HAPPY HUMP DAY!!!

I found this on a web site and I thought it was cute. I'm always saying YAY! its hump day! Wednesday, or the hump of the week The absolute BEST day of the week, the day of maximum hope that maybe, you might make it out of this week alive. A particularly good hump day can last you the rest of the week, and by Doomday morning (Monday) you survive by anticipating hump day. Nothing goes wrong on hump day Most other days can be defined by hump day. Tuesday is the day before hump day. Thursday is one day after hump day. Except Friday is WOOOH!!! FREEDOM!!! Day, Saturday is Mostly Hungover day, and Sunday is PreDoom day. Hump day has nothing to do with sex. Unless one wants it to. I like to declare the existence of hump day just to see people's faces. Usually being conservative and all "Do you know what the best thing about Tuesdays are? Its the day before Hump Day!" "What's hump day?" "It's the hump of the week!!" Everyone have a happy Hump day!!! ~Dan

THINNGS HAVE COME TO A STAND STILL

This picture is about 5 years old it was taken here at theshop around the time we took over here. The only person in this picture that is left here is the tall skinny guy in the center. & myself and Doug are not in the picture.

Someone told me the other day they had not seen me blog much lately & that is true I have not done to much in the last few weeks but you see that really is a good thing if you don't see me blog. Why you might ask? Well it is very simple I blog most of the time from work if I am not blogging that means we (the shop) have enough work to keep me busy and I don't have time to do such playful things. So yes the last three to four weeks had been good we had enough work to keep us busy for the most part all day. However things seem to have come to almost a complete stand still yet again it has been this way since last Thursday.

I would like to say that I have a positive out look about our coming year and this summer but with fuel prices ever on the raise and other things on the up turn I don't see things getting any better for anyone anytime soon. So as your thinking about me today hope for me not to have time to do these blogs that really would be a good and welcome thing to have happen.

Everyone have a great day!

~Dan

DIRTY MOUSE

Well come to find out not only is a "Live" mouse dirty your computer mouse can be a dirty little rodent also. For about the last week now I had been having trouble here at work with my computer mouse. I would move the mouse from left to right or right to left and it would only move up and down on the screen. LOL This can be very amusing to a customer standing there while you are trying to input their information into the system for a ticket. However this morning I had enough of it. I took it apart this picture is NOT of my mouse. My mouse was MUCH worse then this one. I didn't know that so much junk could get packed up into that little whole and the ball was even covered with maybe sticky dried up spilled coffee mess...... Who knows LOL. Anyway I'm happy to report that after this operation the little mouse is doing just fine and is in much better shape. I ordered the computers when we opened our shop here. I guess thats what I get for not ordering an optical mouse when we got our computers.


Everyone have a great day
~Dan

YES GAS PRCES ARE HIGH BUT HEAR ME OUT

I thought the picture to the left was funny. But all kidding aside, gas prices are high and the oil companies are getting rich and so on.

But it still no matter how you cut it comes down to consumption. What am I talking about well its plain and simple cut down on our consumption of gas and the price may not fall but it will at least stabilize. We are a nation of glutens. No body wants to face that fact but we are. How many of you combine your trips? ie. do you stop at the store on the way home from work or do you drive home then go back out? And on the weekends do you make 10 or 15 trips to here and there or do you consolidate your travels? Also what are you using for your commuting vehicle. I drive 60 miles round trip to get to and from work everyday. I see it all the time ONE (1) person going up and down the highway in a Ford Expedition or something like that. Also my Favorite thing I some time stop at this store on the way to work in the morning to get coffee. What do I see there? 5 or 6 cars in the parking lot sitting there running while their owners are inside getting there morning coffee or what not. You think I'm kidding? check it yourself goto ANY convenience store early in the morning and you will find the same thing. I myself did my part over a year ago I traded the comfort of a big Cadillac that got 15 -20 MPG to a much smaller Honda that gets almost 40 MPG. By doing this with out even cutting back on my driving I cut my gas consumption in over half.

