Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Stormy weather

I guess I'll write a house cleaning post. Not really about cleaning my house even though I did do some of that last weekend on Sunday when I couldn't go skiing due to the stormy weather. (That's a great song BTW) It's snowing right now here too. I just hope there won't be so much snow that I can't drive my my van up the mountain to go skiing. My car is in the shop with a broken transmission and my van is rear wheel drive. To make matters worse I had to take the studded tires off of the van as you can't have them here now after April 1rst.

Despite all of this snow my resort is closing this weekend. They keep rolling back the closing date earlier each year and I think that really sucks because now I'll have to pay to ski somewhere else. It's like winter here now. The skiing is great and they close the resort? I'm going to complain.. That's just all there is to it.

My car. I talked the dealership into cutting me a break on the parts and labor. I just said, "Do you think you could give me a break?." So I talked them down $250.

Well I bought the car used and haven't put any money into it for a couple of years execpt I replaced the alternator last year. It konked on my way back home from Montana to be with my mom who was recovering from cancer surgery. You can read about that adventure Here . What the heck... That time, I understood the problem and thankfully I had my tools with me. But changing a transmisson is a little more than I want to take on. Don't get me wrong, the alternator was no small feat either as there is no room to work on these little cars. I wasn't really sure if I could do it without taking the whole car apart, but my options weren't that great and I had to try. I had to be back at work the next day. I replaced the alternator that night, exchanged the core part the next morning and then drove 200 miles back to work and got there two hours late. I'd missed so much work being with my mom for her whole cancer situation, that I had to do what I could to get back to work as fast as I could.

The situation now is much more relaxed than it was back then.

2 comments:

Jules said...

Do you think you could give me a break?

Hmmm... thus forth known as "the magic sentence".

I can't imagine having been on the highway with my recovering mom and having to deal with the stressors of that AND a break down and STILL make it to work the next day. Are you make of titanium or something?

don said...

Well my skis have titanium in them..

My mom wasn't with me, I had left my mom at her home in Montana and was on my way back to Washington on a Sunday afternoon when my car konked out. I got 100 miles or so down the highway when it broke down. I got towed to the nearest town and bought a new battery.

The new battery had enough power to get me back to my mom's place where I could work on my car. It was too far to keep going home to Washington and over two mountain passes in the winter as I was forced to run the windshield wipers.

I repaired the car that night and drove back to work early the next day.

But yeah. I felt pretty good about working it all out the way I did without having to use a vacation day. Some of it was luck. Getting home before dark, Getting to the parts store in time just before they closed. It was one of those times when the right things happend in the right order and I made the best out of a bad situation.

I have to admit that there were moments of doubt. Once you go through something like that and get through it you're a little more fearless. I learned one thing in Boy Scouts. Be prepared. I had my tools with me. I couldn't have done it without them.

And people are amazing. Every time I've been in a position like that I've met cool people willing to help.