In my last post I talked about how cool I was for fixing my air conditioner… well, as it turns out, I’m not so cool. I spent many hours under the hot California sun lying on the passenger side floorboard ripping my knuckles up on tiny little japanese screws that are exposed under the dash board. My legs flailing out the door in a dance choreographed to the grunts and groans I uttered on each turn of the screwdriver or ratchet or wrench.

I got all the parts in just the way I thought they should be (yes I followed instructions), then traveled to my local air conditioning shop to evacuate the air and refill the refrigerant… this is where things got bad. I actually wanted to make a quick run to the shop on my lunch hour. I was possibly being a little overly optimistic on the schedule… but after all the work I had done I felt invincible. So at the stroke of 12 I raced for the car and headed off to “Tom’s Radiator and Air Conditioning”. This place had been highly recommended to me by a co-worker.

I must have angered the gods that day… or maybe Mickey Mouse simply knew I wasn’t going to make it back from lunch in time… so he cursed my car with that freaky Fantasia broomstick voo-doo magic. anyway, to make a long story short I heard a quiet pop then hiss, then the temperature gauge went ski high. I think I knew what was wrong before I even opened the door, and my suspicions were confirmed when I stepped out of the car into a giant green puddle. My radiator had sprung a leak.

Lets fast forward now past the tow truck and it’s corresponding bill. I finally arrive at my original destination “Tom’s Radiator and Air Conditioning”. My choice of establishment seemed perfect since both my problems could be taken care of in one super expensive stop. I’ll try and get all the details of that visit into this paragraph… to make it short. The radiator couldn’t be patched, but needed to be replaced. It would take at least the rest of the day to even get the car in the shop. And the air conditioner has some sort of problem that this shop didn’t have the ability to fix. They couldn’t even diagnose it.

While I waited for all that information I spent a delightful day in down-town Orange California. I had lunch at a little sidewalk sandwich shop where I talked to a wonderfully kind fellow who loved to talk about Disneyland. He was imparting all kinds of “inside information” to me (I left the fact that I work for Disney out of the conversation). I also found a pretty little park to lie on the grass… the same park I was in a little while later when a passing train nearly sent me into cardiac arrest with it’s air horn. But… moving on.

So then next day I used some savings money to pay for the brand new radiator (thank the lord they had one in stock) and I drove off in my extremely hot car being no more ahead then where I was when I started the whole project. Gotta love it eh?

Well my friend Ray is in town this week, so I hope we have a good time.

I will try and do another update soon.