Anarchogeek

Car Died in LA

What to say.... we were all ready to go, ownership transfered, licenses in place, van packed and repacked to allow for the space needed by 35 computers, 22 monitors, networking gear, and who knows what else. D gave us directions to the local health food store and we were off. Ben needed to get back to New York to go to school, so we were hoping to get to Phoenix for him to catch a 2am bus. He grabbed some food at the store for the several day bus ride. Just as we were pulling out i asked him if he really wanted to go see the sunset over the ocean or if we could get going straight away. We almost fillped a coin, but Ben said, what the hell, let's just go see it for a couple minutes then hit the road.

Boy am i glad he said that. The sunset was pretty, but the real reason i'm glad is the car died on us on the next start. We were stuck there with a SUV totally full of computers parked under an overpass. If we'd have headed out then the car would have died in someplace like Palm Springs when we stopped to get gas.

We started calling folks. D who gave us the car wasn't answering her cell phone. I called my brother who goes to school near there, but he wasn't around because school doesn't start until mid september. We called a few friends who where mechanics and they gave us a list of things to try, but they always started with, go to the carburetor and do this, then go and do that, then.... Even in the best of conditions i'm not a mechanic, but with almost no light or tools there wasn't much we could do. Eventually after calling D many times I walked up to her house while Ben stayed with the car. We were very lucky that we'd gone back to the beach near D's house, so it was only 6 blocks. Just as i got there D was pulling out, having heard the messages piled up on her cell phone.

We managed to get AAA to tow the car to the dealer. Apparently the dealer had just two days earlier given it a clean bill of health, saying that it could make it all the way to Brazil if we wanted. Unfortunately it didn't make it more than a couple of miles. The next morning D went over personally and met with the dealer first thing in the morning. Apparently a switch in the electrical system had failed. Other than that the SUV is still in great shape. Ben took off on a flight with jet blue which only cost $110, a much better deal than spending 3 days on a bus. So, after packing up, i headed out mid morning for Phoenix to see my sister and her partner.

All in all it worked out, we just had several hours of sitting there saying 'oh fuck, this whole project is screwed' over and over again.

I'm writing this sitting in Nuevo Laredo where we are also saying 'oh fuck, this whole project is screwed' so perhaps just a little car trouble seems like it might not be that bad.