~Monday~ I got to the stop for the 7:45 bus at 7:49, which is really pushing it, but I knew I hadn’t missed the bus because there were two other people waiting there for it. They both boarded before me, and the second guy was a “piggy banker,” so once he emptied his pocket of change to pay his fare, I got to swipe my card and take a seat.
Reader Lady boarded at her stop and I saw that she was reading Stephen King’s Gerald’s Game now, having moved on from Firestarter. Good lord, that little synopsis at the beginning of that Wikipedia entry for Gerald’s Game is surprising.
A young woman, college student age I’d say, boarded wearing a fully-stuffed backpack with a lot of accoutrement about it. She shuffled a pile of papers in her hands, among which there was a bubble answer sheet. She had on very green fingernail polish.
As soon as I walked into my office, I was bombarded with questions, directives, and requests, which is not the way I like starting off my day. Can’t I have a second to boot up my computer and have a cup of coffee?
I spent most of my morning finishing up our organization’s response to the 2010 Campus Computing Survey and completing a website for the File Services Project.
I caught the city bus home at 12:30, and while I waited at the bus stop by my office building, a male student came along proficiently using crutches and stopped at the light to wait to cross. I checked something on my BlackBerry and when I looked back up I saw a guy on the other side of the street using crutches, but instead of the cast being white and on his left leg, it was black and on his right leg. What are the chances of two kids using crutches being at that same intersection at the same time? 100%, evidently.
A young lady on the bus was fit to be tired about a lot of things in her life at the moment, as the answer to this question was, “She did. Several times.”
I just don’t get how people can be so loud with all of their business on their cell phones in confined public spaces. Have some dignity and self-respect, people.
I was grateful to be able to work from home this afternoon, as Roofwerks sent two guys out to look into what’s causing the wet spot in the ceiling in my guest bedroom over my house guest’s head as he lies down to sleep. They were scheduled to arrive “sometime between 2:00 and 2:30,” and they arrived at just after 2:30. I would not qualify either one of them as being hot, although they weren’t repulsive. Not that service guys being hot is what it’s all about. It’s only mostly what it’s about. But I digress…
They did find a nail hole that was allowing some leaking, as well as a [insert some roofing term here] that was turned or bent up that was allowing water to get under it.
I got a boatload of work done while working from home this afternoon, which is a good thing, as I have to document my at-home work to turn into my boss at the end of the month.
When Casey got home, he went for a run, and I headed to the gym. When I started up my car, the “check engine” light was on, but I drove to the gym anyway.
It was jam-packed there, as it was still pretty close to being “right after work,” and unbeknownst to me until I got there, it was “Free Pizza Night.” I did a 30-minute cardio workout on the elliptical machine on Level 5, for a 656-calorie burn. I’m only reporting what the machine indicated. 🙂
I left the gym at about 6:30 and at the last minute decided to drop by the Jiffy Lube by my house to see if it was still open and to run diagnostics on my check engine light. It was, and they did.
After running the diagnostics, the guy asked me, “When was the last time you filled up your tank with gas?”
“Last night, close to midnight,” I responded, as we’d stopped for gas on the way back from scareyoke last night.
“The code is P0446 – Evaporative Emission Control System Vent Control Circuit, which is usually due to the gas cap not being screwed on tight enough,” he said while turning the hell out of it in front of me, causing it to make that clicking noise, and pointing to a little directive on the cap that says to tighten it until you hear that noise.
While I was there, I also had my oil changed, which I haven’t done in probably 10,000 miles and have been meaning to get to for over two months now. And since they were running a radiator flush special, and my service scheduled called for it, I went ahead and had that done, too.
No sooner did they start working on my car did I realize that I didn’t have my wallet with me. A quick call to Casey at my house, and he offered to walk it up to me, which fortunately isn’t that far of a walk, and for which I was immensely grateful. I had a quick phone conversation with Robert while I waited for Casey to arrive.
After paying for the service, I hopped in my car to leave and the check engine life was still on, and this inane conversation ensued with one of the workers:
I asked, “You didn’t turn off the check engine light?”
“It’ll go off when it’s fixed,” the guy—who wasn’t the same guy who ran the diagnostics and had tightened the cap earlier—replied.
“Well, that other guy said it was on because the gas cap wasn’t screwed on tight, and he tightened it,” I said.
“So, you want me to turn it off?” he asked.
I’m thinking, “Huh? Do I want you to turn it off? Is it going to go off by itself after a while since the cap is tightened? If so, then I don’t want you to turn it off. If it’s going to stay on, regardless, until you reset it, then yes, I want you to turn it off. What if you turn it off and it wasn’t the gas cap, will it come back on? If it doesn’t ever turn off unless you turn it off, and I leave it on, how will I know when it’s really come back on due to some other problem?”
I hate car stuff.
“Yes, I want you to turn it off,” I said after all that churn in my head, while thinking, “Why don’t you tell me what I should do instead of asking me what I want to do? Isn’t that what I’m paying you for?
Once home, Casey made the most delicious chicken quesadillas, which we had with a side of tortilla chips with “Gringo” salsa on them.
I finally finished and posted my Saturday’s blog entry and devised and posted Sunday’s. Before calling it a night, I jotted down notes from Monday to hopefully easily finish it tomorrow.
I’m going to catch this thing up yet!