Post by RG on Aug 18, 2016 12:22:44 GMT -5
Warning! There's a lot here and it's all worthless......
The Further Misadventures of RG or
Why you haven’t heard from me lately
It has been a weird year. So where do I start, around March when things started happening and go forward or now and go backwards? Hmmm, don’t you hate it when you have to make odd decisions? Ok, start from March and come forward…
Mid March 2016: Mrs. G and I walked around our property. Although we only have a little over 2 1/2 acres, most of it is woods surrounded by more woods. Living in the ‘country’ truly describes it. Anyway we noticed that over the past three years, all the trees decided to do some shedding, not just of leaves, oh no, couldn’t stop at that, our trees needed to shed branches as well! Now one would think that branches in the woods isn’t that big a deal, but without leaves on the trees and shrubs, Mrs. G could see them from the house. As far as I am concerned, no big deal, however in the eyes of Mrs. G, this was catastrophic! It must be remedied immediately if not sooner! Thus I found myself in the woods, saying ‘five, six, pick up sticks’, and doing exactly that. Our pile of picked up sticks soon was over 8 feet high, 12 feet wide and 22 feet long…we measured. Suffice it to say we kept adding to the pile before IT happened. IT being my back going out in what I must say is the most pathetic way I can imagine. Did I save my wife from a rampaging bear? Did I save my wife from a rampaging coyote? Did I save my wife from a hoard of rampaging chipmunks? Nope to all. What I did do was while holding a bunch of sticks, twisted to avoid hitting a tree. Is that pathetic or what!?!?! Needless to say my back decided that under no circumstances was I going to be able to do anything physical for a while. Due to this rather unwelcome decision, my back has become very close to our resident heating pad. This was in mid-March remember. By May, with therapy I was finally able to move around with only 40 minutes of my back and heating pad spending time together in the morning. It goes without saying, but I will anyway, that my work suffered and I became well acquainted with FMLA. On a bright note, we had the pile chipped and got almost 11 yards of wood chips for our gardens. Oh, and the even better news is that being unable to exercise and pretty much sedentary for almost two months meant that somehow, despite my clean diet, 20lbs decided to join my body. This meant that Mrs. G got to go shopping for me, which she loves and I really hate to do. Sorry, I digress…
Now we are in May and back working when I’m informed I am expected to fly to Europe for two weeks. Yep, Europe. Eight hours in a plane with a bad back. How delightful. Of course, with all the problems going on there, Mrs. G was naturally worried, but most of the time was spent in Sweden, and I know more shortcuts through Stockholm than my own town. Luckily for my back, the heating pad came along and with an adapter was capable of keeping up its relationship with my back, something that I still think is somewhat unnatural but where ever my back goes, there go I.
Back from Europe and then there is terrible flooding in Houston. Houston, where my older brother lives. Now he’s my brother and I love him but honestly, sometimes I really worry if Mom dropped him on his head when he was a baby. Case in point, he owned his own home and a rental property in Katy, a suburb of Houston. Both were well out of any flood zones. He sold them both and bought a trailer to live in, in preparation for retirement in a few years. You need to realize this is a man who used a limo to take us to the Houston Rodeo (where we saw Brooks&Dunn’s last tour), and used the same to take us to the airport when we went home again. At any rate, his trailer was parked not too far from the Brazos river, which of course overflowed its bank. Long story short, I became acquainted with FMLA again as I went to Houston to help him. Unfortunately, his wife had what they call a mini-stroke due to all the stress, so again, my aching back and I made the trip to Houston a few more times. Luckily, for my back, the heating pad didn’t need any adapters and now my brother and sister-in-law are both fine, having two sisters who are nurses doesn’t hurt. There’s always a silver lining.
But wait! There’s more!! Now some of you may recall that I love to play golf, this is however, something that has not happened this year, except for one charity tournament that I paid entry to back in February. I can’t swing a club but I can use a putter, thus with an empty golf bag, and me driving the cart, my good friends and I played a scramble and each one hit the ball for me till we got to the greens where I would putt for myself. Happily, my putter was on fire and we managed to win the tournament. As one of my friends stated at the awards banquet, “I’m not RG, but I play him on the golf course!”