The oil companies won't keep jacking the price for something that isn't selling the situation we are in in this country is our fault we all had to have the big SUV's and the big gas drinking cars. And now we are crying cause we have to pay the price.

Just some food for thought for the day.

~Dan

Happy Birthday To My Father

The picture here is a few years old for those that don't know its my dad (Jay) It was taken when my mother and father lived over seas can you believe the size of that fish!

Anyway just wanted to take some time today to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! I only hope that you have many more happy and healthy birthdays. I'll bet when you were a kid you never thought you would see the age of 70+ LOL

Have a great day
Love
your son,
Dan

Southern Hospitality

I took another trip south to Georgia this last weekend. I have to say this weekend was no different then the other times I have been to Georgia. That is I have always been impressed with the "Southern Hospitality" of the people in Georgia. I have no idea if this is a wide spread thing across the south or not. I just know that in Georgia the people there seem to be very friendly and thoughtful of others. Of course this weekend we did stay in a very nice hotel so it would be the job of the staff to be attentive to the needs of a paying customer I'm not just talking about that. You can be walking down the street in a major city and get a "Howdy" Or better yet walk into any little shop or store and get a "How are Ya'll" It really has impressed me to no end, you won't get that kind of thing where I live and better yet I'm starting to think you won't get it at other places in the south. After all I lived in Florida for many years and was also there back in February and I don't remember those kind of welcomes there either. So I am here to tell you keep up the good work you folks in Georgia maybe just maybe your Southern Hospitality will rub off on the rest of the country. We should all try to be as nice as the folks in Georgia. It is very refreshing to see that there are still nice people out there.

How to count 101

So I have been told by a friend of mine (SHE WILL REMAIN NAMELESS) LOL that I can't count or that I don't know how to count correctly. That is counting down the days until a specific date. i.e. Today is Thursday its about 8:00am right now. I have something planned for Friday night thats over 24 hours from now. So when counting down days that event is one (1) day away correct? Or if this was Monday it would be five (5) days away.


Help me out what do you think :) Have I been counting wrong all this time LOL

Everyone have a great day!

~Dan

Two Years Ago This Month

So this month is an anniversary of something that hope not to ever need to relive and as long as I keep thinking that way I think it won't happen again. You see it was two years ago this month that I got a DWI. (This is an interesting site I found on Alcohol Issues)

The ironic thing about getting a DWI in the month of April is this. Its National Alcohol Awareness Month & I didn't know that until I looked at the web site so looking back I find that some what funny.

When I first had this happen to me I was more worried about the social embarrassment that I had caused myself. I am a very proud person and I thought how in the world will I be looked at now. I started out not wanting to tell family or friends I was just so horrified that I had been stopped for driving drunk.

I will give you some facts as to what happened in my case and the things I had to go through as a result of one very stupid act. In the hopes that if nothing else you will think twice before you get behind the wheel and drive even after one drink.

Facts my case: ( not all are the same)

1. Fines and court costs $400.00
2. Lawyer fees $750.00
   
3. monitored probation $45.00 a month for 12 months (total $540.00)
   
4. Late to work one Friday a month for 12 months - to attend probation visit (not docked any pay but was still late one Friday a month (someone had to pick up my slack)
5. 2 days missed from work one for court and one for the MVA hearing for my DL
   
6. Provisional DL for 90 days for to and from work only and test drives of customers vehicles (remember I'm a shop service manager I do sometimes need to drive customers cars.)
7. Alcohol Counseling classes - court ordered once a week for 26 weeks @ $40.00 a week (total $1040.00)

So as you can see from the list not only was it a BIG inconvenience but the cost nearly broke the bank! Although in talking to many others it could have been much worse then it was so I am thankful for that.

