Yes, please use the whole goddamn highway (@ Rayong outskirts).
Category: Cars
Highway eyesore
Buses painted like these are a common sight at highway rest stops in Thailand, but this just might be the worst I’ve ever seen.
Online again.
So I’ve been recovering for a month now. Wasn’t hurt too bad in the accident, but it flipped a switch in my head. Didn’t feel like blogging or writing or working at all, really. Of those three things, though, only one was really necessary so I did do a lot of extra work lecturing and speaking here and there.
As I type away on this dirty keyboard, it slowly feels like I’m coming back to a place of comfort. I was angry for a long time. Specifically, I was angry at the shop that almost killed me through negligent automobile repair. When I last wrote, I was waiting to hear back from them for a repair estimate for my car. All I thought about for three weeks was how I was going to get back at them – three weeks is a very long time for a devious mind to concoct intricate schemes. I even dreamed about it a few times, standing on a battlefield under a tattered flag, watching crows pick at the corpses of my slain enemies. Or standing in a courtroom at the moment of winning an all-or-nothing class action lawsuit, showered with applause from others who had shared similar experiences. Like I said, three weeks is a long time.
As it turns out, though, I may end up accepting the shop’s offer to pay for just half the damage, because the estimate ended up being about 10 to 20% of what we thought it would cost. The son at the shop ended up being cool about it and called in some favors at a body shop so we could get it done cheap. It’s still not ideal or just in my mind, but I’m willing to let it go now – it’s not enough money to stress about. Plus, I can leave it up to the shop to make sure shit gets done and not have to deal with details every day. And most importantly of all, karma’s a bitch. Motherfuckers who do bad shit get bad shit in return. That’s just the way it works. Believe that.
—————
Just before I finished the restoration of my car I had somehow amassed a stable of three 100-150cc scooters. One cruiser, two two-stroke sport(ish) bikes. When I started parking my car in the garage again, I had to move them out and thought about what the hell to do with them. I moved them to temporary spaces around the outside of the house and covered them with tarps, using them about once a week on rotation to keep them maintained. So when I got in this accident, I was lucky enough to have transportation ready. I love old bikes, and two-stroke engines are awesome because they are so powerful and no longer produced. Pics to follow, sometime.
Breaking the silence
I’ve been away from blogging just taking it easy after the accident, mostly just playing with the kids and waiting for an estimate for my car. We haven’t decided what to do with it yet, it depends on whether it’s worth fixing or not. As I wrote about before, the shop that screwed the brakes wants to pay only half for the repairs… I’m not willing to let them off so easy, but am waiting for the estimate to continue negotiations.
Meanwhile, this is the best thing I’ve watched in ten days:
I’m still alive
Almost fucking died today.
My car saved me.
My reactions saved me.
An inept mechanic almost killed me, and is now lying to save his job.
—
At about 10:00 this morning, I dropped off my car at a local garage called Prasertyon to get brakes on my just-restored Crown fixed. The brake pedal lost pressure yesterday and the brakes were locking on one side this morning, so it needed to be done.
Prasertyon had overhauled the entire brake system for me a couple years before, so I thought they would be familiar with my old car and do a good job… Nam and I piled the kids in her car and went to see if my car was finished at 5:00 pm. The kids fell asleep in their baby seats on the way, and when we arrived a couple mechanics were out testing the brakes on my car. As they pulled into the shop in my car, a good friend was passing by and came up to see what I was doing. This is important because he became a second witness to what happened soon after (the first witness being my wife).
I was told the repairs were complete, then was presented with a detailed bill. It came to a total of 1,000 baht for some replacement parts for the rear brakes, brake fluid, and labor (notably including setting the brakes for all four wheels).
Assured that the necessary repairs had been performed and the car tested by the mechanics, I left for home. I pulled away from the shop, with Nam and the babies in her car behind me, and my friend close behind them in his pickup. Less than half a kilo down the street from the shop, I was cruising at normal speed, within the speed limit, when I tried braking. The brakes completely locked up, unevenly, and the front of my car pulled sharply left. Suddenly, I was sliding sideways toward a curb, going fast enough to get flipped in the air. Instinctively, I wrenched the wheel to the right and the car straightened out enough to get launched in the air pointing forward, knock down a traffic safety sign on a steel pole, then come crashing down onto the asphalt, jump another curb, and finally smash headlong into a squarely-molded concrete power pole.
