Mechanic?

(short version)
Yeah, I played mechanic this weekend on my truck. My alternator died on me and I had to replace it. Took all day but I got it fixed. So here is the whole story...

(long version)
On my way to work Thursday morning I noticed my battery light came on. Seems my voltage was a bit low. I didn't know why but I had an idea what might be wrong. It was sitting at around 11 volts all day. I got to work, came home for lunch and went back to work all without problems. After work I went to Auto zone to get my battery and my alternator checked. I didn't think it was my battery since it is fairly new. Less than 2 years old. Yep, it was my alternator. Being Thursday I couldn't afford to get it right then so I told them I'd have to come back and get it after I got paid. I figured my battery was fine all day so I thought I could make it home and take Navy Jake's truck to work the next day. Well turns out I was just lucky all day to get all that stuff done. Once I left Auto zone my battery died really fast. I made it about 2 miles up the road before it completely died. And it was weird. It was like the movies where the aliens come down to abduct you. You know the scene, the radio starts changing stations on its own, the lights flicker and go dim, the gages fall and everything just goes dark. Well, aside from the radio changing stations and the aliens coming to get me. That's what it was like. So there I was on the phone with LJ the whole time and stranded on the side of the road. It was cold and dark. So now I had to figure out how to get my truck home. The idea was get a jump from LJ and get my battery charged just enough to get me home. Tried it twice. The first time failed because there was too much traffic to get going fast enough. The second time I made it about a mile to the Denton bowling ally where I used to work. So I left it there. I had to figure out a new plan. I took LJ's car to work on Friday. (she worked from home) I had a plan of action that I knew would work. The first thing was to take the battery out of my truck and take it auto zone because they do free battery charging. Then I bought the alternator, new battery cables and a new serpentine belt. Then I went to grab something for lunch and went back to work. (this was all during my lunch break) After work I picked up my battery, deposited my check and came home to get LJ and head back to get my truck. This was the first kink in my plan. She was on call this week and had just got called into a "war room" meeting. She would have to explain what that means. Basically it means something serious broke and they need to fix it whatever the cost. Also means "Weekend? What weekend?" So I called a couple friends one was out of town and the other was able to give me a ride. Plan is back on track. Got my battery back in my truck and got it home without any problems. I got the garage all set up and drove it onto some ramps, pop the hood and got to looking at what I needed to do to get this done. This is what took forever.. See, I'm not a mechanic. My father is a master mechanic, so I called him and he tried to talk me through it. I've done this kind of repair before on a couple other cars, but they were older and easy. Not this time apparently. I couldn't find how to get the belt off or how I was going to get to the bolts to remove the thing. New plan, Went back to Auto zone Saturday morning to buy the repair book for my truck. I was thinking it was going to spell it out for me step by step, but no, all it did was tell me what I already knew. So i got frustrated and asked LJ (the reader) to see if she could figure out what I was missing. I couldn't find the things I needed to find through the different chapters. While she did that for me I took a much needed nap to get rid of my bad attitude and my head ache. Trust me it was better this way, for all of us. When I got up LJ told me what I had to look for and I went out to see if I could find it. I did. I got the belt off but there was still the problem of how to get the alternator out. After a couple hours of trying to figure out what to take off to get to it and make room to get it out, I figured out there wasn't much I could take off. The AC was the main thing in the way and I couldn't move that. I ended up putting together about 4 feet of extensions with a swivel attachment to get the top bolt out. LJ helped guide the socket and it worked. the other bolt was much easier, LJ got that one. (She was excited to be playing mechanic) So we finally got the old one off and I wanted to change the cables too but they didn't fit so I said screw it and we put the new alternator on and the new belt and called it a night. It only took about 10 minutes to get the new stuff on but it took about 6 hours to figure out how to get the old ones off. Once we got it back together I started it up and it worked. Batter light was off and my battery reading shot back up to just past 14 volts where it should be. The only thing wrong at this point was my radio wasn't working. That was easily fixed by pushing the reset button. Then to cap the night off we went to sonic for dinner and then came back home to watch a move. We watched the "Borne Ultimatum". We enjoyed it. So that's the long story of my rare moment as mechanic. Thanks again to LJ for all her help. I almost gave up and took it to a real mechanic. This whole thing reminded me of why I'm a woodworker and not a mechanic. Sorry dad.