Yucky Day

Posted by blainegarrett

October 15, 2008

Uhg. It is almost 11 and I am finally chilling for a minute before bed. Today was one of the more crappy days I have had in a while. It started off pretty good waking up at my new lady friend’s place inside of an awesome couch fort we made last night. I wasn’t planning on spending the night per se, but the couch fort was comfy and we were both sleepygusters. This morning I woke up to discover it was nearly 9:30 and we had a quick parting kiss and I ran home to start work.

Work itself was rather uneventful, which was good. However, during work, I was listening to the Kevin Smith podcast and they were talking about their new M-Box recording device they used to do their show. I have been shopping around a bit myself for such a device since the start of Krapp’s Last ‘Cast. We run all of our mics into a mixer and then run the headphone out of the mixer into the mic in on my laptop. It all comes in as one channel and I usually have to compress the hell out of it to accodate people sitting too far back from the mic or those quiet talkers. In the end, it makes everyone fairly muddy sounding. A nice USB multi-track mixer would be ideal. So I looked up the M-box and decided to go score one from Guitar Center.

So, around 5pm I took off for Guitar Center in Roseville. While I was sitting at a light, a bicyclist grazed into my car (yes, i was stopped and the biker hit ME). I got out and inspected and the dude apologized. There was no damage, so I wasn’t too angry, but it was annoying.

The rest of the trip to Guitar Center was fine. One of the guys in Pro Audio helped me figure out which one I would need and didn’t try to sell me a bunch of crap. I was in and out in 10 minutes or so.

This is when things started to go downhill. I decided to go to the gym to work out quickly. As I was cruising down University AVE I noticed some funny wirring noise. Then when I pulled into the lot at the gym, I heard a metalic thud noise but was still moving fine. I pulled into my spot sort of half assed and put my truck in reverse to repark - nada. My reverse was out. Yuck. So, I immedately called my roommate Jon and left a message of my situaton. I was sure it was my transmission and I was moving forward fine (earlier at least) so I was hoping he could help me get turned around and I could drive to a transmission joint. Well, he didn’t pick up, so I sat and had a cigarette and pondered. I then decided that I might as well go work out since I was there and there was no point in sitting around worrying and waiting.

I changed, stretched, and did some situps. While I was stretching I figured I would call my brother Darren - I’m sure he owes me a favor or two. He was on his way home and was going to call me when he got there. So I started hitting the weights. A couple sets in, he calls and was googling transmission shops. All were on Lake street - probably not a safe distance to drive with a flaky transmission. He called a few and they we closed anyway. So I decided that I would just wait for Jon and try to drive home. Then my phone started beeping that it was dying. Uhg. I decided to stop working out and got changed again and hung out outside and had another smoke.

While milling around, I noticed a sign for an auto-repair shop just behind the gym. I decided to go check it out incase they were open. Unfortunatly, the entrance was on the far side of the block and ended up walking all over the place to try to get it. Once I got there, I just sorta walked up to one of the many garages that had its door open. Some guys were looking at the underside of car up on the lift.

I flagged one down and told him the skinny. He was nice enough of a guy and explained what was probably wrong. It honestly sounded like something I could fix myself, but I really wasn’t in the mood for this all. So, I told him I would wait for my friend to help me get turned around and I would drive it over.

I walked back to the truck at the gym lot and Jon finally called. He was going to come help. Yay, Jon. Beep beep - phone continues to die.

Meanwhile, I was supposed to get together with my friend Kevin from the band Minus Poseur that I did a bunch of design work for ages ago. We get together periodically. I called him back up and asked if he could swing by and grab me at the gym instead of meeting me at the bar. I gave him directions, but my phone was nearly dead and I was really worried that he wouldn’t be able to get a hold of me if I were lost.

While waiting for both, I started cleaning my truck out. Finally, Kevin showed up and after nearly blowing a blood vessle, we pushed my truck back around so that I could pull out of the lot… stupid sloped parking lots. I drove over to the repair place and gave my info and such and left the keys. They said they probably wouldn’t be able to get to it until Friday at the earliest. poop. Good thing I telecommute.

I hope in Kevin’s car and we drive back to my place only to find out that Jon had showed up at the gym to help, couldn’t find me, and left. He wasn’t mad, but I did feel like a jerk. Oh well.

Next, I had to call Toni to tell her I wasn’t going to be able to swing by and pick up a movie she was going to loan me. I also called up Joe to ask about the podcast tomorrow only to find out that it probably won’t happen since he is ill. yarg. On top of this, I tried to call the lady friend again to hear that her phone has been “temporarily cut off”. She didn’t said any emails either all day, which she usually does. A warm fuzzy message from her would have made me forget all of the day.

So finally, Kevin and I hit up Tracy’s and have some burgers and beer and catch up. This was great except it was trivia night and we kept trying to talk over the announcer and douchebags.

Now I am at home. Still no word from lady friend, no truck until who knows when, lots of tasks ahead that need the truck, and probably a zillion dollar repair bill in my future.

But on the positive side, I got to see Kevin for the first time in quite a while, I have a new M-Box recorder, my tummy is full of burgers and beer, and well, none of the bad stuff seems to really be that bad concidering that it all could be worse. I mean, I could have gotten into an accident instead of just not having reverse. The truck could have been impounded (the gym lot is 2 hour parking). Lady friend could hate me instead of probably just having her phone off and being busy. Yup.

So yeah, it wasn’t a bad day. I just needed to vent. Off to sleeeeeeeeep. Boom.