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So my very excellent day Friday was followed by a shitty day yesterday.
Anyway, in chronological order!
Friday, I spent the morning essentially doing one differential equation. But then! Lunchtime was the lab's Friday cook-out. One of the guys brought a water bottle rocket launcher. A 7ft tall tower of PVC, you place a half filled 2L bottle on it, work a bicycle pump to ~200psi, and pull the release!
I got a little video, but it got about 100ft in the air, seems like! We launched it a few times until the pump stopped working.
In the afternoon, I made a valuable discovery, which means I may be able to be productive this summer! Excellent.
Towards 5, my labmate was watching the Switzerland game, and sinking further and further into his seat in despair, but I invited him to go to a Thai restaurant for dinner with my roommate and I.
Back at the ranch, I do some google!digging, and realize that there is a better choice, that has a somewhat convenient location, in a part of town I haven't been before.
While I drive over there, my roommate is working the iPhone maps, and labmate is telling us about the places we're passing.
The food is good, the price is reasonable, and we had a pretty good time, but not enough for one evening.
"So, what is there to do now?"
"Well, there's a gelato place over ..."
"No food!"
"We passed a park, right?"
"Yeah, it's right on the way"
So we go to this excellent park. Easily the biggest one I've been in :) There are meadows, ponds, playground, swimming, dog obedience classes, lots of soccer. We tool around, walk around the pond, and meet a couple who say they've flown in from LA and are living, carless, in abandoned houses in the area. They ask us where a liquor store is, and I explain about Package Stores (which I've only this week figured out).
I wish I could've gone with them, seen what they're experiencing. Maybe I would've if I hadn't've had sensible people with me ;)
The culmination of the evening was rolling down hills. Just as fun as it was in elementary school.
My roommate and I have vague plans for Saturday to visit the hipster part of town, so we get around reasonably early, get in the car and make to leave.
As I'm pulling out of the parking space, I ask her "do you feel that bumping?"
She doesn't really answer, so I continue, making my way to the road. Halfway down the alleydriveway, the engine dies. It's done this before, so I put it in park and restart it. The engine bumps again, more noticably, and dies.
Oops.
Fortunately, there is some sort of Move-In event going on, so there are plenty of people around. A guy and his.. grandpa? Help us roll the car back to the lot, but unfortunately, there is some sort of Move-in event going on, so someone has already taken the spot I just vacated. The lot is on a slope, so it's a bitch to push it into a little Towable zone, and I wonder if you can haggle with tow companies to take you to a mechanic rather than their desolate jailyard.
The battery is good, the oil is brown, but not dangerously so. This exhausts our troubleshooting knowledge.
We thank the people who helped us, and they leave. My roommate searches for garages with her iPhone (shit is useful). I call one in Jacksonville, FL by accident. Go into a stress-induced fit of tears, and my roommate tries again and gets the one in town-- she has a good memory and recalls all the information about my car.
We call the tow truck, and he'll be out in half an hour. I remove everything worth removing from my car, and we go inside to wait. I finally get ahold of my parents, and get told 'you're doing right so far' which while reassuring, is not very directive. I want my parents to tell me what to do, because I'm still a quivering mess.
When the tow arrives, I take my spare key I removed from my car, because this is Atlanta, and I don't want to make it any easier for someone to steal my car, and watch the guy cinch my poor baby up on a little hydraulically actuated bed.
"You should see it when we don't have a key to put it in neutral!"
"*wibbles*"
The guy is willing to drive us to the shop and back, and we explain that I am actually the owner, and my roommate was the one standing in as me on the phone. He has a severe case of road rage and loves the horn. The first instance was when a small coupe was parked in the exit of the alleyway. A nervous looking woman dressed in a delicate skirt/shrug ensemble does her best to ignore him as she kindly moves her car. He continues to abuse her as we drive by. I'm a bit embarrassed, honestly.
The garage is run by an Indian man, and he micromanages the customers waiting xD One young man says he has to go and will be back, and the man is a little suspicious and apprehensive. One woman steps outside to talk to a mechanic, and leaves her bag sitting on the floor, and he's afraid she'll forget it, or that I guess one of us might take it. It's kinda funny xD
The cost of a diagnostic is $108, but he says if it's anything simple, he might can have it fixed inside of that cost, which is reassuring, but googling earlier has shown that my kind of car has this kind of problem at my kind of mileage, and it's fairly expensive. The tow truck was already $79, and I was concerned about my cash reserves before we even started this venture. Atlanta is expensive, and Tech is dragging their heels on paying me for my presence.
Anyway, being without a car in one of the most car-heavy metropolitan areas in the US is very... enfeebling. I feel very powerless and a little desperate because of that.
But, I'll get through it. Maybe this is my car's last plea for me to find a new car.
