White Lightning Axiom: Redux

Atlas SMASH John Galt Line!

It was going to be a quick trip to have one last beer with Doug and then I would come back to the office. Nothing elaborate or extensive. Best laid plans of men and consultants. I had brought in a couple of closet bars for one of my co-workers who had just bought a new house. None of the closets had any bars to hang clothes from so I told him I had a couple that I did not need and would bring them in. I figured he would be at the gathering and I could just transfer them to his car. Well, I could not get in contact with him all morning so I figured that he was either out of the office or was otherwise indisposed. Alright, I need to stop off at the office anyways and pick up some of my mail (old pay-check receipts, timesheets, etc...) so I'll drop off the bars in his cube while I am there. Skip ahead to 1120 and I'm zipping along the local roads on the way to Home Base. I use a slip ramp to get off of Rt202 and onto a lane that is not frequently used during the lunch hours. As I round the corner, a car unexpectedly pulls out in front of me. They were looking in the opposite direction for traffic not considering that anyone would come from my direction. My liquid lightning reflexes enabled me to avoid the other vehicle, but my rear passenger tire caught one of those tungsten-carbide curbs that the sharpen to razor thin sharpness. I felt the rear of the car jump a bit as I clipped the curb. In my mind, I knew that my awful automotive luck would manifest itself as a flat tire. The other vehicle took off and I proceeded to the HQ. Once I parked the Super Saturn, I took a look at the tire and sure enough, a large chunk of the side wall was missing. Right down to the rubber inner-tire. A sufficient amount of pressure on a turn would surely cause it to blow out. Looks like I'll be stopping at the Sears Auto Shop upstairs from the pub to get the tire replaced.

I settled in to my seat at the pub, the SuperSaturn was in the capable hands of the Sears Staff upstairs. Much to my chagrin, the co-worker that I dropped the bars off for showed up at the gathering. Well, that's a 60$ misadventure. No good deed goes unpunished. Since I was there for at least an hour while the tire was being replaced, I decided to stay and have a few beers AND some beef tips. I had a free-lunch card anyways so what the hay. After a pint of Prussian Pride IPA and a hearty meal of mashed taters with the beef tips, I was full. Not full enough, however, to prevent me from ordering a 24 oz Maximus. This is a killer beer. Imagine ordering a bucket of lead weights with a complementary kick in the gut. It's fairly potent too. Yeah, I would be paying the price (a well deserved price) for this dalliance over the next few hours. The whole outing burned through the 2 hours I had 'banked' this week so I had no moral qualms ... I just needed some coffee to get me to quitting time. Some super-potent coffee would do the trick AND give me terminal heartburn to boot. Ugh.

Going home was a bit of a pain. There was a huge backup at the KOP onramp to the Turnpike. No good reason, just the usual 10 lanes to 2 lanes kind of BS. People just don't get that if you are courteous and respectful, this kind of thing would not be so difficult. Apparently there was an accident on the Blue Route (476) just before the Turnpike entrance so all the traffic was redirected up 76 to 276 ... it's complicated and messy. Nobody was in a good mood or very tolerant by the time they got to KOP.

It was pizza night and the kids did very well. Nearly 1.5 slices each (again). I feel a growth spurt coming on ... must be the growth hormones in the beef. While the kids played and then ate dinner, I was out near the property boundary pulling up weeds out of the pacasandra. Ok, they were not really weeds but second year ash tree growth. Super Grandma had gone through them last year and cut them off at the soil line, but they all came back with 2 sprouts. This time, I just pulled them from the soil and threw them aside. It looks much better now, but I think I should go through that whole area and remove all the weeds right up to the electrified security fence. It was rather humid out so I broke into a furious sweat quite quickly. I felt like a titan wading through the fields and plucking the invading parasite humans from my homogeneous plane of green. I had a few moments before dusk settled in so I started to tend to the Agricultural sector. The hot, humid and water-logged nights have been kind to the tomatoes. They are shooting up and bushing out quite nicely. I trying to keep them pinched back to a reasonable size this year so they have been throwing out suckers from all along the base branches. What was a blessing for the fruits was a warning sign of impending doom for the spinach. All 6 of the plantings bolted within the last 2 days and headed for the heavens like a Titan Rocket. Oh well, I still have my 2 varieties of lettuce that is putting out really nicely formed heads. The plantings are nearly done now, but the seeds that I planted before them are just starting to get going so I'll have lots of greens for quite some time now. I'll have to remember this trick for next year ... plant seeds & sets.

# posted by mdmhvonpa @ 12:19 AM