SixFeetOver version 4.0

August 17th

So much happened last Friday (August 17th) that I can't come up with an appropriate title for this post.

First of all, it was the last day of my twelve weeks of summer research. It wrapped up pretty quietly. I had been working on a proof that ended up being incorrect, and a program that ended up not working as we hoped, but my professor tells me he thinks both will still be useful in the future, at least as a starting point for something else. Perhaps it is true, and perhaps he means to make me feel better. I'm not sure.  It was also Alice's last day as a camp councilor. It was also our anniversary!

Alice called me at about 1:00 PM on Friday, which was unusual - she had never made a phone call from work before, that I was aware of. She said "Hey - how would you like to go to the Patriots game tonight? My boss can give me two free tickets, worth $90.00 each." Well! I said of course I'd like to go, I've never been to a professional sporting event before, and a Patriots game would be my first choice of one to go to. Unfortunately, she hung up and as soon as she did I realized that we had no real way to get to Gilette stadium in Foxboro - neither one of us have cars, and the train doesn't go out there. (Actually, it does - but only one train goes, and we couldn't catch that one in time.) So I attempted calling back, but she had put her phone back on silent. I guessed (correctly) that she thought the stadium was right in Boston, which it isn't - if it had been, we could have taken the train in no problem.

Anyway, we ended up finding a car to borrow. Actually, a massive, handicap-ramp equipped van is what we found, but it still got us there. We left for our supposed 1-hour journey at 6:45 (kickoff was at 8:00), knowing we'd be late but figuring we'd get in by 8:30ish. We were both very naive, having never done this before. We had about $17 between us when we got near the stadium (at 8:15), and soon discovered that traffic was crazy and horrible, and parking costs $40. Long story short: after much driving, and me running into the stadium to find an ATM, and Alice driving around to find one, Alice ended up getting cash first but getting to the lot so late in the game that they didn't charge for parking (which was nice). We ended up getting to see all of the second half of the game. I saw the last bits of the first half while I wait for Alice to park too.

We had decent seats. Several people came down to get their pictures taken next to our seat since there was a good view of the stadium there; all who came said it was either their first game, their anniversary, or both. The guys behind us asked us "Say, it doesn't happen to be your first game too, does it?" We said "Actually, it is, AND it's our anniversary!" So he kindly took our picture for us, and we got a good laugh.

The Patriots ended up loosing to the Titans (my grandfather in Tennessee is happy, at least), and despite the headache of getting there and not getting to bed till really late (nearly 2:30 AM), it was a good experience and a lot of fun.

The next day I was up at about 7:50AM, preparing to move out. Dad came and helped me move out and move back to Gordon; Alice also came to help out, which was very nice. I finished unpacking and moving in by around 10:30 that night. So now I'm back at Gordon, and have one more day off before I start work again, and one week until classes resume. Here comes my senior year.

What a Week

These last two weeks have been, to put it lightly, intense. To start things off, two weeks ago was the beginning of the midterm period, which actually has gone well grade wise so far, but it has been a lot of work keeping up. That's nothing new though. The big story is my car. The week following midterms was spring break. The Thursday of spring break I had my rear brake lines replaced. The next day I was driving down to Amherst to visit Mike, trying to beat the incoming blizzards. I would have beat them, except just south of Keene (about 2.25 hours from my house), I'm driving along and I press down on my brakes to slow down for the car in front of me, which is about to turn off the road, and discover to my horror that my brakes don't response. I ended up pushing the brake pedal all the way to the floor, yoinking the e-brake, and fishtailing followed by going off the road. Miraculously, I didn't hit the van in front of me or the fence on the side of the road where I went off. I tested my brakes at this point and they seemed to be functioning, so I extremely carefully and slowly drove to the first mechanic I found. This happened to be located in Armpit, NH (Lat 42.766454, Long -72.389002). There, I met with an unfriendly mechanic who wouldn't help me and a woman who made references to her recent imprisonment. AAA had to tow me away (45 minutes later). I came to discover the hard way that AAA basic only covers the first 5 miles of towing, and after that it is $3.00 per mile. Thankfully I only had to be towed 12 miles. The poor Mike drove up from Amherst through horrendous weather to rescue me, the refugee, and we went to his parents' house for the weekend. It was a rather pleasant weekend actually, despite the car trouble - Mike's family was very good to me. They found debris (inexplicable) in the braking mechanism, cleaned it out for cheap and I was on my way on Sunday.

Now, Tuesday night at about 10:30 I'm driving down Route 128 in Mass. I start hearing this loud squeaking noise when I'm about 5 minutes away from Gordon, which quickly changes to the sound of metal on metal, which quickly changes to the sound of my engine failing as my RPMs drop to nothing and I coast to a stop on the side of the road. Bam. I'm getting towed again a couple days later. This time, the oil plug fell out of my oil pan (inexplicable) while I was driving, and all the oil drained out, killing my motor. So my car is toast. I'm selling it for parts, or as a fix-me-up, to a shop on Monday for $80 less than it cost me to fix the brake lines a whole 5 days previous.

Oddly, I'm doing alright about this. I don't have a car now, but it will work out. And I look forward to having a new a better car in the nearish future, and I have no idea how to pay for it, but He always provides. Somehow, it will work out.