Serendipity

So this actually happened to me a few weeks ago, but I hadn't started this blog yet. So here it is.

First, a little history:
I have a Porsche 944 it has 156k miles on it and a relatively unknown history. Since I purchased it, it has been having problems stalling. The first time it happened, I was on the freeway going to a doctors appointment and it stopped running at 90MPH. I had to have it towed. It wasn't the fuel pump, but it turned out he fuel pump relay was bad. we replaced it and I thought all was good. But then I stalled on my way into SF on the Bay Bridge lukily there wasn't much traffic and it was stalling intermittently, so I managed to get it tucked into a little pull-out. I was towed off the bridge (they have their own tow service just for the bridge and they basically drop you at the end of it). and I limped the car to about a mile away from my apt, when it wouldn't go anymore. I got a ride home from a friend of mine who happened to be a block or so away. and I took the train down to los altos to pick up my cadillac, so I could go to Hayward where the porsche parts place left another relay outside their front door in a bush for me to pick up. I later wnet to the smae place to get a spare relay in case it happened again.

the story:
I was meeting a guy in San Rafael to buy a snow board from him. There was a ton of traffic, and I was winding my way through the town to the parking garage where I was supposed to meet this guy, and the car stalled. I was on a super-busy road. I let the car sit for a while and it started again (yeah!) then it stalled a block later again. I let it sit, because again there were a lot of people angry at me, and again it turned over again, not wanting to push my luck, I turned on the next side street and pulled into a parking space on the street one right at the front of the block (very convienient for tow-trucking) and in front of a macintosh supply/reapir shop. I got out of the car and called the guy I was supopsed to meet, and walked around a little before I realized that I had parked right across the street from the garage I was supposed to meet the guy at.

After buying the snowboard, I pulled the old relay out and put the spare I had in, and then I went into the Mac store. I was trying to find a specific case for my ipod. The guy behind the counter greeted me and immediatly asked me about my 944. He said that he used to have one and that he really liked it. and then talked to me about some of the problems, we exchnaged stories and I told him about my chronic relay problem and how I had just changed it out. we laughed about the unreliablitlty of our cars, and then I left to start her up and leave. but alas, the relay wasn't the problem. the car would not start.

I went back in and asked him if he had a good shop he could recommned. he suggested hi-tec auto which was not too far away, and a couple other places. I called hi-tec and they were still open, and said they wouldbe there for about another hour. I immediatly called AAA, and got a tow truck and then went down the street to get a pizza because I was starving. the towtruck was faster than the pizza, and while I was getting hooked up i ran back to get my pizza. (so good! - Amici's) We got the car to the shop and the guys who worked there were really cool. They ahd just bought a 944 too so we chatted about them for a while. then they left and Jim cam e and picked me up.

I was so lucky to have gone into that mac shop.

Cadillac people

I went to a Cadillac club meet this weekend, it was fun, I haven't been out with them for a very long time. I met a couple people there, this one guy has like 7 or 8 1959 convertible Cadillacs, all varying models. He inherited them from his dad, who has passed away. And none of his children like them. He was talking about selling off most of them. I guess they are all in storage in Wisconsin? I guess he also had a '36 Ford, and he was talking about how it would be fun to ship it to Europe and do one of these car tours over there. We were discussing how people here seem to have lost their interest in old cars. It's no longer special to drive around in your old car because no one seems to appreciate it.

I met another guy who has a 53 Cadillac that is also out of state, again in the Midwest and again he lives in both SF and there. I wonder if they knew each other...His name was Bob, he was an interesting guy.

Why do people want to share their life stories in a half hour?

Today I met with a sales rep for a vender who is wooing my company. I found out more about that guy in the 35 minutes I sat talking with him than I know about ANY of my co-workers (and I've been here for five months now). This is not so much a comment on the sales rep being crazy (though he was a bit), as it is a comment on my coworkers being crazy. They aren't crazy in that obvious way though, it's more like that scary way that makes you think one of them will someday blow up the building.

Anyway, the guy is from north NJ, has been in his industry all his life, lived in SJ and SF for brief periods of time while he hung around deadheads, his last Dead concert was in '79 in Berkeley at the R? He came out for the last time to get a job in Palo Alto, but decided it wasn't right and went home to NJ to marry the girl he was in love with, consciously making the decision between the deadhead lifestyle and the girl. He had four kids with her, and then got fixed, then they adopted two kids (11 and 9) from Romania, because the girl looked like his wife, and they wouldn't separate siblings. She does their finances because he always want to negotiate with the bill issuer on the amount. His wife came from a family of 8 and he came from a family of 7, he's of Irish decent, and she's of a darker complexion. When he was young, his buddies always talked about going to California when they were smoking out, and he though it was odd that they didn't think about going to NY which was just across the river. He has five cousins in San Diego but he's only met two of them, they live there because their dad was stationed there when he died in the services and they stayed there. He's worked at the compnay he represented for 18 years. and he told me to never pray about adopting a child (not that I asked) because it was useless, there is no reason to say no to tkaing someone into your home.