But wait! There’s more!! This now brings us to June and July. I have a Subaru. Since I live where I do, winters are usually harsh and a Subaru Outback is a necessity. My check engine light had been on for a few months and having it checked it informed me that I still need a new catalytic converter. Oh joy. About $1200 for that baby. Sadly, for me, I knew this almost two years ago but the car passed the emissions test and of course I forgot to get anything done. Naturally, this year I got a card that stated I had to go to the stupid emissions test again, and this time I was bound to fail as the stupid light never turned off. Anyway, I already had almost $1500 worth of work done on the car in June and wasn’t looking forward to putting out more money when I had the oil changed. Now this is where things get weird, although I must say that my car is looking out for me, because after the oil was changed, the check engine light turned off! Weird, right? Anyway, not one to let a great chance slip by, I took my car to emissions and low and behold, it passed! Yep, I’m good for another two years now. The next day the check engine light came on again and hasn’t turned off since.
But wait! There’s even more!! Read further to discover this epistle has now brought us to August, when got a letter in the mail. Of course getting a letter in the mail isn’t all that exciting, unless it’s a check from Publishers Clearing House, but this one was from Subaru informing me that my car has one of those Takata (sp?) air bags in the passenger side of the front seat, and it is being recalled. However, there is no date as to when the parts will come in and Subaru strongly stated in bold letters enclosed in a box on the front of the page that as of the receipt of the notice no one, under any circumstance, should sit in the front passenger seat. This led Mrs. G to wonder if she should buy me a chauffeur’s cap while I drive her about. However that didn’t last long as Mrs. G finally got tired, quite quickly, I must add, of sitting in the back seat and we then called Subaru of America to get a better idea of when to expect the part. Imagine our surprise when we were told that it could be as late as Nov or Dec or even into early next year! This was not acceptable to Mrs. G and she informed the poor rep of that fact. Now imagine her surprise when the rep had his supervisor come on the phone who then told my lovely bride that Subaru would pay for us to have a rental car from Enterprise for the time our car was waiting for the replacement air bag. Really? Yes, really! The supervisor than gave my bride the name of the nearest Subaru dealer and we then called them up. Sure, let us know when you’re coming down to get the paperwork ready and we’ll set you up, they replied, so yesterday off we drive, in my wife’s car, to get the rental. I signed a few papers for Subaru, and they said that Enterprise would bring me a car and pick me up there. Since we came in Mrs. G’s car rather than mine, they said we could go there instead, which turned out to be a good thing, as they only had three cars available, two of them were models that we both detest, which we knew, without a shadow of a doubt, would be the one they drove out to us. Instead, we found the last Hyundai Elantra on the lot and we took that. We have used that same model every time we’ve had to drive long distances for vacations and we like it a lot. We took the car and as long as we have it we only pay for the gas. Enterprise will call us once a month to check the miles to determine if an oil change is necessary, and after two months we will need to bring it in to be checked out to make sure it’s running fine. As Mrs. G’s brother stated, “sweet deal”. There is only one problem, it is blue. Not just blue, but BLUE! A shade of blue we’ve never seen before and didn’t know existed. It would be beautiful if it were the color of eyes, but not so much a car. I did, however, determine that with this color, it is doubtful that anyone will ever pull out in front of me while I’m driving the car. Like I said before, always a silver lining.
Oh, and as we will be having this car for a while, my youngest sister will be riding with us to NJ in Sept. to my youngest (and her older) brother’s wedding…and at 38mpg on the highway, it should be much cheaper to drive around than my Subaru. Except of course on Rte. 287 going to the Tappan Zee Bridge that has been a virtual parking lot for over 20 years now, but once again, I digress.
What did happen from this experience is we have learned more about Takata (sp?) airbags than we ever wanted to know, kinda like how much we learned about my heart when it attacked me. Did you know that the problem with the airbags is acerbated by high humidity? Well it is. Seems like high humidity states like in the South, is zone A, meaning the high priority zone. Then we have the middle of the country which is zone B and finally my area, which is zone C. This explained why Subaru finally got around to me when this problem has been known for a couple of years. Just think I could have been driving rental cars for almost three years now! Yep, drive one for a year then bring it in and exchange it for the newest model. RG, the rich guy!
Hmmm, I guess that’s all for now, although I did have an interesting time falling off my stool while holding my guitar when taking lessons. Or I could mention the new phones we got with caller id so we can see all the major cities that want to talk to us yet never seem to leave a message when we don’t answer. But that has to wait for another time as I’ve probably used up all of Christina’s allotted space on the server, and I’m scheduled to go on my treadmill in a few minutes, otherwise I’d be even more verbose.
