What's a pack of cigarettes worth to you?

****Warning, this is longer than I had planned, but it needed to be said!
You know those hidden camera investigations with mechanic shops when they find out that no work was actually performed on your car and they end up charging you twice what they should. Welcome to my week...sans the hidden camera. (If only I had been smart enough to think of that before taking my car in) My car had been acting up for a couple of weeks only when I would shift into 2nd. The gear was grinding and I would have to go right from 1st to 3rd or slow way down before it would go into 2nd smoothly. I called my dad and he said he knew exactly what was wrong that the synchros were out in 2nd gear and that my warranty should cover the cost to replace it. So I took my car to the dealership on Monday and I told them what was wrong and asked them to fix it. The service technitian who helped me (we'll call him Mike - since that's his name) said that if it was the synchros than I would be covered under my warranty, but if it was the clutch then I would have to pay for it. I told him I was sure it wasn't the clutch and I signed some paperwork and left my car. The next day in the afternoon I finally got a call from Mike after I had been calling all day trying to get a hold of someone. He told me that it was the clutch. I told him no way and that I wanted my car back to get a second opinion. He said that was fine, but that I would have to pay $400 for the labor of taking apart my transmission and discovering that the problem was the clutch. I told him no, and he said that I had signed for that. ***note to self, always read paperwork thoroghly before signing. I told him that they were supposed to have called me before doing any work and he said that the hadn't done any work yet, but if I wanted to take the car I would have to pay $400 or if I wanted them to fix my clutch then it would cost $1,258. I called my dad for support and he got equally as upset because he also knew that the clutch wasn't the problem. My dad talked to transmission experts and a dealership in Minnesota and they all said the same thing, that Mike was smoking crack. (Well they didn't actually say that, but something to that effect) I really didn't know what to do because I couldn't even get my car back without paying at least $400. I mentioned it at work to the president of the company and he told me I should get Griff, our mechanic shop manager, to go down with me and check out this apparently shady operation. Griff was able to go with me yesterday afternoon and I was ready for a fight. Griff, by the way, is a very typical mechanic with the constant black fingers, a little gut and a little rough around the edges. If you saw him in a croud of 1,000 people you would know instantly that he's a mechanic. We arrived and I told Mike that we wanted to see my car. They had already put it back together since they were waiting for me to tell them what I wanted them to do. Mike asked if we wanted to drive it and I said yes, so Griff and I went for a little drive. I was tempted to just drive off and not go back, but I stayed strong. Griff drove it and said that the clutch was working fine. I drove it and noticed that mysteriously it was no longer grinding in 2nd gear. Magically the synchros had fixed themselves since that wasn't the problem acording to the dealer. We got back to the dealership and I told Mike that there was nothing wrong with the clutch. Mike looked at Griff and asked him if he was a mechanic. (Duh!) Griff said yes and Mike asked him, "And you don't think it's the clutch?" Griff's reply, "There's nothing wrong with that clutch" Woohoo! I could've kissed him! (I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it very much...but nevertheless...) I asked to see the paperwork that the mechanic filled out and Mike said that there wasn't any. I asked to talk to the mechanic and conveniently he wasn't there. So I said, "So according to the mechanic's opinion, the clutch is worn down." Mike said yes and asked me if I was going to get the work done or not. (You could tell he was getting annoyed at this point) I said "No, of course not. Why would I replace the clutch, there's nothing wrong with it." Mike started printing out paperwork and asked me to sign stating I was getting the car back and I had opted not to get the suggested maintenance. I signed and he showed me the original paperwork I had signed where it said I agreed to pay $400 if it was a clutch issue. He then told me he was going to waive the fee because he didn't want to get into a shouting match with me. I was so shocked I didn't know how to resond. I walked out in awe and told Griff how greatful I was that he was with me. I know that if I had gone by myself that Mike would've jerked me around, but with Griff there he didn't say a word. I told Griff that I was indebted to him for $400 and see said, "Nah, don't worry about it. You can buy me a pack of cigarettes."
I happily complied, well wouldn't you? What's a pack of cigarettes worth to you? It's worth about $400 to me!
Oh happy day and I will never again take my car to that dealership. Hooray for knowing the right people!

Hoops and Yoyo

I stumbled upon Hoops and Yoyo and I can't believe that I've lived so long without them. They will now be a daily presence in my life while I am here at work. (I hope you enjoy them as much as I do... you just have to check this out and make sure the volume is up on your computer. I couldn't stop laughing! Check out this site! Hoops and Yoyo

Called to Serve...HELP!!!!

Well, it's happened, after 3 weeks of attending our new ward Alber and I have received callings. Alber actually received 2 as he is the new second counselor in the Young Men's Presidency and also the Scout Master for the ward. He loves to work with the youth so those are perfect callings for him. He has a way to get them to listen to him so he'll do well. I on the other hand have been called as Young Women's President. Did I mention we've only been in the ward for 3 weeks?!! As if calling counselor's wasn't challenging enough...I went to Young Women's this past Sunday and hoped to get information from the current president, but I wasn't prepared for what I saw. The girls talked and giggled the entire time, they didn't break out into classes, and the president didn't have any information for me. I asked for a list of the teachers - "Oh I don't have that" I asked for a list of the girls, "Oh, I'm not sure if we have one" I asked what the girls are working on and what they have planned for Mutual - "Um, you could check with them to see how they're doing on personal progress" Are you kidding me!!!!! I can't believe how disorganized they have been. I hope the girls are ready for a little structure because there obviously hasn't been any for a while. They're probably going to hate me because I'm going to actually make them work on personal progress and attend their classes. If anyone has any ideas or has worked with the youth in the past, I'm more than happy to accept any help I can get!

