How to make a good man cuss

I've been on this earth long enough to know that when things break, they all break together. I've been battling this fact the last two weeks. At the Harder home, we have been noticing a lot of our stuff forming a guild to break at the same time. Most of the time it's just plain aggravating. But sometimes, like this time, I'm kind of enjoying fixing the broken stuff. Thus, I put up another poll. I was wondering what other people do when stuff breaks. I am the guy who takes it apart to the point I get lost to see if I can fix it myself. I've done this my whole life. When I was 10, my dads lawn mower broke, he bought a new one, and I asked if I could try to fix the old one. I took it apart, never put it back together, but I sure loved using my dads tools to take it apart.

Here is a list of things that broke or went wrong in the last few weeks that I have been dealing with.

1) My dad came over one day and as his greeting (as most dads love to point out things that need to be fixed at your house) says, "You do know that there's wood showing on your roof, right?" The answer was no. Luckily, I have shingles in my garage that have been there since the day I moved in, May 18, 2005.

Solution: I patched that sucker right up. Just in time for the rain clouds to disappear.

2) Our computer (Compaq Pressario 2100 aka the devil) has been giving us the business for a long time now. The power jack has been broken in the inside for a while, but when we tuck the power cord under the laptop, it usually will stay powered. Today, we are lucky to get 3 minutes out of it before it goes into hibernation. I took this apart and found out that I need to solder a new power jack to the mother board. Dave doesn't solder. Eventually, it will get fixed, but not by me. I have a solder gun, but I don't like breaking stuff out of stupidity and pride.

Solution: We received our 'stimulus check' yesterday, the Mac should be here by tomorrow! I heard there should be a "Welcome to Mac, You'll never turn back" party.

3) This is the biggest breaking problem, and have picture to go along with it. Ruby the Suby (our red Subaru) has been quite an interesting project since the day I bought it back in 2003. In 1990, Subaru thought it would be cool to try using pneumatic shocks so if there is snow on the ground, you can raise the clearance level of the car a whole inch to glide over the snow like it wasn't there. The problem is, the airbags were bad and they couldn't hold air after a few years. When I bought the car the front shocks were blown and I fixed them the first month I had it. Just last week, the rear shocks finally gave up trying to live.

Solution:

This is a picture of the front tire, and this is on level ground. Notice the height of the wheel well from the tire...this is good.

This is a picture of the rear, notice the tire is INSIDE the wheel well...this is bad. It finally was too much to handle when I drove to work in So Lake Tahoe and I felt like my kidneys were bruised from bouncing up and down. It was nauseating.

I love working on cars, but there is always one bolt in the whole project that gives me problems. This time, it was a two day/three broken tools problem...but I finally got it loose. Here is a broken 'breaker bar' that isn't supposed to break. I broke another breaker bar and my 3/8" socket wrench.

But finally, I took everything apart and found the culprit.

It was a holie air bag. Now I just need to take a trip to Pic-n-Save and start the whole process in a dirt lot on a car that isn't mine. I am also going to pick up a drivers side door due to...broken outside lock, broken door latch, broken window motor, broken rear window buttons, and I have to hit it with my shoulder every time I exit. I can't wait to be able to use a drive-thru! I'm also going to pick up a heater/blower motor because it was making funny noises and when I took that apart, the knuckle at the end of the fan has disintegrated (I jerry rigged that and it worked for about a year). And last but not least, a sun visor. You never know how awesome those are until you don't have one.

I'm kind of excited. There is something about the satisfaction of fixing a car and it operating in a safe manner that just gets me.

So how do you handle things when they break?