Vehicle Changing

This past weekend I had to relinquish the keys to Little Blue. Over ten years of my life was spent using the 2003 Prius. Now I have a new vehicle which will travel with me to Canada.

The decision was originally one that I wanted to pass off; my parents had offered me their 2011 CRV. Then two days after getting back into California - a warning light. I was just outside of Napa city, about an hour and half drive from home, so I schedule a check-up for when I get back. On the drive home the warning light persisted. Here I was in my favorite car seeing a warning light which I had never seen before, dreadfully hoping that it wasn't a serious issue - but of course it was. Turns out the inverter cooling pump for the hybrid system was going out, a repair that would set me back 550$ on a vehicle only worth 2k at this point. The decision was made, I would be giving up Little Blue.

The story of woes doesn't end there though. At first I had thought I would try to make myself a bit more independent and find a vehicle myself. Through CarMax I put in some requirements:
Two days after testing out the Coop, I'm driving with the CRV in LA visiting my brother. He was off at work so I figure I'd go to Knott's Berry Farm, it had been many years since I last went and I just got a Cedar Fair Premium Pass at Great America. On my way to Knott's though... I get in a freaking car accident.

Now let me set the scene for you: I was in some fairly heavy traffic around 10:30 am, was only going 15-20 mph with some stop and go. This small sedan in front of me swerves over into the right lane without recognizing that the Semi in front of him in that lane was slowing to a stop. As soon as this sedan gets into the lane - SWISH - RIGHT BACK IN FRONT OF ME! In a split second decision I swerve to the left to avoid T-Boning this idiot. After avoiding the sedan though, the truck in the lane next to me hits my bumper. Now I don't blame the truck driver, this was a split second decision and there wasn't much they could've done.

So now I'm having to deal with the insurance on that. This, by the way, is the second time I've been rear-ended in this CRV in the past year! So now the CRV is going to be known as Bad-Juju, or BJ for short. So I'll be driving across the country and into Canada with a fully packed BJ.

UPDATE: The day I had intended to leave BJ decided to drain its batteries while I was loading it. So I couldn't actually leave today.

A New Chapter

These past few weeks have been full of life changes for me.

Last month I finished my tenure at UTRGV and made my excursion back to California. In two days I drove from Brownsville, Texas back to my parents place in California. While I had been expecting to take a summer off and getting to travel some, well toooooo bad for me, PhD project is more important! I leave for Ontario, Canada in like 10 days, because who really needs time off?

Let's take a quick look at that position. Remember how a few months back I had a decent list of potential PhD project? Welp... didn't get any of those. Or rather, some I just didn't hear back from, some I didn't get, and one requested documents that just never arrived for them (freaking IB still haunts me to this day). Instead, I will be studying unisexual salamanders on an island in the middle of Lake Erie. 

Now that I've moved back with my parents though, I'm taking some time to downsize and become more mobile (after all I need to get out to Canada). What does this entail? Clothing - PURGED, Books - PURGED, Games - PURGED, old notes - PURGED, and most upsetting of all... Little Blue - soon to be purged... (more on that in a separate post).

But, whilst in this process I'm trying to take the time to inject some other habits. I figure that major life events are perfect times to change up routines. So that means more of this... the writing.. ha, we'll see how well that goes. More importantly for me though, I'm making more time for myself to sit back and read, because there's always a backlog of books to go through.

A Stormy Day

It's not literally a stormy day, but emotionally it's been a bit a of chaos. Today may have been the official end of my car, Little Blue. Some veterans of this blog (why are you still here even? it's been YEARS without anything) may have read about Little Blue. Real quickly, it's my first car, a 2001 powder blue Prius. Little Blue would not start today.

Not my Little Blue, but one of the siblings.

In the past, Little Blue would be a bit fussy -the starter battery would drain after a few weeks away. I've always been able to fix this with a quick jump from a friend's car. Today that didn't work... and I am terrified. Usually, I would at least see a little flicker, a small red light would come on only to weakly fade after a few seconds. That didn't happen today... and I am terrified.

