Monday, April 21, 2008

Well...poop

So this has been an all around depressing day. I have been unable to get my truck fixed. For some reason the alternator is just not charging the battery, even though the fine technicians at Pep Boys put it on the machine and verified it. I am pretty sure I am just going to tell them to suck it tomorrow and buy a new one. So, I was messing around with batteries and wiring and what not and I came across a stuck bolt. This bold happened to be a corroded terminal stud that was in my spare battery. So I grabbed my vise grips after having been unsuccessful at getting it off with any wrench (and rounding it off in the process) and start to really put some torque on it. Yay it came loose! Unfortunately, when it came loose my vise grips spun around and made contact with the other terminal of the battery. Fire ensued, the grips got so hot that my hand it burnt up pretty good, and I felt the ole familiar grip of direct current coursing through my arm. Luckily, it was only one arm or it probably would have stopped my heart. The funny thing about DC, and I say that for this reason alone T. Edison can screw off, is that once it gets you it doesn't let go. The reason that AC makes you feel twitchy (like when you get physical therapy and they put those neat little pads on your leg and crank up the juice) is the constant reversal of current causes your muscles to fire in rapid succession thereby giving you an opportunity to 'let go'. The beautiful thing about DC is that when it grabs you, such as when you are foolish enough to bar a vise grip across a 12 volt battery's terminals, it doesn't let go.

So there I stood, gazing down at a burning rubber insulator willing myself to let go yet somehow unable to. I managed to come out of my state of shock long enough to punch my right arm with my left arm and knock it loose from the wrench. This was about the time that Aimee came out to see me in agony. I then punched off the vice grips, hopefully preventing the destruction of the battery and the burning down of my house. Interestingly enough, at that same time the guy coming to give us an estimate for an air conditioning (HAH - A/C, how appropriate) vent in our laundry room rolled up. He probably thought I was crazy, as I walked over to shake his hand and introduce myself. My heart was beating about 12093803948203984 beats per second and I'm sure I had a little bit of the crazy eye going. It was a good estimate and he could have done it today but we had to leave the house.

Then we went to the doctor.

Then I had to hurry home and, thinking I had fixed my truck I drove over to pick up some furniture this family at the church was giving us for the kids bedroom. Very cute stuff, very nice furniture. On the way, I kept my eye on the voltmeter and sure enough, about 5 minutes from church it started dropping down really low. The alternator wasn't charging. Some really funny things happen when the voltage starts dropping. For one, when it hit about 9 volts, the speedometer would start pulsing up and down as I slowed...it was strange. It was fine as I was driving but as I braked it would bounce up and down. Kind of funny actually. Then at about 8 volts, the engine started lugging a little bit and the door locks started locking and unlocking on their own. I can only imagine that the computer was freaking out. Heh heh, kind of funny.

So I made it to church and pulled into the parking lot. I called Aimes and had her bring me the spare battery and my tools and the charger and eventually after she got there I got it switched out and tried to readjust the wiring and what not hoping that something was just loose. It looks like it might have worked as the truck stayed charged while I was driving home with the load of furniture. I hope so, I am tired of working on it. I was really wishing that Rooster was around, not really so he could fix it but just so I could shoot the sh*t with him while I fumbled around with things. I'll talk more about it later, but I really miss Rooster lately. We had a really good time together while we were in Florida the first time. I think we might have bonded again after a few years of not being too close. Anyways, I'm home now and put the kids in bed. Aimee has had a rough few weeks and the last few days have been hard so I told her to go out and have some fun tonight. I think she is hanging out with Emily and maybe Brittany.

Hopefully my day tomorrow will be better, but I don't know...Tuesdays suck and I have a lot of work to do tonight for school. Pray for me!

Oh, about the doctor. I found out that I'm effed up and we probably won't be able to have a baby because of me. You think of a way that someone's sperm can be deficient and I gotcha covered!  


On a lighter note, right after the doctor told me that, she told me I need to get a bunch of blood work done and see a urologist to make sure I don't have cancer or some other condition which could kill me.  At least I wasn't ONLY worried about not being able to ever have kids! Yay!

2 comments:

Matt Roberts said...

Sounds like a fun day man. Wish I was there for ya. Physically I mean. I know you know I'm here for ya if you need anything. Love ya buddy.

Mike Delster said...

hope today is a better day friend.

 
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