The December Film - Update

I'll be finished shooting the December film, SB 81, today.  Overall, the shoot has been going well and I think it's going to be a cool little doc.

Yesterday myself, my Producer Paul Toohey and our sound guy Caleb Hey hopped in my car and drove about an hour and a half north of Austin to go visit Judith McGeary out at her farm.  Judith is the Executive Director of the Farm & Ranch Freedom Alliance and has a lot of great things to say about the new law.  The drive out there was pretty, winding through the Texas farm country near Rockland, but as we got closer to Judith's home, the roads stopped being paved and became dirt roads.

We pulled up and started scouting where we wanted to shoot and once we decided to shoot indoors, we headed back to the car to unload...that's when we heard it.  A loud hissing sound.  I was a couple minutes away from having a totally flat tire.  There was a big rock embedded deep in the tire.

We decided to shoot first and deal with the flat later, so we loaded in and got a great interview with Judith.  Once we were finished, we packed up and went to change the tire.  My Honda CRV has locking lug-nuts on each of the tires, to keep them from being stolen.  You need a special attachment to the wrench in order to take them off.  I keep this attachment in my center console...or at least, I thought I did.  About a year ago, I had a flat and that's where it was...I took my car to get a new tire and figured the people who changed it out put it back where they found it.

No such luck.

We tore the car apart looking for it and came to the realization that we were just a little bit screwed.  I called my insurance company (I have USAA which gives you Roadside Assistance as part of your car insurance) and they informed me that it was going to be an hour and a half before they could get a tow-truck out there.  So we waited...and waited.  He finally showed up and we had the car towed to the nearest Honda dealership (1.5 hours away) so they could remove the locked lug-nut and we could change the tire.  Here's a shot of me and Paul Toohey, in the tow-truck, right as we were leaving.

We finally made it to the Round Rock Honda where they loaned us their lug-nut key.  We quickly changed the tire (mostly that was Paul...I did what I could) and went to Fuddruckers to get some lunch.  I've since decided that I'm not gonna have those locking lug-nuts on my tires.  It's not like I'm driving through downtown Detroit on a daily basis.  

Quite the adventure.

Comments

[Melanie]

I love you guys a real lot, but I am super glad I was not along for that trip.

[tyre balancers]

For you, a job well done!
You have shown us the greatness of teamwork.

[Isabella Pospisil]

This may sound crazy, but I always liked the hissing sound of a flat tire. Hehe. On a serious note, it’s a good thing your car insurance company acted promptly on your situation. Although, almost 3 hours passed before your towed car got fix, both of you managed to have a good time, right, Christian?