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Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Monday, August 27, 2012
On Being Out of Shape
Dawn has four brothers, two are older, two are younger. All but the very youngest are married with children (or a child in the case of the second youngest). Anyway Dawn's second youngest brother calls up about a week ago and asks if we could look after his daughter for Friday night and Saturday morning. Apparently before I got into Dawn's life she enjoyed the roll of being the family baby sitter, though I have to wonder how twins have changed that job title.
Now Dawn's brother lives in Shelburne which is about an hour's driving distance outside of the city and as it would turn out Dawn was able to enlist the assistance of her mother, so that it was three on three (it's not like we are going to hire a sitter to look after the boys while we run off to Shelburne to look after one girl!) Anyway I hit on the idea of biking from our short term rental, (oh did I mention we moved to a rental while we sell our smallish home and once sold look for a largish home - twins for you!) to the house in Shelburne.
Here is the route I took,
Because Dawn's mother, my mother-in-law, would be able to look after the baby we were more or less not required, still it might be nice to get out of the city for the day. So Dawn asked if I wanted to go Friday or Saturday. As I was able to get off work Friday it came down to a simple decision for me, ride away from the city during the morning rush hour, or on Saturday when the yahoo's would be out. I thought Friday made more sense.
It was probably a foolish move, it turns out there's an awful lot of cars on country roads on a Friday, one road in particular, Charleston Side Road, near Erin was horribly busy, and every time a 54 foot tractor trailer drove past, and more than one drove by, I really thought, I ought to up my life insurance. Anyway I think I've got a better route for next time, and here it is:
Sadly on this ride I realised how much things have fallen apart for me since the boys were born. (I guess I expected it, but still, expectation versus actual discovery of fact, it was upsetting). The ride was 137km, which is a nice distance for me, nothing really far, heck last summer I rode up to Lake Simcoe by myself a bunch of times and that was 180km, I even did a Forks of the Credit ride alone and that was just over 200km. Well this time I started a lot closer to the Forks and got there with 95km on me and I was tired, the knees hurt, the legs hurt, my rear end hurt. I stopped for a fluids break and resumed about 20 or 30 minutes later, hurting. It was a shame really, quiet country roads, lovely rollers, farm land, nice weather and I hurt too much to notice pretty much anything at all.
I'm not going to give the statistics, they are too upsetting, instead I'm going to go back to clean my sweet ride and hope that I can mount the saddle again soon, I've got to get back into shape.
Now Dawn's brother lives in Shelburne which is about an hour's driving distance outside of the city and as it would turn out Dawn was able to enlist the assistance of her mother, so that it was three on three (it's not like we are going to hire a sitter to look after the boys while we run off to Shelburne to look after one girl!) Anyway I hit on the idea of biking from our short term rental, (oh did I mention we moved to a rental while we sell our smallish home and once sold look for a largish home - twins for you!) to the house in Shelburne.
Here is the route I took,
Because Dawn's mother, my mother-in-law, would be able to look after the baby we were more or less not required, still it might be nice to get out of the city for the day. So Dawn asked if I wanted to go Friday or Saturday. As I was able to get off work Friday it came down to a simple decision for me, ride away from the city during the morning rush hour, or on Saturday when the yahoo's would be out. I thought Friday made more sense.
It was probably a foolish move, it turns out there's an awful lot of cars on country roads on a Friday, one road in particular, Charleston Side Road, near Erin was horribly busy, and every time a 54 foot tractor trailer drove past, and more than one drove by, I really thought, I ought to up my life insurance. Anyway I think I've got a better route for next time, and here it is:
Sadly on this ride I realised how much things have fallen apart for me since the boys were born. (I guess I expected it, but still, expectation versus actual discovery of fact, it was upsetting). The ride was 137km, which is a nice distance for me, nothing really far, heck last summer I rode up to Lake Simcoe by myself a bunch of times and that was 180km, I even did a Forks of the Credit ride alone and that was just over 200km. Well this time I started a lot closer to the Forks and got there with 95km on me and I was tired, the knees hurt, the legs hurt, my rear end hurt. I stopped for a fluids break and resumed about 20 or 30 minutes later, hurting. It was a shame really, quiet country roads, lovely rollers, farm land, nice weather and I hurt too much to notice pretty much anything at all.
I'm not going to give the statistics, they are too upsetting, instead I'm going to go back to clean my sweet ride and hope that I can mount the saddle again soon, I've got to get back into shape.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
On The Boys and Car Problems
So since my last post both boys have gone into a little growth spurt. These things happen, but its not fun. I don't recall my own growth spurts, from my early teens, being a big deal - I'd go to summer camp and when I came home Adam (my brother) or my parents my comment on how I looked taller, and of course clothing was smaller, but I didn't feel anything. I ate like a pig, but I've always eaten like a pig.
