MUCH better, thankyouverymuch…

I’m pleased to announce that yesterday ended at midnight, and I was asleep nearly two full hours before then. So the day that started badly at least ended well enough.

As for my car… well, the good news is that it only required $1400 in service. The bad news would have been a LOT worse. See, turns out the timing belt slipped, thus throwing the engine way out of tune, ensuring it wouldn’t run. However, on TDI engines, if the timing belt breaks, valves slam into pistons and you’re looking at a new cylinder head, if not a new engine outright. That, my friends, would set me back about $4000. So $1400 is good news indeed. And at least I get quite a bit for my money; a new timing belt (so we’re good there for another 120k or so), a new water pump (ditto), and a new EGR valve. With those taken care of, the big nagging worry is gone (the timing belt) and the minor driveability issues I’d been having should be cured.

Of course, I still need to deal with the exhaust issue, but that’s something else entirely.

House: dammit, we’re SO close… the lender wants to do some due diligence because I’m still in my probationary period at work, but otherwise we have it. Until they give the all-green, however, our financing condition stays. And here I thought we’d have it all put to bed on Monday. Silly me…

To end off on a positive note: the kids went to bed without much trouble, and it’s going to go down to 9°C tonight so the house will get nice and cool. (Too bad all the neighbours can’t seem to figure that out – I’m listening to the hum of air conditioners as I type.) It’ll be nice to have a good, deep, cool sleep. Yeah.