Blog: Weekend Fun and Automotive Failure
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Weekend Fun and Automotive Failure - Thursday, January 27, 2011
Priscilla hit the cap in her vacation hours and was told she had to use some hours or forfeit them. Being an awesome girlfriend, she decided to drive up impromptu to visit me last weekend.
Friday night we went to my company's holiday party, where my company went all out on expenses (perhaps since this will be the last AST holiday party). There were four food stations- Japanese (sushi and California rolls), Mexican (tacos and fajitas), Italian (ravioli and pasta), and American (salmon and roast beef). There were some pretty sweet raffle prizes including a PS3, 55" flatscreen TV, netbooks, iPads and gift cards up to $500. There were also casino games where chips were redeemable for tickets for the final raffle.
Unfortunately there was a miscommunication, and everybody received the same number of tickets for the final raffle, regardless of how many chips they earned or whether they played casino games at all. Furthermore, all the good prizes had been raffled off in the previous raffle, where everybody had the same chance of winning. It was disappointing to find out, after the fact, that the casino games were purely for fun and had no bearing on peoples' chances to win prizes, and that aspect could've been handled better, but altogether Priscilla and I had a great time at the party.
But the real fun began on the drive home, when a wheel bearing on my car gave out (but I didn't know what was wrong at the time) and the car started shaking violently and became unable to drive straight. We were in a remote part of San Jose, 20 miles from home at midnight, and I felt it was too risky to try to make it home. Priscilla has AAA but she left her member card and all forms of ID at my house, so AAA couldn't help us out. I had to call my roommate to bring the card to us, but by the time he reached us we decided to ride home with him and return the next day.
So Priscilla drove me to my car on Saturday and we called AAA to have my car towed to a mechanic. I rode with the tow truck guy, a burly, entertaining guy named Wayne who told me that his favorite tow jobs are "PD impounds".
On Sunday Priscilla and I visited a sister church, CCIC South Valley, and met some cool people mostly in the same demographic as CCIC MV. Priscilla also cooked a lot of food (chicken for tacos, herb chicken breast and baked pasta) ahead of time so that we had more time to do other things, like start watching Autumn's Concerto, a hackneyed Taiwanese drama that she seems to like for some reason. ;)
This week the mechanic called me in and showed me the busted wheel bearing as well as an outer tie rod end that was in sloppy condition. The wheel bearing explains why I've been hearing a whirring noise while driving as well as why the tread on that tire kept wearing out abnormally quickly. The mechanic ended up replacing both wheel bearings and tie rod ends for $740, and he comped me coolant because the job was finished later (this morning) than promised and because my coolant reservoir was empty. I still have a coolant leak, but for now it's cheaper to use some Stop Leak, top off coolant and keep an eye on it than to isolate and fix the leak.
Friday night we went to my company's holiday party, where my company went all out on expenses (perhaps since this will be the last AST holiday party). There were four food stations- Japanese (sushi and California rolls), Mexican (tacos and fajitas), Italian (ravioli and pasta), and American (salmon and roast beef). There were some pretty sweet raffle prizes including a PS3, 55" flatscreen TV, netbooks, iPads and gift cards up to $500. There were also casino games where chips were redeemable for tickets for the final raffle.
Unfortunately there was a miscommunication, and everybody received the same number of tickets for the final raffle, regardless of how many chips they earned or whether they played casino games at all. Furthermore, all the good prizes had been raffled off in the previous raffle, where everybody had the same chance of winning. It was disappointing to find out, after the fact, that the casino games were purely for fun and had no bearing on peoples' chances to win prizes, and that aspect could've been handled better, but altogether Priscilla and I had a great time at the party.
But the real fun began on the drive home, when a wheel bearing on my car gave out (but I didn't know what was wrong at the time) and the car started shaking violently and became unable to drive straight. We were in a remote part of San Jose, 20 miles from home at midnight, and I felt it was too risky to try to make it home. Priscilla has AAA but she left her member card and all forms of ID at my house, so AAA couldn't help us out. I had to call my roommate to bring the card to us, but by the time he reached us we decided to ride home with him and return the next day.
So Priscilla drove me to my car on Saturday and we called AAA to have my car towed to a mechanic. I rode with the tow truck guy, a burly, entertaining guy named Wayne who told me that his favorite tow jobs are "PD impounds".
On Sunday Priscilla and I visited a sister church, CCIC South Valley, and met some cool people mostly in the same demographic as CCIC MV. Priscilla also cooked a lot of food (chicken for tacos, herb chicken breast and baked pasta) ahead of time so that we had more time to do other things, like start watching Autumn's Concerto, a hackneyed Taiwanese drama that she seems to like for some reason. ;)
This week the mechanic called me in and showed me the busted wheel bearing as well as an outer tie rod end that was in sloppy condition. The wheel bearing explains why I've been hearing a whirring noise while driving as well as why the tread on that tire kept wearing out abnormally quickly. The mechanic ended up replacing both wheel bearings and tie rod ends for $740, and he comped me coolant because the job was finished later (this morning) than promised and because my coolant reservoir was empty. I still have a coolant leak, but for now it's cheaper to use some Stop Leak, top off coolant and keep an eye on it than to isolate and fix the leak.