Tag: driving

Wednesday Notes

May 29, 2024 / DB

A few more random notes that didn’t fit into the weekend wrap-up.

Number Three Behind The Wheel

L finally got her learner’s permit today. She had been gung-ho about driving since she was 13, and dove into the driver’s ed self-teaching program when we signed her up back in December. We’ve been taking her across the street to drive around the high school parking lot since last fall.

Then a couple friends, who are smart cookies like her, failed their learner’s permit written test on their first tries. I think that spooked her. And one day when she was out with S, S let L drive her Telluride on one of the most difficult roads on the north side of Indy, Kessler Boulevard. This is a four-lane road that is riddled with potholes, is extremely narrow, there is zero curb, where everyone drives way too fast, and has a brutal double curve that can be frightening to even experienced drivers when it gets busy. C and I both avoid it when we drive to CHS, trading a slightly longer route for not having to deal with Kessler’s headaches. L didn’t wreck, thank goodness, but it freaked her out and she suddenly stopped asking to drive or bringing up going to take her permit test.

Fortunately she finally got past all that, studied this week, and knocked the test out in like six minutes.

Now she goes onto the Ready to Drive list, and hopefully we can get her six in-car sessions scheduled and completed before she goes back to school in August. The school across the street has a 12-week wait, so we signed her up in Carmel which was 3–4 weeks last we heard.

The Electric Company

We’ve had the joy this year of dealing with insane billing issues from our electric company. Late last year they updated their billing system – to serve us better, of course – and the result has been a disaster for some people. They claim only 10% of their customers have been affected, but it has to be more otherwise the issues I’m about to lay out would have been fixed by now.

We do the budget billing plan, paying the same amount each month. That total gets adjusted up or down each June based on our usage over the previous year. For some reason they adjusted ours in February, increasing it by over 50%. Our new monthly amount was 28% higher than our biggest month of usage charge over the past year. A couple weeks later we got an email saying we had been billed incorrectly and a credit would appear on our account. Of course they still took out the incorrect amount, because we are signed up for automatic payments.

The next three months we did not get a bill at all. I kept checking the local media and Reddit, and our company said “a small number of people” were not receiving bills. Others were getting bills that were wildly incorrect. One lady called and they couldn’t find a record that she had made a payment on her account since 1970. She was not close to 54 years old. The company claimed they were working on a fix and were not disconnecting service or charging late fees for customers getting incorrect bills.

Obviously we could have kept paying our monthly amount but given we had zero confidence they wouldn’t apply it incorrectly, we just waited for a new bill.

When we didn’t get a bill again in May, I called the special line set up to handle billing issues. I talked to a lady who could not have been less helpful. She wasn’t rude or anything, she just had zero ability to assist me. It took her five minutes and multiple tries to even find our account. I slowly repeated our account number three times and our address as many times. Despite my name being listed first on our bill, she said I was not on the account and asked if I had S’s permission to access our account. We’re all for challenging traditional gender roles in this house, but I thought that was wild that I was being asked if I had permission from my wife to call about our bill. I thought about telling her that my wife lets me have my own credit card and drive on my own, too.

Eventually she found our account. She couldn’t tell me a damn thing I couldn’t see for myself when I looked at our information online. Her advice: keep checking every few weeks, they were working on a fix.

Uh-huh.

We finally got a bill two weeks later. It charged us for the three months we had not been billed, which is appropriate. What was not appropriate was that they charged us three months at the new, incorrect, budget amount.

So I called the regular customer service line. It literally took eight minutes navigating their phone tree before I finally smashed 0 and was able to speak to a real person. Every other option just played various recordings, most encouraging customers to use the company website to get assistance.

Once connected with a live human, I explained my dilemma: our budget bill went up much higher than our highest actual bill, we never received the credit promised, we didn’t receive a bill for three months, and now we were being charged 3x the incorrect amount.

This lady was very nice. She told me to just pay our old budget amount. She said they were working to fix all these errors, but, “Obviously they haven’t got to yours yet,” she said with a sarcastic chuckle. She said she would flag our account again so it, hopefully, gets reviewed and corrected. I could tell she didn’t have much confidence that would happen. Unlike the other lady, who seemed to just be reading from the script in front of her, this woman was friendly and empathetic. I told her I knew she was probably getting tons of calls about these issues, and appreciated that she actually seemed to care about helping me and was nice about it. I think I made her day. Hell, it’s not her fault her company sucks.

