Discovering Perspective

Mekki was telling someone the other day that ATI is on his naughty list because of all the problems we've been having with their products lately. This someone replied that it is not a naughty list but that they are being put "on notice". Fans of the Colbert Report will understand this.

And today I will have to make my own addition to the on "on notice" list.

iCoke.ca

Aside from annoying me with their stupid flash website that bounces around everytime you move your mouse, they have failed to accept the last FIVE PINs I've attempted to enter. To be fair, the first two turned out to be legitimately expired but that still does not excuse their generic error message or worse the initial error message I received that claimed that the PINs had expired December 1st, 2008. Enlightened by the first two attempts that it is possible for PINs to expire, I made sure to check the packaging of the next three bottles to make sure the PINs were still valid. All three claim to expire September 1st, 2008. All good, right? Wrong. All three also return the generic error message and fail to add the appropriate number of points to my account.

iCoke.ca support, however, continues to reply to my complaint with some version of "your PIN is expired".

There was obviously a problem with a batch of bottles. All three bottles were bought probably at the same time as we tend to stock up when they are on sale. Either caps with expired PINs were put onto newer bottles which claim to still be valid or the PINs were not entered into the database. Mistakes happen. That's fine. But you don't keep telling a customer who contacted you to report the problem that bottles that say expire September 1, 2008 are returning error codes that the problem is the PINs are expired.

I just told you THEY DON'T EXPIRE FOR ANOTHER SIX MONTHS!

So, is this iCoke.ca support being evasive and hoping I'll just go away or is it a result of the all too common problem of people not reading the /entire/ email?

Do you have any idea how many calls I get for Mekki during the day which, when I give Mekki the message his reply is "but I clearly said in my email daytime and nighttime numbers". Similarly, I usually conclude emails that require I include a phone number with something along the lines of: "Please note, it is easiest to contact me by email." And then the phone rings. There is also the staggering frequency of reply emails that ask that I reply with "x" piece of information that was included in my initial email. I am always tempted to reply with "Can you please read the /entire/ email before wasting more of my time? Stupid!"

All this to say:

"iCoke.ca, you're on notice!"

It was a bit warmer out today so I ventured to take a closer peak under the hood. The alternator belt is missing huge sections of ribs and when I went to feel it to make sure it wasn't just the lighting, it crumbled under my fingers. So the belt definitely needs replacing. Still can't be sure it is the cause of the problem or a result of the problem but it needs to be changed.

After pulling out the diagrams to see what is involved and what tools I'd have to gather up, I hit a bump.
There is no bolt head at A. You have to loosen A to pivot the alternator so you can remove the belt. I'm assuming they just fed the bolt through the other side but you can't access the other side from the top. We do have access to lifts/jacks but it's complicating the process a bit. It does however mean we can probably take care of the sway-bar bushings and parking break at the same time.

Task I : Charge battery and move car out of the way.

I pulled the battery out of the car yesterday and our neighbour let us borrow his charger. This morning I put the battery back in and successfully started the car! Hooray for me! Of course the car was buried under a large amount of this year's record snow fall so moving the car once started was still half the battle. So a half hour of shoveling and scraping, inching forward and backwards, and a push from a very kind Canada Post guy, a bit more shoveling, and the car is back in its proper spot where it can sit for as long as necessary (meaning until it is warm enough out to seriously take a look at what is wrong).

P.S. Big thank you's to our neighbour and his friend for helping us push the car into the drive last week and to the Canada Post guy for helping me out of the snow today. It's all very much in the spirit of Ottawa's Choose 2B Kind week.

With our recent car trouble and even more trouble dealing with Canadian Tire, I've decided to I'm going to learn about cars and quite possibly fix the problem.

The short version of the story is car battery died last summer, we replaced it, it died one week later. We had the alternator replaced and a new alternator belt installed. A few weeks later during my trip to Boston, the car started squealing which we figured out most likely meant the alternator belt was loose and would eventually need tightening (preferably in the spring when we wouldn't freeze). We were told it probably wasn't urgent, just annoying. But it appears it kept the battery from charging properly and now the car is stranded, un-jumpable, under the snow in our laneway. It appears Canadian Tire installed the wrong belt.

Mekki and I have talked about this many times. The most important skill we gained at university is the ability to learn (and I would also add the ability to conceptualize and understand systems). Even if I don't come out of this experiment able to fix the car, most likely for lack of proper tools or equipment, I will have a much better understanding of how it works and able to avoid being caught in another situation like the one with Canadian Tire. Hopefully along the way I'll also figure out how to take care of oil changes and replacing brake pads which over the life of all my future cars, should come in quite handy.

It's similar to a few months ago with the clogged tub drain. I was able to isolate the problem, figure out exactly where the clog was, and attempt to resolve it but eventually having to call in professional help for lack of proper tools. If it weren't for the fact that the landlord was paying and that it's not my property to experiment with, I probably would have tried harder to do it myself.

Point being, it's always good to understand how the stuff you depend on works.