My car (Honda Insight) is 12 years old. She has held up remarkably well but I wasn’t overly surprised when a couple of weeks ago, I had to push my key fob repeatedly to open the car. But it only happened twice, so then I forgot about it.
Then three days ago, the key fob quit locking. It would unlock but not lock. I tried the old key fob – that one was deader than dead. A quick trip to the hardware store and two new batteries didn’t fix the problem; the internet search listed about 10 possible causes, only one of which was something I could fix on my own. And that fix didn’t work. *&#^^%@$.
With YA coming home Sunday night, I was worried that if I messed around too much, locking the car the old fashioned way, that I might not then be able to open it. Since I needed the car to pick up YA and also needed the car to take a friend downtown yesterday morning, I didn’t want an issue.
Then I made my big mistake; I texted YA about the situation. What I really wanted to know was where her keys were, in case I needed to use her car to pick her up.
What I got was:
Directions on how to change to batteries in the fob. (Thanks, did that on my own already)
You know you have the old fob in the drawer? (Yep, been there, done that)
Why don’t you leave it until I get home. (Really, you don’t trust me to drive your car to the airport and back?)
You know, you can lock the car with your key. There’s a key hole on the door. (I am not making this up).
Fortunately, the fob is now working intermittently so the short-term issue is on hold although I’m sure I’m going to have to deal with this in the coming month. Not sure how to let YA know that back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, the ONLY way to lock a car was with the key in the door!
Did you know how to drive a stick-shift? Did you learn on it or teach yourself later?
Guesstimating how long a task will take is not one of my long suits.
Bad estimates happen often when I’m trying to give myself enough time to get somewhere. Don’t get me wrong – when I’m going from one place straight to another, then I’m pretty accurate. I like to arrive with a few minutes to spare and this usually works out. It’s when I add errands to a trip; the more errands, the worse I guess. Two weeks ago, I had a knee therapy appointment at 7:30 a.m. At that time of day I know it takes about 15 minutes to go straight there. I added stopping for gas and estimated 10 minutes for that, then 5 minutes to swing by the post office, 10 minutes for Dunkin Donuts. Figuring 10 minutes to check in and cough up my co-pay, I decided I should leave the house at 6:30.
Got all my errands done and showed up at my therapy place at 6:50. My car was warmed up at that point so I sat in the parking lot for 20 minutes listening to my book on CD. That still left me 20 minutes (of which the check-in/co-pay took 3 minutes…sigh). Good thing I’m a morning person.
The other time this problem rears its ugly head is when I have some chore that I’m not too excited about. A 10-minute job becomes an hour in my mind, a 20-minute chore becomes an afternoon. Then the procrastination kicks in. I found this meme last year on Facebook; I even printed it out and pasted it in my journal. Whenever I’m putting something off, I TRY to remind myself of this silliness in my nature. Occasionally it helps
I’m hoping that showing up 40 minutes early for my therapy will be a learning experience but I’m not exactly holding my breath. You know – that old dog/new tricks problem.
Do you have a good relationship with time-keeping? Any procrastination problems?
When you have fifteen kinds of cookies on the front porch during the holidays, you’re always open to ways to spread the wealth. I usually make cookie platters for my local library, my vet and my hardware store guys. It’s fun and between assembling the platters and delivering, it takes less than an hour, as all the recipients are very close by.
This past year, I really tested the Inter-Library Loan department of the library system so I decided that I should provide some holiday cheer for them. I found out that ILL works out of the downtown library (not much of a surprise) and do a straightforward 9-5 schedule.
I spent several weeks waffling about how to get the cookies downtown as I detest driving downtown and I detest paying a fortune for parking even more. As of Monday afternoon, my plan was to take the bus. A long trip two ways but only $2 out of my pocket and the bus stops literally at the front entrance door of the library. I even went to the bank to get a few one dollar bills.
As Monday afternoon wore on, I wavered more and more about this plan. I checked online and found that the library parking is only $4 for the first hour. I even called the library; the librarian confirmed that this was true and that you could park near the elevators and come right up to the atrium. She also said that if you were in and out in 15 minutes, there was no charge.
Of course, yesterday when the GPS got me to the library, that particular lot was full. I went around a two block area about five times – no on-street parking open and all but one ramp had their “FULL” lights lit up. Grrrr. I considered just going home and dismantling the platter but I figured, I’d come this far…. At this point, I was pretty stressed. There were two machines at the entrance of the only open ramp near the library and it took me a bit to figure out how to get a ticket. Found a parking spot near an elevator but when I pushed the door open to the outside world, there was a small sign saying you needed the QR code from your parking ticket to get back in. Luckily I hadn’t let that door shut, so I went back to my car to grab the ticket.
