Where’s the Oil?

When I was a kid, there was a commercial on television that showed some guys in a lab running engines that allegedly had no oil in them. The point of the commercial was probably something about how one engine was better than another because it could run with no oil, but I don't recall those irrelevant details. The important thing is that they were allegedly running without oil.

My wife's van is putting on some miles. We just crossed the 100K boundary a short while ago and we're on way to seeing just how far a Windstar can go. What we didn't plan on was testing the truth in advertising from my childhood. We didn't intend to drive it with no oil.

I guess you can probably see where this is going. On Tuesday morning Leah called to say that she had seen the oil light on her dashboard flash on and that she had stopped to check the oil. She then went on to say that the engine had no oil in it. Of course, I replied that she must be looking at it wrong. That would be practically impossible. We just had the oil changed a month or so back, so for us to lose 4-5 quarts of oil in such a short timeframe would mean that there is either a huge black puddle in my garage or that the van would be pouring smoke like James Bond trying to get away from Dr. No (or whatever movie he used a smoke screen in). Ladies note that I didn't say that just because she's a girl, I said it because it didn't make rational sense.

Anyway, when she got to the office, she had Mark (senior pastor) go ahead and check the oil. He agreed with her original assessment and graciously went to the store to pick up some oil for the van. He ended up putting four quarts of oil in the engine. Four quarts! How in the world did the van lose four quarts of oil with no external signs? This just didn't make any sense.

Since I had a meeting in Arlington, I headed home early after the meeting and met Leah at our mechanic's place. Joe (the mechanic) and I (of course in a white dress shirt) put the van up on the rack and took a look at the underside. We hunted and hunted for a leak but we couldn't find anything. There was no evidence of oil being blown back on the undercarriage as you would expect if it leaked while driving, and of course, neither of us have noticed the van smoking meaning that it is unrealistic to expect that that much oil had burned off in a short period of time.

Next step: I headed back to the scene of the last oil change. The Sachse Kwik Kar has been doing the oil changes on both the van and car since we moved to Sachse, and they have generally been a great place to do business. They typically don't find anything else to service on either vehicle and they even helped Leah out with a windshield wiper issue free of charge a couple of weeks ago. Tuesday was a little different story, though.

In all fairness, the guys that I saw on Tuesday were unfamiliar to me, but here's what transpired. I pulled in and told them that I wanted to know what happened to my four quarts of oil. They were the last ones to work with the oil until we put four quarts in that morning, and I needed to know what happened. The guy got under and started checking around and a few minutes later he came out and told me that there were no leaks. I said, "Okay, I didn't think there were, so where did my oil go?"

"Out the tailpipe," he replied.

Looking for clarification I asked, "What do you mean out the tailpipe?"

He explained, "Oil burns off the engine and is transferred out the tailpipe."

I inquired for further information, "So what you're saying is that the missing four quarts of oil burned off my engine and out the tailpipe over the course of the last several weeks?"

"Absolutely!"

Not one to take an answer at face value, I pressed further, "So if you knew that an engine was burning oil at that rate, would you expect to see a ton of blue smoke coming out the exhaust pipe or not?"

"Well of course it's going to smoke to high heaven."

Now we're getting somewhere, "Alright, well did you see my van smoking when I drove it in here?"

"No sir, I did not."

"So, do you think it's possible that there is another explanation?"

With a look of consternation, he stooped down to the tailpipe, swiped his finger on the inside and showed me a black smudge on his index finger, "All I can tell you is that that is oil."

"Really?" I asked, not looking one bit convinced. "I figure that pretty much every car out here is going to have black residue in the tailpipe, so that doesn't impress me much, and I think we would both expect more of a bluish white residue if it was burning oil. How about we try to come up with a more plausible explanation?"

"Well, sir, I don't have any other explanation."

Still unsatisfied, I inquired further, "Do you think it's possible that the last time my van was in here that it left without enough oil?"

"That's ridiculous and impossible. If your engine didn't have oil, it wouldn't have run this long."

"Whoa, buddy. I'm not saying it left here with no oil. I'm asking if it's possible that it just didn't have enough oil. Maybe I got shorted two or three quarts and it burned off the rest in the normal course of driving."

"Sir, that is absolutely impossible," he protested, "we have a 16 point inspection system and our mechanics are highly trained and efficient. There is absolutely no way that any of them could possibly allow a vehicle to leave here without the proper amount of oil."

"Well, I understand that you have systems and processed in place to prevent this and it sounds like the idea that one of your employees made a mistake is about as ludicrous to you as the idea that my engine burned four quarts of oil in four weeks sounds to me."

Unapologetically he responded, "Listen, if you want to know what's wrong with your engine you can take it to our approved mechanic and I'm sure that he can tell you what needs to be fixed."

"I'm sure that he can, but I think for now that I'm going to stay away from your associates."

Now, how hard would it have been for them to have offered to comp me an oil change, verify that level of the oil, and help me monitor the vehicle for a few hundred miles or so to help me determine the issue? They didn't have to lose a customer over this, but now they are not only losing me but also any of you that might have ever gone there in the future. Too bad.

