I haven’t been in a writing mood lately. I guess Joanna hasn’t either.

The big news is that I’ve completed all the flights for my Private Pilot Certificate. I just have to emerge successful from a three hour oral questioning session, then prove to an examiner that I can fly the plane. This is all scheduled to take place on Monday. I need to study.

We got Arthur back from the shop last week. He runs great, save the fact that he seems to have an electrical issue. The generator light is illuminated, and it’s not charging the battery. I tried to find someone who would test the generator for me, but no one does that anymore. They only test alternators. I ordered a generator. It didn’t come with a pulley, supposedly I was to use the old pulley. This was impossible since the old pulley had become united with the old generator. I took it to the auto parts store and asked them if they had a pulley. They didn’t and tried to pull the old pulley off for me. They succeeded only in bending the old pulley such that it’s now worthless in addition to being stuck to the old generator. But they were nice enough to modify the shaft of the new generator and put together a pulley and fan that seems to work. Only, when I got it home, I realized it wouldn’t fit in Arthur. When it was being remanufactured, they put the mounting plate on backwards, and it can’t be switched without completely disassembling the generator. Back to the auto parts store, and they ordered another generator and put the pulley on it. I was able to install it okay, but it seems that it did not solve my problem.

There’s also a voltage regulator, and I ordered a replacement from the auto parts store that should be there in an hour. If that’s not the problem, I have no idea what’s left to replace.

The Miata is also currently awaiting parts. One of the boots on the CV joint on the left rear axle broke, allowing all the grease to be slung out, causing the CV joint to self destruct. I ordered a used axle from a junkyard I know in Atlanta. When it got here I tried to replace it, only to discover that after 13 years and nearly 200,000 miles the axle shaft had become one with the wheel hub. After half an hour of being banged on with a hammer, the axle deformed nicely but failed to break loose from the hub. So, now I’m waiting for a wheel hub, which should arrive on Monday. Unfortunately, I damaged the old one enough trying to extract the axle that I can’t put the wheel back on the car until I get the new one. So the car has been on jackstands since Wednesday, but fortunately the apartment management hasn’t said anything yet.

So we now have three cars and one of them is running. Yay.

In other news, I did laundry yesterday. In addition to washing my dirty clothes, I also managed to wash my telephone. Needless to say, it no longer functions. Fortunately, Verizon was perfectly willing to send me a new one for approximately $20+shipping and tax. It just occurs to me that since Verizon has no stores in OK, I’m not sure who they were collecting tax for. Probably California. Which I shouldn’t have to pay. Oh well.

I just hope I like the new one as much as the old one. New phones these days drive me crazy.

That’s all for now– I’m going to go pick up a voltage regulator.