Oct 17, 2013 By Eric Schulze 6 min read

After reading last week’s Sunday paper, I decided to do battle with the rear muffler on my 2005 Scion. I had some sticker shock after pricing the job at the dealer, so I looked online and after some research, found a rear muffler, gasket and special clamp for less than half of the dealer’s price.

Upon consulting the long-range weather forecast on my iPhone, I realized that last Sunday might be one of the last warm days that I’d have off and have enough time to attempt such a project. I put on some old clothes and off I went to the garage.

I jacked the rear of the car up and put it on robust jack stands, then attempted to remove the large clamp that holds the rear muffler and pipe to the front section. It was rusted solid, so I used a cutoff air tool and finally, a Dremel tool to cut through the clamp in the limited space that was available.

While doing all of this, I was reminded of my life before I was diagnosed with leukemia 9 years ago and told I could not repair cars anymore. What I had forgotten in the interim was that anything that can go wrong invariably does!

The only things that I’d neglected to buy new were the two very large rubber mounting hangers that hold the muffler up. I had forgotten just how difficult they were to remove. My wife happened to return from my mother-in-law’s at this point and asked how I was doing. She then offered to go locally and look for the hangers at two local auto parts stores.

She wanted to know what the parts looked like, so I drew a little diagram on a piece of paper for her and off she went. After she left, I realized that I could take a picture of the parts with my iPhone and send it to her. I did and the results were a lot better than my scribbled drawing. I sent them off to her iPhone.

Since I couldn’t get in as close to the brackets as I’d have liked, she then took a picture at the parts store of three various sized hangers on a display that were possibilities. Unfortunately, the store only had one in stock of the bracket that looked closest and I needed two. She then offered to go check at the other parts store.

In the meantime, I persevered and finally got the rear muffler off the rubber hangers without damaging the old hangers. This was a real plus because when my wife returned home, we found the new hangers were not really suitable. I finally fitted the new muffler on with my last vestiges of energy, and staggered off into the house to clean up. It was weird to have so much dirt on my hands again after eight years of teaching guitar full-time and having clean hands!

Finally, I could relax. I checked an app on my iPad called Zite. Zite pulls news from all over the web and you can tailor it to your own specific interests. I noticed that the rumor mill is already grinding about an iPhone 6 with a 4.8″ screen to compete with some of the other, bigger smart phones.

I also saw one article claiming that Apple will announce a new, fancier iPad5 and an iPad Mini Generation 2 on October 22nd , both possibly with the fingerprint lock gimmick like the iPhone 5s has. All of this spurred me to window shop a little on Apple’s site.

I looked at the new iPhone at http://store.apple.com/us/buy-iphone/iphone5c and there, among the options, is a link to check how long it is before you’re eligible for an upgrade with any of the three companies selling the phone. You just enter your phone number, billing zip code and last three numbers of your social security number and it tells you how much a new phone would cost you before and after you’re eligible.

Before next August 14th, a 16GB iPhone5S would cost me $649. After the 14th, it’s $199, which, of course, is not what you really pay for the phone long-term. The true cost of more than $600 is factored into installments of the overall contract bill you’ll be paying (that’s through Verizon). The plastic bodied 16GB 5C iPhone is $99 and if I wanted an 8GB iPhone 4S like my wife has, it would cost me a whopping $450 now, but after August 14, 2014, it would be free!

I personally think that it’s really just a shell game and overall and no matter what, you still pay $600 or more, regardless of how the deal is presented on the surface. By the way, the Apple site showed Verizon, AT&T and Sprint, but for some reason, no T-Mobile.

Also while looking on Zite, I found an amazing guitar and music theory app called Chord. I bought it from the app store after checking it out. Thanks to technology, this application (which is iOS only) was downloadable for free on my iPhone after I installed it on the IPad.

Finally, all the zombie lovers got their fix on Sunday night with the return of The Walking Dead TV show (at http://www.amctv.com/shows/the-walking-dead) It has such a cult following that right after the show airs, AMC then has a program called The Talking Dead (http://www.amctv.com/shows/talking-dead) where all aspects of the show are discussed by special guests.

While it’s an entertaining show, I’m constantly covering my eyes so I don’t get grossed out at the grisly special effects during the seemingly endless zombie “deaths”. Due in a large part to this show, zombies have become a big part of popular culture.

Even my wife enthusiastically showed me a zombie face prosthetic that she’s making for Halloween this year. She went into great detail, showing me all these video clips on YouTube that teach you how to make really lifelike zombie masks and nasty-looking “wounds”, once again proving that every kind of information is available via the good old internet. With that said, I’ll wish you a great week and until next time, a hearty toodle pip.