Doe!!!

I seem to remember mentioning earlier that keeping a car pristine was somewhat of an impossible feat, right…? I mean you can spend as much time as you want pampering the vehicle – keeping the mileage low, only taking her out on days with 0% chance of precipitation and implementing a multiple day wash/wax routine using various Zaino Brothers’ products – however, as one Edward A. Murphy, Jr. would attest, something’s going to come along and render your efforts futile. This happened to me a couple weeks ago…

It was your ordinary Saturday during a tape-out. (A “tape-out”, for those unfamiliar with the term, is the completion of a chip. And by “chip” I am referring to an IC – a CMOS image sensor in this case. In the old days, prior to the high-speed Internet availability, a design was written to magnetic tape and shipped to fabrication … the name “tape-out” has stuck with us since…) I arrived at the office bright and early – 6:30 in the morning. My plan was to get as much work as I could done with the layout for the digital block and kick off a couple probable candidates for timing closure that could run throughout the rest of the weekend giving us a greater chance of something usable by Monday morning. Tape-out is always a very hectic schedule as unrealistic timelines become the expected. 18 hours later, I had completed my task and was headed home.

I remember contemplating which route I should take – should I just hop on the 101 or save a couple of miles and take the back roads (in this case, Potrero Rd. – a much more sparsely used and hazardously bent road that I often take as a straight shot to work). Being that it was approaching 1:00 in the morning on a Saturday night (well … Sunday morning, actually…) I figured I would avoid the drunkards and take Potrero. I’m now questioning whether this was a poor decision or perhaps a life saving decision for, as I will soon explain, I arrived home in Chris’ vehicle.

“What happened to my vehicle?” you might be wondering. Well, I’ll tell ya – it got towed away on a flatbed shortly after becoming non-drivable. It seems that my efforts to avoid a “deer” resulted in Precious (my ’02 Firehwak) careening sideways down the road a bit until she was stopped, rather abruptly, by a couple of boulders on the far side of the road. (The second boulder actually stopper her – the first one just kinda “spun ‘er around”…)

The thing that I’m having a difficult time figuring out now is what, exactly, caused me to completely lose control. At first I figured that it must have been due to hitting the shoulder – your standard gravel-based shoulder – and losing all traction; however the more I think about it, the more likely it seems that something rather important to the proper functionality of my front, passenger-side wheel may have busted. I distinctly remember hearing a very consistent squeaking sound from my front, right suspension every time I would slowly pull into Chris’ garage and, from the damage done, it’s looking like that squeaking was trying to tell me something. If only I would have acted sooner – I was planning on getting the suspension checked out at my next oil change…

I guess it really doesn’t matter now … whatever the reason, I lost control and did some major damage to my poor baby. That, of course, is why I’m paying for insurance. In the last couple of weeks, Allstate has inspected the damage – twice, actually – and, after finally getting some sort of written valuation for the vehicle, has informed me that she is repairable (or in insurance talk, not totaled). The estimated cost of the repair is somewhere around $9700 last I heard (of course I’ll be paying $1000 of that, myself, with the deductible); but the good news is that this rather large sum of money isn’t enough to consider Precious totaled. I really have no idea how long this is going to take, but Paradise Body & Paint is now in possession of my vehicle and assures me that she can be fixed. This, of course, was after she was moved from 101 Collision (directly across the street from Paradise) who basically told me that they refused to complete the repairs due to liability concerns. It’s my impression that they’re just not willing to work with Allstate; but it’s no skin off my back as Paradise seems to be willing to do the job.

Of course something tells me that she’s never going to be the same. The majority of damage was basically cosmetic; however the rear axle was shifted a couple inches to the left after the unscheduled stop which makes me wonder about the frame and suspension a bit. Oh well, the technicians at Paradise are professionals and I guess I’m just going to have to leave it to them to get Precious back to pristine (or as close as possible). All I can do now is hope for the best…

bis später,

Coriolis