Soft Tops Are Cheaper and Banks Suck!

This morning I hopped a ride downtown with Thomas as he was going to work. I went to the bank to see if my address change had gone through since we faxed the paperwork last Thursday. Surprise, surprise, it still hadn't gone though. Still no local ATM card for me and all my money still hasn't cleared. What a farce banking is down here.

After that I went to Bringin The Fun and paid for a month's worth of wifi use and ordered an egg sandwich. The sandwich was must more delicious than the ones I usually make, and I deduced that it was because Alex used butter on the toasted roll and I usually just use the bacon grease. Boy was that sandwich delicious.

So I sat down to use the wifi and begin some long awaited work. Boy was paying for a month in advance a mistake. The Internet was so damned slow, I barely got one feature coded in a full day's work. How annoying! Trying to upload a simple 5k file is a chore and a half. While I was working there, there was a pretty kickass squall hat came rolling through. They say during these months that the rains roll through hard and fast. These are the strongest rains I have ever seen and they're over in 15 minutes or so.

Phoebe and Tracy had gone to the cable company today see if they could solve our cable woes. Apparently there's a 10 page waiting list for cable boxes. Nice! Only in St. John! That's what my landlord told me to tell myself on the harder days.

Later Phoebe went to work and let Tracy and I have the car. We went to dinner at High Tide. While we were eating there an iguana strolled up past us on the beach and stopped. I grabbed my camera and took some video. FInally I got a good shot of the iguanas down here. I think they're cute.

After dinner, Tracy and I hightailed it back over to C&C car rental and waited around for Charlie. He had called me in the morning to tell me about the gold hard top for $7000. When he finally showed up I told him that I couldn't afford the car at $7000, and if he lowered the price we could do something about it. But instead I took a green 2000 Suzuki Vitara 4WD for a test drive with Tracy. I went around the extended block two times. It seemed like a decent car except it really had no balls on the bigger hills. But the A/C worked and it seems to be a nice functioning ride. I tested the brakes, listened to the transmission, engine, CV joints, drove in reverse, checked all the lights, gave it a little speed/stress test of my own, and then returned the car to the shop. I told Charlie that I'd come back to buy it tomorrow.

What really pisses me off is that the money I deposited last week still has not cleared! So I don't have enough liquidity to buy the car. Instead, I will have to by the car on my credit card and pay Charlie an extra 6% to do so. How annoying!

After we were done test driving the car, Thomas called to tell us that the power had gone out at home and that he would call us back if he needed a ride. So Tracy and I went and sat down at Joe's Rum Hut and had a couple drinks to wait until Thomas called. This gave us an opportunity to talk about or move thus far. We've both been a little frustrated with the change.

Eventually Thomas texted us, begging us to come get him. So we drove back up the mountain, grabbed him and then drove back down, parked, and started drinking at The Front Yard. Thomas told us that today our new hot water heater was installed and that he got to take a nice hot shower. This made Tracy very happy; except now there was no power!

After a while, Thomas called his neighbor to see if the power was back on, and got his answering machine; a good sign. So Tracy and I drove back up the mountain only to find out that the power was indeed back on, but there was no water! Oh well, no surprise there. Only in St. John.

Later I had to go pick up Phoebe and Thomas from downtown and bring them back to the house. Tracy came for the ride. That was at about 11:30pm. When we al returned, Thomas told me that when the power goes out long enough, you have to hit a manual switch on the pump to get it working again. He showed me how to start it up again, and also how to switch the cisterns. Very good to know.

After that, I went to bed so I could wake up early in the morning and show Thomas the car I am about to buy. With any luck, I'll be driving it tomorrow!