The things in my head go ’round and ’round

So, there I was driving home from work.

Sunday evening was pretty nice here in Pennsylvania. The sun was shining, not too hot. Somewhere around 80 degrees with little humidity. Almost like an Indian Summer day. Not like what we usually have around this time in August.

Matter of fact, as I am typing this I have a cool wind blowing through the window. Feels like brewing weather.

But I digress. The route that I take home is a two lane country road. Up and down hills, past pastures of cows and horses, corn and soy beans. Past farms and the houses of folks who just don’t want to live close to other people. It is very bucolic.

The posted speed limit is 45 mph, and I try to stay as close to that as possible. It doesn’t always happen, but most times it does. I was smoking a new cigar that had been recommended to me by a friend, listening to…hell I don’t even remember what I was listening to on the CD. All I do remember is thinking that the steering was getting a little mushy.

And coming around a gentle curve it happened. A loud bang, and then the sound of scraping metal on the road. Dust, and stone flying past the window. Tossed the cigar out the window, and tried to steer to the side of the road, stopped the truck and turned it off.

And in the silence following the storm wondered what the hell had just happened.

I got out of the truck and walked to the front. The tire on the drivers side was facing parallel to the rest of the vehicle. The steering assembly on the drivers side had collapsed. Simply, the ball joint assembly had broken.

Poop.

Thankfully this was one day that I remembered to bring my cell phone. Called AAA, called MLW to let her know that I was going to be late and then leaned against the truck to listen to the locusts. You forget how quiet the country is when you are racing back and forth from one city to the next. I grew up in the country, and it is amazing to me how far removed I am from it now.

But that is all I really wanted to tell you. If I could extract the pics from my cell phone I would post a couple to show you what it looks like. But unfortunately, that won’t be happening any time soon.

Take care out on those mean streets, folks.

Namaste.

The things in my head:

Reached out to an old high school friend tonight. I haven’t seen this guy since before I graduated from College. This is the one who knows all of my secrets. All 2 of them.

Driving to work today, and in front of me is this truck that is just bristling with antenna. Multitudes of antenna. Back, front, and both sides. Dude, what the heck do you need all of those antenna for? Are you with NASA?

Red necks are pretty amusing.

In a scary, creepy sort of way.

Namaste.

Both MLW and The Princess have Ipods. MlW has the Shuffle, and The Princess has a Nano.

Both of them love me dearly, and don’t want me to feel left out, so they are trying to convince me to buy my own Ipod.

You see, I have an hours commute both ways to and from work. And hour there, and hour back. Two hours worth of driving, and the radio stations are enough to make me want to gouge my eyeballs out on a good day. I am also not sold as of yet on Sirius, though I have friends who love it.

More on that later.

I am on the fence with the whole Ipod thing. But I like to jump around too much in my tastes. What I want to listen to now, may not be what I want to listen to later. And then there is the whole backing up of the music that you bought in that one chance your hard drive on your computer dies. Then were are you? With nothing.

And I bought a smokin’ cd player for the truck last summer. It has a Ipod dock, but….

So you see my dilemma.

What do you think? For those of you who have Ipods, let me know the bennies. For those of you who think that it is a waste of money, chime in and appeal to the cheap bastard that resides in my wallet.

Namaste.

So, there I am driving home last night and I come upon a roadblock.  Seems that there was an accident a little further up the road, and the decision was made to block off passage at a point where folks could turn and detour around the accident site.  That is, if you knew where the hell you were going once you did take the detour.  Or if the person who is manning the road block knew what the hell he was talking about when he gave you directions to where you wanted to go.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.  I got turned around out in the middle of godforsakennooneeverdrivesthisfreakinpotholestrewnroad pennsylvania.  And drove an extra 30 minutes to get to where I DID know where I was.  And then got followed by an unmarked police car for about 5 miles.  How do I know that it was an unmarked car?  Because I turned onto a major road, went by a car wash and this car came jetting out from behind the car wash and stayed on my tail until I crossed over the county line, and then the car turned around back to where it went.

All in all this was crazy trip home.  But just another chapter in the life of me.

Namaste.

driving down the road.  Minding my own business. And then this appears:

Attached to the trailer hitch on the truck that is ahead of me.  And to make it even better.
When you step on your brakes.  The deer waves its front legs at you, and the bullseye on its belly lights up.

Isn’t that just the most white trash thing that you have ever seen?

Well how about this:

Step on your brakes and it flops like a fish out of water.  Reminds me of Southwestern Michigan and all of the bubbas that live there.  The only thing missing in the truck that had the deer on it was a rifle rack in the window, and a can of PBR rolling around in the bed.  Pabst Blue Ribbon for those of you who are not in the know about that.

Growing up in the farm belt, or the fruit belt, of Michigan was full of those kind of pleasures.   Where you could go into any local bar and find PBR on tap.  Yummy.  Sort of like Old Milwaukee on tap.  Which you could also find in most places.

I think that I just threw up a little in my mouth remembering.

Namaste.