Its been a long time since I rock and roll...
I went home again on Thursday night. Installed the CD changer in my car, discovered that the previous owner left 8 CDs in it, score. Friday morning I went into town with dad. He went out to NBCC to do an aptitude test for Moosehead and I headed over to the motor vehicle branch. $177 later the car is registered in my name and licenced until 02/2007, hooray! I headed out to Downey's to price a centre cap for my rims, which turns out to be $40. I'll be looking in junkyards, thank you very much. While leaving Downey's, I slid in their poorly plowed lot and hit a brand-spanking new F150. Fuck.
So to repair the F150 will cost me $1485. If I put it through insurance, my insurance will double for the next 3 years. I can afford that much less than I can afford $1500 now. So, the PDAC trip over March Break is cancelled while I work my ass off trying to make enough money to make the payments ($500/mo for 3 months) to fix this fucking thing. Why oh why couldn't I have slid into the truck next to it with a black bumper...
Once we got home that afternoon, I set out for Fredericton to beat the coming snow. Got as far as our old house (5 minutes down the road) when the battery died again. I had set out with a spare battery and a charger, just in case. I changed the battery and headed back home. Dad fiddled with the alternator and ended up breaking the bolt that the wiring connects to, so the alternator is essentially useless. So, $181 and much swearing, banging and prying later, a new alternator is installed in my car. But by this time it is late at night and snowing, so I have to wait until the morning to head back to Fredericton. I left around 9:30 ish and arrived in Fredericton with no incident. There's a slight idling problem which may be due to a couple of things. But its a minor inconvenience and the car has only stalled due to my ineptitude since arriving in Fredericton. I even went out crusing last night after work and ended up way out in Stanley or some such.
Speaking of work, Shaggy (new manager) totally buggered off yesterday and left us in a bad way. I was scheduled alone from 2-8, which is a bad bad thing being a Saturday. Pretty damned ridiculous to have one person scheduled for supper rush on a weekend. So the manager from King Street came over and worked 3-8 while one of the girls that was scheduled until 2 stayed until 3. The general manager was pretty pissed and in the end Shaggy is canned and Mr. Subway is back. He was in today while I worked and cleaned like a possessed man. The store had been all changed around out back and he didn't like it, so he had to put it back to his way. People had been working real slack while Shaggy was the manager and Mr. Subway said things are going to change. For the better, of course.
Car....
Friday was the day we went to get my car. What a day. To save on typing, I will quote Josh from his blog:
"So today was quite the adventure. But to start, a tiny bit of background info. On Wednesday Curtis told me that he was going on a road trip with Chris to get Chris's new car in Moncton. This piques my interest, so I text Chris to ask him if I can come along for the ride. He says maybe, then later on gives it the ok. So today rolls around and Im getting ready to leave for 10-11ish which is the last time he mentioned to me about leaving, and lo and behold he shows up whilst I are in the shower. So I'm ready and out the door roughly an hour earlier than expected, but it's all good.
So we head out to Curtis's to pick him up, then hit the road and we're on our way to Moncton. So after about an hour and a half drive that probably should have been 2 hours except for Chris's "expert" driving, we get to Moncton, where we immediately get lost, even while Chris is on the phone with the guy selling the car giving us directions. But we finally find our way and get to the guys house, and bam, there it is, the pretty "new" car. We check it out for a couple minutes then buddy shows up to take Chris's money and gives it the old college try and gets it going, after a little bit of work. So after some paper work we head for the DMV to get the day pass thing Chris needs to get the uninsured/licenced car back to good old SJ. After that we drive around in circles for about 10 minutes trying to get back to buddy's house to get the car and take it up the street to the service station to get air in the tire and fill up the gas tank.
Well, worry number 1 is immediately tossed out the window, as after we fill it up it starts without even the slightest hesitation. So we hit the highway and head home. Just before we stop to get something to eat, the car starts acting up, and we get a bad feeling about everything. So we ignore it and go in to eat.
When we come out, car won't start, so Chris and I head across the street to the Irving to get some booster cables, give the battery a lil juice, and away we go again. So Chris and I are cruising down the highway when all of a sudden we see Curtis driving on the shoulder of the road. We immediately pull over and we find that the car has died. Totally caputsky. So Chris calls his mechanically inclined friend/ex-neighbor and he tells us to go back to Moncton and look into buying a new battery. We pop the hood and I have a go at trying to get the nuts off the terminal and bracket bolts with the trusty pocket multi-tool, but no dice. So we pack it up and head for Moncton with the intention of getting a battery and then waiting the Kim, the mechanically inclined friend, to arrive with tools. We get about 500 meters away from the car when Curtis pipes up, "Did you get a key for the car?". Just so happens that Chris locked the car with key #1 in the ignition and key #2 in the arm rest compartment thingy. Loverly, car is locked and now we need to call a towtruck to get it unlocked.
