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The Buick didn’t quite die, but I pre-emptively sold it to the junkyard. It was a better deal than donating it to charity – if you ever need to get rid of a car, I recommend Wheelzy. I didn’t know it was Wheelzy at first, because it was masquerading as something like Sell Junk Car Lansing dotcom. So many shell sites and phone numbers with any of these junk car places that pretend to be local. But they had the most thorough customer service – between emails and texts there was no way I could not know where I was in the process. But this is supposed to be about the car, not the junkyard.

It was a 2001 Buick Lesabre Custom. I bought it in 2016 with 110,000 miles. It needed a new battery and rear air shocks and front brake pads right away.

The air shocks ended up being bad again in 2020, so I am not a fan of air shocks. If I get a GM car from a similar era, I’ll convert the air shocks to traditional coils rather than fix the air shocks.

Here’s what else needed to go into/onto the Buick to keep it working:
Miles : Item
2016
111k : front engine mount
112k : fuel filter and fuel pressure regulator (cheap, DIY)
113k : fuel pump (not cheap, at shop, before this the engine wouldn’t start if it was warmed up)
116k : new transmission fluid and filter (cheap, DIY, actually made a noticeable difference)
2017
118k : left low beam bulb
120k : right front window regulator ($50, DIY, took a while for this first one)
121k : tie rods, ball joints, and sway bar links (if your wheels make a click when you stop, check your ball joints)
121k : lower intake manifold gasket and valve gasket (emergency repair at shop, $$$)
122k : front struts (dirt roads wear them out)
126k : new thermostat (it was late fall and the engine took forever to get up to temperature, meaning no heat for me)
2018
127k : right low beam bulb
127k : new spark plugs
128k : brake fluid flush (DIY, probably not too thorough but better than nothing)
129k : front rotors
132k : left front window regulator (DIY, about 30 minutes this time
133k : rear brake pads
2019
135k : replace brake tubes (was leaking fluid, all but LF tube were rusted through at some point)
136k : recharge AC
136k : replace alternator (DIY, this is ridiculously easy on this vehicle)
137k : replace one bad ignition coil
137k : replace Ignition Control Module ($40 from junkyard off Ebay, no programming needed)
137k : high beam bulbs (got pulled over and notified one high beam was out, decided to do both at once)
140k : whole new left headlight assembly (necessary because a little old lady misjudged her turning angle in a parking lot)
2020
145k : front brake pads
147k : new wipers
2021
150k : RIP

The steering started getting very loose, it turned out to be a broken rear track bar. But before I replaced that, the right front wheel liner fell off while I was driving. It was caught in something, so I didn’t lose it. When I went to reattach it, I saw the attachment point didn’t exist anymore – it had rusted away.

I had known the bottom of the car was getting rusty, so in the back of my mind I was already starting to weigh the worth of making repairs anymore. Then I couldn’t fix the wheel liner, and when I jacked up the back to look at the track bars something else shifted/broke in the suspension and I knew it was a lost cause.

The car was running fine, it had a lot of good parts. But the body was rusting away so the parts weren’t going to be held together much longer.

We watched the recently-released movie “Luca”.

Now my kids yell “Silencio Bruno!” at me whenever I tell them not to do something.

Thanks a lot, Pixar.

Since it’s the season when there are a lot of crickets outside (among many other creatures), I was reminded of the relationship between crickets and temperature.

I knew crickets chirped more with higher temperature, but I didn’t know until today (when I started looking up the exact equation for this blog post) that it is called Dolbear’s law.

The equation is (number of chirps in 15 seconds) + 40 = degrees F.

I am proposing a new temperature scale, because Fahrenheit, Rankine, Celsius, and Kelvin aren’t enough. And I’m ignoring Newton, Delisle, Romer, and Reaumur scales.

My new temperature scale is degrees Dolbear.

Which is really just Fahrenheit – 40. So water freezes at -8 °Do, and water boils at 172 °Do, and a human has a fever at or above 60 Dolbears.

Let’s see how quickly this catches on. Right now it’s about 45 Dolbears outside.

There’s tab, then there’s TaB. You know alt-tab, but do you know alt-TaB?

I’ll leave it to your imagination what shift-TaB and ctrl-TaB should be.

They say life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent what you make of it. Or, if life hands you lemons, make lemonade.

I think the Sneetches point out what happens if you just take those lemons and eat them as-is. Or let them sit there and rot.

I’m not going to equate the Star Belly and the Plain Belly Sneetches with particular classes of humans. At least not in this post. This analysis of the two types of Sneetches should not be interpreted as blaming any group of people.

