Stop dragging my car around...
Mar. 3rd, 2004 11:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotech_masterThis morning I was wakened at 8:05, about 10 minutes before my alarm was set to go off, by arrival of my Dad. We headed down to Aurora to get my car back from the mechanic, who did very little to it (at my Dad's own request, see below) and charged about $120 for it.
I noticed as I was driving it out of the mechanic's lot that there was a loud rattle in the car. I figured that maybe the air filter cover (which had previously been missing) hadn't been put on quite right or something...because, after all, if something was seriously wrong with the car, they'd have caught it while it was there, right? All the same, after I got it to work, I resolved I'd drive it home that night and then drive it as little as possible, carpooling with a cow-orker (for whom it was on the way anyway) to get to work until the newer car the folks were going to help me get (again, see below) came through. So far so good...
During the day itself, a few things happened. I got a couple of those really annoying calls...the kind where nothing you can do will resolve them and you just sort of have to hope they'll go away. In other news, a court struck down the FCC's requirement of 8 years ago that the Baby Bells have to lease local lines to competing carriers like AT&T or MCI. The special training flash that came out today claimed that this isn't going to affect our business customers and everything's going to be hunky-dory...it has the effect of making me vaguely worried about my job, but nothing's going to happen right away in any event.
Now, those of you who are not computer-savvy may not know what a "Halt and Catch Fire (HCF)" instruction is. I encourage you to click the link and read the definition: in short, it's the geek name for a semi-mythical command that causes a computer system to damage itself.
This becomes important because apparently someone issued a HCF command to my car's motor when I was most of the way back home today—it halted and, according to a passer-by who glanced into the wheel well, it caught fire. The whole timbre of the motor suddenly changed, like maybe it blew a gasket or something, and a lot of smoke started issuing from under the hood (from the central part of the motor, I saw when I lifted it up). I managed to limp it into the parking lot of the grocery store nearby, bought some groceries to tide me over the couple of weeks I'll be sans car, and caught the bus home. (Thankfully, I had an extra bus pass sitting in my wallet...otherwise it would have cost me a dollar.)
The mechanics had said that the car was on its last legs. I guess I should just be glad it got me back to town from Aurora in the first place. Wish I'd known it was quite that far along; I wouldn't have bothered to have it fixed at all when it broke down last week.
Prospects aren't entirely dim, though...within the next couple of weeks, my parents will apparently be helping me acquire a car: my grandmother's 1990 Oldsmobile with under 30,000 miles on it. (They already knew this was in the offing, so my Dad asked the mechanic not to do anything extra to the car...just enough to get it running again temporarily. Temporarily turned out to be the word, all right...) They're going to be getting it for me at the blue book value of $1700. Which, since I don't have any spare money right now, is pretty much going to triple the amount I owe them already. I really don't like doing that, but what can you do? One thing's for sure...this is going to be the best car I've ever had, and I'm going to take some darned good care of it. I may even continue carpooling with the cow-orker (if she doesn't mind) just to reduce the miles I put on it and the gas I have to buy. If we're both going to be going back and forth anyway, there's no reason not to do it together.
It is kind of funny, though, how I keep ending up driving cars that are exactly 14 years old at the time I get them. First was the '83 Grand Marquis in about '97, then the '86 Olds Cutlass Ciera in 2000, and now a '90 Olds in 2004.
In welcome news, my friend![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
demiurgent is recovering after intensive four-hour surgery today, and seems to be doing well. Definitely good to hear he's doing okay.
I noticed as I was driving it out of the mechanic's lot that there was a loud rattle in the car. I figured that maybe the air filter cover (which had previously been missing) hadn't been put on quite right or something...because, after all, if something was seriously wrong with the car, they'd have caught it while it was there, right? All the same, after I got it to work, I resolved I'd drive it home that night and then drive it as little as possible, carpooling with a cow-orker (for whom it was on the way anyway) to get to work until the newer car the folks were going to help me get (again, see below) came through. So far so good...
During the day itself, a few things happened. I got a couple of those really annoying calls...the kind where nothing you can do will resolve them and you just sort of have to hope they'll go away. In other news, a court struck down the FCC's requirement of 8 years ago that the Baby Bells have to lease local lines to competing carriers like AT&T or MCI. The special training flash that came out today claimed that this isn't going to affect our business customers and everything's going to be hunky-dory...it has the effect of making me vaguely worried about my job, but nothing's going to happen right away in any event.
Now, those of you who are not computer-savvy may not know what a "Halt and Catch Fire (HCF)" instruction is. I encourage you to click the link and read the definition: in short, it's the geek name for a semi-mythical command that causes a computer system to damage itself.
This becomes important because apparently someone issued a HCF command to my car's motor when I was most of the way back home today—it halted and, according to a passer-by who glanced into the wheel well, it caught fire. The whole timbre of the motor suddenly changed, like maybe it blew a gasket or something, and a lot of smoke started issuing from under the hood (from the central part of the motor, I saw when I lifted it up). I managed to limp it into the parking lot of the grocery store nearby, bought some groceries to tide me over the couple of weeks I'll be sans car, and caught the bus home. (Thankfully, I had an extra bus pass sitting in my wallet...otherwise it would have cost me a dollar.)
The mechanics had said that the car was on its last legs. I guess I should just be glad it got me back to town from Aurora in the first place. Wish I'd known it was quite that far along; I wouldn't have bothered to have it fixed at all when it broke down last week.
Prospects aren't entirely dim, though...within the next couple of weeks, my parents will apparently be helping me acquire a car: my grandmother's 1990 Oldsmobile with under 30,000 miles on it. (They already knew this was in the offing, so my Dad asked the mechanic not to do anything extra to the car...just enough to get it running again temporarily. Temporarily turned out to be the word, all right...) They're going to be getting it for me at the blue book value of $1700. Which, since I don't have any spare money right now, is pretty much going to triple the amount I owe them already. I really don't like doing that, but what can you do? One thing's for sure...this is going to be the best car I've ever had, and I'm going to take some darned good care of it. I may even continue carpooling with the cow-orker (if she doesn't mind) just to reduce the miles I put on it and the gas I have to buy. If we're both going to be going back and forth anyway, there's no reason not to do it together.
It is kind of funny, though, how I keep ending up driving cars that are exactly 14 years old at the time I get them. First was the '83 Grand Marquis in about '97, then the '86 Olds Cutlass Ciera in 2000, and now a '90 Olds in 2004.
In welcome news, my friend
demiurgent is recovering after intensive four-hour surgery today, and seems to be doing well. Definitely good to hear he's doing okay.