Anyway for Josh and Zach a growth spurt means that they eat more, normally Zach eats about 50~80mL every three hours and Josh has about 80~120mL about as often, but during a growth spurt the two trouble makers just don't stop. And then they are cranky, they cry and scream, Dawn says that the growing is painful, well yes formula is expensive and I stockpiled diapers before they were born and now they are outgrowing the diapers faster than the boys go through the stockpile - does anyone need a box of 160 Pampers swaddles size 1? (I'll sell an unopened box for $26 - what I paid for it.) But when Dawn says growing is painful apparently she means the boys are in some pain, well yes when they scream it's a pain in the ears. I've been changing diapers when they get started and holy smokes I can feel the screaming, it vibrates my entire body!
In other news, the car. Right my 3000kg piece of hypocrisy. Well I should stop on the self flagellation, it was a very necessary evil. (If Dawn and I had bought the thing before we knew about the car seats, or the twins, then it would be different, but really is the thing that bad, given that we do need such a large vehicle?) Anyway as I noted in my previous post I bought a used Audi Q7 from a dealer, a 'Certified Pre-Owned', it was financed too, it's not as if I have that kind of money just lying around. Anyway at purchase it had just less than 50,000km on it and was a 2009 model year, bought (well leased) in mid December 2008. I've got to wonder about that, hardly three months after Lehman went bankrupt someone wanders into an Audi dealership and says, 'I want the biggest truck you guys sell!, but since the world's about to roll into a depression the likes we haven't seen since '29 I'll just get the 3.6L VR-6 not the 4.2L V-8.'
Okay so I've got this new used truck and as part of the pre-owned certification it gets new tires, new brake pads and rotors, heck the dealer even put new calipers on them brakes. Its got a new rear-bumper, previous owner did a number on that and a bunch of other new things, like an iPod cable. But one thing that's not new, the engine oil. I've owned the thing for just shy of a month, maybe driven it 1000km and I drive out to a friend who's a big auto enthusiast. Well he checks out the engine bay, which I had hardly ever glanced at, he pulls out the dipstick and sure enough the oil is black, like 5000~10,000 kms, not 1000kms of driving.
Anyway since the truck has a nice high ground clearance I figure I'll do the oil change myself, it's not like I'm not familiar with the theory of doing a lube job, I've just never felt comfortable going under a low slung car. Anyway I get some car ramps and an oil drain pan from the local Canadian Tire, the oil, filter and pan plug from my local dealer - not the same idiots I bought the car from. Get out my socket set and set to work.
First as I noted in my last post I have a 3.6L VR-6, what that means is the engine block is smaller than a typical V-6, this VR-6 engine was originally designed for the Passat which has a smaller engine bay. Anyway given that the other engine available in the 2009 Q7 was a 4.2L V-8 you might expect that Audi would move things around to make engine maintenance a little easier... Ha!
So I get under the car and have to remove about a ten bolts in the skid plate, turns out there were supposed to be 14 bolts but I am guessing someone at some maintenance interval at the dealership that sold me the truck (they did all the maintenance for the previous owner, they told me) got lazy, then I go hunting. Finding the drain plug for the oil pan was not too hard, it was on the side near the bottom of the pan. Question, why not put it on the bottom of the pan? Besides being easier to get at the oil would go directly down, no matter how much oil had already drained. When the plug is on the side at first the oil lands a good half meter from the plug but as the oil drains it falls closer and closer to the plug, thus unless you remain under the car and watch things you end up with oil on the ground. Oh and the drain plug, its right up near the axle. I had to buy a 19mm wrench because my socket was too big to fit in the narrow space and none of my wrench sets go past about 15mm.
Anyway I get the oil drained and look for the filter, now there must be some law that German cars no longer use traditional filters in the disposable metal housing. Instead the filter is just some paper and a rubber seal. The filter housing is built into the car, you remove the housing, remove the filter, replace the filter, reinstall the housing. Except, removing the housing requires a 36mm socket, which as one might imagine, I don't have. My socket set goes up to 24mm. I also bought a 1 inch socket for my cassette lock ring tool. So I walk to Canadian Tire and look for a 36mm socket, no such luck. I put in a new drain plug, pour in fresh oil (hey better than nothing.) And drive to an auto parts store, I buy a 36mm and a 32mm (just in case) socket. I have yet to do the filter and when I do, I guess I better replace the oil, again! Oh but that filter, it's hidden away behind some cable, why on earth couldn't it be in easy reach it's not as if oil and filter changes are about the most common auto maintenance besides filling the gas tank and tires.
Anyway although I've only driven about 10km with the fresh oil, and a stale filter, I have to say, the truck is a lot more energetic when I hit the gas. Maybe it's in my head, but it feels like I just packed another ten or twenty percent more power. Really if the dealer had any brains, especially since I scheduled the test drive about four hours before I got there, they'd have scrambled to do the oil change in that four hour interval. Heck without a hydraulic lift I was able to do everything from removing the skid plate, including walk to Canadian Tire to buy a 19mm wrench right to curse at the frigging oil filter housing and replace the skid plate in about two hours. I'd like to think the guys at the Audi dealership can do an oil change a little faster than that!
Arrrgh, what am I going to do when it's time to do a coolant flush? One things for sure, I am not taking a car to dealer for routine maintenance, ever.
