Neanderpundit

Busy saturday, learning about lasers and plating, shifting robots, and blowing stuff up. Then today, mowing, weedwhacking, tree trimming, and a nice conversation with Ed on the porch as the sun went down.

I was about to offer to help the neighbors with the tree on their garage

then I thought I ought to get some of my own shit cleaned up before messing with the neighbors, so I did that instead.

used to be I could do all this shit, then go get liquored up all night, drive from the bar to the office, sleep 2 hours in the parking lot, and function the next day. Getting old is not for pussies.

Yesterday I had to pick up some items from our painter that will end up on our showroom floor. So i had to rent a uhaul- a big one.

I have done this before, plenty of times, but yesterday I was handed the keys to a brand spanking new 17 footer.

Now, I have never driven a new Uhaul before. Usually, they have been used and abused by the time I put my hands on them, and don’t drive straight down the road anymore, often have large pieces missing, the box smells like a meth lab and the cab smells like someone drowned a mangy hyena in a tub of rancid cantu shea butter and left it in the sun to percolate.

So to sit on clean seats in a cab smelling of freshly minted naugahyde while driving a vehicle that acted like new was- well, maybe not enjoyable, but less revolting than usual. Then on the way back I put it through it’s paces- it was empty, and I wasn’t going to destroy anything, and I bought the insurance.

It is remarkably easy to light up the tires on an empty Uhaul. Doing so in front of the retirement home might have been mean, the grou pf them sittting out on the lawn must have thought the Reaper had come for the lot of them, and brought a truck so he’d have something to haul them all in.

Freeway ON ramps with the leaning truck and the “TRUCKS 35MPH” were like a challenge. The tail on the sucker kept trying to kick out around 65, but I figured if I lifted I would reap the whirlwind, so I just gritted my teeth and kept going.

Poor sucker will probably never be the same.

This is why you always buy insurance on rentals.

I did not get it in the air, but lord, did I try.

yesterday morning, I backed out of the garage and turned around in the driveway, just in time to see the across-the-street neighbor’s tree shake as though a gorilla were fighting in it . it stopped dead but didn’t somehow look right, so I drove around the house (it’s on a corner) to see what was up., and a substantial portion of the tree had fallenj on their garage, the precise moment I was looking at it. I ought to have bought a lotto ticket. Worst part is theyre not home. I don’t think much damage was done, but I hope they check back into it before it is.