Tag: Car

Nothing to Say

I’m down to the final minutes of my lunch break on this fine Friday afternoon. I am pretty exhausted from a lack of sleep over the past… month(s) but I’m hanging in there. I had some Purdue Popcorn chicken and some peanuts and some sugar free Hershey bites for lunch. I really want a drink of water but I still have to wait the better part of an hour before I am clear to drink anything. That’s a gastric bypass patient thing. If you know, you know.

Fed Ex delivered a package today. I am not home to get it, but it contains a new guitar pedal. If I read the amazon shipping notes correctly, it’s a compressor pedal. The first I’ve ever purchased. I have this weird idea of using cleaner guitar sounds for this year’s RPM Challenge in February and a compressor will be a part of that. I bought an MXR Dyna Comp because it’s super simple and it will let me squash my clean signal down to a delightfully mushy… mush. There are two more pedals coming over the weekend. One is a Flanger, the other is an Amp Sim. I don’t have room on my pedal board for any of these kiddos and I don’t have open slots on my power brick… so I am going to need to get creative, I think. It should be fun. I don’t think I bought a single guitar pedal during all of 2024. I know I bought a couple of microphones for band practices that haven’t actually happened yet, but no pedals.

There are a lot of tentative plans for the weekend. We may be messing with our living room and we may be going to some stores for research purposes. I hope to spend some time wandering around town taking pictures with my new/possibly antique (though probably not) camera. I got a gift card for the sugar free bakery in Salem, NH for xmas. I haven’t bought anything from them in about a month, but now I am definitely going back and getting some cookies. Good stuff.

What else… I thought there was something else… One of our cars is going to get a break job. That wasn’t the thing that I am forgetting though… am I going to go shopping for a new iPhone? That’s definitely on the to-do list before we go to Florida at the end of the month, but is it this weekend? I don’t know.

I have to start practicing the guitar. The band is hoping to reconvene (hopefully for real this time) at some point after this weekend. I need to get ready for that. Which guitar should I bring to the first practice? Probably the Les Paul Standard that my wife got me for my 50th birthday in 2021. I really dig that guitar.

I know I had something else I wanted to write about but it has slipped my brain entirely. Don’t get old, kids. This is what happens to you when you get old. Stay young for as long as you can. Unless you’re already old like me in which case… sorry, folks. We had a good run, I’m sure.

Let’s Take a Trip!

Daily writing prompt
You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, car, or bike?
View all responses

Any excuse to go on a trip. Any place, any time, any method of travel. The answer to today’s question; plane, train, bus, car, or bike is yes. Yes, please. Well… I’ll pass on the bike option, but other than that I’ll go for any of them. I love the fact that I can wake up and Boston, hop on a plane, and finish my day in California or anywhere else on Earth. Thank you air travel.

I also love a good train ride. There is something about kicking up my feet and relaxing while bombing across the country side without (too much) worry about traffic or anything like that. Trains are great. Busses… not my favorite, but still worth the effort. Busses are like trains but with potential traffic jams. Not quite as esthetically pleasing to my soul, but still generally acceptable.

Cars? Absolutely! I am always up for a road trip. Someday I will load up the car with travel stuff, grab the love of my life and get her into the passenger seat, and drive across the country. We’ll stop at every roadside attraction and scenic view we come to. It will be the most epic road trip in American history and we will crush it like experts.

I guess the thing we need to take away from today’s daily prompt topic is that I am ready to travel, any time, any place, any distance. The method of travel does not matter to me so long as we reach the destination safely and have a good time getting there. Except for bikes. I don’t have any real interest in traveling on bikes. Exercising on a bike is one thing, traveling on one… not so much.

It’s a Miracle

Today is a car maintenance day. Our Kia needs an oil change and an inspection sticker.

I got a late start and expected a huge line at the oil change shop. Nope, no line at all! I pulled straight in! It’s a miracle!

I think the place I normally go to for inspections might be closed today. We will see soon enough. Fingers crossed. 🤞

I see the Light

I see the light.

Following up on the Kia question from an earlier post, holding the defrost button turned off the terrible auto function. God bless America. Actually, it’s a Kia so South Korea, I guess.

Reminder: Try This tonight

I drive a Kia Niro. The climate system in the car sucks ass during the summer. It has an auto function that works about as well as… hmmm… what’s a fittingly stupid analogy… fish with a bicycle? Something like that. Anyway, in the summer when it’s 100 degrees outside I set the temp at 68 and it blows hot air. So literally the system blows. I turn the temp down to 65, or the minimum setting, and it blows cold air. It’s dumb. It’s the only thing about that car that I don’t like…

…and there is no obvious way to fix it. There is no auto button that I can find.

To the Google I go! Kia’s website had nothing. Kia’s manual had nothing. A Kia customer forum suggested pressing and holding the defrost button for two seconds. That should turn it off. I am excited and skeptical a the same time. I am excited because I really want it to be off, and skeptical because the solution sounds dumb.

I’m going to try it after work tonight.

I’ll let you know if it works.