6 1/2 hours of waiting

Today was supposed to be fairly routine. Take the car for a service appointment, have "A" come over and watch Grace, possibly have Grace's friend from down the street come over too and all the while maybe I could get a little painting done around the house. Then at 5 we were babysitting the neighbor across the streets 1 year old for a few hours while they went to see Cirque Shanghai at Navy Pier.

I had a 9am appointment which obviously we were late too because I'm just late for everything in the morning because Grace just doesn't want to move at all. We got there at 9:30, told them what I wanted done and then went to the waiting room, where we stayed until 4pm. Mind you I didn't have time to eat breakfast before we went, but I brought food for Grace to eat. So she had breakfast and a snack and then some candy that they give out at the dealership. Then at some point in the afternoon she started to get hungry. I know it was after 1pm. Finally at 3pm our salesperson stopped by and asked if we needed to run anywhere and get anything. She asked if we wanted a loaner. I said we already have one at home. I also felt it was too late to go and get lunch considering it was almost time for dinner.

So we hit the vending machine and got some "great" selections to fill our tummies; read: carbohydrates. Luckily the car was ready "only" an hour later. Fortunately they didn't charge us too much for all the diagnostics they had to do. I installed the remote start system myself back in March and had a couple of issues I couldn't get to work properly. So they were going through every connection to see if I had done anything wrong. They did find one mistake; I had wired the hot side of the drivers door unlock relay to the ground and the ground to the hot. So that would explain why the drivers door wasn't unlocking unless you unlocked all the doors. The second major issue was that you would start the car remotely and it would start just fine but only run for about 2 seconds and then shut off. If this solves the problem then it turns out that I had run the initial programming of the computer with the engine cold and it learned that the engine ran a particular way. So then if you try to start it when the engine is warm it thinks something is wrong and turns it off. Lets hope that was it; it certainly sounds like it could be. Here is a picture of all the wires I had to connect:



So I believe the Montego is pretty much ready for vacation now. It needs a good bath and a tire pressure check. We did get the laptop case in the mail yesterday and I have to say it is pretty cool, but I'm not so certain it will work. The laptop is like right in your face almost, especially for Grace since her car seat makes her closer to the seat in front of her anyway. So then I tried it behind the drivers seat and I'm not so sure that'll work either because then you have to turn the laptop to face Grace and the angle is weird and I'm not sure she'll be able to see the screen. Plus it will put the laptop right in front of the passenger sitting there - almost making you claustrophobic because it does take up quite a bit of space. We'll have to see what Julie thinks when she sees it tomorrow.

So then if you remember what we were doing this evening from above, you know we had a dilemma. We were supposed to babysit for our friends at 5pm and I wasn't certain when I'd be home. So I called Julie and asked her to leave work early so that at least one of us would be here before 5pm. As it turns out I beat her home by about 1 minute. Then since I wasn't home all day I had to go back out and get dinner because I wasn't home to cook. So that was my day...basically a waste of time except we did get Julie's car in tip-top shape for the trip. So now tomorrow I'll have to work on the house and get stuff ready for vacation. Grace didn't get to play with anyone today except the baby we were babysitting. So I'm guessing she'll need extra playtime tomorrow.

Well again I'm super sleepy so I'll write more tomorrow.

DirecTV Version 2.0

Grace slept in today again and so we didn't go out today like I thought we might. I was considering going on a bike ride, but we ended up not having time anyway. Right after breakfast the DirecTV installer called and asked if he could come early. I said no problem and he showed up before lunch.

We got our new receiver (DVR Plus Model R15) and to some extent I'm not all that disappointed, but it's not as good overall as the old receiver. Tivo really is the best in my opinion. It's called a dual-tuner receiver and indeed you can record two things at once, but you can't switch between the two shows like you could on the old receiver (Hughes model DVR80.) So unless you're recording at least one thing you can't watch two shows. That's irritating! I read online that allegedly they plan to have a software upgrade in the future that will change this, but until or even IF that happens we're stuck without it. One good thing is that you can rewind for 90 minutes instead of only 30 minutes. But like I just said that's only for one show, you don't have two buffers for the two tuners, only one.

Another irritation is that the remote works on the same frequency as the High-Definition receiver and so whenever I turn it off or on or change a channel, etc. it does the same thing on both receivers. I'm certain there is a way around this, but I haven't figured this out yet and the instructions don't tell you anything.

