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This week has just flown by... I think it took about a day and a half, maybe a day and three quarters tops... And I've not had a single entry posted since Monday... I've just plain been busy... Off to the office on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday. Yesterday I worked from home... and was busy enough all day that I never did post an entry. I took half a day off this morning. Jennifer had trouble starting her car yesterday and this morning it was totally dead. I tried it and it wouldn't even give a hint of turning over. She had assured me that she hadn't left her lights on or anything so I figured it was probably something like a solenoid or the alternator or the starter... Memory of being in Montreal, January of 1974, had been there to see Bob Dylan, bitterly cold weekend... so on Sunday I go out to my car, which has been parked for two days in temperatures that reached thirdy degrees below zero at night and never got as high as zero (Farenheit) during the day... and I turn the key and just hear "click" -- not even a hint of attempting to turn over... no problem, I'll just roll down this hill and pop the clutch... except the streets are snowy and icy and the wheels just lock and slide... eventually call a garage and they send a truck... the driver clamps jumper cables to my battery... still won't start. He hooks my car up to his towtruck and says Eh, perhaps, monsieur, it is your 'ou do you say, ze startaire? But, after spending the night inside the service station's garage my car was quite willing to start so it only cost me for the tow. Which was good because the tow took almost all of my cash and it turned out that the sevice station did not accept the brand of credit card that I carried.But when AAA came the driver just slapped on the jumper cables and it started right up. I've got jumper cables; I'd just assumed that the problem was not in the battery. Duh! Yeah, okay, like I always say: I do software, not hardware. So I had her let the car run for a half hour or so, then turn it off and try to restart it. Nope. It won't start. The alternator light had not been on so the problem would seem to be with the battery itself; thus, get a new battery and the problem is solved. Cars can be a real pain sometimes. Got together after work with friends at Coddington Brew Pub (for a long time I had assumed that it was owned by some guy named Coddington but eventually I learned that it was on a road called Coddington Highway, named after one of the original settlers of Newport, Rhode Island.) This was a chance to get together with a couple guys who used to work with me but who had both gone off to work for different companies. It was probably not a good night for diets -- beer (an Irish stout) and an assortment of bar type food: onion rings, chicken fingers, and a nacho platter heaped with tortilla chips covered with cheese and chilli peppers and all kinds of stuff -- fortunately I had had a very light lunch and, now that I'm home, I've just had a nectarine to handle any slight remaining hunger. And, actually, I could consider going to bed early (it's approaching 9:30 pm now) and going for a nice long run tomorrow. --- ah, I hear the garage door opening now, Nancy's home (she was at her mother's) -- Brief pause while we go for a walk around the neighborhood, so nice to have stars overhead after cloudy and rainy skies most of the week -- Okay, I'm back. And now it's a bit past ten... time to go read in bed, trying to stay awake until Sean calls for a ride home (which won't be until somewhere between midnight and one a.m. The Narragansett Blessing of the Fleet 10 Mile Road Race was held today (6pm start) -- I'm glad I didn't enter, that was the smart choice, I probably would have made it successfully (gasping and panting) to the finish line but it would have been painful, and there's always a chance of injury when you go too far beyond your normal run... but I do miss running it... next year for sure! I'll have to be sure to get in at least five miles tomorrow. |
