After some vacillation, I bought a plane ticket, I’m going to San Francisco to Vloggercon.

I got a couple hundred bucks in donations, that’s rad. So I went ahead and put the plane ticket on my VISA. I have joined the special club for people who are irresponsible with credit cards. Seems there are a lot of us in this club, in fact I walked through the door of the clubhouse and shook hands with about a million people.

I’m going to California for a week, from the 8th to the 15th and it’s going to be awesome.

The only rule is, after I get back my car is not allowed to suffer any major expensive breakdowns. Because if that were to happen I’d be screwed.

I finalized the transaction last night. And this morning I went out and got in the car and turned it on.

R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R

Mean nasty noise coming from under the hood. And it got worse when I shifted into drive.

I limped into town and went straight to the mechanic. He said the rattling noise might be from a loose engine mount and told me to leave the car and come back in two hours.

Two hours later I returned and the car was up on the hoist and the mechanic was underneath shaking his head. Not the engine mount. He told me to come back in two more hours.

At this point, I went across the street to the village drugstore and purchased a lottery ticket.

When I returned two hours later the car was down off the hoist and the hood was up. The mechanic was doing something to the engine with a crowbar. I thought: now this looks promising.

I was half-expecting the mechanic to just start whaling away at the engine block with that crowbar. That would’ve been fine, as long as I got a turn.

Turns out he’d replaced the water pump. And it hadn’t affected the noise one bit. He was still trying to figuring out what was causing the problem.

After running the engine and poking around inside it for a while with the crowbar and with a long screwdriver, he pronounced that I must be in need of a new balancer. So I drove my noisy car away, and I have to take it back to the garage tomorrow to get a new balancer put on.

A new balancer? I don’t even know what that is. What does a balancer do, anyway? Balances, I suppose. Wouldn’t want your car to tip over right in the middle of the Trans-Canada Highway. No, that would not be good.

This is not the best of news.

So after I get back to Canada next week I’ll probably have to look into leaving my country home and moving back into town, because I’ll need to start working more and making more money and sorting out this debt. I have to live someplace where I don’t have to depend on having a car. I’d consider Halifax. I’d consider Montreal. I’d consider St. John’s, Newfoundland or Whitehorse, Yukon or Paris, France. If you hear of any leads let me know.

I think my brain needs a new balancer.

Send me your address if you want a postcard from California.