April 25, 2014

Car Maintenance: Not an ad but it should be.

I'm hard on consoles. The armrest console in each of my last three cars has taken a beating, since I generally keep my right elbow planted on it at all times when driving (side effect of giant arms).

As you can see from the picture at left, my current one was in pitiful shape. Not only was the leather cracked and the padding totally smashed (this happened in both prior cars), but the tray in the middle was cracked (presumably under the weight of my giant elbow and accompanying arm. Over time that crack worked its way towards the back of the armrest and eventually shattered the plastic, causing springs to fly out, leaving my only option to reassemble the pieces with black duct tape.

In walks my Val-Pak (this is not an ad for Val-Pak). I usually flip through these things looking for restaurant coupons for places we might go eat at anyway, and I stumbled across RockAuto.

Gotta say, this should be an ad for RockAuto but it isn't.

RockAuto basically has all kinds of parts for all kinds of cars.

So I ordered (but I ordered the wrong color). So I sent it back and ordered again.

And the piece came, along with installation and removal instructions that were plain and simple.

And so, in just a matter of minutes, I ended up with this console instead of the one above. Night and day difference. Thanks, RockAuto.


April 23, 2014

Adios Cadbury Eggs

I like candy. Quite a bit, actually. Which means that my calendar could be construed to rotate around the four "prime candy" holidays. As Easter passes, so do the Cadbury Eggs, leaving me in candy drought until October.

Fourth of July lollipops anyone?

In case you're wondering, the "big four" are:

Valentine's Day
Perfect time of year for chocolate. You should try to grab a candy conversation heart or two. And there's always appropriately colored Reese's cups and Hershey's kisses.

Easter
Here I have options. Chocolate or not. We have to start with the Cadbury Egg (pictured) and its gooey center. But there's also jellybeans (of which Starburst or Jelly Belly are the best, and the Laffy Taffy and Sweet Tart are just awful). But expand the jellybean search to include Brach's Spiced Jelly Bird Eggs (only get one bag of those, please). And grab some Peeps. And a chocolate bunny. And a few more jellybeans. And Cadbury solid chocolate with candy coating - forget what they are called.

Halloween
Thank goodness when Halloween arrives. First off, it ends the candy drought. Second off, it is a holiday where non-chocolate candy can exist in droves. Candy corn, sweet tarts, smarties, mini-packages of everything from Runts to Sour Patch Kids, and more.

Christmas
Gotta get some chocolate covered cherries. Maybe a chocolate orange. Gum drops. And something to fill the candy dish (likely Rolo, Reese's, and Hershey Kisses in dedicated packaging).

Anyway, now that you are in the loop, I will chow on that egg. Oh wait, I already did.

And so begins the drought.