Dave's Thoughts of the Day: July 7th (and 8th)

The day is winding down… time for a new entry!

Do you suppose the R.E.M. song "Orange Crush" is about soda?

If I could, I would build a bridge that goes from Agoura Hills and then *over* Thousand Oaks and Camarillo so those jokers who can't drive can be left on their own.   Let that bridge run over the Conejo Valley and then just descend straight onto Oxnard.  Man!  The traffic getting to Oxnard lately to see my parents has been b r u t a l.   Last three maybe four trips in a row getting there via the 101.  Man!

I was thinking… the last trip may have been the best of them, during Independence Day Weekend, and I was FLYING all the way through Los Angeles… I zipped by the Valley and zinged along Calabasas.   But no!   Once it got to Thousand Oaks, fwap, cars all over the freeway.  It was the Friday morning of Independence Day… surely I thought I'd manage a nice commute with most of the guys leaving the night before.  No!!!  So I waited… if you can believe this, it was not *as* bad as the prior two trips.  I could get the sense that "it was going to get worse" too.   I actually just got the front end of what appeared to be a BAD traffic day on the 101.  I'm happy to make it through all that.

The worst trip I had was the week before.  It was so bad that I thought I'd outsmart everybody and get off in Thousand Oaks and then take Thousand Oaks Blvd.  That did not work out well at all.  In fact all I did was go back north to Moorpark Blvd. and back onto Santa Rosa Road, a back way into Camarillo from Thousand Oaks.  I could have just hit that off the 118 freeway about 30 minutes earlier, but how was I supposed to know that?   I had hoped the 101 would cooperate when I caught up with it from 118… and it didn't.  The cars didn't move at all.  Oi.

So that was driving this weekend.  It wasn't as bad as the week before but it had rough patches.   I found out just yesterday that for the last three weeks I was driving my Camry with low tire pressure.  My goodness, I did not pay attention there.  I left my parents' house last night and my Pop calls me on the phone as I leave.  He said my tires look low and asked me to go check it out.   Thankfully I still had that tire pressure gauge he gave to me in my car.   I went to the gas station to check the tire pressure.  All the tires were low on air… under 25 PSI for tires that had a max PSI threshold of 40.  WHOOF.  

My Dad did me a solid… I didn't have change for the air machine, so I went to the counter to ask for change.   The lady there asked me what I needed and I tried ( for a while ) to explain that I needed change for the air machine.   I asked for the change for the air machine and she said "Oh I'll just turn it on for you!"

Right away I thought, "how is she gonna do that?"  The air machine is way outside and there's only 2 people at the counter so the store will be shorthanded and OHHHHHH she just pushed a button to turn it on from right there on the counter.  It blew my *mind.*  So I thanked them and went out to put the air into the tires.  I started with one tire, checked the tire pressure with each puff, and kept going to the other tires, but then the machine went off.  I'm like "what the hell?" but I forgot that the gas station air machines only operate for 3 minutes.  So, I had to go back and ask them to turn the machine on again.   These ladies were very generous, they hooked me up *again* so I ran out this time and went around trying to finish the deal.  Then the machine went out again so I went BACK to ask for just one more cycle.   They started it up one last time and I finished the last tire.  I got all the tires filled to 32 PSI.. I didn't want to overinflate it, but I wanted GOOD pressure.  I probably haven't filled the tires with air in years!

I've had the tires on my car going for roughly 4-5 years now.  I don't know how long tires last, but considering I didn't put air in them for so long, they held up great.  With the air, we were back in action.  I called my Dad to thank him, and went back on the road.

I gotta tell you something fellas… somehow the car was able to accelerate so much faster!  I didn't put as much pressure on the accelerator and I was flyin'.   Life was good.  We were back in business, and now I just have to make sure that the tires have the proper amount of air in them.

One reason I let the tires lose so much air was that I assumed the Jiffy Lube put air in the tires, but apparently they don't?   I've got to take the car to the tire shop to get the proper maintenance.   It's good to know, and I'll be better with it from now on.

Ever since that Johnny Manziel incident I'm getting hyper about any white substance anywhere.  On Monday afternoon I saw some chalky powder clumps on the hallway floor.  Now it might be reasonable to assume it's actual chalkboard chalk as we are in an educational building at UCLA, but I can't say… I was spooked.  The Manziel thing had me thinking people were doing coke all over campus.   Then I saw another white powder trail by the elevator.  Well now who knows?

You ever hear of those lingerie items called "teddy's?"   I don't really know how anything named "Ted" correlated to it.   That may be one for the lingerie shop to explain to me.

Forgiveness is just a swing of the bat away!  Just ask Brian McCann and Brett Gardner.

Congratulations to Novak Djokovic for winning the Wimbledon Gentlemen's Singles Championship on Sunday.  My friend Tom in NJ said "Fuck him."  A little harsh isn't it?!   Federer's a really popular player, and a humble one at that.  Incredibly great player and great human, but Djoko's fun to watch play too.  I was interested in seeing Djoko overcome his recent title match demons.  He blew a huge lead in the 4th set and then recovered in the 5th after Federer ran out of gas.  Youth won that match.. but to be fair Djokovic was really good at breaking serve.  I think Federer only broke a couple times and Djoko did a half a dozen times.

Federer would have been a great story had he won, but I think Djoko is the guy in his prime… if he can take that into a couple more Majors these next 365 days he could come get into serious historical territory.

Farewell party tonight at Barney's Beanery.  I had plans to go to Souplantation, but I'm happy to abandon them to say goodbye to a friend.  A former supervisor and NOW ready to start a new career at Symantec.  Good times ahead for him.  For me, just a few beers ahead, but I got a bus to take me home.

I think life's all right.  I love summer.  Hope yours is going well.   'Til next time.