GM Roadside Assistance

Let me start by saying if you are in the Kenmore, Tonawanda area, and you need roadside assistance, call John at JT’s Roadside Service, 716/990-1872. He was fast and professional, and after almost five hours in a small car with a nine-year-old, a sight for sore eyes.

Yes. Saturday turned out to be a very...interesting...day.

We went to a basket raffle, won Three baskets!, and when we came out at 5:50 pm, the back passenger tire was flat as a pancake. I used my Onstar, told them I was alone with my child in the car, and they called GM Roadside Assistance for me. The next call I received was from GM Roadside. They were sending someone from Tracy's Towing to me, and my wait time was an hour and a half. Well, I figured, an hour and a half, that's not too bad, Ian and I will wait it out.

At 7:30 I used my Onstar button again and asked for a status update. We'd waited an hour and a half, and there was no assistance in sight. They called GM Roadside again, and told me that because the weather was bad in my area (news to me), it would be another half hour, 45 minutes. They gave me the number for Tracy's so I could call them directly if I needed to. Nothing to do but wait...

Fortunately, I had parked in front of a Chinese pizza place, so we got a small pizza and ate in the car. One of the baskets Ian won was full of toys, so we used the pizza box to set up the chess board, and we played chess and checkers for a while.

At 8:15, I called Tracy's directly. The man that answered the phone told me their tow truck broke down, they were getting another one to me, and it would be another 30 to 45 minutes.

At 9:00, I called Tracy's again, directly. The man that answered apologized again and told me he was on his way. It was snowing like crazy where he was, but he should be to me in another half hour, 45 minutes.

I didn't believe him, but what could I do?

We waited.

At 10:00, I used my Onstar button and vented. I had been sitting for four hours in my vehicle with my child. It wasn't snowing, the roads were wet, and as far as I could see, there was no reason we should still be sitting there.

The Onstar people put me on hold, and the next person on the line was GM Roadside Assistance. The gentleman apologized profusely. He canceled the call to Tracy's and placed a call to another company, JT’s Roadside Service , who would be at my vehicle in 20 to 30 minutes. He assured me a report was going to be made to his supervisor, and Tracy's would not be working for them anymore.

Ian and I resumed our game of chess, which I was losing badly.

At 10:35, a man knocked on Ian's window and scared the crap out of us both. It was John, the owner of JT's. He was horrified that we had been waiting that long. His trucks were out doing whatever trucks do, so he grabbed his mother-in-law's SUV, threw a jack in the back, and came to fix my flat himself. Within ten minutes, we were on our way home.

A side note. John asked me who left us stranded. I told him Tracy's Auto or Tracy's Towing, something like that. He said he'd never heard of them. I searched for them on the net. The Internet hasn't heard of them, either. After GM canceled the service call to them, the driver called me and asked if I still needed my tire changed. At the time, I was still sitting there, so I said yes, I was still stuck there with a flat. He told me he'd be there in another half hour or so. As far as I know, he probably still hasn't shown up.

I am thinking about returning to AAA. GM Roadside Assistance comes free with the car, but I'm thinking you get what you pay for. Would I have sat there for so long if I had AAA?

Hard to say...

Of course, I can hear Obiwan in the back of my head saying, "Would you have waited so long if you learned how to change a tire?"

Next on my agenda is to look into those adult courses through the school district and see if they have one on basic car stuff. As in, the stuff I should know. {heavy sigh}

The Lightning Thief

I took Ian to see The Lightning Thief. It came out while we were in Virginia. He read the entire book and started on the second book in the series, Sea of Monsters, and he HAD to see it. I thought the movie was excellent. I read the book also, and the movie stayed pretty true to it. Ian, on the other hand, was disappointed. He said, "They took a lot of stuff out of the movie that was in the book!" I explained they could not possibly put everything in the movie that was in the book, and he was okay with that. His final word on the matter?

"The book was better." Aren't they always? To see the trailer, go here: The Lightning Thief.

Virginia

It appears Virginia is more uncivilized than I originally thought. You can't get sponge candy there. Or Weber's Mustard.

How do those people LIVE?

A Joke from My Brother :D

During a visit to the retirement home, I asked the director, "How do you determine whether or not a person should be institutionalized?"

'Well,' said the Director, 'We fill up a bathtub, and then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient and ask him or her to empty the bathtub.'

'Oh, I understand,' I said. 'A normal person would use the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup.'

'No.' said the Director, 'A normal person would pull the plug.

Do you want a bed near the window?'

Cold Enough For Ya'?

This joke goes around via email every so often, but it makes me laugh every time.

COLD IS A RELATIVE THING.

65 above zero:
Floridians turn on the heat..
People in Upstate New York plant gardens.

60 above zero:
Californians shiver uncontrollably.
People in Upstate New York sunbathe.

50 above zero:
Italian & English cars won't start.
People in Upstate New York drive with the windows down.

40 above zero:
Georgians don coats, thermal underwear, gloves, and wool hats.
People in Upstate New York throw on a flannel shirt.

35 above zero:
New York city landlords finally turn up the heat.
People in Upstate New York have the last cookout before it gets cold.

20 above Zero:
People in Miami all die.
Upstate New Yorkers close the windows.

Zero:
Californians fly away to Mexico .
People in Upstate New York get out their winter coats.

10 below zero:
Hollywood disintegrates.
The Girl Scouts in Upstate New York are selling cookies door to door.

20 below zero:
Washington DC runs out of hot air.
People in Upstate New York let the dogs sleep indoors.

30 below zero:
Santa Claus abandons the North Pole.
Upstate New Yorkers get upset because they can't start the snow-mobile.

