confusion

Happy birthday to my love. I wish I could be in Switzerland to take you out and and throw you a party. But that will have to wait till I have a chance to come see you. Till then happy birthday, I hope you are having fun. Love you.

I picked up my truck from the dealers today. They said that they managed to get it to die on them—which is good because they said it started right up for them the first time. But when they hooked the computer up to the diagnostics it printed out a list of codes pages long. Turned out (at least they say) to be a frayed ground wire or some such. Well, it works now. I just hope it still works in a week.

So yesterday I go to get in my truck to pick up Sherman (who is now in Alexandria, living in a hotel for a week till we move in to our new place,) and the truck starts fine, but then 100 feet down the road it stalls… and here we go again! I was on a down hill to I rolled the truck into a little drive way (and the people who owned that driveway showed up some time later and after much discussion and dirty looks parked on the street. But they turned out to be nice guys.) I called roadside and was on the phone an hour (starting at 6:40ish—thats important, remember it) while the guy calls all the contracted towers in the area. Well, none of them pick up the phone so after that he tries the non-contracted (you know the ones you have to pay but roadside will reimburse you for) ones. So since I’m on a cell phone the guys says he will keep trying and that they will call me back. Ok, I tell Sherman to take the metro in and called J███████ to say I would not be coming out to Vienna.

An hour later Sherman shows up and I’m on the phone again with roadside. They cannot get a tow truck so they are going to call the police and have one sent. So they tell me one is coming. Two hours later I call them again. They call the police again and say a tow truck is coming again, but this time they give me a phone number to call and a name. So I wait 45 minutes and nothing. I call the number and the DC police say that they ‘can not and will not send a tow truck.’ They can send a patrol car. Well that does not do me any fucking good.

At this point it was 11:00 so I said fuck it. Sherman and I went to get a few drinks. We had a good time at Larry’s Lounge. Met a guy named Joseph and talked till like 2 in the morning. Guys seams cool and we are going to be living 3 blocks from him after this week. After that, Sherman and I got a slice of pizza and he headed out for the night. I headed back to the truck. I called roadside again and… to make a long story short and to keep from repeating myself lets just say that at 6 am they finally got a hold of a tow truck in Louden, who said they would come in and get the truck. But, it would be between 9:30 and 10:30 before they got here. So at 11 am I called again and got a different tow truck. At 11:30 two tow trucks showed up. Boy that was a fiasco. But the truck got towed to the dealer, and tomorrow I’m going to call the mechanics who ‘fixed’ it the frist time and tell them I want my fucking money back. Right after I figure out how to get to and from work again without a car.

First off a little bit of non-drama; It’s September sixth and the year and a half anniversary for me and C███████. In one sense time has flown by and in many others time has crawled by at an excruciating pace. I have not seen her in a long time, but we talk all the time and I feel that the relationship is a strong as ever. I was hoping to go to London to see her this month but that is not to be for various reasons. Love you babe.

And now the drama. It was another long week. I have been working 12 hours a day this week again. Deadlines looming in a few weeks. But it’s been ok, I am writing c code and feel like I have gotten something really accomplished for the first time in a while. I don’t know what it is but programming in Java or C/C++ just leaves me feeling like I have actually been working. Working in PHP and with web based stuff is frustrating and I don’t ever feel like I have gotten anything done no matter how much work I do.

Anyway, on Thursday I went to dinner with Rachel. Haven’t seen here in a long time, since just after I got back from England in fact. She’s doing good. We had a long dinner and talked and laughed about a lot of stuff.

The big drama is of course my truck. I spent several hours on Wednesday getting the truck towed from the mechanics to a dealership because they told me that after they put in the new fuel pump the truck starts but after 30 to 45 minutes it ‘winds down.’ So I had it towed to a dealership out in Vienna. The dealership called me on Friday afternoon and told me that they could find nothing wrong with the truck. So today I picked up the truck and drove it to work. There was one time while I was driving to work and twice coming back to DC that the truck bucked like it did the night before it died on me. Now if it dies on me again I’m going to give up and move to Ulan Bator.

Also; I saw an ad for some new ABC show called “Threat Matrix.” Now the show is supposed to be about people who deal with terrorist threats to America but during the add they say “their authority is unquestioned” and “their methods are unconventional.” Now unquestioned authority for a law enforcement/defence agency is a bad thing. You know that whole checks and balances thing? And the unconventional methods? In the ad they say it while they show a man chained to a chair and a woman says “tell me what I want to know.” Excuse me? It doesn’t matter what a person is accused of law enforcement can’t use torture to interrogate them. I don’t know, but it just looked like the show plays into the whole ‘fuck civil liberties and rights just get the terrorists” attitude.

Ok, it’s late, I’m going to bed. Ciao.

So… Where where we? Last Friday was busy day. C██████ left for Germany—best of luck to her. My truck broke down and Sherman and A—– came down for the weekend.

It started off bad. I had a deadline at work for a demo my boss was headed to on Monday morning. So I get up Friday and get ready for work, but when I tried to start my truck I got nothing. It sounded fine, but when I let off the ignition it stopped. Like there was no gas. I was hoping it was just a vapor lock as per the earlier entry here, but it just would not start. So I looked around and decided I would have to wait a while before calling a tow truck because I was parallel parked between two cars and I would have to wait till the guy in front of me left.

