Not A Navigator

     While I have a little bit of a sense of direction -- I usually know which direction is north -- my memory of maps and routes has a tendency to become mirror-imaged, flipping east and west or, less often, north and south.  And once I'm off my mental map, I tend to fret.

     So the ability to get directions from Google Maps, and then smartphones that do the same thing only out loud and on the fly, has been a real help.  Software, however, is only as good as the questions we ask of it, and when I left for my in-factory class on Monday, I slipped up: I told my phone to take me to the destination city, and not the specific hotel where I had reservations.

     I left late, and drove mostly in a clear patch with storm clouds all around, perhaps one of the best ways to travel wide-open agricultural spaces: the sky was spectacular, anvil-shaped thunderheads lit from below, cream-colored against deep blue, ragged purple scarves flowing across turquoise; distant lighting flashing from slate-colored clouds or illuminating them from within, and as sunset approached, a thin spot in the storm allowed a pinkish-orange streak across the western sky.  It was stunning.

     It was also distracting.  The sun set while I was still on the road and my poor night vision combined with intermittent oncoming traffic meant 65 mph was about as fast as I could go without feeling like I was overrunning my headlights.  I still had fifteen miles or more to travel.  A mile away from an exit to a state highway, my phone told me to take it, and reminded me again as I got closer.  "EXIT NOW!"  So I did.  Clever phone, it knows all the shortcuts, right?

     The highway angled off and downhill, in what felt like the right direction.  The city I was headed for is along a large river, with hills and bluffs to the east.  With plenty of curves and a 45 mph limit, the two-lane highway led me through the dark, past a few small businesses, through intersections with a house or store, and up the river valley.  I sensed more than felt an increasing bulk off to my right, and as I rounded a long curve, bright streetlights illuminated what looked like a castle wall with a pair of gates on that side of the highway: the huge entrance and exit of an underground quarry!

     Various industrial areas got thicker on either side and I started to worry.  I was well behind schedule, and this didn't look like hotel territory!  Factories and refineries gave way to warehouses, gas stations and corner stores; my phone directed me to turn among larger and newer buildings.  A couple of blocks more put me in downtown, about the time restaurants were closing.  "YOU HAVE REACHED YOUR DESTINATION," my phone announced.

     The hell I had.  I found a parking spot, fished my phone out of the cup holder and had a look, realizing for the first time that I had told it to take me to the city, not my hotel.  I corrected that and, a mere six and a half miles, ten stoplights and an increasingly protesting bladder later, reached my hotel.

     Check-in was refreshingly brisk, my luggage had somehow become unreasonably heavy along the way, and my room was comfortable, cool and inviting.  Especially the modern plumbing.  While I don't sleep well in hotel rooms -- the beds are too big, too soft and too high -- that night, I claimed every hour of the eight I had earned, entirely zonked out.

Tires

     Car tires have been much on my mind of late.  When I bought my current RX350 in 2019, the tires were well-worn.  It may even have been a bargaining point, "I'm going to have to replace these, you know...."

     Reader, I don't drive that much and while I was paying cash,* I was nowhere near so flush that I was going to be able to replace the tires right away.  I put it off and put it off, and really, were they that bad?  Then the pandemic arrived and I had other things to think about.  Meanwhile, the tires developed a few sidewall bulges.  The left front started a slow leak that required at least weekly topping up, and the rest had slower ones.  It was getting a little skatey on winter streets, but caution and anti-lock brakes cover a multitude of traction sins.  The tires now featured a certain absence of treads at the edges. 

     But I was coping.  Last weekend, I let the car sit for two days and drove to work Monday without a full preflight inspection, thinking the handling was a little mushy.  I walked out at the end of the day to find the right rear very low.  It measured at 5 psi.

     I texted Tam that my trip home might be dicey, babied my car over to my employer's very useful air hose, aired up the tire and listened for signs of leakage.  Nothing.  I checked the pressure at five-minute intervals, and when it was still stable after the third try, headed for home.

     Online, it didn't take a lot of looking to find replacement tires.  Of course, the car is a Lexus, and even at seventeen years old, a lot of the choices are...spendy.  Modern versions of what was already on it (Yokohama all-season something-or-others) were not direly painful, and that set had gone a lot of miles, so I found who had them in stock.  Nobody close, but one wasn't too far away from the North Campus.  I kept watch on the leaky tire, and got new tires a few days ago.