I called the office of Lisa Madigan - the Illinois Attorney General - today to find out the status of our complaint with Libertyville Lincoln Mercury but the person handling it was out. Hopefully they will call back tomorrow. I also called the Ford store today and they need their Edge back, so I'll be dropping it off tomorrow after gymnastics; and yes, I'm getting a Taurus.

On the fun side, a friend of mine called me today and we talked Fantasy Football! I'm so ready for football to start. Bears training camp starts July 27. Unfortunately we'll be in Colorado at that time. But maybe I can convince Julie to stop there on the way home. We'll be practically driving right by it! Anyway, my friend and I were talking about getting things started for this year and possibly using a different server this year to host our league. We've used RTSports for the last two or three years I think and it's not all that special. I think we're going to revert to a site we've used in the past called fanstar. I think my Dad is going to join the league this year, but we still will need at least one more franchise owner.

Last Day of VBS

Well Grace got up early today at 7am and we obviously were late for VBS - Ha-Ha. Grace was in the slowest mood today as I couldn't get her to do anything in a timely manner. She got dressed pretty easily but breakfast was an afterthought as she couldn't be bothered to sit long enough to actually eat it; she ate about 2/3 of her cereal. Then we get in the car to leave and we actually will be on time, but the neighbor's dog is out. So I get out of the car and go to retrieve their dog and place him back in his yard/house. It takes him a few minutes to warm up to me so it took a few minutes longer than I wanted it to to get him back there. So we were a couple of minutes late to the church. We get there and she doesn't get out of the car, she just sits there. This was how the whole morning was with her. I finally get her out of the car and she's walking as slowly as she possibly can to go in - this kid is exhausted.

So I finally get her dropped off and get on my way to run some errands. I ran to T.J. Maxx to get some clothes and then to Target for a little light grocery shopping. Then over to the park district to register Grace from some summer classes. The photography one we really wanted her to be in has no one registered yet and they need 6 kids by next Friday. So I registered her anyway just in case more people sign up before it's canceled. But I did register her for a nature bugs class where she'll learn about all kinds of outside stuff that she's always interested in. That doesn't start until July and we'll be on vacation for one week of the class, but I know she'll have a good time in that class.

After that I ran to the Home Depot in Round Lake to get my weed trimmer attachment that I couldn't find anywhere. I looked it up online and was able to see that they had one there; saved a lot of driving around--including expensive gas. Also called the Ford Store today and come to find out my car hasn't even been put on the assembly line yet. So who knows when we'll actually get this silly car. We ordered it 6 weeks ago Wednesday. Like the sales person said, maybe we aren't meant to have this car.

Went and picked Grace up from VBS and came home to have lunch. She wasn't really interested in eating that either - mostly because her friend from around the corner was here for about an hour and a half. So she would rather have played with her instead of eat. They've only played a couple of times and she is a little younger than Grace, but they get along really well and they place nicely together. After she left we just kind of hung out and watched the Cubs game in Hi-Def. Man Hi-Def is really nice. If you don't have it, you need it. Actually you will need it in the next 5 years or so (I can't remember when exactly) as standard definition TV will be no more, they're phasing it out at some point in the future.

After that Grace went to swim at her friend across the street's house and I finally got serious about what to make for dinner. But it was really too late to do anything about dinner. We don't really have much except pork chops that are frozen solid and hamburgers with no buns to eat them with. I thought of making egg salad but we didn't have all the ingredients for that either. Obviously I should have decided this before my light grocery shopping or just decided on something while actually shopping. But for as hectic as the morning was we were lucky to get out of the house with any hope of getting their close to on-time. So I'm sure you know what's coming, we just went to pick something up for dinner. It didn't make Julie too happy, but it was dinner and it wasn't very expensive ($18 for five people) and it was taken care of. I'll do better next time - no really I will.

At least I got the other things she wanted me to do today done like giving a donation to her sister who is doing the Relay for Life tonight in Buffalo Grove and also finally registering Grace for those park district classes, plus washing Grace's new mattress pad and sheets as we are out of pull-ups and have decided not to buy any more. So she's likely to be wetting the bed fairly regularly for a while. Hopefully it won't take too long for her to recognize when she needs to go while she's sleeping.

So the weekend comes tomorrow and hopefully I can actually get some projects around the house done. Julie's talking about shopping in the morning, hopefully she'll take the loaner car as her car needs an oil change desperately. I will need to get up fairly early to do that so I have some shade as it's supposed to be in the mid-90's tomorrow. Julie has a workshop Saturday night and Sunday is Father's Day. Both articles are set to run in the newspapers this weekend and if I can, I'll put a link in here when I find out about them.