Old Blue just keeps having little problems. This time it was not anything major, but it was a bit aggravating as it took time to get fixed.

For some time now I have noticed that occasionally the road would all of a sudden get a bit brighter for me while driving at night. However, I could never catch Old Blue with one of the headlights out. They were always on when I pulled into the garage or saw them reflected in a vehicle ahead.

However, last week I finally started seeing that the driver side headlight would sometimes turn off a little while after I started up Old Blue. It would soon pop back on and would be on when I got home or wherever I was going.

This is an old picture, but here you can see the headlight working properly. I was teaching a class last week so didn’t have time to get the headlight checked, but I did check fuses and connections to make sure everything was working good.

I really do not like digging around in the engine compartment of a car. Here you can see me helping my Dad when I was young and not being too happy about it.

Everything looked like it was working better so I didn’t take my car in on Saturday. However, come Sunday the head light went out for good. It was working on Sunday morning but by the drive home in the evening it was dead.

I again checked connections, fuses and relays to no avail and it was time to take Old Blue in this morning.

I let the professionals make the determination that it was just the bulb that was bad and then make the repair. I had looked at the car manual and it involved taking off way too many covers and warnings about making sure you had two people to ensure you didn’t damage or drop them.

I sat and read a book while Old Blue got fixed up and then it was off to work.

This evening I renewed the registration for Old Blue. I am one of the first to pay the new 2018 California license fee. Not only are we paying more gas taxes but we also got our registration fees increased. Luckily since Old Blue is older the increase was not as much as people with expensive new cars are getting.

However, I really need to start thinking about what will replace Old Blue. Perhaps sometime this year I will be in the market for something newer.

What should I get?

Steven