     It took time.  The tire place was busy -- I guess a lot of people had put off getting new tires, or maybe the onset of cooler weather had reminded them that slick roads were coming.  But the work was well-organized, and an hour and a half after I had arrived, a mechanic drove my car out of the bay and turned it towards where I was waiting outside the store lobby.

     The new tires squeaked.

     I laughed out loud and was still grinning when the guy stopped and got out.  He gave me an inquiring look.

     "Those tires squeak," I told him, "just like brand new sneakers!"

     He laughed, too.  "You're right, they sure do."

     I'd put the bill on my credit card, just under a week's net pay with the warranty.  We used to say new shoes squeaked until you paid them off,† but I swear I'll start running the card bill down ASAP.
________________________
* Paying cash, even with a nice insurance settlement -- when my previous Lexus got totalled, the settlement was $90 more than I paid for the car a few years earlier -- there's not a lot left over and I give up luxuries like bacon for a while afterward.
 
† Yes, younger readers, for some of us, once upon a time, good Sunday shoes took time payments to afford.  They'd be bought a little large, so you could "grow into them."  And you had to be careful with them, too, no skipping through mud puddles or like that.

N. B.

     For whatever it is worth, the most likely source of the phrase "roll down the (car's) window" dates back to when automobiles had canvas tops, and flexible isinglass side windows were an option.  Stored rolled up, you would roll them down to keep rainwater from splashing in while retaining some visibility.

     Hardtops and glass side windows came along with cheaper, mass-produced cars, and the crank mechanism to raise and lower side windows wasn't far behind.  You might crank your window down, but the older phrase was already there, and you were turning a thing, after all, so you rolled them down.

     I buy older cars but technology keeps on cranking, and I have been using a switch to "roll" my car windows up or down since my first Lexus small SUV, the same way most people already had for several years.

     Inspired by tab-clearing here and a blog post here.

An Expensive Conference

     If you're an introvert, dealing with other people can still be interesting, but it takes it out of you.  I have to "nerve up" to face an audience, too.  I jittered my way through getting ready yesterday and stumbled out of the house holding a big zip case full of my notes.  On my way though the garage, with that thing partially blocking my view, I hip-checked the driver's side mirror of Tam's Z3.

     It was designed to pivot.  I hit it wrong.  It feels like the internal post is now broken.

     I sent her an embarrassed text from the alley, promising to make it good.

     Went off to the event, missing the parking garage entrance and having to go around the block, getting lost in the underground garage, enduring the elevator ride and -- hooray! -- arriving to a happy, bustling atrium full of authors and organizations, most hawking books.  The organizers had a nice swag bag for participants.  The other panel members were nice and all of them had interesting, useful comments.  Alas, no coffee (curse you, covid!*) but I managed to score a bottle of water.  My notes worked fine and my symptom-suppressing medicines held up.

     Afterward, I wandered the floor a little, realized the cough syrup was wearing off and the crowd was starting to get to me.   Headed back down to the parking lot, I missed getting a picture of the venue occupancy plaque right next to the elevator doors: "Maximum, 650 persons."  The elevator cars are large, but those 650 persons are going to have to be very good friends indeed, not to mention well-greased, and even then, I have my doubts.

     I got lost in parking garage again on my way out.

     By the time I got home, I was punchy.  I stumbled in, took care of necessities, and fell asleep fully clothed under a quilt.  Tam was out but both of her cars were home, which might be why I didn't register that I had locked out the garage door opener on the way in, as I usually do.

     Waking a couple of hours later, I web-searched "1998 BMW Z3 side mirror replacement," and, well, it's a BMW; what did I expect?  The dealer fix is to replace the entire part ($600) and paint to match.  There's an outfit that makes all-new composite innards ($150) but you still have to pop off the door lining and the mirror proper ($80 replacement if it breaks) to install it.  However she decides to go, I'll hire that work done.  Painful, but these writer's conferences usually cost money.

     Slept off and on until Tam got home (and had to come in through the front door and go unlock the garage, which is never nice), commiserated over the damage, napped more, ordered a pizza, ate dinner and watched the first Kolchak: The Night Stalker movie before changing for bed and sleeping the night through.  Kept nodding off during the movie, too.
______________________
* I hate to think of the negative effect of the pandemic on the Craft Services table. 

Or Maybe Today

     My hours, the garage's workload and Tam's long-planned afternoon watching the local minor-league baseball team* in person and with a good camera in hand combined to make it impossible to get my car yesterday.

