#63 Get maintenance done on the car (the beyond oil change stuff)

The check engine light came on last Tuesday on my way to work. Historically this is not a good thing as my car belongs to a small pool of Saturn Vues whose transmissions came with elusive gremlins.

I didn’t get a clear answer from the service dept (not their fault but too long to explain) about what exactly it was but it involved replacing more parts in the transmission.

So that’s complete replacement in Jan 2004, half replaced in June 2007 and another half replaced in Oct 2008.  But less you think I’m complaining about this being a lemon, I’m not.

Why?

Because everytime Saturn has been very pro-active in fixing and replacing it themselves at zero cost to me. EVEN OUT OF WARRANTY!! Only difference is that while still under warranty, they threw in free rental cars too. Also it’s important to notice that my car has never broken down on me. The incident in June 2007 involved someone else behind the wheel of my car out of my sight when it “broke down” and a situation that was very hinky to begin with (read: ultimately my fault for getting it into that situation). But Saturn still fixed it.

Saturn definitely stands behind their cars so I’d buy again… if they hadn’t ruined everything that I loved about the Vues that made it unique (curved box, weird headlights, etc). Now it looks like a lot of other SUVs out there.

Best part is that at 97,000 miles and approaching  6 years of age, it’s never given me trouble. Taken me everywhere I wanted to go, even hauling all kinds of stuff and dogs too (camping this summer with 7 dogs and 4 people anyone?)

The brakes were overdue to be worked on and I took advantage of the fact that they were doing the transmission for free to use the $$ towards the brakes. So that’s done. And they aligned my wheels for free too.

So I’m all good for now! Definitely crossing this off my list since it was mainly about the brakes which are now done.

p.s. I really must commend the guys responsible for the “courtesy car wash” as my car was filthy with months of built up layers of freeway dust. My car’s a beautiful leaf green but at that point the hood of my car looked ecru to me thanks to the play of light off the dust. Anyone would be hardpressed to tell you (from the drivers seat) that it was green!

Not only did they scrub it all off but they also took care to remove all the magnets from the back of my car and wash underneath them. They even WASHED the magnets themselves!! You’d be surprised how much grit the magnets pick up and hold underneath but right now they’re smooth & clean.  Go Saturn of the Valley!!

#65 Thoroughly clean out the car. Vacuum and scrub all surfaces til as new as possible.

Early this summer, I cleaned out the car to get it ready for the vacumn and scrubbing but didn’t get around to it. But for a long time, managed to keep the car fairly clear of clutter. Even now, it’s not as bad as it used to be though definitely need to do it again.

Now’s a good time for it to make the interior as clean and “red up” as the exterior!

I’ve misplaced the note which I need to send to the landlords to get them to replace the oven. It’d already been months when I went to write my 101 in 1001 list and so I made it #62 on the list to get the oven (and gate/mailbox keys) replaced.

But what to do without the official notice from the gas company? I’ve got slumlords for bldg mgmt who call and threaten and etc so have to have that paper.

Looking at recipes tonight for corned beef to finally break in my new crock pot, I saw some interesting looking ones that required an oven. Oops no oven still! Ok GO RIGHT NOW and check out the Gas Company’s website to find out how to get a copy of the notice.

Then I find that they actually do free service appts for appliance checks now. So I’ve got one booked for later this week. I’ll be able to talk to the service person myself and confirm that they won’t turn it on again for the oven without XYZ done on the oven and get that in writing so I can send it to the slumlandlords.

I also need to check over the copy of the rental lease to see what they say replacement key costs are. I hope it’s specified and a reasonable amount. Would like to be able to take the dogs into Angus’s side yard sometimes. He’s very fine with that and if I finally put chicken wire along the bottom fence, it’ll be 100% secure.

Answer: Dreamhost’s Files Forever. For 1c/4 megs, they’ll store files indefinitely (for as long as they offer the service). I’ve good faith that they’ll be around for a while. They’re already 10 years old which is ancient for a web host. And if they go away, it won’t be without notice so will be able to download again if needed.

So now starts the tedious process of gathering & zipping all my photos into groups for installing into Files Forever. Just uploaded all the pictures & video from the zoo & wild animal park which joins the Apocalyptica stuff already up there. But there’s so much more to go! Thank heavens for 2Mbps upload speed at work!

First I need to know what it is, so doing research online to figure out what the latest in fico is.

* Each credit bureau does their own FICO score and yours can be different between the three . If you get your score from somewhere else, it may an “educated guess” score that doesn’t represent an actual score.

* There’s a new “VantageScores” system that’s a joint venture between the three credit bureaus that has a different range scale and etc, started 2 years ago. Not sure how much this is used yet.

Got all that from this site which was pretty descriptive for an overview of the scoring system and what the latest is: Your credit score: how it all adds up

4 steps to better credit – basic stuff that is exactly what I’m doing now. What I’m after here is more about what I can do to raise the score which is Steps #2 and #3 but this is at myFico.com and the page promises that I can find all this elsewhere on the site.

