Homepage
Forum
Drivers
HMM
MTM
Feed
Started out okay but has gone downhill since... My younger daughter underwent a "bankart repair" on her right shoulder last Friday. She skillfully labeled her LEFT shoulder with a big "NO" in black Sharpie® prior to the arthroscopic procedure to make sure that the doctor worked on the right (and correct) one
. An uneventful recovery at home over the weekend and continued good progress is about the only thing that has gone according to plan.I've been trying to contact FOUR different people (2 on eBay and 2 off eBay) to get information, confirm purchases and arrange for a product return but NOBODY has called me back or responded to my emails. I've emailed (no response 3 times) and called (unanswered and NO voicemail) one eBay seller to request that my shipment be insured ($255 worth of memory modules). I finally gave up after 3 days and paid for the auction with a credit card in case they don't ship or are "lost" in the mail. I'm always suspicious when a particularly good deal is involved. No one has returned my calls about X22 hinges or T2x batteries either. I give everyone my work or cell phone as they have caller ID and voicemail but there's been no missing calls.
Last Saturday I got a package of Broadcom MiniPCI cards that I won from eBay. I finally got around to opening them up two days ago and, yeah, they're Broadcom cards all right... seven of them (when I won four) and they are BCM94309 versions (a/b/g) when I should have received BCM94306 cards (b/g). I don't really want to change my drivers to support them, so I've sent off a message asking for the right ones.
A lot of seven laptop drives finally arrive one month after my eBay win. As I feared during this time with multiple emails first saying that I owed more (huh?), changing a couple of drives to slower 4200RPM models because of inventory problems (huh?) and promises of shipping "soon", I get two DOA drives and the other five with various errors (SMART and sector read errors).
Here's the biggie: Wednesday evening as my older daughter is in San Luis Obispo (half way between San Jose and L.A.), she called my wife and said the Jeep had made a "tiny knocking" sound as she was climbing up the hills out of L.A. (about 200 miles before). My wife then called me at work and ask me about the knocking. In hindsight, I should have called my daughter directly and asked some more questions, but I said it could be anything from bad gas, engine timing, exhaust leak, yada, yada..
My daughter gets home around 10pm, unloads the Jeep and we finally get around to talking about the sound and I hear "it was kinda embarrassing pullng away from stop lights and having the Jeep go 'clack', 'clack', 'clack'". Right away warning lights and flashing bulbs go off in my head; this is NOT something that I'm going to like... We go outside, I ask her to start up the Jeep and it sounds like a diesel (it's not). I look at her dashboard and ask her how long the oil pressure gauge has been sitting at ZERO
She doesn't know and can't remember what the gauge was reading in the last few days. Thursday morning I check the dipstick; as expected there's NOTHING at the end of it. Plug is still in the oilpan and there's not that much evidence of oil leakage from the top or sides of the block. Go to Kragen's and get five quarts, pour them in, start it up, 40PSI of oil pressure but still get the "clacking". Engine is toast (or soon will be). Factory replacement runs at least $6K but has a good warranty. Checked around the area for an auto shop and they quoted $3500 for a rebuild with a 3 year/50K warranty. Wife and daughter are now out looking for a car. Actually just got a call from the wife asking about an '07 Corolla for $15K. Wife wants something new-ish simply for the warranty. My daughter still wants the Jeep fixed. She also has to get back to L.A. by Sunday evening for school and work on Monday so there's the added pressure of having to buy something quickly. Both my wife and daughter don't want her to drive the wife's Honda van back to L.A. (and she ain't getting my BMW even if she could drive a stick ).So after a couple of more cell phone calls to me here at work, a deal is being struck between the three girls: Wife will pick something out that she feels comfortable with since the van will probably be sold in a couple of years (2002 Odyssey with all of the bells and whistles) and then the "new" car will be hers. I get the Jeep fixed and the older daughter will pay me back over time; looks like another L.A. trip for me in the near future as I'll probably be the one driving it down. The younger daughter may or may not end up driving the "new" car for awhile (depending upon how forceful my wife is) but in the long run, the daughter will probably end up with something more to her liking than whatever my wife ends up selecting.
AArrgghhh....
[/vent]