Anyway, in chronological order!
Friday, I spent the morning essentially doing one differential equation. But then! Lunchtime was the lab's Friday cook-out. One of the guys brought a water bottle rocket launcher. A 7ft tall tower of PVC, you place a half filled 2L bottle on it, work a bicycle pump to ~200psi, and pull the release!
I got a little video, but it got about 100ft in the air, seems like! We launched it a few times until the pump stopped working.
In the afternoon, I made a valuable discovery, which means I may be able to be productive this summer! Excellent.
Towards 5, my labmate was watching the Switzerland game, and sinking further and further into his seat in despair, but I invited him to go to a Thai restaurant for dinner with my roommate and I.
Back at the ranch, I do some google!digging, and realize that there is a better choice, that has a somewhat convenient location, in a part of town I haven't been before.
While I drive over there, my roommate is working the iPhone maps, and labmate is telling us about the places we're passing.
The food is good, the price is reasonable, and we had a pretty good time, but not enough for one evening.
"So, what is there to do now?"
"Well, there's a gelato place over ..."
"No food!"
"We passed a park, right?"
"Yeah, it's right on the way"
So we go to this excellent park. Easily the biggest one I've been in :) There are meadows, ponds, playground, swimming, dog obedience classes, lots of soccer. We tool around, walk around the pond, and meet a couple who say they've flown in from LA and are living, carless, in abandoned houses in the area. They ask us where a liquor store is, and I explain about Package Stores (which I've only this week figured out).
I wish I could've gone with them, seen what they're experiencing. Maybe I would've if I hadn't've had sensible people with me ;)
The culmination of the evening was rolling down hills. Just as fun as it was in elementary school.
My roommate and I have vague plans for Saturday to visit the hipster part of town, so we get around reasonably early, get in the car and make to leave.
As I'm pulling out of the parking space, I ask her "do you feel that bumping?"
She doesn't really answer, so I continue, making my way to the road. Halfway down the alleydriveway, the engine dies. It's done this before, so I put it in park and restart it. The engine bumps again, more noticably, and dies.
Oops.
Fortunately, there is some sort of Move-In event going on, so there are plenty of people around. A guy and his.. grandpa? Help us roll the car back to the lot, but unfortunately, there is some sort of Move-in event going on, so someone has already taken the spot I just vacated. The lot is on a slope, so it's a bitch to push it into a little Towable zone, and I wonder if you can haggle with tow companies to take you to a mechanic rather than their desolate jailyard.
The battery is good, the oil is brown, but not dangerously so. This exhausts our troubleshooting knowledge.
We thank the people who helped us, and they leave. My roommate searches for garages with her iPhone (shit is useful). I call one in Jacksonville, FL by accident. Go into a stress-induced fit of tears, and my roommate tries again and gets the one in town-- she has a good memory and recalls all the information about my car.
We call the tow truck, and he'll be out in half an hour. I remove everything worth removing from my car, and we go inside to wait. I finally get ahold of my parents, and get told 'you're doing right so far' which while reassuring, is not very directive. I want my parents to tell me what to do, because I'm still a quivering mess.
When the tow arrives, I take my spare key I removed from my car, because this is Atlanta, and I don't want to make it any easier for someone to steal my car, and watch the guy cinch my poor baby up on a little hydraulically actuated bed.
"You should see it when we don't have a key to put it in neutral!"
"*wibbles*"
The guy is willing to drive us to the shop and back, and we explain that I am actually the owner, and my roommate was the one standing in as me on the phone. He has a severe case of road rage and loves the horn. The first instance was when a small coupe was parked in the exit of the alleyway. A nervous looking woman dressed in a delicate skirt/shrug ensemble does her best to ignore him as she kindly moves her car. He continues to abuse her as we drive by. I'm a bit embarrassed, honestly.
The garage is run by an Indian man, and he micromanages the customers waiting xD One young man says he has to go and will be back, and the man is a little suspicious and apprehensive. One woman steps outside to talk to a mechanic, and leaves her bag sitting on the floor, and he's afraid she'll forget it, or that I guess one of us might take it. It's kinda funny xD
The cost of a diagnostic is $108, but he says if it's anything simple, he might can have it fixed inside of that cost, which is reassuring, but googling earlier has shown that my kind of car has this kind of problem at my kind of mileage, and it's fairly expensive. The tow truck was already $79, and I was concerned about my cash reserves before we even started this venture. Atlanta is expensive, and Tech is dragging their heels on paying me for my presence.
Anyway, being without a car in one of the most car-heavy metropolitan areas in the US is very... enfeebling. I feel very powerless and a little desperate because of that.
But, I'll get through it. Maybe this is my car's last plea for me to find a new car.