     Logistics today are proving unusually complicated.  We both have cars at the shop, so either someone walks (fifteen or twenty minutes and with long stretches lacking sidewalks along a busy street) or we take the remaining vehicle (stuck driver's-side window, no AC), pick up one car, take it home and repeat the process with the other car.  It'll be awkward either way and outdoors is already like a sauna.

     But they got my air-conditioning running and if all goes as planned, I'll have my car back today.
_____________________
* Victory Field, where the Indianapolis Indians play, is one of the finest ballparks in the AAA league, so nice that Baltimore has taken to watching their Orioles very, very closely ever since it opened.

Maybe Today

     I might get air-conditioning in my car today.  I haven't had any yet this year.

     It wasn't that much of a problem.  It's a Lexus: it's got a good filter on the outside air intake, the fan blows a lot of air and interior turbulence isn't too bad with the windows down.  Air conditioning didn't used to be standard on cars and most of the cars I have owned didn't have it.*

     But with the recent extreme heat and high humidity, that hasn't been enough.  I was going to take it in a couple of weeks ago, but got busy at work.  This week, though, it had to happen.  The garage we've been using does walk-ins for AC recharges.  I went over yesterday and they were booked up, but promised to look at it today, probably this afternoon.

     So Tam and I will drop off my car this morning and I'll get a ride to work.  If a recharge is all it needs, I may have it back as soon as tomorrow.
________________________
* At least one of the cars that did probably should not have. In the late 1970s, I owned a 1970 Toyota Corona, a tiny four-door sedan with wheelbase, engine and transmission (etc.) based on the MGB, unbeknownst to me at the time.  Toyota changed the engine block to aluminum and tidied up a few things like the quirky carbs and Heath Robinson emission control plumbing, but they're siblings.  It was a nice little car, but a previous owner had installed a Sear aftermarket air conditioner and that was asking a lot of the 1800 cc four-cylinder engine.  You had to practice power management: get the car up to at least 45 mph in fourth gear before you turned the AC on, and shut it off before downshifting.  Otherwise you weren't going to have much fun.  The car had nearly succumbed to body rust and been sneakily fiberglassed before I bought it, and finished rusting while I owned it, but I still miss it.  Handled with care, it was a treat to drive.

Found 'Em

     The drain openings in the sunroof hatch well were obvious.  A little compressed air seemed to help, and some water-bottle testing on both sides resulted in water running out the underside end.

     The passenger side one was a little blocked at  first and cleared up, so I'm hoping that will cure the problem -- that, and making sure the sunroof is closed.  The controls are strange to me, a pair of spring-loaded, three-position, center-neutral "slide" and "tilt" controls that don't seem to have a positive hatch-shut setting: run them to the end and the hatch does tricky tilt-and-lift moves instead of stopping.  Time to read the manual.  Perhaps I'm missing something.  (Note to Lexus: Please don't design airlock controls.)

     Time and again, I've found that questioning my assumptions and checking the verifiable physical evidence and original documentation leads to a solution.  I'm sure there's a wider lesson there, but I'll leave it for readers to work out.

The Doctor And The Needle. Also, Tires.

      The pinky finger of my right hand started giving me trouble over a month ago.  I'd wake up with it curled tightly, and it would pop and catch when I tried to straighten it out.  The bottom knuckle was swollen and painful.  Handwriting got tricky -- yes, I rest the side of my hand on the page, and yes, that's wrong.

      It wasn't getting any better, so I called up the hand specialist I went to twice when my right thumb suffered "trigger finger," a swelling of the tendon that curls it (the ones that operate your fingers and thumbs run in a tube of cartilage, like an organic version of the cables the work the brakes and shifters of a bicycle).  They were making appointments a month out.  I got my place in line and started taking aspirin at regular intervals;  It's a good anti-inflammatory.

      Maybe the aspirin helped.  Maybe just scheduling the appointment did it.  But the "trigger" effect faded and I stopped waking up with a curled finger.  The pain and swelling persisted and got worse.  At times, the bottom joints of my other fingers ached.  I had to modify how I held a pen.  My grip on objects was a little uncertain -- week before last, I accidentally threw a fork that flew straight and true, and impaled a cardboard box.

      The doctor's appointment was yesterday afternoon.  It had been at three, but around two they called me and said, "Just come on in." 

