Specialized publications are $$$

I'm glad we got this at work. Granted, this one is a special edition, but if you look closely it cost $50 US! I did buy an edition of Racecar Engineering. Newstand price was $10.50 US....

Estimated time for working on cars =

However long you think it'll take, give yourself 3x that long. It's the rule of working on cars,; because no matter how simple something seems to be, something will make it extremely difficult and frustrating and much cursing like a sailor ensures.

What does a Lamborghini have in common with cheap European cars?

Automatic folding mirrors. Because the streets in the towns of Europe are so narrow, you have to fold them or risk having them knocked off. Granted, this is my gym parking lot....

How to create a traffic jam at midnight

Take the 405, which is anywhere from 5-8 lanes wide, merge in the 22 with another two lanes of traffic, and neck it all down to ONE lane of traffic going north! Yeah, that happened last night and I was stuck for 15-20 minutes.

Lexus owners don't change their own oil?

I guess that's what Lexus assumes. I went to change the oil on my mom's Lexus and opened the owners manual to locate the oil fitler and drain plug. Well.... there was info on how to check the oil, what oil to use, and how to reset the maintaince indicator. It doesn't actually tell you where the filter and drain plug are though however.

The drain plug was easy enough to find. The oil filter? Not so much. I crawled around under the car for a good 10 minutes with a flashlight before I finally found the filter; I had to remove the front undertray first to get to it.

Trusty floor pump

My $20 air compressor (I used it for pumping up my car tires) from Target finally broke after 10 years. Actually, it was just the switch that broke. But I figured it was time to upgrade to something more heavy duty. But before the new air compressor came in, I needed to put air in my car tires. My roommate has a good ole bicycle floor pump, so I used that. It was surprising fast; faster than my old little air compressor in fact by a significant margin. Granted, it was a higher quality/performance pump, but still pretty darn impressive how fast it was.

Beach sand paper

It's surprisingly easy (or not so surprising) to lose some skin on the beach. It usually involves someone's heel making contact with someone's leg/shin with some sand thrown in between, i.e. beach volleyball and football. Makes for a good combination to rub skin away.