Category — Driving

Here are some of the things my therapist and I are working on:
1. Stop being angry at the drivers who don’t acknowledge you with a thank-you wave when you let them out into traffic.
2. The Blinker thing.
3. Learning to cope with the tailgaters on slippery roads.
4. Understanding why drivers don’t use their headlights during rain storms.
5. Tolerate the endless congestion of traffic and slow drivers on the way home each day.

Car A needed to go in for service. Driver 1 took Car B to work this morning. Driver 2 took Car A to the shop and picked up a loaner, Car C. Driver 1 drove Car B home after work. Cars B and C are in the garage, Car A is still in the shop. Tomorrow, Driver 1 will take Car C to work. During lunch break, Driver 1 will pickup Car A and return Car C.

The American Film Institute is deciding on the top 100 movie quotes of all time. Among the favorites are “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn” and “Houston, we have a problem.” It was fun reading through the list of contenders and remembering all the good quotes over the years.

AFI has also compiled other movie-related lists.

So what’s up with our neighbors? On one side is a couple, that own four cars. For some reason, they park them up and down the street and NEVER in their driveway. Once I watched as the husband stood outside and guided the wife in her car out of the garage, past his car parked in the driveway and into the street. I suspect there was an incident where she ran into a car in the drive and now needs assistance. So he parks all the cars in the street, away from reverse-challenged wife to avoid a collision. Her car is the only one left in the garage and has a clear path to the street.

On the other side are three people with four cars. I counted and there are ten places to park on their property. So why must they leave their ugly van in front of our house blocking the mailbox? What’s the extra car for? Why are they invading our bubble? I’d talk to them about it but the only evidence I see that someone actually lives in the house is the movement of all these cars.

I guess it could be worse - it could be raining.

You may have heard I got a new car a few weeks ago. With some creative financing, an excellent value for a trade-in and a night job, I was able to afford a Chrysler 300C. It’s loaded with fantastic features including automatic headlights, wipers and mirrors. The best part is the V8 Hemi engine.

But its the modifications I made to the car after I got it home that I like to brag about. With hard work, I managed to make this already awesome car into something I will love for years to come.

Here’s a rundown of the added options:

- Adapted the windshield with the same technology as the Joo-Janta 500 Super-Chromatic Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses, they become opaque when the driver gets scared.
- installed a BFG9000 behind the headlights. For when the horn isn’t enough to get someone out of the way.
- obtained a cloaking device provided by the Romulan government under a special amendment to the Treaty of Algeron.
- cobbled together an FSQ Primary Force Field and Deflector Control System to keep idiots from scratching the paint.
- purchased a neurogenic dampening field to disable the morons that don’t use their blinker or generally piss me off. I hear repairs are costly to counteract the field’s effects.
- tailgater’s will be in for a suprise when I activate the oil slick and tire puncturing system behind the license plate. Somehow I don’t think they’ll be able to keep up with me after that.

Congratulations to SpaceShipOne. They won the X Prize.

Question: when you are driving and see construction ahead and a sign that says “speed limit 25,” how fast do you go? That’s right 25 mph. So don’t tailgate me with a digusted look on your face when I obey the freaking law and drive slow. If you’re in such a big hurry, go around me you f—ing idiot.

I got my Gmail account. Now I’ll stop my whining. It’s funny when I got my invitation, it was automatically placed in my Yahoo’s spam folder. Wonder why they are marking these messages as spam? Could it be they don’t like the competition?

The gmail loader will help me transfer messages from other email accounts to Gmail. That’s convenient.

Jeep Liberty designers: why couldn’t you have made the visor extend more when you have it on the side window? It’s totally useless when you switch it over there because it’s too damn short. The sun visor on Pam’s PT slides out to extend all the way and block any sunlight. The GM rental car last weekend had an extension that slide out to block the sun. It’s very annoying not to have that simple feature.

The meaning to Life, the Universe, and Everything is…42. Have you read any of Douglas Adams’ books? Well, you should. They are extremely entertaining.

The Modern World by Tom Tomorrow is a fun blog to read.

So I take Pam’s PT Crusier in on Wednesday for an oil change and to have them check the brakes, they’re squeaking. I arrive right on time, check the car in and wait for the shuttle to work. 45 minutes later, I’m on my way.

Later, I get a call just before its time to catch the return shuttle “Mr. Feeeldstin, you car isn’t quite ready, we didn’t have a part, but it’s on the way.” I get on the 4 o’clock shuttle (it arrives 30 mins late), and go to the dealership and wait, and wait. Finally the tech tells me the part came but its the wrong one. “We’ll get a car for you, the rental car place will send one over momentarily.” I wait again. 30 minutes later they decide to take me to the car rental office. Once there I check in at the desk and then I…wait. Sheeeit! 40 minutes later I’m finally on the road with a smelly, dirty piece of crap car. But I didn’t care, I wanted to get home.

Today I call the dealer asking about my car and I’m told its still not ready. The correct part didn’t arrive but the truck is coming and it should be there. So I’m stuck driving the crapmobile home again. On the way, in a huge traffic jam, the car starts making this extremely loud screeching noise. It was loud enough to have everyone around me look over to see what the hell what happening. It did it again and again all the way home. I don’t know what the sound was, I don’t really care. I’ll leave the cursed car on the side of the road if it breaks down and have Pam come get me.

I’m a mess. First thing tomorrow, I’m calling my therapist to see if they can squeeze me in for an additional session this week.

Everyone knows how it annoys me when people don’t use their turn signals. Another incident happened this morning to me and this time I knew the guy.

As we walk into the building, there is a driveway where cars either turn left into a parking stucture or go straight to the entrance. At the point where they turn left or go straight is a crosswalk. You would think that if people see someone standing in the crosswalk, they would politely use their signal to notify the pedestrians of their intent. Not so with many of the losers who park in this structure. They leave it to the crosswalkers to guess if they are going to step in front of their car and get hit or safely continue across the walk because they are turning left.

Today I recognized one of the idiots turning in WITHOUT A SIGNAL and gave him an evil glare. It was someone I know on my floor. I plan a special “lesson” for him tomorrow.

I will also bet he is one of those people that don’t know the difference between YOUR, YOU ARE and YOU’RE. I hold these people in high contempt as well. When I try to correct them (to avoid their embarassment) they get defensive and proclaim they will now correct any of my grammar and spelling errors. I’m not worried. How will they know what’s incorrect when they can’t even spell themselves? Phpppppp.

From Jeffery: “When I’m driving, if you’re in front of me you’re an idiot and if you’re behind me you’re a loser.”

My “Rules of the Road” essay should be complete very soon. I talk about the things you can do to be a better driver. If you read it and pay attention, driving will be a much nicer experience for you. More importantly it will make ME happy. And that’s good.

Tomorrow our group is going down to the auto show for a preview tour before it opens to the public. I’m looking forward to wandering around looking at the displays before the crowds get there. Then the boss invited us to hang out at The Firehouse across the street from the show. It sounds like a good time. The best part is we get to do this during work hours.