Awesome Things
Ever have one of those weeks where nothing goes right?
This was not one of those weeks.
Sunday I hung out with a huge crew of people-my-age from the Vineyard after lunch (along with the youth pastor and his wife and son). Following that, I spent the rest of the day with my friend-of-a-year Kristen, and a new friend, Lara, both of whom are really cool, and will be coming to the Inside Out Soul Festival when I go next Wednesday afternoon through Sunday night.
Monday was fairly nondescript, but Tuesday was interesting. As it does every few months, my car overheated, this time just as I was parking it for an appointment in downtown Boston. I didn't have coolant with me like I usually do (I took it out to make room for the Bergs' stuff in my car), so I walked all over the North End until I found some. My car had already been sitting for about two hours, so I dumped in the coolant like I always do and took off. In the middle of Cambridge, my car overheated again. I got it back to my house that night with the help of some friends from my small group Bible study.
The next day (working from home to wait for the truck) I had it towed to a dealership. They said they'd look at it Thursday. My friend Kim Clayton (of the same small group: I've been in it for about a month) said I could borrow her car for a week. I also scored two laptops on a local freecycle list: both had hard drive problems, said the owner. I picked them up on the way to get the car, drove it home, and went to bed.
Oh, Wednesday was also the day my insurance company mailed me to tell me that my payments were going from $54/paycheck to $13/paycheck for the rest of the year. (They're finally registering my 7 years of perfect driving prior to my (contested) accident fault last Summer.) Given the reduction in my rate, I've paid all but around $100 of my total premium this year.
Thursday, they said my car was ready. It turns out that it has never (seemingly since I bought it) had enough coolant in it, but that most of the time it had just enough to squeek by. The diagnostics cost $40, and were worth every penny, because I found out as well that there's nothing wrong with my steering (I just need new tires) and that the "check engine" light is almost certainly just an emissions thing. I came home, worked on the laptops (the PII was fine, sans hard drive, but the PIII wouldn't boot or even make a sound), and hung out for the rest of the night in Harvard Square with two friends I met in New Orleans, friends who had been road tripping at the time and to whom I lent the second bed in my hotel room the night I rented one myself.
Today, work was easy. I got home, took the PIII apart and put it back together with a lot of prayer, and it just worked. I took the hard drive out of my old MythTV laptop (the one csinsi gave me which has now crapped out on both of us, not just him), tossed it into the new machine, and it just worked. I'm typing on it right now. My next mission is to get the built in wireless card operational.
Tonight, a group of people (some from the River, some from my small group) are heading to Davis Square to watch The Princess Bride, which is the midnight movie at the Somerville Theater this weekend. We'll be meeting outside J.P. Licks at 11:00 for ice cream, and then at 11:30 to get together and buy tickets. Sounds like a good end of the day, to me. And now... maybe a nap.
This was not one of those weeks.
Sunday I hung out with a huge crew of people-my-age from the Vineyard after lunch (along with the youth pastor and his wife and son). Following that, I spent the rest of the day with my friend-of-a-year Kristen, and a new friend, Lara, both of whom are really cool, and will be coming to the Inside Out Soul Festival when I go next Wednesday afternoon through Sunday night.
Monday was fairly nondescript, but Tuesday was interesting. As it does every few months, my car overheated, this time just as I was parking it for an appointment in downtown Boston. I didn't have coolant with me like I usually do (I took it out to make room for the Bergs' stuff in my car), so I walked all over the North End until I found some. My car had already been sitting for about two hours, so I dumped in the coolant like I always do and took off. In the middle of Cambridge, my car overheated again. I got it back to my house that night with the help of some friends from my small group Bible study.
The next day (working from home to wait for the truck) I had it towed to a dealership. They said they'd look at it Thursday. My friend Kim Clayton (of the same small group: I've been in it for about a month) said I could borrow her car for a week. I also scored two laptops on a local freecycle list: both had hard drive problems, said the owner. I picked them up on the way to get the car, drove it home, and went to bed.
Oh, Wednesday was also the day my insurance company mailed me to tell me that my payments were going from $54/paycheck to $13/paycheck for the rest of the year. (They're finally registering my 7 years of perfect driving prior to my (contested) accident fault last Summer.) Given the reduction in my rate, I've paid all but around $100 of my total premium this year.
Thursday, they said my car was ready. It turns out that it has never (seemingly since I bought it) had enough coolant in it, but that most of the time it had just enough to squeek by. The diagnostics cost $40, and were worth every penny, because I found out as well that there's nothing wrong with my steering (I just need new tires) and that the "check engine" light is almost certainly just an emissions thing. I came home, worked on the laptops (the PII was fine, sans hard drive, but the PIII wouldn't boot or even make a sound), and hung out for the rest of the night in Harvard Square with two friends I met in New Orleans, friends who had been road tripping at the time and to whom I lent the second bed in my hotel room the night I rented one myself.
Today, work was easy. I got home, took the PIII apart and put it back together with a lot of prayer, and it just worked. I took the hard drive out of my old MythTV laptop (the one csinsi gave me which has now crapped out on both of us, not just him), tossed it into the new machine, and it just worked. I'm typing on it right now. My next mission is to get the built in wireless card operational.
Tonight, a group of people (some from the River, some from my small group) are heading to Davis Square to watch The Princess Bride, which is the midnight movie at the Somerville Theater this weekend. We'll be meeting outside J.P. Licks at 11:00 for ice cream, and then at 11:30 to get together and buy tickets. Sounds like a good end of the day, to me. And now... maybe a nap.