      Got to their door a half-hour later and there was an apologetic sign on it.  With the winter uptick in colds, flu and RSV along with COVID, they were requiring masks again.  Okay; a doctor's office has a lot people passing through and the clientele of a hand specialist trends elderly.  I've had a bagged mask stuck unused in my purse for a couple months now.  But, oops, I used it the other day helping look after my neighbor's cats and ditched it afterward (litterbox dust imparts a lingering aroma.  The mask is still good but unpleasant to re-use).  The intake nurse had plenty of pleated procedure masks and I was happy to accept one.*

      The wait wasn't long and they had me under an X-ray camera right away.  (I thought I was going to be able to share a picture of the bones of my hand, but the image files weren't in my online medical records, last time I checked.)  The doctor came in shortly afterward and went over them.

      "Your hand is in better condition than many people your age.  There are little cysts on the joints at the ends of your fingers, but nothing at the base of that pinky.  Looks like it's all soft tissue.  Do you want a shot, like last time?"

      "Yes, like you did for my thumb."

      "We did this pinky, too."

      I had absolutely no memory of it.  None, even when he told me the date, a little under a year ago.  He prepped for the shot, getting all the supplies, marking my finger and explaining that it was going to be painful.

      With my arm out, hand in place on the exam table and my pinky sprayed with freeze mist, my wrist was exposed, revealing evidence Holden's habit of biting at my mouse-hand wrist if he's on the desk and I'm not giving him as much attention as he thinks he deserves.

      The doctor gestured towards my wrist.  "New kitty?"  He had the hypo ready and I looked away.

      "No, just a very enthusiastic one--"  I felt the needle go in, not too bad.  Then pressure began to increase in the first joint of my already swollen pinky.  "--Wow. He's a good cat," the pressure changed to a sensation of having a red-hot needle jammed into the sore joint and got worse.  Much worse. "Holy cow, damn!  Sorry.  Oh, gosh that hurts."

     I'm pretty sure I know why I can't remember the last time they treated my pinky.  For a few seconds, it was the second-worst pain I have felt.  First worst was when I was trying to move after I broke my thighbone and knee.  There are a lot of nerves in our fingers.  A whole lot.

     My finger's still a little sore this morning, but the swelling is way down and the joint isn't anywhere near as tender as it has been.

     Driving there and back, I had my car up to highway speeds.  There's a wobble in the front.  Not very much, but noticeable.  I already knew at least one of the front tires has a bad sidewall.  I need to replace them, sooner rather than later.  I had hoped to go to a hamfest about 45 minutes away today, but I'd just as soon not risk it. 
_________________________
* In some situations, masks aren't going away any time soon.  They work; cold and flu transmission dropped throughout the pandemic.  Doctors are singularly uninclined to have their offices become a source of illness, so it's likely we're all going be masking up at the doctor's office for the foreseeable future.

On Neighborliness

      We do share the barrel with other monkeys, and nowhere more than in traffic.  The daily drive is often seen through a lens of "Nature, red in tooth and claw."  This is largely nonsensical fantasy, despite that guy who just cut in front of you with inches to spare.  (Hey!  Where'd you learn to drive, jerk?)

      One of the main roads I take to and from work has been repaved over the last several (and more!) months, necessitating frequent and annoying detours.  The paving is finally done (and what a lovely, smooth surface it is!) but the lane markings are no more than widely-spaced blobs of tape and sketchy chalklines showing where new stripes and stencils will be applied.  If you drive it often, you know where you need to be, but drivers who are unfamiliar with the road often struggle at the larger intersections.

      My car is in the shop with a flaky alternator (and that won't be cheap).*  The dealer's got me in a 2021 version of the 2007 Lexus RX350 I usually drive.  It's as plush and pretty as you might expect, and I'd like to hand it back in the same shape as they loaned it to me.  So when I pulled up in the middle lane at a particularly opaque intersection next to a car in the ostensible left-turn lane with no signals, I worried.

      The driver of the other car, a women who looked to be about my age, had her gaze fixed across the intersection, where are small jog lines up the straight-ahead lanes in each direction while allowing for dedicated right- and left-turn lanes in the oncoming side.  She looked over at me and I gestured to ask if she was going to turn left.  She pointed straight ahead and rolled down her window.  "I'm going straight.  Am I in the wrong lane?  It's so hard to tell!"

      I smiled.  "The markings aren't very clear.  You go ahead when the light changes, and I'll fall in behind."  Last week, headed the other way at the same intersection, I'd followed a frantic scramble as two drivers crossed side-by-side and jockeyed to enter the single lane going their direction.  It wasn't anything I cared to copy, especially in a loaner vehicle.