40 below zero:
ALL atomic motion stops.
People in Upstate New York start saying...'cold enough fer ya?'

50 below zero:
Hell freezes over.
Upstate New York public schools will open 2 hours late.

Virginia

Well, Virginia wasn't as warm as I wanted it to be, but it was Definitely warmer than Here! Of course, this time of year, just about anyplace is warmer than here. :D

Fortunately, Thursday evening, I packed the car, so we were loaded and ready to go early Friday morning. I packed all our stuff into the medium-sized suitcase and put the medium-sized suitcase into the largest-sized suitcase so we would have an empty suitcase for all our shopping loot when we got to VA. I also paid Southwest for "early check-in". They automatically checked Ian and me in on Thursday, so I had our boarding passes printed and ready, too.

We started our vacation by oversleeping. Friday morning came, and we were supposed to be at the airport by 4 a.m. I woke up at 4 a.m. "IAN!!! GET UP!!! GET UP!!! I OVERSLEPT!!! GET DRESSED!!! WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE AT THE AIRPORT ALREADY!!!" I was proud of him. We were up and out in ten minutes flat. All's well that ends well - we made it on time and boarded with no problems.

We landed in Norfolk, Virginia at about 9:30 a.m. The temperature was about 45 degrees, and I kid you not, it felt like summer. Ian and I walked around in our hoodies without winter coats on, and everybody looked at us like we were nuts. When someone asked where Ian's winter coat was, he responded, "We're from Buffalo!" It just felt so warm to us. Nods of understanding all around.

Because Williamsburg is closer to Norfolk than Suffolk (our ultimate destination), we went shoppin'! The Williamsburg Outlet Mall is HUGE. I purchased sneakers for Ian in the next three sizes up and outfitted him for summer. I also picked up some beautiful sweaters. Clearance/Presidents' Day sales were everywhere.

On Saturday, Russ (Ma's son) took Ian to the Virginia Living Museum. He had a blast. Ma bought him a SIM card for his phone, and he tried to fill it with photos. He shot over 250 photographs. (I have to call Obiwan and ask him how to get them out of Ian's phone onto my computer. That's one area of technology I haven't mastered yet.) I finished my fourth (of five) Quantitative Analysis assignments and took a nap while he was gone. It gets so ... quiet... when Ian's not around. :D

Saturday evening, Ma cooked a wonderful dinner and invited Wayne, one of my classmates. It was great to reconnect with him. He and his girlfriend have seven children between the two of them. I don't know how they do it. They live in Virginia Beach and love it there.

Sunday was laundry day, and then on Monday, Ma and Uncle AJ took us to Waterman’s Beachwood Grill. The food was wonderful! I had sea scallops wrapped in bacon, and they practically melted in my mouth, they were so tender. My friend Tracy met us there. She moved to Virginia Beach about five years ago, and she loves it there also.

There is this strange kind of bible-belt thing that goes on down there...the IHOP waitress, before she served Ma, told her she could tell she 'read her Word'. I was a bit taken aback by that. Ma mumbled, 'Uh, huh', or something appropriate like that, and I bit my tongue. If a waitress said that to someone in an IHOP up here, she'd get yelled at or slapped. It's a bit of a different world there.

Zeus, Hera, and all their cohorts didn't come through for us with more snow for Baltimore, so we had to come home.

Southwest Airlines is wonderful. They are friendly and extremely easy to deal with, both on-line and in person. And they have no fee for your first two bags.

For our next vacation, I'd like to go visit family in Santa Fe. Another toasty warm place. :)

Vacation!

We'll be back on the 17th. Miss me! :D

Let the Nightmares Begin.

Mommy, is our plane going to crash?

Of course not, honey. We're going to be on a good one.

But what about the snow and ice?

They'll send us the long way around if there's a problem.

Oh. Okay.

I swear, I should never let him watch the news. {heavy sigh}

Baseball Quote

"Bob Gibson is the luckiest pitcher I ever saw. He always pitches when the other team doesn't score any runs."

- Tim McCarver, Bob Gibson's catcher in three different World Series.

Compliments of my page-a-day calendar.

***Pitchers and Catchers report in 8 days!
Forget about the Groundhog...Summer is practically here!***

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

Turned in my third of five assignments for my Quantitative Analysis course.
Three-fifths of the way done.

That's More Than Half.

Whoo hoo!

I don't like driving anymore.

I don't like driving anymore. It's not that I'm so gawd-awful old now that I can't see over the dash...heck, for me, that's always been a problem. No, it's different than that.

It just seems to me that the world has become hurried. There's no such thing as a leisurely drive through the countryside anymore...if you're gazing at the scenery and fall below the speed limit, some guy behind you is crawling up your back-end with his fist on the horn.

Was tail-gating always a problem? And since when did right-on-red become anything other than an option that was available to you traffic permitted?

Everybody is in a hurry. And it's not just driving. What did we do before fax machines, cell phones, and the internet? We waited. Or we found other things to do. We didn't need to do 75 on the freeway. We certainly didn't need to have it 'there overnight'. And I, for one, have never felt the "need for speed".

I don't know. Maybe I'm just feeling a bit melancholy for days gone by. Or maybe I just need a nap.

Now there's an idea. A siesta. What a shame it never caught on in this country.

Like Mike

Cute movie! Ian brought it home from the daycare center to watch today. It's a great happy-ending movie, which is just what the doctor ordered after a long day. More about the movie is here: http://www.blockbuster.com/catalog/movieDetails/209278#readMore.

And now, I have more homework. {heavy sigh}

The Silver Lining

I am two-fifths of the way through Quantitative Analysis. Which is almost half. :)