Well, it’s official… I have my life back.
As a thank you for the last three months of pure hell, the CFO of the company gave me two bottles of Laphroaig single malt… For those of you who don’t know, that’s about the best Scotch on Earth in my opinion.
I think he’s hoping that they’ll aid me in forgetting the whole thing, but I simply don’t drink that much.
So, Friday I had a new head installed in my Toyota… A mere $600, but in theory tomorrow morning it will all be worth it.
As always, it’s a long story:
See, I still have my Virginia tags on the car as the insurance in Virginia is about half as much as Colorado, and I decided to milk them as long as I could to save myself a little cash. Unfortunately the project from the ninth plane of the abyss happened and the 100+ miles per day pretty much destroyed the poor old motor in the car.
It went from burning about a quart every 3000 miles due to bad valve seals to burning a quart every week and looking like a mosquito fogger as it went down the road. So, right as the tags expired there was no way to get the car to pass emissions.
Well, I had been spending about $500 a month on the car for the previous few months for things like new brakes and a new exhaust system, and then it threw the main belt on the way up to Aryntha and Rai’s place, which was another large sum of money. After all of this I just wasn’t too sure I wanted to drop the $5-700 on a valve job to fix it for another month.
So, there it sat in the garage while I pondered replacements and rode the bus back and forth to work for a few weeks… While riding the bus does allow me to read and get to work in a relatively good mood due to the lack of traffic fighting, it also sucks four or more hours out of my life every day as it takes *forever* to cross Denver on the bus. With my work hours, adding an additional 4 hours to the day pretty much insures that I don’t do much more than go to bed as soon as I get home.
So I looked around for new cars, but unfortunately a complete P.O.S. with missing fenders and an engine that “needs work” runs about $1000 right now here in Denver. Why? I have no idea.
So Friday I decided to get the Toyota fixed one more time. I called around looking for a place to perform the valve job, but the place right close to here had a whole new head for a different customer who never paid for it and he said he could have it done by 2 pm if I got it there by 8. So I was there at 7:30 and, he was done by 1:30.
I got to the state-run emission testing place by 2 and the car passed with flying colors. But, as it’s from out of state they had to run a VIN check on it, so I didn’t get out of there till 3 pm.
I drove the car back home, paperwork in hand, to re-instate the insurance on it as I had let it drop when the plates expired. By 3:30 I was re-insured, but to get plates I had to have proof of insurance…
I hadn’t replaced the printer I gave away the last time I moved back to Virginia for a month, so back in the car and over to the Apple store I go. I was back in the house with a new HP Deskjet 5740, had it installed, and the insurance card printed by 3:45.
So, back into the car and off to the DMV… Unfortunately there are three choices of DMV location for Littleton Colorado as the town sits in three counties and its random choice as to which DMV you have to go to. Of course my first choice was wrong, even though I got there at 4 and the lady didn’t figure out I was in the wrong place till 4:15.
So, correct place directions in hand I jump back in the car and scream across Littleton to the correct DMV, and get there at 4:32 pm… Two minutes after they closed for the week.
Talk about your super-human efforts… As you can see by reading my journal here, I don’t have the best luck with cars and government offices.
So, this is why tomorrow morning will make the expense and headache worth it… I’ll have Colorado plates on the car and it’ll not only be legal to drive, but it won’t fog entire city blocks either. Of course I won’t be able to get my Colorado driver’s license for some random number of weeks as they use the mailing of the plates to verify the address. And, as we all know, without that verification I might be a terrorist and if they give me a driver’s license it could be curtains for the free world…
And that was just Friday…
Saturday afternoon Aryntha and Rai called and by 3pm we were north bound on I-25, headed for parts unknown.
Once we cleared Northern Denver we decided that we’d just head up to the Rocky Mountain National Forest, take a few photos of anything interesting on the way, spend the night in Estes Park, and meander around the forest the next day…
On the way up we drove through Longmont where I got a chance to drive past my parent’s first house on 4th and Lashley… The tower is gone and the solar panels have been removed, but otherwise it was a ‘wayback’ moment for me.
We pulled into Estes Park at about 5 pm, drove around a bit, drove past the Stanley Hotel, which is famous for its starring role in “The Shining”, and drove around a while looking for a hotel that didn’t require reservations years in advance.
The Holiday Inn was full due to a wedding, so we opted for the funkadelic “Twin Owls” motel next door. It turns out that it’s a pretty nice place even if it’s an extreme hold out from the late 60’s. Once we had a place to sleep, we ventured back out and found a similarly odd restaurant which served very good food contrary to what ones first impression would be.
Sunday morning we were on our way into the forest by 10 am, paid our $20 entrance fee at the gate, and spent a few hours dodging out of state plates who had obviously never seen wildlife before.
So we meandered around the forest, taking pictures of the scenery, the animals, and the birds for a few hours. Interestingly, this time of year when the Elk are molting you see more of them in Estes Park than in the forest… Seriously, they’re like ants in town and it wouldn’t be unusual to wake up with a few in your house if you left the door open. I had to stop traffic with Rai’s car a few times to keep gawking, cell phone talking, idiot flatlanders from running down the mule deer and elk as they crossed the roads… I hate people.
Once again the Colorado Jays and the chipmunks were working the crowds like the expert entertainers they are. This time up I only had a few “combos” crackers with me so while I wasn’t able to coax the Jays to land on my hand, I was able to get a chipmunk into petting range.
One passerby in a truck was awestruck and sat there taking photos and an older couple video taped while Aryntha, Rai, and I played with the birds and the rodents for a half hour or so.
We stopped by a place called “Fusion 451” for lunch. More great food but this time it was in an odd, art deco restaurant; then made our way back to my house by way of two large ground station dishes used for solar research and some old telephone in Golden.
And that was my weekend… It’s nice to have my life back. 🙂