I want to start a few weeks ago though. I had just gotten back from winter break, and I had parked Little Blue in the pathway behind our house in Brownsville. Getting back after around 3 weeks away, I was expecting the battery to be drained, and it was. With my roommates help, we got it jumped and Little Blue was going fine. I was able to drive Little Blue around for a few days without issue. This past week I hadn't really needed to drive around, but I wasn't too worried. Then we got a second freeze for this winter. (As a short aside, Brownsville, Texas doesn't usually get below 50F. It has done so twice so far this winter.) This time Little Blue literally froze over. It was a shocking sight for Brownsville. Having minimal knowledge about vehicles, I still had come to expect the freeze to mess with the battery - little did I know just how much.

Then we get to today. My roommate and I both really wanted some pizza, and we knew that there was going to be a bit of time before it would be ready for pick-up. So the plan was to order, jump Little Blue, and drive Little Blue to get the pizza and charge the battery. Seemed like a solid plan. He pulls his truck over and we go about the usual. Red clamp, red clamp, black clamp, black clamp. He turns on his truck and...

Nothing...

No lights...

No sounds...

Not a whisper...

Just ... nothing...

Little Blue was dead...

We tried a second time.

A deafening silence came from my once spunky car...

Even still, it doesn't seem entirely real. The first car I ever drove or owned (in a matter of sense) was dead on the street as my friend and I tried frantically to resuscitate it. The shock of the moment comes back to me now as a write this out. A part of me, almost a piece of my identity, may not come back.

I know it's silly to get emotional over a car, but I am. Like losing a pet, it hurts.

Luckily, my adviser here in Brownsville was an automechanic for a few years and has offered to help me get the battery out to check how it's doing. It might be that the battery just needs a bit more juicing than we gave it earlier. I'm hoping that's all. It may come down to needing a new battery, which would be a pain, but manageable. But as with most hardships, my mind wanders to the worst scenario - that the car itself has given up.

My dreams of getting to take Little Blue back to California may be lost to me. Friends that last Little Blue over 2 years ago, may not get to see that bright car again. I hope they do, but reality isn't always generous with personal desires.

As if this wasn't enough, the Fates were still feeling a bit pernicious. We jump ahead. Now leaving with pizza in hand, the wind decides to kick up, nearly toppling the remaining half-pizza out of hand and splashing me with Dr. Pepper from my other. Feeling a bit down already, and as we drive out of the parking lot, a pot hole decides I wasn't wet enough and gives me an extra splash of Dr. Pepper. No, I didn't spill it, but it was a bit more emotionally taxing than what I needed at the moment.

I sit here now with tomorrow looming over me. I don't know what's to become of my vehicle of 10+ years.

I'm scared.

UPDATE:

Last week a friend of mine helped remove the battery from Little Blue. With the battery in hand, I went over to AutoZone to see if I could get it charged. It was truly dead, so I bought a new battery. After installing the new battery, Little Blue is humming along just fine. As it turns out, that old battery was only supposed to last around 5 years (well, that was the warranty period), but it lasted nearly 10.

I Really Did Try to do Work Today

I've been away for nearly a month what with holiday travel and such. I got up this morning, confident I was going to do some work, there was a plan end everything - no such luck. What went wrong? I had forgotten just what day it was.

I got back from break late last week and when I got back there were some things that needed to be taken care of,  the basic clean-up sort of things and a few PhD applications to finish. One roommate was gone, the other preparing for his own trip, so I had the weekend for myself. It was a nice way to get back into the swing of things.

Then this morning, I woke up had already gotten a few things prepared to do work: collected some lab materials that needed to be moved, found a few more PhD openings, even made some strawberry syrup. So I collected all my things, because as said, I had plans: gonna finish moving materials, see a professor, do some stats, etc.

I walk over to campus and see a bit of a shock - not hardly any vehicles in the parking lot. It's a Monday. Winter break is over. Where are all the students? Teachers? Maintenance? Nowhere. Then, halfway through the parking lot, it dawns on me - Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday.

How the heck did I manage to forget that!? I even knew about it from the night before, reading articles about President Targaryian's recent comments on "not America" countries. News media ablaze about how the comments were racist, and just before MLK day, how did I forget it?

Oh well, still managed some work today. For the most part though, I just finished watching The Punisher and played games online with some friends.The day may not have gone as planned, but it all worked out anyways.

