Carma

This past weekend, I finally got up the outside Christmas lights. I also cleaned the bathroom from top to bottom. Now, that may not seem like a lot of activity, but apparently, it was enough to tweak my back a bit. By Tuesday morning, I was finding it extremely difficult to move or bend.

I must have also pissed off the gods of nature because I was delivered a car-mic blow coming to work. I have about a 35 mile commute which can take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour, depending on traffic. Now, I leave in the dark and get to work in the dark, so noticing any potential problems with the car when I leave is somewhat hard. As it was, I didn’t notice anything while driving for about 25 to 30 minutes.

In fact, it wasn’t until I entered the Squirrel Hill tunnels that I noticed something wrong. As I was exiting, the car felt and sounded weird. My first thought was a tie rod went. So, I pulled off to the side of the road and looked. The back passenger tire was flat and smoking. Apparently, I’d been riding the rim pretty good for awhile. Yet, somehow, I never noticed it until then. Realizing I had no room or light to change the tire on the side of 376 West, I limped into Oakland and stopped at a Sunoco. I was hoping to just fill the tire with air. Hopefully, it would be enough to get me to the office and I could deal with it when it was light out.

As I hooked up the air, I could hear it hissing out from somewhere else on the tire. This was not going to be enough of a patch. So, I dug out the donut and jack. Now, over the course of 10 years, I have changed a few tires, using the supplied jack. It’s a pain in the ass, but in a pinch, it gets the job done. However, the jack on my ’05 Malibu Wagon was not one I had ever seen and harder to get disassembled. Realizing I was probably fighting a losing battle, I called my dad (A.K.A. my insurance agent) to ask him if my insurance covered towing back to my place or the local garage I use..

“No.”

So, I sucked it up and fought some more with the jack until I thought I had broke it. Then, if there was any more proof needed that there are still good people out there, I was saved by a random stranger. He was there getting gas and saw me struggling with the jack. He came over and managed to figure it out and we began changing the tire. Unfortunately, the iron they supply to remove the lugs wasn’t exactly great and a few of my lugs felt like they were rounded off, slipping as we tried to turn the handle, probably from over tightening at the garage I usually get tires put on at. My savior apologized because he had to leave and go pick up his wife. He did say that he would swing back around and if I was still there, he’d continue to help.

I struggled with the last two lugs, resorting to smacking the end of the iron with the bottom of the jack to get a snug fit. Stepping on the handle and applying the equivalent of my full body weight in torque nearly dropped me to my knees when the iron slipped off the lug. Random stranger returned and we both worked on the last two lugs, getting them off and pulling the tire. The inside of the tire looked as if Edward Scissorhands had put it on in the first place. The inside was completely shredded and smelled of burnt rubber. We laughed at the sight and I told him that if he wanted a real laugh, know that my last name was ironic. He said something to the effect of “If I was a girl, I’d have a whole pit crew out here changing this thing.” Unfortunately, it was hard for me to get any torque or even bend over to work on the car. My back was making it hard to breathe. The stranger did most of the work, which made me feel like an invalid, but I was thankful.

During the whole ordeal, I offered to buy him and his wife coffee for their trouble. He declined the offer. I then realized I had a $100 bill in my pocket. Our department meeting was going to be at the Casino later and afterwards, I was going to do a little gambling. Hard to fathom, I had been gambling with my life on this tire.

After the donut was on, I thanked the stranger, named Matt, repeatedly and made a last ditch effort to compensate him for his time. I tried to give him my $100 bill, but he declined, again. I tried hard, but he wouldn’t take it.  He was a decent person, selflessly helping a stranger in need. Gave me a good feeling. I hope to pay it forward, as long as someone doesn’t need tire changing help.

As a side note, I drove to work, on the donut, with the hazards on, going around 40 mph. Even with my four ways on, I still had plenty of people honking and flashing me with their high beams. Turns out, the same side as the blown tire had a blown turn signal bulb. So… I looked like that one jackass, driving 40 on the highway with his blinker on for 10 miles. During my lunch, I went to a local shop up the street and got two brand new winter tires. They were probably both due, anyway. Merry Christmas… again. After all, I wasn’t about to drive downtown, to the casino, on the donut and I wasn’t going to just ride with someone else and come back to a donut at six o’clock in the evening, still needing to change out the donut. Then, today, I stood out in the cold and fixed the bulb. Did wonders for my aching back, standing there without a coat.

