2006-07-26 - 5:18 p.m.

Okay let's try to ge through two cycles and get up to date...

The last thing I wrote about was going along to the Fiery Furnaces by myself at the Gaelic Club. So far as I can tell, a quiet 3 mornings followed, as seen in my records of my finances, where all I bought was a Sunday paper. I think on the Sunday and Monday after work I went for a walk with Nathan (yes I remember now because on the Sunday I wanted to get home in time to watch "Pirates of the Carribean"), and possibly on Monday or Tuesday I watched one of the dodgiest movies ever at home ("Aeonflux").

My afternoon shifts were a little more eventful. And not in the good way. I gave Kel a lift for most of the cycle, and driving home after my first afternoon shift, I noticed that the heater in my car wasn't working. Which was a pain because it was a very cold night (something which I noticed a lot more later on). Then Kel pointed out that my thermostat was reading high, and while at first I thought it was because the needle was dodgy, when it hit the red zone I played it safe and pulled over. I'm glad Kel was there (both her parents being mechanics), or I would have been lucky to find the radiator (or the place that the water goes). It was bone dry, so we walked 15 minutes to a service station to get some water (once again thanks to Kel for playing it safe or I might have tried driving- after all at no point during the night did the car actually not run). We filled the radiator, checked the thermostat was reading normal, then set off again. 5 minutes later, same problem. Pulled over- the water was very obviously leaking out. I had two choices- stock up on about 20L of water, stop every 5 minutes and take the risk, or get a tow truck. We went for the latter. Had to wait half an hour in the cold. The tow truck driver was an arsehole (made me drive the car up the ramp just because it could be done, never mind that a tow truck is equipped to handle immobile cars), but the servo that we ended up getting it towed to ended up being reliable enough. I wasn't going to dare ask the tow truck driver for a lift the last 5 minutes home, so we caught a cab.

Did I mention it had already been a stressful night at work and we didn't leave there 'til 1am? So I got home between 3-4am, and had to get up early the next morning to let the mechanics know that it was my car that had been left there overnight, then walk down to give them the keys. I trusted them, and I don't think they ripped me off, but it doesn't make the fact that repairs cost $795 any more fun. Turns out that the reason my thermostat needle was never that reliable was that the thermostat itself was jammed open, and it had finally had the consequence of blowing the water pump and cracking the radiator. I was just lucky not to have blown a head gasket in the whole sordid process.

Sounded like I actually know something about cars back then didn't it? At least I know where the radiator water goes now :)

So needless to say Kel drove for our second afternoon shift, but I had my car back for the third (I was impressed by the quick turnaround as well as their confident diagnosis, I just wish cars weren't so goddamned expensive.

Now at some point during this recap of the last two-and-a-half weeks I'm going to make some comment about how I should be drinking and spending less, so it's ironic that I just got a call from Nathan coerscing me to the pub, and I'm going to have to leave the rest of this little catch up session for another time.

You get that.

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