Isn't it funny how just at this busy time of year it can quickly get ridiculously busier? That's last week and this week for me, hands down. Finished up the "Mongrel" shoot Monday in fine fashion, so Day One of this week is 'in the books' as I quickly scramble for Day Two.
Faithful readers know I drive a high-mileage car, now at 267,000 miles. Runs like a top, but every so often another quirk is added to the billowing Quirk Pile. It all began the first year I had the car, in which I put 54,000 miles on it with constant acting auditions from Atlanta to Philadelphia and most cities in between. The tape player (the what?) died after 9 months, which by then the 36,000-mile/3-year bumper to bumper warranty was well-exceeded, so I let it go. More recently, the A/C compressor died, but only kinda sorta...to this day it may work for 5-20 minutes then quit.
But today was an altogether new adventure as I drove several hours up and back for the studio voice-over work. It was my rear windshield wiper.
It wouldn't stop wiping.
I'm now the proud owner of the new Energizer Bunny of the windshield wiper world. I never even cut it on...it just started going left-right-left-right-left-right all on its own. No matter how I jiggled the control or turned it or massaged it or banged it, it simply kept on keeping on.
On the way home it stopped for about 5 minutes, out of the blue....and then, at the snap of a finger, it started again and kept it up all the way home. As luck would have it, I did run into a brief shower a half-hour before reaching the house, which kept me from looking like a complete idiot with a rear windshield wiper going 90-to-nothing in filtered sunshine.
I'll look to see if a particular fuse controls just that arm and pull it...or jiggle wires where the harness passes through the tailgate hinge as I suspect that's where the short is. You can overload your brain only so much in a given day before you know you need to shut it down. The short can wait a little longer.
-------------------------------------
What a wild (and nice) swing in the temperature department here in North Carolina. I think I speak for many of us when I say it made me rather swallow hard when I opened the latest power bill that came in. Doggone cold for the past couple of months, basically, and my heat pump showed it. Made watching "Happy Feet!" feel like you were actually there on the animation set...
-------------------------------------
For so many this is one tough Christmas. And it only gets worse in January and February when the 'rush' of the holiday season comes and goes, leaving the gaping emotional hole in its wake. Success is never about how you handle the highlights but how you surmount the struggles, and there are more than enough of those to go around thrice over.
"Attitude" will always be one of the most important aspects of survival, or the lack thereof. A loving, kind heart triumphs over any selfish force, and pays back in spades. May we all simply be aware of the blessings each of us has, and be open to helping others as opportunities rise in our daily Journeys...
Faithful readers know I drive a high-mileage car, now at 267,000 miles. Runs like a top, but every so often another quirk is added to the billowing Quirk Pile. It all began the first year I had the car, in which I put 54,000 miles on it with constant acting auditions from Atlanta to Philadelphia and most cities in between. The tape player (the what?) died after 9 months, which by then the 36,000-mile/3-year bumper to bumper warranty was well-exceeded, so I let it go. More recently, the A/C compressor died, but only kinda sorta...to this day it may work for 5-20 minutes then quit.
But today was an altogether new adventure as I drove several hours up and back for the studio voice-over work. It was my rear windshield wiper.
It wouldn't stop wiping.
I'm now the proud owner of the new Energizer Bunny of the windshield wiper world. I never even cut it on...it just started going left-right-left-right-left-right all on its own. No matter how I jiggled the control or turned it or massaged it or banged it, it simply kept on keeping on.
On the way home it stopped for about 5 minutes, out of the blue....and then, at the snap of a finger, it started again and kept it up all the way home. As luck would have it, I did run into a brief shower a half-hour before reaching the house, which kept me from looking like a complete idiot with a rear windshield wiper going 90-to-nothing in filtered sunshine.
I'll look to see if a particular fuse controls just that arm and pull it...or jiggle wires where the harness passes through the tailgate hinge as I suspect that's where the short is. You can overload your brain only so much in a given day before you know you need to shut it down. The short can wait a little longer.
-------------------------------------
What a wild (and nice) swing in the temperature department here in North Carolina. I think I speak for many of us when I say it made me rather swallow hard when I opened the latest power bill that came in. Doggone cold for the past couple of months, basically, and my heat pump showed it. Made watching "Happy Feet!" feel like you were actually there on the animation set...
-------------------------------------
For so many this is one tough Christmas. And it only gets worse in January and February when the 'rush' of the holiday season comes and goes, leaving the gaping emotional hole in its wake. Success is never about how you handle the highlights but how you surmount the struggles, and there are more than enough of those to go around thrice over.
"Attitude" will always be one of the most important aspects of survival, or the lack thereof. A loving, kind heart triumphs over any selfish force, and pays back in spades. May we all simply be aware of the blessings each of us has, and be open to helping others as opportunities rise in our daily Journeys...
No comments:
Post a Comment