Saturday

I spent the day at second son's house, helping him with a variety of tasks. Late this afternoon he changed the sparkplugs in my pickup truck. I'm much obliged. Changing sparkplugs on the 4.6 or 5.4 Ford engines is an exercise in aggravation. I'd have never even found them.

When I learned to drive and mechanic on vehicles the plugs were easy to find. I've changed dozens of sets of sparkplugs. Nowadays we change sparkplugs every 100,000 miles. I'm continually amazed at the complexity and dependability of common vehicles today.

While he was under the hood digging around, he found two little hoses that his educated eye told him needed to be replaced. They're made with a silicone lining and connect the EGR system with something called a DPFE sensor. The hoses are dealer-only parts and the dealerships won't be open until Monday. We replaced them with some silicone lined fuel hose, but he told me that it was imperative that I pick up those hoses on Monday and install them Monday afternoon.

Tonight, we're going to a costume party.