Last week in March of this year (old, I know; I’ve been avoiding writing this for a long time now) my mom and I took my car in to repair three things: wheel bearing on the front driver side needed fixing (thank you to the body repair shop that told us what the squealing sound was! My family and I had been trying to solve that since late 2006!!); steering wheel needed straightening (result of an accident from early in my driving career); and oil needed changing.

Mum called Carmax in Inglewood but after waiting on hold for a number of minutes, she was told to hang up and try again. She didn’t want to hang up, so she stayed on the line, and they disconnected her. (I’ve complained about Carmax’s phone system before, haven’t I?) She called back and got connected with a manager, whom she proceeded to tell that she wanted to bring her car in for service but because the phone system sucks she’s taking her business elsewhere.

That’s how we ended up going to (Walker?) Buerge Chrysler. She called them up and asked if they’d service a Dodge and they said yes. So we spent spring break of ’08 driving up to Santa Monica four times. Why four? Let me tell you!

My mom explained to the service writer what we needed, an oil change, the steering wheel re-aligned, and the wheel bearing looked at, because it was producing a squealing sound randomly at speeds above 35 mph. The service writer said sure, yes, they’ll fix it, and we were on our merry way.

Later, I don’t know if it was the same day or not, Mum got a call from the service department, and the person on the line told her that the brake pads on my car needed to be replaced, did we want to replace them? Mum said sure, and I went along with it ’cause hey, they know what they’re doing, right?

So we went to pick up my car, but not one block away from the dealership and I hear the squealing sound coming from the tire again! Told Mum once I got home, so she called and explained that it was the wheel bearing that needed looking at, not the brakes. We took the car in again and it was at the dealership for the rest of the week. The problem was fixed, finally, but …

N said that he wasn’t so sure that my brake pads needed replacing, because he’d looked at them late summer in 2006 and there was still 6 millimeters left, and this was at 30,000 miles. (Yes, my original brake pads lasted almost 6 years. Told you I drove like a grandmother. :P) The other mechanics at N’s job thought that my brake pads would probably last another 30,000 miles. And yet, Walker Buerge claimed that my brake pads were down to only 2 millimeters and should be replaced. I’d probably only gone about 45,000 miles by then.

It’s been a while since this happened. I know my memory isn’t that clear, but I somehow think that they thought my brakes were the cause of the squealing, and not the wheel bearing, like we said. I don’t know if they even looked at the wheel bearing the first time, or if they just thought, ‘hey, they’re women, we’ll just replace the brake pads since they probably don’t even know how to spell wheel bearing!’ (Then again, the mechanic[s] never saw either of us, so that’s probably just my overactive imagination.)

Who knows? Maybe the problem isn’t with the people doing the repairs. Maybe it was the service writer who didn’t write down wheel bearing when we suggested it as a probable cause. But then that’s still a problem that we’ve had with Walker-Buerge. Now we don’t know where to go next.

(Note: this is not a commentary on the sales department of Walker-Buerge. My grandfather bought a truck there. He didn’t complain to me about them. I haven’t heard any complaints about the Ford side of the service department from him or my dad. Maybe it’s just the Chrysler/Jeep side that has a problem. Maybe it’s just plain Chrysler that has a problem. But then Cole Dodge was really nice and really helpful and really efficient. Maybe I should stay in SLO until I buy my Mazda3…)

“Peak Performance: A U.S. Department of Transportation study averaged the fuel-efficiency curve for eight cars and light trucks.”

It’s one thing for my brother to tell me the highway mileage stat on cars is obtained while driving 47.5 mph and somewhere above that speed the mileage starts to go down. It’s another to see that at 70 mph I get the same mileage as at 15? And the sharp decline as the speed rises…

The rest of the page:

Teutonic Shift: Freedom to speed is an inalienable right in Germany—at least on those portions of the nearly 8,000 miles of autobahn that have no posted limit. Some drivers well exceed 450 mph. So there was an uproar when a European Union official suggested last year that Germany cut greenhouse emissions by imposing a limit of 75 mph or so on the entire expressway.

