Deflation

At my age, a flat tire is a goddamned hassle. Two flat tires on one car at the same time is damned near a fucking catastrophe. It happened to me once before, and I thought that would do it for a lifetime.

This morning my wife left for church in her Mazda, and was back within five minutes to report both the front and rear tires on the passenger side were flat. So began my latest Sunday morning adventure, but I'm getting too old for this shit.

I hauled out my air compressor and was able to get the front tire inflated to about 30 psi. The rear tire wouldn't hold any air at all; after ten minutes, the pressure was still zero psi. I had to locate the emergency spare and the jack and change the tire. In the time that took, the front tire went flat again. Shit.

I finally got the Mazda to a point where there was a wheel that would roll at each corner, and we headed for a service bay at the nearest Walmart. The dealership that sold me the set of tires, with road hazard warranties, is closed on Sunday. I hoped the punctured front tire (the slow leak) could be patched at least enough to keep the tire inflated for 36 hours. That, plus the spare on the rear, would get me to the dealership where the warranties were in effect Monday morning.

It took more than three hours all told, with about 45 minutes of heavy lifting, but I got a break. The shop patched the slow leak for ten bucks, so I didn't need to buy a new tire at Wally World. That's as close to luck as I can expect when I'm having one of those days. 

The Vault

Mrs. bee has taken an interest in the summer Olympic Games from London, and while I've almost never watched them in the past, last night we saw one of the women's gymnastic events. It's called vaulting, and it requires some of the most incredible goddamned athleticism imaginable. I can't begin to get a handle on the discipline, intense training, and dedication that are required to compete in gymnastics at the Olympic level. When I was in college, I took gymnastics one semester as a required P.E. course. I'm not sure now, but I think I probably flunked it my freshman year. I can't recall what I was thinking when I signed up for the class. At any rate, now that I'm reaching geezer status, I have a deep appreciation for what those young women have accomplished. I guarantee you, none of it came easily.

Precipitation

Two weeks ago tonight, after a prolonged period of torrential rainfall, the water accumulation in my backyard was higher than foundation level, and I got some flooding in three rooms. I spent most of that Friday night moving stuff to keep the water from ruining it, mopping and vacuuming up, and cussing at the top of my lungs. At 10:30 pm, I was at Walmart to buy a 16-gallon heavy duty wet/dry shop vacuum because the capacity of our little vacuum at home was too limited. I ended up getting less than two hours sleep. All factors considered, it wasn't the worst night of my life, but it was on the list.

I needed to reorganize my den/office anyway, so moving much of the stuff that was piled up in there gave me the impetus to start working on that project. For two weeks, I've been going through clutter, deciding what to toss and what to keep, and devising a plan to store my music collection that will protect it in case of another flood.

In the meantime, there's been enough rain since February 3rd to keep the ground saturated. Today we've been getting even more rain and there's a possibility of additional flooding. That pisses me off, because I don't want to move my stuff back into the den/office until I'm positive it'll stay dry for awhile.

Somewhere in the world, I think there's a locale where the weather is nearly perfect. I don't know where that place is, but it's damned sure not in Texas. Where I live, the weather's a problem most of the year. It's either too fucking hot or too cold, too dry or too wet. We either suffer months of drought, or get so much rain that flood damage is a problem.

Bottom line is, since I can't depend on nature to keep my house dry, I need to hire somebody to engineer a solution to my drainage problem.

At the mall

A blast of cold winter weather blew in yesterday after nearly a week of mild mid-70s afternoons. Mrs. bee talked me into a trip to the mall to get our walking done. The good news is that I completed 4.188 miles (8292 steps) in 68:07. But there's a problem trying to walk four miles at a shopping mall on Saturday afternoon, and it's the horde of people, mostly teenagers and young adults, who are wandering around with exercise the last thing on their minds. I'm not sure why they go all the way to the mall to spend their time playing with various hand-held devices; it seems like they could do that at home. At any rate, I ended up walking about three of the four miles around the perimeter of the mall's parking area. Shit, I could've walked outdoors in my own neighborhood with a lot less hassle.

Cold winds

When I started my walk at 5:46 pm, the temperature was 34 degrees, with a wind chill factor of 22 degrees. There's one nice thing about walking three miles when it's that cold --- I'm highly motivated to walk very quickly.