april foolsi wishNo Foolin'!
When this trip was just gearing up, I had my water heater melt down, twice, in Chattanooga.
On the trip, I had a dead battery in Iceland, another dead battery in Ireland, a flat tire in Scotland(oh, I didn't tell you about the flat tire!), a shower that didn't work (also in Scotland).
I pulled up to the house in Maryland to find my bimmer with a flat tire, an engine that wouldn't start, and a broken driver's mirror where somebody clipped it. The tire got plugged, the mirror has been pieced together (though I need a new mirror surface to be glued on the old shattered one), and after 2 days, the Bavarian Motor Werks somehow readjusted its own idle and now starts and runs normally.
Then today at the house I noticed the refrigerator was humming for an awfully long time, and louder than usual. Then my sister noticed the meat in the freezer wasn't frozen, and on inspection, I saw the ice cubes had all melted. Not long after, the humming stopped, and so did the fan in the fridge! We both hit the internet to see if we could find a bargain tomorrow but after kicking it a few times, turning it on and off (well, turning the thermostat off and on, nothing was happening), and then going to the pub for a few drinks, I came back and its humming again, the water is again ice, and the beer - THANK GOD ! ! ! - is cold.
So I'm leaving tomorrow before my luck brings the house walls down around my sister and Mom.
I was supposed to go to PA and register my minivan since my TN tags have expired. I finally decided to cheat, something I refused to do last year, and recruit my high school buddy to allow me to use his address to apply for my tags and title. But PA changed the rules again and now I have to have a PA drivers license in order to get tags. So I now have a minivan with dead tags that I can't register in the state where it is parked, cannot renew the registration in the state where it is tagged without spending $300 to drive it 1300 miles to TN and back, and yet am still paying $500 in insurance for. *sigh*. So Tn and Pa have made me a criminal. I will drive my blue marble illegally (but properly insured!) until A) it dies B) I get pulled over and the vehicle is impounded or C) I get the guts to drive it illegally 650 miles south to Georgia and register it at the Lazy B and then return it to Pa where I need it to commute from the truck terminal to the family house in Md. Of course, Pep Boys has offered me $80 for it, but I'm not that hard up yet.
So. Who's taking bets? Did my toilet over flow in Chattanooga while I was gone? Did my friend wreck my Dakota pickup that I lent them while I was gone? Has Crete rescinded my job offer in my absence?
Did global warming melt Alaska taking away my next possible adventure? stay tuned!bb.
