Dealer doh!, self serve van repair, Kentucky Derby hit, pigeon pity

On Friday I was supposed to get the party van back from the dealer.  They were supposed to get the part in and I assumed they would call me.  Well I waited until the afternoon to call them after not receiving any calls up to that point.  I get frantic Jeff on the phone and I ask him if the van is done. “Yea, yea yea it’s done” he spits out in a rapid fire manner.  It’s done I just need to do the paper work and call you back with the total.  “Ok Jeff, how long will that take?  Within the hour?” , I ask.  “Yea, yea, yea no problem I’ll call you back” I hang up and wait 90 minutes before calling back.  Throughout this repair process I have been the one that has to call them, Jeff seems too frantic to be able to call me back. 

So I call back, get Jeff again and ask if the paperwork was done. “oh, yea, wait, I’ll do it right now…”  Of course this was annoying but I tried to hide my annoyance as I patiently waited for Jeff to come up with a grand total.  He finally comes up with the total of $611, right around what I figured it would be.  “Ok great Jeff, I’ll be over to pick it up shortly”    So I get a ride to the dealer and see Jeff as I walk in the door.  He tells me I’m all set and points me over to the cashier who is a nice woman with a strong eastern European accent.  She runs my AE card, gives me the keys and I head out to the van.

I turn it on and flip the fan on to verify that it is indeed works.  I hear the motor turning, great.  It was quite warm out so I turned the fan up to high to get things cooled off.  As soon as I do I start hearing a noise coming out of the air vents that was definitely not normal.  It sort of sounded like the rhythmic sound of a helicopter.  Well I paused for a second before turning the van off and heading back inside.  I just did not feel like having to go back in and deal with Jumpy Jeff but of course I had no choice.  I walk back in and ask Jeff to come out and listen to the fan.  By the time he got back out to the van it was making some different noises and there was next to zero air flow coming out even though the fan was on high.  He brought a mechanic with who said he thought that maybe the blower motor wasn’t tight.  Jeff said he would pull it back into the garage again.

So I went back in and patiently waited until another mechanic comes walking out holding the “squirrel cage” which is a plastic part that sort of looks like a hamster wheel.  I was familiar with the part from replacing the blower on my 88 Vette a few years back. So the mechanic and Jeff present me with the part and asked me if I ever replaced the blower before. “No Jeff”  They said that evidently it was not a factory blower and squirrel cage.  When you replace the blower motor you simply move the squirrel cage from the old blower to the new one.  Well evidently the mount for this squirrel cage was somehow wrong and did not attach correctly to the blower motor.  Well instead of flagging this as a problem, the mechanic tried to make it fit anyway and as a result the noise.  The poor air flow was due to the plastic mounting hole getting all stripped out from the incorrect installation.  I was not happy and Jeff knew I wasn’t happy. 

Jeff said the part was not in stock.  The mechanic said something about the possibility of getting the part at NAPA and doing it Saturday. I told them I couldn’t bring it in Saturday.  If they ordered it it would be there Tuesday.  Fine, do that.  Jeff told me it was like a $50 part.  I immediately let him know I had no intentions of paying for it.  I said that the mechanic tried to make the old part work and wrecked it in the process.  The stress of the screw up made Jeff even more frantic than normal.  He came back and said that the dealer would pay for the new squirrel cage, no problem. 

So now the plan was for me to come back Tuesday and they will throw in the part while I wait.  After seeing where the blower was located I sort of regretted not doing that repair myself as well.  It was more accessible than I thought it was and only had a a connector and a few bolts to remove. So the mechanic brings the van back out.  He told me how he left the door panel off the side door so it would be easier for me to replace the latch/lock assembly, at least that was cool, saved me some work. 

Speaking of cool, that was the last thing the ride to the grocery store and home was.  With no AC I was forced to resort to wind power to keep cool with the temps in the upper 80’s with considerable humidity.  By the time I got to the grocery store my back was soaked.  I grabbed groceries and hurried home. I relayed the details of my dealer drama to Ali.

Saturday morning I got off to a very slow start.  I played WoW until almost 10am while Ali slept in. However once I got started on the work it was full steam ahead. I busted ass pretty much non-stop all day.  One of the things I did was tackle the latch replacement on the side door of the van.  For the last 2 or 3 years if you want to open the side door of the van from the outside you had to open the front passenger door, stretch to reach the inside handle for the side door and then pull the handle while pushing outward to release it.  It has the exact same problem that I fixed on the rear door, the plastic bushings dry rot.

