Kwik Kar on Greenville Ave, Dallas TX

I just want to say that I am not mad but I am a little annoyed. This is the second time I have taken our Honda to the Kwik Kar on Greenville Avenue to have the oil changed, because it is near my work. The first time I went was the first time I'd had the oil changed since we got the car from my mom and dad (they were the previous owners). The service technician called me out of the waiting area to show me all of the things that I "really need to have done if they have never been done on this car". Totaling hundreds of dollars, actually closer to thousands. And of course they were the ones to do it! RIGHT NOW!! We knew we had to take care of the strut replacement already, and that would be $1K on it's own. We had that done in February at an independent shop.

So, I go back today, and a different service technician calls me out of the waiting room. He tries to sell me the exact same things!! Here is the list:

• Timing belt replaced
• Spark plugs replaced
• Brake fluid replaced
• Fuel system (some kind of service or flush?)
• Radiator fluid (a flush?)

With my marvelous iPhone I emailed mom and dad while the technician was talking. This afternoon I got a reply regarding what has been done to the car in the last year:

• timing belt replaced
• drive belts replaced
• valve cover gasket, seals and washers replaced
• brake fluid replaced and master cylinder checked for leaks
• cooling system serviced and flush done

Look familiar, Kwik Kar??!!

I am not taking our car back there. If I want to be sold something I will drive onto a used car lot, go to the perfume counter at a department store, or visit an insurance office.

UPDATE 9/14/09: Blog post about who is responsible for honesty in service, in response to comments below.

Happy Birthday, Natali!

Sunday was Natali's first birthday!! We drove to Longview after church to attend her party. We would have come earlier in the day or the weekend but we had to take care of babies at church that morning so it was a day of babies for us. I don't think my pictures came out that great but Christina put some on their site also, and the exciting news about Natali taking independent steps while we were there!!

Save Yourself!!

We are on our way to Community Group tonight and as we passed over the
Fisher Road bridge on Mockingbird, there was a mallard duck beside the
busy street. We said "Oh no! That duck will die!" so we turned around
and came back to save the duck. We pulled up alongside the duck with
our hazard lights on. I rolled down my window and said, "DUCK!!
DUCK!!! You are in danger!!!" And the duck looked at us and then flew
safely down to the creek below.

Happy Earth Day!

Sent from my iPhone

Learning about our Muslim friends

This weekend on Saturday our church had a Training Day, which they haven't had since October 2006. This is a day full of equipping classes on various topics. It's a like a conference in that each time slot has several classes going on, so you have to pick.

For the first class, I went to "Sharing your Faith with Authenticity" led by our Pastor of Believe who talked about sharing our personal story and God's message of redemption in creative ways, through building relationships and friendships. Christian attended a S.H.A.P.E. class at the same time. We also went to a 3-hour Theology 101 class which I thought would be boring but it wasn't!

But the best part was the last, a 3 hour class taught by Abraham Sarker, a well known former Muslim who works with the Gospel for Muslims organization, who gave a talk "Understanding My Muslim People", which is also the title of his book. He brought two other former Muslims, Zuby and Ali, with him and all three of them told their stories, gave an extended presentation on the Muslim faith, and held a Q&A session at the end. It was very moving when about halfway through, all three of them asked the audience to stand in sections while each of them individually asked us to forgive the Muslim people for 9/11. I have never had the experience of someone apologizing and asking for forgiveness on behalf of the Muslim people for that event, although for myself, I never blamed them as a people. The Muslim faith has just as many interpretations and factions as the Christian faith does. Still, it was very kind of them and I think this helps them to heal as well, since they were very hurt by their own people on that day, too. I would highly recommend reading Abraham's book if you did not hear him speak, because he is very insightful and straightforward.

Thank you to the fellow in the truck

Today I went to one of my many doctors. In case you are not familiar with the way doctors offices work in a big city (or maybe it is just Dallas) they all have offices inside medical buildings attached to hospitals. Therefore, in order to visit the doctor you must pay for parking, just as you would if you were visiting the hospital for any other reason.

Some hospitals have Valet-only parking at $4-$5 for the entire visit. Some have parking lots or garages that charge based on the length of time you are parked. This doctor's office was one of the length-of-time varieties, which charge you as you exit the garage or lot. In this particular garage, the line to exit and pay was so long that I had to break into the line backwards just to back out of my parking space. After inching forward toward the toll booth for 2 levels and 10+ minutes, I finally got there and the fee was $3. I only had $2 cash in my car.

Let me just explain that neither Christian or I carry cash. At all. Ever. Or checkbooks. Nothing except cards. We do keep valet money in the cars for just such an occasion, but like I said, there was only $2 in there - apparently we did not replenish after the last time we used it.

I do have a debit card, and these hospitals typically have ATM's in their lobby charging $5 fees just for people like us. However, my bank had issued me a brand new debit card about 3 days ago, which I stupidly activated right away, before they sent my new PIN number. So I can't use the debit card until I get the mail that tells me what the PIN is. I had already tried using it with the old PIN and it did not work at the grocery store.