The idea has merit. Cars burn fuel to overcome friction, air resistance, and other forces allied against them. The more fuel a car burns, the more CO₂ it produces. Every car has a peak fuel-efficient speed that gains the greatest distance per unit of energy spent. That speed varies by make and model, but according to David L. Greene, a corporate research fellow at Tennessee’s National Transportation Research Center, “there would be very few cars with an optimal speed above 70 mph.” Still, an autobahn limit might not be a huge help. Even now, its drivers average around 80 mph.
—Tom Zeller, Jr., National Geographic, October 2007

Of course, the cons: no cassette player (used only to listen to mp3 player though), only one CD slot player, no bass/midrange/treble control on the panel, doesn’t switch from FM to AM and back (goes through FM1 band, FM2, FM3, then AM band), and it’s not part of the manufactured car. Pro(s?): auxilary jack! XD The system is made for iPod, which I will never own as long as Creative is in business (and offers a fairly good product), but I guess I’ll get over it.

I don’t really like not being able to switch from CD player to radio, and have the CD player pause while I’m listening to the radio (getting traffic reports from 980 and 1070). (Or, I’m not quite sure, maybe the new CD player does pause, I wasn’t really paying attention…) Mostly by CD player I mean my music. With my old system I had to go to my mp3 player (i.e., reach down and fumble around for the pause button) then switch to the radio, and I accepted that and didn’t listen to my mp3 player often (didn’t hurt that it’s only a 1 gig Zen Nano *grin*). But now, since I’ve got only one slot for CDs, I decided I should (finally) move over to mp3 player.

It’s sort of a trade-off. I’ve got two different modes of driving/music-listening: driving to work during the summer, about an hour-long trip (no need for more than one CD), with frequent switching over to radio; and then there’s driving to school (from L.A.), just straight four CDs in a row three hours of non-stop music. Driving to school isn’t too much of a change, I just have to set up my mp3 playlist before leaving, instead of gathering CDs and loading them in the car. But driving to work … gah, I hate the instances where I have to fiddle around with things just to not miss the traffic report or a bit of the music I’m listening to.

(Funny thing happened on the way home today. I turned on the radio and plugged in my mp3 player but didn’t turn it on because it turns off after a minute or so anyway…. So ten minutes into my drive, while on the 101 going 65–70ish I turn on my music, and a couple minutes later I realize that I wasn’t really paying attention to traffic around me; I didn’t recognize any of the cars around me, just the van [far ahead] in front of me, and I couldn’t recall driving past all the offramps to near the point where I have to start moving over. hahaha!)

One last thing I’m not particularly happy with: the new system seems to up the treble more than I like. :( As I said before, there’s no bass/midrange/treble control on the panel like there was with the Dodge system, and it really really spoiled me I see. Now I can only adjust the bass and the treble. Ouch. I’ve got the bass and treble lowered, but while listening to my Anastasia soundtrack (CD) I could hear the highs, which hurt my ears. Then today, listening to Aly & AJ’s Insomniatic on my mp3 player the same thing happened, only moreso (hadn’t noticed while listening to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Gorillaz, or The Used, hah). I turned down the treble from −6db to −12db where it was comfortable-ish to my ears, but the music sounded flat and besides there were still some semi-highs hurting my ears, so I changed it back. (Later at a long red light I went into the mp3 player’s settings and lowered the highest frequency.)

Now if I had a midrange control, I could simply increase that and be perfectly happy. But no! N says audio companies must think we’re idiots or something, because a lot of stereo systems don’t come with equalizers. Mum’s system has an equalizer, but the ones N look at have only a control for the bass and treble (like my car!). *twitch* That’s like … the one thing that makes buying audio bearable for me. Buy something I find decent, then adjust the hell out of the equalizer. Grar.

(Ack, why do I always end up typing way more than I plan?)

The very last, very minor annoyance I have: the knob. It’s shorter, making it harder for my long-nailed fingers to get a grip on it XD and it’s made out of metal which honestly I would never think would be a drawback, but in the valley where it gets to 110° … say hi to little burns on my fingers.

Today my car read the temperature at 113°, at 3:30 in the afternoon. That wasn’t really so bad. The bad thing was being in an office where for some reason the air-conditioning wasn’t going below 85°. (Yeah, it’s taking 115° air from outdoors and lowering it 30°, and I’m complaining because it won’t go down another 10°.) I never thought 85° was sweltering, but apparently it is. I found it really hard to concentrate on my work (updating my boss’ website, woo) and sat there thinking about the old “Japan Dresses Down” article, wondering how they could possible work in an environment that warm. Like, do accountants make a number of mistakes? Because I found myself making mistakes today … forgetting an " for one. o.O

Later in the car I heard on the radio that power companies were asking people to turn off their thermostats and conserve electricity. I know a lot of places were only in the 80s today (this house, for example, and us with no air conditioning, oh me oh my how do we survive in such primitive circumstances?), but still, sitting in a hot car in 110° … that bit of advice drove me a tad crazy. I’ve always thought people should keep their A/Cs at 78 at the lowest … but sitting in an office where the thermostat was set to 72 and I was sweating just sitting at a computer, I don’t know, I guess I have to rethink that.

