Car issues:
Out shopping today. 95+ degree weather. The AC in the Explorer is having trouble keeping up, so I'm already sticking to the seats and sweating pretty hard. First store goes off fine, no real trouble. Engine rough idles at first, but gets going fine after a minute or two.

Stop on the way back to pick up some burgers for mom before hitting the second store.

Do my shopping, come back out, and start loading up the car. I go to start the engine, and it's only firing on two or three cylinders, out of 6. The whole car is shaking to pieces, and the engine dies after about 10 seconds of this. Try again.. Cranks, turns over, sputters, and dies.

I keep trying intermittently for about 10 minutes, before giving up and calling for a tow..

Best I can figure out, is there's something mechanically wrong with the engine. I managed to get it to start after sitting in the lot with the hood open for about 20 minutes. It's too cramped to get a good look in there without pulling it apart, but it's been in need of a tune-up, and some other minor work, for well over two years now. Hopefully, an oil change and a tune-up will clear up the issues. If not, then just add that to the pile of things gone wrong for me this year.


Health issues Update:
Got the results back from Dad's tests, and the minor surgery he had on Tuesday:

We found out on Tuesday, that his aortic valve is bi-cuspid, where it should be tri-cuspid. (The words my dad used) It was also worse than they expected it to be, but he wouldn't go into detail how..

We get a call from his heart surgeon today, about further complications.. He's going to need an aortic bypass, on top of the valve replacement.. Surgery still needs to be scheduled..

So it's no longer a maybe: My father will definitely need open heart surgery, sooner, rather than later.


Trips/Visits:
In slightly better news (IF I can get the car working) my visit to Nevada is back on, though somewhat indeterminate. Another plus, is that when I do make the trip, I'm planning a one (or two, depending) night stop-over in Sacramento to meet up with a special someone that I'd like to get to know better.

The length of the visit is yet to be decided, but I'm planning on spending at least a month away from home, between October and November. Unless I can get a new laptop or have mine repaired, I won't be online much, or really at all during that time. I'll keep the curious updated.


As to my previous Journal:
I haven't had a chance to talk to my father about everything that's been going on, between the minor surgery, and the visit from Uncle nick. He's been in a very fragile mood, and the one time I even mentioned wanting to talk to him about it, I could see his happiness literally get sucked away.. He's hurting a lot inside, but he's like me, and doesn't want to worry the ones he loves.. Maybe I can get him to trust me enough to open up, before the next surgery.