SF and back... a few times.

Many months ago I received a very special wedding invitation in the mail from a highschool friend of mine. She and her fiance were getting married in SF and wanted us to be among their honored guests. No hesitation Nicole and I RSVP'd and decided to make it a nice weekend in SF. I've shown Nicole a lot of the city over the years but we had never stayed in the city the whole weekend - we usually share time visiting friends and family in surrounding Bay Area cities. This time we were set. Reservations @ a hotel in Japantown - near stuff to do before and after the wedding as well as easy to get to the ceremony and reception. Hang out with friends. Relax with my girl before her school semester gets crazy.

Here's how it ACTUALLY went down...

We arrived to the hotel and checked in - we valet the car @ the hotel.

View from the hotel.

We hang out and cruise around Japantown and then grab some sushi for dinner.

Bomb ass sushi.

After we have dinner we head back to the room and wait for my sister to cruise up from SJ to grab ice cream with us @ Humphry Slocombe (see my review here). She arrives and we decide to just take her car since mine is already w/the valet.

Humphry Slocombe - amazing.

We enjoy an ice cream treat with her and then head back to the hotel for the night.
In the AM we make plans with my boy Ryan who lives in SF to meet up for breakfast and probably more ice cream @ another spot he wants us to check out.


We head outside and ask the valet for the car. I remind him to just bring me the keys and i'll unarm the alarm myself so there aren't any problems. He informs me that last night he couldn't "hear the car beep" so he "pushed a ton of buttons on the key." I respond "the alarm remote or the actual key?" His response - "they key." GREAT!! Just what I need - someone who does NOTHING BUT PARK cars for a living but is too f'in stupid to use the correct method of arming and disarming my car. My car alarm is not rocket science. There's a factory key / alarm remote and an aftermarket alarm remote. If there is an aftermarket alarm on a car, it overrides the STOCK one... apparently not to this jack ass.

VERY LONG story short, we sit for a few HOURS in the parking lot on the phone with my stereo shop trying to get the now pissed off / broken car to work. No dice.
So, after several hours and almost breaking down into tears, we call AAA to come tow it. My boys @ the alarm shop here in town who installed it said to take it to Audi because something has to be wrong w/ the factory system now because they have basically had me dismantle the aftermarket alarm.
AAA arrives and Nicole manages to grab us coffee and pastries before they get there. The AAA tow truck driver messes with my car for a bit but can't get it running... so we have to tow it.

Nicole and I don't even have a chance to drink our drinks and eat our snacks before we're in the cab of the tow truck headed to Audi.
We sit in the waiting area of Audi in SF for a bit while they try to reprogram the key that the valet decided to get button happy with. No dice - still doesn't work. At this point it's about 12 and the wedding starts @ 2pm and we still have to go back to the hotel and get ready.
We wait a bit longer and the service advisor lets us know they figured out that the immobilizer (for the engine) is broken because of too much button pushing and confusing the poor factory alarm system. They have to order a part but it won't arrive until Tues. Once it arrives, it MAY or MAY NOT fix the problem.
We decide to leave to get ready for the wedding and to just rent a car and go home. We research rental car costs and it's cheaper, and faster, to fly home. We grab tickets online while we get ready for the wedding and then head off to try to enjoy our night.

Dressed up.

Ceremony pics.

We enjoy ourselves at the wedding but both of us are just so stressed and tired and hungry we leave early. I stop into the Japanese corner market by the hotel and grab some snacks and some beer. Nothing like Sapporo and Pocky to make my night better! haha

Post wedding libations.

We wake up in the AM and my boy Ryan picks us up and takes us to SFO to catch our flight home. 

in SFO ready to go home.

We are home for a few days, the car is still in SF, and the day before we leave for LA they call me and tell me it's fixed - sorta. The aftermarket alarm now needs to be rewired. Since the aftermarket alarm still has problems the car doesn't start everytime it's turned on. GREAT!! They tell me I should get it and drive it straight to the stereo / alarm shop. Problem - I can't make it 4 hours home without stopping for gas. My car is a V8... it loves sucking gas. So I basically have to hope and pray it starts after I stop for gas. AWESOME. 

We leave the car until we get home from Disneyland. We fly home Thursday night and @ 10AM Saturday morning we hit the road for SF. We stopped for lunch and then arrived to grab the car around 2:30PM. We grab the car and head straight back for home.

SF for the millionth time.

Nicole followed me home.

We stop to get gas a few hours later.... I try to start the car... AND.... it doesn't start. I open the fuse box to access the aftermarket alarm box and jiggle the wires. Yes, you read correctly, JIGGLE the wires. Audi told me it may help. Odd? Yes. Did it work? Yes. The car fires up, people stare at me like I just hotwired a car and Nicole and I jump back on the freeway.

We race home and arrive @ the stereo shop about 10 minutes before they close. I pull it around back, they open up the shops garage doors and I pull in. I explain the new details of the problem since they helped me over the phone in the parking lot of the hotel.

They keep it for a few days and I drive the truck around... a nice change but I miss my baby.

quality time w/ the truck while the Audi gets fixed.

Then, on Sept 14th... more than 2 weeks after the valet broke my car.... I get a call from the stereo shop that my baby is fixed and ready to come home with me.

Nicole and I head down to the shop and when we pull up my baby is parked on the curb right in front of the shop looking shiny and happy to see me.

Ready to come home.

Finally, after all the drama, the tears, the stress, the yelling, the screaming (I skipped that - it's not appropriate to repeat on the blog) my baby is back home. She drives perfectly and has forgiven me for letting the mean valet touch her. Moral of the story - NEVER valet my car again. NEVER.