A Series of Unfortunate Events

It all started during spring break. Chris and I were hanging out at my house, when we decided to go and get some boba at Life Plaza, the Arcadian hang-out place of choice. As usual, Chris volunteers to drive; back at UCLA, Chris drives me everywhere. And I mean everywhere, whether its to the gym or to get food. But this time, since we're hanging out in Arcadia, my hometown, I figure that I should drive him around for a change. He says that he really doesn't mind driving, but I insist that I drive for once. The GF was also at my house at the time and needed to go home for dinner, so we all hop into my car and I start heading towards her house. The rest of the story involves a red light, a right turn, and a police officer. Long story short, I received a ticket for not coming to a complete stop at a red light prior to making a right turn. If you want to read the full story, I believe Paul has it all documented over at his blog.

After I get home, I do a Google search on the violation code that the officer has given me, and find out that the ticket is approximately $270 in California. To my surprise, the official ticket comes 3 weeks later with the bail set at $370. I suppose living in a safe and fairly nice area comes at a price; the city needs to get its money from somewhere, namely drivers who don't know all the technical traffic rules but are extremely safe otherwise. Such as me. Those of you who have ridden in my car before know that I drive like a 80 year old grandmother, minus the slow reflexes and seat position. Although, this one time I did try moving the seat all the way up just to see what it feels like. It was rather uncomfortable. Despite the appearance of my cars, I obey all the speed limits and traffic rules, that I know of. With that said, I'll be going to court sometime in May, as well as to an 8 hour traffic school session. Funny thing is, if I had only let Chris drive my ass around once again, all of this could have been avoided. Moral of the story: always let Chris drive. Good times.

A few days after the previous incident, another stroke of misfortune hit me. My car, the very same one that I got the ticket in, would no longer start. Turns out the starter died, and with the car in my driveway blocking the other car, a new adventure begins. Jordan, who prefers to be called Jodan, came over under the false pretense that we were going to the gym. Little did he know, instead of working out at the gym, he was about to get a workout on my driveway. I recruited Jodan, Wing (the GF), and Richard (my brother) to help me push my car. We attempted to swap the working car that was in the garage with the broken car that was stuck in the driveway. My driveway is fairly steep, maybe a 60 degree gradient. We had no problem getting the car out of the way. Now with a clear path between us and the parking spot, we attempted to push the car up the driveway. We planned to gather momentum on the flat surface street before going all the way up the driveway. I clearly recall the GF remarking,

"This isn't so bad, we can make it."

as we were gathering speed for the uphill climb. With that, I shouted

"GO! PUSH PUSH PUSH!"

as we went full speed ahead up the driveway. We pushed my 3,009 pound Acura 3.0 CL all the way up a whole 4 feet before we lost speed, and started to slide back down the slope. I abandoned my post and leaped for the handbrake, pulling it just before the car slid onto the street.

It goes without saying that I ended up calling a mechanic to come replace the starter. The price, after labor, ended up $270. Unlucky number two hundred sleventy. OK that one's a little far out there, but I had to try. Here are a few pictures of the cause of my troubles:

Lastly, onto my most recent, and most horrific malady. I've been debating whether or not to blog about this, but since I am here to entertain you, even at my own expense, I will. Dear reader, I recently developed a large and painful bump on my butt. Yes, my butt. This bump could be anything, ranging from an infected pimple to an insect bite. All I know is that it hurt like hell whenever I did anything, such as sitting. The feeling is much like a tooth ache, where your brain is constantly registering pain. The only difference is that the pain is coming from your rear end. It's times like these that I wonder, "Why, God?" Life becomes miserable in general; food doesn't taste quite as good, games don't seem quite as fun. Most of this is due to the fact that almost everything we do requires us to sit. Not something I want to be doing now. After excessive application of Neosporin, my butt is much better now. Hopefully nobody looks at me funny after this story, or suspects the worst whenever I shift in my chair.

But even after my series of unfortunate events, I must say that I am still quite happy. Plenty of good things have happened along the way, I just didn't write about them, because we all know that misery makes better blogging material. I read somewhere that everyone has an "equilibrium happiness point," meaning that even after something good happens or something bad happens, people will generally return to their natural state of happiness. I'm a happy person; I believe in happy endings. Good friends, good music, good food, and good work outs make everything better.

This weekend I'll be going to the Long Beach Grand Prix, so stay tuned for pictures, lots of it.