Nam had started pulling over when she saw/heard my brakes lock and saw the whole thing. She said she just went numb when it seemed my car was going to cartwheel. She was amazed when I opened the door and got out of the car. My friend following in the pickup also thought I must have gotten hurt pretty bad, at least. As it turns out, I hit my head pretty hard and will probably feel whiplash from tomorrow. I was bleeding a bit from a scrape on my forehead and probably scared everybody who came to rubberneck. I eventually went to the hospital to get a CT scan, and just heard back by phone that everything is OK. So I’m physically fine, and will come away from this just being a bit sore, hopefully.
—
After the accident, Nam went back to the garage to get help. A few guys came on a motorcycle and got the car started again, and eventually drove it back to the shop. We talked to one of the (presumed) owners of the shop, who started out saying they would pay for 50% of the damage, but within the period of me going to the hospital seemed to be trying to shirk responsibility altogether. Apparently she told Nam that once the car leaves the shop, the shop isn’t responsible for it anymore. I think I’ll let her think some more and revise her statement tomorrow; it makes me too mad to think about it right now. Plus, the mechanic who actually made the repairs is saying that Nam said something to him admitting guilt on my part, which is ridiculous but I guess he’s afraid of getting fired or something… Anyway, we have a meeting with the shop’s owners tomorrow afternoon, and my ruined car is there. They can conjecture about what happened on the road, and try and place the blame on anybody but themselves because they’re pissed about possibly losing money, but I hope they do the right thing, I really do. Because at this point, I am not to be fucked with. My car is pretty much irreparable (key parts are completely mangled). I almost died in front of my family. I at least want an apology, quick repayment for my medical bills, and some kind of repayment for my ride… We shall see.
—
The funny thing is, I was going to take the first photos of my completed car tomorrow. It just happened a day earlier.
Dragon Wing
It’s never too rainy to make fun of other people’s rice. Here’s an Isuzu Dragon pickup with multiple rows of covered subwoofers and a rear spoiler worthy of a Red Sun’s RX-7:
Toyota reviving Nobunaga (Toyota ReBorn), plus killer killer whales
Linkdump follows:
Any modern car ad using a 1960’s S40 Crown is worth watching in my opinion, but the CM being referred to (and uploaded to Youtube just 3 hours ago) is just indecipherable. The making of video isn’t much help, either.
Killer whales attack and eat sharks: In itself, not news but apparently orcas screw with sharks the way that dolphins screw with bait balls, using their cunning mammalian brains
This Chinese Village Is So Rich It Built A Fake Great Wall And Arc De Triomphe: I’m not sure those are signs of wealth by themselves — the small Japanese island I used to live on had miniature versions of those and several other famous structures at their aging amusement park, and the last I heard pretty much every last notable business went to shit (probably entirely coincidental with my leaving, but sorry to all my friends there just in case).
(At least one of the links above are from somebody, probably Mark, on Google+, but I can’t find it now)
doncha wanna come home?
Dear Keys (that I have lost),
I did not mean to lose you, and yet, your being away from home (an assumption based on my 2 hours of frantic searching with a flashlight to check dark spaces) is entirely my fault. I knew you were gone from your safe place (my pocket) from last night, because for some reason, I thought I had left you in the car.
I went to the shop to look for you in my Crown, but since I did not see you right away, I figured you were in my wife’s car. Now that I’ve searched my wife’s car three times with increasing levels of thoroughness, the last time even checking under floor mats and seat backs, I’m truly sorry I did not look harder through my Crown when I had the chance. I’ll do it tomorrow, I promise.
Please be there. Please wait for me. I will come for you, I promise (especially the spare key to my wife’s car that’s laser cut and has an embedded IC chip which has the twin qualities of being both [A] a great theft deterrent and [B] outrageously expensive — I’m coming for you, babies). Whether you be in daddy’s Crown, or at the copy shop behind the university, or at my desk at work (probably not, I just called a late-working coworker to check for me), or at the car audio shop, or at the body shop, or at one of several 7-11s I buy the human baby’s milk boxes at, I WILL COME FOR YOU!
My word is bond, yo.
All I ask is that you give me another chance.
Love,
J
P.S. I must admit that if it weren’t for you, you goddamn chip-embedded laser-cut bastard darling, I wouldn’t have bothered writing this.
Crown build progress
