Short Weekend

Not really short, I guess, since it had the requisite number of days, but like always they seemed to fly right by and be over before they had any right to be.

It started on Thursday, as mine usually do (I work Sunday nights, my weekends run from Thursday to Saturday on my long weeks and Wednesday to Saturday on my short ones...and before you think I'm a lucky spud for having four day weekends, 1. yes I am and 2. I work 12 hour days), with a message on my dashboard saying it was oil change time soon. That came as a bit of a surprise since the sticker on my windshield clearly stated I had another hundred miles or so, but since I had a long-distance weekend planned I thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and change it.

Anyway, I went to see if I could score some more .22 ammo, and failed miserably, then went home to catch about 4 hours of sleep before having to get up to go to the dentist. The crown prep went well, no root canal needed, and now I have a huge hunk of white plastic covering the tooth stump until the crown gets made and sent to the dentist, about 2 weeks from now. This one is going to be porcelain instead of white gold like the other one, but since it's so far back I really don't think it will matter much. Thursday ended with me getting everything ready for that long-distance weekend.

Friday I got the oil, went to the feed store and got my registration renewed (gotta love rural North Carolina), and picked up the other things on my shopping list for the house and such. I got home and discovered my car sits too low to be able to put it up on the ramps, so I had to jack it up to put the ramps underneath it. Fortunately Son In Law has a lo-profile jack.

Drain the oil pan, remove the three bolts over the front cover, spin off the oil filter and discover that Ford has cleverly placed the front radiator support brace perfectly to intercept the hot oil stream from the filter. Clean everything up, new filter, reinstall the cover and the drain bolt and jack the car back up to remove the ramps. Eight (yes, eight) quarts of 5W20 dyno-synthetic blend (the Coyote's oil fill spout requires the use of a funnel, for what it's worth, and I need to get one with a bigger spout) and that job is done for another 7500-10,000 miles (whenever the dashboard readout tells me it's time again). It was the first time I had ever changed the oil on that car, having bought the extended service warranty, and I think it went pretty well.

Friday evening found me in Alexandria, Occupied Territories Virginia for a get-together with like-minded morons. No pics by agreement, but it was fun to get together and put some faces to some names. Saturday morning found me on the road home, and Saturday afternoon I was back at home base.

The car's odometer reads a bit over 59,800 miles now, less than 200 miles from the 60,000 end-of-warranty period. Time to contact my crack parts dealer for that tune, by the time it gets here the warranty will be out and the tune can go right in.

Back to work Sunday night. Gotta pay for that tune somehow (not to mention the dentist).