Car, necessary evil

I have a simply life, a repetitive life.  When things go normal, it's like a smoothly run factory.  Everything just get processed and completed in a very efficient way.

This morning was not one of those days.

I woke up, brushed teeth, headed out to garage, thinking about the songs that I needed to practice with the praise team.  It's 15 minutes before the practice started.  I would arrive on time.

And then I tried to start to car, and the car didn't start.

Struggled for about 10 minutes, and I finally decided to borrow my roommates car.  After driving for a few minutes on the road, I suddenly realized that all my drum kits and sticks are in my own car.  So I had to drive all the way back home, trying to juggle between 2 set of car keys and the corresponding alarm system while moving some drumset stuff from one car to another car.  It was a mess.

That totally ruin my mood and my concentration during the band practice, but at least I got through it.

Backed home, and I tried to figure out what the freak was going on.   Found  a pair of jump cable in the trunk of my roommates car, and I started to jump start my car.  It worked, so I thought it's over.  In fact, that was probably the second time I used jump cable.  It was also about this moment that my neighborhood told me that the rear light of my car was on ALL NIGHT LONG.  I was thinking like, that is odd, as I thought I turned off everything.

But then the battery seemed it died very fast, that was right AFTER I packed everything.  So this time I kept the car running for even longer time. 

But after charing for 30 minutes, the battery still died really fast.  I was puzzled until I realized that the rear light was ON all these time, and probably wasted all the battery that I charged up.  In fact, I started to wonder if that light was break light, which was something I could NOT turn off by myself.

So after I jump-started my car the third, I had no choice but go directly to the mechanic.  I was panic, frustrated, and very hungry at the moment.  It was 2 pm and I still haven't had my lunch yet.

So I spent about 2 hours there waiting.  Yes, I had Nintendo 3DS and iPad 2 with me so I was never bored.  But at the same time I was hungry like hell.  By 4 pm, the car was fixed.  There was some problem with the break light, and it was fixed.

So 4.5 hours of my life wasted, and now, let me cook.

Someone hit the back of my car: my auto accident

On Aug 5 2011, at 9:35 a.m., I drove my 1997 Toyoto Rav 4 on my way to workplace.  I was slowing approaching the cross section of Highway 59 and Highway 90, and eventually stopped as I was waiting for my turn to turn right into highway 90 (there was one truck in front of me at that moment).  Then suddenly something smashed at the back of my car and I instantly felt the impact.  Even so, I tightly hold my break and prevented my car from moving forward.  I was horrified, and from my rear mirror I saw that it was a red SUV that bumped at the back of my car.  Since the traffic light turned green and I didn't want to block the traffic, I continued to drive, while the red SUV that hit my back followed me.  My workplace was just 2 blocks away, so I was trying to go there, stop the car and discuss with the driver who hit the back of my car.  That red SUV followed me for one block, but then it turned right and went away.So I never got a chance to collect information from that driver.  I parked my car, walked to the back of my car, and found that the back of my car was squashed which the bumper was bended.  The back (trunk) door is now much harder to open.