Morton Fox's journal

The story started Wednesday evening. After leaving work, I made two stops for geocaches, one at the warehouse club, and a fourth stop just outside the local Staples to use the wi-fi network to order pizza. Then I went into Staples to do some shopping. When I got back to the car, it wouldn't start. First, it indicated that the transmission wasn't in park even though it was. I shifted the transmission, shifted it back, and tried again. That didn't work and the indicator lights started to dim. I called the service department and the technician who answered suggested to put the transmission into neutral. That didn't work and this time, all the indicator lights went out except for a "check engine" light. So he suggested a jump-start and if that didn't work, the car would have to be towed in for service.

I called AAA for a tow truck. At that point, I was debating to myself whether to cancel the pizza order since I may not be able to pick it up that evening. But I decided to wait and see. After about 40 minutes, the tow truck came by. The tow truck operator did the jump start and that worked. He noted that there was corrosion on the battery terminals but it also seemed to me that the battery was bad. What's surprising is the car had a multipoint inspection just a week before and the battery was good then. So I went to pick up the pizza. I left the engine running because I knew I wouldn't be able to start it again, but I used a steering wheel lock to hopefully prevent a carjacking. Then I went to an auto parts store to buy a jumpstart kit. (which I really should have had in the car all along. I used to have one but it reached the end of its life and I neglected to get a replacement.) Again I left the engine running while I went in to buy the item. (It's convenient having several auto parts stores near home!) And finally, I went home, satisfied that I had everything I needed for the next day.

On Thursday morning, the car started up just fine! That was puzzling. I took the car in for service anyway. They replaced the battery and battery terminals. As I was about the drive off, I noticed that the "check engine" light was still on. That seemed sloppy and wrong, so I called it to their attention and they took the car back to reset the indicator. However, they also found a radiator leak. (I have noticed water on my driveway before but I thought it was just condensation.) Changing the radiator and hoses was a more expensive and longer repair so I had to get a loaner car for Thursday and Friday.

I didn't go anywhere other than to work on Thursday and Friday because I haven't had good experience with loaner cars. This particular one, a Corolla LE, was a bit cramped (bumped my head and knee when I got in) and underpowered (hard to merge into I-95 traffic) too, but was incredibly stable when cornering. It also seemed fuel efficient, although I hadn't driven it far enough to get a good average MPG. On Friday afternoon, my car was finally ready for pickup and I got it back that evening. Anyway, although it's been a messy few days, I'm glad I caught those problems here and now instead of while I'm away in Connecticut for Furfright, for example.

Rainy, 50-55°F. It rained pretty much all day but in the afternoon, I had to go out for groceries, so I looked for the Getting High On 13 geocache. It's on (or above, rather, since it's on a pedestrian bridge) US-13, conveniently on the way to everything.

My windshield wipers were getting rather streaky in the rain, so I went to Walmart for new ones. I changed the wipers myself right in the parking lot in case there was a problem. I struggled with the first wiper but changed the second wiper really quickly because by then, I'd figured it out. Last I checked, it costs $20 to have someone at a garage do this, so I saved $13 for a few minutes of work.

I also had to buy a watch at Walmart because I lost my watch on Long Island, or so I thought. I had the new watch in hand. When I got in the car, I heard a little noise. Apparently, my old watch had been stuck to the side of the driver's seat all that time and only just then fell off! I do not have a good explanation for this. The sequence of events was as follows: On Saturday, I wore the watch until the time when I had to take a shower. So I put it down on the bathroom sink, where it promptly fell into a wormhole and reemerged in my car? I was pretty sure I left my watch in the bathroom. jbadger saw it there too. The next morning, it wasn't there. I didn't go outside that night after showering, so there's no possibility that I took it out to the car myself and forgot. Either some very strange things are happening or I'm losing my mind. Or both.

Anyway, I returned the new watch. Good thing Walmart doesn't mind merchandise returns with no good reason. I've had this old watch for years to wear in fursuit because that's when I don't carry my cell phone. It's not the first time the watch has disappeared and then reappeared elsewhere without a good explanation for how it got there. I don't know whether that makes it a good or a bad watch. Perhaps a mysterious watch.

Yesterday, I took the car to the service department in Mahwah for the 100,000-mile service. (Odometer reading was 101,820.) It was supposed to be a mere one-hour wait but I ended up having to leave the car there overnight because they stripped the oil pan screw and had to replace the whole thing. The loaner this time was a Toyota Yaris. This is the 2-door model. It's a small car but it sacrifices a lot of the back so the driver's compartment actually has some room. The engine isn't high-powered but the lightness of the car makes up for that so it passes the steep hill test. (Steep incline on Lake St. on the way home.)

The next day, I waited for the phone call from the service department but it never came, so I called them late in the afternoon to ask if my car was ready. It was. They didn't call because the home phone number they had in their records didn't work. The one they had was for the landline that I canceled last year but I was sure I gave them my cell phone number 2 visits ago. So I went and got my car and to celebrate, I headed out further to Ramapo County Reservation in Mahwah. I didn't go all the way up the mountain this time. I only went up to the level of the McMillan Reservoir. I used the Schuber Trail. Squirrel Your Nuts was along the way (0.5 mile from parking lot) so I got that one. It's near some stone ruins. Then I continued going 0.6 mile up the Schuber Trail. This stretch was steeper and rockier. When I reached the West shore of McMillan Reservoir, I found Ivan Meets GI Joe. Then I took the silver trail back to the parking lot. (Asphalt path. Fast, easy downhill.) Round trip was a bit over 2 miles, I think.