Delivery went really well but when I exited the parking ramp (about 20 minutes later), they charged me $17. OUTRAGEOUS. At this point, I just wanted to get home but my GSP wouldn’t open until I was actually out of the ramp. More stress. The fortunate part was that once I got going in the right direction downtown, I did know how to get home. Even being directionally-challenged.
It’s all I can do to no look up “parking-induced anxiety” on the internet. Not sure if it would make me feel better to know I’m in good company or if it would make me feel any more weird. And we’ll have to wait to see if ILL ever gets holiday cookies from me again. Please don’t hold your breath.
Any directionally-challenged issues or parking anxiety for you this month?
I’m sure I’ve mentioned before how I alternate between hating people and enjoying people. I’m in my hating people phase. Seriously, is everyone an idiot driver? I feel like my driving karma has been off for about a month. One morning, a car at an intersection sat there missing options to go. I honked. They looked in their mirror and said something to me. Without finger gestures. And then at another intersection, I got the green arrow and someone from my right made a LEFT HAND TURN ACROSS ME on his RED light! I honked. He honked back. Jeepers.
Idiots.
If it’s related, making me one of those idiots, I’m having a heck of a time parking correctly lately. I pull in, then have to back up and straighten out and pull in again to get in there straight. I’m not sure if the lanes and spaces have gotten smaller or the car is bigger, or my depth perception is off. But parking seems like it used to be easier. Just another first world problem.
I threw away a cardboard box the other day. Packing material and everything that was in it. There was a shipping label on the side from August of 2007. I threw away that box, one of two identical boxes, so I could save a different box complete with it’s packing materials. And I chuckled to myself and told myself I’d only have to save this new box for a few years. Full disclosure, they’re boxes that moving lights came in for the college. Of the four lights I got in 2007, they’re old enough now, if one does need repair, I’ll just put it in the back of the car and take it to a place in the cities for repair. And once the new one gets through it’s warranty period, I really could throw that box out too. But will I?
HAVE YOU STOPPED SAVING CARDBOARD BOXES?
IT’S VENTING DAY. WHAT’S MAKING YOU GRUMPY? (and not the feds; The orange menace is a gimme. We can do better.)
Kelly commented one day she didn’t know why the handle on the drawer holding the kitchen garbage can always had streaks of something on it. I knew immediately it was probably from the egg I crack every morning, but I didn’t offer that up at the time. She might read it here…
I was making daughters egg cup the other morning. The first egg cracked perfectly, opened perfectly, and I plopped the yoke right into the cup. Went to crack the second egg and the shell pretty much disintegrated, the contents splashed onto the counter and slid right off into the garbage. (Over that handle of course). At which point, as I flailed, I knocked the egg cup with the first egg onto the floor. The dogs were right there for clean up. With luck, Kelly won’t know about that either. Course it was kinda funny so I’ll probably tell her. … at some point…
A few weeks ago, I saw a postal truck dead on the side of the road. The next day I saw it being towed. A few days after that I saw another one being towed. Jeepers. Then there was the semi carrying mail that caught fire on Hwy 52 outside Rochester. I do have to say, mail service to our house seems to be getting better. We’re getting mail before noon, whereas it had been 7PM for a few years. And often now, they’ll bring the mail and a package right to the house. Those of you who’ve been to the farm know that’s not a light task; it’s a long drive out of the way to bring a parcel down to us.
And then just the other day I saw one of the new postal vehicles.
Uh… it’s…. something!
It’s called the ‘Next Generation Delivery Vehicle’. NGDV.
I did some internet searching on them. Here are various headlines and descriptions:
-U.S. POSTAL SERVICE’S UGLY DUCK MAIL TRUCK
-U.S. POSTAL SERVICE’S EV TRUCKS ARE STILL FUNNY-LOOKING, NOW HARDER TO KILL OFF
-The Postal Service’s new delivery vehicles aren’t going to win a beauty contest. They’re tall and ungainly. The windshields are vast. Their hoods resemble a duck bill. Their bumpers are enormous.
