A week without a car...day two.

If you ever need a ride just ask me. It's only day two and feel like I owe the whole world a ride to somewhere. 


My perception of time has changed over the past 2 days. Having a car means I decide when I come and go. Even to the extent that I can get very stressed if I am not out the door or at the office at certain, almost arbitrary deadlines I set for myself. 


Depending on someone else for transportation has lessened this stress and anxiety. For example, today my ride was supposed to pick me up at 8 am. She called and said she had to talk to her son's teacher and get gas. So after 45 minutes of waiting and another 15-minute stop at Star Bucks we arrived at work. Usually this would be a very stressful experience, but I took it in stride and used the time to practice my banjo. 


Being so dependent also means I feel like a pre-driving teen, bumming rides all the time. This feeling was not lessened by the fact that had to ask no fewer than 5 people for a ride home. It wasn't that they couldn't give me a ride but that I wanted to find a someone leaving as close to my normally-scheduled-departure time as possible. As I trudged out to my rides car laden with books and work so I can telework the next few days and explained how to get to my house, I was glad my coworker didn't ask if I had any homework or my adolescent feelings would have been complete. 


Here is a random stats from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics:

• From 2004 to 2008, the median age of automobiles in operation increased by 0.5 years and reached 9.4 years.

This stat only means something to me because after I found out about my car I had to decide whether I wanted to pay for repairs or get a new car. My car has relatively low mileage but is coming up on it's tenth birthday, putting us right at the median. I just hope Regina (that's my car's name) will make it through this to have a many more years and become an outlier. Here's picture of what she looks like in case you forgot (however, my car has a ski rack making it look all the cooler). 

A week without a car...day one.

I was informed today that I blew a head gasket in my engine. I really have no idea what that means but it makes your car overheat, is expensive and takes a long time to fix. Hence this week I am without a car and this situation seems like a good writing gimmick. 

One thing I am already learning from this experience is people are great. Within a few hours of finding out I would be without a car for a week I had found rides for the next few days to and from work, to a party and my banjo lesson thanks to coworkers, a visiting teacher and friends. Oh, I almost forgot to mention my great home teacher who picked me up from the mechanic. It's not often that I have to ask people for help--I try to avoid it as I hate to bother people-- but it was really nice to have so many people come to my rescue. They are great examples to me. 

I may be a psychopath

I came across this article this morning and it left me a little unsettled. Self diagnosis is a dangerous thing and I am very prone to it. I have already diagnosed myself with chronic congestion disorder, degenerative hip disease (which seems to be getting better so I guess I wasn't irreversible), bad knees and perhaps a slow growing brain tumor (I forget things all the time, simple things... like the word for the holiday where people dress up in costumes and then go ask for candy, oh yeah that's called Halloween). Now I may have to add to the list psychopath.

Most people would read an article entitled Can you tell a psychopath by the way they speak? and start to think of the people they know how might fit the profile. I on the other hand start to wonder if I might not be a psychopath because I say "so" a lot and am easily annoyed with people, especially Atlanta drivers, they're crazy. It's moments like this that I wonder why I even went to school as I conflate association and causation and violate a number of other rules of statistical application and just plain common sense. I also wonder if a psychopath ever thinks they are psychopaths. If this article is to be believed there are far more psychopaths than we think and I swear they are all giving public health webinar that I am forced to listen to, and grate my teeth with every "umm" and "uh" and other disfluences used. I'll let my reader(s) make their own judgements.

Here's my favorite comment on this article: "Uhh… Hmmmm… This post is so-so."

Goats and Mountains

I took a quick trip to North Carolina with K and E this weekend. We had a grand time staying at a co-workers cabin and making a quick trip to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It was a pleasant trip and good times were had by all, though E may emphasis the low-temperatures a bit too much. The temp in Atlanta has dropped and in the mountains that means it was down right chilly. It got down into the high forties at the cabin and below freezing at the summit of Clingmans Dome, the highest point of the Smokys. It's really a beautiful park and free I will definitely be going back.

But we couldn't go all the way up to North Carolina without stopping in one of North Georgia's most famous, classy destinations: Goats on a Roof.

K&E with goats on roof.

You can feed them by putting food in a cup and then peddling it up to the goats.

Goats eagerly anticipating goat food.

Luckily for me and them, the goats can set food on solid ground if wanted.

An abandoned chimney on Kephart trail.

This is what it looked like at Clingman's Dome.

The view at a little lower elevation.

The three of us with Rip Van Winkle in the background, who apparently just woke up from his long slumber.

HFJ

I was watching Meet the Press this morning and got my first good look at Harold Ford Jr. (HFJ), former Democratic Congressman from Tennessee. Now, I know what I am about to say is going to make me seem like a 14 year old girl, especially considering my last post about an intellectual crush, but I find HFJ rather attractive. While scribbling down some notes and trying to understand why Peggy Noonan kept whisking back her hair like a 14-year-old girl or Ashley from the Bachelorette it hit me; I find him attractive because he is a hybrid of two individuals I love, President Obama and Rufus Sewell (please see equation below).

Despite the rough patches that President Obama's and my relationship have been through and the economy being in the crapper, I really like the guy; kind of want him as a neighbor. I'm what whispy-hair, talking-mouth Peggy Noonan calls the loyal 20%.

Rufus Sewell is an understated actor who I have loved since the first time I saw Cold Comfort Farm. His appearance in HBO's John Adams Series as the handsome economist and Founding Father, Alexander Hamilton only heightened my ardor. So HFJ, while you may not be making many inroads in the NY political scene you can sit and smolder on MTP anytime.

A New Crush

Many are aware that I have many intellectual crushes, mainly on older economists—these crushes are erroneously extrapolated by some friends to mean I dig old guys. Not true—well, I have a new crush that I would like to publicly announce on my blog, this means it’s serious. My crush is on Harvard University’s Justice with Michael Sandel. You may be thinking, she has a crush on Micheal Sandel. That’s not completely true. I'm more in love with the perfect combination of him, his class and the accessibility of it all than him as a person, but maybe that's because we haven't actually met.

I came across this class a few weeks ago when I was reading an article a friend sent me. The article referenced the class and I decided give it a try. Then I saw him on the Colbert Report and I knew it was meant to be.

Listening to the discussions makes me feel young and inspired again. But, I also appreciate that had I taken this class 10 years ago as a freshman I would have had a completely different experience, and that helps me appreciate it all the more. So here’s to life-long learning and coming to understand old ideas in new ways as one moves through life. One thing I know, I'm much more utilitarian than even I thought.

The clip below isn’t actually from the class but can be found on the class website.

The Thrill of Victory

Last year on the 4th of July weekend being inspired by the competitive spirit of Wimbledon and the World Cup decided to have a badminton tournament inspired by two of the USA's least popular sports, tennis and soccer. My partner and I were runners-up last year but thanks to a stacked team and a no-show by the defending champs (Jeff and Jamie), my partner Shaun and I won the tournament (though, if you ask my room mate Carolyn she would say her team was robbed).

Here are some photos and a video from the event. It is only half way through that we realize we are being filmed. The amazingly patriotic victory cake was made by Carolyn. Warning the video below contains some graphic, fake kissing.

I added this one mainly for the people in the background trying to steal the show.