Argh! Apparently not every credit bureau that sells you your score sells the actual one!! That can’t be legal!!

The score you bought from TransUnion is their consumer version of your credit score, but it’s not your FICO score. Many different websites sell credit scores to consumers, but only myFICO.com and Equifax.com sell actual FICO scores to consumers. In fact, you may be surprised to know just how many different credit scores are sold to consumers – most of which are never used by lenders.

Here’s another good link that is a pdf brochure that really breaks down the components of what affects a FICO score.

It’s a little shocking to me to realize that late payments are 35% of the FICO consideration. Cause it hasn’t been that long ago since I got back on track and current with everything. Ugh. Upside is that age of the late payments is also included. The older the late payment instance, the less of a negative impacton the score.

It’s not that I didn’t know before that late payments affected the score but I didn’t realize just how important they are.

So far it seems that keeping the refinancing of my auto loan open will be a positive effect. It’ll only take $75 to pay it off and close the acct but looks like it’ll count as an installation loan that has very good payment history & current balance to original balance ratio.

Equifax has a 3-in-1 monitoring service for $14.95/mo that looks worth while.

I ended up buying the “Complete Credit” pkg from myFico.com for $38 (it’s $50 but used MW01 for 20% off). It’ll give me complete credit reports from all three bureaus plus current FICOs from each as well.

YAY!! I was expecting to see numbers in a different 100s bracket but I’m one whole level above!

And the best recommendation they have for me in the score simulator is to pay off 90-100% of my debt in the next 24 months.

Which I’m already on track to do.

Nicole just reminded me that while I could focus on starting to save for possibly finally buying a house one day (downpayment), that aside from keeping the ER fund, best to just pay off the debts asap because of the interest… which is an excellent point since even with getting out from the interest rape on my auto loan, the other little debts (all under $2k) are around 20%.

I have noticed the interest rates go down on some of them which is good.

The forums on MyFico.com are also very informative… in particular this thread about sending PFD letters to help get bad things off your account. Looks like for the most part I can only hope to send GW (goodwill) letters to try and knock off some of the negative things but there’s one place that a PFD is called for. a PFD letter essentially offers to pay the amount or part of without admitting debt ownership or liabilty in exchange for complete removal from the credit reports.

**wrote this last night but was too lazy to look up the right tags.

So I’ve learned a lot from the MyFico.com forums (just bookmark this for deciphering acronyms). I also really recommend the site All About the Benjamins, in particular this pag: Breakdown of the credit report. I’ve identified what I need to do. Now just need to do them!

* write two GW letters to the two creditors who have reported late payments

* write a PFD for another.

* Leave the auto loan open in prepaid status til it ends. Then make final payment and close it. Doing this will add an extra 2 years of this being on my credit report and being counted in a positive fashion in multiple ways.

* Focus on reducing revolving debt asap (over installment debt).

Still haven’t received any other post cards yet but I have at least 10 received postcards between the 2 accounts now so anticipate getting some this week.

My snapfish order arrived Saturday. Not too bad! Only problem is that they put the “stamp” mark halfway down the postcard instead of in the upper corner where it belongs. That really weird because surely they would have noticed and fixed it by now. I’m also not thrilled that they put their logo advertisement on the bottom left corner too because I PAID for these, no free advertising!! I might try Moo.com next.  But I did get a discount on the order which made it cheaper than Moo.

Click the pictures to see the full album of pictures from the hike.

People started showing up when we finished the trail through the 2nd park. There was a single picnic bench so we went and got our lunches and picnicked among the Joshua Trees. The sun felt good.

It was still early afternoon so we decided to go on up to Tehachapi and check out the monastery that I knew was tucked into the mountains above it. But it ended up being closed or at least we figured it out after going in the unlocked doors and finding no one around. They must have all been offsite because no one came out from any of the other buildings either.

We ate at Kelcy’s with K and ended up laughing ourselves silly with very inappropriate conversations. For dessert, K & I got the Tehachiberry pie which was an invention of the cook’s. It was a basic pie with both blackberry & raspberry filling. I got it a la mode because I’m really an ice cream person. I enjoy a pie slice here and there but not really into them in general. However, this pie was SO good that I couldn’t stop exclaiming and moaning over it. Nicole was so surprised that she asked if they were going to have to wipe down the booth after I was done! But it was really that good. I ate all of the pie and left half the ice cream melting on the plate. I didn’t even want to mix them.

Then we went post card hunting but pickings were slim among the stores that were still open which was surprising. Oh well.

All in all that was a really good Sunday! It was very relaxing and felt good to be out in the sun. Though next time, I will try to remember chapstick because today I’m feeling a little wind burn on them still.

* Also list green corset.

* PostCrossing: Get Tattoo picture and mail it out to RR people, Buy map postcard and mail it, mail the Hairspray card.