To cut that story short I spent the next few hours getting everything set up to work from home. Which was a mistake, because I just can’t get into a work mind-set sitting at home in a nice chair and typing on my laptop. Then I called a tow truck because the guy in front of my truck had gone to work. They told me it would be an hour and that the tow truck would call me a few minutes before he showed up. So back to work for a while. That was at 9:30 or so.

At 11 I called the tow company back, and they said the truck was on it’s way. So I decided to wait by the truck. At 11:30 I called the tow company again and they said the driver was stuck in traffic and it would be no more than 30 minutes more. And hour and a half later I finally got a tow truck. Seems half of DC was shut down because of some shit.

So truck oft to the shop. Back to work for a little while, then I get a phone call from A—– and he wants to know what there is to do till I got off work because he is on the Rock Creek Parkway. Since I was not at work, I just told him to come by and we would hang out till Sherman showed up. So we walked around and got a bite to eat while we waited for Sherman. Sherman showed up about six and spent about 30 minutes looking for parking.

The three of us relaxed for a while, ordered a pizza and watched a movie till about 9pm. Then we hit Adams Morgan, and bar hopped. I’ll spare you the stupidity but needless to say it was after three in the morning when we went to bed.

Saturday we headed out about noon and walked down to the mall. It was a beautiful day—only about 80 degrees and a little wind. Sunny but not hot, a vast improvement over the nearly 100 with 80+ percent humidity that is normal around here. Basically we spent the day walking and talking. We went through the Natural History Museum, the Freer and Sackler galleries and walked down to the Holocaust but they were out of tickets so we walked down the mall to all the memorials.

While we where walking around I kept calling the mechanics to see what was up with my truck. They kept telling me that the technician was looking at it etc, etc. At 4pm they finally said that the was what I had expected—the fuel pump was broken. But…—yes there’s a but—the parts places where all closed for the weekend and it would be Monday morning before they could get a quote and get the part.

So A—–, Sherman and I walked back to Dupont and had dinner. Then we crashed for a while at my place, watched a movie and just relaxed for a few hours. Then it was off to the bars again. We spent most of the night at Lucky bar and one of A—–s friends from college who lives in Rockville joined us for a while. We drank way too much and hit bed very late again.

Sunday morning I had arranged an appointment to see an apartment down by Logan Circle for Sherman and I. It’s a really good apartment and we filled out a lease and gave the landlord money to run credit checks. There was a little mix up on the signing of the release for the credit checks so I ended up having to fax Sherman the form to have him resign it on Monday but we got it all worked out and we got the apartment. Can’t wait to move in on September 21st!

Anyway, after brunch the three of us went over Shermans pictures of his bike trip across America. He had some really cool shots. We hung out a little while longer and then it was time for Sherman and A—– to head back. Sherman left about 3pm and A—– and I chilled out for about an hour more. Then A—– drove me to work and dropped me off before heading back to Brooklyn.

It was really great to hang out with A—– and Sherman again. Walking around the city really reminded me of our time in London and all the fun we have had. It’s great to have friends from my time abroad that I get to see and hang out with. I don’t get to see C███████ at all, much less all the others I met in London that I was friends with.

Sunday night I worked from about 5:30pm all the way through to Monday at 6pm! But I got the work I needed to get done finished. I got the stuff for the demo working at 6:12am and my boss showed up at 6:15am to pick the phone up! Talk about timing!

Monday I also found out that no one seemed to have a fuel pump for a ’96 Isuzu Rodeo. Finally the ordered one from the factory and expressed it, but that was 3-5 days so it would not even be in till Thursday or Friday. I got lucky because I know the Mische’s. Ann said I could borrow the Passport for the week, so J███████ picked me up and dropped me at the Mische’s.

Tuesday morning my trials and tribulations continued when I stopped to get gas. The truck refused to start up. Well there’s something new! I got it jumped and took it to Fairfax Honda for service (though Alyssa gave me bad directions to Fairfax Honda and it took some time to find. Once there Mike took me back the the Mische’s house and I took the Honda—It’s good to have rich friends who have too many cars!

The next big issue of my week was that it looks like I will not be able to go to London to see C███████. Lots of reasons—$700 for the car, deadlines at work, and she is busy. But I almost cried when it became clear I would not be able to go. It’s been more than a year since I saw my love. How much longer will it be? I miss her so much. I don’t know what to do about it. Some times it makes me so depressed it’s hard to have fun.

The final act of the week was on Friday; I called up the mechanics to ask about my truck and they said the part had not arrived yet. A little while later they called me back to say that the dealer had never ordered the part! So they would get it Over-nighted from the factory and have it today. But wait! There’s more! A few minutes later they called back to say that they could not get it before Tuesday because of the holiday! Fuck! I told them to give me the number for the dealer so I could bitch at them. I talked to the three different people before I found someone willing to work with me. He called around and then called me back and said that the best thing he could work out was that he ordered the part from a Honda plant (the Honda Passport and Isuzu Rodeo where the same in ’96) and that it would be here today.

Well as of today the part was in but the mechanics had not finished putting it in yet. So maybe tomorrow I will have a car. I sure hope so. I feel bad driving the Mische’s car all week. I was going to go to C’ville this weekend but I don’t want to put all the miles on the Mische’s car. It’s been a hell of a week. Maybe next week will be better.