So, our transmission died on the way to work today. Something went “crunch,” the engine spun way up, and we started slowing down. The moment this happened, I realized what was happening, and took stock of our surroundings. We were at the top of a hill just south of Jack London Square on 880, and I didn’t know *exactly* where the next exit was, but had a pretty good idea.

Immediately, a number of questions popped into mind – could we make it to the exit? Was it where I thought it was? Would it be better to pull over to the side and stop here, at the top of the hill, where we’re very visible? How ’bout at the bottom of the hill, where the shoulder is almost wide enough for a single car? Even if the exit is where I think it is, can we make it all the way there? The gas literally does *nothing*. If we make it, can we make it *out* of the exit lane, which is extremely short, but also extremely narrow? If I switch into a different gear (even in the auto) would it make a difference? Blinkers on. Anyone behind us? No one in front, so we don’t have to slow down.

It became instantly a game of strategy – inertia vs. safety – each moment a question as to whether we had enough momentum to get us to somewhere safer, or whether we were going to pass up a relatively safer spot, and get stuck somewhere more dangerous.

Fortunately, the exit *was* there. We had enough momentum to get completely off the freeway, and even though we rolled through a stop sign, enough momentum to even get us to a parking lot across the street from the exit.

When I put the car into “Park,” the transmission literally “crunched.” I hopped out, opened the hood, and lookd under the car. There was a leak, and the transmission was steaming. Nothing say, *smoking,* but something looked quite horribly awry. Still, not much to be done but call AAA, so Ei-Nyung called (she has the Gold level service), and twenty minutes later, the tow truck showed up.

When the guy attached the car to his truck and lifted it up, the Civic immediately dumped all its transmission fluid onto the parking lot. With the vaguely reddish transmission fluid pouring out, it looked distinctly like the car had been stabbed, and was bleeding to death.

We brought it back to the shop it had been serviced at yesterday (needed new front axles and CV joint boots), where the owner of the shop was apologetic, and promised that he’d get the car fixed up right by the afternoon. He was good to his word, and even though we were a little peeved that his company had screwed things up the first time, at least it was repaired quickly, and didn’t end up costing us anything. Hopefully nothing else was damaged as a result.

Ended up taking the bulk of the day off work, due to the lack of a working car, but in the afternoon, I took my mom’s car, and brought Mobius to the beach. That was one happy dog. Because no one else was around, I took him off the leash, and kept throwing his giant stick (3.5 ft. long) into the bay, and he kept chasing after it. Because the particular area we went to is relatively shallow, he didn’t do much swimming, but after an hour or so of running like a crazed beast into the bay, and doing a little swimming to get the stick when I threw it a bit farther, he ended up quite throughly pooped.

The rest of the day was spent answering work e-mail, and napping. In the evening, Ei-Nyung & I went to an Indian restaurant we’d never been to before. We’d intended to go to Cuvae, an Asian/American fusion restaurant that we’d been to once before and enjoyed, but they were closed today for upgrades. Hopefully not in a Bonaparte’s kind of way.

Instead, we went to the Indian restaurant that was across the street. Place was bustling, so we figured that must be a good sign. Prices were on the high side for Indian, but since it was so busy, we figured it’d be worth a shot. Got a Lamb Briyani, which was quite tasty – spicy without being overbearing, and with reasonably tender, flavorful meat. The garlic naan was quite good – the garlic wasn’t burnt, and the bread was perfectly done. The mango shake I got was tasty, and Ei-Nyung’s hot chai had a pleasant note of cardamom. The only issue was Ei-Nyung’s chicken curry, which had only white meat, but was definitely overcooked. The meat was dry, and bland, and the sauce on the whole just was sort of limp and lifeless. The individual flavor wasn’t terrible, by any means, it was simply underwhelming in almost every respect, and the dry chicken really brought the whole dish down.

It looked like they specialized more in the tandoori dishes, but we didn’t really get that vibe until well into the meal. We ended up with gulab jamin, which are those dough balls in honey sauce. They were appropriately spongy, and reasonably good, except for a strange overpowering butter flavor. Sounds strange, I know – and they weren’t *greasy,* it was just that the really strong flavor of butter, which was almost savory, overwhelmed the sweetness of the honey. Not quite the right balance of flavor.

Personally, I prefer Kerry House, which is one of those Indian restuarant/Irish pubs, and they win on three counts. Bolder flavor, better pricing, and they deliver. Still, not a bad meal, and a pleasant way to spend the evening. Certainly better than our lunch at Noah’s. First they forgot my sandwich, then they burned Ei-Nyung’s bagel, then they forgot my potato salad, and then when they re-made Ei-Nyung’s sandwich, they didn’t toast the bagel to any appreciable degree at all. Still sort of the standard flavors, I suppose, but all in all, a really unpleasant, uncoordinated service.

Ah, back to work tomorrow. After having worked my way down to zero bugs, I’ve now built up another day’s worth of bugs to work through, then I’m supposed to go in on the weekend to test, and to deal with the flood of bugs that are coming in, because they’ve apparently doubled the number of testers on the team. We’ve gotten a *lot* of really poor bugs already, I can only imagine what it’s going to be like dealing with another 50 green testers. Fun fun.

I *LOVE* testers, just to be clear – I love what they do, and find them immensely valuable. Without them, we’d be absolutely sunk. But it’s *really* frustrating to get bugs that are literally unintelligible, or bugs that are “suggstions” that are based on essentially no experience with the system. I don’t mind those “suggestion” bugs coming from the experienced testers, but when someone’s saying that some minor detail should be changed, and they don’t have any idea what they’re talking about, it can get frustrating. Still, I hope this weekend will be productive. While personally, I think I won’t have any trouble keeping at zero bugs at EOD for the rest of the week, I’m not actually sure (with the influx of new testers coming in so late) that we’ll hit 0 for our predicted beta date. We’ll see.