't have our radiator, so we finally asked who their supplier was and we went direct to the supplier to get our radiator which was more expensive, made of copper (not as good at cooling as aluminum though perhaps more durable), and didn't have the lifetime warranty that AutoZone's radiator had.

I have yet to put the radiator in my car. That is my task for tomorrow morning. I'll let you know how it all goes.

Phew. That's been my summer in a nutshell so far.