1.21 Giga-Watts

1.21 giga-watts! Great Scott! Apparently that is what it will take for my "flux capacitor" to start in cold weather. And my battery doesn't quite have enough juice to accomplish that. In fact, I tested it and it came up just shy of 1.21 giga-watts. At least I figured this out on Sunday and not at 6am on Monday morning when I had to leave for the airport.

On another note, I forgot to mention a few other recent happenings. Several days after I replaced the glow-plugs, I went out one morning to start the car and nothing. Bupkus. It wouldn't even turn over. It was almost as if someone had disconnected the battery. I checked everything I could check and decided that the starter must be bad. So I called AAA and they towed it to my local Benz mechanic a few miles away. The next day, he called me and gave me the perverbial "I have good news and bad news" comment. Gulp (again)! Of course I asked for the bad news first, cuz I'm such an optimistic guy. He said the bad news was that they had to work on the car right there in the parking lot because they couldn't get it into the shop without hooking up some tow chains. Okkkkk.....The good news? They checked the glow-plug relay and it was good. They checked the starter and it was good. In fact, everything checked out good. It turns out that a ground wire on the starter had come unhooked. A simple reconnection and that was it! Wow, it never works out like that.

To top it all off, he told me that he had been looking for some seats from a junker to replace the seats in my car. If I didn't mention it, my seats were 25 years old. And apparently some 300 pound "little" old lady had been driving it that whole time and bouncing up and down in it. Not only that, but her best friend was also 300 pounds and whenever they drove to their weekly hair appointment, they both bounced the whole way. After 25 years of that, the springs were shot, the cushions were shot, and there were a few tears in the leather. Back to the point...he found some seats that were in great shape and they were mine (at cost) if I wanted them. Yesssssssss! That makes for a much better drive, trust me. I can actually see over the steering wheel now. Oh, and did I mention that I replaced the seats myself? Yet another notch on my "budding mechanic" belt of honor.

So what's next? Several people have told me recently that they actually read this blog, and all have asked me why I haven't written in a while. I guess the answer to that is now that I have the thing working, what do I really have to say? I suppose by creating a blog specifically about the Merzola, I have painted myself into a corner where I can only write about the car, or things having something to do with the car. If you thought that, then you are dead wrong. In addition to occasional updates about the Merzola, I shall now write about random things and make futile attempts to link that randomness to the yellow grease wagon. Maybe next week I will interview John McCain and Barack Obama and post their responses to a variety of environmental-related questions, such as (you guessed it) alternative fuel. I am sending a meeting invite to them now.