"Fun Shop" Gives Kia Favorable Prognosis

I mentioned my brake situation to my friend Kris, who writes about cars for the Star Tribune and is a top-notch problem-solver. Kris invited me to take Kia to his friend's house in St. Paul. This friend put a professional car lift in his garage, and on Friday nights, a bunch of middle-aged guys come over to drink beer, watch whatever game is on, and work on cars. They call it "Fun Shop." We put Kia up on the lift and took the tires off and looked at everything and poked around for about an hour. They said the brakes look great, and suggested there was a weather-induced problem. We drove it around and the sound was gone. Who knows what that was all about? I was glad to have them look at it for the price of about 12 beers.

After Fun Shop, we had a super time at Mike & Emily's annual Reuben Sandwich day party. I didn't have a reuben sandwich, but I did load up on chocolate cake. They moved into a cute house in South Minneapolis with a groovy dance party basement.