Day Six - Project 7

Friday, April 5th

  School week is done.  Kids are getting psyched for the inter school chess tournament, and I'm even more excited about our prospects than they are (and the little egomaniacs ARE EXCITED).

  So, as per my notes to myself making promises, Magda and I went to the library.  After school.  And after the bottle return depot drop off (Three dollars!  Oh the action figures I could have bought with that on trips over the border to Maine in 1981!  One, I suppose).  And after the grocery store on a Friday afternoon.  Upon entering the library, the librarians responded with flicking the lights on and off to signal that we had about 10 minutes left.  Magda, being three and a half and worried that rules set down by not parents have fearful consequences, began making my speed-needing mission noticeably less efficient by freaking out that the doors would lock and we would be "TRAPPED IN THE LIBRARY!"  I actually think she just hates any trip to the library with Daddy because she is forced to come with me while I find books for not her.  If she thought about being trapped in the library without DADDY, she'd probably say, "Do I have to sign up in advance for that, and is there some sort of fee?"

  Short story long, I got a couple of books on car maintenance.  And one on knitting techniques.

  I got one called Teach Yourself Visually:  Car Care & Maintenance,  and the other The Women's Fix-It Car Care Book:  Secrets Women Should Know About Their Cars.  My branch didn't have many books, so I happily grabbed what they had.  Yes, I got the Women's car book.  I assumed that the people who wrote it (even though the mechanic co-author was a woman) would be subtly patronizing and talk down to their reader a little bit.  And while I don't think that kind of thing is right for a female audience, I DO think that talking to ME like I am ignorant is the right way to go.  The Visually one has been more helpful to me so far.  I liked that they told me what a CAR is.  My need for origin story, absolute basics, was satisfied.  And it was in this book that I learned about personal OBD-II devices, and that for your car, DLC doesn't mean add-ons to my XBOX 360 games, but "Data Link Connector".

  It's so cool that you can hook a computer diagnostic system up to your car by yourself.  I want one.  I want to sell my action figures to get one (Well, some of them).  The book said my car's manual would say where the DLC is in my car.

  90 Minute Update:

  It's not in my Manual.

  I'm going to bed.

  -Mike