The Venting Thread

[archaeo42]

paultuttle, why not get another Mazda 6?

When I had a zipcar membership the Mazda was my favorite to drive - zippy and handled well. The only downside was headroom for my spouse. He often felt cramped. But this was a Mazda 3.

edited to add: it's not at all weird that you're grieving either.

[0susanna]

paultuttle, why not get another Mazda 6?

edited to add: it's not at all weird that you're grieving either.

What archaeo42 said. Also, my colleague swears by her Mazda 3--their second one. She'd probably have bought a Mazda 6 if she could justify the expense.

[paultuttle]

Thanks, archaeo42 and Osusanna, for being sympathetic to my first-world problems!

I did think about the newest Mazda6, but they don't seem to come with manual transmissions in any model any more. And thanks for suggesting the Mazda3, but my legs are longer than my torso, so cars that size are a tight fit. Ironically, the tiniest economy cars are an excellent fit, but judging from my rental car history, they tend to be sold without essentials like armrests or understandable instrument panels and typically handle like elephants on ice skates and accelerate like sloths with sleep deprivation, so they're beyond consideration.

But thanks for the sympathy!

____

New vent: Continued "very high" ragweed pollen in my area per Weather.com warnings.

[science.expat]

You might consider an automatic. Modern ones are much better than the old ones were. I made the move a few years ago and am happy, even when driving off road.

[mamselle]

I misread that as "driving off the road," and thought...oh, dear, hope he wasn't in an accident!

M.

[AmLitHist]

Paultuttle, thanks for giving me an excellent description of how I feel at the end of Week 4: sloths with sleep deprivation.

In part this is due to my two F2F classes which consist of herding cats in addition to trying to teach skills; combined with 2019 being the Health Year from Hell for me, including being among those getting hammered by the ragweed counts this year, I'll now return to grading in this sloth-like state.  (Note my enthusiasm?)

[mamselle]

I do not accept friend requests from folks I do not know. I really, really don't accept friend requests when these folks are messianic Jews.

Coming back to this because one of the articles I'm currently editing is a very-well-researched and written essay on time, rest, and the redemptive life by a young man who identifies with both Hebrew and Christian texts in the way he lives his life, and articulates their interactions well.

He's read a lot of Heschel, Soloveitchik, and Hegel, and studies Talmudic as well as the canonical Hebrew and Christian scriptures in their original languages. I'm really enjoying his growing erudition and the respectful care with which he handles his materials.

This thread just kept coming to mind, had to point out the fallacy in generalizations that don't generalize from all the specifics ....

M.

[mamselle]

I even have a suitable candidate, the writer whose 3-times-too-long, sloppily documented piece I'm working on.

Edit is a 4-letter word.

M.

[downer]

I got a phone call from an unknown number. I don't normally answer these, but I was grading so I welcomed any damn distraction. I was surprised to get a live person on the other end.

It was from someone  from a company offering me information about some service to use in conjunction with my LMS.

The caller seemed surprised when I said that I would only be prepared to talk with him if they paid me to do so.

[ab_grp]

In the stating-the-obvious category of vents, having one's water shut off midway through one's shower does not make for the start of a good day.

[mamselle]

EEek!

Did it turn cold before it shut off, or did it just go from whoosh to drip?

M.

[ab_grp]

It went from whoosh to barely there until there was so little pressure that the shower turned itself off.  I had conditioner in my hair at the time and tried desperately and in a rising panic to rinse it out when the water dwindled, but it all happened too fast, and longer hair can take a while to rinse no matter how fervently one tries.  An angry call to the water company took place shortly thereafter, as you might imagine.  Eventually (fortunately, not an hour later as the company predicted), I tried the water to see if I could at least wash the soap off my face with a trickle of water.  Eureka! Water had been turned back on, and I rushed back into the shower for a quick rinse.  First world problems, I guess. 

[FishProf]

Turned the Furnace on for the first time today.  Or I tried to.  Nothing happened.

Then, I remembered the fuse that goes out regularly.  Fixed!

Then water started spilling from radiators b/c the automatic water shutoff didn't.

So I turned it off and drained it, but this was going to be an expensive fix!

Then I realized I had opened the autofeed bypass.

So, problem solved, except for me being a dumbass.

[science.expat]

Cellulitis

[bioteacher]

I've had chronic knee pain (both knees) since doing 3 years of retail work standing on concrete floors for 40+hrs a week. I finally hit my limit of waiting to heal and went to a specialist this morning.
The good news is my knee pain is reversible. No arthritis. The bad news: 8 weeks of physical therapy and the requisite copays to get me back to "normal." I think this is good news. Except for getting up early AM for PT, the copays, and you know, exercise. Ugh.