- Location
- Eastern Nassau
Just wanted to share a little story.
I was on my way to pick up two awesome pieces from TRDFan. I live on the nassau/suffolk border and the plan was to meet at Aquarium village at 630 today. I left my house at 550 or so thinking that I would have no problem heading west at rush hour......... I was wrong lol. Anyway Im in traffic and texted him to let him know that I was sorry but I would probably be 5-10 min late. Decided to get off the parkway and head up rt 106 figuring that it would be better to deal with traffic lights than the insane congestion that I was experiencing on the southern and likely would be dealing with on the Meadowbrook as well. I was right. I was able to actually travel at a decent speed and thought everything was fine. At this point I noticed that my car was working awfully hard to get to 40mph. I just figured that my car was 14 years old and has been great to me this whole time so if its getting sluggish well thats ok, it doesn't owe me anything at this point. Then I began to notice a faint scent of what smelled like burning wire insulation. Great I thought, now I'll have to deal with that when I get back home. Oh well, at least I'm on my way to pick up two beautiful pieces at an AMAZING price. Then smoke started coming from my front passenger tire area. Wonderful, I pulled into the nearest parking lot and quickly realized that at least one of my brakes had locked up. Hotter than hell and stinky as can be (the insulation smell was the asbestos in the brakes). I called TRDFan and informed him that I am very sorry but I am not going to be able to make it to aquarium village as I probably shouldn't be driving my car at this point. I wanted to make sure that he understood that I wasn't trying to back out of the purchase, so I truthfully said " this really sucks, the pieces he was selling me ( large red monti cap and a good size green slimer ) are something that I have actually been looking for for quite a while now and haven't been able to find at the LFS's in my area. Now I know that most people think these are very dull but hey I think they are awesome and I was reallllllly excited lol. So instead of saying no problem I'll see ya next time TDRFan offered to come to where I was so I can still buy the pieces and at least some good would come of this. I told him I still want to buy them but I am prob at least an hour away from being able to get back home and am concerned that something could happen to the frags. So he gave me the cooler that the bags were in so that the temperature would be more stable and the ziploc's would be less likely to accidentally get punctured. This is an incredibly generous gesture. Maybe I am overreacting, I don't think so though. I had never met him before today, hadn't prepaid him with paypal, and he certainly didn't owe me anything. He came to where I was, looked at my car with me and made sure I had a plan to safely get home. After that we talked for about 20 min.(the way everyone in this hobby tends to when they get together) and made sure that I understood how to acclimate these pieces to my tank so that they wouldn't harm any of the other inhabitants. So Thank you very much Mike I really appreciate it so much. Literally made me smile a bit even tho I knew I was going to have deal with a big ole headache tommorrow. And he isn't the only one. I've had dealings with a few member on this forum (Bigsink, Chemchef, John from Affordable Aquatics, HappyinWater, and I'm sure I'm forgetting more than one person) and all of them seemed far less concerned with making money and far more interested in sharing and spreading their love of this hobby. It really is a privelege to be a member of such a kind community. Ok, I'm done being all squishy now everyone have a great weekend!
I was on my way to pick up two awesome pieces from TRDFan. I live on the nassau/suffolk border and the plan was to meet at Aquarium village at 630 today. I left my house at 550 or so thinking that I would have no problem heading west at rush hour......... I was wrong lol. Anyway Im in traffic and texted him to let him know that I was sorry but I would probably be 5-10 min late. Decided to get off the parkway and head up rt 106 figuring that it would be better to deal with traffic lights than the insane congestion that I was experiencing on the southern and likely would be dealing with on the Meadowbrook as well. I was right. I was able to actually travel at a decent speed and thought everything was fine. At this point I noticed that my car was working awfully hard to get to 40mph. I just figured that my car was 14 years old and has been great to me this whole time so if its getting sluggish well thats ok, it doesn't owe me anything at this point. Then I began to notice a faint scent of what smelled like burning wire insulation. Great I thought, now I'll have to deal with that when I get back home. Oh well, at least I'm on my way to pick up two beautiful pieces at an AMAZING price. Then smoke started coming from my front passenger tire area. Wonderful, I pulled into the nearest parking lot and quickly realized that at least one of my brakes had locked up. Hotter than hell and stinky as can be (the insulation smell was the asbestos in the brakes). I called TRDFan and informed him that I am very sorry but I am not going to be able to make it to aquarium village as I probably shouldn't be driving my car at this point. I wanted to make sure that he understood that I wasn't trying to back out of the purchase, so I truthfully said " this really sucks, the pieces he was selling me ( large red monti cap and a good size green slimer ) are something that I have actually been looking for for quite a while now and haven't been able to find at the LFS's in my area. Now I know that most people think these are very dull but hey I think they are awesome and I was reallllllly excited lol. So instead of saying no problem I'll see ya next time TDRFan offered to come to where I was so I can still buy the pieces and at least some good would come of this. I told him I still want to buy them but I am prob at least an hour away from being able to get back home and am concerned that something could happen to the frags. So he gave me the cooler that the bags were in so that the temperature would be more stable and the ziploc's would be less likely to accidentally get punctured. This is an incredibly generous gesture. Maybe I am overreacting, I don't think so though. I had never met him before today, hadn't prepaid him with paypal, and he certainly didn't owe me anything. He came to where I was, looked at my car with me and made sure I had a plan to safely get home. After that we talked for about 20 min.(the way everyone in this hobby tends to when they get together) and made sure that I understood how to acclimate these pieces to my tank so that they wouldn't harm any of the other inhabitants. So Thank you very much Mike I really appreciate it so much. Literally made me smile a bit even tho I knew I was going to have deal with a big ole headache tommorrow. And he isn't the only one. I've had dealings with a few member on this forum (Bigsink, Chemchef, John from Affordable Aquatics, HappyinWater, and I'm sure I'm forgetting more than one person) and all of them seemed far less concerned with making money and far more interested in sharing and spreading their love of this hobby. It really is a privelege to be a member of such a kind community. Ok, I'm done being all squishy now everyone have a great weekend!
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. I'm happy a member of this great community showed you the greatness :grouphug:
