The Car

Jen tried her best to keep people up-to-date with the whole car situation. I thought, though, for anyone who might be even remotely interested, that I would try to explain in a bit more detail what went wrong. On Thursday night, the car started acting up. It had a little shimmy to it when it was stopped or in park, and it tended to stall if we decelerated too much too soon. Based on those clues, I guessed we had a bad cylinder. Turns out I was right; our number 3 cylinder was only registering 20 pounds of compression, while the other 5 cylinders were all around 120 lbs. Upon inspection, it was revealed that our number 3 cylinder had a broken rocker arm (rocker arms open and close the valves that let in air to be burned with the fuel, and let out the exhaust gases created by burning the fuel and air). I'm not sure which rocker arm was broken (intake or exhaust), but either way a valve wasn't being fully opened when it needed to be to keep the cylinder firing correctly. Since the problem was a rocker arm, there wasn't much need to take the head off the cylinder (which would have been expensive), because the rocker arms are outside the cylinder heads. This was really the preferable diagnosis, since the only other likely problems were a cracked cylinder ($$$) or a damaged valve (which would have meant taking off the cylinder head, which ultimately would have meant $$$). We were also told, by our mechanic, that Buick engines have a tendency to break their rocker arms, so the next time we experience engine trouble, we'll at least have a starting point for figuring out the problem.

As for my long-awaited glasses we picked up last night... they have to go back. Again. They used a too-long screw to hold the frame together around the right lens, which means that 1) I have a doofy-looking screw poking up out of my frames, and 2) the included sunglass clip won't sit properly because there's a stupid little screw in the way. This whole issue is becoming far too complicated, as far as I'm concerned. Does anyone know of anywhere else in Cochise County that takes Avesis vision insurance?