Sometimes busy... sometimes not these past few days. I was up early on Monday so that I could be over at the Ford Service Department by 9:00 a.m. The truck has been making a 'tick - tick - tick' noise every time I started it up. I just assumed it was a sticky valve lifter or something similar, but it has been loud enough that it needed to be checked out. I decided to stay at the dealer, and then over at the local McDonald's, all day just in case they needed to talk to me. I was rather disappointed to find that they didn't even get the truck inside the building until after 1:00 p.m. ,  so I was a bit pissed off.
   In the end it wasn't until after 4:00 before they told me that they had found two main problems with the truck. The first was that the noise was being most likely caused by the timing chain tensioners. And secondly there was a leak in the intake manifold gasket. So the good news was.... they could fix one or the other of the problems separately... or they could do both together and get it all fixed up at the same time. The bad news...... it was going to cost about $4,700 in parts and labor.
    So-o-o, a new truck, 2 door, no 4-wheel drive, no bells or whistles would cost me about $34,000 plus interest for 3-5 years. Or I could replace mine with a like equipped 4 door, 4 wheel drive for about $60,000 and interest.  So in the end there was no question of what to do.... My current truck may be nearly 11 years old with over 191,000 miles on it, but the only thing I know of that isn't working right now is the light in the gear shift lever console. So I went with fixing it, which also more closely aligns with my philosophy of keeping things as long as they work and not just throwing them away because they aren't the newest or best.
    So I called up my friend Tom, and had him come pick me up, and then took him to dinner. Mexican food of course, since Donna wasn't home and we were both hungry.
    It took the dealer all day yesterday to get all of the parts in and start tearing the engine in the truck apart. I had hoped they would be done by the end of the day, but no such luck.  So instead of hanging around all afternoon Tom, George, Joe and I went out to a Boys Night Out movie instead. We went and watched the semi documentary movie about James Brown, which I still can't remember the name of. But the movie was actually very good. We were all struck by the music of course, but the plot was good and the way it was filmed, with flashbacks and forwards to help tell the story was unique and really 'worked' in this case.
    We went and had Mexican food for dinner that night also. You might think I would be getting tired of eating it by now, but no way. After all, do Chinese people grow tired of eating Chinese food more than once a day? Do Mexicans not like 'Mexican' food more than once a day? I think not, no more than I would tire of eating 'American' food more than once a day. Though I'm not really sure what 'American' food really is.... maybe hamburgers or ribs or something like that.
    Because Tom and Donna had some friends flying into the Denver area for several days today I ended up moving back over to George and Marge's last night. It is so nice to have such great friends, in that I 'almost' think they were happy to see me back here with them. I'll be heading back over to Tom and Donna's in a couple of days though because it will be a lot easier to 'stage' out of their place when it comes time to pack up the truck for the river trip.
    So this morning was spent just hanging out here at the house with George and Marge. George spent a couple of hours showing and explaining some of the things he has been doing on his computer. A couple years ago he took it upon his self to learn how to create 3 dimensional computer animated objects and films. He has since then self taught his self how to manipulate some free software, 'Blender', to create little film clips he has posted on 'YouTube'.
    Around noon I called up the Ford dealer and found out that the truck would be done today, but that it would be late afternoon before it was done as they wanted to test drive it, then let it cool all the way down and then test drive it again when cold, just to make sure everything was working correctly. So it was nearly 5:00 in the afternoon before I went and picked it up. Just a little bit more than $4,700, ouch, but it started right up, didn't make weird noises and seemed to run better than before. So I am hoping that this will be the last major cost to hit me this fall. There will be other problems I am sure, but it would nice if there aren't any more big expenses for a while.
     Other than doing a little shopping this evening it has been very quiet. I think I'll go and get some cold water and then curl up with my 'Kendall' for the rest of the evening. I started a new book yesterday and it is keeping me pretty interested.


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