So after about two hours a different person than who checked him in came into the waiting room and told Ron they did the diagnostic and it showed this spark plug dome clearance problem so Ron needed to buy a new engine. Ron told them him drove it in and he was driving it out. The guy said that it could cause more damage to the engine and he shouldn’t drive it. Ron told him he was leaving with the car!
That seemed to cause them some problems because it took them almost another hour to bring Ron the car. It was the person who checked him in who came into clear the paper work with Ron over what was done. When Ron questioned them on what spark plugs they put in she said none they did not even do anything like that. She showed him the paperwork and it said that they put it on the diagnostic machine and it gave an error code meaning that the spark plug was seized with an intrusion of coolant fluid. The suggested thing was to try to remove the spark plug.
Instead they did the oil change, checked the fluids, and rotated the tires. The standard stuff for an oil change. They discounted the $360 dollar diagnostic tests $100 because Ron told them to not do it but they had already started it, they don’t say if they completed it. When he signed in the woman tried to tell him he needed the 60,000 mile fluid flush and it would cost $650.00. Yet she did not tell him and the paperwork did not say how much each fluid was or cost.
When he got home Ron told me the other part of this. Our car is the top of the line with all option. It has had all maintenance done at the dealership along with us having bought the “butler service” keeping the paint job as grand as possible by redoing the clear coat after doing touch up work. It has a very high resale price. The dealership has been sending us offers to buy the car back or give us a great trade in for it. Seems they have wanted it back so badly someone thought if they went in and told this senior citizen that their car that would be paid off next month and was 7 years old needed a 10 grand engine replacement they might get him to deal the car away to them.
The thing that I stick on is after they told Ron that and he said no he was taking the car home it took them an hour to bring it out from the garage to the waiting room area. Why. Did they just not do anything for a couple of hours and then tell him that thinking he would be too scared to try to drive it home? So then they had to do the service he had an appointment for? Or did they do it and had something else going on that they had to do to get the car ready to come back to the front? It took three hours to run the diagnostic machine, do the oil change and fluid check, and rotate the tires. Seems a long time to me. I would love to hear the thoughts you all have. Hugs.
Ron took our 2018 Ford Escape to the dealership this morning for an oil change and that the car ran rough when first started. On the way there the check engine light came on. No blinking but steady. So the dealership told Ron that to even do the tests would be $360 plus the cost of the oil change along with any needed repairs. They came back to Ron nearly 2 hours later and told him we needed a new engine for $10,000 because of a dome spark plug clearance problem. Ron told them he drove it there with no issues and he was driving it home. I called Randy who has some knowledge and works with mechanics who say that it is possible but not likely and that the engine should go for $3,500 not $10,000. I found online that normally it is the plug that is the problem, using the wrong plug or the plug specs have changed a small amount. But like anything online I couldn’t find a real clear answer. I could use some help if anyone out there understands engines and this stuff. Thanks and hugs
Remember when Joe Biden appeared to dose off and the right went into outrage mode. Turned out it was edited doctored video. Fox entertainment played the doctored video repeatedly and their rage emotions host made it sound like Biden needed to sleep every other hour. Yet not a mention of the tRump falling asleep. Hug
The excitement of a trip to Saudi Arabia apparently didn’t last long for 78-year-old U.S. President Donald Trump: In fact, the special welcome ceremony appeared to be a snoozer.
Trump landed in Riyadh on Tuesday as part of a four-day tour of the Middle East, where he claims he will secure billions in investments and trade agreements with Gulf nations. (He may also pick up a free plane.)
But the long red-eye flight from the U.S. appeared to have taken its toll; Trump was frequently seen with his eyes closed and once appeared to jolt himself awake during a special ceremony held in his honor at the Saudi royal court byCrown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s de facto ruler, whopreviously ordered the killingof Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Saudi’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman, was on the tarmac to greet Trump. But once the welcome ceremony began, a seated Trump appeared keen to rest his weary eyes.Bandar Algaloud/Courtesy of Saudi Royal Court/Handout via Reuters
The prince was more forgiving of Trump’s inattention, but it was noted by those watching on social media.
“Trump is having a hard time keeping his eyes open in Saudi Arabia,” reporter Aaron Rupar wrote while sharing a clip of Trump appearing to nod off on X.
Another X user posted: “Sleepy Don can barely keep his eyes open while representing the United States in Saudi Arabia. If this were President Biden, there would be nonstop coverage of his cognitive condition and physical fitness. Where is the media outrage?”
