Oil pan, meet rock. Rock, oil pan. "Howd'ya do?"

Ok, so I haven't written in a while. I guess there just hasn't been anything hugely stressful in my life that I've had the urge to share with the entire online community. But, alas, here I am, writing once again.

Well, if you can't tell from the voice of the post and the title a terrible thing happened today. I was in Toelle County helping out a friend with his Eagle Project. No one told me there would be off-roading involved. I made it up there in one piece. Except that I heard 3 very distinct *THUDS* and felt them too. No permanent damage done, though. On the way back down, on a different trail, there were two.

I was trying to ride on the top of the rut, off to the left, so my right wheel was on the high point and my left was off the side of the road, essentially. Well, apparently I was not enough to the left. I caught the first rock, which I didn't even see coming, with the suspension on my right tire. Load thud, big jolt, and my car pulled the rock right out of the ground. No permanent damage done, except a scar on my car. The second rock I hit avoiding an even bigger rock. It apparently caught my oil pan straight on. No leaking, just a HUGE dent.

However, we get to the bottom of the trail and my oil light comes on. Oil pressure is very low! So I added some oil, light goes off, I continue to drive. I had used all my oil reserves, so I dropped into a convenience store and bought three more quarts. Put them all in (as I was a bit low on oil). As it turns out, I wasn't that low. I have about a quart over, but as I have an oil leak, that will sort itself out.

Put two of the quarts in, the light turns off. Drive for 15 minutes, light comes back on, put in 3rd quart. Light goes off. Drive for 5 minutes, light comes on. And guess what, no cell phone service! Bad situation, meet worst case scenario. My friend Tommy was following me, so I had a backup if need be.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I decided to cross my fingers, grit my teeth, and hope that because the oil light was flickering on and off sporadically that my car was ok. The good news is that the oil light turned off when I was almost home (after driving it for almost an hour) and hasn't come back on yet. The bad news, I probably did some serious damage to my engine.

All in all, though, I had quite a fun time with everything and hope to keep it that way. If my car dies, well, I'll bike to work until I buy a new one. I have school tuition to pay, then I'll have enough for at least a down-payment (if I decide to take out a loan) after another month. Loosing my car would, however, greatly inhibit my plans to move back out. We shall see... Keep your fingers crossed.

Future, meet Lady Luck. Lady Luck, Future. I hope you two become best friends.

A Near Death Experience and a New Phone

Last week I had an interesting experience. I decided someone up There likes me more than He should. I had just picked up my friend, Patsy, and was driving from her apartment to my house. We were driving down 800 N in Orem heading south from University Ave. to State St. We were almost to State St (just before Macey's) when a car, that was sitting in the left-hand turn lane, tried to make a right-hand turn across two lanes of traffic to make it into Macey's parking lot.

He apparently did not see me coming at 45mph. When I noticed he was coming in to my lane (probably no more than 15-20 feet away from him), I slammed on my breaks and turned my car slightly to the right. The turning car, hereafter refered to as TURNER, slammed on his break and stopped halfway into my lane.

When I slammed on my breaks, I also instinctively push my clutch pedal to the floor and put both hands firmly on the wheel. Turning my car to the right as much as I had and TURNER stopping allowed me to miss him. At this point, however, I realized that I was heading straight at the cars waiting to turn right onto 800 N.

I turned my wheel to the left, after passing TURNER, but I was still skidding and didn't change my trajectory much. I let off the break and my car whipped back into the lane where I straightened it out.

I had been driving down 800 N. in 5th gear. I looked at my speed-o-meter and read 30mph. I put my car in 3rd gear and continued driving. I looked in my rear view mirror and, through the smoke left by my tires skidding, could still see TURNER completely stopped sitting in half of each lane of traffic. I smiled and kept driving. Let me note that all of this happened in about 2-3 seconds flat.

Let's point out my sheer luck here. 1) Noticing that he was coming in to my lane. 2) clutching my car. Had I not, it would've stalled and I would've lost power steering. I don't know if that would've been bad, but it was handy. 3) TURNER stopping. 4) Turning my car just enough before I started skidding to miss TURNER. 5) Instictively letting off my break when I was trying to turn while skidding. 6) Missing all the cars trying to turn. 7) Not killing Patsy who, might I add, thinks I have reflexes like a cat.

Somebody is still watching out for me.

On another happy note of my life, I got a new cell phone. I was tired of paying massive overages every month for text messaging with Verizon. I was paying $20 for 2500 messages in/out and $0.10 for every message over in/out. I usually sent/received about 3000+ every month. That's $50 of overages. Some months I topped that. So I was paying at least $70/month for text messaging, and I got sick of it. I called them three times to see if they could do anything for me, price breaks, unlimitted text messaging, etc, but to no avail.

So, I switched to TMobile. I paid the $175 cancellation fee for my phone (I will save that much in about 3 months) and switched to TMobile. I now have unlimitted text messaging for $10/month. I breath easy and sleep better at night now.

Life is good to me.