Denver Road Trip Adventure

Had an interesting day. Drove up to Denver to pick up my computer from the shop. The last several days have been frustrating as I’ve used my wife’s computer to, among other things, do the e-mailing thing online, a process which is maddeningly slower than receiving them into my e-mail client on my computer. Along the way, there’ve been a number of other inconveniences that have given me cause to whine and complain. And it’s given Kristy plenty of reason to conclude that I’m a little technology-spoiled brat.

On the way home from Denver, just as we came over Monument Hill to head into The Springs, the Crown Vic (which my father-in-law has graciously lent to us all these months) suddenly decided to refuse acceleration and then, after coasting a mile, to quit altogether. After getting towed to a nearby garage, the mechanic informed us that the fuel pump would need to be replaced for a pretty little price.

Funny enough, Kristy called her dad to let her know what was going on with his car and when she mentioned the problem with the fuel pump, he said, “Oh sure. That thing’s been going bad for about four years now.” I suddenly didn’t feel so bad about breaking his car. (I’m mean c’mon, that fuel pump has probably just been hanging by a thread since we started using it last autumn, right?)

Our little adventure raised an interesting question: Are you required to have missing teeth to work with cars? It seemed uncanny how the tow truck driver and the mechanic seemed to fit the qualification.

Aside from the road trip mishaps, it’s nice to have my baby (read, “laptop”) back and running like new. Needless to say my wife is quite happy as well. Now if I can just get my MP3 player working again . . .