WTF

Six Weeks Old

I’ve said it here before and I’ll say it again, if Donna’s sister didn’t live in Florida we wouldn’t come here. I would be willing to admit that that attitude does play a role in our dislike of visiting the state. We have visited many beautiful spots and enjoyed the state, but we have seen pretty much all of that we want to. Here is a little scenario from yesterday morning’s drive down that illustrates why we would rather avoid the the state.

We stopped for gas at the usual kind of exit off I-95 (see previous post) and while I was topping the tank Donna went inside to get a hot chocolate and a People magazine to read while it was my turn to drive. She came back out with the magazine, but no drink. The place had a nice machine for various kinds of hot chocolate, but all that came out into the cup was a stream of light tan, to mostly clear in color, steaming water. She showed it to the person behind the counter and told him that she wasn’t paying for that and someone should fix that machine. She did get her People magazine.

She came out of the store while I was still pumping gas. I wanted to wash the dead bugs off the windshield too, but had to wait to do it after filling the tank because I had to stand there and hold the handle to keep the gas flowing, the auto shutoff lever was busted. With still a while to go before we would be ready to roll, I suggested that she go next door to McDonalds and get the hot chocolate as they have that McCafe thing that serves all those starbucks-like drinks and would have what it.

Just as I was finishing cleaning the window, up walked Donna without a hot chocolate. When she had got to the counter and the associate asked what she wanted, she told him and he was dumbfounded. He turned to another personn behind the counter, “Do we make Hot Chocolate?” She looked back at him like he was speaking French. Donna decided that even if they could find someone back there who knew that they did in fact have hot chocolate on the menu, the chances of anyone actually knowing how to make it were pretty slim, so turned around and left.

With us both in the car, the tank topped and the windshield transparent, I started to drive out of the gas station lot for the 1/2 mile, 10 minute trip back to I-95. It was then she noticed the date on her new People magazine, July 14, 2014, or about 6 weeks ago!

New To Math Too

Friday night Donna and I ran the route for the MMC’s Bug Splat Rally that we were spearheading on Saturday night. The drive would start after dinner at Apizza di Napoli in Aiken and end up at a Sonic in North Augusta after 34 miles of zigging around. Most of the roads we were taking people on were familiar to us, but 2 of the dozen or so on the route, we had never been on before. We wanted to be sure there wasn’t any construction or surprises for us to stumble upon while leading a group of Miatas. Plus, we needed to make sure we’d recognize the turns onto the ones we had never driven on before.

When we finished our dry run up at the Sonic we thought maybe we would sample a bit of ice cream. You know, just to be sure the quality hadn’t suffered any since last year. Rather than sit in the car when at Sonic, we usually sit at the table and chairs out front where it is better for people watching. Both ordering stands had a group in front of them and after listening to both sets try and figure who wanted what for a while, our lack of patience for this sort of ineptitude from small family units presented with so many choices at dining establishments that they are overwhelmed, took hold and we left.

There was a Bruster’s Ice Cream stand just up the road, so we thought we’d give them a shot at our frozen dessert business. We got lucky there as the family grouping was already sitting about with their ice cream in their hands. Donna ordered a small chocolate in a cup and I ordered a small Almond Chocolate Coconut in a cup. Our young server ducked to the left, rang us up on the cash register and reported back with the total, “That’ll be six dollars and twenty-four cents.” I didn’t have enough ones to make it to six, so I handed her a ten dollar bill and said, “Wait, I’ve got some change.” I added a quarter to her hand.

I could see this young woman through the window as she struggled to make the change. She picked up some bills. She put some back. She picked up some coins. She put some back. Donna looked at me and asked, “What’s taking so long.” “She’s making change,” I replied with a lopsided grin on my face. She gave a look that I knew was going to lead to more anxiety for our hapless ice cream server, so I held up my hand to hold her back for a while. Server came back to the window with 3 one dollar bills, two quarters and a penny. Both of as said, “That’s not right,” at about the same time. She called someone over to help her out. After a minute or so she came to the window and handed me four ones and a penny. “Sorry,” she said, “I’m new here.”

New to math too, I thought, but didn’t say.

Where The Heck Are We?

When we got in the rental car to drive from SeaTac to Granite Falls we plugged in our GPS, and while we waited for it to realize we were on the other side of the continent, we used the old style analog version of in-car navigation, a paper map. We started out heading north on I-5, but got on I-405 hoping for lighter traffic. I don’t know if this was the absolute wrong choice, because we never found out if the regular I-5 came to a grinding halt after a couple miles like the 405 did, but it was definitely a wrong choice.

