Silver lining?

So, yeah, the car broke down on the way to Lake Julia, and the problem was that I have been planning to give/sell the car to my older son, who loves to drive it (regards it as his car) and how can you have your kid inherit a car that is needing all kinds of expensive repairs all the time? I'd be paying for them all myself, plus if he broke down on the road, he doesn't have all the credit cards and insurance that I do.

But maybe there's a happy ending - the VW dealership in Wausau where my car got towed called Wednesday, and it looks like my car is getting a whole new engine - and Volkswagon is paying for it! I guess there is a known oil sludge problem with my year Passats - VW sent me a letter about it and I supposedly got it fixed on their nickel in 2005; the guys in Wausau think that maybe more parts of the engine should have been replaced back then; but anyhow, VW is paying for the current repair.



It's probably going to take two weeks to fix the car, but right now we're in Seattle for the librarians' conference. We went for spicey Chinese food with my brother & sister in law, and niece, at this place we had been to before, Seven Stars Peppers, although we're not really sure about the name, the sign changes all the time.

We ate hot & sour soup, and broccoli in garlic sauce, and dry cooked green beans, and hand-shaved noodles with more vegetables.

We're still in the fun part of the trip before we start spending every minute in required meetings - tomorrow there's no conference stuff that we have to go to until 1:00, and even then it is stuff to watch rather than participate in - I do have a bit of a choice - I can go to a Forum on LIS education (I do teach at a library school ....) OR I can go to listen to Howard Rheingold at the OCLC symposium - even though Alane says there were only 133 people by December 21, there are over 400 now.