Stung

As is my usual habit on Monday nights, I drove to the Coco's restaurant where the BASFA meeting is. As I was getting out of the van, I felt something brush against my neck and I tried to brush it away, whereupon the bee that had landed there stung me. Yeow! I quickly scraped the stinger away, which probably helped, and ran inside to examine things. A rapidly-growing red area was clearly visible on the left side of my neck. Fortunately for me, I'm not deathly allergic to bee stings, but it has been many years since I was last stung, and it it hurt. I think that my quick action scraping away the stinger minimized the amount of venom pumped into my neck, so it's a relatively minor sting. Nevertheless, the left side of my neck is red, puffy, and sore. I've applied ice and local anesthetic to the area, which is about all I can do other than wait it out and hope the swelling goes away.

Whine

...no, not me about my bee sting; I did that earlier. It's my van that's whining. In particular, over the past few days, a whining sound has been getting louder coming out of the engine compartment. Now the voltage meter is reading lower than it should. I'm not much of a mechanic, but this suggests to me that the alternator is about to fail. Breaking down in the Nevada desert on the way to Denvention is not high on my list of things I want to do. After checking in at work to tell them I'll be at home again today, I took the van to my regular mechanic, who says that the symptoms I report do indeed sound like a dying alternator and that he'll take a look and advise me on what's up.