It all started back in March of 2008. I bought the wrong car. I mean, a Honda is a Honda, right? They are all perfect vehicles, aren't they? Apparently not. I managed to find one of those rare Hondas, the kind that is only a few years old and burns oil almost as fast as gasoline. And of course, the problems with the car were all my fault. Had I only sought the advice of a real mechanic (like Cydnee's brother Tracey) before I jumped headfirst into this pool of financial ruin, it never would have happened. I'd bought a car that needed a lot of extra care, and there was no one to blame but myself.
Fast forward to November of 2009. Lyndsee had just entered the world, and not more than 24 hours after carrying mother and child safely home from the hospital, the Accord started running rough. A quick inspection of vital fluids revealed a low oil level, not even a trace on the dipstick. Five quarts of oil later, the engine was running fine and a cataclysmic disaster was narrowly avoided. Until two days later, when no amount of oil would sooth the Accords fragile organs. Internal engine problems. Lost compression. A burned valve. I could not have been in more trouble if I had cracked the engine open and drank the oil myself. We were relegated to a single car family. Panic and irrational fear quickly set in.
After contemplating multiple options, I took the chickens way out and bought Cydnee the minivan she always wanted. (And by always I mean ever since Cydnee's sister Dawn got one and actually liked it). Out of fairness to Cydnee she didn't particularly want it in November of 2009. She did in October of 2009 when it seemed that was the only reasonable way to get around with four kids. And she was pretty happy with it in December of 2009 when she was driving it. But in November of 2009, when a car purchase we could not afford seemed the easiest way out of the predicament my transgression of March 2008 brought, we had to wonder how we got into a situation with so little options. (For the record, Cydnee was open to other options as well, like buying a newer Land Cruiser and selling the old one. But since we couldn't find any newer Land Cruisers for sale in Las Vegas, and if we had gotten a newer Land Cruiser we'd always have to worry about scratching it off road, getting a third car made the most sense in my mind)
Bolstered by the confidence of knowing that nothing I could do to the Accord could make it run worse, I started taking pieces and parts off the engine and stacking them on the roof of the car. Some things came off easily. Others resulted in broken parts that would ultimately have to be replaced. But finally I got the cylinder head off. After holding it for a minute to make sure nothing was leaking, I tried to lift it on the roof of the car with all of the other displaced parts. As the oil came pouring down on me that Christmas Eve on my nice, new clothes, I realized I had never checked to see if any fluid leaked off the head when I tipped it. Ooops.
I can't really say thank-you enough to Tracey for the relentless barrage of phone calls for assistance, or for helping out for several precious hours while he was in town, but we got the burnt valve replaced, everything cleaned up, put the head back on the engine, and even managed to fit in a timing belt and water pump replacement. As Tracey headed back home, my wife looked at the Accord with so many part still on the roof and asked, "Now how are we going ever get your car put back together? Are we going to have to take it to a mechanic?"
Slowly all the parts came back together. There were only a few minor mishaps, like dropping my 10mm wrench into the exhaust pipe, requiring several hours of my unskilled labor to figure out how to get it out. Ultimately the pieces came together and there was an eerie void of extra parts. Could the car really be drivable again? I started it up. It ran really well. I was getting pretty excited. I took it out for a spin. It ran good for a little while, and then the engine started stalling whenever I came to a stop.
Not good. The stalling engine had been one of the final symptoms before the Accord become undrivable in the first place. What had I missed? Cydnee wanted to know what I did wrong when I put it back together. With some more pointers from Tracey I tracked the problem down to an EGR valve that was stuck open. I clean the part. I put everything back together. The car ran like a charm. It was fixed, or was it?
Having put the final cosmetic pieces back on the Accord, I took it to the local car wash to clean off all the debris on the roof from months of housing displaced parts. As I accelerated onto the freeway, something went wrong. The engine kept revving after I took my foot off the gas. Finally I killed the engine as there was nothing else I could do. I coasted to the side of the road, defeated. What had I done wrong? Was this car truly possessed?
After searching frantically for a screwdriver somewhere in the car, I found a cheap little freebie from a recent computer show. While it wasn't an easy task, I finally got the inadequate tool to loosen the intake hose off the throttle body for a closer look. There had to be something holding the throttle open. But what could it be? And then I saw it...my flashlight. The flashlight I had set on the air filter, and apparently had forgotten to remove before closing everything up. I pulled it out and everything worked like a charm again.
It took me a little longer to get the car washed than it should have, and I decided if Cydnee were to ask I would tell her about the delay, but otherwise, did she really need to know how absent minded her husband really was? No, not really. After suffering humiliation and shame for dropping my wrench in the exhaust pipe, spilling oil all over my new clothes, not checking the oil often enough in November to prevent a burnt valve, and ultimately buying the wrong car in the first place, I decided to just let this slip by without suffering another humiliating defeat in front of my lovely wife.
I was safe. The car was running well. Cydnee was none the wiser about my little flashlight episode. I didn't really deceive her. She just never asked and I chose not to tell. Of course something as monumental as leaving a flashlight in your car, allowing the air to push it towards the inside of the engine was too big a story to be hidden long. Cydnee called me two days later to ask me if I was going to tell her the flashlight story. I was caught. I confessed.
Am I the only man out there to casually forget to mention something stupid I did to avoid embarrassment? Probably not. And I probably won't be the last. After all, we are men. I probably should have fessed up in the beginning. It was a really funny story. I mean, how often do you get to pull a flashlight out of your engine? And the Accord is doing much better. It has been cruzin around town like nothing ever happened. I had a lot of fun working on the car. It's great to get your hands dirty sometimes. I learned a tremendous amount, and feel a great sense of accomplishment. While I really enjoy working on cars, our next car problem can wait a couple of months, can't it?
We met up with Mike and Jasper (some friends from our neighborhood) and spent some time doing some climbing around without ropes.
Will, Reagan, Abe, Taylor and Lilly
Will, Reagan, Abe, Taylor and Lilly
Reagan's legs coming out of a hole. (This picture cracks me up.)
Will showing off his scratch he got while climbing around.
Reagan in her princess house.
Getting to the top was always the goal. 