     She smiled back, nodded, and pulled ahead as the light changed.  All very smooth, no surprises or fights to get across first.  Who needs extra stress?
_______________________
* They've also reported the tires have started dry-rotting, the usual failure mode for tires on my vehicles other than bicycles.  But I'll shop around for a new set, thank you very much.  There's also at least one "keep an eye on it" that might cost as much as I paid for the car, one of those cute little design issues that requires pulling the engine to change out a hundred-dollar part.  Makes me miss Checker automobiles, I'll tell ya.

The Return Of The Car

      The dealer had my car ready Thursday late, but I was stuck at work.  The loaner they had me in, a recent-vintage RX350, was a combination jet fighter/cocktail lounge, with comfy leather seats, wood trim, fancy electronics that included keyless start, an active map, a big backup camera display, and an overhead view in reverse, simulated from four cameras, a stored top view of the car and some clever electronics.  I had to look twice to convince myself the car hadn't deployed a drone or a camera boom the first time I put the car in reverse and it popped up.  Handing it back Friday was a step back in time.

      My car is simpler, but it came back clean, nice, running smooth, shifting correctly and braking better than ever.  A flock of birds promptly crapped all over it, parked at the North campus.  But it still runs nicely.

Just A Placeholder

      Lots to do before noon, possibly a report later.  The main problem with my car was small, a wonky ignition coil, a few hundred bucks...but I knew going in that the brakes were very worn.  And I was not surprised to learn the all-wheel drive needs attention, and....

      Let's just say it looks like I won't be replacing the dishwasher for some time.  Or the range.

And Away It Went

      The tow truck this morning had a clever setup for moving all-wheel-drive cars, a little four-wheeled trailer that slides in under the front wheels and lifts them clear, at which point it's like any other tow since the modern tow truck was invented.

      Though my car is not scheduled for service until tomorrow, the dealer expected today's arrival.  The intake/customer liaison guy was on it about as soon as it showed up, too.  He called me with a list of the planned routine service work, confirmed the symptoms and wanted to know if I would like them to investigate the questionable tire-pressure sensors as well.*  (I put that off.  They are a royal pain to get at and are "repaired" by replacing them at a cost that if calculated per ounce comes close to the price of caviar -- and they're not all that light for their size.  So you pay for mechanic time and trouble plus the sensor price, and the total will buy a a whole lot of very nice tire-pressure gauges.)  He asked if I wanted a loaner today, which was tempting, except Tam is already out working and the rental car is a done deal through noon tomorrow.

      Yesterday I wrote that many shops don't much want to mess with a Lexus.  It's not just the cars -- some, maybe more than a few, Lexus owners are a bit, well, "Karen-ish" and it's clear the dealer copes with that by averting complaints before they occur.  Not the cheapest place to get my car worked on, but it does come with some extras.
______________________________
* It's a pretty slick system, which I first noticed when I had to get the keys replaced: along with soothing customers, the liaison essentially triages incoming service work and assigns it to mechanics on the basis of skill and current workload, rather than leaving the skilled-wrench folks to sort that out among themselves.

Car Trouble

      It started last Wednesday.  I was sitting in my car at a stoplight, in one of two left-turn lanes where two major streets intersect, traffic zooming by on my right and someone with a pretty powerful car stereo thumping on my left.

      I had the local NPR station (the hub of a massive multi-station operation that covers much of the state) droning away; it's one of the few stations that still has top-of-the-hour newscasts.  I usually alternate between them and the Jazz/Classical station from the University of Indianapolis.  Suddenly, there was another visceral "thump," off the rhythm of whatever was playing in the car next to me. Odd.

      The light changed and I started my turn.  My car -- a Lexus RX350, a fourteen-year-old mini RV in decent shape -- was running rough, almost hesitating.  As I finished the turn and accelerated, I looked down at the dash instruments and there were new idiot lights lit up, "VSC" and a flashing "CHECK ENGINE" symbol.  Uh-oh.

      Work was about a mile and a half away, so I drove carefully the rest of the way there. parked and texted Tam.

     She replied in a few minutes: THE INTERNET SAYS IT'S PROBABLY A LOOSE GAS CAP.  CHECK IT.

      There's a relief!  I checked it, loosened and retightened it, and started the car.  No lights.  Whew!

      Then they came back on.  Uh-oh, again.

