Author: Justin

Car update

The Crown is running better than it ever has before. The problem wasn’t the alternator. It was missing six little spring-loaded push pins that bridge the tops of the spark plugs with the coil packs.

Having this fixed after trying to figure it out for two years is indescribably liberating.

The other car is still in the shop, awaiting new boots for the right side A-arm. Today is the king’s birthday, so everything is closed; repairs will continue tomorrow.

Two batteries, two alternators, one radiator

We’ve been having a run of bad car luck as of late. A couple weeks ago, a cop from Khon Kaen backed into our parked Cefiro and broke off the front license plate holder. Nam saw it happen from the pediatrician’s clinic across the street where she had taken Max for a booster shot. She took it to my pal Ot’s shop and got it replaced (on the cop’s dime, of course).

The very next day, I lightly clipped a scooter that was running the wrong way down the street and crossed in front of me as I was waiting to turn out. The young female rider must have known it was her fault, and didn’t even stop. Ot was pretty surprised to see my car needing a new plate holder again and gave me a pity discount (the 2-in 2-days special).

Yesterday, we found out that the radiator which we replaced on the Cefiro 2 years ago was already rusting through in several places. We had it replaced, because Nam had to use the car today to go to Ubon (3 hours one way) and translate for her aunt’s fertilizer company. At the same time, we were having power issues and I had noticed slowly dropping battery fluid and corresponding hairline cracks on the battery body after the car came back from repairs for the crash. Not wanting Nam to break down on a long trip, we also replaced the battery. I was pretty sure it was a battery issue, because we’d had the alternator replaced a few weeks ago.

Nam drove the Cefiro up to Ubon with her sister today as planned, but on the way back, they lost almost all electrical power. They struggled back to Ot’s shop, where we bought the battery, and he had an electrical specialist come in to take a look. He took a look and declared it to be a faulty alternator. We’d had it replaced by a solid backyard mechanic named Yon, so we took it to him to start on the claims process with the supplier. By then, it was time to pick up Max, so I got him and picked up Nam at Yon’s garage and took them home in the Crown.

At home, we were readying the house for my mom’s arrival tomorrow. I had to run out and pay some bills that Nam had intended to take care of, but was unable to due to car problems. It was dark by the time I actually left the house, and there was something funny with my car. It was struggling to keep running, and I thought the headlights were quite dim. Oh shit. But the bills needed to be paid, and I needed to head to the other side of town to update our bank book first. So I kept the old Crown running through sheer willpower and curses to that dastardly mongrel in the sky. She got me there. I stopped across from the ATMs, found that the goddamn update machine was out of order, and walked back to the car. It wouldn’t start, and the cranking was real weak. Dead battery. WHAT THE FUCK YOU FUCKING PIECE OF FUCKING SHIT FUCK SHIT FUCK SHIT FUCK. SHIT!

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I stand in solitude as I compose this post. My phone’s display burns into the night, and nary a soul will aid in killing the mosquitoes that are biting the hell out of me.

I am waiting for the good mechanic Yon, who was working on my other car when he got the call to come save my ass in this one… I can find no wifi signal to share my loneliness in this foreign land…

Yon has arrived with a spare battery, and now we shall see what further expense motorized transport hath incurred this very day.

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Next day: So it seems both of my cars will require new alternators. The Cefiro has a new battery (which is in the Crown now so I can get around today, even though it’s not being charged by the alternator); the Crown probably needs one as well, since the current one has been completely discharged a few times, which isn’t very good for it. The new radiator in the Cefiro seems to be fine. But. I need a car to pick up my mom tonight in Khon Kaen. That goddamn dastardly mongrel in the sky and his impeccable timing…

If Yon can get his hands on a new alternator for the Cefiro, I’ll be really happy. But that depends on a lot of things to be lined up in a short time, like the supplier accepting the claim against the original part, there being a replacement one somewhere very close, and for that dastardly mongrel in the sky to keep out of my shit for the rest of the day… The alternative is to load a spare battery in the Crown and replace it if the one installed gives me grief (headlights run down a battery fairly quickly. I can only say, UNGH.

The Accidental Motorcycle Thief

The other day, I wanted to go for a quick lunch at the canteen (cafeteria), so I asked one of the students interning for the Japanese course if I could borrow her scooter. She gave me the key and told me where it was parked, along with a description. She said the license plate number was 85, and that it was a 100cc Honda Wave, with a manual transmission, in gray.

I found the 100cc manual Honda Wave almost immediately, but noticed that the license plate was actually 58 and that it was blue with gray accents. I chalked it up to the student remembering it wrong, or me hearing it wrong, and decided to test it by trying to start it up: No problem. I rode off in the direction of lunch, happily upshifting with my foot in this age of boring automatic plastic bi-wheeled conveyances.

When I got back on the scooter after lunch, the key was harder to turn. I had to work at it a bit. Then, when I got back to my building, I couldn’t turn the key to the far left to lock the steering column. I tried for a few minutes doing the jiggle-turn maneuver, but finally just gave up. When I went back to my office, I told the intern that I couldn’t lock her bike and asked if she’d had problems with her key, but she had no idea what I was talking about. A warning sign flashed briefly in my head.

“You said your plate number was 5-8, right?” I asked.

“No, I said 8-5,” she said.

Uh-oh.

I  looked down at where I’d parked the bike and saw a girl wiping tears from her eyes, our building’s custodian trying to console her, and a security guard talking into a walkie talkie.

I went down and apologized, and in the end, everyone except the victim had a good laugh about it (she was still in shock at having her scooter stolen). I felt bad for making her feel bad, but also because the first time I stole a bike, [A.] it was only 100cc, [B.] it required no skill because of the worn lock, and [C.] it provided zero exhilaration because IT WAS A TOTAL ACCIDENT.

Dropbox is addictive

Getting more Dropbox space is like earning achievements in your favorite video game.

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It’s been a while since I wrote about Dropbox vs. Google Docs (for MS Office document backup), and there have been new developments since then that really make this software interesting. So how do you get started?

First, create a Dropbox account (clicking this link gives you and I both 250MB extra storage space on top of your initial 2GB)

After you sign up, you will be presented with a list of basic tasks that teach you the basics of the service. As an incentive, you are awarded extra storage space (250MB) upon completion of all the tasks.

Next, complete simple tasks (like linking your Twitter/Facebook accounts to Dropbox) on this page to further boost your Dropbox space (128MB x 6). Note: You may not want to connect Dropbox to your social networking accounts due to privacy concerns.

Finally, make links for your friends/visitors with your referral code (like this) to boost space for both of you.

Random Links 11/22/2010

The Burger Lab: Revisiting the Myth of The 12-Year Old McDonald’s Burger That Just Won’t Rot
We all assumed it was due to preservatives/additives/salt content, but this experiment tries to determine the real reason with a control – homemade burgers.

Dogs Don’t Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving
BEST ILLUSTRATIONS EVAAAR!!

Grandma’s Superhero Therapy
Interesting background story, but the curtains in the sandwich photo sealed it for me.

The Shadow Scholar: The man who writes your students’ papers
I felt like this in high school; I wrote around fifteen entrance exam essays for various universities with 100% success rate (and then didn’t make it into a UC myself due to a missing physics credit – I’m just a bad Amerasian).