Ok, Earl, this here is FUNNY.

I think that's what the rednecks would say.

Big Blue has been in four shops in as many days.  Shop #1 said:  You blew the head gasket and your transmission is also leaking.  We can't even get to this for a week, and it will probably take a week to do it.  You might be better off taking it to the city, to the Cummins shop.  That will be $130 bucks.  Thank you.

Cummins shop (#4, actually) said: We don't do transmissions; we recommend Detroit Diesel.  We will schedule your truck in for Thursday (today), but see if you can get a diagnosis (at least) on the tranny before hand.

We called Detroit Diesel, shop #2.  We told them it had a Meritor Freedomline auto transmission.  Ok, they said... we can work on it. After one day, they called back and said "That's a ZED EFF transmission!  You have to take it to Freightliner!"  (Canadians pronounce "Z" (zee) as "zed").  So their point was the transmission is a Meritor/ZF transmission (ZF to them) and they don't work on those.  So we took it to Freightliner.  $278 bucks, thank you.  (Seriously).

Freightliner, shop #3, looked at it.  Cleaned it up.  Drove it.  Then called and said "It's not the head gasket.  Its the flywheel housing.  And your transmission is not leaking".  Take it to Cummins.  And that will be $160 bucks, thank you.

So today we moved the truck to Cummins.  Shop #4.  Lord knows what they will conclude.   But four shops in four days.... over $500 in fees, and not one wrench has been turned.  It's not a Zed EFF transmission.  It's a MF....

This big truck thing is big in a lot of ways.

But other than that, Michelle zipped home to Tennessee for some quartet commitments so Jay is "home" alone.  Boy, a whole lot will get done this week!  Jay plans to work on that dent in the couch cushion.  It's not deep enough yet.


Both dogs have been a bit mucked up.  Poor Toby seemed to pick up a bug, didn't eat for two days and he was so despondent that Jay took him to the vet.  The vet confirmed that Toby had a temperature and prescribed various potions to fix what ailed him.  Two days into the recovery it seems to be working, but he is honestly still not up to full par.  We can't recall having a dog get the "flu" before.

And the Keji - Mr. Pillowhead himself developed yet another "hot spot" (a section of skin that seems to abscess and rot) on his face.  Jay's cousin Janet luckily had a "cone" that you put around his head to keep him from digging at it (and making it MUCH WORSE), and Jay is trying basic over the counter treatments for it.  We'll see if it improves.  But you can appreciate that it feels like we are back into the infant business with all these dog issues!

We still hope to have wheels rolling out of here by next Friday, the 22nd.  But it will entirely depend on the status of Big Blue.  So hold on to your skirts, girls!  We'll update you soon...