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A few months ago, my wife got a magnetic advertisement for the minivan. It is a sheet of magnet-backed plastic with her business name and contact information on it, so that people who see the minivan might be inclined to become customers. It has the side effect of causing me to be a more courteous driver, but that’s another post. The ad is about 8.5 inches by 11 inches – the size of a standard sheet of paper – and sticks nicely to the door of the minivan.

We were recently driving in Indiana. We had been driving through a city, and then we entered a freeway. When we got to speed, I heard some flipping sound. It then became a flapping sound, so I looked in the mirrors to see if we ran over a piece of paper or something that had become caught on our vehicle somehow. As I looked in my side-view mirror, I saw the advertisement flailing. I guess that the wind had caught the front edge of the magnetic sheet and started peeling it back.

I started slowing down, hoping to avoid having the ad fly off the door. It’s not that I cared much about the ad – it wasn’t that expensive. But I didn’t want it hitting another car and causing an accident. Or worse, hitting a motorcyclist who, because of Indiana’s laws, would probably not be wearing a helmet. A sheet of plastic hitting you at almost 70 mph would not feel good to your face. Or at the very least, I would get a fine for littering. If the ad caused an accident or became litter, there would be no doubt as to the culprit, because our contact information is printed on it. As I slowed down, I am sure I annoyed the vehicles that I had just passed, as they now had to change lanes to avoid me. But I pulled over, brought the ad inside the van, and we continued on our way.

So if you see our van, you’ll know why the ad is missing from the driver’s side sliding door. And if you have a magnetic sign on your car or van or truck, check the leading edge of the sign to ensure that there are no gaps to catch the wind.

It had been a while since I mowed the lawn. Yes, I have mowed since the incident.

I probably mow about half as much as the neighbor does. He hasn’t said much about it, so I don’t know that he minds that much. Several years ago, he did make some comment, after I had mowed and the grass was so long that the grass clippings were in nice neat rows. There was so much grass that the discharge chute couldn’t throw it very far, so the long clippings were just left in a mound as I drove around.

His comment was something to the effect of “nice harvest”. I got the impression he thought I should go back over the lawn after I was done, but this time with a baler.

Due to the many activities of life, I have not been able to mow the lawn as often as other people – mainly my neighbors – mow. The other night we got home shortly before sundown and I figured it was my best chance to mow.

So I started mowing and kept mowing, turning on the headlights, until shortly after sundown. There was still a little light – it was probably officially dusk when I finished. It wasn’t always easy to see while I was mowing. Most of the time I noticed the sticks and branches but some I didn’t, so I ran over a few things. That is not good for your mower blades, so don’t mow at night.

After I finished, I saw some bits of glass on the driveway. I thought that was odd, as we don’t use glass bottles for anything. And I knew that plastic water bottles don’t shatter like that. But some people had been over earlier in the week, so I thought maybe they brought some glass with them.

On my way back from stowing the lawn mower, I stopped to look at the shards of glass in the driveway. They happened to be right next to my car, the Buick. My gaze left the driveway and traveled up the side of the Buick, stopping at the hole in the rear side window. For a few seconds, I stood there, trying to comprehend what I was seeing. I knew what I saw – the window was shattered – but I was thinking “Is there any way that what I’m seeing is not really happening?”

After I opened the door and some pieces of glass fell on the driveway, I figured it was real and there was nothing to do but clean up. I was wearing gloves, so I started picking the pieces out of the door handle. It wasn’t working very well, so I tried to think of a better way to get the hundreds of pieces of glass out of the car. I am glad I have a Shop Vac. I brought that out and it sucked all the glass shards out of the car with no problem. I never found the projectile that caused the damage, as the vacuum probably took it along with all the glass. I did remember one particularly hefty ka-chunk sound while mowing, and that was near the car. I don’t normally run over items on purpose, but as it was dark, I didn’t see whatever it was in the lawn. I think it was a rock. Don’t mow in the dark, and keep your lawn clear of objects.

After the car was cleaned, I inspected the driveway. As there was glass scattered around the tires, I knew I didn’t want to move the car without cleaning up that glass first. So I started vacuuming the driveway too. The problem there was that it is a dirt and gravel driveway. So I vacuumed more dirt and gravel than glass. But I think I got the driveway all cleaned, eventually.

Another problem was that this was slightly after dusk now, so the mosquitoes were out in full force. They are bad enough normally at that time, but I had a vacuum hose in one hand and a flashlight in the other, so I couldn’t really react quickly. Plus I had picking up glass shards with my gloves, so I didn’t want to be smacking or scratching myself with those gloves.

The next day, I took the car to the Buick dealership to have the rear side window replaced. There was no glass left, so it was more like having a window installed. I expected that, of all places, a Buick dealership would have a replacement window available. The car is only a few years old, but they did not have those windows in stock. They could order a part from GM, but it would take a few days to arrive. Or, the option I took, they could have a local glass company come and replace the window. So I paid the dealership to contract out the work. The final bill was around $150, not as bad as I thought when I first saw the damage. But it is a lot more than $0, which is what I would have paid if none of this had happened.

Do not try to guess what the other driver expects you to do. Maintain your course and speed and let the other drivers work around you.

Last week, I was commuting home from work and I was about to enter the freeway portion of the trip. The service drive is somewhat above the freeway at that point, so I had a good view of the traffic that was already there. As I was coming down the ramp, I aimed for a spot just behind someone in the right lane. Unfortunately, they thought I was aiming for a spot in front of them. I think they were trying to be nice, so they slowed down to let me in.

But I wasn’t going fast enough to get in that spot. I couldn’t merge because the helpful car was right in my way, and I couldn’t slow down because there was someone just behind me, also wanted to enter the freeway. So I had to stomp on the accelerator and cut in front of the person before the short entrance lane ended. If I had some nice sporty car, that wouldn’t have been a problem. But I have a Buick. Not exactly suitable for quick maneuvers like that.

And that reminded me of a similar problem we had a number of years ago. Back at least a decade ago, my dad was driving the family back (eastbound) from a trip to visit my sister (who at the time was the only child of his who was married and out of the house). Part of the journey involved a rural two-lane road with a few long straightaways. The speed limit was 55 mph, and we were behind someone who was going slower. So dad pulled into the other lane (westbound) to pass the person.

The person was driving slowly, but not extremely slowly, so it took a few seconds to get next to the car. At that point, an oncoming car was approaching. Dad judged that there would not be time to get around the slow person before we crashed, so he slowed down to get back behind the slow person. Unfortunately, the slow person was trying to be nice and let dad in ahead of him (or was it a her? I don’t remember). So the oncoming car was even closer, but dad could not get back into the lane because the other car was trying to guess what dad wanted but was getting it wrong. After a cycle of slow down, speed up, slow down – matched exactly by the other car, we finally got back into the eastbound lane before the westbound car met us.

So if you ever see me driving and it seems like I’m not being courteous by slowing down or speeding up for other people, it’s not because I’m being mean. I’m just trying to avoid accidents.

This falls into the category of “You know you’re old when…” :

My normal schedule is to go to the YMCA to work out about once or twice a week – usually once a week. Due to one reason or another, I haven’t been for the past couple of weeks until tonight. The first machine was the back extension, where you push against the weights by leaning back.

I knew it was going to be a long night when I thought the machine was stuck because it wasn’t moving when I tried to lean back. It turns out that it wasn’t broken – the problem was that my back wasn’t used to moving weights. It was the same amount of weight I’ve been using for the past few sessions.  How quickly the body degrades…

The tip? – Don’t take too long of a break between workouts.