So we’ll see if we get a corrected bill here in the next few weeks. I wouldn’t be surprised it if takes another call or two after that bill comes to get things straightened out.

I normally don’t post on Reddit, but I’ve checked into a couple threads on the local thread chiming in with my experience. Again, it sure seems like more than 10% of customers are affected.

Strangely our state utility board has taken zero action to force the power people to get this straightened out. They even approved a big rate increase in the midst of this. Again, to better serve us, I’m sure.

Bill Walton

I found the varied reactions to Bill Walton’s death very interesting. You either loved his schtick as a broadcaster or you hated it, and that view affected your first thoughts when you learned he had passed.

I did not like his TV style at all. That’s because I’m a super fan that takes sports way too seriously. When I’m watching a KU game, I want descriptions and analysis of what is happening. Not wild asides that have nothing to do with what’s on the court. Nor histrionic statements based on one play rather than an entire body of work. So I loathed the rare times that Walton did a KU game. He distracted from whatever the Jayhawks were doing on the court. In time I learned to keep the TV muted, or the volume barely high enough to catch some crowd noise, if he was on the mic.

As I thought about his life and career, though, I realized he really was a trendsetter. All of these modern, alternate broadcasts, which have reached their peak with the Manningcasts of Monday Night Football, stem from how he called games. “Don’t take these things so seriously,” he seemed to be saying, “they are just games and there are far more important things in life like your relationships with the people you love and how you interact with the planet we call home.” Well, the Mannings and Kevin Harts of the world probably aren’t thinking that deeply, but Walton opened a door for non-traditional broadcasts that people who don’t care about the game turn in to watch.

That’s a much healthier view of sports that I generally take, at least when my teams are involved. It was good that someone was pushing that idea, even if Walton’s technique was maddening.

For all his goofiness and frustrating qualities, the outpouring of love for him after his death has been wonderful to read. He was a truly unique human, and he very much lived the peace and love values his generation espoused in the Sixties. There have been so many examples of him going out of his way to make other people’s lives better in difficult moments, or needling people he cared about with perfectly timed barbs.

Let’s not forget that Walton was a remarkable player who had his career cut short by a series of cruel injuries. He was one of the most dominant college players ever and was on that trajectory in the NBA until his feet and legs started failing him.

I won’t miss avoiding him on ESPN, but I appreciate that he made the world a better place in his 71 years.

In The Market

November 11, 2020 / DB

Yesterday we got our updated car insurance policy, listing M as an insured driver. The addition to our premium was a nice way to start the holiday season.

She’s been hassling us about a car for weeks. I believe I already shared that CHS only gives parking passes to sophomores if there are exceptional reasons that require one. She’s told us several times that we need to come up with something and send the email. We just give her a blank look and then suggest she assist us rather than give us orders. She and one of her St P’s buddies who also just got her license cased the junior parking lot this week during their photography class and insist there are at least 20 open spots.

Of course, she doesn’t have a car yet. But we’re working on that.

We’ve kicked around a few ideas on how to give our precious daughter her own vehicle.[1] The original plan was that, since she learned how to drive in S’s Mazda CX–5, we would look for a used version of that. However, S crunched the numbers and weighed the troubles that can come with a used car and decided it made more sense to lease another Mazda. I can’t say I was totally onboard with this, but I’ve also learned in our 17 years of marriage than when S gets a plan in her head regarding finances or cash outlays, it’s best just to go along with her.

I mentioned that if we are going to become a three-car family, that really eliminated the need to drive a Large Vehicle. I drove a Suburban for nearly three years and am into my third year in a Tahoe. While I’ve enjoyed both of those vehicles and they have been tremendously useful, I’m also ready to drive something not so large and unwieldy.

A couple weeks ago S came up with a new plan: pass her Mazda down to M, S takes my Tahoe, and I get something new now. That would give her until July, when the Tahoe lease is up, to figure out what she wants. I told her that idea was stupid since she hates driving the Tahoe. She told me to shut up and look for a new car.

We are both big fans of the the Kia Tellurides. They look great and get fantastic reviews. They are supposed to be an amazing bargain compared to Tahoes and other similar vehicles.

Last week, in between election coverage, I did some scanning of the local Kia dealership inventory. I had a couple picked out I liked and Saturday we went to test drive.

Man, they are awesome! Super nice, ride well, lots of space, while not being nearly as massive as a Tahoe.

