As it tuns out, I’m in Flagstaff for the long weekend. Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing, but plans didn’t work out the way I thought.

My car started making a hideous squealing noise on wednesday. At first I thought it was a belt, but then I noticed that it seemed to be somewhat synchronized with usage of the clutch.

Thursday my mechanic confirmed what I had feared: it was time for a new clutch.

Luckily, he bumped some people and got it installed by the end of the day friday, which helped with me having a car for the weekend, but it still didn’t make the $1000 bill any nicer to stomach. Hence, I’m on a bit of a budget.

Turns out that the throwout bearing had decided to disintegrate (if you are totally clueless about what that is, I recommend “how stuff works: clutches”:http://auto.howstuffworks.com/clutch.htm). It’s supposed to be a sealed bearing with about 12 balls inside of it which is used to engage the clutch plate.

One of the seals on mine was gone, there were about 7 balls left, and the race (which keeps the spacing of the balls even) had turned into a mangled rat’s nest of metal. The lack of seal had led to some rusting of the bearing surfaces, which had probably led to the mysterious disappearance of about 1/2 of the ball bearings. He said I was lucky it even spun as much as it did.

Lucky? Yeah, that’s it, lucky. . .

Due to the unforseen expense, I went to sedona today, and skiing on the peaks is on the plate for tomorrow. I’m still thinking silverton next weekend, but it’ll be ramen noodles and sleeping in my car for sure. That’s alright, I like ramen.

Finally, I leave you with the picture below. To celebrate my new clutch my two esteemed roommates and I went out and had a ‘few’ drinks friday night.

This picture was taken on our backporch at about 3am on friday night. Note the essentials: drunk people, cigars, dance party, winter jackets and nachos. Beautiful.