As traffic slowed Donna called out to get off the next exit, using the map she could see where we could head east and slightly south on WA-169. From there we could take various state roads heading north paralleling I-405 about 5-10 miles to the east of it. This worked pretty well until we got to Monroe where the road heading north towards Granite Falls was just a black line with no number attached. Here we would need the GPS’s help.

And here is where it failed us. While traveling state roads it was fine, but as soon as we got on a county level road all that was displayed was the car icon on a field of green with a somewhat helpful directional heading.
We knew our destination was north of us, so whenever we came to an intersection we would take the road that would be going north or northeast or minimally one that would head northwest. After 6 or 8 turns we could see a state road on the GPS’s upper horizon with a dot and the words Granite Falls, so we knew we were making progress. After another half dozen seemingly random turns we drove into town on the very street that Donna’s family live on.

Before we left to go Washington I had updated the maps on the Garmin Nuvi in preparation, so what could be wrong. So on Sunday there during a bit of down time I tried to figure out why the GPS was telling us we weren’t driving on a road. I could see city level streets in South Carolina and Texas, but not in Washington or Neveda. After some head scratching, internet searching and reloading of the maps I figured out the problem. Not enough onboard memory in the GPS to store the entire country.

Why during the initial loading, or the subsequent reloading, didn’t the GPS tell me that the entire City Navigator North America NT 2015.1 wouldn’t fit in the internal memory and wasn’t installed?

Started up,went down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1389

Fun With Reply All

This morning the woman who has held the job since the begining here at the Valve Store(TM), from back when it was called the Plant Manager’s Secretary, sent out a little email missive to the plant’s distribution list:

It’s been great working with all of you. This is my last week here at ASCO. My last day will be Friday, March 28. My replacements name is Hannah B. Please make her feel welcomed.

You can now send Hannah everything that you have been sending to me. She will also be booking the conference rooms.

I’m going to miss all of you!!

Kathy D
Operations Administrative Assistant

Not long after, the typical well wisher hit the reply all button:

Kathy, we will miss you as well, thank you for all the support you have given me over the years

Larry

Then we got this one:

Good morning everyone! I found a pack of gum on my way out this morning. If you lost it I have it. Thx skh

Next came one from someone who was going to miss her very, very much, but didn’t know how to spell her name.

Cathy I will miss you so much
Doris b stockroom

Then the writer of the pack of gum email tries to recall it (which never, ever works.) I can’t tell whether that person thought they were replying to a different email, batcrap crazy or brilliant, because if they were offering themselves up as an example of the foibles of hitting Reply All, it worked, as no further emails came to the distribution list.

Weather Takes A Holiday

Image1

When we checked the 10 day weather this afternoon our eyes were immediately drawn to the Wednesday forecast. A high of 47°, a low of 28°! A 60% chance of rain. And underneath the rain cloud there is a little snowflake! Geez, that’s serious February winter weather in November.

After we overcame the shock of that we noticed something curious, there was no Monday weather. No just no weather, but no Monday at all. I guess the weather gets to take a holiday for Veterans Day.

Monday was still gone a couple hours later, so I got curious. I cleared the weather history, deleted any weather related cookies and restarted the browser. Still no Monday. I blew the dust off the shortcut and fired up Internet Explorer. There was Monday. I then compared the web addresses between the two browsers. The missing Monday URL had a b. between www. and weather.com. A little research yielded the answer, the b. signifies a beta page, a place where the Weather Channel folks try out improvements to their site. Something still needs a little more work.

Wishful Thinking

Got the “Payment Applied” email today from our mortgage company, we know we’re getting close to paying the note off, so Donna asked me to go online and see what was left. We are now about 10 payments away from owning this baby free and clear.

Citibank, being ever helpful, had a bright blue box in the middle of the loan details page that let me know that I could save over $600 a month if I took advantage of a 4.125% refinancing on a 15 year note. They’d even waive any fees associated with the loan.

Now let’s do some ciphering, $600 times 10 is $6,000 savings. OK that’s nice, but to the get those savings, all I have to do is make 180 monthly payments of $180 or a total of thirty-two thousand four hundred dollars. Uh huh.

Unintentionally Unpleasant Acronym

Remember those clear Lucite document holders that started to appear in the Valve Store’s(TM) restrooms a couple weeks back? Turned out they were more of the same as the others that had blanketed the cafeteria tables earlier, recruitment posters for the plant’s Emergency First Responders.

I never really paid much attention to the text of the message because rushing to the scene of an accident is not my cup of tea. It took my summer college student helper to point out to me today that what I have always called, or thought they were called, First Responders, the Plant Nurse has taken to calling First Aid Responder Team in her promotional material. I wonder if she is going to have t-shirts made up for them?

F.A.R.T.