      Long story short, I drove home that evening with trepidation, found no good news online, and spent Monday morning finding a shop that would look at my car before the end of the week.  A lot of places don't like fiddling with Lexuses (Lexi?  Lexopodes?); the vehicles are like Toyotas except where they're not, and they're not in many ways and parts that are apparently irritating.  Tam likes an import specialists up by Castleton and I have been happy with their work -- but so are a lot of other people; they were booked up.  There's a well-regarded boat and high-end car mechanic not too far from us, the kind of place that thinks of a Lexus the way most shops think of a Chevy, but they were booked up, too.  That left the dealer, and yes, they could get the car in in a couple of days and provide a loaner for the duration.  Well, it's overdue for some depot-level looking-after anyway, so I scheduled that--

      In the scheduling, they run through the signs and symptoms. 
      Dealer:  "A what light?"
      Bobbi: "It says VSC, Victor Sierra Charlie.  And a 'Check Engine' light."
      Dealer: "And you made sure the gas cap was on tight.  H'mm, I need to check something."  Click.
      (A minute later) Dealer: "Is it flashing?  The Check Engine light, I mean."
      B: "Yes."
      D: "Do not drive the car."

      Yes, they wanted me to have it towed. 

      After more calls, I have a wrecker scheduled, a rental car for a couple of days, and a service appointment.

      The replacement dishwasher and kitchen range just got a few more months away.

      The good news: The rental is nice!  Some kind of little VW small-SUV, which turned out to have a third row of seats (small size) hiding when I moved over my bug-out bag and suchlike to the space inside the rear hatch.  The steering ratio is higher than I'm used to and the cockpit is seriously high-tech, but it has that VW characteristic of being pleasant to operate without any serious quirks.

      Next up, meeting the tow truck tomorrow.

We've Been Here Before

      At the recent Indianapolis Hamfest, I picked up a copy of Alice Clink Schumacher's biography of Hiram Percy Maxim.  While he's mostly remembered as one of the most prominent early amateur radio enthusiasts and a founder of the American Radio Relay League and the International Amateur Radio Union, and to firearms enthusiasts as the inventor of the silencer, his professional career began in the early automobile industry.  The gun silencer came about as a result of his successful efforts to quiet the internal combustion engine.

      Maxim's earliest work pre-dates the "brass lamp" era and continued well past it.  The first commercial motorized road vehicles were used by industry -- and by the very wealthy.  The early auto companies were often set up by businessmen who had already made a lot of money in other fields.  Passenger cars were very much a toy for the rich in their first decade or more.  Heavier vehicles were bought by industry and governments.  Nobody else could afford one.

      Barring any last-minute changes, Blue Origin, the spaceflight company set up by Jeff Bezos, will have their first crewed launch tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. EDT.  Passenger spacecraft are very much a toy for the rich; larger, more capable vehicles are sold (or their services leased) to governments and industry.

      I wonder, when William Kissam Vanderbilt II (with help from a few of his wealthy and powerful friends) built the exclusive, private Long Island Motor Parkway in 1908, did critics gripe that he and his rich friends were going to use their motorcars to flee the city on that limited-access ribbon of smooth concrete and leave the poor trapped in urban squalor?  Of course, it didn't work out that way; in 1938, LIMP was handed over to the city, an out-dated white elephant that had never made a cent, while Robert Moses snaked modern multilane public highways through Greater New York.  By then, a poor man in a beat-up Ford flivver enjoyed speed and freedom Vanderbilt had only dreamt of.

      Space travel has yet to produce a Henry Ford (or even an Elwood P. Haynes).  Maybe we'll get Frank J. Sprague or George Pullman instead.  What we're not going to get is plutocrats ruling from orbit.  Like their predecessors at the controls or in the passenger seat of a 19th-Century automobile, the crazy rich (and their employees) will serve as self-funded beta testers until the new wears off and the risks shrink.

      Then it'll be our turn.

Got Some Junk Hauled Away Today

     It wasn't much, but it was in the way.  The first place I called quoted a price that I could live with, and said they could schedule the pickup Thursday.

     The second place just had a recording, asked for my number and brief description, and promised to call back automatically.  Never did.

     The third place was 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, an outfit with a slick, amusing TV commercial (not always a positive, in my opinion).  Their number answered with a slightly distorted jingle followed by a brief spiel from the founder, and I thought, "Oh, boy, here we go."  But it handed me over to a call-center operator who took the particulars in a businesslike manner, promptly gave me a quote about seventy-five percent of the first junk-remover's price, and then said, "But let me put you on hold and check with our local guys.  Since this is small and already at the curb, we can probably give you a better deal."

     I was happy to hold.  Before very long, the operator came back and said, "If you will be home between four and six this afternoon, we can do the job for fifty dollars."  Less than half of the first quote!

