~Tuesday~ I caught the 7:45 bus today instead of the 8:15, as I needed to leave work to be home by 5:00. It was drizzling, and I was surprised by the number of incidences of skidding tires that I witnessed at the intersection near which I wait for the bus. It reminded me that I must get to Just Tires some time this week.
The last set of tires I bought, four years ago, came with an 80,000-mile warranty, as long as you keep them rotated every 6,000 miles. I remember thinking at the time that I would have about 110,000 miles on my car before it would be time to get new tires. That tells me I had about 30,000 miles on it when I bought them.
My odometer is just about to flip to 83,000 miles, which in addition to reaching 53,000 on these tires, also makes it time for my 6,000-mile interval tire rotation. I’m sure most people don’t bother calendaring the tire rotations in order to remind them to keep the rotation on schedule to avoid voiding their warranties, but not me. That’s what calendars are for:
I was curious as to how “evenly” I’ve reached these 6,000-mile intervals, so I graphed the time between rotations:
At least one of my tires has the steel belts exposed on it, so I’m guessing I’m going to get a prorated discount from the warranty to apply to new tires. That tells me that it’s probably just a “marketing ploy” to say these things last 80,000 miles, since most people are not going to keep track of it to make good on the warranty anyway. Obviously, they don’t know that my three-word life-summary statement is: “Documents His Life.”
We had our weekly one-hour department meeting from 9:00-10:00 today. Rhonda brought string cheese. I brought cheese Danish. Jude brought pears and V8 Juice. Another successful meeting.
I attended a 1.5-hour full staff meeting (about 50 people) of one of our organizational units for whom I’m their “beat reporter.” It was in a building, Burlington Hall, which I’d never been in before, and didn’t realize until we were in what seemed like the basement, but turned out to be the ground floor, and people were saying, “Is this where the reactor is?” As it turns out the full name of the building is, “Burlington (Nuclear) Engineering Laboratories.”
I caught the Wolfline #9 Greek Village bus home from Carmichael Gym, which was jam-packed, standing room only—and I did, stand that is. In the seat I was standing in front of was a kid in his ROTC uniform. After a couple of minutes the guy standing to the right of me, also in front of the quasi-soldier said, “Layman!” That was the name on the guy’s uniform. “Man, I haven’t seen you in years. I didn’t recognize you. I saw your name, and then I was, like, I know that guy.”
They caught up, mostly with the guy standing drilling soldier-boy about his life, and at one point they got on the topic of soldier-boy’s brother. After soldier-boy grunted back vague answers, the standing guy said, “So let me get this right. Your brother’s been here at State for eight years. He takes classes on and off, but he’s not enrolled as a student. And he’s not working. Is that right?”
“That’s right,” soldier-boy answered.
“Is your dad paying his way?”
I didn’t hear the answer, but then standing guy said, “I know your dad loves that.”
Oh, look at the time. My stop.
My plumber, whom I love, arrived at my townhouse at about 5:15, and we talked about two faucets that I want to replace—the one in the kitchen sink and the one in my master bathroom sink.
“Just go to Lowe’s,” he said, “and pick out a Delta, 8-inch center, 4-hole, kitchen faucet that you like, and a 4-inch center set with a pop-up drain for the bathroom.”
I said, “Just a second let me write that down,” as I didn’t hear a thing after the “Just go to Lowe’s…” as I was thinking, “Go to Lowe’s? What does he think I am, a Lesbian?”
I had a nice instant message conversation with Robert, and then one with Joe. And shortly after that, I wrote this entry—after which I got off the grid and read some of Now That You Know.
While I wouldn’t go so far as to call the book compelling, it is very interesting, and I’m reading it quite quickly. I do think that if I were a parent reading it because my child had just come out to me, it would be quite compelling. That is, of course, its primary audience.