Dumb Things I’ve Done

And His Money Are Soon Parted

I really need to quit Instagram. I used to enjoy it, but it, like Facebook, has become just a way to sell you stuff. A lot of times it is stuff you really don’t need but looks so cool that it is hard (for me at least) to not want to buy this stuff.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love The Flight Wall and don’t regret that at all. I’ve also bought a couple of alt-ballcaps that are being worn almost daily. But the “giant” garden octopus, which looked great in the marketing photos, really didn’t live up to the hype of the photos. I think the last straw is my purchase of small peeking cat stickers and I don’t have a cat.

Red Sox chances of making the Wild Card round in the 2026 playoffs: 12.4%

 

I’ve Been Finkled

One of the ladies that I usually chat with at the CCC 1 invited me out to dinner with her, and we went out for Mongolian BBQ a couple weeks ago. She treated me to dinner, so I told her next time it would be my treat.

She has a favorite hangout called Finkels that is a bar that has karaoke, she likes to go there and sing. I, on the other hand, like to listen. That is where we went tonight. I drove the last time, so this time she did the driving. I ordered a burger and a beer to have as my dinner, and she opted for an app because she had already had dinner. Because she was driving, Trish only had the one beer. I ordered a second one.

Remember about a month ago when I went out with my neighbor and danced in spite of my usual reluctance because I had 2.5 beers? Well, tonight I found out that after a couple of pints of beer I almost might have tried karaoke. Almost. Maybe 2.5 beers would have been enough; who knows. I did have a good time, so maybe we’ll go again in a couple weeks.

Red Sox chances of making the Wild Card round in the 2026 playoffs: 34.3%

 

Bump In The Night

For whatever reason I like to back the cars up onto the carport/portico. And this is a stupid idea. Truth be told, my brain cannot comprehend going backwards; this means I do a lot of steering corrections trying to keep it between the posts. Side note, two of the 3 posts are inline; the third, not so much. That fateful night, I misjudged it badly; hence, below are photos of a post and a GTI.


I’m going to get it fixed; the wrap is too new not to, but they are working over a month out. So I have an appointment to get it fixed on February 12th. They’ll rewrap the entire rear bumper because it sustained the most scrapes and scratches; there will be one inch or two of a patch at the top because otherwise they would have to rewrap most of the body.

That Was Unexpected

When I brought the GTI home back on October 11th, I realized it didn’t come with an owner’s manual. The first thing I did was find a PDF of the manual online, and then I headed over to eBay to buy a physical copy of the manual.

Today while running errands I went to put something in the glove box, and it wouldn’t close. There was a kind of shelf at the top of the inside of the box; I took a closer look, and there was something on the shelf. I reached and got ahold of something thick that was bound in leather.

You guessed it, the original owner’s manual…

Typical male behavior: if it isn’t visible front and center, it doesn’t exist.

Bugging Out Early

The original plan for this trip had me flying out of ABQ and getting home on the evening of December 9th. Since I opted to drive instead of fly during the shutdown, I thought I would start back on Monday the 8th. I’ve broken it up into four 300-mile days so I’d get back on Thursday because I have a doctor’s appointment on Friday the 12th.

So today I started making reservations at the three stops. The first night is going to be in Montecello, UT, so I plugged it into Google Maps to look for hotels. It is a smallish town, so there are no big chain places, but I found one that has a good rating, so I booked it. Trouble is I put the wrong date in, so instead of putting Monday’s date in, I put in tomorrow’s. I only noticed the error as I was starting to look at places on stop number two. It was too late to cancel because that first reservation was not refundable.

Ooops.

Neue Scheibenwischerblätter

Yesterday I bought some new windshield wipers for the GTI. I checked for the sizes needed, and while we were at Walmart to pick up the Cerakote Headlight Renewal Kit for Sally’s 2002 RAV4, I grabbed the ones I needed for the VW. What I should have done first was see what kind of connection to the arms it was, but I didn’t, and when we got back and went to put the new ones on, the connection from blade to arm was something I’d never seen before.

This morning we took another trip to Walmart to return the wrong ones and stopped on the way back home at the local VW place to snag the right ones. While I was there, I also had them sell me a rear window wiper blade as well. The total for the three OEM blades at the dealer was just right around three times the cost of the $35 that they cost at Wally World.

RATFI

– C is for Dummy –

Yesterday morning I woke up all body-achy and still tired. So, I grabbed the one remaining test kit I still had from my last bout with COVID. Sure enough, it came back with a bright red line next to the C. I took a big ol’ nap and just chilled for the afternoon. After a quick dinner I popped a cannabis gummy, and when it kicked in, I went to bed.

This morning when I woke up I felt fine. So, on my usual Friday morning grocery shopping trip, I picked up a couple of home test kits. I took one, and while I waited the 15 minutes for the results, I read the instructions. The procedure is same old, same old. But when I looked at the result reading images, I discovered that C does not mean you have COVID; that is the control line so you know the test is viable. If I had COVID, it would have also had a red line after S. Why S?

I don’t still have yesterday’s test instructions, so I can’t say for sure, but yesterday’s results were correct as well: a single red line alongside the C, and nothing next to anything else, meant no COVID.

Read All The F**king Instructions