After that, I went to Palisades Center Mall in West Nyack. After getting a few items I needed, it was time for the dinner coupon tour. First, I went to Qdoba on the 4th level for chips and queso. The loyalty card sends me that bonus every year. Then I went to Johnny Rockets on the 2nd level for burger and fries and a mocha shake. The coupon was for the shake. I noticed that Johnny Rockets has changed their pricing scheme to be somewhat similar to Red Robin, i.e. they charge more for the burgers but each burger now comes with all-you-can-eat fries. There was wi-fi internet but it came from the Apple Store one level down.

There was snow in the weather forecast. I didn't think it would be that bad, especially towards Central Jersey but I wasn't going to go that far in case my route back got messy. So I just headed out in the morning for the Inside the Heart of Wallington geocache in the town of Wallington. According to the cache page, it was a 1/4-mile walk on a trail between residential areas but I saw a closer entry point from an adjacent sports field so it turned out to be pretty quick.

After that, I got takeout from the Chinese supermarket (very crowded because people were rushing to get groceries before the snow) in River Edge before heading home, arriving a mere half an hour before the snow really got started.

I saw a "Check VSC System" warning message. It only shows up if I don't release the parking brake before starting the car, so it's probably not a major problem. I'll have it looked at on a weekday evening.

Yesterday evening, I was near a cache site waiting for everyone to leave so that I could go look for the cache. That wasn't going to happen that evening so I gave up and I was about to leave when a nice fellow, one of the locals, told me that my left headlight bulb was out. This afternoon, I went to Autozone in Spring Valley to get a replacement bulb. Then I changed bulbs right in the parking lot before leaving Autozone. It was actually a pretty easy toolfree installation. The hardest part was figuring out how to remove and reinstall the engine cover clips because that's where the manual was somewhat unclear. Anyway, with just 10 minutes of my time and a couple of greasy fingers, I did this myself and saved a $25 labor charge. Not a bad deal.

Something else I saw yesterday night that I forgot to mention was a boat crash. Apparently, the boat fell off someone's trailer so it was just sitting there on I-287. No traffic delay because it was late at night on a weekend. State police had already set up road flares around the boat.

My uncle, back in the old country, hasn't been doing too well healthwise recently. He had two heart attacks a few weeks ago and now a couple of diabetic sores. It was pretty scary for a while but he's recovering and I do hope he gets well again. This is also a reminder to not be complacent about health issues. A few people in my extended family have had diabetes and heart disease, so I could be at risk too.

Sent my car in for servicing yesterday evening. Odometer is at 85,582 miles. They are also going to repair the driver's side door weatherstripping, which has come loose. They need an additional day to order that part so I'll be keeping the loaner car for two days. This time, it is a Toyota Corolla LE. This is a comparatively fuel-efficient vehicle. According to this review, it gets around 38 MPG, which was what my previous car, a 1995 Saturn SL, got. Downsides are it's a bit underpowered (it struggled to get up to speed merging on a bit of an incline onto Route 17) and the seat is rather low. Of course, on those two points, I've been spoiled by my car so I'm not a good judge there. On the plus side, the Corolla LE has 2 glove compartments! The space above the glove compartment that goes unused in many cars, flips open to reveal another compartment. Brilliant!

I'm now on the Postcrossing leaderboard for USA. It's not a stable situation though because there are a few Postcrossers with around the same number of postcards sent, so the rank depends on mail delivery timing.

Oil change this evening. Odometer is at 80387 miles. (Yes, just like that math coprocessor. :) ) It's been less than 5,000 miles since the last service but I can't count on having time for this next week and if I leave it for the week after, it'll be way past 5K miles.

I've been geocaching for so long that I don't stop to think about how surreal this activity is sometimes. Well, among my photos from this past weekend is one of a geocache hidden in a bunny:



( Another picture behind cut... )

I participated in Firefox 3 Download Day. Installed it, gave it a spin, and set it aside. K-Meleon 1.1 will continue to be my workhorse browser, not so much because of its speed or small size but because I've customized and extended my copy significantly enough that it'd be hard to reproduce this setup in another browser. I would like to see a Prism update though. I use that to keep resource-intensive webapps like Gmail separate from my browser session.

Oil change this morning. 65,743 miles. UPS was supposed to deliver a package today (From Hong Kong to New Jersey in just two days! Impressive.) but the carrier arrived while I was out doing the oil change. So I called them to arrange for an evening pickup.

After a quick lunch I headed out to Rye and North Castle in Westchester for a bunch of new geocaches. It was an overcast day but it didn't rain until I was at the last cache. The only one that was a little tricky was "Y?" After looking in all the wrong places for a while, it dawned on me where that cache could be hidden and that was exactly it.

( The caches... )

In the evening, I went to the UPS warehouse in Saddle Brook to pick up the package. They have a one-hour slot from 8pm to 9pm for package pickup. It's a good thing I remembered where the warehouse was because I didn't see a sign out by the road. It bothered me a little that they weren't ready to serve anyone for more than 10 minutes after the counter was supposed to open. However, once they got going, they handed out packages at a reasonable speed.