car, steps, swim, lunch

My room-mate's lease on his car will be expiring soon and so on Saturday he decided to head to Columbus to the dealership where his brother works to return the car and lease a new one. I went along - partly for something to do on a quiet Saturday morning and partly out of relief. For the past several months there has a been an ever increasing debate for my room-mate on exactly which car to get. Make, model, features, color - over and over again. And for me, a non-car kinda guy - it was becoming seriously tedious.

We get to the dealership and I had fortunately brought a book - so I sat quietly in the lounge and tried to tune out the blaring TV. If I could have found a volume control, I would have turned it down.

With the paperwork done, we loaded back in the car, stopped at Long John Silver's for lunch, and then headed back. The car is pretty nice and has some cool features and such - though not enough cup-holders - but I was just glad that the endless debate was done. Oh, and the car comes with XM radio for 3 months free - but we found that XM radio has commercials. I can't believe that anyone would pay for radio and also pay to have commercials - thought I guess cable TV is that way. In any case, my room-mate already has Siruis and he'll be sticking with that.

In other news... the back steps out onto the patio have been starting to bow and pulling the nails up. So, I bought some treated lumber, some outdoor wood-screws and on Saturday afternoon my room-mate and I replaced the steps. We didn't do the railing or the risers, just the steps themselves. And it was a good thing too as a huge thunderstorm rolled in just as we were finishing it up. It was a successful project - no mistakes in the cuts for the wood posts, no injuries, and the steps are sturdy and level - and lined up well.

Last Friday, I was in a meeting most of the morning and then had lunch plans and so missed my window of opportunity for my mid-day swim. I had planned to go for a swim after work, but then remembered that the pool was going to be closed for a special event. So, that kinda sucked.

The good news was that my lunch plans included a former co-worker visiting - a few of us went to lunch with her at the student center and swapped some work stories and just generally had a really nice time.

I guess that's it for now. I'm not really looking forward to this week - but we'll get through it.

later...