Audi Arkanoid.
Oct 27
Man ! What a week this has been. Believe it or not, this is the first time I get to sit down decently behind a computer and do something in the vicinity of writing a blog post. Most of this week has been spent on the road, cruising through the beautiful country of Belgium and all of its autumn tainted landscapes. A great experience of course, and ideal for an podcast fanatic like me to catch up on some episodes and beef up on knowledge. Even my own podcasting exploits are benefited by this “time on the road” and I managed to record the next episode already (Now I just need to get down to mixing and uploading the fracker)
The week however was not uneventful as I had my fair share of adventure (or could I call it misadventure ) on Tuesday. I was up in Luxemburg , visiting one of our company sites when I thought it would be a good idea to go out for a little snack during my lunchbreak. I took the car and drove of the industrial estate , trailing behind a car with one of these little trailers behind it. Suddenly I saw something drop off the little trailer. I saw something (I thought it was a peace of Styrofoam) hit the road. The truck coming towards me in the other lane prevented me from swerving out of the objects way so I hit it straight on. Can you imagine the scene in Star Trek 1 where they are heading towards an asteroid, caught in some kind of wormhole effect.. Unable to go left and right ? Well , I had kind of the same situation, minus the ability to launch photon torpedo’s.
There are some noises in the universe who are inherently bad. You don”t have to know where they come from, you dont even have to know what they mean .. you just KNOW it doesn’t sound right; One of these terrible noises perpetrated from underneath the car as I slammed into the unknown object.
I had to pull over right away, switch of the engine (that by now was making an even MORE horrible noise) and got out only to find a BIG CONCRETE BLOCK behind my car , streaked with motor oil and a black puddle that was slowly but surely propagating from underneath my car. The driver who had just LOST ‘unknown object 001’ continued merrily on his way, oblivious to what had just transpired. The audi however had suffered a lethal blow from this unforeseen game of “asteroids” .. or actually its more like Arkanoid since the Audi was minus one rocket launcher to defend itself.
So after calling up road assistance to have the audi towed of to a garage far far away.. I had nothing better to do then to walk back to the company and wait for the replacement car to arrive. As I spend the remainder of my lunchbreak online, quickly doing some emails and posting the ‘recent events” on twitter and facebook.
What was heartwarming is that suddenly my whole online community came alive. Several people commented if I was Ok, asked questions about what happened (and insisted I posted pictures to flickr ASAP ) and others even offered to come and pick me up ! Seriously ! Good friends, most from my facebook list , let me know that if I needed a ride, I just had to give them a shout !.As my blackberry buzzed alive with direct messages from twitter and facebook , I felt a little less alone in the world. ( being without a car in the middle of a deserted industrial estate a far of country of Belgium DOES make you feel lonely) but now, that ONLINE posse that keeps me warm and fuzzy feeling whenever I ‘live online” was literally close to my heart , as I tucked my Blackberry in my breast pocket.
But it all turned out well in the end. The replacement car was delivered in time and I was to go on my merry way. Exhausted from the excitement and the shock ( Because quite frankly, that little event scared the crap out of me) but feeling good knowing that my “virtual friend-scape” had become very real to me that day !!!
