For some reason blogger would not let me put a title to this post. Don't know what's up with that. But the title should be "Random facts and thoughts in my recent life."
1. I've been enjoying the summer immensely. I've been done teaching for two weeks now. It's a really strange feeling to get to 6 P.M. and not have anything to do in the evening to prepare for school next day. The free time has been splendiferous.
2. I recently figured that I have spent $1146 dollars in car repairs (labor, parts, etc.) in the last six months, including $362 today (to replace a mass air intake sensor, for those who care). This depresses me. If I had known 6 months ago that I would spend this much, I probably would have just bought a different car. After all, mine is almost as old as some of next year's students (1994--a very scary thought this is), and it has 161k miles on it. So it might be time for an upgrade. But now I feel like I'm at the point of no return. Having just invested this kind of money in it, it seems I should stick it out. Plus, having just spent so much, there's that much less money on hand to buy something different. Sigh. I'm sure most everyone who has a car could share similar car expense stories. So I commiserate with you if you will commiserate with me.
3. I am about to return to VA for my summer job, which has become an annual pilgrimage of sorts. 12 plus hours in the car on Wednesday. Please pray for safety, and as little traffic as possible (last years journey there was somewhat long and frustrating due to heavy traffic)!
4. I am mystified about how emergency personnel gain access to my and anyone else's condo or apartment building. How does this work? Do any emergency workers out there know? Each condo owner has a key to access the building. I just observed an ambulance come to my building, and the paramedic got a key out and proceeded to open the door to my building. So obviously she had some sort of master key. But multiply that by the dozens, and even perhaps hundreds of apartment/condo buildings in a city such as mine, and therein lies a logistical puzzle/mystery. How many master keys must emergency personnel have on hand? Is there an entire wall of key rings in their ambulance, fire truck or police cruiser, sorted by address, to grab as they drive down the street on which they are to stop? Or are there a few master keys out there which unlock every residential building in the city? If the latter, what kind of dream that must be for would be thieves, to get their hands on such a key! The security and logistical issues here intrigue me.
5. I just removed a roll of brand new, unopened Christmas wrapping paper from the back of my car. I think I bought it well over a year ago, maybe two, in one of those post-Christmas sales. It has rested there ever since. Now it will be relegated to storage somewhere else, out of sight of would-be thieves, who I'm sure could be enticed to break into my car should they see a brand new roll of Christmas wrapping paper to grab. (Hey, I promised randomness, didn't I?) :-)