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung denied that Trump wasn’t paying attention.
“It’s clear that President Trump was fully engaged and listening intently as he finalized historic deals on his return to Saudi Arabia,” he said. “The Daily Beast should perk up and stop slacking instead of taking their cues of liberal liars who have shown a history of deceiving the American people.”
A weary Trump was given a gold-accented throne-like chair to sit in during the welcome ceremony. At moments, he seemed to be enjoying the change to take the weight off his eyelids.Brian Snyder/Reuters
The napping habits of his predecessor, of course, prompted Trump to call President Joe Biden, “Sleepy Joe.”
But Trump, who will overtake Biden as the oldest sitting president in U.S. history during the final year of his second term, has often faced accusations of dozing off in public.
One of the most high-profile incidents came during his 2024 hush money trial, where reporters inside the New York courtroom said that he appeared to fall asleep during the historic proceedings.
Trump claimed he was fully conscious throughout the trial in posts on Truth Social during the proceedings.
“I don’t fall asleep during the Crooked D.A.’s Witch Hunt, especially not today. I simply close my beautiful blue eyes, sometimes, listen intensely, and take it ALL in!!!” Trump wrote.
Whether Trump was simply trying to “take it all in” with his “beautiful blue eyes” closed in Saudi Arabia remains unclear.
After being banned from Major League Baseball for life, gambler Pete Rose and others like Shoeless Joe Jackson are now eligible to be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Rose was banned in 1989 and spent the rest of his life crying about it instead of offering repentance. He didn’t even stop gambling. He never helped his case, even when it seemed Baseball wanted to bring him back.
Commissioner Rob Manfred made the ruling and said, “In my view, once an individual has passed away, the purposes of Rule 21 have been served. Obviously, a person no longer with us cannot represent a threat to the integrity of the game. Moreover, it is hard to conceive of a penalty that has more deterrent effect than one that lasts a lifetime with no reprieve.”
If Rose hadn’t bet on baseball, or if he hadn’t been caught, he would have been voted into the HoF as soon as he was eligible, which is five years after retirement. His 4,256 hits, 3,562 games played, and 15,890 plate appearances are still unbroken records. Across 24 seasons, Rose made 17 All-Star teams, won three batting titles, won the 1973 NL MVP, and won three World Series trophies. Rose earned the nickname “Charlie Hustle” for his aggressive style of play. Rose always seemed to find himself on base, and then the next, and then the next, until he was across home plate. He is a baseball legend. Even his gambling addiction couldn’t take away his legend.
I was excited when I heard this, not because I am a baseball fan and am in Rose’s corner. I’ve always had mixed views about Rose’s ban, and Shoeless Joe Jackson’s, for that matter. I was excited because I thought that here’s a chance I can do a cartoon that’s not about Donald Trump. And then I read how this ban was lifted.
Chilean flamingo. Credit: Victor Ortega Jiménez, UC Berkeley
Flamingos are known for posing serenely on one leg in extreme wetlands, placidly bobbing their heads into the shallow water to feed. But a new study has revealed there’s more going on beneath the surface than meets the eye.
It seems flamingos create controlled underwater chaos to actively trap their prey, according to the research in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
They use a repertoire of behaviours, including stomping feet, jerking heads, and chattering beaks, to create swirling “underwater tornadoes” that concentrate and funnel prey into their mouths.
“Flamingos are actually predators, they are actively looking for animals that are moving in the water,” says lead author of the paper Victor Ortega Jiménez, an assistant professor of integrative biology at the University of California Berkeley in the US.
“The problem they face is how to concentrate these animals, to pull them together and feed. Flamingos are using vortices to trap animals, like brine shrimp.
“It’s not just the head, but the neck, their legs, their feet and all the behaviours they use to effectively capture these tiny and agile organisms.”
Ortega Jiménez and his collaborators trained Chilean flamingos at the Nashville Zoo to feed from a shallow aquarium.
They used high speed cameras and laser light to view the gas bubbles created in the water to visualise the animals’ feeding behaviour. They then confirmed their observations using fluid dynamics computer simulations and experiments using 3D printed models of flamingo beaks and feet.
They found that flamingos stomp their floppy webbed feet to churn up the sediment beneath them, propelling it forward in whorls.
The birds then draw these vortexes towards the water’s surface by jerking their heads upward at speeds of about 40cm/s, creating mini tornadoes that concentrate particles of food.
These small vortices are strong enough to trap even agile invertebrates, such as brine shrimp and microscopic crustaceans called copepods.