Also, I felt more guilty than usual running my A/C in the car today. haha. It’s one of the hottest days this week and I’m trying to keep from getting dehydrated, and I turn my A/C down to the lowest setting (on max A/C though) which I never do because the lowest setting is pretty weak. Heck I even opened my window at Santa Monica Blvd. just to see if I could withstand the 85° heat. (The answer was no.)

Then again, I could have lessened my use of gasoline by not gunning the engine driving around slow cars. But gahhh, semis going up the pass at 50 mph … *dies*

So at 5ish I called the Inglewood CarMax service department. Someone picked up on the first ring, then put me on “hold” where I stayed for some minutes listening to an ad about how wonderful CarMax is. After a while I was redirected to some guy’s voicemail, which my mom says never gets checked at CarMax. (Once she called wanting to know if my car was ready and left a message on the service tech’s voicemail but he never called back. She had to call again the next day to find out.)

Now we’ve had enough and Mum said she’ll just buy me a new CD player/changer at a car audio store. Hm, now that I think about it … I probably won’t be getting my CDs back until the end of the year whether I go with CarMax or Mum. Oh well.

(Am posting partly because I’m irritated, but mostly because I could find only one Inglewood Carmax service/repair review.)

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December 27th, Wednesday, took my car in for 30,000 mile maintenance. The service area’s computers were out, and we (Daddy and I) waited an hour then found out the computers were back on but they didn’t tell us. -.- Um, I think Mum C and I went to Westside Pavilion so C could return a shirt he got for Christmas that he already had, and to look for calendars. Weren’t any there, so then Daddy C and I went to Fox Hills to look for calendars. I got my guinea pig calendar, wahoo! :D

My car didn’t get worked on until 2 in the afternoon, and so my car wasn’t ready until the next day. Argh. I woke up at nine to see if the car was ready but they didn’t call so I called them, then got put on hold for about 5 minutes before I was disconnected. (It’s a very busy place with not so good channels of communication open with the customers.) So then Daddy C and I went in the van to pick up Noelle W88 and SM00 for the weekend.

We stopped by Grandma and Grandpa’s on the way to pick up bills, and Daddy left the key in the car so C could listen to the radio (what we did at the bank), but this time C decided to go in too, and locked the door so the keys were locked in the car. :o Grandpa had to drive Daddy to Mum’s work to get the other key. So we left our house at 10 only to actually get on our way to Ventura County at 11. Blah.

On the way back from picking them up we went to Amoeba. Heh, a minivan on Sunset … pretty scary stuff. But I guess Daddy enjoyed driving. XD; We got home about 3ish, I don’t remember. Oh yeah, we drove home from Amoeba on La Cienega (I think?). It was interesting to see parts of L.A. I don’t normally see. ehehe.

So that was Thursday. Friday we (everyone, Mum Daddy C Noelle W88 SM00 me) went to Mitsuwa in Torrance. Well first we went to Daddy’s work to pick up a bonus something or other but his boss wasn’t there. Then we went to some Japanese weapons place but it was closed. After that we went to Mitsuwa. Mmm, good udon. *grin* Everyone else (except Daddy, he didn’t get anything) had ramen.

Went to the bookstore. I bought the Paradise Kiss manga series in some special large(r) format. I don’t know what it is, I can’t read the Japanese on it, but I do know it’s an inch or so larger on the sides. Then we went to Fry’s, but Mum Daddy and I stayed in the car. They had the Wii but you had to buy 5 games with it. o.O Odd.

Hm, I don’t remember if it was Thursday or Friday night, but we went to Barnes & Noble so W88 could return a Japanese book that he didn’t think was any good. Oh yeah, it turns out my car was ready at 10 on Thursday. They must have called right after we stepped out the door. ;.; We went to pick it up at 3 but their computers were down again so we couldn’t pay with credit card. ARGH. So we left then came back at 5 to pick up my car.

