WhoTom

Summer 2016, we were vacationing in the Upper Peninsula (U.P.) of Michigan. On the drive home, the transmission on our 2004 Saturn Vue died. Got towed 20 miles to the nearest town - Escanaba, Michigan - which has the only GM dealership within a 100 mile radius. They didn't know how long it would take to repair it, or even to give us an estimate, so we asked about a car rental agency so we could drive home. There's one about 20 miles away, but they had no cars available and didn't know when they would have one. The guy at the dealership makes a phone call and tells us, "I have someone who's willing to drive you home." (We live in northern Illinois - a good five hour drive from Escanaba.) Turns out, the guy is a retired school bus driver who drives a truck for the dealership, moving cars to and from Escanaba to places all over the Midwest and the south. I know this is going to cost us a lot, but we don't have much choice, so we move our gear from the Vue to the dealership's car, the guy drives us home, and then turns around and goes back to the U.P. the same night. I know the dealership was paying the driver, but I gave him a tip for doing it on short notice. A few days later I contact the dealership and ask how much I owe for the drive - he says, "Nothing. Don't worry about it." A couple of days after that, he sends me an estimate, which is way more than the car is worth. Also, it would take several weeks to get the parts and do the job. Now, transmissions are a specialty, and I'm thinking that a dealership in the middle of nowhere probably isn't going to have someone with that kind of experience. Besides the fact that we're going to need a car sooner than that, and the prospect of having to go back up there to get the thing after the repair just doesn't add up. The car has under 100k miles (original) and the engine and body are in good shape, so I start looking around to see how much the engine is worth. Most places show a value between $400 and $800. So I contact the dealership and ask if I can just send them the title of the car in exchange for the drive and the estimate - they can sell the engine and whatever parts are salvageable. They agree. Meanwhile, my wife is online, looking for cars that better fit our travel needs. She finds a "program car" - one that was leased for a year by a business, has hardly any miles on it, and sells for $6k less than a new model. So we bought it and we're happy with it.

Paint stinks. Try this free online photo editor - it lets you resize an image. https://pixlr.com/editor/ Unfortunately the dimensions are in pixels, not inches, so you'll need to do a conversion. Here's how: https://uproer.com/articles/image-size-calculator-px-in/

Some of us prefer a little jiggle in the wiggle:

Or an antenna.

I've had DirecTV and Sunday Ticket for 18 years and this year I'm finally cutting ties with them. The price of ST isn't bad, but I hate that I have to subscribe to a DTV package to get it. The monthly rate keeps going up and the quality of programming keeps going down. I'll go with the $99 streaming package and watch the games Sunday night. That'll free up my Sunday afternoons - I just have to stay off the internet. I'd pay full price for Sunday Ticket if I could stream the games live without having to be a DirecTV subscriber.

Case in point: In the documentary "Long Strange Trip," one of the sound engineers who recorded many of the Europe '72 shows talked about watching a version of Morning Dew from the side of the stage. At one point, he saw Jerry turn away from the audience, apparently because he didn't want the crowd to see the tear that was running down his cheek. That was the version that made it to the album.

We've seen D&C two years in a row (and we watched the stream of opening night on Wednesday). They're good - really good - but one thing I've noticed after 20+ years of listening to other people covering Dead songs: Jerry was a highly underrated vocalist. Maybe it's because his guitar playing was so great that it overshadowed his voice, but man, he was a story-teller like no other. Nobody captures the emotion of a song like he did. (Well, Roger Daltrey does, but in a very different style.) As for D&C, I wish they'd let Oteil sing more often. He's got the best voice in the band. Mayer is a great guitarist, but I'm not a big fan of his voice. And Bobby's singing is fine for his songs, but I think Oteil would do a better job with the Jerry songs. Listen to him sing Fire on the Mountain and imagine how much better Eyes of the World would be with Oteil singing it instead of Bobby or John.

I'm holding out for Bleeding Gums Murphy.

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/a8aaf87f-fe8a-4e58-9697-bc09b49b5d87

I remember Jauron sending the punting unit out and TO waving them off. DJ just shrugged and let them go for it. (I think they made it, too.) Speaking of Jauron, in the MNF game against the Cowboys, we had the opportunity to seal the win by kicking a FG, but he decided to get aggressive and let Edwards throw a pass in the red zone. The ensuing pick-six sealed the loss.

When my wife and I were dating, she lived at the end of a dead end street that had a RR track next to it. Took me a few weeks before I realized that the earth-shaking sex was actually a train going by. ?

He's certainly not going to say, "Yeah, I understand why they dumped me." Instead, he found a diplomatic way to say, "It just didn't work out, so we're both moving on."

That's an official recognition by an outside party, though. https://www.nationalcivicleague.org/america-city-award/

At our previous house, we spent big bucks on bamboo flooring. We found that it scratched and dented pretty easily. At our current house, we went with an oak laminate for about half the cost of the bamboo. We have two dogs who run around and drop their big Nyla-bones all over the place, and not a scratch in sight.

The original trilogy was great, but the prequel trilogy was disappointing. I'll take any of the Disney Star Wars films over those three.

I know it's only Rocky Road, but I like it. Any premium brand will do. My wife worked in an ice cream factory when she was in college. One thing she told me: never eat cheap chocolate ice cream.

You're right. That must be why Fox News is no longer on the air.

The free market has spoken.

A complete Dead show at Rich Stadium:

The jerk move was on the player, not you. He let his teammates down, lied to his coach, and then was stupid/arrogant enough to post it on social media. He needed to be called out and you did it. That's good coaching.

Where's my towel?

For the record, I did marry a younger woman ... she was 22 and I was 24.

If they didn't respect her they could simply say nothing or "She's very nice" and leave it at that. The fact that they complimented her, and gave specifics, suggests that the praise is genuine. There's a reason she's listed as the co-owner, not the "owner's wife." I think it's pretty clear that she's not just eye-candy.

It was a joke. Do the math on the 10th anniversary part.