I do have to say this through this whole thing the only person I was ever really mad at was MYSELF! That is one thing that floored me in the Counseling classes I went to. I could not believe what I was hearing from some of the people that were there. (The cop did this to me the cop did that to me. They were sitting there waiting for me. It wasn't my fault) HELLO who's fault was it then? You drove drunk! you broke the law Do the time. Never once did I blame my DWI on anyone else IT WAS ALL MY FAULT! I knew when I got in the car that night to drive home I had had way to much to drink. I broke the law and paid the price. (I blew a .165 btw) over two times the legal limit. That was no ones fault but my own.

I have to say in the end though I write this whole thing up as learning experience I am not going to sit here and say I won't drink anymore cause I do I still have a drink every now and again but what this whole thing has done is made me VERY AWARE of my drinking and I have learned the hard way two things 1. If we are going to drink DON'T DRIVE 2.If we are going to drink we MUST DO IT IN MODERATION. And by moderation I mean no more then 1 - 2 drinks in a sitting.

I hope this little story here has proven to shed some light on a very bad thing and that is drinking and driving DON'T DO IT!

~Dan

Wrong diagnoses by one repair shop makes us all look bad

We have a customer that comes to us from about 1 1/2 hours away this should speak volumes about our work. I mean after all there are shops much closer to this customer that I'm sure could do the work on their vehicles. But the story here is what happened when this customer made a choice to goto a shop closer to their home and is a perfect example of why this industry CAN'T be trusted. Thats right I said automotive shops CAN'T be trusted. (Of course I'm not including our shop in the not trusted part.) As a service manger I see this type of thing almost daily! and it makes me sick at what some repair shops are doing!

You may want to read this article here about an issue with GM intake manifolds before you read the story.

The Story: The customer has one of the GM vehicles that the article talks about. About one year ago the customer brought in the vehicle and it was leaking coolant, just as the article states can happen. And indeed after our testing we found that the intake manifold gasket was leaking. So long story short the customer was given an estimate for the needed repairs and that estimate was also inline with the cost that the article talks about. Before I go on one thing that can also leak from a bad intake manifold gasket is "engine vacuum" that is created by a running engine and the air being pulled through the motor. When there is a large enough vacuum leak the engine will also run bad it can mis,backfire and have a lack of power. So Monday morning I get a phone call from this customer (Got to love Monday mornings thats another blog LOL) This customer tells me that the car started running really bad last Thursday it was running so badly that they didn't want to take it on the 1 1/2 hour drive it was going to take to get it here. So they took it to a repair shop near their home. After this repair shop said they diagnosed the issue they asked my customer if the intake manifold had ever been off. They of course pulled their paperwork from the work we did a year ago and took it to the shop so the "shop manager" or "service writer" could look it over. They were then told: "Why didn't the other shop replace the fuel injector o-rings when this work was done? Those o-rings are bad and need to be replaced so we will have to take the intake manifold back off and basically do the whole job over!" to this they added the estimate was going to be around $1,000.00! Of course even though I think this customer trusts our work thats when the phone call came to me. "Dan! bla bla bla Why didn't you guys do this when you did the intake work?!?!?!" So I got them to bring the vehicle up to us today. Oh by the way in order for them to be able to pick their vehicle up and bring it to us they had to pay the other shop a $100.00 diagnosis fee! FOR WHAT IS MY QUESTION??
Here is why I say that we pulled the car in to the shop and I kid you not found the issue within 15 min. of opening the hood!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What was it you might ask?? It was a .50 broken vacuum hose!! NOT THE $1,000.00 repair the other shop wanted to charge for!

I have this message to send out to any Automotive Repair shop owners or managers that may read this. I for one am sick of seeing customers get taken for a ride! Stop ripping people off!! All you are doing is is giving those of us trying to make an honest living a bad name! KNOCK IT OFF!!

Oh and for those reading even though by rights I could have charged this customer something for this repair I let him go with out charging him. Thats how you treat customers!

Everyone have a great day!
~Dan