02/26/2010: "when you shouldnt laugh..."

i was put in an all too familiar position today, a very serious role, definately not a place where laughter can be found, yet events developed in which for 5 minutes, i had to use strength and the bite your lip approach to prevent it being obvious, i failed in this task... as always.

why do we laugh when its least appropriate?

one simple case of someone breaking wind and one reaction out of the blue and about 12 people around me and myself couldnt hold the laughter off.
how bad is it when you know you cant laugh then you make eye contact with someone who is obviously near to creasing their sides with laughter?

disaster... i almost burst shocked P

on other fronts, much work to be getting on with, lots of hard graft and new skills to be read up on and developed, at least its for the benefit of hoover towers.
the wise old man inside me will always get things checked out before going ahead with anything that could potentially blow us up or fry us, but for the most part im due a bout of heavy lifting.

now the van is another problem:
we once had an electrician turn up to fit a central heating control box.
he turned up in his nice new estate car, with his little toolbox of tricks, shiney and clean, i presented him with a full wiring diagram - which he was clearly incapable of reading - and a new control box with just 5 wires to be fixed into it.
he wired the earth wire to the live socket, he wired the live to the neutral and then faster than he bounded down the path, no doubt expecting an easy hours work for 3 hours pay, he runaway!
i kid you not, he ran out of the house, threw his shiney new toolbox in the car and fired off at speed!

now the van has finally been towed to the nearest garage - with a new fault of the immobiliser (that for 3 years i didnt know i had) has kicked in and doesnt recognise the keys - sadly for me, the van has an immobiliser that doesnt just cut off the dashboard, but also the fuel supply.
so first fix the immobiliser, then get it inside the garage to have all the rear brakes and handbrake fixed.

8 days later i ring the garage up to see if there is any progress - none whatsoever!
the auto electrician cannot bypass the immobiliser or reset it, so the van is going nowhere, i was presented with the question - theres nothing we can do as we cannot get it to start!

my immediate reaction was - well what do you want me to do, you are the garage and have mechanics, are you telling me you cannot be bothered to sort it out and want me to pay for yet another towing to another garage who will have exactly the same problem?
a quick look around online finds that this immobiliser is a common problem with vans of my kind.
many have had their van in at a dealership to sort it out and been hit with a 1500 bill when its finally been resolved.
others have had their van in at the garage for more than 6 weeks and been unable to find the fault!

if a place advertises that they are a tyre and exhaust fitting centre, i wont take my vehicles there to have major work done - but they state they are a garage and by definition should be able to sort this out....

SHOULD being the operative word, once again in the world of denzil, i dont have a chance!
what to do now? i havent got a clue where to send it to have the fault fixed.