Take a look at the story, if you’re not familiar with it.

The Star Belly Sneetches decide to play ball. They play ball, and they have fun. They are not nice in that they don’t allow the Plain Belly Sneetches to play with them. What do the Plain Belly Sneetches do for fun instead?

Nothing.

Apparently the Plain Belly Sneetches are not able to think of anything to do on their own. They are fixated on the stars on the other Sneetches, and can think only of how to become a Sneetch with a star. They can’t think of anything else, including coming up with something of their own to do.

Another example:

So the Star Belly Sneetches have a bonfire. What’s to prevent the Plain Belly Sneetches from having their own bonfire? Surely the Star Bellies don’t have a monopoly on fire and sticks…

And the Plain Bellies don’t look like they’re starving, so they have access to food somehow. It’s just they are so jealous of the Star Bellies that they don’t think to do anything other than want to be at the Star Belly event.

Last example:

I pay money to go on vacation to a place with a beach. I use some vacation days so I can sit on the beach and do nothing for a short time. A few days with no responsibility at work – I can relax and enjoy the view, swim in the water, help the kids play in the sand, etc. You get the picture.

The Plain Belly Sneetches live in enough of a paradise that they have enough to eat without having to work, and they have a beach that they can enjoy.

But do they enjoy it? No! Why not? Because they’re losers!

Why are they not swimming, building sand castles, and playing on the beach? Because they’re so focused on what they don’t have (approval of the Star Belly Sneetches) that they can’t enjoy (or even use) they things they do have.

I’m being a bit harsh, but it’s a fiction book about made-up creatures so I can exaggerate my criticism. I would not have the same attitude to a real person, although I would still want to convey the same lesson.

Why would the Star Belly Sneetches want to include such a useless, dour bunch of Sneetches into their activities? From what I can tell, the Plain Bellies would dampen anyone’s mood and ruin any party – I don’t blame the Star Bellies for avoiding them. Hey Plain Belly Sneetches, how about you do something interesting on your own? And get the Star Belly Sneetches’ attention that way?

I prefer the Berenstain Bears book “No Girls Allowed”. That book is specific about the classes of people it is discussing (or classes of bears rather), but it gives a solution that made more sense to me. The boys don’t let the girls into their fort, so the girls get their own fort that makes the boys jealous.

But they both have the same root problem – people are basing their happiness on comparison with others. Do your own thing, that you like for yourself. Don’t depend on other people for your happiness.

And if you are curious, I think the most applicable facet of humanity to this book is the fashion industry. People go through so much effort and money to have the right clothes/accessories/cars/things that really don’t matter, other than to impress others.

Since things are going well in the garden, I thought I’d update everyone on what seems to be the best herbs to grow in the Midwest of the United States of America. Maybe you’re new to gardening, or maybe you’re new to the midwest; either way, if you’re not sure what to grow here, start with these for a self-sustaining garden.

First up: chives

Chives are a perennial here in zone 6. Not only do they grow well, but they also spread. Not crazy levels of spreading, but they are prolific. Like you’ll-be-pulling-them-out-of-sidewalk-cracks prolific. They also seem to be the herb we use the most, from what we have. That may be due to the fact that they have a long growing season – I’m able to cut them for months.

Next up: dill

Dill is not a perennial here in zone 6. But if you let a couple plants go to seed, you will have an endless supply of dill. I bought a packet of dill seeds the first year the raised garden beds were ready. They just keep going to seed, and the seeds get scattered, and we end up with dill plants growing all over the raised beds. We don’t use dill as much, but we’ll see about homemade pickles this year.

Third up: mint

Mint is a perennial here in zone 6. And mint does have crazy levels of spreading. Like you need to put it in a container otherwise it will take over wherever it is. It spreads via the roots that grow out instead of down – if I pull up one plant, if the root doesn’t break and I keep pulling, I end up with about 5 plants all sprouting at various places along a root about a foot long. I don’t know that we’ve ever used the mint for actual cooking purpose. My favorite use of it is to let it grow in neglected areas that I can’t reach with the riding mower, then when I’m weed whacking those areas it smells great.

Honorable mention: lettuce

Lettuce is not an herb, but it is like dill in that if you let it go to seed, you will get a lot of lettuce plants the next year. We get more of it than we can use, but the seeds are free so I keep letting them grow.

This post is a repeat – I’m phoning it in today because I’m enjoying the holiday. A little early, perhaps, but I’m still going for it anyway.

Happy Birthday

A M E R I C AA M E R I C AA M E R I C A!