C rented Talladega Nights from Blockbuster, we watched that Thursday/Friday night, I don’t remember. We thought it was really funny. ^_^;; Daddy and I (and N, some) watched practically all the extras. I really liked it. But this movie had less, er, guest roles? (drivers from NASCAR) than Cars did. :/ I thought that was kinda boring. But I guess they didn’t really fit into the story.

Friday morning I had a dentist appointment. I drove there all by myself! It’s the first time in 4 or so years that I could actually remember the way there. >.> (I think it’s because Mum always takes into account the traffic, so we always went different ways to get there.)

Saturday Noelle W88 SM00 and I went to Westside Pavilion. I thought there was a Hollister there that SM00 could go to, but it turns out it’s opening next spring. D’oh. Oh well. SM00 and I went to BCBG and Victoria’s Secret and I also checked out this store called “Image” that looked kinda interesting but it’s outta my price range and actually it’s not as nice as the display window.

Erm, I don’t remember, one day we watched Shimotsuma Monogatari (English title: Kamikaze Girls) and Dark Water. Was it Saturday? And we watched Talladega Nights on Friday? It was weird, ’cause after watching Dark Water, that night SM00 went into the hallway and she came out saying water was dripping from the smoke alarm. O.o! The girl was coming to haunt us! But it turned out that the toilet upstairs flooded, and leaked downstairs. ehehe That night the boys and I played Texas Hold’em. Then SM00 joined us to play the boardgame Payday. (1994 edition. Apparently, the old version didn’t have the lottery. o.o But that part is so fun! XD)

Sunday we went to their house to make mochi. (Gee, I can’t say “pound mochi” can I?) We had In N Out for dinner. (Why do I mention that? I have no idea. Maybe it’s just my recent aversion to eating burgers, after having eaten a handful of Big Macs last quarter. meep)

Monday, New Year’s, that was fun. I actually got to see the whole Rose Parade for once. o.o I think last year I was too nervous about school to sit down and watch television. And all the years before, we always went to a relative’s house to celebrate and not much tv watching got done. I guess I missed out on the Stephanie Edwards and Bob Eubanks era. :( I remember her, but I never really watched so I don’t know how she did the parade. We had shrimp and oysters for dinner. Well, oysters only for Mum and Daddy (and Jichan?) and N tried one. (I mention that because we didn’t have the traditional udon dinner. haha)

Tuesday Mum didn’t go in to work ’cause she wanted a vacation and the doctors weren’t in anyway and she didn’t have to do payroll. Daddy, C and I went to Borders. Daddy used his gift card that we gave him for Christmas, and I returned the Nana manga that had the security device with the dried up glue that was pulling out the paper (I wonder what they did with it, hopefully not restock it) and got a $20 journal for only $1.73 with the return and my holiday savings. woohoo! Then I went with Daddy to Barnes and Noble. Why? I dunno. Just felt like going out, maybe I felt like looking at their journals and date books.

Wednesday Mum and I went to Target, Petsmart, the bank, Angel Maid Bakery (it was closed from the 1st to the 8th o.o), Home Depot, Cora’s, then the mall. At the mall we went to Forever 21, Expression, another store that I don’t remember the name of, the gift store in the corner (they had practically everything 50% off, and there was less stock on the shelves o.o I hope it’s not closing), Hallmark, and Sally’s Fabrics.

Thursday I watched a lot of Monk season 3. C and I had to take down all the Christmas decorations. I also helped to take down the tree. It didn’t hurt my hands as much this year. heh, I must be getting smarter. *laugh*

Friday, I don’t remember. o.O Saturday all the relatives got together at Noelle’s house for New Year’s. We left our house at 9 like we planned (shocking; maybe everyone was hungry, haha) and got to Noelle’s house around 10. Had good ozoni. XD C bought Wario Ware, so we played that. I made wonton with Daddy helping. Then the boys played NASCAR I don’t remember which one, for the Gamecube. Then we had dinner. Yummm. Tempura shrimp, sushi (anago, mackerel, traditional kind, football stuff, and California), cabbage salad (I just realized I forgot to get some of that o.o), teriyaki meat, barbequed ribs, wonton, deviled eggs, almond chicken, I don’t remember what else. I’ve got some leftovers sitting in the fridge for dinner sometime this week. XD

Sunday morning I woke up at 8 (I have no idea why) and packed up most of my stuff before 9. After breakfast pretty much all I did was watch tv. ._. Had Cattre sleeping on me. Took a bath. Drove up to school. C drove up to the outlet mall from home. I was still falling asleep a half hour before we got to SLO, and I only drove 2 hours. Hrm. Unpacked stuff. Was too tired to get groceries, so we had some fish filets that’re in the freezer. Tonight we’re going to McDonald’s ($1 Big Macs on Mondays, although I think I’ll get a salad instead even though it’s five times the price and I don’t really like the salad that much [Jack in the Box is much better with the Asian salad], it’s practically the only veggies I eat up here).