Fight or Flight

Three weeks in a row softball has been rained out. Oh well, at least I can keep up with Heroes. Highlight below to see more.

So, Matt wanted Molly to find his dad and then he didn't want to go see him. Does that make sense to anyone except Matt? Then he finally meets his dad (with the encouragement of Nathan) and seems surprised to discover that the guy has powers of the mind, too. And how stupid do you have to be let yourself get locked in a dark room with a psychic? And not just a psychic at that, the man that put Molly basically in a coma from another state. The guys says, "I'm sorry. I really love you," and all of Matt's police training goes out the window. Interestingly, though, while in the dream that Matt's dad put them in, Matt saw Janice and the baby and she claimed that the baby is his. At the same time, Nathan himself again as Mr. Scars, and I still don't know what that's all about. I did think that it was interesting to find that Matt and Nathan were fighting each other, but they did't realize it until Matt apparently realized at some point that he could control the dream.

Hiro and Kensei are still wandering around medieval Japan tyring to fix history and doing unknown amounts of damage to the present. For example, Ando has taken Hiro's writings (which still don't make sense given that Hiro can travel through space and time) and given them to some kind of expert in ancient scrolls. Tell me that's not going to change the history of Kensei. Is Ando crazy? He's just revealed a potentially huge historic find for Japan.

Peter is really starting to get into the Irish chick (no pun intended) and Mrs. Lightning shows up to rain on the party (no pun meant there either). Anyway, Peter finally opened the box with his identity, and there was nothing of importance in it. Why in the world did they spend three episodes building up the box and then have it be a worthless prop? Thankfully, though, Peter's new girlfriend is a painter, so he had a chance to use his painting the future power on a blank canvas that she had sitting on an easel. Now we just need to figure out who is in the painting and where are they? Peter supposed Montreal because he had a ticket to go there, but I'm thinking New Orleans since the street names are in French.

Mrs. Lightning, on the other hand, failed to apprehend her prey and killed someone in the process. That seems to have made her father angry and so now she appears to be headed back to wherever she came from. I wonder if it was her father that set Peter up to be found in that container in the first place. But, then again, if that's true, why not send his daughter in before now?

Mr. Bennett and the Haitian are supposed to be in the Ukraine, but in an uncharacteristic moment for the show, it looked more like they were in a poorly painted alley in the back lot of an old movie studio. Honestly, I don't even know why that scene was included in the episode, but if it was because it turned out better than what they had planned to show of Maya and Alejandro wandering around Mexico trying to find America, then it was worth it.

Micah, down in New Orleans, revealed his secret to his cousin, Monica after he realized that she has a power, too. I was ready for something cool when they decided to go test it out, but who in the world would choose to jump rope with that power? And to make matters worse, the next time we see her, she's learning Kung Fu from a Bruce Lee movie! Have they fired all the good writers and filled in with random people off the street? The only interesting thing that happened here was Mohinder showing up on her doorstep. I wonder if he'll recognize Micah.

Before Mohinder went to New Orleans, though, he took Molly to the company. Isn't this the same guy that rescued Molly from the company last season? Isn't this the same company that wanted to exploit her power to find all of the "specials"? So why do Mohinder and Bob act like none of that ever happened? I'm still missing something in the storyline there. But since Mohinder was there, we got a brief cameo of Niki/Jessica who is apparently still alive and well. Jessica seems to realize that things are really going well there and she wants out. Niki seems to be drugged and doesn't care. I have changed my mind since last season, though, and realize that she's definitely not the weakest character they could come up. "Hey, watch me double-dutch with my super power," has completely trumped the Niki/Jessica bomb.

Guns, Beer, and Skeet

I stayed with my brothers this weekend for a little man time. Jeffrey, Logan, and I all hung at Jeffrey's house in Bossier and we had a great time playing video games, watching movies, and we even got to catch a Mudbugs (local CHL team) game on Saturday night. Overall, it was an awesome weekend.

For entertainment on Saturday, I bought a skeet thrower and we all pitched in on some skeet and shells. Jeffrey came up with the location since his company just acquired some land outside of town for riding ATVs, and we were all set. We headed out to the land with the intent of setting up in one of the pastures, shooting some skeet, and heading home. Little did we know, the entertainment had only just begun.

When we got to the property, we were surprised to find that Scott (the owner of Jeff's company), his dad, and at least a half-dozen other guys (and girls) were all out on the property riding their ATVs. We didn't want to be rude, so we stopped and spoke to everyone there. It wasn't long, though, before the fateful question was asked: "What are you guys doing out here without a 4-wheeler?"

Of course, we had to answer truthfully which turned out to be our first mistake. "We're just gonna shoot some skeet…" And while the rest of that sentence would have been, "…in that pasture over there," it was never heard over the SCHICK SCHICK of at least a dozen shotguns in unison. Where cans of LoneStar and Coors had been, there was now a full arsenal of weaponry. Pockets that I thought were only big enough to hold oversized wallets, skoal, and a pocketknife were apparently also hiding shotgun shells. I mean to tell you, we no more got the word "skeet" out of our mouths and the beers went to the ground and the guns came out. "Where they at?" a chorus of twangy voices echoed while Jeffrey and I tried to regain our composure and figure a way out of having these half drunk, well armed locals shoot all of our skeet. And let me tell you, that's not the kind of "on-the-fly" thinking I normally do. It really is different when the guy (or girl) on the other side of the table has a loaded weapon.