Replacing the latch went well.  Since I did it once before I had a general understanding of how everything goes together.  I had the job completely done in about an hour, saving myself over $100 in dealer labor costs.  After the repair I decided to wash the van inside and out since it was going to making the trip up to Orlando shortly for Ali’s race.  After I washed the van I figured I might as well wash the other vehicles since I had the stuff out.  I didn’t get done with everything until after 3pm.

After I finished up work there was not much time until we had to get ready to leave for our Kentucky Derby party.  Ali got all primped up and looked very good.  I wore khakis and a button down shirt.  The event was supposed to start at 5.  We got there a few minutes after 5 and ran into a parking lot that was already totally full.  The valets were parking cars in and parking other cars out on the road at the No Parking signs.   I decided to not do valet, I’m cheap.  After we parked Ali was sort of glad I was cheap when she saw the key organization system the valets were using. They put the key on top of the driver side front tire in plain view.  All a dishonest person would need to do is snag a key and he could be on his happy way with the Mercedes, Lexus or Cadillac of his choosing.

As we walked into the front door of the Boat & Yacht club we were greeted by a woman with an over the top, ostentatious derby bonnet as many other women were adorning.  She gave us a betting sheet to fill out.  Evidently the club runs it’s on private gambling on the race.  We found our friends from the running club and sat down out on the upper deck.  All of our drinks for the evening went onto our friends tab, despite our protest.  I’m not quite sure how it works, you just gave their name and they magically are billed for it I guess.

This club was a people watcher’s dream.  There was a lot of old money walking around.  There was also the old money walking around with the younger trophy wife as well as the younger money walking around with the younger trophy wife.  Ali and I were definitely the youngsters in the crowd.  It was fascinating to just observe the dynamic going on.  It was a similar feeling I had when we attended the exclusive Pet Lover’s Ball.

There was a group of older people that were hard core Kentucky Derby fans, the stood and sung the song before the race. Some of the singers looked like they were singing gospel, they were so into it.  Ali and I placed some bets all the $2 minimum variety.  I know nothing about horse racing so I just picked the number 16 (my number) horse to win.  Ali picked three or four horses, most of them to show instead of win.

So the race starts and people go nuts.  One of Ali’s horses, the number 9 horse was actually leading for a good portion of the race, we were both excited.  the during the last quarter a horse comes screaming out of the pack and passes everyone else like they were standing still, it was pretty amazing.  What was more amazing yet was this horse had the longest odds of any horse in the race!  And guess what, Ali picked this horse to show!  If she would have picked the horse to win we would have scored an incredible $110 pay out for our $2 bet.  Even with a show bet we multiplied our money by a factor of 10, scoring a tidy $25.  It was pretty cool.

I noticed Bob Costas was the announcer for the Derby.  For some reason, probably linked to the 3 or 4 beers I had already drank, I felt myself feeling remorseful that Bob was doing something as boring as broadcasting the Derby.  I remembered how special it was for me when he hosted the Beijing Olympics.  I found myself missing the Olympics and Bob doing the broadcast.

Shortly after the race we sat down to begin the dinner part of the party.  We didn’t even think about what the meal would contain meat-wise.  It turned out the meal was fried chicken and vegetables.  Luckily our server was able to have the kitchen whip up a nice vegetable plate for Ali that honestly was more appealing than what we got.  We enjoyed our dinner, talked to the people at the table and just enjoyed the experience.  It’s an atmosphere we don’t visit often.

We left a little before 9.  We had to get up at 4:30 am because of the race on Sunday so we wanted to get home to not be total zombies the next day.  We made good time on the way home.  I still had to get the truck loaded up with all of the equipment of the race.  I went out to the garage, flipped on the light and then noticed something standing by the corner of the garage right outside the door.  I did a double take when I realized it was a pigeon.  You don’t see many pigeons in Florida for some reason.

The bird was standing there looking at me, it didn’t seem bothered at all by my presence.  As I got closer and got a better look I saw something didn’t look right.  There were feathers stuck to the birds feet.  The feathers were sticking because the birds feet were all bloody. Great, the last thing I needed right now was another Duffey animal rescue episode but I had to investigate further.  I got even closer after calling Ali out.  I noticed the bird had bands around each leg, this had to be a homing pigeon of some sort.  A lot of Cubans are into pigeons.  The blood looked like it was coming from a spot on the birds belly.  I didn’t see any more blood dripping but I could see the stain on it’s feathers.