I really don’t like my schedule this quarter. Nothing today until 2 (I hope I find parking >_>) then my last class ends at 7:30. Tuesdays it’s practically nonstop (or there isn’t enough time during breaks really to come back to the apartment and return to school without making me feel stressed that I’m cutting it close) from 8 to 5:30; Thursday is similar, from 9 to 5:30. Wednesday is from 8 to 11, 2 (hope I find parking again >_<) to 4, then 6 to 7:30. ARGH.

I dunno, I feel kinda like it’s back to doing nothing. I don’t know how to explain it. I’m just doing the same thing over and over and over again and it’s really boring and kind of aggravating and I guess I just don’t see where I’m going by doing this. I have to buy groceries, I have to go to class, I have to do the art projects, I have to get dinners for C and me, I have to take showers in that disgusting shower, I have to use the toilet every day, I have to wake up every morning, I have to eat breakfast, I have to not feel like gagging while I eat breakfast, I have to pay bills, I have to do lots of stuff, I dunno, I just don’t like it.

I know I found working last summer kinda boring and repetitive and humdrum and really tiring, and the traffic was bad, but at least I didn’t have to make my own dinners? I had a set routine. I have a routine here, but it’s not the same. Classes are at different times every day, and I don’t really like grocery shopping or making dinner or having to remember to pay things in order to not get kicked out or lose services on top of remembering my class schedule and when things are due and when the next tests are and how much food we have left and when to register for classes next quarter. I dunno. I’m complaining. I’ll be quiet now.

(All this typed up in an hour and 10 minutes. Just two more hours until I go to campus and attempt to find parking. -_- I don’t think I’d mind walking to campus for this class, but it’s art, so I have lots of supplies to take with me, which I don’t want to carry. I wish C had his license so he could at least drop me off before and pick me up after this class. But nooo, he doesn’t. Gargh. I’m hungry. What do we have to eat?)

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You know how they’re turning used cooking oil into fuel for diesel engines? They say it smells like something. I don’t remember what. (Apple pie? O_o) And there was this episode of Dirty Jobs where this guy would take used oil from a Mexican restaurant and turn it into fuel for his diesel engine. It smelled like … something, I’m sure. I don’t recall.

Well, I was wondering, couldn’t McDonald’s take their old french frying oil and turn it into an alternative fuel? And hopefully it would smell like their fries. XD;; Good, influential advertising!

You’re driving along … “Mmm, I smell … let’s go to McDonald’s!”

(Yes, I did think I smelled fries while walking home. >.>)

Anyway. I wanted to find out what kind of mileage my car is supposed to get, because I never remember, so I looked up my car on Yahoo and I found this site: fueleconomy.gov. Isn’t it so cool! XD

Here’s my car, Dodge Stratus 2001. A year ago I used to get almost 28 mpg, but now I only get 26.9 mpg, probably because I’m driving home in the afternoon instead of in the evening. People in the afternoon want to go home, so they go 75 … and the trucks in the right two lanes (which I usually prefer to drive in to go a more reasonable speed and therefore get better mileage) go 60 or so, which is just irritating to me (and besides big rigs freak me out). So I’m going 75 instead of 65. Actually, when I was getting 28 mpg I would go 75~80 on the freeway. But I had this neat trick, see. When going downhill I would hit the gas so I’m going 75, then when I’m going uphill I would ease off the gas a little so I’d slow down to 65/70. I stopped doing that though because to go 75 I had to be in the second lane, and people in the second lane didn’t like it when I slowed down going uphill. ahaha.

Anyway. That site is neat! The worst mileage my car ever has is probably 24/25 during the summer, ’cause I’m not driving on the freeway every weekend. muahahaha.

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[10:53] Hm. I was looking at the Save the Redwoods League website, at the picture on the mainpage, and thinking about Sequoia, and thinking about people clearcutting the forests in Northern California … and I started to feel sick. Physically sick, like dizziness and nausea. Is that normal? O_o

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