Yes, I am still alive.

And so's the ever-trusty Järn, for that matter. I note that it's been almost a YEAR since my last post, and that's a bit too long. Although in fairness, I've not done anything to the ol' brick in that year, other than keeping it on the road. And I'm getting close to that 250,000 mile mark, as long as nothing untoward happens.

As for the car itself, it really could use some work, but nothing that's really up my alley--it needs an A/C rotary switch (crapped out last year), and a rear tailshaft bearing and U-joints (mostly crapped out nearly a year and half ago due to age and the results of replacing the center U-joint bearing, which I think I might have done badly enough--or roughly enough--to accelerate the wear on the tailshaft bushing), and a rear-window defroster relay (I have an assortment of relays, but I can't quite figure which one is the right one), and it really needs bushings (although it still rides pretty well), and the rest of the list of things over on the sidebar To-Do List that still have gone unmarked. OH, I did get a new radio for myself for Christmas last year. Nice--even has a USB port so I can listen to stuff on a jump drive! I gave up trying to get the original radio to go back in there, and it's probably just as well. Gas mileage has taken a bit of a dip, and I'm not sure why, but where it was averaging around 21 mpg, it's down to around 19 or 18.

But you know what?

It still works, pretty much the way it was intended. And that's hard to say about a lot of cars. I've been driving our 2001 Focus lately (better gas mileage) and although it is still a nice peppy little car with about the same amount of space and features and such as the 240, it has a frightening variety of odd noises and shakes that just feel bad--like "money flying out of my wallet" bad--and it only has 118,000 miles on it.

I don't think it's going to make 250,000.

Anyway, I do thank everyone who's come by over the past year, and to those of you who take the time to write.