And Ji Seon left me for four days!  But fortunately she’s coming back this evening.  We’ve done okay, the kids have been great but I am a little tired.

These are my tweets from the last several days.

Family

• Ji Seon says to Victoria "You’re so demanding." Victoria responds "I want so demanding." Oct 19 09:45:10
• The wife is leaving me for four days. I am doomed. Please feel free to visit and help. Oct 22 06:31:59

Christianity

• RT @IJMHQ @JonathanMorgan: christianaudio » Free Audiobook – “Just Courage” by Gary Haugen of IJM. Highly recommend it! http://bit.ly/Ho7SN Oct 13 10:14:12
• Voices We Need to Hear: Randy Woodley. Maybe we should go to Native American Sweat Lodges to worship God on Columbus Day http://bit.ly/L6elR Oct 13 11:34:47
• 45 Slaves Rescued – @IJMHQ. IJM asked people to pray for this operation and now 45 slaves are freed! http://bit.ly/33D62e Oct 13 12:49:02

Food

• Little Duck Organics | Healthy Organic Snacks For Infants And Toddlers. Free sample! http://bit.ly/10t4Mq Oct 13 18:56:45
• French toast – Wikipedia. Used to be called German toast prior to WW1 but was changed because of anti-German sentiment. http://bit.ly/41vq98 Oct 13 08:04:36

Society

• From Budapest to Toronto: Eva’s Story of Slavery. It pains me to read about this happening in TO not that I’m surprised http://bit.ly/189IWS Oct 13 10:50:36
• "Why I Slept with 1300 Women" (End Human Trafficking – Change.org). Words cannot describe my disgust. http://bit.ly/147LcI Oct 13 10:51:47
• RT @johnbmarch @eugenecho: Reconsider Columbus Day? We don’t do enough to honor the hiSTORY of Native Americans: http://bit.ly/vn9Zh Oct 13 10:53:01
• Immigration, Fear, Cultural Idolatry and the Liberating Power of Faith. To be clear, love casts out fear, not immigrants http://bit.ly/YKHkB Oct 13 11:33:08
• RT @johnbmarch: today’s slaves are cheaper. 10x more slaves traded today than at height of trans-atlantic slave trade. http://bit.ly/HHfev Oct 13 14:24:50
• RT @Not_For_Sale: Author @DaveBatstone discusses his book ‘Not for Sale’ as part of the Authors@Google series. He’s cool http://bit.ly/fPPp2 Oct 13 14:32:43
• Half The Sky. The best way to fight poverty and extremism is to educate and empower women and girls. Sexism sucks. http://bit.ly/BsYR4 Oct 13 14:44:38
• RT @Not_For_Sale: Recent NLC report reveals supply chain that leads to Prius has sweatshop abuse and #humantrafficking http://bit.ly/4eXWUT Oct 15 16:28:10
• Seth’s Blog: The problem with cable news thinking. Personally I am concerned about Fox News but MSNBC is not innocent. http://bit.ly/4brRaC Oct 21 12:25:32

Sports

• Prediction: Yankees in 5 over Angels, Dodgers in 6 over Phillies. Oct 14 18:53:24

Finance

• RT @RealEstateRain: The Block – Real Estate : Most expensive homes in U.S. California has 8/10, Bay Area has 3 of those. http://bit.ly/4imB0 Oct 13 10:36:40

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1. Tweeting and tweeting

I am pretty good about regularly pumping up my tires ever since I discovered I can use the air pump for free at the Costco Tire Center.  Every time I get gas at my local, overcrowded Costco I then drive over and pump up the tires.

A few months ago I noticed one of the tires on my beloved Prius was a bit lower than the others. I just assumed it was random since it wasn’t very low.  After awhile though I noticed it was the same tire, my front left tire.  A few months ago when I got an oil change the tires were rotated and I was hoping that maybe now that it was in the rear it would not go as flat but it did not make a difference.

I continued running like this because the tire never seemed to get very low between fill ups. Also I had no idea where to go to get my tire patched and I was too lazy to figure out.

This pattern of inflating and deflating every two weeks fell apart when Ji Seon began filling up the car.  She did not know I inflated the tires and the tire became flatter and flatter.  Still I did not address the problem because I noticed my fuel mileage was still the same.  My laziness knows no bounds.

One day I showed my now quite flat tire to my car friend expert.  The expression on his face said “You know nothing about cars.  How can you do this to your car?”  (I am sure I have the same expression when some people show me their computers.)  But he was very polite and explained why I had to buy new tires since the side walls had been almost completely worn off.

I wasn’t sure where to go for replacement tires.  My friend suggested Costco lukewarmly.  Though one blog post recommended them the comments on that post weren’t that reassuring nor were the complaints about Costco Tire Center on this site and other sites.

I called Yarnell’s, my auto mechanics, and the receptionist suggested America’s Tire Co.  When I asked about Costco she said “Oh, they’re good too.”

When I asked what’s the difference the receptionist said “Oh they’re the same.”

I then called the mechanics my friend uses, Japanese Beetle.  The mechanic, who was very friendly, told me he sends all of his customers including himself to Costco Tire Center.  He said that some of his customers also use America’s Tire Co and Wheel Works.

After talking with everyone I decided to take a chance with Costco Tire Center so I went over yesterday afternoon and asked for a quote.  The serviceman strongly suggested the Michelin Energy Savers and quoted $600 to replace all four plus $70 off with the Costco coupon.  This was a lot more expensive than I expected.  I ended up asking to just replace the rear two tires and the quote was $300.  The wait he said though would be 2.5 hours and suggested I come back in the morning.

Update 10-28-2009: The price seems to have come down.  At Costco.com the tires are $121.99 and at Amazon.com they are $145.99.

That night I checked out different sites to see if I should get the Michelin Energy Savers like this forum.  There seemed to be no consensus about which tire to use for replacement.  In the end I decided might as well pay the extra, you usually get what you pay for.

I arrived at Costco Tire Center this morning at 9:30 AM but already I was too late, the expected wait was 2.5 hours again.  In the end I waited over three hours but fortunately I had my laptop with me.  Most of the time I waited inside Costco sitting on a lovely couch they are trying to sell.

Now I finally have a healthy tire as shown below.  Notice the green cap because the tire is filled with nitrogen.

Lesson learned.  Fix the flat for $20 instead of waiting to replace it for $300!

Update 10-28-2009: My mileage seems to have improved by about 7 mpg but part of that may have been because the tire was kind of flat before.

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2. Change Your Own Oil