One problem, though: apparently they are super popular right now. So popular, in fact, that the dealer added a $12,000 “market adjustment” to the sticker. They literally wrote it on the sticker in Sharpie. They also added the extra pain sealers and coatings that no one ever buys. Apparently you can do this shit when you get a trailer with seven on a Friday and sell four before close that night.[2]

It sure would have been nice if that price had been reflected online. That extra $14+K eliminated the price advantage over my Tahoe. We literally did not know what to say to our salesman who he showed us the updated price. We just stood there, staring at the sticker in silence.

Fortunately, he was very young and kind of shitty as a salesman, so he didn’t push us at all. Or maybe he’s just smarter than he let on and could read the looks on our faces as those of the unmotivated buyers. And knew there were a few other suckers right behind us who would be just fine with the “market adjustment.”

We hopped in the Tahoe and started to drive home. A thought struck me. I asked S, “You loved your Jeep, right?” When she got her Mazda back in January it came after she had leased two different Jeep Cherokees over a six-year span.

“Yeah, I really did,” she responded.

“OK, let’s get you a new one then. You don’t have to test drive and you know exactly what you want, it will be easy.”

We went home, she pulled up the Jeep dealership’s site, found a couple she liked, and fired off an email. I would imagine she’ll have a new one very soon.

All this car talk got me a little hot and bothered. I spent hours Saturday and Sunday looking at various smaller SUVs. I still need some space and at least all wheel drive, just in a less behemoth-sized package. I have a short list of 3–4 pretty solid cars I’m interested in that are both smaller and cheaper than the Tahoe. The only catch is that lease has seven months left on it. Like most people these days, I’m not very good with delayed gratification: I want that shiny, new car now! Still, this gives me plenty of time to read tons of reviews, casually take test drives, and order exactly what I want when the time comes.

Until S comes up with another one of her plans and tells me to do something different.[3]

Neither S nor I had a vehicle that was our own until our early 20s. ↩
Or so they claimed. ↩
I say that with much love! ↩

Weekend Notes

November 2, 2020 / DB

Here we are, the week many of us – a plurality of those who voted four years ago – have been looking forward to for an entire election cycle. And it dawns dominated by a sense of dread. Regardless of the results of tomorrow’s election, I think the US is on a horrible course, one where democracy is constantly subverted by a vocal minority. Where intimidation and voter suppression has become a normal part of one party’s methods for hanging on to political power. Where we are pushed to hate each other more than seeking common threads that can allow us to move forward. Where people who know nothing attack those who have spent their entire lives become experts on a given subject. Where “brands” are more important than belief.

I wish I could say that any of that is going to change in 2021 if/when different people are inaugurated. I fear even if there is change, that is just going to embolden those darker elements and they will spend the next four, eight, however many years continuing to tear our country apart in the name of saving it for their narrow, minority view of what it means to be American.

The US needs a reset button. Neither Trump nor Biden nor anyone else out there has the ability to push it, though.

With that out of the way, I will get into some weekend notes.

Driving

It was a HUUUUUUUGE week for one of our girls. Last Wednesday M passed her driving test. Saturday morning we went to the BMV and 30 minutes later she walked out with her driver’s license.

I thought it was somewhat appropriate that she nearly ran a red light on our way to the BMV. I mean, seriously…

Based on most of her recent drives, though, she seems comfortable behind the wheel. She still has plenty of areas for improvement, but has gained a lot of confidence in her months of practice.

She got to drive solo for the first time Sunday afternoon. She is working on Sundays as an assistant to her aunt who is a personal chef. S went to pick her up and was going to have M drop her at St P’s for L’s game, then drive home alone. When S got to the game she told another mom what was going on and that mom said, “Oh God, I’m having a panic attack for you.”

M made the seven minute drive without incident, although she did say it was “weird” to be driving alone. S asked her if she wanted to fill the car up with gas on the way home and she said no. Funny how they want to drive, but don’t want to do all the other things that come along with it.

She’s been bugging us about a car for her for a couple months. It doesn’t help that she has two friends who can’t get their licenses until 2021 but their parents have already bought them cars. Another friend turns 16 today and woke to a new car in the driveway. We’ve been looking a little, and trying to develop a plan. We keep debating whether to get her a used car, or to pass S’ current car down and then one of us starts a new lease. I imagine we’ll get it figured out in the next few weeks.