Anyway for Josh and Zach a growth spurt means that they eat more, normally Zach eats about 50~80mL every three hours and Josh has about 80~120mL about as often, but during a growth spurt the two trouble makers just don't stop. And then they are cranky, they cry and scream, Dawn says that the growing is painful, well yes formula is expensive and I stockpiled diapers before they were born and now they are outgrowing the diapers faster than the boys go through the stockpile - does anyone need a box of 160 Pampers swaddles size 1? (I'll sell an unopened box for $26 - what I paid for it.) But when Dawn says growing is painful apparently she means the boys are in some pain, well yes when they scream it's a pain in the ears. I've been changing diapers when they get started and holy smokes I can feel the screaming, it vibrates my entire body!
In other news, the car. Right my 3000kg piece of hypocrisy. Well I should stop on the self flagellation, it was a very necessary evil. (If Dawn and I had bought the thing before we knew about the car seats, or the twins, then it would be different, but really is the thing that bad, given that we do need such a large vehicle?) Anyway as I noted in my previous post I bought a used Audi Q7 from a dealer, a 'Certified Pre-Owned', it was financed too, it's not as if I have that kind of money just lying around. Anyway at purchase it had just less than 50,000km on it and was a 2009 model year, bought (well leased) in mid December 2008. I've got to wonder about that, hardly three months after Lehman went bankrupt someone wanders into an Audi dealership and says, 'I want the biggest truck you guys sell!, but since the world's about to roll into a depression the likes we haven't seen since '29 I'll just get the 3.6L VR-6 not the 4.2L V-8.'
Okay so I've got this new used truck and as part of the pre-owned certification it gets new tires, new brake pads and rotors, heck the dealer even put new calipers on them brakes. Its got a new rear-bumper, previous owner did a number on that and a bunch of other new things, like an iPod cable. But one thing that's not new, the engine oil. I've owned the thing for just shy of a month, maybe driven it 1000km and I drive out to a friend who's a big auto enthusiast. Well he checks out the engine bay, which I had hardly ever glanced at, he pulls out the dipstick and sure enough the oil is black, like 5000~10,000 kms, not 1000kms of driving.
Anyway since the truck has a nice high ground clearance I figure I'll do the oil change myself, it's not like I'm not familiar with the theory of doing a lube job, I've just never felt comfortable going under a low slung car. Anyway I get some car ramps and an oil drain pan from the local Canadian Tire, the oil, filter and pan plug from my local dealer - not the same idiots I bought the car from. Get out my socket set and set to work.
First as I noted in my last post I have a 3.6L VR-6, what that means is the engine block is smaller than a typical V-6, this VR-6 engine was originally designed for the Passat which has a smaller engine bay. Anyway given that the other engine available in the 2009 Q7 was a 4.2L V-8 you might expect that Audi would move things around to make engine maintenance a little easier... Ha!
So I get under the car and have to remove about a ten bolts in the skid plate, turns out there were supposed to be 14 bolts but I am guessing someone at some maintenance interval at the dealership that sold me the truck (they did all the maintenance for the previous owner, they told me) got lazy, then I go hunting. Finding the drain plug for the oil pan was not too hard, it was on the side near the bottom of the pan. Question, why not put it on the bottom of the pan? Besides being easier to get at the oil would go directly down, no matter how much oil had already drained. When the plug is on the side at first the oil lands a good half meter from the plug but as the oil drains it falls closer and closer to the plug, thus unless you remain under the car and watch things you end up with oil on the ground. Oh and the drain plug, its right up near the axle. I had to buy a 19mm wrench because my socket was too big to fit in the narrow space and none of my wrench sets go past about 15mm.
Anyway I get the oil drained and look for the filter, now there must be some law that German cars no longer use traditional filters in the disposable metal housing. Instead the filter is just some paper and a rubber seal. The filter housing is built into the car, you remove the housing, remove the filter, replace the filter, reinstall the housing. Except, removing the housing requires a 36mm socket, which as one might imagine, I don't have. My socket set goes up to 24mm. I also bought a 1 inch socket for my cassette lock ring tool. So I walk to Canadian Tire and look for a 36mm socket, no such luck. I put in a new drain plug, pour in fresh oil (hey better than nothing.) And drive to an auto parts store, I buy a 36mm and a 32mm (just in case) socket. I have yet to do the filter and when I do, I guess I better replace the oil, again! Oh but that filter, it's hidden away behind some cable, why on earth couldn't it be in easy reach it's not as if oil and filter changes are about the most common auto maintenance besides filling the gas tank and tires.
Anyway although I've only driven about 10km with the fresh oil, and a stale filter, I have to say, the truck is a lot more energetic when I hit the gas. Maybe it's in my head, but it feels like I just packed another ten or twenty percent more power. Really if the dealer had any brains, especially since I scheduled the test drive about four hours before I got there, they'd have scrambled to do the oil change in that four hour interval. Heck without a hydraulic lift I was able to do everything from removing the skid plate, including walk to Canadian Tire to buy a 19mm wrench right to curse at the frigging oil filter housing and replace the skid plate in about two hours. I'd like to think the guys at the Audi dealership can do an oil change a little faster than that!
Arrrgh, what am I going to do when it's time to do a coolant flush? One things for sure, I am not taking a car to dealer for routine maintenance, ever.
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