WUMF: July 2012 Edition

Summer just be flying by.  I didn't realize it was time for another WUMF.

Olympics 2012
I’ve been waiting to watch the Olympics for awhile now, but since the games are not being shown on Qubo or Nick Jr. the odds of me actually watching much of them are slim to none. I did manage to get my kid interested in the diving and gymnastics events only because they were flashy. Once they went back to showing just the races, she tuned out and asked for her show. I sort of almost decided against the entire thing after catching a few minutes of the God awful opening ceremonies. That trip through history to return an iPhone was pretty awful.

Other than that, the Internet is doing a great job of covering the games. All of the results are coming in WAAAAY before NBC gets off their asses and airs the actual event. Waiting for NBC to show you the swimming competition is like working in IT and waiting to see Dark Knight Rises after the crowds die down a bit. You’re expecting your geek coworkers to not spoil it for you the minute after it comes out.

Does NBC understand that with Twitter and Facebook and oh, I don’t know Google and every other news site, that the results will be announced as they happen at the games and not during prime time when you choose to air the events? Maybe this is just proof at how vapid of a culture we’ve become, expecting the rest of the world to wait for us to show up… much like Michael Phelps at the pool. All that Subway made him slow.

Actually, I’ve got this vibe of treating this like it’s a reality show house competition. It seems very unpatriotic… or maybe uber-patriotic… like the bad kind of patriotism.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Beetles!
When we moved into our house in 2004, we were told by the exterminator who was doing work for the previous owners as part of the contract that we have a lot of bugs. Not in the house, but on the property. With two big oaks, two big maples, and a shit load of pines, there are plenty of reasons why there are lots of spiders, ants, and termites. Now, we’ve got beetles.

I had just cut the grass and we were relaxing in our patio chairs. I could distinctly smell the all too familiar scent of cat shit from our neighbor strays and it was pissing me off as usual. As my daughter wandered around playing and looking at bugs, she told me to come check out these strange, HUGE bugs. Sure enough, there was these gigantic beetles crawling in and around a pile of cat shit. Three to five of them were just frantically crawling out from under a pile of dirt and grass and poop. I walked throughout the yard and noticed another set of beetles doing the same thing. Apparently, I was lucky enough to not have stepped in either pile during my cutting of the grass.

We checked the Internet to try and find out what kind of beetles these were but no such luck. They are either dung beetles or hister beetles from what we could narrow down.

I went back out after dark with the camera but could find no trace of them.  I even looked again this evening and no trace of them. 

Squirrel Hill Tunnel Traffic
They have been working on the Squirrel Hill Tunnels for what seems like years.  This past weekend they closed down from Friday through to Monday at 5:00AM to do more work.  Traffic was still backed up at 6:30AM this morning as we were backing up to the Churchill exit.  I thought they had gone late or there was an accident.  No such thing.

Do you know what was backing traffic up so badly, this morning?  Hundreds of commuters didn't expect to see half of the roof missing on the inside of the tunnel and had to slow down to inspect it REEEALLLL close. 

Now, you may think I'm exaggerating, but for the 600 yards the roof had been ripped up above us, traffic slowed to a crawl.  However, when we reached the end of where the work had been done, everybody took off like a shot.  Literally no traffic exiting the tunnel.  It's like, "Is it going to fall on me? What the hell is that curved thing up there?"

I was inspired to parody a meme that has been done to death, but it's been selling pretty good in my online stores.

Keep Calm and Maintain Speed Thru Tunnels

I even got a shout out on Twitter from PittGirl

Best "Keep Calm and ...." shirt ever? Yes. #pittsburgh #tunnels skreened.com/mongoware/keep…
— Virginia Montanez (@JanePitt) July 30, 2012

I love this town and the people in it.  Just... not... the ones staring up at the roof of the tunnels instead of actually driving.

Drive on, Pittsburgh