Things I Know

Ancestor doesn’t mean the same thing as descendant. They’re opposites, or antonyms. Your relatives who came before you, like your father and grandfather are your ancestors. Your relatives who come after you, like your children and grandchildren are your descendants. Lately, I’ve been seeing the word ancestor used to mean both far too often, especially with respect to the recently discovered remains of England’s King Richard III.

If a TV show I’m watching comes out with another story about Manti Teo’s fake girlfriend, I change the channel. But this coverage has given me an idea. I’m going to keep a list of TV news stories that I don’t consider news. If the list gets long enough soon enough, I might even post it here. Stay tuned.

I thought there’d never be a harder car thermostat to change than the one in a 1986 Ford Taurus. It’s hard because it goes into the block horizontally so it’s hard to keep everything in place while you bolt it down. But there is at least one harder one and it’s on my 1991 Toyota Corolla. First the drain plug for the radiator is inaccessible: you have to remove a plastic cover in order to get at it. Second, it’s very hard to drain the radiator without getting antifreeze up your sleeve. Third, the housing for the thermostat is shaped so that you can’t get a 12 mm socket wrench to sit on it well enough to use a socket wrench to loosen the bolts and remove the housing. Then, I had to go get a haircut. So, if there are additional problems with the thermostat, I’ll let you know once the project resumes.

If you’re driving 30 mph slower than the flow of traffic in the middle lane of a limited access highway, you’re definitely causing a traffic jam and you might cause an accident. The accident you cause might even be fatal to you! Don’t just pull into the right lane, get off that road as soon as you can and drive on one where you’re more comfortable keeping up with traffic. That thought occurred to me when I nearly rear-ended the driver of a very slow-moving gray Toyota last week.

Author: Tom

I know my ABC's, I can write my name and I can count to a hundred.