I Assemble Things

I walked out of the office Friday to discover the back left tire was dead flat. As I walked up to it, I saw the embedded metal shard that caused it. No problem, I thought, I'll get the spare. I had to call Your Sis to find where the jack and wrench are located in the car, and when I finally did replace the tries with the spare, I find the spare is also dead flat. It's almost falling off the rim, and there's no way I can drive it to a garage for a fix. Now it's right at 6 p.m., and tire stores close at that hour on Fridays. There's a tire garage within eyesight of the office, and the garage bay doors are still open. I write down the tire numbers, and run flatout to the front door, nor their posted hours indeed say it's practically closing time, and plead my case. The very nice clerk says they can help me. He looks at my tire numbers and notes they have a similar tire in stock. I run back to the office, grab the dead tire, and run it back to the garage. Yes, I'm running with a flat, wide, sports car tire in my arms. They confirmed it was dead and beyond repair, but sold me a new one and put it on the rim. They clerk then drove me back to the office, and I put the new tire on.

As I'm driving home, I take the back roads to break in the tire and witness, in the opposite lane of traffic, a dramatic arrest involving a running K9 unit, guns, and two shouting cops in all-black gear. So, yeah, my day could have been worse.

Your Sis got home late from work, and my hops for working on the tech fair display were dashed. We briefly talked of my ideas, but shelved it for the next day. I got up Saturday to reassemble the lawnmower. The manufacturers recommend winterizing the mower -- sharpening the blade, changing the oil and air filter, and cleaning the spark plug. I did all that and put the mower back together, and, to my shock, it cranked up and ran fine. But the grass was too wet to mow, and I went to work on the display.

After getting the picture files from her classroom, I showed her my idea on the home PC in a page-making program. We went with a Frankenstein theme, narrated by Igor from Young Frankenstein. I wanted it to be light-hearted. These kinds of display are usually so dull, and I always advocate the use of humor to present potentially dry material. Because she had to work on research papers, this became my project to assemble, but she checked off on all facets. After raiding K-Mart and Wal-Mart for the last 3 bottles of rubber cement and getting Igor images through Google, we started the tight design work. After getting the package ready on the PC, we let it sit for the next day. That night, we went to a local house party, drank some, ate some, and listened to a teacher couple play the gee-tar. It was a good break from working on the display.

I got up early Sunday to make the text. She proofed it after I cut out the header text and images. We ate, got groceries, and went back to the school to grab sound file samples for a CD to play along with the display. I printed out the text with the accompanying classroom pictures and we glued the whole thing together. Then we prepared for the night's WrestleMania PPV party by putting out a spread of eats and cleaning the house. It was a great time. We had four guests, gave a tour of the house, and they watched most of the show before heading out. The short report: It was a good show with some standout matches amid a few utter crap bouts. But the spectacle was worth it. I drank so much that I'm still a little bleary this morning.

Tonight, we go to the library to see the other tech displays. There's no way anyone can beat ours.

Picture of the Day
See? The white spaces around Igor's head were cut away in the printed version, and the final topper includes lightning behind the text.