* Finish DA Newsletter

* Write Mina’s story and post to website

* Double check tax papers and meet with Susan to hand it over. Became file for extension cause Susan can’t meet til after the 15th.

* Start NaBloPoMo challenge for April: Letters. Register LP for the challenge.

* Finish trying to get 3rd desktop working. If can’t, pull RAM and put it in the other two.

* Finish reading Pleasure of my Company by Steve Martin & return to library by Friday night.

* Order Sunset photo as postcards from Snapfish.com

Cool… 7/10 done this week. Well really it’s 6.5 because TurboTax is being an ass about my password so I can’t get in yet to see the numbers I need for filing the extension.

It was the first time going since the class 3 weeks previous. That night was the first time going to the class but the 2nd time on skates again. And my knee still was very sore from a bad fall onto it 3 days earlier. When I say bad fall, I mean bad. Going to the first class pushed it too hard and it felt even worse the next day so I’ve waited this time til it was healed or at least no pain unless I press on the sore spots. It did make for some interesting bruise patterns all over my leg including one down by my ankle though it was my knee that I landed on.

I digress.

Despite the knee problems, I’d found that I was starting to remember more and more of the moves, or rather that my body remembered the motions even if the muscles weren’t up to it yet. One of my old favorite tricks was to come to a stop in a twirl. And I did it a couple times that night before realizing that I was doing something that novice skaters can’t do. So despite the fact that I was woefully out of shape and practice, my confidence was up and I was excited to be getting my old skating skills back.

However, this past Tuesday was a nightmare. Everything was incredibly difficult and I kept losing momentum way before everyone else. I couldn’t understand why it was until one of the instructors commented to me that he was sorry but they weren’t allowed to adjust the rental skates for us. But if I had my own skates, he could adjust them and solve my problems.

D’oh!

It turns out that the pair of rental skates I had that night were extremely tight which is why I got foot & calf cramps almost immediately while trying to do the skating motions being taught. I basically had cement blocks with wheels strapped to my feet. The trucks had almost no give at all.

After the lesson, Ryan prodded me to go exchange the skates for a better pair but they were all pretty crappy. The one pair that had a decent flex to the truck was also missing a nut so the shoe was starting to come off the skate. I pointed it out to the skate attendant who was doing his best to not show how annoyed and put out he was by us though there was no one else waiting. I finally picked a pair and when I got out on the rink… oh man it felt like I was skating on a badly paved road. Plus there was a mysterious bump under my right big toe that was quick starting a blister. I think I held out for about 15 minutes and then finally called it quits and got off. My legs were worn out from the hour of being on those previous skates.

It was very demoralizing but one of our classmates, Roxy, chatted us up. Turns out that she’d just gotten her own skates and was loving the difference. She’d also suffered from the rental skates and had even taken a picture of the best ones she’d been able to find so that she could use it to match and find the same pair again next time.

And I seem to remember how smooth and easy it was when I had my own skates long ago.

I do enjoy it and Ryan seems to be getting a kick out of it too. He’s having trouble learning some of the moves but is being very game about it and keeps trying. So perhaps worth shelling out the bucks for a pair.

BTW I was shocked to find out from Dad that when I was doing those private lessons and becoming a competitive skater, that I did it only for a summer. It felt like longer. I remember very well why I stopped. I’d gotten to the point where I had to practice moves that would involve falling down a lot til I mastered the balance.

I’m working my way up to it to keep from feeling overwhelmed with trying to accomplish too much at once.

Here’s a picture of yesterday’s salad which is the same as today’s except that I was too tired last night to grill another chicken breast for today’s salad.

Split between the two tubs:

• 1  pkg of romaine hearts
• 1 pkg of spinach
• the rest of the cherry tomatos that were getting old
• handful of cashews
• some shredded cheddar/monterey jack cheese
• what was left of a thing of garlic herb feta cheese

The chicken was really good yesterday and was simple to do.

I eat these without any dressing. Usually there’s enough wet stuff in the salads to make it wet enough to eat. The red pepper I had from last week had already started to mold so only had tomatoes for moisture for these.

Between the different flavors, these are tasty enough to eat without dressing anyways!

At some point need to go by Trader Joes for the dried cherries which is another thing I love in these.

Hmmm… I think I’ll put some of these tangerines on my desk into today salad.

Anyways, it was of Insel Ruger which is Island of Ruger. It shows chalk cliffs and water. Pretty. But what made me squeal about it was when I turned it over and saw this:

I heart Astrid Lindgren whose wonderful imagination brought us Pippi Longstocking!

Anyways, I sent out three more postcards yesterday having found the Hairspray one for the movie postcard loving PC’er and gotten a map card for the map card fanatic. So that brings my total to 12 sent (5 received).

I’ve sent to Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Finland (2), Netherlands, Thailand, Germany (2), Estonia, Brazil & Lithuania.

Today I’m sending out to new country Taiwan and again to Finland & Estonia.  15 postcards sent of 50 for the goal.