Wednesday, July 19, 2006

job candidate interview and car alarm troubles

I was asked to meet someone for lunch yesterday. He is a candidate for a programming job at Solution Grove. Caroline sums him up as geeky and I tend to agree. He's had teaching experience, java experience and more importantly a willingness to learn someting new like OpenACS.

We met at Italianni's. I was hoping it was going to be quiet as it's a tuesday. Boy, was I wrong. It was jampacked filled with people by the time we finished.

A few minutes after the meeting, as I was on my way to the parking lot, I fumbled for the car alarm remote and was shocked. The screw may have somehow slipped and the mechanism inside the plastic casing was gone.

It was extremely embarrassing. I had to prove to the guard that the car was mine. I showed him the keys and the car park ticket. I was able to stop the sound by opening the hood and disconnecting a wire but that did not allow me to start the car. Fortunately, a nice gentlemen knew how to disarm the system and did so for me. I offered him a reward for his trouble but he declined. Very nice fellow.

The first thing I did afterwards was to replace the whole alarm system. There was no way to get a new remote as the current system does not support programmable frequencies. Even worse, if someone had gotten the mechanism from the original remote then they would have been able to open my car.

The new system cost me about P2300 but it seems worth it. It uses a very bright blue LED, nicer remote and best of all it has an emergency disarming feature. If I had lost the remote but if I still had the key, I could disarm the system by (1) opening the car with my key (2) press the brake pedal as I did the following (3) put key in ignition on ACC (4) turn it from OFF to ON 10 times.

I now keep that manual in the glove compartment of the car ...

Lesson learned :-)

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