Search Results for: c

Yesterday’s Car Breaking Adventure

Monday is Car Swap Day.  My Jetta had been sitting for 3.5 weeks, it was dead, so I went looking for a jump.

The security guard gave me a safety vest, and sent me into the Chrysler warehouse to look.

Sure we can help, they said. And then they let me gawk around.  Such a massive building. No matter which corner I looked down, it kept going.

So cool. And so the exact opposite of my business – an 11″ laptop + blog.

Hop on the back of this little yellow cart, Keri.

Okay!

Doesn’t take much to make me happy, eh.

Off to the journalist parking lot, boost, it turns over, thank you bye now! But then the engine stopped again.  Now it won’t turn over.  Huh.

Wait, a pickup truck appears, who’s this? It’s the owner of the detail shop that cares for the Chrysler fleet, Andrew Ross, and Danny Smith, hi guys!

Please yes, don’t know what’s wrong. We all call people, and hold our phones inside the engine… wait wait… pull off the distributor cap… ahHA.

It’s the world’s most burnt-out distributor cap.

No spark, no engine.

Come on Keri, let’s go look if there’s a replacement at the shop. Okay!

And THERE WAS.

Non-car nerds: the odds of there being this part, for a 1999 Volkswagen, are ridiculous. The math on that is astronomical, winning-the-lottery odds.

Wizard auto shop.

Go too: CarCareExtraordinaire.ca Mississauga 905 567-6644

(if you’ve never been to one, I wrote a column, “When going to a detail shop, do this“)

 

 

Achieved a New Level of Minimalistic Living

Over the holidays, I mentioned I’d purged. This is when the new level was reached.

Boom BOOM I own nothing.

Notice no TV? No art, and definitely no photographs.  No eyes.

Plain.

Calm.

Life is already so busy and stimulating, so my home is opposite.

Look forward to take you on that video tour. Pretty proud of this actually, it took a while, this reduction.

It’s more of a lifestyle, than a decorating style.  Same idea as my backpack.

No attachment. That’s the key. To everything, really.

 

 

To All the Auto Manufacturers…

You all use the same material to line both the glovebox and centre console storage.

That fake velvet material.

Please stop.

It sheds so badly.

Because no matter how great the engine or handling, it’s undone by the tiny, black hairs now stuck to everything I own.

 

 

A Brief History of my Days as a Security Guard

When I first moved to Toronto years ago, I used to work as a security guard at different downtown venues.

This is BMO field, where the TFC soccer team plays. Season’s ticket holders enter the stadium at the green *

If you were a 2009 season’s ticket holder,
I probably checked your bag.

And probably commented on its contents.

To the mothers, sorry I had to take away your kid’s food, they made me. Not sorry for all the water bottle caps I unscrewed, that’s a no every time.

One night, across the way at the Ricoh Coliseum, I was on search at the door, for a Slipknot concert, and I’d forgotten my gloves :S

Gwen Stefani smiled at me once, and it’s amazing how pumped people get for Nickelback. Saw Adele before she was Adele, the former head coach of the Raptors gave me a locker room coke, and I once escorted ACDC to their van without realizing it.

When Elton John was here, that was me, in the centre of the arena, sitting on a speaker guarding the sound mixer. David Furnish sat beside me for a bit, he has a nice air about him.  Britney Spears was the only shift I ever requested.

Three days at the Royal Agricultural Fair feels like forever, this job really slowed down time.

And no, I don’t want your guitar pick.

The perks of this job were lost on me, since I rarely listen to music.  Mostly I’d ask to be assigned to the quietest, remote corner, and read.

About my over-the-top 5.11 pants I got for my uniform.

(top photo – taken during a backstage tour of the Honda Indy)