It’s been a lazy day here, not because I haven’t been on top of things, but just because there isn’t much to do and those things that do need doing aren’t pressing.<\/p>\n
The second installment of the car class yesterday went really well. It was the hands-on day, so instead of boring dry-erase board academics the class and I actually worked on my car. I focused on two of the three fundamental exercises inherent in owning a car: Changing a tire and changing oil. The third, jumpering a car, requires another (sufficiently dead) vehicle, and one wasn’t readily available that I cared to make an example of. So we stuck to the basics. I had about 20 guys this time around, and one (brave) girl who didn’t say much. They were all in middle school to early high school, so it was interesting to watch the dynamic develop between the guys as we got into it. The middle schoolers, by and large, were invariably eager to help and learn; whenever I needed a volunteer one of them would step forward. I needed a lot of volunteers, too, as I made them do all the work. The high schoolers, for the most part, hung back and shot little oblique comments aimed at what they saw as the middle schoolers’ overeagerness. They were too cool to get their hands oily, as it were. <\/p>\n
The only snag we hit was when the oil filter refused to unscrew by hand (I must have overtightened it last time). Like an idiot, I forgot to bring an oil filter wrench, so I ended up having to hammer a screwdriver through it for additional leverage, in the process making a huge mess by which the guys were alternately fascinated and repelled. Typical.<\/p>\n
John showed up near the end of class with the truck and the disassembled engine in the bed. We pulled it off the truck, put it on the engine stand, and I flipped it over and pulled off the oil pan so they could all have a look at the crankshaft, oil pump, counterweights, oil pickup, etc… I think they got something out of it.<\/p>\n
It was a lot of fun. I felt relieved when it was all over, sure, but that emotion was still tempered by a feeling of the “is it over already?” quality. I think it’s time for another Car Care Saturday at the church.<\/p>\n
In slightly related news, I’m fighting the overwhelming impulse to trade the Audi for something else (there’s a deal being hashed out). I’m seriously not right in the head when it comes to these things. I’ll report further when I have something to report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s been a lazy day here, not because I haven’t been on top of things, but just because there isn’t much to do and those things that do need doing aren’t pressing. The second installment of the car class yesterday went really well. It was the hands-on day, so instead of boring dry-erase board academics […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}