Crunch followup

As I posted last month I was recently in a car wreck. While the police report cleared me of fault and charged one of the other drivers, I won't be seeing any money from the insurance company as I didn't hold the title to the car that was wrecked, although I was paying the insurance on the car. Yes, I am rather rubbed the wrong way about that and am seriously questioning what the point of me paying the insurance was if I wasn't the beneficiary of it.

Unfortunately in the current used car market where I am, there was very little that I could go and buy outright. The car that I wound up being able to afford was a 1996 Chevy Beretta... and well...




That would be the car needing completely new brakes... and while it might not be possible to see in the (pictures) (the videos didn't actually turn up usable)... needing new rear shock absorbers as well.

I thought that would be all the work that was required... but... wrong. Things went shortly even more downhill afterwards. The Beretta that I picked up happened to be the one with the mid-range Quad4 engine, in which the Water pump runs through the timing chains. That became a problem when the water pump sprung a leak, and I found out that the only place to get a new water pump was from Chevy, and I found out that labor was well above $650 and a six hour job for Chevy's techs.

Things have gone even more wrong since then. 2 nights ago while driving home from work I turned into the neighboor hood, and suddenly found myself missing a left front tire. Now, those who know me know I'm not exactly mechanically inclined so bear with me if I repeat this wrong... the CV axel came apart and the ball-joint holding the wheel up had rusted out...

All of these repairs are well over any budget I had, and now things like Anthrocon and E3 are entirely out of the picture.

I've made jokes about being bad about asking for donations before... but if any readers have something to spare... it'd be greatly appreciated at this time...