Saturday,
December 15, 2001

Back in the passenger's seat

Yes, it's true -- Death (in the person of Lyndon) was back on the roads in Richardson again. Although I must give the lad his dues for improvement from last weekend -- he only stalled the car once today, and was starting to show signs of being more comfortable behind the wheel before he asked if he could pull over and stop all this now, please.

I also realized that he's too reluctant to give it some gas when starting from a dead stop, which is part of the stalling problem. One solution to that is to let the car roll forward a bit before hitting the gas -- of course, this only works if you're on a flat surface or on the downside of a hill. If you try that while heading up a hill, you run a risk of bumping into the car behind you, which isn't good and tends to annoy the other motorists (particularly the ones behind you).

So we're going to use the other solution -- I'm going to rent an automatic tomorrow and let him practice in that. If he doesn't have to worry about the biting point and controlling the gearshift, he should feel a lot more comfortable about the whole driving thing.

I hope, anyway. I freely admit that I'm looking forward to the day when I can do my own thing over the weekend (writing, shopping, lazing around and reading) again while he takes his car and heads off to do his own thing (making the rounds of the computer and junk stores, heading out to take pictures, etc.). O happy day, come soon, please. . .

Thunder and lightning and morons, oh my!

After Driver's Ed Fletcher Style, I had to go into the office this afternoon to get some last-minute tasks done before a tool load on Monday. One thing led to another, as they tend to do at the Client, and as a result I didn't get out of the office until 9:30 PM. Now, it's been raining all day in lovely North Dallas, so I was a bit hinky about taking the highways back because, well, Dallas drivers tend to be idiots, and bad weather just washes away a couple more IQ points.

But it was late, I was tired, and I figured I could avoid the worst of the maniacs and get home in one piece if I worked at it. Which I did, since I'm sitting here writing this, but once again I am full-blown gonzo astounded at the drivers in this area. If they're not flying along at 70 MPH on roads that can double as skidpads, the drainage is that sucky, they're poking along at 15 MPH and jumping on the brakes every other second. Which I wouldn't necessarily mind, except that they're doing it in the fast lane right in front of me. Arrgh.

Telecommuting is starting to look more and more appealing. That, or a couple of Sidewinder missiles mounted on a roof rack for those who really need to be taken out of the gene pool.