A few weeks ago, I replaced 4 brand new tires for our 2011 Toyota Sienna at Costco. They recommended wheel alignment. I was told about the lifetime wheel alignment service at Firestone.

Basically you get free wheel alignment until the end of the vehicle’s lifetime. You just have to pay $200. The deal sounded too good to be true. They must try to sell you other services as well.

I went for it today. I had never done any business at Firestone before. I didn’t make an appointment; therefore, it took about 3 hours. I was fine with that since I could do my work in the waiting area. There was no Wi-Fi, but I could hotspot through my iPhone.

They gave me a list of recommendations, but they did not try to sell me on them. I am cool with that. If this is truly a good deal, I will take my other car for the lifetime wheel alignment as well.

At this time, you can get $20 off for the lifetime wheel alignment. I am not affiliated with Firestone. I just think this is a good deal. So do your research.

The right (passenger) rear tired had 4 punctures. It was irrepairable. Since the tread reading for the tires was at 5/32, I went ahead and replace all four. The last time I replaced them was in December 2019. Thanks to this blog, I could pull up the information immediately. The tires were over 3 years; therefore, they needed to be replaced anyway. I ordered 4 new all-season Michelin Defenders at Costco. I needed new tires so I can go to the ski resorts this coming winter.

Tires, tax, and installation cost $880. I am going to need to an alignment as well. The cost of having a car.

The largest heating surface element on our Whirlpool’s stove burnt out. I followed this YouTube video to replace a new one. The process took about five minutes. The cleanup took almost an hour to get all the grease out of the entire exterior of the stove. The new heating element cost $110. The entire stove looks new again. The wife is happy; therefore, the life is also happy.

I wen to back Ravensworth Service for an inspection. The inspection took 10 minutes. My brake light burned out. The inspection cost $20 and the brake-light replacement cost $15. It was a fair deal.

I used Ravensworth Service years ago. It looks like the shop has gone through several management. From last year to this year, there are only two older Vietnamese technicians. They both are very nice, but their shop isn’t as busy as it used to be. I actually prefer that over Aalan’s Service. I was thrown off by Khang’s cockiness; therefore, I am going back to Ravensworth from now on.

Neither shop wanted to fix the AC issue. Driving in the heat without AC has been excruciating. Pumping refrigerant is no longer fixing the issue. There has a be a leak somewhere. I am not sure what to do with it. I am just going to drive it in the winter and decide next year what I want to do with it. Since I am now commuting using the Mason’s shuttle, I don’t need a car anymore. We still have the 2018 Sienna as our main vehicle for traveling.

I don’t want to spend any more money on car. It is such a waste, especially with all the maintenances and fixes. I don’t want to have to rely on a car anymore.

No, I didn’t have swollen nuts, but my minivan had. I took my 2011 Toyota Sienna to Costco for rotation and I received a call notifying me that the nuts were very swollen and they needed to be replaced. All 20 nuts were replaced at $1.80 a piece. The total was almost $40.

I spent my Sunday cleaning up our bathrooms. I started to get to work around 9 am. I wanted to do a deep clean since I hadn’t done it in a while. Scrubbed the toilets, the bathtub, the shower stand, and wiped down all the floors and the trims on the wall.

The worst part was removing the molding caulk in the shower stand. The process took me about two hours just to finish the square. The best part is that my wife will re-caulk it since she’s an expert on it. I am terrible at that type of handy, crafty job.

I am trying to do everything I can before the winter because I won’t want to do anything else on the weekend besides skiing and snowboarding in the winter. At leas, that’s the hope.

Back in July, we filled and patched the driveway, but didn’t seal it because the weather had been super hot, most day in the mid 90s F. Now the temperature is cooling down a bit in the 70s F. Today our kids get an extra day off for the Labor Day weekend. I decided to take off work as well. My wife, Đạo, and Đán sealed up the driveway. The process didn’t take too long. It feels great to check off another do-it-yourself project and saved about $5,000.

Materials

• 4 buckets of 4.75 Gal. Ultra Shield Driveway Filler Sealant ($120)
• 18 in. Driveway Squeegee ($18)

Total: $138

The cost for everything was $324. I hope it will last for another 3 to 5 years.

This morning my wife informed me that the shower head in her bathroom had been leaking. I opened up the valve to inspect. I looked up YouTube and came across “How to Fix Leaky Shower Tub Faucet” by Matt Taylor. I went to Home Depot to buy a single-handle replacement cartridge (Moen 1225). It also came with a white cap that can be used to losing up the old cartridge.

I also bought a cartridge puller for Moen made by Everbilt. This one was probably not necessary, but made removing the old cartridge with ease. I recommend it.

The process took about half an hour. Not bad for a Sunday home replacement project.

Parts

• Moen 1225 (Single-handle Replacement Cartridge ($23)
• Everbilt’s EvCartridge Puller for Moen 1200, 1222 and 1225 Series Tub/Shower Cartridges ($16)

Total: $39.

We had the 50-inch Hisense for 10 days and my wife was not happy with the quality. We went back to Costco today and I asked her to come to pick out what she wanted. We ended up with a Samsung 58-in Class for $380. I didn’t mind Hisense’s screen quality, but Samsung has a much better quality. I hope we’ll stick with this one. Nowadays, the TV is mostly used for the kids and their grandmother to watch YouTube. It’s hard to believe that YouTube has replaced TV cables.

Today I bought a brand new TV for the first time in almost two decades. The last TV was a hand down from my sister-in-law’s father-in-law. His son gave us his TV after he passed away. The brand was Vizio. We had it for almost a decade. In the past few weeks, the audio stopped working. We were watching silence TV.

Before the Vizio, my brother-in-law handed down to us a Samsung, which last 5 or 6 years. Before that I had a few hand-down tubes from my sister and her then husband. I didn’t care much for TV. I could live without it, but my mother-in-law and my kids still watch YouTube on TV.

I took the kids to Costco last evening and we picked up the cheapest one in the store, which was a 50-inch Hisense for $250. The quality looked decent on display. Another reason I went for it was the RCA connectors. I wanted to hook the audio to my refurbished Sony receiver my mother bought for me at a Sony Outlet when I was in seventh or eighth grade. Around the same time, She also bought me the Yamaha speakers at an electronic store that went out of business. I wanted to keep these equipments for many years to come. They reminded me of her.

It turned out that the RCA connectors behind the new Hisense TV were input instead of output. I should have paid attention. Fortunately, it also had a digital output. I will try the adaptor from digital output to RCA.

I hope that will work. I am still an old-school when it comes to video and audio technologies. I am getting antiquated as I am growing older. Oh well! That’s life.

Update: My wife bought the DAC 192KHz Digital to Analog Audio Converter and it works like a charm.