     It was 3:30 p.m.  I assured her I would most certainly be home, she confirmed my address and we said goodbye.

     The big, brightly-painted truck stopped by around 5:00 p.m. and with no fuss and bother, picked up the junk and we did an arms-length credit-card transaction for payment.

     Easiest professional trash removal I ever had, and the least expensive one this century.  They will be my first call next time.

I Live In A City Of Easily-Confused Drivers

     The city's "Red Line" bus project, which installed a dedicated bus lane and station-like bus stops from downtown to Broad Ripple, has caused a lot of traffic rearrangement.  I've tried to bear with it; I'm not a fan, but we're getting streets repaved and left-turn lights at intersections from this, so it's not without direct benefit.

     Downtown, the Red Line used up a bike lane on a one-way street.  The city had a solution: widen the bike lane on the next street over, already one-way in the other direction, and make the bike lane a two-way path with dedicated signals, leaving car traffic one-way.

     Drivers are finding this confusing.  The bicycle signals have a silhouette of a bike on the light, but apparently that's not enough.

     It's not ideal -- but downtown traffic has never been ideal; this is just a new way for it to be a compromise.

My Car Goes Back To The Shop

     If things go as planned, my car will be fixed in the next few days and it'll be back to air-conditioned bliss.

     The most recent loaner was a cute little Volvo wagon, a bit worse for the wear but still pretty luxy. I'm finding that the tall, SUV-esque Lexus has spoiled me in an unexpected way: it's a lot easier to get in and out of than conventional vehicles.  It's not an obvious benefit but it is indeed a plus.

Freeway Parking Lot

     Despite continuing improvements -- most of which really are improvements, too -- the interstate highway system around and through Indianapolis routinely grinds to a near-halt at rush hour.  My work hours and usual worksite offer a nice view of the evening rush hour on the "inner loop" (not an actual loop, for various reasons) and it's pretty awful.

     Oh, other cities have it worse, and down at stoplight level, if you know your way around, rush hour's not so bad.  But make no mistake: at peak times, highway traffic regularly slows to a crawl.

     When I took Friday afternoon off to go to the Indianapolis Hamfest and Tam wanted to go along, I asked her to be the exit timekeeper: "We need to be headed towards the gate by four."

     She kept close track; after a break while she took pictures of a classic TransAm in the parking area, we were in my saunamobile and headed for the gate about a quarter after four, and navigating our way around I-465 minutes later.

     Tam was minding the exits; that stretch of 465 grows to five or six lanes across, which are then peeled off in a series of "Exit Only" lanes, one after another, and being in the wrong one at peak times can be a problem.

     Traffic was moving along briskly -- 70 mph or more in the middle lanes, and yes, it's all posted at 45 to 55.  I had swung out to get around a truck in the thickening traffic when she told me to start getting over.  Moved over one lane, two--  The traffic ahead suddenly erupted in brake lights and in seconds, we were at 35 miles an hour or less.

     There were occasional gaps and I kept on working my over to the next-to-rightmost lane as exits went by.  Tam had been a little quiet, thinking about something, and then she spoke,

     "From 70 to Castleton, it'll be down to one lane all weekend.  There's some big project."

     "You don't think they got an early start?  Surely not."

     "Maybe."

     The traffic was getting grim, packing tighter and slowing.  A few impatient souls were slipping across lanes from  gap to gap with NASCAR levels of clearance, which wasn't helping.  I concentrated on getting through it.  Our exit is a long, two lane "collector" that combines two off-ramps and an on-ramp, with a four-lane weaving section in the middle of the run.  I was in the innermost of the two right lanes, so we should be okay, right?

     Wrong.

     Tam: "Bobbi!  We're missing our exit!"

     I had forgotten: only one lane peels off, splitting into two immediately.  Luckily, three cars to our right had taken the farthest-right lane as soon as possible, leaving a good-sized opening.  I checked the mirrors, glanced to my right, and hit the gas, making the exit at the last possible second, trespassing only a little over the white line.

     Freeway driving!  You can have it.

The Annoyances Of Car Ownership

     Having to get one's car worked on is one of the most annoying things about owning them.  Even having resigned oneself to the inevitable surprise -- "They used a special veeblefletzer in this model, and they're hard to get.  So the part alone is $500 instead of the usual $50, and where it's mounted, well, we'll have to pull the engine...."

