German Idol! She looks good, but can she sing?
I don't even have words. Imagine my surprise, maybe things are indeed looking up. So on Sunday last, the day of the Daytona 500, the big party at Rich's the Turkey fry and pitch-in, Jenni and I were fairly late getting there, we got a late start making our contributions to the fooding. By the time we arrived there was no place to park. Rich's driveway was as bad as the streets in the deep snow, nay, worse at the eastern end. I pulled in at a diagonal, but still left the rear of the car in harms way. Ed and John David came out and pulled their respective vehicles up a little and I was able to get almost all the way in straight instead of angled, but still with just a little rear end overhang (I guess it's a middle age thing). Well in all the excitement of parking, and reparking I left the parking and fog lights on. So when it came time to leave almost 6 hours later the pour little german girl was too weak to turn over and we had to jump her. Being that weak she went into crisis mode, and the radio went into anti-theft mode. I had the radio code in the glove-box in the documentation of the car so I was not overly worried. However, after three attempts to resurrect the radio from useless mode I had locked it out. Later at home I read in the owners manual that if three attempts were unsuccessful the radio would be useless until it could be left on for 1 hour, then additional attempts to load the code could be tried. I tried that timing periods of use until an hour of accumulated time was reached, and promptly got the same , Nyah, beep from said portable amphitheater. Luckily the weather was improving, so on one of the mid week days I locked her up with the radio on and every thing else off for a continuous hour of contemplation (plus about 15 minutes of overrun, or 2 hours in Jenni time), the result? She's a no work. I concluded that even I could get the reset code right once, therefore the previous owner, Gretchen (no really her name was Gretchen) must have replaced the radio. Wednesday, I call BMW Mike at Dreyer and Reinbold, he says it is 50 clams to remove and reset the radio, but I can do it myself with the proper tools and know-how. I get the proper tools and remove the head unit (technical jargon for radio) write down the serial number and call it in to Mike for a computer code look-up. The evening comes and goes and I hear as much from him as I do the radio in its current state. Thursday morning. I'm in line at Mikes Car-wash, the blue-tooth headset be-da-doop's in my ear and I answer it. It's Mike. He says he had no luck with the serial number, so I agree to bring the car in on Friday morning (today). I get to work and think to myself (if there was someone else I could think too I would, I tell ya), I've got back in camera land before the flood gates open for a days frantic sales (all wishful thinking in late February) I e-mail Mike that the numbers were the same as I got to him earlier, but I mention the A. I get a call around 2:00 he says he got the e-mail, and plugged the serial with A into the German Database, and got a match. I wrote it down, then grabbed my keys and trotted out as soon as I could take a break. Six digits entered and viola, "There be whales here Captain!" But they were the sweet wails of guitar solos, and little drummer boys. Success is mine. Now Jenni and Meredith don't have to listen to me sing all the way to Stuart Florida, which means we'll make it all the way to Stuart Florida. Yeah.
Chuck Pace © 2007
|