I'm taking Lauren to school this morning and as we pull up to the school, I notice that there is smoke coming from under the hood of the mercury villager mini van. I'm like, huh?

So after I drop off Lauren, I head home fast, open the hood, and there she is... a pinhole in a radiator hose towards the back of the engine that is unreachable.

I wait for the engine to cool down and try my best to figure out how to get this tiny hose off. It's not the upper or lower radiator hose. It's a hose that goes from one part of the engine to another? About 6 inches in length total. Odd.

The intake manifold is in the way. Heck, everything is in the way. I can't get at it. So I take it to my trusty local Shell station dude, ALEC, and ask him how much will it cost change the hose. ALEC looks at it and says... I GOTTA TAKE THE INTAKE MANIFOLD OFF TO GET TO IT. IT'S A 3 HOUR JOB. $280.

I go: HUH? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? IT'S A $5 HOSE AT BEST AND IT'S $300 IN LABOR TO GET TO IT? I'LL GET BACK WITH YOU ON THIS.

So I drive away pissed off thinking, MAN I SHOULD HAVE BEEN A MECHANIC.

So as I get home, I'm thinking to myself.. DUDE, IT'S A LOUSY PIN HOLE IN THE HOSE. THERE HAS GOT TO BE AN EASY, RELIABLE FIX.

I'm thinking to myself, how to I plug up a pin hole sized leak on a hose near the engine that gets way hot?

Answer?

SUPER GLUE! I got my super glue bottle with a brush like a nail polish putter onner, taped it to a long wrench handle extension, and brushed on super glue onto the rubber radiator hose thingy.

Results?

I let it set for 15 minutes. I started up the car, it leaked at first, then it stopped. Not sure why. Is it the heat that got it to set right?

Anyway, I let it run for 30 minutes at idle, and no spewing leak from the pin hole.

I went to get Lauren from school an hour ago, and no smoke from coolant spewing out of the pin hole hitting the engine block.

I liken this to using super glue to suture a wound shut.

So far so good. It works.

If anything changes... I'll post it here. Until then, I look at it as saving $300 baby!

Summary of my day:

I woke up.
I took Lauren to school.
I worked.
I worked some more.
I came home.
I ate some bad ass fried rice that Carrie cooked.
I worked some more.
Life is fantastic.

It's been forever and a day since I've made a post. So much has happened since the last time I've been here.



The great news is, Carrie and the girls have moved to Houston with me. Finally, all under the same roof after 1 year 5 months of living apart. Gio stayed in Michigan. He's well, living with his friends.

Work is work... otherwise they wouldn't call it work. It's great though. Challenging, different, new, fun, rewarding.

I'm just getting back into the swing of things, blogging, web projects.... so I'll end here for now and ease into the posting thing.

Thank you, thank you, thank you... for taking the time to read this.

This morning I cooked breakfast for Gio. I wanted to cook breakfast for the girls before they went to school, but I kinda didn't wake up in time.

After cooking for Gio, Carrie and I went to Chili's for lunch.

We stopped at Neil's house, but nobody was home.

Then we went to Kroger to pick up some food stuff.

One of the lenses fell out of my glasses so we went to WalMart and they fixed em right up.

After WalMart we headed back to Kroger / Starbucks. Carrie got a coffee cake, but the donuts in the Kroger bakery were calling my name... so I hooked it up. Yum.

BTW... I came to the conclusion that the popular power energy drinks are nothing more than trying to imitate what a coffee and donut bring to the table. Coffee provides caffeine, the donut provides sugar and carbs. BADA BING... the original energy combo.

After picking up the girls from school, we went to UA 14 in Walled Lake. We saw FREEDOM WRITERS. Talk about a scratched to a ridiculous point print. I let the manager know, then after the show I requested re-admit passes for such a poor presentation. They hooked me up with four re-admits. Good for them that they honored my request. Bad of them for not apologizing for the poor print condition.

After the movie we headed over to Ken's house to see the boys. Both of em got PSPs.

The rest of the night, just chillin' at the crib. It's snowing outside.