One year ago today: September 14, 2016, a generic post.
Five years ago today: September 14, 2012, they call that a plan?
Nine years ago today: September 14, 2008, one time in Couer d’Alene.
Random years ago today: September 14, 2011, a typical to-do list.
If you are not reading y'day's afternoon post about the NYT feminist, you are missing out on a top-class critique of her zany political views. She apparently would make it a law that men have be in love with a woman before, well, you know.
If you are the jealous type, here’s something that’ll set you off. Neener, neener, you should see the car I got for $1700 today. True, it is a 1997, but this one is a beauty. It has just 43,800 on the clock and of that only 8,100 has been added since 2005. It was bought second hand in Massachusetts that year and driver to Florida by a 78-year-old man (now 90). He parked it behind his condo since then, while not indoors, it is sheltered from most of the elements. I can only guess that the low price made people think it was a lemon. Now, I still have to tell you about the day in chrono order, so be patient.
The new guy is Pastor Bob, not his real name, but because he drives 2 mph under the speed limit. And it’s a good thing I insisted we tank up first, since Hardee and Collins counties still had hours of gasoline lineups. When we arrived, an hour late in my opinion, the banks were all closed. Now I had to buy this car today or somebody else was going to scoop it. What do banks and McDonald’s in Ft. Myers have in common? You can’t tell they are closed until you pull off the freeway, drive back along the service road, park, and walk up to the door. Then you see the tiny sign, “closed”.
This won’t do, because I need like $1700 plus fees and such, call it $2100. And I’d skipped breakfast and coffee. After wasting another hour, and Pastor Bob is like JZ. He doesn’t understand that in Florida, there is only one setting for your auto air-conditioning. Set it on max and leave it there. We finally located a branch with a working tube (that vacuum thingee) but by then we were south of Naples, that is, more than half-way to Miami.
Meanwhile in England.
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The seller’s description of the car was accurate. It had been sitting so long the tires went flat and were out of round. It drove like a Polish army tank. One can never be sure of the condition of such tires, although when inflated they looked decent. So, here’s where I broke the law. When I do this, it is a calculated risk, that is, I’m weighing the relative costs of obeying against the maximum fine. In Florida, the DMV will not issue you tags. Tags are what Florida calls what everybody else calls license plates. Swapping plates from your old vehicle for up to 30 days like some other states is a jailable offense in Florida. This, folks, is bureaucracy gone bad. Very rarely is there any place near a DMV where you can buy this insurance.
Have you ever tried to get a tow after a hurricane? But of course, that is not any concern of the DMV. They only enforce the law, no matter how onerous that makes things. We quickly fashioned a rather neat “lost tag” sign, hung it on the rear, and drove home. This saved an immediate $300 and waiting in lineups all day, but I do not recommend you try this. Again, for me it was a calculated risk. Most people would not even know how to decipher the equation. A real risk formula, not a wild guess, guys. Baye's Theorem. They only enforce the law, no matter how onerous that makes things. Did I break the law, or stage the whole thing? I dunno, this is a blog, not a confessional.
But not before I addressed that tire problem. Yes, I took a chance, because nobody knew if it was the tires, or the balance, or the frame [causing the wobble]. But logic said the car in general showed no signs of neglect or abuse. The car was difficult to control up to the maximum 40 mph. Have you ever tried to find a tire shop open after a hurricane? Finally, we did, but were almost refused service because, you guessed it, the store would not sell the tires unless I gave them personal private information for their data base. Why are people such assholes? In case you don’t know, the warranty, by law, attaches to the product, not the identity of the purchaser. Yet, here was another jerk-off business who would rather lose a sale and a customer than just get on with it.
Fortunately, I have a complete set of alternate information that checks out so perfectly, you’d think I used to design databases. There was a two hour wait and of course, nobody who works at a tire store has any clue where the library is, or a book store, or a magazine rack. And the only nearby donut shop was closed. By now, it was 6:00PM, that’s nearly a half day since we left home. The distance is around 120 miles, but I remind you, there is no such thing as a quick trip in Florida. By now, we are already 4-1/2 hours behind schedule.
“Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly,
Rhaegar fought honorably. And Rhaegar died.”
~ from “Game of Thrones”
The good news is the new tires, $192 a pair, completely solved the vibration problem. This car is a slightly newer model of my old 1995 Taurus station wagon. But that had 110,000 miles on it when Frank and I drove it to San Diego with a million toothpicks on board. The only time we really stopped other than for gas was at the Denny’s in El Paso. Where we sat and looked over the border into Mexico, wondering who would ever live there. This was 13 years before Donald Trump cleared up the mystery. Everything else checked out on the [new]car except the tachometer. So what, I’ve never used one of those, and besides, a tach on an automatic? If you are accelerating that much, you should be watching the roadway.
Inside has a slightly musty smell, but not the distinct pungent aroma of a cigar smoker. But nothing I can’t live with, and I’ll air the thing out and/or seek remedies on the Internet. Otherwise, the car runs like new, it has that same smooth V-6 as the ’95, and we charged the AC with one can, I think it will need two. We were gone so long, I had to buy lunch. The only place open was Applebee’s. Two burgers and two iced teas, $25 bucks. That reminds me of why I never go there. They have an obvious following, but I was quick to notice I was the only patron paying with cash. They had to go in the back to get change. Probably took four of them to figure it out.
Pastor Bob was raised in this area, he knows all the back roads. He can tell you which hunter killed 46 deer with 47 shots. What? Oh, don’t go Bambi around me. The deer are a pest and are only thriving because some people feed them in the wild. In fact, Pastor Bob likes deer. Fried, roasted, with gravy on the side. We hit such bad weather on the return trip, we literally drove nearly ten miles though standing water up to the axles. It was dusk early, as I’ve told you how Florida can dump 20 inches of rain on one spot, but the weather reports it as a few inches over the whole county.
We tandem drove up to the turnoff at the Limestone Country Club, a which point I know the turf and he peeled off to go visit some relatives. I passed four or five squad cars that would normally very likely have pulled me over for my “lost tag” plates, but who were fully occupied on idiot management detail. I rolled into my nice safe and dry driveway at 8:45. That nearly 14 hours to do a trip that should have taken 6 or 7. To my delight, when I got in the door, the electric as back on.
Um, ADDENDUM
This car is actually a good example, an armchair study, of what I mean when I say the people with a little cash will inherit this society. This car was the obvious deal of the decade and half the county was chasing around trying to get the money together, I talked the seller into first-come, first serve. I got the 1997 Taurus for $1700. The guy had offers from all over the county but I planned twenty years ago to be the one with cash.
While the rest of the local yokels were chasing around the damn countryside trying to get the asking $2000 together - ha! That's wishful azz-clown thinking after a hurricane with all the banks closed and ATMs on the blink and roads flooded. What idiots they be. I paid Pastor Bob with a high-axle 4x4 a total of $55 plus gas to drive me the 135 miles through flooded roads and waved the cash under the seller's nose. I called him every hour on the hour to assure him I was on the way. In the end, many hours later, I was first. No surprise at all, really. You credit card dipsticks who lived two lousy miles away from him could not come up with real cash even with an 11-1/2 hour head start. Are you people fecked, or what? You call that progress? Way to go, you one-wipes. BWAAA-ha-ha-ha.
This picture is, I think, the printer that works with the Babbage calculator. However, it was posted by a millennial, so there was no accompanying description. You're supposed-to-know where to find the other data, like. Nonetheless, the typewriter-like mechanicals would make sense in this instance.
Last Laugh
(Daughter of Jean Claude Van Damme.)
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