This week has not been a lot of fun. Here is a picture of my week:
In the very early dark and cold hours of last Saturday morning, my thermostat stopped working, and so my furnace stopped pushing flame at all. It was 16.1 degrees when I got up in the morning which is nothing to die over, but it wasn't pleasant. With a bit of troubleshooting, I discovered that my thermostat requires batteries to operate (what craziness is that?), so this problem was actually pretty easy to fix and within a couple of hours, things were back to normal.
On Sunday morning, the blower motor in my furnace retired unexpectedly and once again left me without heat. This problem was not quite so easy to fix, so after making a few phone calls I was able to make arrangements for a service technician to drop by (of course at emergency rates due to it being Sunday). A couple of hours and more than six hundred dollars later, my furnace was working again, although with a caveat that the birdcage is out of alignment so it is likely to damage the new motor over time. So that means another three hundred dollars or so in the very near future. Great.
On Monday, the temperature dropped to -20, which was to be the warmest day of the week. That alone was enough to make that day suck.
On Tuesday, the remote starter for the Trailblazer stopped working. This nasty cold weather doesn't do any engine any favors, but with 11:1 compression and a moderately lumpy cam, the TBSS is a bitch to keep running when it is cold. After something in excess of twenty-five start/stalls, the remote starter errored out and refused to try to start the car any more. I could still start it by key and with some manual throttle manipulation (as much as you can actually do with a drive-by-wire system), and I could get it running so I guess it wasn't so bad. On the positive side, I managed to get the reprint of a photo that I was using to make a print that my wife needs for a charity auction at work. This is an extension of a problem from last week that has already cost me $200, but I thought that for another 40-ish that I would finally have a useable product for my $100 budget. Before allowing my wife to just take the unopened package away, I wanted to see it to make sure everything was cool. It wasn't. The pic wasn't trimmed to the proper dimensions that I had asked for, so now I needed an extra day to get that fixed too. Not a big deal, just more hassle.
Wednesday I needed to get the picture trimmed, and it would be great if I could get at my Christmas shopping list so that I can get done and avoid the crowds. Still unable to use the remote starter, I had to go out and start the TBSS with the key. The ride in to daycare was especially rough as my airbags are frozen and won't expand, and as I discovered at the daycare, my front right tire was pretty much flat. This was quite possibly the luckiest thing I've had happen all week in that it didn't destroy the tire (as my wife did a couple of weeks ago, and I ultimately had to buy two new tires for the TBSS on top of the four new tires for the Cadi), and I was able to inflate it and it is still holding air, or at least as well as it has been. After picking up my picture again on Wednesday afternoon, the TBSS threw an engine code and then immediately threw a service code which put the engine in limp mode. Limp mode is downright dangerous. It literally gives the engine just enough fuel air and spark to move, and getting up to 40km/h took forever, but eventually allowed me to get home. Checking over everything that I could, everything looked fine, and afterward it started right up with no codes or errors. WTF, but okay, good then.
Thursday morning the Cadi wouldn't start when my wife had to go to work. At 6:40am I was outside screwing with both cars because the TBSS still won't remote start and won't idle on its own until it warms up a bit. Finally I could boost the Cadi to get it running, but by then my hot coffee was working on being an iced cappuccino. I am NOT a morning person, and this is definitely not a good way to start my day. I did get the wife out and off without more incident, but it would appear that car is going to need a new battery. Off to my dentist appointment for a cleaning that I didn't want to do, but my wife confirmed that I would be there so I had to go. An hour of digging and gouging later, they tell me I have a cavity and need a filling. f*** that, not today. I felt that I needed to extract some positivity out of the day, so I researched the codes from the remote starter and found that I had somehow managed to fat-finger the TBSS into valet mode. An easy programming fix later, and the remote starter was working again.
Friday morning the Cadi wouldn't start again, but at least I could remote start the TBSS (only four tries) and then go out to boost the car. Got the wife off and running, and then shut off the TBSS to save fuel (and noise) until the boy was ready to go. Maybe fifteen minutes later, and the effin thing wouldn't start. Didn't even turn over. I had full lights and gauges, and everything looked fine but turn the key and absolutely nothing. WTF? Popped the hood to have a look about (kid crying and screaming in the back seat), and nothing. Closed the hood, gave it one more try and fired up like it was just a cruel joke. 'Just kidding. Okay, let's go.' Bizarre. Three times I had codes and it cut power. Luckily the wife was downtown in underground parking again, because I don't know if I could have made it into the city to help her.
Saturday morning we had guests, and how fun it was to have my buddy come out to help me get both cars started so that the wives could go out Christmas shopping. He probably won't come back until next summer. The TBSS ran good all day with only one code which cleared with a restart, so it wasn't bad. Wife made it through the rest of the day without incident, so overall it was a decent day.
Sunday I had the Cadi booked in for a new battery, and my wife wanted to go grocery shopping early to beat the crowds, so she decided she'd just take the TBSS instead. Sounds easy enough to everybody except me. It really did not want to idle at all, so it took me quite a while to get it running and then it threw codes like bingo numbers. I really didn't want to start the Cadi until I had to, so I didn't even try it. I finally got the TBSS up and running, clear of codes and warm, and gave my wife the keys, along with far too many instructions on what to do if and when. More than two hours later, she comes through the front door calling my name in a voice that any husband would recognize. She had given up and walked home, and I had to go find it with less than an hour before my appointment for the other car, and I needed the TBSS to be able to boost the Cadi. Fanfuckingtastic. A brisk speedwalk/jog of 3km or so later, it fired right up and I drove it home like nothing was wrong at all, but her story involved more than 45 minutes to move just a few kilometers. No time for that s**t, I boosted the Cadi and took it off to get a new battery so that maybe we can have at least one reliable car. Another 90 minutes for those twats to even find the battery to be able to swap it, charge me a core and then not even give me back my old battery, and a great argument about that whole thing. I finally did get my old battery back, and came home.
Now all I have to worry about is the TC, SC, and BA codes on the Cadi, and the engine and service codes on the TBSS. Oh yeah, and the birdcage for the furnace. And my christmas shopping.
I picked up a case of beer on the way home. Two bottles of Baileys, and I have two bottles of rum I brought back from Cuba. I think I will drink it all tonight and hibernate until spring. Hopefully the eggnog that my wife bought didn't freeze in the car in the time it took me to get it and bring it back home.
FTS!
It's been a long December already and it's only 
just begun....
1
You're 10
Completionist Award
You're a Regular
King of the Post
You're Celebrated
You're Liked
Hot Chilli
Ontario
C5
Eric, you should hang your head in shame.
