Trials and/or Tribulations

 What a week it has been! I have been feeling lousy for about a week or so. This sickness seemed to start as a result of me smoking up the house (as I wrote about it Smoking Myself Out.) I figured I would feel bad for a day or two from the smoke inhalation and I would get back to normal. That was not to be the case. My sinuses have been between two states. I am either draining like a sieve or clogged up tight. 

About three or four days into this cycle my head mostly cleared up. The congestion settled into my chest. I have been coughing, wheezing, and hacking for the better part of the week. It is improving. Yesterday I was pretty convinced I had bronchitis. Today (Saturday) I am much improved. 

Monday I decided I had best check on my car. I had a huge amount of packages to deliver to the post office. My downsizing efforts have been good in removing excess stuff and making a few bucks on eBay. I took the keys to my car and my Dad's van. I consider this a precognitive warning of a problem. I turned my key on my car and for the first time in five years my Veloster didn't turn over. Car batteries suffer during extremely hot and cold weather. I assumed the battery was flat. We popped on a charger. A day later it read at full charge. I drove Dad's van to the post office. 

Wednesday Teagan had a dentist appointment bright and early. We headed out to get in my car. Once again I was skeptical of it starting. The clicks from the battery told me quite a lot. It mostly told me to take Dad's van again. 

We got to the dentist. The staff seemed to be waiting on us which would make sense given that I scheduled the appointment at the end of May. I was signing her in when one of the staff asked me how old Teagan was. She proceeded to explain that they don't do pediatric dentistry. This was not welcome news as long as we had waited to be seen. They were nice enough to give me some pediatric dentist referrals. What a wonderful waste of time. 

I tried to salvage the morning by offering Teagan the rare treat of breakfast from out. She declined and preferred to go home and get some sleep. I respected that choice and back home we went. She headed to nap. I went to my office to work. 

Dad was nice enough to test my battery to see if it would jump off. There is always the possibility that the battery chargers were faulty. This is optimistic in the extreme. It did not jump. I decided to wait to deal with it.

Thursday at lunch I wanted to get out a bit. I extracted my bad battery from the Veloster. It went into the top case of my motorcycle. I headed off to get a battery from the Autozone in Halls. I was about two miles down Emory Road when I realized I had made a terrible mistake. The scattered thunderstorms were going to center in on me about the time I made it to Halls. 

At this point I started making calculations. I could speed up and beat the initial burst. I could even do that safely. Scanning the sky I decided that it would be better to change Autozones. I cut a short cut over to Tazewell Pike and headed for the Broadway store. I figured the speed of the storm gave me time to get there and perhaps circle back home and miss the worst of the storm. 

This plan would have worked smoothly. A couple of snags happened. My bike was out of gas was the primary problem. When your plan has zero room for error a fill up represents failure. I also didn't calculate the difference in how busy the Broadway store is. I waited in line a good twenty minutes to get a battery.  

Inflation said a hearty hello at check out. I remember clearly paying $60 bucks for that size battery not long ago. Now the blasted thing is $200. Since there were no options, I swiped my card. I loaded the bike as the first raindrops started. Then I had to deal with being out of gas. 

Now, I considered giving up and finding a place to hide for an hour or so. I had options. My goal had to be down and back in 45 minutes or less including the time I expected it to take me to drop the battery back in place. I can be bullheaded when I have an agenda. I filled up my tank and decided to race the storm home.

A couple of miles down Tazewell Pike I realized this was a terrible plan. I pulled over at a gas station to let the worst of the storm pass. I can certainly ride a storm on the bike, but why add extra risk? I also realized I am not riding as frequently as I used to. Riding and driving are both skills. Riding or driving in the rain is a different skill. Riding or driving in the snow and ice are different skills as well. Had it just been sprinkling I probably would have risked it. With weather advisories and 60 mile-per-hour wind, I decided to pull over and have a cold beverage. 

Dad had text me to warn me that I might need to pull off. I checked in and figured that if the storm was at the house when he messaged that there was a good chance if I waited fifteen minutes that it would have passed over. It was a warm quarter hour of waiting outside, but it turned out to be worth it. I got back home dry and safe. I got the battery installed and the car fired right up. 

Friday morning I did not want to get out of bed. That is pretty rare for me. I typically have a few things I am excited to get into before work. Instead I kept snoozing alarms. I got up a few minutes before time to sign in to work and was very surprised to not have internet. I knew the power had been out during the night. I checked things over. The modem was dead. No power. This was suspicious to me since the power strip it was plugged into had no problems. 

I called my ISP. This was a mistake. The foreign gentleman tried to upsell me a bunch of crap. He was finishing the ticket when he told me that it would take 5 days for my modem to arrive by mail. That wasn't going to work since I work from home. He didn't offer me any alternatives. I loaded up and headed for the retail store. 

An hour and a half later I was on my way home with a new modem and an upgrade in internet speed. allegedly this will be $15 cheaper and has unlimited usage like my old plan. I am skeptical until I see my next bill. 

I got the modem installed fairly quickly. I lost half a day of work on the project. Most of all I just felt drained from the ordeal. I hadn't really felt like sitting at my desk for the day. I wasn't really up to the adventure. 

The funny part is that my power promptly flickered and knocked me back off line for about fifteen minutes. Around 5 pm it went down and stayed down. I just waived the white flag on the day and took a nap. 

Things like that happen in life from time to time. I think there is just a certain amount of frustrating but not critical trouble that we are all slated to deal with. It can be taxing and frustrating, but it isn't the end of the world. Sometimes I think the universe throws things in your path just to see how you are going to respond to it. I try my best to find the silver lining. I figure if it costs me a week (and a few hundred dollars) of frustration to get over the speed bumps of life then I am getting out cheap for the time being.