–The Oshkosh Next Generation Delivery Vehicles might look like background traffic in a Pixar film
-You can tell that [the designers] didn’t have appearance in mind
-SO MUCH FOR LOOKING COOL WHILE YOU DELIVER THE MAIL*
-It looks like a robot Beluga whale—built by the East German government.*
-Our Grumman mail trucks [The old trucks] look like they were supplied by the government of East Germany and they sound like the tortured exhalations of a hungover water buffalo—hhhhggggggggmmmmmggghhhh. Honey, the mail’s here.*
-Odd appearance aside, the first handful of Next Generation Delivery Vehicles … are getting rave reviews from letter carriers
–The side cargo door allows for direct delivery onto the curb
The drivers really like them. They have AC (Can you believe the old ones didn’t?), airbags, back up camera’s, a 360° camera, collision warning, and most importantly, the tall box allows drivers to walk through without ducking. The current vehicles, made by Grumman, came into service in 1987 and was scheduled for 25 years. They outlived that predicted life. But they are failing. And they seem to catch fire fairly often. Prior to that vehicle was the Jeep DJ-5. The USPS used them during the 1970’s and ‘80’s. I bought a used one from my friend Thom, and he had bought it used from someone else. It was dark green. I drove it for a few years in the mid 1980’s. It was standard left side drive, and I used it when I was a field reporter for the Department of Agriculture. With the sliding door, it was great for holding a measuring wheel out the door and driving around a field. It was just 2-wheel drive, so that wasn’t an option for every field, but it was still kinda cool looking (well, ‘Different’ anyway). Even with the bungee strap holding the back door shut (because if you went over a bump, the back door would pop open) and the steering was so loose you didn’t dare drive over about 55 MPH, but it was fun to drive. Thom had mounted a stereo between the seats, and bolted speakers to the back wall. The metal dash was pretty rudimentary.
Not my jeep, just a representative photo. I wonder why I never took a picture of mine?
Not too much happening around the farm. I did get the 630 carburetor back on and had it running! It’s quiet enough I could actually hear myself think! It’s not done, I have a few more things to replace. Saving up for the next ‘Old Tractor Part’s Order’.
I got a township call from a sheriff deputy about some junk that had been dumped. Turned out to be two large commercial pizza ovens. Those things are heavy! I called a couple neighbors to help load them. It was all we could do to just tip it up and tip it onto the trailer.
Pizza ovens on the trailer
The next day was a sectional couch and mattress to pick up. Just more ditch clean up. Part of the job for a township supervisor. The couch and mattress I haul to county recycling. We know them on a first name basis there. We’re regulars. The pizza ovens I added to my scrap metal trailer.
I finally hauled in the old tires I had cut off those wagons. Took them to a local auto shop and paid ___ for disposal.
Got half an inch of rain Thursday night. More predicted.
Here’s a picture of a chicken because the green shades look so pretty.
From a distance, they look black. But they have more colors than you’d think, and they are really pretty.
My summer Padawan has been out working on his car a few times. I helped him for an hour one night and rolling around underneath looking up, down, left, and right acerbated some vertigo I was beginning to get. The next day I sat very still. He’s learning a lot—I hope. He’s certainly at a disadvantage because he’s being self-taught, which is good, but it can be frustrating and it all takes longer. And he’s not quite in the right mindset for that. He’s eighteen so he knows everything already. And he gets frustrated easily with the car. I tried to tell him it’s all part of the job and if he’s gonna get frustrated, he’s in the wrong job. Monday he starts as an employee at a REAL job. A 7AM to 3PM job. We’ll see how that goes. Cross your fingers for him. I give him about a 35% chance of sticking with it. He just has no idea. And it’s going to take a few tries, and I suspect he’s gonna be one of those kids who must hit bottom to figure it out.
Today’s post comes to us from Barbara in Rivertown.
Our 2008 Prius finally gave up the fight on Sunday, September 7, thankfully on the way HOME from our Unitarian Church Service. It started up from a stop light hesitantly with little power, made it a couple blocks and then I had to pull over. After I turned it off and on again, it got us home, but I didn’t trust it farther than around the block.
uckily, we had already been looking at a used Prius at Hi-Tech Auto on the edge of Rushford, MN, half an hour from here. We got through the the rest of the week through the kindness of friends – getting rides and borrowing cars – and managed to buy our “new” 2015 Prius on Friday, September 12th.
Parts of those 5 days were spent cleaning out the old car, and after 16 years of ownership, just imagine what we found! The following list is mostly from the glove compartment, and that “well” between the seats.
