Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Busy, Busy

Temperature at departure = 72° F (22° C)

The last few days have been hectic and, at times, stressful; but then, that's life. I had a very nice ride with some guys from church on Saturday which I will talk about next time. The end of last week we had some front end work done on the van. Sunday afternoon I was headed to my Dad's house and the tie rod popped off one side and I lost steering. The van was doing it's best to change lanes or plow into the curb, but I got it stopped without hitting anyone. When I showed the problem to the tow truck driver he pointed out that the nut for the other side of the tie rod was barely on. So, looks like they set the tie rod in place, stuck the nuts on and then promptly forgot to tighten them up. I was not amused. Had it been 10 minutes or so earlier I would have been driving 70 MPH down the highway with three of my children in the van. I still get a little shaky every time I think about that. All better though, they said they were sorry. Yeah. If the owner of the shop wasn't a long time acquaintance I'd pursue the matter further. As it is, I believe I will now look elsewhere for future repairs.

I found out Friday that our office might be moving down the road a bit to College and Metcalf. That would make the drive shorter but my bike commute will be a couple miles longer as there is no way on earth I would try to ride a bike down Metcalf. I did a recon ride this morning to see what kind of bike parking facilities they have for the three towers on that site: Two pipes bent in a U, next to a bush at the corner of one of the buildings. The battle is joined.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You remind me of someone who just yesterday described how a mechanic replaced linkage for his car's brakes and then forgot to finish installing the lynch pin holding the whole thing together. Moments after leaving the shop, he went to apply the brakes at a busy intersection downtown only to find he had no brakes!

Fortunately, a friend sitting in the passenger seat next to him, he said, had the presence of mind to yank the emergency brake up and stop the car. Whew!