A new battery

This isn't particularly exciting, but I got a new battery for the Jetta last week. The battery suffered pretty badly this winter after I ran it down and had to have it jumped. This time it just didn't have enough juice to start the car. Fortunately, we have two cars! So the adventure began.

Took the Volvo and slowly juiced up the Jetta. This took nearly 20 minutes. I think every time during that 20 minutes that I tried to start the Jetta, it went back to no juice. So after a while I just kind of gave up and waited.

Drove over to the Autozone and left the car running in the parking lot. Can you check my battery? Well, yes, but it'll need to be able to recover from a load being put on it. Oh. Can you jump it if it doesn't start then? Yes. Well, let's just check if you have the battery. We do. It's $119. (This, I found out, is the typical price for this particular battery.) Can you put it in? No. Why? Well, on your VW -- and this is only on VWs -- you need to use a tool that holds the computer's memory while you take out the battery. Otherwise, it'll completely reset, the fuel injection won't work, and the car won't start. Oh. Maybe you can see if Firestone across the street could install it. Went over to Firestone. Left the car running, again. Will you install this? Eh, well, usually we don't do it that way. Do you have the battery? No, but we can order it. (Lot of good that'll do me.) How about I just bring it from them and have you install it? Ok. Go back to Autozone, car still running. Buy damn battery. Firestone, 45 minutes later. Take old battery back to Autozone for core refund ($12). Car is now working like a champ.

The Firestone install was something like $50. The car is 2.5 years old and has 75K on it. I guess I can live with that. Next year we'll have a garage, so the cold starts shouldn't be as bad. Although last year in Pittsburgh, the car was outside. Maybe it wasn't as cold. Eh.

An update on the house

So it looks like I'll have to concede on the spray-foam insulation. But wait! I will be getting something better. The company that does all the Ryland contracts also does blow-in-bag insulation (BIB). What they do is put a "net" over the framing and then fill in the spaces with fiberglass bits that have a bit of glue on them. It's not supposed to settle like some blow in processes. It's an extra $3,000, but allegedly it'll be worth it. But again, there's an issue. Namely, if they say it's so good, then why aren't they going to do air balancing and maybe give me a smaller HVAC unit?

Whatever.

At this point I just want it to start. We still haven't been called about going in to pick cabinet colors and the like. And the house won't start until that party starts.