5 partial packets of Kleenex
15 plastic forks and/or spoon sets
35 take-out napkins
5 pairs of pierced earrings (for when I forget)
2 first aid kits and one sewing kit
my spare pair of glasses (former prescription)
4 emery boards
2 tire pressure gauges
lotion and hand sanitizer, Chapstick
tiny tape measure
corkscrew, church key
packets of Off repellent
and of course, loose change
If you cleaned out your car, especially the glove box, what items might you find?
You’ve probably heard me say that the only good things to come out of Covid were working from home and drive-up service. I know that many businesses are making people come back into the office but hopefully drive-up service is here to stay.
With a sore knee, running errands wasn’t the top of my to-do list the last couple of weeks. Unfortunately, you can’t just keep putting off errands or else your household starts to sag at the edges. As I started to list things that just needed to get done, I realized that drive-through was going to be my friend. Here’s what I managed to do without getting out of the car:
Aldis
Target
Value Village (this was a drop-off, not a pick-up)
Post office (again, a drop-off)
Bank ATM
Dunkin’ Donuts
Caribou Coffee
There was one more errand that did require me to get out of the car – returning a library book. The only library with a drive-through return in the Hennepin system was the Southdale Library – and as of this past week, the drive-through is no longer available:
I can’t remember a time when I had so many things I could do without exiting my vehicle. I do like drive-up and drive-through!!
Going to work early one morning and there was the football team, under the stadium lights, all in uniform, having practice. Whew, I think early morning practices would be tough. Like getting up to exercise.
We saw a “V” of geese flying over one day.
Later I listened to about 2 dozen barn swallows gathered on an electric line chittering and chattering and having quite the discussion about when and where to go. Although the ‘where’ is pretty well defined, at least in general. South. Everybody. Just head south.
Kelly got one of those hotel sales calls that would take us someplace south if we just listened to a sales pitch. We don’t like to make hasty decisions, and I didn’t realize the salesperson was on hold while Kelly and I talked a few times. Then the salesperson’s manager came on and tried to shame Kelly for keeping the person on the phone for so long and not immediately just saying ‘Yes’. Snort. Give her attitude, will you? Click.
We will not be going south.
I had my first day of class. Forensic Chemistry. It’s a hybrid class, meaning a lot of it is done online, then we meet Wednesdays for lab. My friend Paul is taking a writing class. Here’s our first day of class photo.
FIRST DAY OF CLASS
I got the front end off the wagon where the wheels went wonky.
It’s not supposed to look like this. I have a nephew, Matt, who is a welder. He’ll be coming to look at it and see if it’s salvageable. A lot of cracks and old welds where the axle attaches to the frame. Old welds must be mine, but I don’t remember fixing this.
Mid-September there will be another online auction in Plainview. Last week when I dragged all the old machinery out of the trees, I pulled out a pretty nice disc. I had used it for several years until I got something bigger and better. I cleaned the disc up, greased it, and towed it to the auction.
WIDE LOAD COMING THROUGH
It is 20’ wide so I took up most of the road and part of the shoulder. I try to take the back roads when I do this sort of thing, but I have to get to the back roads first. Most traffic was pretty respectful. I had the SMV sign on the back, and I bought two magnetic flashing lights, one for the front corner, and one for the back corner. I travelled about 25 MPH. When able, I’d pull over and let traffic pass me.
Then I got to the road where they were painting new lines on the road. And putting cones down. I knocked over the first two cones before I figured out how far I needed to move over. And I scared a couple garbage cans. But I got it there in one piece.
The next day I took in a 24’ bale elevator, but that was on a trailer and wasn’t any big deal.
Several times, Kelly and I would go outside planning to do “this” and we’d go off and do “that” instead. And we’d laugh, “This isn’t what I came out to do…” Yep, but it needed doing anyway.
I picked an ear of corn.
THAT is a nice ear of corn
It’s filled to the tip, which means it had ideal growing conditions. Any stress and the plant aborts the kernels at the top. This one was 40 kernels long, and 16 around. (It’s always an even number around). So 40 x16 = 640 kernels x 30,000 (plants / acre) = 19,200,00 kernels in an acre / 90,000 (kernels in a bushel) = 213 bushel / acre. Never in my life have I had a crop that good. This won’t be either. Factor in the deer, the raccoons, the clay or rocky spots, the trees on the edges… and I might actually make 180 bu / acre. We shall remain cautiously optimistic.
The soybeans are looking great.
BELLY BUTTON HIGH!