WTF are we supposed to do?  The bird was as still as a statue, it didn’t react at all to my getting closer and closer.  Besides the blood on it’s feet it wasn’t acting like it was having major issues.  Well maybe the bird is hungry.  Ali brought me out some crackers.  I broke a few up and tossed them over by the bird.  He could care less and showed no interest in them.  I had no idea what the deal was, homing pigeons are supposed to fly home.  Ok well we still had a race to time so I carefully pulled the truck into the garage so I could load it up.  Once I pulled it in the pigeon actually moved.  He walked out to the center of the driveway behind the truck and was bobbing his head back and forth, weird.

I went inside to get the first box.  When I came out the pigeon was now standing on the back of the truck bed cover, staring at me.  For some reason he wanted to up higher.  Ok well I guess I won’t be loading the back of the truck right now.  We got more crackers and put them by the bird as well as a small thing of water.  Ali researched homing pigeons on the internet and said the bands on the legs should have identifying information.  I tried to read the band but all I could make out was “Naples” along with some code that meant nothing to me.

Since the bird was obviously hurt I didn’t want to do anything to further injure it.  I told Ali we should just leave the garage door open and let it hang out there.  With the door open it would be able to fly away if decided it felt up to it.  It was getting late and I was running out of options.  Well Ali was not ok with leaving the garage door open.  She had visions of waking up the next morning to a garage totally emptied out by the criminals that are lurking in the bushes.  Hell they probably planted the pigeon just so we would leave the garage door open.

So a new plan was needed.  I decided to pick up the bird in a towel and take it out back.  I was worried that the bird might carry on if I tried to snag it.  I was relieved that the bird didn’t struggle in any way.  You could tell it was used to being handled.  I gently wrapped it in the towel and carried him out back.  I sat him by the pond, thinking he could find cover if needed under the bushy areca palms.  Well the pigeon had other ideas.  Almost immediately he flew up onto the shed roof.  He just landed and then stood there at the front looking out at me.  Evidently he felt safer if he was up high.  You could tell that it was somewhat of a struggle for it to fly. Well Ali and I figured that was all we could do for now.  If the bird was still alive and around the next morning we would continue the rescue effort.

When I woke up the next morning at 4:15 and took the dogs out I assumed the pigeon would no longer be there.  It would either be dead or flown hone hopefully.  When the spotlight came on there he was in the exact same spot, just looking out at me.  Oh geez.  I talked to the bird, asking him how he felt, like he was going to answer me.  I told Ali the bird was still there, we both were surprised.  We agreed that after the race if he is still there we would call someone.

The race went relatively well.  There were around 15 runners that we had to manually enter times for.  We were out of there before 9am.  As soon as we got home we went right out back to see if the pigeon was still there.  By that time it was quite warm.  If the pigeon was still up on the roof in the blazing bright sunshine it would be sweating it’s feathers off.  We looked up, no pigeon.  So Ali and I started a pigeon search mission, walking around the property to see if the pigeon relocated itself to somewhere shady.  I looked around and under the shed for a pigeon carcass, nothing there.  Our search turned up empty.  We both hoped that the pigeon recovered enough to fly back to wherever he was from. Through out the day I would scan the yard for signs of the bird. 

Ali went shopping with my mom.  While she was gone I put away the race equipment, did all of the post-race data management, swept the floor, did some laundry and few other things.  I put the Dirt Dog to work out on the lanai.  I swore loudly when I came out later to see a yellow disc at the bottom of the pool.  The f’in Dirt Dog fell into the pool again! I was pissed.  This particular Dirt Dog has already survived two falls into the pool.  The other newer Dirt Dog fell in once and that killed it, I had to replace it’s main logic board.  I would be surprised if the older Dirt Dog survives it’s latest underwater adventure.  I think it was in there for quite awhile. I will let it dry out for another day or so before even trying to apply power to it.  I am going to have to somehow use virtual walls out on the lanai to prevent this from happening. 

Ali made a nice pasta dinner that included some fresh eggplant from our garden.  I also pulled our first zucchini (I think) out of the garden.  The plant has been in the garden forever but has not yielded anything up until now.  It has been there so long I forgot exactly what it is.  Ali also made the box of brownies I bought for desert.  I very rarely will buy something like for us to eat on our own.  I prefer “healthier” deserts that are portion controlled and calorically limited.  For whatever reason when I was walking up the baking aisle in the grocery store a little voice said “I want brownies….”