Stone Cold Repairs

[kevin_standlee]

Yesterday afternoon, Lisa and I drove to Sparks to collect the Rolling Stone from Big O Tires. I paid $1539 for major brake repairs. To my annoyance, I discovered after I got home that they hadn't deducted the $25 discount from the coupon offer I gave them when I checked it in. You would think they could at least give me that.



Lisa and I convoyed home, staying in communication on our 2m amateur radios. Here the RV sits back home in its usual parking space. Next week we'll convoy to Yerrington so that Wild West Chevrolet can see what went wrong with the air conditioning repairs they did.

Since we were in Sparks anyway, we went to WinCo Foods for grocery shopping. I wish we had not done so and had put it off until the wee hours of Saturday morning as we often do. The queues were huge. I think we spent more time queued than we did actually shopping, even after Lisa sent me to get in line while she took a second cart to get other things. We spent the queue time trading off while one or the other of us went back to get things we'd initially forgotten.

After WinCo, we went to Raley's to get some higher-quality things that we cannot get at WinCo.

We like WinCo, but it's essentially too popular to shop there during daytime hours. While standing in the queue, I told Lisa, "Next time, we'll come shopping at 2 AM Saturday," and the person in line ahead of us was astonished to learn that the store is open 24 hours a day. It only says so in big letters on the outside of the building.

Comments

[solarbird]

At some point I really want to finally get a HAM license.

I mean, I was actually a radio professional for a while and I also ran a couple of tiny pirate stations. I really should just get the goddamn HAM license. xD

[kevin_standlee]

Lisa wouldn't marry me until I got my (no-code Technician) license (KE6APJ). She's an Amateur Extra, and got hers back when you still have to be able to send Morse code at 15 words per minute.

[solarbird]

WOW that's meaning it xD

I kinda actually even want to learn Morse even! Not for a good reason! Just because!

[kevin_standlee]

Lisa reminds me that the Amateur Extra code requirement was twenty words per minute, not fifteen.

[katster]

Heh, Dad got his tech license not that long after you (KE6POR). He's the next class up now that you don't have to have code, but just kept his old call. He somehow convinced me to get mine (KF6FXG) right before I went off to college. I rarely use it, but the few times we have, it's come in handy. (Also came in handy for clearing up what ERA was between a couple hams on the radio -- I said to my dad, ERA is per nine innings, Dad said you can tell them yourself, and I went oh yeah.)

Back when Dad got his license, there was a joke that the last three letters of his call stood for 'Probably On Radio'.

[scott_sanford]

The basic Technician level test isn't that hard. (Although I'm really glad I didn't have to sit the Morse code tests.) You should be able to pick it up pretty easily.

I got a surprise the other day when someone asked about the antenna on my car and it turned out they'd never even heard of amateur radio! My attempts at explanation eventually got down to "You've heard of CB radios? Like that, but for adults." That one worked.

[solarbird]

Yeah, I read one of the "get your license!" books a few years ago, right before PLAGUE and never took the test. It didn't seem too bad.