TOP EXTRA TENDER LEAVES
Notice these extra leaves and pods on the top? Again, terrific growing season. The deer just haven’t found this plant yet… that’s what they’re eating off is all the tender bonus growth on the top.
One evening I burned a brush pile. Later, Kelly and I sat in the gator and enjoyed the fire.
BON FIRE DATE!
I removed the tires from the rims on the old junk wagons. I watched some YouTube videos how to do this quick and easy. They were using car tires that didn’t have innertubes, and they hadn’t been sitting in the trees for 30 years. But I figured it out. Cut it open with a Sawzall, then use a grinder to cut the bead cable. Removed 16 tires.
One didn’t have a tube! Just about every farm tire has an innertube in it. And most of the tubes had patches on them. It made me smile, and feel a little nostalgic. Dad or I had these tires apart before and patched a hole. If you don’t know, getting a tire off the rim is difficult if you don’t have the fancy tire machines. The bead, that inner ring of the tire, has a steel cable in it, and that’s what holds the tire on the rim. And it seals tight and it’s a pain to get off with hand tools. Dad took off a lot of tires, patched the tube, and put the tire back on. You have to get the bead to seal. I have done a lot of tires, too. But now days, with the tire goop stuff you can just pour inside, I don’t take so many apart; I’m not subjecting the wagons and tires to the wear I did when milking cows and making hay. And, like I mentioned last week, I’ll often just go get a new tire before replacing the tube. Working smarter, not harder.
Some of the junk was two old flare boxes. Wagons we used for hauling ear corn or oats. I haven’t used them in a lot of years. The floors are rotted out and frames are too small and lightweight to be reused. It’s just scrap.
As bunch of errands had me on the freeway yesterday. A little congestion slowed everybody down in time for me to look up and see this on the highway signage:
Keep your speed down
Wear your safety gear
Get home in one piece
It was more interesting than the usual signage and as it was three lines, I automatically starting counting the syllables, wondering if it was MNDots idea of highway haiku. Not haiku.
When I got home, I wondered if I could find any information online about the signage. I was surprised to find out that there is actually a program called “Message Monday” that encourages safe driving. You can even submit your own idea for a message on the website. Some of the messages are actually quite funny:
Fly under
The radar by
Obeying speed limit
Give blood
The right way
Not on the highway
Don we now our
Fastened seatbelt
Fa la la la la la
I’m not sure I want to increase my highway time on Mondays to see more of these messages, but I do find it intriguing that this program exists. Of course, if I submit something it will have to be
Speedy Gonzalez
You’re not. Please keep the pedal
Off of the metal
Well, things didn’t out like I expected. I was completely figuring that today’s post would be a full-on rant about bureaucracy. Didn’t turn out that way.
I got the dreaded yellow card in the mail about a month ago reminding me that my Class D driver’s license needed to be renewed. It also went on, at length, about the Real I.D.
Pretty sure I chronicled the last time I had to renew; it was during Covid and I ended up arriving at the AAA location at 6 a.m. for their 8 a.m. opening since I had waited too late to get a coveted actual appointment (who knew you needed an appointment). Being one of the first 25 in line meant you could get service that day. I had heard several stories about the trouble in getting the Real I.D. so I had a file folder, papers, copies of papers. Turned out to be fine.
That’s why I was a bit surprised to see all the verbiage dedicated to Real I.D. You’d think in this day and age, it would be easy enough to sort a mailing list by whether or not somebody has already jumped through those hoops.
Checking on line I found that you can’t to appointments any longer, which seemed weird so I picked up the phone and called. (Now I do have to say, even if I were ranting, that one of the reasons I like the AAA is because they do answer the phones.) The gal on the phone confirmed that they don’t do appointment anymore but that weekdays are relatively slow. She also confirmed that I had to re-present all my Real I.D. paperwork again. Sigh.
I gathered the same stuff as four years ago and headed out yesterday morning. I was expecting this process to take at least an hour and I was fully prepared to whine about the insanity of having to basically re-apply for Real I.D. when I was clearly Real already. Full transparency – I was crabby.
Well, I got there at 9:05. I was called 5 minutes later. The little gal behind the counter laughed when I told her that I had been instructed to bring all my Real I.D. stuff; she said “not needed” and didn’t even look at it. I didn’t have to fill anything out except to sign and date the application that she printed off. Picture and eye exam was fast although I’m sure in the history of bad DMV photos, I’m now in the top ten. Final paper and current license snipped and I was out the door at 9:19.
Trail Baboon 