April 19, 2004

• If nothing else, this past weekend has brought me to an indisputable conclusion: If, in the very very very short time that is left at transit, I am ever given a choice between D59 and D53, it is D53 all the way.

  
  

  Oh yeah. Saturday. University of New Haven with the lacrosse team. As of that evening, I officially hate D59. Jeff spent all of last week overhauling it, for crying out loud. New wiper, new mirror, new tires, looked great, drove great, handled great…and guess what was just BOUND to happen.

  
  

  Loose wiring.

  
  

  Same damn thing that happened to me on the dairy tour in January. Electrical wiring came loose when Jeff installed the new starter. Luckily then it was an easy fix. Electrical wiring came loose AGAIN when he put the new tires on it last Friday. Not such an easy fix, because “customer service” is an oxymoron in southern Connecticut. Voltage dropped bit by bit in the four hours it took us to get to New Haven, by which time it was just a HAIR below twelve volts – at which point the bus cannot be started. So I had to leave it running for the 2.5 hours that we were there while I called every truck center in the phone book, not ONE of which had the personnel and/or the equipment to repair the problem. If you ask me, they just couldn’t be bothered to get off their asses and come out and make a buck.

  
  

  So I warn the guys, gotta leave all the electricity off on the trip home. Bar one. The headlights – you can’t turn ‘em off when the damn bus is in gear. Down to 11 volts by the time we return – that’s when it starts to affect the transmission and provide a ride as jerky as beef. And THEN, in just the amount of time it took me to clean the washroom and mop the floor, the bastard flatlined. I could barely even get it in gear to tank it up and return to its parking space, where I hope it stays indefinitely because it is such a PAIN in the ASS.

  
  

  So that was my misadventure on Saturday. Now one thing you non-college-goers must be aware of is that NCAA coaches are ridiculously high-maintenance; everything has to be prepared and effected to their precise specification, else it’s no good and they’ll read you the riot act. That means one can be almost assured of a grumbling or three if one doesn’t show up with D59, for exactly one reason: it’s big, fancy, fast and it looks nice. I was biting my fingernails yesterday with the field hockey team when I had no choice but to show up with D53. Luckily, if the coach was ticked about it, she didn’t let me know – she was a lot nicer than Jon gives her credit for. So down we go to UConn, where I have a very long and very gregarious chat with a Peter Pan bus driver who says that he won’t even leave the yard with a bus that looks like D53. Nonetheless, I tell him, he could be virtually assured that that bus would get him there and back again (a busman’s holiday ).

  
  

  And whaddya know – it did.

  
  

  Who’da thunk that D53 would make it all the way to UConn and back on one tank of fuel?? Somebody up there was keeping an eye out for us. I’m bloody thankful that there was a calm after the storm. I almost started to wish that thing would be available for every trip that I have left, but all things considered, that might cause problems in the long run…Boy, I’m telling ya, if one more thing goes wrong tonight or tomorrow, I’m calling it quits whether I have the new job or not. It sure as hell isn’t the mechanics’ fault, and only a fraction of the blame can rest with what is laughingly called the “management”; the rest can go to the bureaucrats who care more about the activists than the rest of the population, and how that population is going to get from point A to point B.

  
  

  Now why am I spilling all this to everybody who’s reading? I wasn’t quite sure at first, but believe it or not, there is a point I want to make: If you still have some time to choose your college,

  
  

  DO NOT APPLY TO THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.

  
  

  It’s a waste of time and money to attend that bureaucracy. If your title is “student”, you can count on being shafted, on having an empty wallet, on being deluged with political correctness, on being left outside to freeze to death, and on being stranded with a disabled bus. You will be risking your sanity and your being if you apply to the University of No Holidays, University of No Heterosexuals, University of No Housing…University of No Hope.

  
  

  I’m sorry for ranting about work and about UNH so much lately – both entities are just really wearing down on my nerves. Can’t wait to sever all ties to both…Provided I don’t have a new and unforeseen disaster tonight, look for a new part of Arda Online later. Dat’s right – I must fight fire with fire, thus fight insanity with insanity.

  • 12:47 pm
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