Your Room is Ready!

Alber and I have been working hard on some home improvement projects. It started on July 4th when neither of us worked and we've been meaning to get some things done. We started out buying a new mattress for our bed. Hooray! It's really comfy and we seriously needed one so we just went for it and we got a really good deal too! Next, we went to home depot and bought some insulated tubing that Alber needed to fix a leak in the air conditioning we had in our attic and stopped the 2 guest rooms upstairs from cooling down. We also happened to walk down the garage door opener aisle and I was more than tempted. We've been struggling with our garage door opener for a while and it was begining to drive me crazy. It didn't shut using the remote and you had to hold the button in the garage to get it to close. Anyway, like I said, it was driving me crazy and I was pretty fed up so I convinced Alber that we absolutely had to have a new one so we got that too. Then we went back home to start our projects.
Begining with the air conditioning ducts, Alber climbed up into the hot, stuffy attic and like a good wife I followed him to the top of the ladder... spend about 30 seconds up there and left him to fend for himself in the fiberglass jungle while I went to work cleaning up our room to prepare for the new mattresses. Alber emerged 30 minutes later; sweaty, itchy, but successful. Yeah for cool rooms.
On to the next project: the garage door opener. Pretty much I was a slave driver at this point because it was around 1:00 and I didn't want to stop for lunch. We shared an apple and went into the hot garage. This project took at little longer, but luckily I was there to help, because Alber does this thing where he doesn't read instructions. Mostly because he doesn't need to, but I still always feel the need to make sure we get it right. This project took a few hours and afterwards we did stop to eat.
On to the next project - replacing the trim around the doors on the first floor. Alber already had the trim cut and painted, he only had to remove the old trim and nail in the new stuff, caulk, paint over the nails, and we were good to go. He started with the sliding doors which actually didn't have any trim to remove, but when he took off the binds, he realized that the trim we had was too thick to be able to put the blinds back in the same place. We already knew that the blinds were just temporary and we were going to get curtains in the future, but putting trim around that door added another project of getting curtains. We decided to run to Target (keep in mind that this is still the 4th of July) It was starting to darken outside when we left and we drove past this amazing lookout spot of Las Vegas just down the street from our house. There were already a couple of cars parked there getting ready for the fireworks. We spent over an hour at Target trying to decide which curtains would look best and then getting the rods and a couple of other items. We drove back to our house around 9:00 amid fireworks and festivities. There were around 100 or so cars at the lookout spot now which made driving down our street a pain. We finally got home where we promptly lit 3 sparklers each (hooray for our independence from Mother England!) and proceeded to hang up curtains. (I'll have to post a picture of that later)
We finally finished around 11:00 and both crashed into bed - not the new one yet, that was delivered on Tuesday.
The next day, Saturday, we continued in our home improvement phase and Alber finished up with the trim and painting downstairs while I ran to Target for a couple of things we had forgotten. Then Alber had to run an errand and told me I could pick out the paint I wanted for upstairs, but to wait for him to start painting. I started anyway because I didn't want to give him the chance to tell me he didn't like the colors. He got home and I had already paited 2 walls so there was no stopping me. Neither of us had as much energy as we had the day before so we ended the day early and went for a swim. The room was painted I just needed Alber to paint around the edges because he's really good at that. On Monday we finished up the edges and I had orginally planned to sponge paint on one wall, but after starting, I decided I didn't like it so we covered that up and ended up freehanding a star design. I turned out really good and as the title of this post says, your room is now ready. Come and visit any time!

Sara Who?

Despite the 4th of July festivities or perhaps because of the lack of desire I had to work due to the holiday weekend, I finally ventured out to what could have been a most dreadful experience. Changing my name. I had already attempted this beforehand a couple of weeks ago when I went to the DMV and waited in line only to be told that I had to change my Social Security Number first. So the following day I went the Social Security Office closest to my work and thought I'd take an extra long lunch and get it done. When I say closest to my work - I don't mean it is close to my work, only that it is closer than the really far away one. I got to that office and discovered that they don't issue cards there and I had to go to the really far away one. After giving myself 2 weeks to recover from that experience, I decided that today would be the day and I ventured out.
I went to work in the morning and then left early enough to get to the Social Security Office before it opened. I arrived approx. 20 mins before it opened and saw around 100 people already waiting in line. I was tempted to turn around and head back to work, but I decided to stick it out and wait in the line since I had already driven 30 min. to get there. (I tried to get a picture of the line like a true blogger, but the batteries in my camera are dead) I waited for around 5 min. when someone came up behind me and asked if that was the line to change a name. It was a good thing I didn't answer because I would've been wrong. Apparently there were actually 2 different lines facing each other and one side was for appointments and the other was for card services. I had been waiting in the wrong line!!! The good news is there were only around 30 people in front of me in the right line. They opened the door and in we scrambled to get our number and the forms. I sat next to my new friend who was also changing her name and we both became concerned when we read that we were supposed to also bring our birth certificate which neither of us did. Luckily that wasn't necessary and the 30 people in front of me got through at lightning pace. Less than 15 mins waiting and I was called. Everything went smoothly and I got back to work in just over 1 1/2 hours. Not too bad considering my drive time was around 1 hour.

I was feeling pretty good about that adventure so i decided to attempt the DMV today also. There is an office located about 2 miles from my work and I ran there on my lunch hour (technically I already used up my lunch hour, but nobody needs to know that!) This was a DMV express office and it's pretty well hidden so I felt confident I could get through quickly. I was right! There were only 7 people in front of me and I made it through the line in record time and back to work. I am now officially Sara Coral Barrios - although I need to work on my signature a bit and I probably won't answer yet if you call me Mrs. Barrios. :)