New Beginnings

Attempt number 3 here to actual start up a blog and keep going with it. This time though I'm splitting things up a bit. I'll be running three separate spaces: a general blog (this one), a blog concerning my work (Efting About), and one regarding targeted topics with a look at the actual data (Hox Talks). If you're interested in any of that, go check them out at the links provided.

So for this blog space, it will stay fairly general. I may post about a book or movie that I saw recently, some random thought I had, or maybe some smaller and more opinionated looks at topics from Hox Talks.Who knows.

Little Blue

Everyone will always remember their first car. Some may get to say that their first car was some sports car, maybe a Mustang, perhaps a truck I don't know. I do know that I will always remember my first vehicle as well. I drive a 2003 powder blue Toyota Prius, known among my friends as 'Little Blue'.

When I began driving my parents wanted me to drive a large vehicle; my mother especially because they are safer. But at the time the only vehicle my parents had that was large was the 4x4 half ton truck; I hated that thing and still do to this day. Occasionally I will have to drive that monstrous beast and I feel completely out of control with it. The truck just wasn't for me... The only other option my parents had for me was the old Prius. AND I LOVED IT! It's small, great turning radius, and has a great mileage. The positives my parents saw in it were that it was old and so if it got damaged it wouldn't be quite as big a deal. 

A total badass drives this car!

I started to drive myself to school in junior year of high school and since then the Prius and I have gone on great adventures. One of the early memories of driving in it was one day after school my friend Jesse wanted to hang out so I told him I could just drive to his place and we could have a great time. We get in the car and I instantly turn on Billy Joel's Uptown Girl, roll down the windows, and we start driving through campus singing! So what if we got stares, we didn't care how gay it looked. Two guys in a powder blue prius singing Billy Joel, sounds like a good time to me! 

Little Blue enjoyed itself very much here.

Over this past summer Little Blue also got a good work out. Every week I would have to go down to Davis for one of my research positions, meaning about2 hours of driving that day. Along with that Charlie came in to town and we spent a day down in San Francisco; that's about 2 hours of driving each way. Later that same weekend we had to go down to San Jose to help my brother and dad move in to their new apartment. So Little Blue was loaded with stuff and got 2 more hours of straight driving. After getting back I find out that I have to meet my dad to get him some stuff he forgot, so there is another hour long journey to meet him half way, BRING IT! And Little Blue stuck through it ALL! 

And now I have brought it with me to college. Little Blue has seen so much of my life; but through all the ups and downs it was still there, as reliable as ever. I'm able to just jump in, put on some music and have a great time in that car. I think all of my friends that have gotten a ride in Little Blue could each give their own great story about riding in there, it's just full of good times.

The Great Migration has begun again!

The reason I began to think of writing about Little Blue is because it recently had another great mile stone; yesterday it went on it's first dirt road! It may be a small car but that doesn't mean it can't drive on rocks! It performed fabulously (aside from the cd player skipping every few seconds...). It now gets to come out with me on Salamander hunting trips and get all sorts of dirty. So what if it isn't a sports car, it will always be my first car and favourite car.

A Long Long Time Ago...

     So it has been a while... It's the start of a new school year, without any word from me as to my life of the past 6 or so months. Too bad, get over it, I'm back on; at least for this one time. I feel like I'm just going to skip over most of the past few months and get to the more interesting parts.

     The relentless grind of school work has begun again as another year of my life is spent towards the precious activity of acquiring information. Chemistry is continuing to ruin many young lives including my own. I am now in a class taught by the infamous Dorte Madsen; more commonly known as the chemistry witch. After hearing numerous horror stories of this woman I have decided that the best course of action is to completely avoid lectures and study at my apartment (information soon to come). With that I now only go to campus at noon, except for Tuesdays. Tuesdays are my Hell days. Nothing good can ever come from a Tuesday this quarter. Chem lab 8 to noon, then comp sci lecture for an hour and a half, and finishing up with Bio lab 2-5. Nothing good can ever come of this!!! Back to classes now. Bio 2B is going to be a rather simplistic course I feel; it has to deal with Evolution and Ecology... this is my major... I haven't learned much at all from lectures so far. Finishing up my classes there is the second in the computer science minor courses, ECS 40. This class is all about programming in C++, so you know it's getting serious now!

   That's all for now, don't feel like writing that much this time.