Post by Greg B on Aug 5, 2008 12:44:16 GMT -5
Sometimes life gives you clusterings of random events in such a way as to make you think there's something going on. But it's really just an odd distribution that seems like it should have meaning.
Such is the flat tire affair.
4 months ago when we moved my step daughter and her boyfriend out of our mobile home in San Diego and into our little mountain home up here in Weimar I drove the moving truck, my wife drove her car, and stepdotter drove her car. Less than an hour into the drive my wife has a flat tire. But remember, we're moving so she has the back of the car packed with stuff so she has to unpack everything on the side of the road, change the tire, and repack.
30 minutes later stepdotter gets a flat tire. She has to unpack everything, change the tire, and repack the car. They call me on the cell phone to let me know where they are and what happened and I insist that they get the flats fixed before they continue. I didn't want them to have to drive over The Grapevine* and 450 miles through Central Valley with no spare tire.
So they get their tires fixed and finally get back on the road. It's 1:00 pm and they still have 550 miles to go.
After a LONG day of driving they get to the northern Ca. house with no more problems. Stepdotter finds herself a job and starts going to work every day.
The first week at her new job I get a phone call. She has a flat tire.
3 weeks ago my wife is doing a fitting on a wedding dress that she's making for a friend of ours. Our friend flew up to do the fitting and they were really cutting their schedule close as far as getting her and the dress back to the airport on time. As my wife is driving on the freeway there's what she described as an explosion. Her right rear tire delaminated and ripped up her fender, wheel well, tail lights, and beat the crap out of the side of her car. (That ended up being an $1800 flat tire). She changed the tire and continued onto the airport.
So the car's in the shop and we have a rental car to replace it. On the 2nd morning of having the rental car guess what happened? It had a flat tire. She changed that one and called the rental car company. They exchanged the whole car so she wouldn't have to worry about fixing the spare.
2 weeks ago I'm up at 5 am to go meet my carpool for work. I hear a weird roaring noise from the rear left of my truck. Yep, it's a flat tire.
Last weekend I go on a fly fishing trip to the north Yuba river. I got all the way to the river, down the dirt road, fished all day (It was one of those "fishing, not catching" days) and drove home. As I was nearing the house I noticed a roaring noise from my rear right tire. I check it and it's about half flat.
Clustered distribution of random events. It couldn't be anything else. But holy cow. I've had about enough of changing tires this year.
BTW, the truck is safe from flat tires for the moment because it's in the shop. Apparently, when I hit a hard bump on that dirt road at the Yuba river I snapped the clutch off of the front of my air conditioner compressor. I should have the truck back about 2 days and $880 from now. But at least I'm not driving it so I shouldn't be flattening any tires.
Life's weird sometimes.
*The Grapevine is a steep winding road that goes over the mountains north of Los Angelos.
Such is the flat tire affair.
4 months ago when we moved my step daughter and her boyfriend out of our mobile home in San Diego and into our little mountain home up here in Weimar I drove the moving truck, my wife drove her car, and stepdotter drove her car. Less than an hour into the drive my wife has a flat tire. But remember, we're moving so she has the back of the car packed with stuff so she has to unpack everything on the side of the road, change the tire, and repack.
30 minutes later stepdotter gets a flat tire. She has to unpack everything, change the tire, and repack the car. They call me on the cell phone to let me know where they are and what happened and I insist that they get the flats fixed before they continue. I didn't want them to have to drive over The Grapevine* and 450 miles through Central Valley with no spare tire.
So they get their tires fixed and finally get back on the road. It's 1:00 pm and they still have 550 miles to go.
After a LONG day of driving they get to the northern Ca. house with no more problems. Stepdotter finds herself a job and starts going to work every day.
The first week at her new job I get a phone call. She has a flat tire.
3 weeks ago my wife is doing a fitting on a wedding dress that she's making for a friend of ours. Our friend flew up to do the fitting and they were really cutting their schedule close as far as getting her and the dress back to the airport on time. As my wife is driving on the freeway there's what she described as an explosion. Her right rear tire delaminated and ripped up her fender, wheel well, tail lights, and beat the crap out of the side of her car. (That ended up being an $1800 flat tire). She changed the tire and continued onto the airport.
So the car's in the shop and we have a rental car to replace it. On the 2nd morning of having the rental car guess what happened? It had a flat tire. She changed that one and called the rental car company. They exchanged the whole car so she wouldn't have to worry about fixing the spare.
2 weeks ago I'm up at 5 am to go meet my carpool for work. I hear a weird roaring noise from the rear left of my truck. Yep, it's a flat tire.
Last weekend I go on a fly fishing trip to the north Yuba river. I got all the way to the river, down the dirt road, fished all day (It was one of those "fishing, not catching" days) and drove home. As I was nearing the house I noticed a roaring noise from my rear right tire. I check it and it's about half flat.
Clustered distribution of random events. It couldn't be anything else. But holy cow. I've had about enough of changing tires this year.
BTW, the truck is safe from flat tires for the moment because it's in the shop. Apparently, when I hit a hard bump on that dirt road at the Yuba river I snapped the clutch off of the front of my air conditioner compressor. I should have the truck back about 2 days and $880 from now. But at least I'm not driving it so I shouldn't be flattening any tires.
Life's weird sometimes.
*The Grapevine is a steep winding road that goes over the mountains north of Los Angelos.
