Rodney M Bliss

What Goes Where?

We’re getting there. We’ve got two more hoses to hook up, then attach the pulley, fill it with fluid and bleed the air out of the lines.

As I write this, it’s 12:15 AM. I normally write much earlier in the evening. We’re not done yet. Or, more accurately THEY’RE not done yet. My extremely helpful neighbors are replacing the power steering pump in my car. I’m not a mechanic, but thanks to a grandfather who was a junk dealer, I have a lot of tools.


(The biggest of several tool chests.)

Starting last night about 6:00 PM, my neighbor and I started to replace a bad power steering pump. Three hours later, another neighbor stopped by to help. An hour after that my neighbor’s two sons finished work and came straight to my house to help. And they worked well into the night.

You might wonder why. I know I do. . .regularly.

Sometimes people are just willing to help. The bigger the issue, the more they thrive on helping. And they never take a dime in payment. They are deeply religious people. They feel if they accept payment for their service, the it’s not really service to God and they have less expectation of him blessing them. In other words, they have their reward.

Right now, some of you are saying, where can I find neighbors like this? Well, there are some houses for sale in my neighborhood. But, you don’t need to move to Pleasant Grove to experience the kind press of people. The first step is to be the friend you wish you had.

I can’t say that we are as good of neighbors as our friends are, but we certainly attempt to be.

I also wanted to talk just a little about how a mechanic works. My neighbors essentially rebuilt this car. (Free Like A Puppy.) but, they had never replaced the power steering pump. So, how do you do it?

The internet.

They printed the instructions and then used what they already knew about cars to figure it out. It’s not an exact science.

So, what comes off next?

I’m not sure, but it think we need to take this piece off to find out.

Taking it apart always take much longer than putting it back together. They simply remember where stuff went and put it back after fixing it. A similar concept applies in IT.

If everything worked as designed, none of us would have jobs.

My friend David (heartmindcode.com) was annoyed at my post And Sometimes You Just Get Lucky. He pointed out that “luck” can’t be taught, can’t be practiced and it cannot be developed. Instead, what we call luck, is a lifetime of experiences that helps us to look at a network prompt and spot the number that seems out of place, or look at a power steering pump and figure out how to take it out and how to put it back.

They’ve now finished. They packed up their tools and headed back across the street. Tomorrow, they’ll be back asking me how the power steering is doing and is there anything else that needs to be fixed on the car.

Thanks to each of them for a well trained puppy.

Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT across the street from the greatest neighbors in the world, with his lovely wife and thirteen children and one grandchild.

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