confusion

I did the most stupid, slap-stick, embarrassing move today. And my hand and side are still throbbing from it. I ended up needing to borrow socks from J███████!

How? Well, it started because of the clutch in the truck—the one I just had replaced (grumble, grumble, grumble!) I picked the truck up yesterday and it was nice. I went back to work and finished up the day (and made the previous post.) When I left work however I noticed I needed to press as hard as I could to get the clutch to engage. I did engage, it was just that I had to push the clutch to the floor and then keep pushing like I was trying to push it through the floor. Once it was in gear everything was fine, I just had to push the clutch all the way down before I felt it engage. Ok. So this morning I got in the truck and pressed the clutch, grabbed the shift stick and pushed it out of reverse and to first. I stopped a few inches from first—it was like hitting a brick wall. I had to slam the clutch down ‘with much authority’ to get it to engage. Again on the way to work things where ok, I just had to press the clutch really hard to change gears.

So fist thing when the shop opened I went over and asked them if they could adjust the clutch a little to loosen it up a bit. They said no problem if I could leave the truck for a while. Ok, it’s about a quarter or a mile walk back to the office. It’s a fairly nice walk to, around a office building lined with trees and then across a small storm ditch and your in the parking lot of my offices. Well, soon
after I sat down at my desk it started raining. It rained for a few hours, but at one when I called the shop back and asked if the truck was down it had stopped raining. I decided to head over before it started raining again.

So, across the parking lot, and down the hill to the the drainage ditch—it’s fairly steep, 35 degree slop or so, but only about 10 feet long. The last two feet or so it concrete for the storm ditch. Now when I got to the bottom of the grass part there was about an inch, maybe two inches of water in the ditch (which has a flat bottom about 2 1/2 feet across.) I figure I can step down to the edge of the water then take a big step across and only the heel of my shoe should get wet. I have long legs, no problem. I took one step onto the concrete—and you know what happened then.

I slid down about a foot before my foot flew up (with the other foot) to about head level—or what would have been head level had my head not now been crashing down to about knee level as I landed ever so gracefully on my right side in the water. I managed to keep my face and head from hitting the concrete by catching myself on my right hand—the back of my right hand. My feet and right leg where laying in two inches of water and I had managed to splash enough that my shirt
was 80% drenched—even my hair got wet!

And I still had to walk to the shop to get my truck! Oh! My toes when ‘squish-squish’ with every step! How embarrassing is that? I walked in to pick up the truck soaked from head to toe. Thank god there was an extra shirt in the truck. I sat around in half wet clothes the rest of the day. When I got to mason to hang out with J███████, K– and S██████I had to borrow a pair of socks as my where still soaking wet!

And the clutch is still not right—now it is too loose!

Nearly $1400 dollars later… at least my truck shifts smoother than glass…

I am convinced that the mechanic is ripping me off. My truck won’t be done today and the price is a couple hundred over the estimate. But as I know only two things about fixing transmissions—jack and shit—there is nothing I can do… I need the truck, and I need it fixed. So… (hopefully) I will have it back tomorrow….

Scheisse! My truck broke! Well the clutch actually. But it’s going to cost me a thousand dollars. A thousand dollars that I was going to use to go down to DMV and, finally, register my car in DC (it’s a long story.)

Luckily (if anything in this situation is lucky) it decided to die as I was leaving work and there is a transmission place just down the road. So I left the truck there and through the grace of S██████ and J███████ I made it to the metro to go home last night and from the metro to work this morning.

Now I am waiting for the mechanic to call me and give me the final price. (Ouch, my wallet is hurting!)

It’s a quiet, peaceful night
The moon is shining bright
Giving not a hint of what’s in store
A few hours before morning
Without a single warning
Something strange begins to move the floor

A quake, a quake
The house begins to shake
You’re bouncing ‘cross the floor
And watching all your dishes break

You’re sleeping; there’s a quake
You’re instantly awake
You’re leaping out of bed
And shouting “Oh for heaven’s sake!”

I ran outside with neighbors
Their faces full of shocks
That’s because I’m standing there
In nothing but my socks

A Quake! A Quake!, from the album Yakko’s World

(Full lyrics here [members.cruzio.com])

What the hell is that all about? It’s from the Animaniacs CD Yakko’s World. Why am I quoting it? Because there was a earthquake near my parents house outside of C’ville. Now strange as it may sound this is not too rare. It’s happened a few times in my life. The first time I remember I was four or five. I was at the babysitters in her basement with about five other kids. I was on one of those big red balls with the handle on it that your bounce up and down on and then the ground shook while I was in the air and I don’t know what happened. Next thing I knew my head met the metal pole that is part of the house support. Yes there was a earthquake, a 2.8 on the Richter scale and what did I do? Head banged with a steel pole and got a concussion. Oh… man just thinking about it makes my head hurt.

Then there was the ‘not-an-earthquake’ that registered 2.5 on the Richter scale. When I was 19 I was driving down the Interstate near my house and the whole ground shook for a few seconds. I thought it was an earthquake—everyone did. The radio said that people where reporting the ground shaking in several counties. The USGS said the shaking registered 2.5. Later the story changed that it was a sonic boom from some Air Force plane.

The story I hear, which I can find no verification of on the internet, so tinfoil hats on was that apparently the shaking had nothing to do with tectonics but everything to do with aeronautics. See an SR-71 goes about Mach 3 or so. So fast in fact that the pilot has only nominal control over the plane and the landing procedure is controlled by a man on the ground. When the thing slows down it usually does so very high up in the atmosphere where there is little air—thus not carrying the shock wave very far. Story goes that at the time supersonic military plane was coming in for a landing —in California! They were training a new controller and it seems that the newbie slowed the plane down a little too fast a little too low in the atmosphere and the shock wave caused a 2.5 earthquake in seven counties! I don’t know if the whole plane thing is true but that’s what they said! ‘Believe it or not…’