Un Cachito

Cameron's Links

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• CNN
• Fox News
• NY Times Headlines
• Deseret News
• The Economist
• The Funnies (via Dan)
• America First Credit Union WebAccess

I'm slowly catching up on life from my trip. Yesterday, I found one problem as I prepared to go to church - the battery of my car was completely dead. I called a friend and he came and charged me - well, my car battery that is. He helped me again after church. When I got home, I let the car idle for an hour or so to give the alternator time to recharge it and I think it's good now. The bigger problem came in that my car's anti-theft system prevented the radio or clock from working unless I entered in a code, which can be obtained with the radio's serial number. Normally, there is a sticker somewhere in the car (glove compartment, fuse box, etc.) that has the code or S/N on it, but mine did not. I looked all over on Google for a while and that gave me more places to look, but no luck. I found one post that said it would likely charge me $70-$80 at the dealer to get the code back (as they'd have to remove the radio). But I called the dealer and they said it'd be only about $65 (hourly labor rate). While that's still almost criminal, I decided I didn't have a choice. I called again to set an appointment and talked with another guy who said it'd only be around $45 since it would only take about 30 min to remove the radio.I took the car in and they started looking for the sticker and such. Then they started getting some ideas and the guy helping me talked to a number of people and they found out that with my model, they could enter a sequence of numbers into the radio and have the S/N # displayed on the screen. They did that, got me the code, and didn't charge me a cent. Yes, that's right - I went to the Honda dealership; they helped me, and didn't charge a cent. That's nothing short of a miracle.