I explained this to the lady, but there was nothing she could do. Apparently to go through without paying would cause her to have to pay for me when she clocked out. I certainly did not want that to happen but there was nothing I could do. I think she believed I was hiding money from her. There were at least 20 people behind me in line to exit, and she pointed this out to me. She suggested I write a check, but I do not carry a checkbook. We were at a standstill. I was about to cry.

Then from the truck behind me came a nice man probably a little younger than my dad, and he gave us a dollar. I would just like to thank the fellow in the truck, even though he will never see it. Thank you!

Recent books and music

So, here's what I've been reading and listening to lately

Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality by Donald Miller
I loved this book so much. I got it from the library and now I have to go buy it so that I can own a copy and force other people to read it. Donald Miller writes just like he is having a conversation with the reader, and when he talks about his views on Christianity, he doesn't use big words or theological language, he just talks about his experiences. He was looking for truth and he found it in the Bible. He has difficulty separating what he sees in the Bible with what he sees Christians do sometimes, and that makes him sad. I completely identified with it. I think a lot of people in my generation would.

Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings - Counting Crows
First of all, I love Adam Duritz and I own everything Counting Crows has ever done. They are right up there with Ben Folds to me. Because I do own (and have memorized) all the other Counting Crows albums, I can tell when he recycles his lyrics. He has always written beautiful and poetic lyrics and I love the way he merged them in the concert I attended in 2006. However, with this album it seems like he has gotten depressed (OK, I realize he is always depressed) and decided not to write anything new but just string together lyrics from previous albums into a narrative about how he goes out at night and then he feels crappy in the morning. At least the album is cohesive and he keeps that theme. But still, I was expecting more lyrics like those in Hard Candy and Recovering The Satellite. He didn't really write any new and brilliant lines that I could ponder over and put in my Facebook Quotes. I am so sad that I don't like this album that I am going to keep listening to it hoping that maybe it will grow on me.

Video of the ryokan

I have uploaded a short video of the traditional ryokan where we stayed the first night in Japan.
Here it is:



After the end of the video comes this photo from my photo stream, the maid came in and laid out the traditional Japanese breakfast:

Japan Photos are online

Well, I think I have completed uploading all the pictures I took of Japan, here they are.

I tried to add some fun narrative to help explain our trip to you.

Also, Christian will be continuing to add photos to his Flickr as well, right now I think there are only 50, and most have been auto-uploaded so they don't have as much commentary:

Be sure to keep checking his as he adds many more!

We are back

Sorry I didn't post sooner, but we are back. We basically slept all day today but hopefully if we can sleep all night tonight we'll be back on the right clock. I do have pictures, I am NOT a great photographer, as I have seen from the camera pics I've uploaded so far. But, here is a single photo of one of my favorite places we visited - the Kiyomizu Temple (Pure Water temple) in Kyoto, which was my favorite city to visit.

I'll try to get the other photos up on Flickr soon, and I do have some short videos of a few places as well. Back to work!

Leaving tomorrow

We had such a fun day in Kyoto visiting some beautiful temples and
then this evening on a really long shopping street in Osaka. We didn't
buy anything, just walked around and had dinner at a little ramen shop
- it was all neon and fashionable youngsters, like Times Square.

Tomorrow we ride the Shinkansen train from Osaka to Tokyo and then to
the airport. We are sad to be leaving -I fell in love with Kyoto and
the wonderful way they incorporate nature into their architecture and
places of worship. It makes me sad that over centuries of
Christianity, the church has traditionally destroyed nature to build
cold concrete monuments to God, rather than working in harmony with
His creation to build things that would continue to live and grow...we
could learn a lot from Buddists in that way, it seems.

Anyway, this will be my last post from Japan. See you all back in the
US!

Sent from my iPhone

In Kyoto now

Finally have internet access again! We are now in Kyoto, yesterday we spent in Harkone which is a kind of resort area with natural sulphur springs, and went to Mt Fuji. Our guide says we are very lucky because Mt Fuji had no fog at all the entire time we are here. Often, visitors to Japan will go the entire time without being able to fully see the mountain because she is covered in fog.

We got to go to our second Japanese bath in the Harkone area, this one with the natural sulphur minerals. A little stinky but really it comes right off and they are very relaxing. Because we are married, we can use the Family Baths, which are private. For those of you not familiar with Japanese baths, they are like hot tub only you do not wear any clothing. You wash yourself first and then get in without anything on. Men are in one and women in another. They are public, but of course since it is gender separated that is not too bad. However, since we are married we use the Family Bath which is private with only the two of us. We had baths at the ryokan the first night with regular water and then yesterday with the special mineral water in Harkone. We also ate black eggs which are cooked in the natural sulphur springs in that area. Eating one is supposed to extend your life by 7 years :-)

Other things we have done include visiting 2 shrines which were very nice. Also several supermarkets, and riding the slower Shinkansen train. We will ride the fastest one on our last day here. I sure do miss our kitties. I am sorry they are throwing up, mom! :-( Gabby will eat anything that is left out! Well, will try to blog tomorrow before we leave but I am not sure.