Chickens, Sparks, Thorns, and that DevMeet Thing

The second-most insane day of my life happened today.

phlezk and jasato and I had been planning on going to Austin for well over a month now for the DevMeet.  Yesterday, I thought the plan was derailed after I received a $37 paycheck (which is about a fifth of my normal paycheck) and I thought I wouldn't have enough money to go.  This caused a problem for phlezk and jasato , as I was their ride there.  After committing a violation of my personal rules, I had to ask for money; they were more than willing to comply and it really sucked because I REALLY hate asking for money.  Keep that in mind...

I arrived at phlezk 's house at about 9am this morning, where I picked up him and jasato .  jasato 's first action in my car was to roll down the back driverside window so he could smoke and not irritate us nonsmokers.  First fact about my car: the back windows do not like to roll up.  This one didn't.  We tried getting it to roll up the entire trip but it did not go up for anything.  This presented more than one problem.  Whereas we were cruising down the road at a steady 70 miles per hour, we were freezing because of all the wind.

There was also the issue of security.  Since we were going to DownTown Austin, I really didn't like my car being that open.  Anyone could reach inside and grab anything they wanted.  This thought kept rolling through my mind the whole time.

We finally arrived in Austin only to find out I had no idea where I was going.  I know the address of the place was somewhere near 27th and Guadalupe St., but I didn't know exactly how close to that intersection it was; plus, I didn't know how to get to that intersection.  So while we were cruising down Mopac, I figured to myself that if I could keep my sight on the University of Texas Tower, then everything would be Okay (27th and Guadalupe is right by the campus of the University of Texas).  After passing a hill, I lost sight of the tower. Plus we were coming upon an exit that I had always wanted to go on: it was one that curved so fast that you literally had to slam your brakes to reduce your speed from 70 mph to 20mph just to make the loop.  That exit spit us out at 24th Street...only three blocks from where we were supposed to be!  I figured this was some sort of miracle that it was so easy to get to.  We easily made our way to 27th and Guadalupe, but couldn't find a coffee joint anywhere.  Since phlezk and I both work at the Blockbuster Video in Kerrville, we decided to stop at the Blockbuster at the intersection to blow some time (we were a tad bit early).  I got out of the car, noticed the large bright blue building behind us, then saw the name "MOJO's" on the side of it.  We had found it!  And we had found it without knowing we had found it!!

We were still a little bit early, and our bladders were somewhat aching, so we went to Blockbuster anyway to kill some time.  phlezk and I had an interesting chat with the employee, letting her know that we worked at a Blockbuster and discussing differences between stores.  Since the Mojo's place was right across the street I decided to leave my car at the Blockbuster parking lot.  Once it hit Twelve Noon we headed over there. A couple minutes later shaymacmorran showed up and the DevMeet was officially under way.

Over the next three hours or so, around 30 deviants came and left, including heartstaken , Lady-Blue , spot , Skittleboi , rzero , capricious , neoegoism , inferis , and darkrune .  Everyone was real cool and it was a pleasure meeting everybody who showed up!!!!!!

The first highlight of the day would be the chicken crossing the road.  Somehow there was a chicken in DownTown Austin and it decided to make the legendary Crossing of the Road.  There were so many different occurrences where it could have been hit but the drivers of Austin were very observant and dodged the little guy.  As it slowly made its way to the middle of the road, it had the two inside lanes of traffic at a complete halt as nobody wanted to hit him.  I felt compelled to help him on his trip so without thinking I ran out into the middle of the road to kind of scare him into running to the other side.  That didn't work...instead it dodged me and remained in the middle of the road.  I was finally able to force him back off the busy street and into some Chinese Restaurant, which is where I think he came from to begin with.

After that, the DevMeet progressed pretty smoothly.  spot , whose real name is actually Spot, informed us of possible future updates to the site and gave an insight into what it takes to run a place like DeviantArt.  I actually won a 1-year subscription to DeviantArt, which would normally be a journal entry in itself, but with all the events of today this is all that I'll write about it.

After awhile all of us who remained migrated over to the Taco Bell, where there were a few interesting discussions and jokes and stuff. All of us had a great time there, I believe.  I eyed something out of the corner of my eye but didn't really elaborate on it until later...

After a couple hours we left the Taco Bell and began parting ways.  I looked over at the Blockbuster Parking lot and received the single most shocking moment of my life.

My Car Was Missing.  It wasn't behind another car, it wasn't where I had left it.  MY CAR WAS MISSING!!!  I thought about saying "Dude, Where's my Car?" but I decided against it because of the overwhelmingly serious situation that befallen upon me.  Once again, without thinking about it, I ran across Guadalupe St. and into the Blockbuster Video store.  "Hey did you see what happened to that big brown and gray car that was parked out there?"
"You mean that Oldsmobile?" the employee asked.
"Yeah, that's it."
"Oh it got towed.  There's a sign out there somewhere that says this is for customer parking only.  And you were across the street."

I was livid.
The company I work for decided to screw the heck out of me by towing my car.  Without really thinking ("Logic" and "Thinking") I yelled as loud as I could: "THEY FUCKING TOWED IT!" to phlezk , jasato , inferis , and shaymacmorran who were standing about 120 feet from me across the street.
Remember how I said I Absolutely HATED asking people for money?  Well I called the people who towed my car and they said "Yeah we got your car and it'll be $130 to get it out."
Since I had only $12 on me, this presented a hugeass problem.  Between the 5 of us, we had about $80 bucks, still $50 short of getting my car back.  

So I had to call my Dad.  I really didn't want him to know that I was here this weekend because I had made arrangements to visit him next weekend.  So I first had to tell him I was in Austin, which isn't something I didn't want to do, then I had to ask him for money, which really isn't something I want to do.

All I can say from that highlight of the day was that shaymacmorran and inferis are the BOMB.  shaymacmorran was kind enough to give us a ride out to the Towing place, where we met up with my Dad.  He and my brother paid to get my car out.  So I gave the deviants their money back at about the same time that inferis called shaymacmorran to ask her for help because he got his keys locked in his car.  She left to go help him out.
I want to thank shaymacmorran again for her help in my time of crisis!!

So I now owe my brother and my Dad a total of $130.  But at least we were on our way home.  We stopped in Comfort (small town about 10 miles from where phlezk lives) for some gas and to let jasato release some pressure on his bladder.  Of course, putting gas in the car required turning it off.  BAD MOVE.  I turned my key, nothing happened.

My car decided to quit working on me.  But I decided NOT to let it quit working on me.  I jacked the car up right at the gas pump and went under there.  I took a really big wrench and touched it to both nodes of the starter, which I thought would turn on the car.  All it did was shoot sparks everywhere.  Then the wrench got stuck and every time I wiggled it to get it loose sparks kept erupting from the starter.  So I got out from under the car and turned the key again.  LUCKILY the car came on and we made it safely home.

PLENTY of pics will be available to anyone who wants to see what went on at the DevMeet in Austin today.  Damn chicken, I have like 20 pictures of it alone.  Then there's the group pic, which is something I'll keep for a long time.
It was a pleasure to meet everybody today, and I hope we'll meet again someday!

Now to go figure out how to get that damn window rolled up...

(You just read a 1620-word journal entry.)

EDIT:
I rolled the window up today!  I held down the button for like 3 minutes until it finally went up.  Yay!