My hat off to Jason

Well, dear readers, today I am posting to pay tribute to a good man.  No, a great man.  Jason Lillrose.

And, before I forget, no, Mom, I haven't ignored your request for a beard picture.  I just can't find my camera.  There will be a picture before there is shaving.

Anyway, back to Jason.  Faithful readers will remember that he helped me fix Lenny, allowing me to drive all the way to Michigan.  Lenny is mostly well these days, although he is having some small problems.  Ah, old cars.  But by helping me fix Lenny, he gave me more than a car that functions; Jason gave me confidence with cars.

Recently one of my lab-pals, Rachel, has started having car trouble.  It's her power-steering.  She took it to a shop, and they told her today that this part was broken.  For those of you who don't feel like going to that link, let me just say that it is a hose and costs $30 new.  The shop told her it would cost $112 plus 3 or 4 hours of labor to fix, totaling at about $280.  I told her to call BS on it, and she did.  I'm so proud of her.  She asked them very nicely to hold off fixing it till she could get another estimate. 

While Rachel was looking for another mechanic to call, the guy called her back and said he would do it for $220.  She said that was great, but she still wanted to make another call.  A few minutes later he called again and said he could do it for $170.

So, what's all this got to do with Jason?  He taught me everything I know about cars.  Except what the little trumpet button on my steering wheel does.  I learned that one all on my own.  But mostly, he taught me to look into things a bit myself.  It sounded fishy that a hose would cost over a hundred bucks, so I went to autozone's website and spent 3 minutes to find that it only cost 30.  Not much work.  But I would never have thought to do it before Jason taught me to.

So, Jason, you have saved me thousands of dollars (literally), and now I have passed your legacy on to Rachel, who has saved $100.  Thanks, buddy!