Entries this day: timing_belt

timing belt

(transcribed from my diary)

Midnight Tuesday 6 April 1999

Worked at KTRU today from 1 to 3pm - my first day shift, which I subbed for a woman I've never met, who calls herself (on email) miss meagan. Got lots of requests and played most of them; I almost got bogged down!

Got a request for Miranda July, a favorite CD of mine, but the CD is gone!!!! This really bums me out; it had just gone off the more carefully watched playlist a couple weeks ago, and now it's been misplaced or swiped from the stacks. Boo.

However(!) in a previous show, I had tape recorded "Medical Wonder" by Miranda July as I played it mixed with a track from Francis Dhomont _Frankenstein Symphony_! I think the mix is super cool, adding drama to "Medical Wonder". So I played it off my tape, which I had with me at the station since I'm still recording myself most times I go on the air. The tape sounded a bit quieter than the original, so I had the output level pegged to 10+; Manda told me later that it sounded fine.

Worked on www.frontofficeautomation.com (not up yet) and I'm aggrrrvated that some of the pages aren't coming up the same though it's the same HTML as far as I can tell. Hmmm.

Talked to Carina about my flying into O'Hare for my trip to Great America May 7-9, and talked to Jen about her trip to visit Houston and Rice University the last week of April! I'm super excited about both trips!

Then went to Wednesday nite dinner on Tuesday nite (to prepare for youth Sunday, the Order of Service of which needed to be done by Wednesday morning), and on the way there my car Scott started making crazy bad noises. I only noticed as I was idling stopped at Smoothie King to grab a Smoothie. Uh oh.

Didn't get a Smoothie, backed up Scott to see what was wrong. Plenty of oil. Plenty of water. (where is the transmission fluid level thing?) Hmmm. Scott seemed to run fine, but just make this crazy noise! Sadness about my car, fear and anxiety about being late, but I simply called in late to Jon, a youth with a cell phone. I drove to an auto parts place to ask for someone to listen to see if they could let me know what it was. They felt short staffed so couldn't send anyone out.

My inner guidance guided me to simply drive gently to church for the youth group so I did.

We got everything planned and are doing some pretty creative things:

• tangerine communion (including napkins in each order of service)
• playing that "Sunscreen" song where the guy gives an oration and says "wear sunscreen; it's a proven fact. the rest of this is just my opinion" (yes, for internet junkies, you saw it attributed to Kurt Vonnegut or someone on the web)
• and we'll have Lionel, a man with a beautiful voice and spectacular wardrobe sing a solo, wearing the most extravagant stuff he would like to wear.

That done, Wende drove behind me as I drove Scott to the dealership. I actually got a big (short lived) head start and made it about a mile away to an intersection. Wende called on cell phone, "where are you?" "I'm at the intersection, catch up!"

Within 30 seconds Scott's idling sputtered and he passed out.

The light had just turned green and cars were honking behind me to go, instead I turned my hazard lights on and the cars pulled around me without another glance. Wende pulled up behind me and I got out. "Push me across the intersection into Coney Island."

We were at a T intersection; when the light turned green again she just pushed my straight forward into the parking lot of James Coney Island hot dog place.

Called AAA, looked through my Costa Rica scrapbook until the wrecker dude came. I described the problem and without hesitation he said, "timing belt." I told him I wanted it towed to the dealership, and he was all, "you sure? they're gonna be expensive." I was sure. He said he would meet us at the dealership, so we left.

Missed the exit the first time around, and got there just as he was letting Scott down off his truck. It was 11:30pm; I'm thankful the service department is open until midnight.

I described the problem to the woman at the counter and she was all, "timing belt."

"I had it changed here recently."

"Probably it was at 60,000 miles; let's look." She looked through my records and found brakes fixed, something else, something else, something else, and then bing "timing belt."

I threw my hands in the air in a mock shout of triumph. Turns out it had been changed a year ago; I was exactly on the edge of the warranty period of 1 year or 12,000 miles. Since it was changed I had driven 2 days less 1 year, and 695 miles over 12,000 miles.

ooooh.

So she wrote a note to indicate the situation, followed by "Please Help!" at the end. That was 10.5 hours ago; I'll hear from them today. My hope is that they will honor the warranty. I will certainly be more likely to stick with them if they do. permalink