We agreed to let them shoot a few that we threw in the air, and then Scott encouraged them to continue riding with him. Thank you, Scott! If we had broken out the actual skeet thrower, I'm pretty sure that we'd have never gotten them to leave. I did tell Jeffrey that it might have been funny to take the skeet thrower back apart and watch them try to assemble it, though. Jeffrey and I together (and straight up sober) took about an hour to put the thing together and we had to redo several parts of it several times before we got it right. Assembling that thing with anything less than a PhD in Astrophysics is nigh impossible. I don't know how the manufacturer figures that a country boy is going to put down his LoneStar and cigarette long enough to get that thing assembled. My bet is that they have a 70% return rate and most of those have scratches and holes due to the fact that the owner gave up on putting it together and just started shooting at the pieces.

Ours was already assembled by the time we arrived at the field, though, so we just set it up and starting having fun. Logan went 5 for 5 his first time out which just proves that he is Dan Doughty's son. You don't need a paternity test when you see a kid shoot like that. Jeffrey and I took a little longer to get going, but we started smoking them, too, before long. About the time we got to the end of our second case, the ATV riders returned. We were tired and ready to go home. They were tired of riding, on the verge of being drunk, and ready to break out the firearms. That's when we made our second mistake.

Jeffrey put a few mostly whole skeet under the twine of a nearby hay roll and pulled out his .45 pistol. Well, these guys weren't going to just sit around and watch. Jeffrey fired a few rounds and cracked the target. Good shooting. Then Jeffrey handed the pistol over to one of the riders. This guy took six shots and missed every time at which point he turned to Jeff and I and said, "Looky here. Ifn there's any ol' boy up in my place, he ain't gonna be standin' still waitin' on my ter shoot 'im; he's gonna be a movin'. Whatcha gotta do is throw sum dem skeet up in the air yonder 'n' I'll bust der eyes out." Jeffrey and I disarmed him and pointed him back to the cooler. The last thing he needed to be doing was waving a pistol around.

Next up: Michael. I took my stance and got one round off when I hear Jeffrey hollering at me, "Michael, move! Get down! Get outta there!" What the heck. I turned around and I was looking down the barrel of a .357 Magnum. One of them old boys on the 4-wheeler behind me had done pulled out his own pistol and was drawing down over my shoulder. I said, "Hey, this ain't the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show, man!" To which he replied, "Naw, it's good. I can drive nails with this thang!" I said, "Maybe so, but they ain't gonna be the nails in my coffin!"

Now I know what you're thinking. We should have left a long time ago, but certainly by that point we should have been out of there. We weren't, though, and you've really got to understand that it wasn't so much a question of whether we wanted to leave. It was more a question of whether it would be safe to leave. Trust me. We were outmanned and outgunned. No single one of them could have hit us (or the truck for that matter) but together someone was bound to get lucky (or unlucky if you were in my truck).

Regardless, we didn't leave at that point. No, we set up some more skeet as targets while they took turns shooting the .357. Shortly after, though, someone says, "Well, that .357 is alright, but you can't take down any deer with that. Let's shoot my .30-30." Ought came the rifle, and more shooting ensued. Next I hear, "Ya know. The .30-30 is okay, but if ya want to hit anything, you gotta shoot my .30-06 with a scope." Out comes the second rifle.

Just to make sure that you are keeping up. So far, Jeffrey, Logan, and I all have shotguns. Jeffrey has a pistol. All of the riders have shotguns. One of them also has a pistol. Two of them also have rifles. There is a total of about 15 firearms in the field at this point.

Back to the story. They start shooting the .30-06 with a scope. They are still missing the target. Exasperated, Jeffrey says, "Let me give that a try." Politely, he listens while they tell him that he has to aim about an inch low at this range, but I know what he was thinking: "Why would I listen to you dorks. You haven't hit the target yet." Calmly, he takes his stance. Slowly, he adjusts his aim and squeezes the trigger. BOOM! CRACK! Nearly instantaneously the feedback from his shot is a cracked target. Dead on. I mean, isn't that what you expect from a scoped rifle? I guess the other guys were aiming at the one on the left (out of a vertical arrangement of targets) when they should have been aiming for the one in the middle.

At this point, two things happened. First, we heard someone mention that if you really wanted to do some damage you'd have to shoot his .50 caliber. Second, we made our goodbyes and quickly hopped in the truck. I just knew that showing them all up in one shot wasn't a good idea, and the only thing that I could imagine coming after a .50-caliber would be a tank from the woods (and it wouldn't have surprised me a bit). We needed to leave before things got any more out of hand.

Thankfully, we survived, and we learned a valuable lesson. If you ever feel threatened in the backwoods of Texas or Louisiana, just holler "Skeet!" listen for the response, "Where dey at?" and watch the guns appear seemingly from nowhere.