Stoner And Amy The Temple Pilot

Turns out that it wasn't Taylor we needed to take the Honda Element to, it was Temple, Tx.  My neighbor's brother owns a mechanic shop in Temple.

We went to the U-Haul close to the house to pick up the trailer.  The woman there was in another dimension.  She was more interested in us trying the cake than getting us a trailer.  She surfed the web to U-Haul to try and figure out how to get us a U-Haul trailer.  Her husband came in and took over.  He clickety-clicked and sent us to another U-Haul.  She said, "Yeah, I should be oooutside."

Got the trailer.  Had to go buy a come-a-long for winching the Element onto the trailer.  I tried Sunbelt Rental first.  Thought they might have some cheap rental for winching.  The guy took me in the back and showed me a chain block thing.  Nine-Inch Nails was playing.  He was thin.  Wore steel toe boots.  Tattooed. 

Ended up at Ace.  Bought a 2-ton "ez-winch".  Cash register lady was funny.  Made jokes about the come-a-long needing lots of four letter words.

Told my dad that it was weird being out and seeing what all these people do every day.  That's what they do.  They have a uniform, a schedule, things to hold, customers at a counter, bolts to tighten.  I solve problems like figuring out the closest distance between two ellipses.  I solve it without using Newton's method.  I solve it with cross products, bisection and bouncing between concave curves hopping to the minimum distance in a few microseconds.  I'm thinking about elliptical paths, contact between curvilinear surfaces and whatever.  I'm totally intense in solving/understanding this stuff.  I tell my dad this and he says, "I know!  Well your goin' to Mars!"

On the way to Temple my dad plugs in the address into his GPS mounted in the dash of his truck.  This truck should make anybody who likes trucks drool.  It's a GMC.  If you think GMC doesn't know how to make trucks - you are wrong.  It makes me proud to be American to sit in the thing.  We will get out of this recession!

Sorry, the coffee just kicked in.

Anyhow, Amy, the GPS girl gave us sexy directions all the way to Temple.  I vetoed her directions a couple times.  My dad is so enamored with Amy that he was weary when I told him that we should try an alternate route.  I felt like I needed to make sure Amy understood that we liked her and appreciated her advice.  My dad is extremely fond of Amy.  I had to make sure my dad understood I liked Amy even though I knew she might make us late.  I think my dad would prefer wrong directions from Amy than correct directions from the voice of some Bob.  "Amy is trying to help us.  She knew this wasn't a safe route.  You got us on a cow trail."  "Daddy, we have to get there before Boodro (our nickname for the UHaul jive talker) leaves.  Amy likes big roads; she's takin' us way down then up. (I dared not mention taking the 'hypotenuse' (a Bob term for sure)) (i have to match parenthesess - tap tap)".

I think I saved face for Amy in the end.  I played around with Amy and found that she was set to "easy" - like that ez-winch.  You can set Amy's routes to fast, easy, short and economical.  This sounds horrible!

Met Mark at the garage.  He was impressed that I didn't have a cellphone.  Here's a guy in a truck that would make George Jones drool, wearing a tattered Carhart, claiming this Honda is going to be a fishin' truck and he's got no cellphone.  Little does he know I'm a neurotic Woody Allen watcher living in a weird bubble.  Mark explained to me how he wishes he didn't have a cellphone but his wife made him get one.  Since his "old school" one broke he had to get one of those new ones.  I felt like a priest with a patron admitting a sin.  I put my finger on the counter and said does it do this - and I did a "pan gesture".  He said, "Yep."  And then I said, "And this." - and then I did a "zoom gesture" then a "pinch gesture".  He said, "Yep, but it was the only one that had the unbreakable case!  I had to get it!  And I told them I didn't believe them that I'd break it.  And they said they'd replace it for free.  And they've got this feature where I can ignore my wife."  I said, "Yeah, I got that feature too.  I got that feature for everybody."  I should have spit to the side after that, but I laughed and forgave his sin.

Boodro told us we could keep our "ride" at U-Haul.  Went next door and got some crawfish/shrimp etouffe.  It was really good, I thought.  Mark seemed embarrassed about the restaurant choice in Temple.  My dad and I give two thumbs up.

Well!  Better run.  Think my dad and I are going fishing in Cedar Creek!