And then some other stuff happened...
Last night Rob was waiting in the parking lot for me to get off work when the engine in our Rodeo died. We figured it was just out of gas since the gauge doesn't work and our mileage estimates are not always the most accurate. Who could we call? Tracy was probably on his way home from work and neither of us had his mobile number. Of the phone numbers we had, Bill lives in Dripping Springs, Cris lives in Pflugerville, Kyle lives in Lockhart, Rusty lives in Manor and Andrea lives in Elgin. I never realized how few of our friends actually live in Austin. But my brother does still live in Austin and happens to live right down the street from me so he could even swing by our carport and grab the gas can. It seemed like the perfect solution. That is, until we discovered the problem wasn't a lack of gasoline. Nothing to do but just have my brother haul us home where we pondered the inconvenience of taking the bus to work. Rob actually has it pretty easy. Catch the bus at 6:20 AM and ride the same bus all the way to 3 blocks away from work. On the other hand, I have to catch the 5:20 AM bus and make a transfer which would put me to work on time at seven *IF* everything worked out perfectly (yeah, like that is going to ever happen.) I was off today which gave me a chance to alert my boss who generously adjusted my start time to 7:30 for the rest of the week. After a bit more troubleshooting today the verdict on the Rodeo is a bad fuel pump. A $305 fuel pump. That's just for the part; we'll be doing the labor when and if we can ever afford to buy the damn pump. I suppose the only bright side to this is that the pump does come in an assembly with the gas level sensor so replacing it will also fix the gas gauge problem. And the day ended with a bit of good news as Rob has managed to land a vehicle to use for well, we don't how long, but at least for the next couple of days so I'll be spared from having to get up at 3:30 AM tomorrow. Whew.