Verizon has been working well out here. Mobile hotspot works good...we
can usually navigate online with no problems.
At night Kim has been playing World of Warcraft using his hotspot and
seems to be having no issues with the game lagging. I usually use the hotspot to upload the blog
and post pictures to Facebook. Last
night was the first time I had issues...posting pictures to Facebook became nightmare. But I think it was a FB issue not a
connectivity issue because other sites worked fine. I eventually gave up and went to bed. This morning FB wasn’t much better. Bah!!
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There
have been strange rumblings off in the distance. A sound reminiscent from my days of living
near Langley AFB in the 70’s. Not
thunder and too sustained to be a passenger jet...I’ve been wondering if it was
something at the White Sands Missile Range.
On our way to Alamogordo today we saw 3 helicopters flying relatively
close together and it clicked...maybe it’s coming from Holloman AFB. And Air Force base would certainly be capable
of making the sound I’ve been hearing, although I suppose it could be jets
taking off from Alamogordo Airport but it just doesn’t sound like a commercial
jet. Whatever the source it’s palpable...felt
as well as heard.
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Update on the truck happenings: About 11:15 we were getting ready to head to
Alamogordo...the truck appointment isn’t until 1 pm but we wanted to get a jump
on doing some laundry. Luckily there’s a
laundromat about a ½ mile from J.R.’s Auto Repair. As we’re getting stuff in the car Kim gets a
call from the shop. Some things have
come up: 1. The supplier forgot to put the caliper on the truck this morning
and 2. The supplier also sent the wrong rotors...wrong as in correct for the
make and model of the truck but not what had been quoted in yesterday’s
estimate....they are twice the cost. When
Kim mentioned that it sounded like a bait and switch situation the shop owner
quickly responded that he was right, it did sound like a bait and switch but it
went farther up the chain. The supplier
hadn’t sent what had been ordered...a substitution was made without notifying
J.R. as to why. A conversation ensued
about the recent inadequacies of this supplier and so on. Somewhere in the conversation it came up that
this shop has the capability and the wherewithal to turn the rotors (smooth out
the grooves using a lathe). Kim was fine
with the rotors being turned instead of being replaced if they were good
candidates for the process.
So
this is what I know as I'm sitting in the laundromat waiting for clothes to
dry: the brakes are definitely going to
be replaced...if the rotors are in
decent shape they will just be turned and put back on...and if the caliper needs to be replaced
that’s another issue. End result is that this repair could be cheaper or could
be more expensive than originally thought.
So much for getting a price quote.
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As we were gathering up the dirty clothes up I mentioned how cumbersome it was going to be to schlep a clothes basket back to the repair shop. Kim dug out the hand cart he uses for his telescope boxes, I threw the clothes in a duffle and when he mentioned a bungi would be nice, I grabbed one from Zeus’ saddle bags. Cooperative problem solving at its finest!
Kim
got me situated in the laundromat then he went to drop the truck off
intending to walk back right away. Instead he called at 12:49 to say that this shop takes it lunch hour
seriously. Locked up tight right now so
he’d head back as soon as he could speak to someone. Thankfully I brought my computer so I could
occupy myself with typing while waiting for the machines to do their
thing. Kim showed up about 1:20.
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Lunch time antics: On his way back to the laundromat Kim walked
up to the take out window at a pizza/sub shop to get us some lunch. The guy on the other side of the window said,
“This isn’t an ordering window, this is a pick-up window. You have to phone in the order.”
So Kim stands right outside the window and
checks online for a menu because the guy didn’t offer him one then calls the
guy on the other side of the window.
Guy in the window: “Thank you for calling Pizza Mill.
How may I help you?”
Kim: “I’d
like two cold cut subs.”
Guy in the window: “Okay, what is the name on that order?”
Kim: “Kim”
Guy in the window: “And what is the phone number?”
Kim: “Dude, I’m right outside your window! I’m the guy with the tie-dyed shirt on...there’s nobody else here. I'm standing on your sidewalk and I'm not going anywhere.”
Guy in the window: “It doesn’t matter, I still need a number.”
Kim: “Okay....6.”
Guy
in the window: “I need a phone number,
sir.”
Kim did eventually give the guy his phone
number because it appeared that was the only way we were going to get our food. As he was telling me what had transpired we
had a good chuckle but I get the feeling that he not amused when it was
happening.
He
said it reminded him of the time I was in a Joann’s fabric store and the lady
at the cutting counter insisted I take a number, despite the fact that I was
the only customer in the store at that moment.
But I took a number, handed it to her and then she called it out over
the intercom. Some people are just
designed to play by the rules no matter what.
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Got to the repair shop to find that the brake shoes weren’t horrible, the rotors had enough meat (Kim’s word) left on ‘em so they could be turned and the caliper was fine. Their assessment was exactly what Kim had thought yesterday: that a stone had got caught somewhere in there that caused the caliper to bind up but that it had worked its way out. So that was the good news...the bad news was that the repair wasn’t finished. Since it wasn’t on a lift we put our clothes and cart in it so we could wander around freely. Figured we’d stop back in an hour. Kim got a coffee at a Starbucks, we walked to a park and in about an hour headed back to the repair shop. The truck still wasn’t done. So we sat for a bit in their customer lounge. At one point Kim leaned forward and quietly said, “These guys are slow. I mean, there’s no way replacing the brakes and turning the rotors should have taken this long. They are slow.” We were out of there just after 4 o’clock, with a much smaller bill than anticipated. The fact that they were slow was tolerable at that point.
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 |
| There are mountains out there. |
By
the time we cleared the city limits the ‘Gypsum Fog’ as Kim called it had
lifted; the sun out was and the sky was clear. However back at camp the horizon
toward Alamogordo still looked hazy so I’m thinking the Alamogordites or
Alamogordians or whatever they’re called didn’t get to see the stunning sunset
that we saw.
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It
was a t-shirt and shorts day! However since
the sun went down it feels good to have my legs buried in a flannel sheet and
wearing a sweatshirt while sitting at the table typing a recap of my day. I can live with that.
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