The flamingos’ heads remain upside down within this watery vortex, with their unique beaks angled so that the flat front end stays parallel to the bottom. They then “chatter”, clapping the lower beak open and shut about 12 times every second, to create smaller vortices that direct sediment and food into their mouths.
Experiments with 3D replicas of flamingo beaks revealed that chattering increases the number of brine shrimp captured by the beak seven-fold.
They found that flamingos also use a technique called “skimming”, which involves pushing the head forward while chattering to create sheet-like vortices – called von Kármán vortices.
“We observed when we put a 3D printed model in a flume to mimic what we call skimming, [it produces] symmetrical vortices on the sides of the beak that recirculate the particles in the water, so they actually get into the beak,” Ortega Jiménez says.
“It’s this trick of fluid dynamics.”
The team believes that their findings could be used to design better systems for concentrating and sucking up particles, such as microplastics, from water.
Next, Ortega Jiménez aims to determine the role of the flamingo’s piston-like tongue and how the comb-like edges of the beak filter prey out of the water.
May 15, 1870 Julia Ward Howe Julia Ward Howe, suffragist, abolitionist and author of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” proposed Mother’s Day as a peace holiday. She had seen firsthand some of the worst effects of war during the American Civil War—the death and disease which killed and maimed, and the widows and orphans left behind on both sides and realized that the effects of the war go beyond the killing of soldiers in battle. Mother’s Day did not become a national holiday until declared by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914. “… Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.” Blood does not wipe our dishonor, Nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil At the summons of war, Let women now leave all that may be left of home For a great and earnest day of counsel.”
May 15, 1935 The National Labor Relations Act was passed, recognizing workers’ rights to organize unions and bargain collectively with their employers. Read more
May 15, 1957 Britain tested its first hydrogen bomb over Christmas Island in the South Pacific, after just two years of development. Mushroom cloud over Christmas Island
May 15, 1965 A National teach-in to oppose the Vietnam War was held in Washington, D.C.
May 15, 1966 The American Friends Service Committee, SANE (The Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy), and Women March for Peace, along with four other organizations, sponsored a 10,000+ person anti-war picket at the White House and a 60,000+ rally at the Washington Monument to oppose the Vietnam War. . . . elsewhere the same day . . . Buddhist altars were placed in streets to impede troops arresting dissidents in South Vietnam.
May 15, 1969 Governor Ronald Reagan sent in the National Guard to reclaim People’s Park from 6,000 protesters in Berkeley, California, who had occupied the space and created the park. Police gunfire killed a bystander, James Rector, blinded another, and injured dozens. People’s Park March, Friday May 30, 1969, at the intersection of Haste Street and Telegraph Avenue, in Berkeley
May 15, 1970 In response to the U.S. invasion of Cambodia (an expansion of the Vietnam War) and the killings at Kent State and Jackson State Universities, several million U.S. students held campus strikes to oppose the Vietnam War.
May 15, 1970 The Native American Rights Fund filed suit on behalf of the Hopi tribe to prevent strip-mining on sacred Black Mesa in Arizona.
May 15 (since the 1980’s) International Conscientious Objectors Day, established to honor those who leave or refuse to enter their country’s armed forces for reasons of principle. Conscientious Objector Day history
Philadelphia is turning up the volume during Pride Weekend, starting with its iconic Pride flag, which is back and bigger than ever.
The massive flag — now stretching to 600 feet — will debut on Friday, May 30 during ride Around the City, a powerful display of LGBTQ+ visibility and unity.
You can catch the flag traveling to iconic locations across the city starting at the Art Museum and ending in the Gayborhood.
The flag will then lead the 2025 Philadelphia Pride March on Sunday, June 1, 2025. This popular march will form at 6th and Walnut at 10:30 a.m. and end in the Gayborhood as well.
All LGBTQ communities and allies are welcome to join the march, with no registration required.
When the march reaches the Gayborhood, organizers said the festival will begin, running from noon to 7 p.m., on Walnut to Pine streets, and Quince to Juniper streets, with other select roads closed around the festival footprint.
This year’s festival will feature more than 200 small businesses and organizations, performers, entertainers, artists, vendors, local bars, food trucks, community organizations, stages and much more.
Philadelphia Pride March and Festival is open to all to attend with no admission, and all food and drink are pay-as-you-go.
Also don’t forget to check out Pride Promenade, a night of music, performances, and community connections at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, on Saturday, May 31.
Scottie's Playtime 