Interesting day
I've had better mornings.
I scheduled a service appointment with the dealership to check out my car - something's been a little off about the suspension and my trunk makes a horrible noise sometimes when closing. The dealership is an hour away at rush hour, in the snowbelt, so of course we're in the midst of our first lake-effect snowfall this week, and the roads were icy. Fifty minutes into the drive, moving along at 10 mph on the highway, my flat tire indicator came on.
My snow tires are just two weeks old. I said a whole lot of very bad words, but had nowhere to pull over. Eventually I made it onto the left berm, checked my driver's side tires and found nothing. I wasn't going to check the passenger side with passing traffic, so I got back into the car and made it to a right berm in another 3 miles. There I found that my rear passenger tire was almost flat, certainly not road-worthy.
Fortunately, my mother gave me a car safety kit years ago that contains a portable compressor, and I was able to pump up the tire enough to drive the remaining five miles to the dealership.
The dealership set me up with a loaner car from Enterprise for the day. When the car arrived, I inspected it for dents with the rental agent. He turned it on the check the mileage. And the flat tire indicator came on. I asked, "uh, why is the flat tire indicator on?", and he said, "oh, we pump up the tires before each rental. Somebody probably just forgot to reset it. The tires look fine to me." I looked down and said, "Um, that tire's flat," pointing to the front tire. He said, "naaah", and I said, "look sir, I know what a flat looks like today." He eventually took the car to a service station, brought it back to the dealership with four working tires, and I drove it to work.
Sadly, my concerns about my own car were valid - I need a new front stabilizer bar and lower control arm bushings, none of which are covered by my warranty. They also found that the valve stem on my tire is leaking, making the tire squarely NTB's problem and not mine. (hooray.)
Work was work, and I got a full day in despite my very delayed arrival.
Our glass class for the day was cancelled - apparently the furnace malfunctioned over the weekend, the glass solidified, and the glass shop is down for at least a week, possibly two - so we decided to meet J&C for dinner at Great Lakes instead of glassblowing.
I tried the Rackhouse Ale, a "sweet ale aged in oak bourbon barrels," which proved an excellent choice. Not only is Rackhouse the most efficient path to drunkenness at the brewery right now (at 9.5% alcohol), but it is delicious. (It's so good that we bought our first jug of GLBC beer just so we could have some more.) I cannot recommend it enough!
So, to summarize: bad morning, lovely evening. Let's hope tomorrow morning is better than today! And with that, to bed!
I scheduled a service appointment with the dealership to check out my car - something's been a little off about the suspension and my trunk makes a horrible noise sometimes when closing. The dealership is an hour away at rush hour, in the snowbelt, so of course we're in the midst of our first lake-effect snowfall this week, and the roads were icy. Fifty minutes into the drive, moving along at 10 mph on the highway, my flat tire indicator came on.
My snow tires are just two weeks old. I said a whole lot of very bad words, but had nowhere to pull over. Eventually I made it onto the left berm, checked my driver's side tires and found nothing. I wasn't going to check the passenger side with passing traffic, so I got back into the car and made it to a right berm in another 3 miles. There I found that my rear passenger tire was almost flat, certainly not road-worthy.
Fortunately, my mother gave me a car safety kit years ago that contains a portable compressor, and I was able to pump up the tire enough to drive the remaining five miles to the dealership.
The dealership set me up with a loaner car from Enterprise for the day. When the car arrived, I inspected it for dents with the rental agent. He turned it on the check the mileage. And the flat tire indicator came on. I asked, "uh, why is the flat tire indicator on?", and he said, "oh, we pump up the tires before each rental. Somebody probably just forgot to reset it. The tires look fine to me." I looked down and said, "Um, that tire's flat," pointing to the front tire. He said, "naaah", and I said, "look sir, I know what a flat looks like today." He eventually took the car to a service station, brought it back to the dealership with four working tires, and I drove it to work.
Sadly, my concerns about my own car were valid - I need a new front stabilizer bar and lower control arm bushings, none of which are covered by my warranty. They also found that the valve stem on my tire is leaking, making the tire squarely NTB's problem and not mine. (hooray.)
Work was work, and I got a full day in despite my very delayed arrival.
Our glass class for the day was cancelled - apparently the furnace malfunctioned over the weekend, the glass solidified, and the glass shop is down for at least a week, possibly two - so we decided to meet J&C for dinner at Great Lakes instead of glassblowing.
I tried the Rackhouse Ale, a "sweet ale aged in oak bourbon barrels," which proved an excellent choice. Not only is Rackhouse the most efficient path to drunkenness at the brewery right now (at 9.5% alcohol), but it is delicious. (It's so good that we bought our first jug of GLBC beer just so we could have some more.) I cannot recommend it enough!
So, to summarize: bad morning, lovely evening. Let's hope tomorrow morning is better than today! And with that, to bed!