Do you ever have those days when, at the end of the day, you wish you could have just skipped the day? Yesterday was one of those days for me. This is my therapeutic write-up about it. My day starts out with a quick check of my email, and I have a message from a major gadget site chastising me for a story we ran which quoted too much of their content and for not indicating the quoted material was from their story. I check the story, and sure enough, we did quote more than we should have – but the story was so short, it was hard not to. But I know what it’s like when another site takes more of my content than they should, so I write back to him and apologize, adjusting the story. Our headline linked to their story, but it didn’t have the name of the site in it, so I add to to the story. OK, no biggie, but not a great way to start my day.
Partially because of dealing with this, I end up leaving my house later than I wanted to – I had to head down to the local CBC radio office because I was invited to be a guest on a nationally-broadcast show called The Point. I second-guessed the directions I had in my head on how to get there, so I missed the turn and ended up having to make up my own route for getting there. On the way there I stopped at a stop sign and had some wicked sun glare to my right, so I couldn’t see that there was a car coming until I had already started to pull out – and I didn’t have the right of way. Honk honk goes the other driver – yeah, sorry about that, my fault. As I’m getting closer to where I think I need to be, I had to pull a U-turn on a major road, just as the light was turning green to let traffic start coming my way. The turning radius of my car wasn’t quite enough to allow me to to the U-turn, so I had to throw it into reverse when I’d turned as far as I could, back up a few feet, then get going forward again. I didn’t stop traffic, but I still felt like an idiot because when I see people doing that I usually think rather unkind things about them.
I got going again, feeling a bit bad for driving like an idiot, and I start heading down a hill, getting closer to where I need to be. Completely distracted, and heading down-hill, sun glaring in my eyes, I don’t pay attention to my speed – until I see a police officer in the middle of the road waving me to pull over. Yup, I got a speeding ticket. I was doing 70 kmph in a 50 kmph zone. I was already running very late, so I did something very uncharacteristic: I asked the officer if I could possibly be let off with a warning. He gave me an emphatic no, but assured me this wouldn’t take long. Surprisingly, he didn’t ask for my insurance – only my driver’s license. True to his word, I was on my way again in about four minutes with a $124 ticket.
I managed to find the CBC building, only to drive around it twice looking for parking, having to park a block away. I go in, do the interview (more on that later), and leave. Halfway back to my car I realize I forgot my laptop back in the studio, so I walk back and manage to find a kind front desk woman who, with the help of a security guard, get me into the studio to get my laptop – it seems as soon as I left they shut down the studio and locked it all up. I get back into my car and head off to meet someone whom I sold an old Canon digital camera to – when I sold it to him I accidentally gave him the battery recharger for my newer Canon camera, so I hadn’t been able to charge my camera for, oh, two months.
A few more errands and I’m back near home at OK Tires to get four new tires put on my car. I dropped off the car, and walked over to a nearby Boston Pizza to have lunch alone and work on a review on my laptop. A few sips into my Diet Pepsi, OK Tires calls me and says that they can’t find the special key for the locked lug nuts on my tires – and without this special key, they can’t get the tires off my car to replace them. Never having had a flat on that car before, I wasn’t even aware that it even had special locked lug nuts. I pay for my drink, trudge back over to OK Tires, and drive my car home to look for this mysterious key. It’s nowhere to be found, so I call the nearest Mazda dealership to ask them what my options are. Thankfully, every Mazda dealership has a set of master keys and for $36 I’m able to purchase a new set. Meanwhile, I’ve missed my OK Tire appointment so I re-book for 4:30 pm.
I was interviewed by Metro Calgary earlier in the week (more on that later), so I wanted to track down a copy of the paper – it’s not very widely distributed, at least in the places I looked, but I managed to find a copy after buying some RAM for two netbooks I’m testing. A few hours later, and some more wasted time sitting at a local Wendy’s, and I was back home with four new tires on my car. What a day – I hate it when I feel like my whole day is consumed by running errands and I don’t get any real work done. I also hate days when I get speeding tickets.
Thankfully, today was a much better day. 🙂
Yikes! Now I’m REALLY REALLY sorry for my part in the beginning your cascading failure of a day!
No worries Chris. 🙂
Just a note: Locked lugnuts are to prevent people from making away with your rims and tyres. It might not be too common over where you are, but it has happened before in my neck of the woods. Especially in areas where it is closer to the main roads connecting the neighbouring country’s border.
It’s not very common here to have stolen wheels/tires unless they’re aftermarket or have really nice tires on, but for the small price to pay, it’s a good investment to have. Typically the “key” is stored with your jack/tire iron or in your glove box. Mine are anyway…
Which winter tires did you end up selecting, Jason? Just curious after all the back and forth a few of us did on here a while ago… (I’m presuming you got winter tires rather than All-Seasons again).
yslee,
Yeah, I’m aware of why the locking lug nuts are used, but I’ve rarely been in neighbourhoods where I’ve felt my car was at risk. But for $36, sure, why not have a little extra security. 🙂
Cold Flame,
Yeah, I would have expected the key to have been in my glove box, but both I and the OK Tire guys searched every part of the car and found nothing. When I saw the replacement part, I didn’t recognize it, so it’s entirely possible that Gary Moe Mazda (in Red Deer, where we bought the Protege 5) didn’t even give it to us. It wouldn’t surprise me, since they were the same people who told us the new Mazda body design wasn’t coming out for at least six months, and it came out a bit over a month later.
As for the tires, I ended up getting All Seasons. We’ve shifted from wanting a small two-door sedan to looking at small SUV like the Subaru Forester, the Saturn View, etc. I’ll get winter tires for that, and that will be our primary winter vehicle.