     Okay, fine.  The bill will be high.  It will be high everywhere, and about the same, since they're generally ordering from the same wholesaler and calculating labor from the same how-long-should-it-take reference (and hoping to beat the actual times listed, getting more work done in eight hours than the mythical average mechanic).  One grants these things.

     One of the best compensations for them is getting a loaner vehicle.  I take in a defective car, and drive one that works while mine gets fixed, heck of a deal.

     --Until the shop reneges.  My car's in the shop now; the air-conditioning hasn't worked this year and after six weeks of highs in the upper eighties to low nineties, I can no longer ignore it.  They called me yesterday afternoon:

     "Miz Ecks?"

     "Speaking."

     "Hey, your air-conditioning compressor is locked up bad.  It killed the engine when we tried it!*  It'll have to be replaced, and we'd better do the belt.  It dumped all your refrigerant.  It's gonna be $XXXX.XX to fix."

     The number was in the low four digits.  Painful but worth it.  "Okay."

     "You asked us to look at the water pump, and it isn't any worse than last time.  That's still $XXX.XX.  But the timing chain cover?  There's a little drip there, it's not much but you'll want to keep an eye on it.  That's $XXXX.XX if we replace it, 'cos we do have have to pull the engine...."

     The price quoted for that last was a little over half what I paid for the car.  "Look, let's just do the oil change and get the AC working, okay?"

     "Okay.  We'll have to order parts for the air conditioning, be three, four days.  How soon can you get that loaner back to us?"

     Utter confusion on my part.  "You want it back?"

     "Yeah, we're open 'til five-thirty, could you get it up here?  I have it assigned to somebody else tomorrow."

     "I'm downtown and I'm on until at least six-thirty."  It's over a dozen miles from my work to the garage, on one of the most crowded commuter routes in the metro.

     "Oh, we can leave your car out for you."
 
     "I only have the one key."

     "Oh, we leave 'em out like that all the time."

     "Not my car, you don't.  I'll get the loaner back to you in the morning."

     Deep unhappiness from the mechanic.  Yeah, well, sucks to be him.  Sucks worse to get back into my saunamobile for three or four more days -- make that six, with the weekend.

     Annoying.
__________________________________
* It was enough for me to turn it on and hear the engine falter; letting it kill the engine seemed like a step too far.  Clearly, I lack the investigative finesse of a trained mechanic.  Also, I know who burned the belt they're telling me needs replaced, and it wasn't me.  Worth the extra $45 to not bust my own knuckles but blow me no smoke, pal.

Targeted Failvertising

     An envelope from the local Hyundai dealer showed up the other day, personally addressed to me rather than "occupant," as is so often the case.

     That was mildly interesting, so I set it to one side.  I bought my present Lexus RX-mobile* from their used-car lot, with exactly one key for it; maybe they found the others?

     This morning, I had a look at the contents.  Outside, my full name and address.  Inside, a coupon for $25 of service and a computer-generated letter in a variation on Comic Sans:

     "William,

          [...] If I offered you the right amount for your 2004 Ford Taurus, would you trade vehicles with me or at least let me buy your Taurus?  I'm asking because I need quality pre-owned vehicles just like yours [...]."

     It goes on in that vein for most of a page.


     This is amusing on a number of levels -- it's very likely that "William" and I were not uniquely subject to having our letters switched, but that hundreds of previous customers received the wrong letter.  And far from being a "quality pre-owned vehicle," I got a pretty good deal on my car -- and no warranty -- because it had become something of a "hangar queen" at the dealers as they corrected years of deferred maintenance, a new surprise on every test drive.  I'm pretty sure they don't want it back; just replacing the tire-pressure sensors would wipe out a third of the profit if they did very well on the resale.

     A for effort, D for execution.  I named the brand because I was satisfied with the series of used Hyundai Accents I drove before the Lexus; they were a good value for money, better built and sturdier than I would have expected for an entry-level car.  My friend The Data Viking has been buying new, high-end Hyundais (Hyundae?) for about a decade and he's happy with them, too.

     But the local dealer needs to hire more diligent envelope-stuffers.  Or was it all a cunning plan to get my attention?  It did that, but I'm not in the least interested in trading my present car.  I buy cars well used and run them until they start to fall apart or someone hits them.
___________________________
* Literally; it's a Lexus RX330 semi-demi-sport-ute/vanette with a good many years on it.  I like it; I liked the RX300 I had before it and as long as Lexus keeps making variations on this model -- they're up to RX350, last time I looked -- I'll keep buying very used ones when I need a newer car.