The Further Misadventures of RG or
Why you haven’t heard from me lately
It has been a weird year. So where do I start, around March when things started happening and go forward or now and go backwards? Hmmm, don’t you hate it when you have to make odd decisions? Ok, start from March and come forward…
Mid March 2016: Mrs. G and I walked around our property. Although we only have a little over 2 1/2 acres, most of it is woods surrounded by more woods. Living in the ‘country’ truly describes it. Anyway we noticed that over the past three years, all the trees decided to do some shedding, not just of leaves, oh no, couldn’t stop at that, our trees needed to shed branches as well! Now one would think that branches in the woods isn’t that big a deal, but without leaves on the trees and shrubs, Mrs. G could see them from the house. As far as I am concerned, no big deal, however in the eyes of Mrs. G, this was catastrophic! It must be remedied immediately if not sooner! Thus I found myself in the woods, saying ‘five, six, pick up sticks’, and doing exactly that. Our pile of picked up sticks soon was over 8 feet high, 12 feet wide and 22 feet long…we measured. Suffice it to say we kept adding to the pile before IT happened. IT being my back going out in what I must say is the most pathetic way I can imagine. Did I save my wife from a rampaging bear? Did I save my wife from a rampaging coyote? Did I save my wife from a hoard of rampaging chipmunks? Nope to all. What I did do was while holding a bunch of sticks, twisted to avoid hitting a tree. Is that pathetic or what!?!?! Needless to say my back decided that under no circumstances was I going to be able to do anything physical for a while. Due to this rather unwelcome decision, my back has become very close to our resident heating pad. This was in mid-March remember. By May, with therapy I was finally able to move around with only 40 minutes of my back and heating pad spending time together in the morning. It goes without saying, but I will anyway, that my work suffered and I became well acquainted with FMLA. On a bright note, we had the pile chipped and got almost 11 yards of wood chips for our gardens. Oh, and the even better news is that being unable to exercise and pretty much sedentary for almost two months meant that somehow, despite my clean diet, 20lbs decided to join my body. This meant that Mrs. G got to go shopping for me, which she loves and I really hate to do. Sorry, I digress…
Now we are in May and back working when I’m informed I am expected to fly to Europe for two weeks. Yep, Europe. Eight hours in a plane with a bad back. How delightful. Of course, with all the problems going on there, Mrs. G was naturally worried, but most of the time was spent in Sweden, and I know more shortcuts through Stockholm than my own town. Luckily for my back, the heating pad came along and with an adapter was capable of keeping up its relationship with my back, something that I still think is somewhat unnatural but where ever my back goes, there go I.
Back from Europe and then there is terrible flooding in Houston. Houston, where my older brother lives. Now he’s my brother and I love him but honestly, sometimes I really worry if Mom dropped him on his head when he was a baby. Case in point, he owned his own home and a rental property in Katy, a suburb of Houston. Both were well out of any flood zones. He sold them both and bought a trailer to live in, in preparation for retirement in a few years. You need to realize this is a man who used a limo to take us to the Houston Rodeo (where we saw Brooks&Dunn’s last tour), and used the same to take us to the airport when we went home again. At any rate, his trailer was parked not too far from the Brazos river, which of course overflowed its bank. Long story short, I became acquainted with FMLA again as I went to Houston to help him. Unfortunately, his wife had what they call a mini-stroke due to all the stress, so again, my aching back and I made the trip to Houston a few more times. Luckily, for my back, the heating pad didn’t need any adapters and now my brother and sister-in-law are both fine, having two sisters who are nurses doesn’t hurt. There’s always a silver lining.
But wait! There’s more!! Now some of you may recall that I love to play golf, this is however, something that has not happened this year, except for one charity tournament that I paid entry to back in February. I can’t swing a club but I can use a putter, thus with an empty golf bag, and me driving the cart, my good friends and I played a scramble and each one hit the ball for me till we got to the greens where I would putt for myself. Happily, my putter was on fire and we managed to win the tournament. As one of my friends stated at the awards banquet, “I’m not RG, but I play him on the golf course!”
