Relentless Inquiry

Doh! Despite agreeing to my advice last night, Mike had a bit of a panic attack and asked AAA to find him a tranny shop within a few miles. He chose the closest one and was going to bring it there, despite them saying they couldn't even LOOK at it until Tuesday.

Fortunately I called before this was a fait accompli, and he was willing to give me a chance to make a different plan. He's now on his way to a Ford dealership within 6 miles, which can look at it today and will be open and working tomorrow. Even better, while it's likely to cost more, any fix involving new parts can be warrantied in a useful fashion, eg honorable up here where we live.

I've spent so many years criss-crossing the country in older vehicles that a breakdown is just another thing to me, dunno why it spooks him out so. You get on the phone, or the net, and you just deal with it. Actually the net makes it very, very easy– I talked to Mike at about 12:00, had determined there was no CSAA repair shop in San Diego and had located the nearest Ford dealership (verifying against maps of the hotel) and made a 1:30 appointment for him by 12:25 and called him to give him the info. I remember hiking to convenience stores to borrow the phonebook, or worse, that breakdown in my old camper in Tallahassee FL where I had to wait several days to get a replacement push/pull accelerator cable for the beast.

The hard part back then was having any money for repairs– I was often broke! With working plastic, and money in the bank, thank G-d, it's just “ok, something else to deal with”.

I also think years of doing Project Manager duty on 'dynamic' (eg, full of snafus) high-visibility projects has somewhat inured me to getting mojo-stiggly about this kinda thing. Something like a bayquake would definitely do it, but a non-injury car kablitz in another city? Nema problema.