So we are starting this Pre writing challenge (see my page here) and today is one of those days that it would be incredible to have a few posts lined up I could just hit publish and be done with it.
This morning, I went out and turned on the car so it would be warm when I took my kids to school. I do it most every morning because it is cold. A few minutes later, we went back out to the car to go to school and it was making some strange sucking, bubbling sound. Of course the kids start to panic and I did a bit when I looked under the car and there was a huge puddle of transmission fluid!
Now I am paranoid about transmissions. They break way too easily in my opinion and are incredibly expensive. I do a lot of repairs on the cars and can do most things short of tearing down the engine or fixing the transmission. I did a bunch in high school shop but it didn’t cover transmissions.
So we took the other car to school and I am dreading what I am going to find. I hope it is a gasket on the pan, or a screw has fallen out, something I can repair. I finally get the car jacked up and get under it and guess what. It wasn’t the transmission after all. I almost peed myself with relief.
Come to find out, Chrysler had some brilliant idea that the power steering fluid needs to run through a small cooler like a radiator. One of these hoses had burst and the power steering fluid in a Dodge Caravan is actually transmission fluid. There were several unprintable 4 letter words used to describe the lineage of certain engineers and their anatomical deficiencies.
So this is an easy fix for the car. If it were not for the internet and auto repair forums I would not have known all of the things that I needed to fix it. The net is like that. Out there and waiting to suck us in. Larger point, I have a bunch of stuff to do today and i am putting some of it off so that I can write this post. My normal writing time was spent outside under the car.
This brings me to the value of having a few posts in the queue waiting anxiously to emerge. I have been thinking for the last couple of weeks that I would like to have 3 posts available for this because there are days when Doctor appointments and other things just prevent me from writing. Then along comes Carlos Velez at Conscious Me.com; with this guest post about how Pre writing is your friend. Struck a chord with me and over a few days the Pre-Writing Challenge was born. See my Pre-Writing challenge page for more info on how to join.
It would have been nice today to say, “I just am not going to write right now. I’ll post #7.” Didn’t happen but at the end of the challenge it will be so.
Thanks for being here!
Justin