But wait! There’s more!! This now brings us to June and July. I have a Subaru. Since I live where I do, winters are usually harsh and a Subaru Outback is a necessity. My check engine light had been on for a few months and having it checked it informed me that I still need a new catalytic converter. Oh joy. About $1200 for that baby. Sadly, for me, I knew this almost two years ago but the car passed the emissions test and of course I forgot to get anything done. Naturally, this year I got a card that stated I had to go to the stupid emissions test again, and this time I was bound to fail as the stupid light never turned off. Anyway, I already had almost $1500 worth of work done on the car in June and wasn’t looking forward to putting out more money when I had the oil changed. Now this is where things get weird, although I must say that my car is looking out for me, because after the oil was changed, the check engine light turned off! Weird, right? Anyway, not one to let a great chance slip by, I took my car to emissions and low and behold, it passed! Yep, I’m good for another two years now. The next day the check engine light came on again and hasn’t turned off since.
But wait! There’s even more!! Read further to discover this epistle has now brought us to August, when got a letter in the mail. Of course getting a letter in the mail isn’t all that exciting, unless it’s a check from Publishers Clearing House, but this one was from Subaru informing me that my car has one of those Takata (sp?) air bags in the passenger side of the front seat, and it is being recalled. However, there is no date as to when the parts will come in and Subaru strongly stated in bold letters enclosed in a box on the front of the page that as of the receipt of the notice no one, under any circumstance, should sit in the front passenger seat. This led Mrs. G to wonder if she should buy me a chauffeur’s cap while I drive her about. However that didn’t last long as Mrs. G finally got tired, quite quickly, I must add, of sitting in the back seat and we then called Subaru of America to get a better idea of when to expect the part. Imagine our surprise when we were told that it could be as late as Nov or Dec or even into early next year! This was not acceptable to Mrs. G and she informed the poor rep of that fact. Now imagine her surprise when the rep had his supervisor come on the phone who then told my lovely bride that Subaru would pay for us to have a rental car from Enterprise for the time our car was waiting for the replacement air bag. Really? Yes, really! The supervisor than gave my bride the name of the nearest Subaru dealer and we then called them up. Sure, let us know when you’re coming down to get the paperwork ready and we’ll set you up, they replied, so yesterday off we drive, in my wife’s car, to get the rental. I signed a few papers for Subaru, and they said that Enterprise would bring me a car and pick me up there. Since we came in Mrs. G’s car rather than mine, they said we could go there instead, which turned out to be a good thing, as they only had three cars available, two of them were models that we both detest, which we knew, without a shadow of a doubt, would be the one they drove out to us. Instead, we found the last Hyundai Elantra on the lot and we took that. We have used that same model every time we’ve had to drive long distances for vacations and we like it a lot. We took the car and as long as we have it we only pay for the gas. Enterprise will call us once a month to check the miles to determine if an oil change is necessary, and after two months we will need to bring it in to be checked out to make sure it’s running fine. As Mrs. G’s brother stated, “sweet deal”. There is only one problem, it is blue. Not just blue, but BLUE! A shade of blue we’ve never seen before and didn’t know existed. It would be beautiful if it were the color of eyes, but not so much a car. I did, however, determine that with this color, it is doubtful that anyone will ever pull out in front of me while I’m driving the car. Like I said before, always a silver lining.
Oh, and as we will be having this car for a while, my youngest sister will be riding with us to NJ in Sept. to my youngest (and her older) brother’s wedding…and at 38mpg on the highway, it should be much cheaper to drive around than my Subaru. Except of course on Rte. 287 going to the Tappan Zee Bridge that has been a virtual parking lot for over 20 years now, but once again, I digress.
What did happen from this experience is we have learned more about Takata (sp?) airbags than we ever wanted to know, kinda like how much we learned about my heart when it attacked me. Did you know that the problem with the airbags is acerbated by high humidity? Well it is. Seems like high humidity states like in the South, is zone A, meaning the high priority zone. Then we have the middle of the country which is zone B and finally my area, which is zone C. This explained why Subaru finally got around to me when this problem has been known for a couple of years. Just think I could have been driving rental cars for almost three years now! Yep, drive one for a year then bring it in and exchange it for the newest model. RG, the rich guy!
Hmmm, I guess that’s all for now, although I did have an interesting time falling off my stool while holding my guitar when taking lessons. Or I could mention the new phones we got with caller id so we can see all the major cities that want to talk to us yet never seem to leave a message when we don’t answer. But that has to wait for another time as I’ve probably used up all of Christina’s allotted space on the server, and I’m scheduled to go on my treadmill in a few minutes, otherwise I’d be even more verbose.
