First, some minor car trouble. A worrisome “bup, bup” in the right rear wheel area when going slowly over small bumps. The kind of noise a wheel makes when the lug nuts are not tight, or something else is just starting to get loose.
Yes I took the wheel off, tightened everything I could get a wrench on, and put it all back together plenty snug. No there was no change in symptoms.
And the cruise control just quit working one day. I found one associated part (a vacuum pump) that was making a noise it hadn’t made before and figured that was the problem. It’s a dealer-only part, so I ordered one and installed it. No, that didn’t fix it.
So this afternoon I took my commute-to-work Mazda Protégé (9 years old with only 163,000 miles on it) to the dealer’s service department. I’m betting on at least $600 to fix both problems. Any takers?
THEN, (I hope you’re ready for this), Carol called me today while trying to print out some wedding invitations she has created for our friend Ruth. They’re gorgeous, with a golfing motif and a picture of Ruth and her fiancé standing together on the golf course.
The problem? Our nearly-brand-new photo printer (an Epson, NOT the HP all-in-one that was giving me problems a month or two ago) had printed about half the invitations when it suddenly started refusing to feed paper.
It’s like the paper just got a little too slick for the pick-up rollers to grab. The printer would try twice to grab the paper, and then an error message would pop up telling me there was a paper jam. We kept clearing the error and trying again; over and over.
We managed to get 5 more printed before it just refused to allow any more paper to feed in.
We had been using heavy matte paper, so I cancelled that print job and tried printing a little text on a sheet of plain old copy paper. No problem – that worked like a champ.
Back to the matte paper. No go. This printer is supposed to be able to handle light and heavy stock, including matte, glossy, semi-gloss, one-sided, two-sided, and more.
I told Carol the paper may be too dry. She used her steam iron to heat up the leading edge just slightly. It worked!!
So now I’m sitting here watching as each sheet finishes printing and Carol rushes in with the next one, fresh from the ironing board. It’s all I can do not to make some snide comments, but she DOES have a hot iron in the other room and I don’t want to press my luck.
But somewhere, I fear, the “C” is laughing its a** off at the two of us right now.
7 comments:
Well if the *c* isn't, I am.
Just stopping by to say hello, luv. I wanted to make sure you were doing all right.
Anyhow...I hope all is well.
How's the book with your Latina going?
You're still in my thoughts and prayers, man.
Much love to you.
God bless. Take care.
Cali
That is the strangest thing I've ever heard concerning a printer. Hope it is okay after all that.
OMG, Ruth's getting married? I have some catching up to do!
I've heard of printer paper jamming things up when it's too humid, but not too dry. Damn that Carol's clever, ain't she?
At least you know Carol loves you...if she can do anything...wow! I'm so impressed about the hot iron solution.
Sorry to hear about all the mechanical troubles but all things considered, they're the best ones to have.
I've really enjoyed having the time to come here more and more...:)
As soon as I started reading I knew the C had appeared again.
Couldn't help but smile.
:o)
Carol to the rescue - I doubt anyone else would have thought of heating the leading edges.
I am shutting my mouth with regard to the rest of your post - please just send me a smoke signal when everything has returned to normal. But doog kcul.
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