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Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Old School Vampires

Just discovered these guys today and had to share. :)

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Like night and day

Some of you know that it recently seemed all the technology planets were aligned against me: I lost the use of my car, cell phone, computer and alphasmart all in one blow.

Well, the mechanic to whom I had been taking my car for a while, and to whom I had already given tons of money, told me it was going to cost around $1200 to make the car safe to drive again. Told me lots of scary stories of why it wasn't safe to keep driving. Since $1200 is what I pay for rent each month, there was no way I could afford that, so I just had to let the car sit in the driveway and walk to the train station to go to work. 

Now, my daughter just came home from school last week, and bless her lazy little heart, she just couldn't go without a car, and wouldn't/couldn't possibly drive it with someone following her to the shop, so she called another shop and had them come pick it for her while I was at work.

They had it for a day and half and came back with the following verdict:  the noise it was making was from carbon on the pistons which they cleaned off; the front brakes were a little rusty, but still ok for now, and other than that, they said, nothing was wrong with the car. Total cost of repair: $45.00. They didn't even charge me for picking it up.

Obviously, my trust had been misplaced in an opportunistic and unscrupulous shop ower who saw a single woman walk in and went, "Ca-ching!"  Unlike Frank Pasquesi, who didn't try to take advantage of the situation.

But there was more to come in my tech-challenged days.  Not  only did Pasquesi Auto prove themselves to be angels in a time of need, so did Evan Marshall and Edie Ramer.

When I lost my computer, I lost downloaded software, one of which was the Marshall Plan Novel Writing Software.  I sent Evan Marshall an email, and he quickly responded, freely replacing the software for me, and was very supportive and kind.

When Edie heard that I'd lost my Alphasmart, she immediately mailed me hers since she was no longer using it.  It was (is!) a huge help, and I'm very grateful. 

So, thank you again Edie Ramer, Evan Marshall, and Frank Pasquesi!

Has anyone recently proved themselves to be trustworthy, kind, and worth their weight in gold in your life?