My Saviors

Park Slope is an absolute bitch to park in.  It has been rated the best neighborhood to live in in NYC, and also the hardest to park in.  I know most of the people who read this don't live around here (and if they do, they're probably smarter than me and don't try to drive in the city), but I have to give my boys a shout-out anyway.

Roadify is 3 guys working to make life for the rest of us a little less stressful.  They provide a free (wow there's still something free in the city??) text-based service for finding a parking spot.  I won't explain the whole thing here, and though because of the times I come home I usually don't get a spot, they've helped me plenty.

Say, for instance, you really want to do your laundry, meet with a friend who's visiting his parents from Florida, go to Knit Night at the Village Knitter and meet with a designer to drop off her knit pieces/get paid/get more work.  You would load everything up, lug your overflowing laundry basket, laptop, bag of food, and everything else and carry it a very long block away to your car.  Load it all into the car, get in (it's a million degrees in the car too), and turn the key.  The engine turns over twice and then makes a funny clicking noise.  Oh joy.

Yeah, that was my Thursday mid-morning.  I prayed it was just the battery because the last time I heard that noise, Brother and I were stranded in the middle of the pizza place's parking lot with my old Pontiac not starting back in high school.

I texted my dad, Brother, and The Boy.  Dad didn't answer; Brother's response was:  shiiiit; Boyfriend had no clue what to do.  I don't even have jumper cables.  I used them once in college and haven't seen them since.  Roomie wasn't answering the phone (she had just gotten up and the phone was probably still in her room) so I walked back to ask if she could jump me.  Turns out she doesn't have cables either.  SMF.

I had though of tweeting to Roadify as soon as the car didn't start, but I wanted to save that as a last resort.  Of course it came to that though.  I sent out the tweet and within minutes they were asking where my car was.

Dylan, whom I've met before, came with a car and tried to jump my silly Galactica (aka a Hyundai Elantra).  But it didn't work.  The engine was barely turning over before the clicking.  Damn.  Dylan did give me a Roadify Tshirt though!

The car works again.  Cousin and Brother finally got it started by jumping it, but the engine wouldn't restart if you turned it off.  Went and got a new battery on Friday and it's been running great (well, as great as a car with 112,000 miles can run) since.

But more happy news (and still on topic), I got an award this week from Roadify.  Holla!  I even got a mention on the site.  Check it out here (I'm yazipengyou on there).  Yay me!  My trophy was hanging on a sign near the apartment, only Dylan is really tall and I"m really short sooooo I couldn't get it down.  It was gone by the time I tried to show The Boy so all well.  Here's the picture I took of it though:

Roadify keeps us entertained with their YouTube channel.  Check out this video they made: