Oh, great. This is going to be like shooting baskets with Magic Johnson watching. [Bill Pullman on watching Independence Day with President Clinton]

I hope that you had a good Independence Day Celebration. I spent most of the day trying to beat the heat. I rolled into town that afternoon to get a bite to eat and had a little excitement of my own. My car has been making some awful sounds and I couldn't find where it was coming from. Well I finally found out. While waiting in line at the Bell my car started screeching and getting louder. There was nothing much I could do while stuck in line. I made it through and drove down the road to where I could pull off. Popped the hood and still couldn't tell. I figured I better get back home. About two blocks later I heard a thump and all went quiet, all except the engine, and it sounded normal. I came to a stop sign and then started to turn towards home and the power steering wasn't working. I figured my power steering pump had gone out. I strong-armed my way towards home and gave Randy a call. Told him the issue and he said we could fix it this Saturday. He was online and quickly gave me the bad news as to how much it world cost me. $85 for the pump and a $45 core charge. I wasn't happy about that, but at least I could get my car running right again.

I got home and ate my lunch and continued to try to beat the heat. I had my fan on high trying to circulate the air and help me survive the afternoon. I didn't want to run my computer as it puts out quite a bit of heat on its own. So I tried reading. I got a couple chapters read but started falling asleep in my chair but would wake every few minutes to wipe the sweat off my face. That wasn't working so I broke out the laptop. It puts out heat but not as much as my other. Played a bit of Simpson's Hit and Run until it was almost 10. I had heard that Bend had the largest fireworks display in Oregon and they set it off from the top of Pilot Butte, an old cinder cone in the middle of Bend. You can see it from any high point in the city and from the lookout you can see all of Bend.

The fireworks started at 10 and so I took off and drove to the Forum ( A shopping center not far from the butte) There were quite a few others in lawn chairs watching the show. While I was parking I noticed some lights on the south side of the butte and thought they might be having some kind of display/show going on there. Turns out the fireworks caught the butte on fire. News report says about 3 acres. I heard also that it was about 6 acres. They had fire crews on hand so It was under control/out at about midnight. The fireworks though were preety good. When the big ones went off it shook the ground. It took about 3 seconds from when they burst until the sound reached us and echoed off the buildings, setting off a few car alarms.

Back to my car, when I got to the forum I noticed some steam coming out from my car. I popped the hood and the serpentine belt was loose. There wasn't much I could do there and the car had cooled off fine, but I waited until the traffic was pretty much gone and drove home, which is only 5 min from the Forum. I woke up early this morning as I wasn't sleeping too well anyways. It was about 5:30 and I kept wondering what I should do about my car. I still wasn't exactly sure what the problem was. My mind kept going in a loop and I wasn't going back to sleep, so I got dressed, grabbed my tools, and went out to check the car.

It was 6 am and still nice and cool (I wish it was in the house). The sun was up and I had plenty of light to work. I could see the belt had off of the pulleys and one of them was very loose and wasn't turning too easily. I wasn't sure what it controlled and thought to go get my laptop and see what I could find online. I eased the hood shut and shut the car's door and reached into my pocket...no keys, I had just locked them in and I had locked the house door on my way out. I guess someone else would be getting an early start too. I walked up to the door, turned around and started back to my car. I didn't want to have to wake Delores up. Changed my mind again and rang the doorbell. The house doesn't have a regular doorbell with a simple ding-dong, it's a rapid bell almost like a buzzer and easily wakes you out of a sound sleep. I stood and waited putting on the most apologetic face I could. Silence at first, and then her dog Buster started yipping, soon he was barking, and shortly after that she came to the door. I apologized and she mumbled about getting up anyways to open the doors to let in some cool air.

I got my spare keys and my laptop and made my way back outside, checking to see if I could find what the part is that's loose. I couldn't find anything that resembled it, checking several parts stores, google images, anything that I could think of. No luck. I gave up and decided to close up the car, but first wanted to see if I could get the belt back on and confirm my suspicions. It took me a couple minutes to figure it out and got it back on. I started up the car and the squealing was back but I also had my power steering. I shut it off and went back inside. Tried finding the part again and not succeeding. I still had a couple more hours before I actually had to get up and so tried gong back to sleep and succeeded marginially.

I got up and got ready for work, in fact I was running about 1/2 hour earlier than I normally do. I went out to my car debating as to whether I should call in or go ahead and drive. I chose the latter. The car squealed as I drove off. I was almost to Empore Blvd when it stopped squealing. Now comes the test... I've got about anothe 10 minutes of driving before I got to work. I decided I had gone that far, I would go the rest. I got to work and the gauge was showing only a little hotter than normal. Again a bit of steam came out, but nothing gushing.

I went in and told my boss the situation and that I could use a ride to the parts store later. He decided to take me right then. We went to Schucks and talked to the guy at the counter. I explained what it was that there were four bolts holding it in place, and he brought out some pulleys. They were'nt right. We got a parts book out and found a ggod diagram. He said it looks like the water pump cover ( I forget what he called it exactly, but my dad will know) He says when the shaft of the water pump goes back it will often become loose and sloppy. That's what mine was. They had the pump in stock and it cost me just $41.99. I bought it and we drove back to work. We even got back in time for me to clock in on schudule. So now is the waiting game. Randy won't be able to help me put it in until Saturday (Actually we do a trade off, he does the mechanical work and I do the computer work) So I just have to keep it from over heating until then. Only short trips to and from work. The weather isn't helping. ( We hit 102 degrees today) It'll be back to the 80's by Saturday we hope and I should be ready for my trip back to Portland next weekend.

See you soon.