So I'm on my semiregular pilgrimmage to the old country. I had a nice dinner (Italian, tho) with a colleague from Moorhead last night. Got some sleep. Had a nice breakfast thanks to the people at Hampton (let me just say that sausage patties and fresh biscuits are da bomb, nutritionist and endocrinologist be d*mned). Then, somewhere around mile marker 124, my driver's side front tire's tread shredded itself. Quite an adventure.
Cell phone and CAA/AAA memberships pay off big time.
After about 10 minutes on the phone with various AAA people, owing to the fact that I wasn't sure where I was, except that I was eastbound on the I-94 and could see mile marker 124 in front of me, it only took 20 minutes for a very nice man with a bad knee in an old truck to come and change my tire for me (since the last few times I tried to remove a lug nut that had been pneumatized on I almost hurt myself, I thought it better to let a professional handle it). So I rolled another 50 miles or so into St Cloud, MN, on my now (I assume) trashed compact spare, found a Sears Automotive, and arranged for new tires.
Which left me with two hours to cool my heels. And let me just say between the arcade claw game and a lucky break in the mall, I was a very happy consumer. In the sense of acquiring things that were in need of acquisition (including tires) without too much trouble. So all told I was able to roll into the outlet mall at Albertville a little before six and Trader Joe's in Maple Grove about 7 and checked in and safe at the hotel (yay Hampton Inn again) by 7:30. Missed dinner with pal(s) in Minneapolis, but oh well.
Now I just have to find some food and go to bed. Tomorrow is IKEA day, followed by a long drive back to Fargo.
Showing posts with label transportation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label transportation. Show all posts
Thursday, 8 May 2008
Tuesday, 8 January 2008
Oy! ... or The Money Suck
Well, it's been a while, and things have not been going well. Not that I'm complaining. I'm just cataloging some bad things which have happened.
Remember the $1700 car bill? It turned into a $2300 car bill, what with the discovery of something having to do with some strut or other. They explained it to me, I told them to fix it, and I just filed everything in the 'deny while you can' pile.
Remember the new computer I bought for just over $700, that was supposed to keep me from having to buy a new laptop for a few years? Well, it's great, I love it, I'm not complaining. But now my laptop, apparently feeling old and neglected, has decided to go belly-up. Well, maybe not belly-up, but it wouldn't boot, and it took my tech guy JC most of the day yesterday to figure out what was wrong. I quote: "It had corrupted sectors on the hard drive. This could be a sign of future failure.... It could go tomorrow or in two years. Don't know for sure." Well, I could get hit by a bus in the meantime, and at the moment the thing is working, but when it finally comes time to pull the plug, I don't know what I'm going to do. A new laptop would cost a lot more than the new computer.
Remember all that marking I had to do? Well, I did get it done, I don't know how many weeks late, by which I mean 'in reasonable time'--I actually did get grades in before the absolute last deadline, but since that was Friday last week (I did it on New Year's Eve), that's not saying much. Mostly because by the time I was ready to sit down and do them, I'd done something to my back and was laid up for almost a week. Not a full-blown spasm, but something weird. Felt saccral, so probably lumbar extensor/erector, and it wasn't so much the lingering pain, or the lingering immobility, but just the overwhelming thereness of the soreness that was distracting. That and on the day I was going to take everything home I literally could not lift the stack of papers.
But now I'm a) Acting Head, b) I've survived my first official Heads' Meeting, c) I have a course break, d) I'm within about 24 hours of having a review in only a month late, e) the papers I lost during an e-mail meltdown (did I mention my e-mail meltdown) are trickling in, so my students are becoming increasingly less likely to hunt me down and kill me. Which is a good thing, because as acting head my colleagues are likely to start any minute now.
So we'll see how this week goes. More Thursday.
Remember the $1700 car bill? It turned into a $2300 car bill, what with the discovery of something having to do with some strut or other. They explained it to me, I told them to fix it, and I just filed everything in the 'deny while you can' pile.
Remember the new computer I bought for just over $700, that was supposed to keep me from having to buy a new laptop for a few years? Well, it's great, I love it, I'm not complaining. But now my laptop, apparently feeling old and neglected, has decided to go belly-up. Well, maybe not belly-up, but it wouldn't boot, and it took my tech guy JC most of the day yesterday to figure out what was wrong. I quote: "It had corrupted sectors on the hard drive. This could be a sign of future failure.... It could go tomorrow or in two years. Don't know for sure." Well, I could get hit by a bus in the meantime, and at the moment the thing is working, but when it finally comes time to pull the plug, I don't know what I'm going to do. A new laptop would cost a lot more than the new computer.
Remember all that marking I had to do? Well, I did get it done, I don't know how many weeks late, by which I mean 'in reasonable time'--I actually did get grades in before the absolute last deadline, but since that was Friday last week (I did it on New Year's Eve), that's not saying much. Mostly because by the time I was ready to sit down and do them, I'd done something to my back and was laid up for almost a week. Not a full-blown spasm, but something weird. Felt saccral, so probably lumbar extensor/erector, and it wasn't so much the lingering pain, or the lingering immobility, but just the overwhelming thereness of the soreness that was distracting. That and on the day I was going to take everything home I literally could not lift the stack of papers.
But now I'm a) Acting Head, b) I've survived my first official Heads' Meeting, c) I have a course break, d) I'm within about 24 hours of having a review in only a month late, e) the papers I lost during an e-mail meltdown (did I mention my e-mail meltdown) are trickling in, so my students are becoming increasingly less likely to hunt me down and kill me. Which is a good thing, because as acting head my colleagues are likely to start any minute now.
So we'll see how this week goes. More Thursday.
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