Okay, so where do I start? This has been a wild ten months.
My last post was in May of 2019. Currently, I’m sitting here in 2020, and I could not even begin to make up what has happened in the past ten months. Both around the world and in my life. Let’s start at where we left off:
The summer was a time period of work. During June and July I was so focused on trying to catch up on certain bills, and just make money. I saved up enough so that I could make the trip back to Calgary! I have a few future posts that I want to use to highlight the trip. For now, here’s a quick picture at the MacKenCo Garage driveway!
So that was August. Then… September came haha! Boy, was that an insane month. Unfortunately, the whole crashing cars bug didn’t go away as the Accord I was driving ended up with the same fate as the STedan. I don’t want to go into details as it’s still a sour subject for me. That was mid-September, I want to say the 18th? I don’t even remember and I had to look it up because I have blocked it out of memory that much. Regardless, it happened. I am glad to be out of that unscathed and the situation wasn’t as bad as it could have been. HOWEVER, that doesn’t mean the situation was only negative. You see, I had already been in search of another car since before the accident. Well, as I was sulking that day, I decided to open up the Car Gurus. It’s like God sent me the car straight from heaven dude. As I scrolled local dealership listings, there it was, shining like the Holy Grail in the tomb in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. A beautiful Performance Blue 2013 Ford Focus ST! After chatting about pricing, we set up to sign the paperwork on September 23rd.
Now, in hindsight, I should have known from the first day that I may have still had a bit of bad luck on me. I just couldn’t explain it… Because as I was driving home from picking the new car up, I noticed that it wasn’t building any boost. Also, as I was driving on the freeway, there was a metal object in my lane that I couldn’t avoid and I ran it over. Boom, a flat tire. ALL ON MY FIRST DAY OF OWNERSHIP! Well, I had my local tire shop, Orland Tire, set me up with a decently priced new tire. While they had it up on jack stands, I found the culprit of the boost issue. A blown charge pipe. I put it back on, tightened a new clamp on there, and drove the car home. The next day, I drove out and took the first pictures.
That blue is a beautiful color man.
October, November, and December I broke her in. Oh her name is Atasi. I made plans to keep it stock. Seriously, I really did. Then I got an Accessport. I knew I was going down the rabbit hole. The car had already come with a catback exhaust so I figured a tune would wake it up, and it really did! So plans to do more started coming. I got Eibach lowering springs to finally give it a drop. Took the plastidip off of the wheels. I also shaved the grille too. It was coming along well!
Well, with how MY life works, things weren’t going to just keep going well. Nope, I can’t have anything nice apparently because as I was headed back home from school on February 12th, and it happened. I was on the highway, driving safely. On this highway, there are several roads that go into and out of almond orchards. Well, a truck was sitting at their stop and as I passed them, they pulled out right into my car and t-boned it. After only 6 months of ownership man. I was mad, believe me. However, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I reacted appropriately, regained control right away, and avoided a major (possibly deadly) accident. So I calmly told the freaked out kid, that we should file a police report. That was the best decision I’ve made in a long time.
So here we sit, at the end of March, almost approaching 2 months since the incident. Their insurance took their sweet time to get back to me. As soon as that police report was filed though, they got back to me really fast and sent me a check to start the process of getting it repaired. Why so quickly after they got the report? Turns out that the kid lied to them at the scene when they asked if he was on his phone. I mean, it was a given that he was at fault even without a cellphone being involved. However, this kid was looking down at his phone and didn’t look up as he pulled out into me. No wonder he didn’t see a bright blue car coming down the highway. Fortunately, the day after the accident, he called in and told them the truth. So that helped things out in the end. Well, the car goes in on Monday, March 30th. Two days away from the day I type this post.
I REFUSE to allow this trend to continue. This will NOT continue. I will speak it into existence. I will pray until I’m blue in the face so that God hears me. Now, as readers will probably know by now, the government is sending stimulus checks to people during this whole COVID-19 pandemic. So, I have decided to use this extra money to buy some car goodies as I get it ready for FocusFest 2020! While it’s in the shop, the goodies should all be coming in. So there you go, two more things to look forward to. More car content, and more car parts!
This is currently how the car sits. Obviously, I took a picture from the driver’s side, hehe. Next time it makes an appearance, it’s going to be VERY different and I am so excited! So, with that, I leave y’all. More quarantine content to come soon! Please, be safe, stay home, and stay clean! Godspeed!
-Jose
FiveThirty 