The day was fine. First early wake-up since starting the job. BTW, happy leap year! Today marks a month on the job and I am really enjoying it. It really is EBC 2.0, with a lot of autonomy and freedom, but preceded with my reputation, which seems to be really good.
We had an event at the IEC supporting a cyber security conference for the morning. I was tasked with taking photos of the attendees and event. I had to do that a few weeks ago and it's been cool dusting off my DSLR skills with the Sony Alpha 7R or whatever it is. Super nice camera, don't know if I love the lens.
Event went well, saw some old homies from the EBC and Cindy told them all that they couldn't steal me to the EBC. As things stand now, I'm happy where I am and the truth is, I don't think they're gonna come get me.
I was able to leave early today because the event was over and I wanted to get to band practice on time. The last two Thursdays have been 60 minutes or more on my commute home so I bailed on both. I got home by about 4:15 or so, which was great, but the commute was still 45 minutes. :/
I was chillin for a few and Marci called me to tell me her car seemed to be making a weird grinding/whirring noise and her engine temp was at 280, which is in the red! For the last month or so, she's had a check engine light on, which threw a P2681 error, which the internet tells me is a coolant sensor error.
To see if it was a cheap fix, I bought some coolant and topped it off, but that didn't do it. We've been driving on it ever since and tonight's commute may have been the last straw. I told her to hang at Factoria, which is where she was at, and I drove down to meet her.
Heading down 119th, I got almost to the 3-way stop and a bus was stopped. There were two cars behind it and a woman was talking to them. As she got to me, I could see flashing lights ahead. I thought there was an accident, but she told me that there was a house fire and it was pretty intense. I could see the smoke ahead, so I turned around and went the back way down 119th, which was fine at the moment.
I got to Target in the pouring rain and met Marci and we decided to get a quick dinner at Panera while we waited for the car to cool off. Dinner was nothing special and luckily, we had a $10 off coupon, so that offset the price a bit. Sidenote: Panera is pretty meh. I don't think I need to go there anymore.
After dinner, I jumped in Marci's car and she jumped in mine and traffic was atrocious. We were unable to go up 119th as it was blocked when I came down. Her car's thermostat started heating up immediately and I figured we wouldn't make it far before I would want to pull over again. So I parked at Target and jumped in my car and we fought traffic and finally got home around 6:30 or so.
Poor Kodo was at home all day, as usual, so I took him out for a bio break, then got back in the car with my gear to head to Robb's. Luckily, traffic wasn't too bad then, but by the time I got to his house, I had been driving for about 2 hours since I'd left work. Needless to say, it was great to play some tunes, but after a quick rehearsal and catch-up, I had to head home to get Marci to do one more chore and bring her car home.
Her car was nice and cold in the 38°F weather (it's been cold; it snowed a little tonight), so I felt OK driving it home. Halfway up the reopened 119th, though, the temp started creeping past the 1/2 way point. Even though the heat was on in the car, I put it on full-blast to draw as much heat as I could from the engine and, surprisingly, the thermostat started going down. By the time I got home, the temperature was reading normally, so that's a nice find.
Tomorrow, Marci will take my car in to work. I had a dentist's appointment planned since last year, so I will drive her car with heat on full-blast to Redmond. After that, I made an appointment at VW of Kirkland. Hopefully it's not too expensive and they can get me a shuttle or loaner to get home.
Stay tuned.
