Jay Lagare

Stupid taxi backed up on me last saturday. Okay, maybe it’s partly my fault, I should have stopped or at least honked him. But what’s done’s done and I ended up with both my left side doors dented. The doors were still working but it irritated me so much. So last monday, I went to The Wet Look, a body and paint shop recommended by Eric. They’re situated pretty far and when I actually got there and got an estimate, I was flabbergasted at the cost. But I was already there and they do come highly recommended so I left the car to get the two doors and the front bumper (which had paint scraped off from another incident) worked on.

This afternoon, I picked up the car. Their work was great. The two doors and the front bumper looked so clean, smooth, bright, and– yes– wet. So they work well and they work fast. Is it worth the price? Yes, but just about. If you look harder you’ll probably find something as good for less. But then time searching is time lost and time costs. So it’s all good I guess.

Yesterday, I was driving back along with some officemates to the office from lunch when the engine suddenly died. Luckily, there was a nearby Rapide branch and I was able to coast to just outside their doorstep. They did some diagnostic tests and were able to immediately isolate and fix the problem to the spark plugs. My bad. I haven’t replaced them for almost a year already. The bill went to around P1,500 including the cost of the replacement plugs. Which was okay. Could definitely have been worse. Lesson learned: replace spark plugs regularly. Ignore those long-life plugs stories.

Today is my coding day. You know, MMDA’s futile and short-sighted attempt at reducing traffic in the metropolis. I wanted to be at the office early so I left home early. It was smooth going all the way till I ran smack into the congestion called Ortigas. I was stuck there for over half an hour. The minutes ticked by. Soon it was already way past 7 and and I was still stuck. As I crawled through the congestion, I tried to hide my plate number by staying close to the vehicle in front. But as luck would have it, I ended up being the last vehicle through the traffic light. Worse, I got stuck in the middle of the intersection with my rear plate exposed. Soon enough, one of the blue boys walked up and knocked on my window. Good thing he let me go when I explained I just got stuck in the congestion and that I’m just on the way to the office of a government agency which the company shares the building with. Talk about [agency] name dropping. Whew!

UPDATE: Learned it’s the first day of classes. No wonder traffic was horrible.