This is my first blog in a long time. Not that I've fallen off the face of the earth; it's just that I've been busy (12 hours and work is no joke) and been absent on this site, but here is an entry.
Yesterday was probably one of the most eventful days in a long time. Eventful not as in good and fun but as in working and enduring through some tough situations, but at the end of the day it was also very inspiring.
The day began as planned around 10 am in the morning when I arrived at the new Shelby Engineering Building. My department (computer science and engineering) has been making the transition of moving into the new building since the end of last month, and the actual move started yesterday and I was there to help them set up computers for the people working for the department.
Everyone of the faculty and staff gets a new office and a new suite of all-in-one cabinet desk-set that consist of 3 desktops in a U shape. The only flaw of the desk is that the power and network outlets are behind the desk and the only easy way to get to those outlets are if we were paper marios... In the first office, I pushed the entire piece away from the way to access the outlets. Apparently no one had tried that just because of the size of the desk-set and everyone thought it was impossible. A friend of mine was helping another staff doing the same with a very unique approach, but I think he was attempting taking off the cabinets to access the outlet, but he ended up taking off the desktop along with one of the back panels under the desktop (where the legs go). The good news is that the outlets are completely exposed, but the bad news is it was a PAIN to put the desk together. I ended up helping him and we spent 2 hours just to get that one lady's office set up, but her office looks awesome today, not a biased opinion of course.
After got out of working with the department around 1 pm, I took care of my car. I spent most of the afternoon getting estimates. I got 2 estimate (well actually 4, but only 2 is needed) on the repair and I was at OfficeDepot sending in the estimate for my claim. After that I decided to head to Birmingham to see the pastor of my church since I have never actually seen him in person.
I looked up the map to the Grants Mill campus of the Church of the Highlands and I was on I-85 in no time. The weather around Auburn last night was cool and the air was light although there are few showers in some area, it was a really pleasant drive. About 15 minutes into my trip, I realized my car was making a loud roaring sound and my steering started shaking. After I pulled over, I got a flat tire on the front passenger side on my hand.
The first thing I did was I called my friend Anne and told her I can't make it to Birmingham because of the unforeseen crud of luck. Then, I started thinking how to fix this. I had experience changing tires so I thought it won't be too difficult, so I got my spare tire out of my trunk (thank God I have a spare tire, since I've not been paying attention to it for so long) and got my tools out. Unfortunately I don't have the complete tool set: I have the jack, but the part that's used to turn the jack's gone missing. Game over man. Well I found some tree branches on the side of the road to help me turn the car jack but the branch keeps breaking, so I used the fastener screw of the spare tire. After a long struggle (about 50 minutes) with turn of the jack with cars and freight trucks just flying pass me, I got the car jacked up. As I tried to loosen lugnuts, the lugnuts woudn't budge, so I was rocking putting my entire body weight into the wrench and rocking the car as I was doing that, and the jack fell........... I was like o... $#@$*# can it get any worse? My bloody finger wasn't bleeding already.
As I was thinking how much longer I was going to stay at that spot jacking up the car, a pick up truck pulled over behind me and out of it came a middle-age man. The guy asked me, "you got it?" I told him "I got the car jacked up, but the jack fell as I was loosening the lugnuts." He then said "I'm skilled with cars, let me help you with that." I introduced myself, he told me his name is Chatterbox, and he told me "there are too many bad people in the world, and he doesn't want to be part of that," and also he tries to help everyone out. As I talked to him more he told me he is an ordained priest living in Tuskegee, and I thought it's not everyday you run into a priest. We then loosen the tire and jacked up the car once more, and we had the spare on in 15 minutes. I gave my thanks and he drove his truck away.
I got into my car about to merge onto the road it suddenly started raining, and rained hard and I completely didn't see that complete literately a minutes ago when I was outside. The amazing thing is that I didn't get one drop of rain on me (and I was dressed up for church too :D). If that man hasn't showed on that exact same stop on the exact same time, I'd have been drenched. The thought of that just made me pray and be thankful. I drifted back to Auburn with 50 mph on I-85 but it was the most relaxing drive ever. I had the nice slow Christmas music and and I was enjoying the silhouette of the trees against the sky of the shades of black and gray.
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I usually don't do this, but one word of warning, do not do business with Big10 Tires on College Street. When I said someone wrecked my car, I do mean someone. I brought my car to get my tires changed because I knew I'd be going to either Montgomery or B'ham. One employee of Big10 was pulling my car into a bay and the other employee in another car back the other car into mine.
No only that, how can I get a flat tire on the interstate a day after I get a new set of tires?
