Whew! I’m still breathing hard. Just got back from the beer run for Saturday morning.

I usually have regular thursday night and friday night plans. I bailed on both of them. No thursday games with friends. No friday running sound for the Ringwalds.

I helped out Allen Hill in preparing the OldiesMobile for the Art Car Parade on saturday. Lot’s of starts and stops, and success and failure, as art cars are want to be. But I think we’re ready for the morning.

I borrowed a generator from our service department. It is built to support an ambulance, so it’s totally over engineered for running a band. Loading into my car with a fork lift was the first warning – this things gonna be heavy.

Thursday, Allen and I moved it from my car, tested it, it worked great. We moved it into the Mobile. Friday I get home, he’s in my driveway, we move it from the Mobile, it’s a no-go. We call Sir Henkel and with three, we 1) pick it off the ground to a table, 2) off the table to the hood, 3) off the hood to the roof. Job performed, Sir Henkel retreats.

Once on the roof, a cranking of the generator – click, click, click. A total no-go. After refilling the mostly empty gas, and much fiddling with no success I called the boss.

Literally, I called my boss. Got the phone number of the amazing service department guy who loaned me the thing. Before I could finish describing it, “not enough voltage”. He was totally right. It’s own battery and, bam, running like a dream.

I replaced my battery and we ran by the auto place to get the right connector for the battery. My lights on my car were flashing oddly after reconnecting the battery. We asked the guy in the auto store. He thought they were loose, or the battery was old. We left with our battery connectors, calling him a moron.

Nothing in my manual about the flashing. Finally I noticed the tag on the connectors that explained how to turn off the “anti-theft” warning.

Went on a beer run, stocked the cooler for tomorrow, ate dinner, missed the friday night Art Car Symposium. I’ve cooled down enough to take a shower before heading to bed.

We pick up the trailer at 7 am. People will arrive at my house at 8am. We are supposed to be at the parade staging area at 9am – but we can be as late as 10am and they’ll think we’re early. The parade rolls at 1pm.

I need to pick out some clothes for tomorrow, too. Oh, I’m driving the Allen OldiesMobile by the way, car #16.