Well we head to Moncton to get the battery, and Chris calls a towing company while we're there and then we head back to the car. We get there, hook up the boosters to the new battery to give it a bit of an extra charge just in case the initial store charge isnt enough, then we wait around, checking it all out, tryin to figure out a way that might be at all possible for us to get into the car without the services of the towtruck. Well, me being the smart ass I am, pull out the trusty pocket multi-tool once again and get the nail file and mini screw driver and proceed to pretend to pick the lock. When that doesnt work I sit back and ponder for a moment, then decide to see if I can maybe force my way in with something else on the thing. Just on a totally random whim, I pull out the leather punch, thats right the leather punch, and I stick it in the key hole and start wiggling it. All of a sudden, the thing turns. I'm all like omg wtf. I just unlocked the door. I just unlocked the fuggin locked door with a gorram pocket multi-tool leather punch! Much rejoicing is made, and had there been liquor there we probably would have busted it out while we were waiting and had a few drinks. But allas it was not, and we didn't, so we just sat there and waited while the battery charged, and it started to rain.
Well we pack it all up yet again and hunker in the car for a while while it rains, then Curtis decides to get out for a smoke. I figure what the hell and get out too, then I go and try my luck at the nuts on the terminals again. Holy crap they came off! I just solved all our immediate problems with a friggin $10 pocket multi-tool. Im a friggin hero. So we slap the new battery in, and just as we're doing so Kim shows up to hear the good news. After snugging the terminals back up on the new battery, the car starts, hooray! So now its pouring out and we get in the car and Chris gets his first taste of the new car, as it is a standard and up to this point he was driving the other one cause he doesnt quite know how to drive a standard yet. But its all good, he gets it going with only a slight wiff of a burnt clutch and gets it up to 5th pretty easy.
So we're cruising down the freeway in the hot hot, uh, rain and all is good. Untill we get to Quispamsis. Just before we decide to take a small stop so Chris can go take a Yes, the tachometer dies. Totally stops working. So we're like, "Ok thats odd." then a minute or so after that, the battery light comes on. Eeps. Well we stop, Chris takes his Yes, then after some conversation we leave Curtis and head into town. Well, battery light stays on, and after about 10 minutes or so, kablammo, the car starts slowin down, and shortly thereafter we find ourselves on the side of the road with another dead battery. Now by this point we had kinda figured it might be a bad alternator, and this one kinda confirmed that. So Chris makes some calls, we have ourselves a game plan and Curtis comes to get us and we get on our way again in the car that works. We get out to Chris's place, snag an old battery that's there, head to Kim's to pick him up and make our way to the "new" car once more, with the hopes of getting it going yet again. We get to it, get the battery in, given the fact that it wasn't the right size, thats a great achievement, and we head for Curtis's place to drop it off for the night.
Then with all our running around and adventuring done for the night, I get the old drop off at home where I begin my story. Well wasn't that fun. I hope you all have just as much of a good time reading this as I had writing it. And living it. It was truely a good time, and one I surely will not forget for a long time to come. Also, the moral of this story is, never buy a car with Chris Martin, he's bad luck. Oh, and you can unlock a Ford Escort with a pocket multi-tool leather punch."
Saturday I went out to get the car and take it to the auto glass place to get a new windshield. That went fine but by the time I got home the battery was dead once again. Still trying to figure out what exactly the problem is. I won't be taking the car back to Fredericton anytime soon, unfortunately. Dad his going to be home this week so he'll be able to work on it and hopefully get everything sorted out.
Woo!
Because Blogger doesn't seem to like these sort of things, I shall
linkNow when does the next flight leave for Cheyenne Mountain?
Best laid plans...
The plan was simple. Get my uncle Danny's trailer, use dad's work truck to haul it, go to Moncton, get my car. But of course, things don't always work out. Instead of going to Indiana and bringing a trailer back home, dad's heading out to Calgary. Kim's truck has a brake controller, which is needed to haul Danny's trailer, but he may not be home this weekend and neither my brother nor I can drive Kim's truck. So, alternative plans have to be made. Plan 1 involves renting a U-Haul and using dad's truck to get the car (a repeat of the Bathurst adventure). Plan 2 involves Curtis and I going to Moncton, buying the car, getting a day pass from the motor vehicle branch and driving the car home. Plan 2 seems to be the best option at this time (its cheaper). Just need proof of insurance, bill of sale and sign-off of the owner, all of which we need to change it over anyways.
done!
Here it is 0435, I just finished my technical report for techcom.... Started working on it at about 6 or so, so I worked on it for 10 hours pretty much. But its done! And I have pretty pictures that I drew myself!
Thank god for Red Rain. Now to sleep a bit before heading in to print and hand it in...
scum of the earth
17 sec
seventeen
fucking
seconds
seventeen seconds left on an eBay auction, and I got outbid
fucking piece of shit
Chronicles of a Subway III
Drunk guy comes in and orders a meatball sub. Rimmy serves him. Drunk guy jokes the whole time Rimmy makes his sub, gets to the cash where I ring him in.
Drunk guy: "Are you his manager?"
Me: "No, but I'm higher up in the food chain"
DG: "You eat each other around here?"
Me: "Of course."
DG: "Cannibals, awesome!"
Me: "Where do you think the meatballs come from?"
DG: ...
Me: [hearty laughter]
DG: "Can I change my order to a club? [to Rimmy] Are you intact?"
Rimmy: "Uh.... not quite..."