M is really hoping to be able to drive to school soon. I would enjoy going to a single-school drop-off again. CHS does not usually give out parking passes to sophomores. With the parking lot slightly reduced because of construction tag availability is even more restricted this year. Another friend with a soon-to-be driver asked the principal and was told sophomores can only get passes when there are “extenuating circumstances.” We told M she needs to go into the office and find out what it will take to get a pass, but she keeps putting it off. Again, she wants to drive (and get her own car) but doesn’t seem interested in the work that goes along with that privilege.

Very excited to make the call to insurance later today and see how much our rates go up. Oh well…

We have local nephews who are passing all kinds of fun milestones which reminds us of how those baby/toddler/preschool years with so many of those moments. They sure stretch out when you get to the teen years, but when they come along, they are pretty, pretty, pretty big. And while those childhood markers come fast and furious, they don’t usually change the parent-child relationship that much. But driving is one of the first steps in your child beginning to spread their wings and separate from you.

It is nerve-wracking, for sure. I’m not a big worrier when it comes to my kids. I assume if they are at a friend’s house that the parents are keeping an eye on things and our girls normally make good decisions. But putting a 16-year-old in a car is kind of frightening. You hope that they are being careful, that they are paying attention, but in the end you can just hope for the best and that they make it home safely each time they leave on their own.

Halloween

All three girls did stuff for the holiday, but only one of them did anything traditional.

M first joined a bunch of friends at the girls state championship soccer game. CHS was playing a team they lost to 1–0 in September. They came up short again, losing 4–3 on penalty kicks after a 0–0 draw through regulation and overtime. After that she went to a friend’s house to watch movies and hang out.

C went to a small, co-ed party. The kids were outside at a bonfire with an adult bonfire nearby to keep everyone in check. I know the parents who hosted are kind of hardasses about some teenage stuff, so I’m assuming the shithead boys in C’s class didn’t try to do anything dumb.

L joined a group of friends to dress up as the crew from the Toy Story movies and trick or treat. She was Buzz Lightyear. She had a great time and got a lot of candy.

S and I celebrated our night alone by getting take out sushi then watching different shows on different screens. How romantic!

We set out a bowl of candy but the only kids we had were the granddaughters of our neighbors who were in town from Maryland.

Hoops

L’s team went 0–2 last week.

Midweek we played a school that is always really good. Warming up we saw that they were tiny but practiced really well. They ran little plays, hit pull up jumpers, and otherwise appeared like a team that plays together for more than the CYO season.

We were down 12–10 at halftime. That alone was a victory as arguably our best player is out quarantining. We got back a girl who missed our first three games quarantining and she looked utterly lost. She was so nervous she got called for traveling 3–4 times, and she’s normally one of our better ball handlers.

It fell apart in the third quarter. I’m not sure if we scored. We made a little run late but still lost by nine.

Sunday we played a team that features a girl that is nearly six feet tall. Seriously, in sixth grade! We played against her in kickball and she was awful, but we heard they run a bunch of clear out plays for her so she doesn’t have to move very much on the court. Even knowing what was coming didn’t help. She bullied us early and we started the game down 12–0.

It never really got better. They played a zone with her in the middle so even when one of our girls finally made a move to the lane she was there waiting.

And our girls totally lost their minds. We have two inbounds plays, two press break plays, and just one zone offense. We’ve been practicing them for two months. For some reason five of our seven players decided not to run any of those plays correctly. When the other team pressed three girls would run up court and leave L to face three defenders alone. On our baseline inbound play no one broke the correct way. It was maddening.

When we got home I fired up the Google machine to look into easy zone offenses for youth basketball to see if I could find something else for us to run since everyone plays zone.

(Quick aside: zone defenses should not be allowed in youth basketball. They are lazy, they don’t teach the defenders how to play, and they prevent girls from developing offensive skills as the game turns into a bunch of passes on the perimeter until someone turns it over. CYO basketball, especially, which is full of girls who play basketball for a month every year, should ban zones. I also think pressing should not be allowed since most of these teams struggle to get the ball up court under the mildest of pressure.)

Anyway, I checked four different coaching sites and all four suggested the exact offense we run. So I guess it’s on us, the coaches, for not teaching the girls how to make good decisions or follow our instructions.

Luckily for us we get to play this team again in two weeks in the first round of the tournament. Maybe that tall girl will be quarantining. Or maybe our girls will all grow six inches in the next 13 days. And maybe we’ll have all eight of our players for the first time all year.

Some Firsts

February 26, 2020 / DB

We’ve gone through a series of firsts in recent days.

Sunday M and I knocked out two firsts together.

She recently told us that she would like to try playing tennis. As in for her high school, not just for fun or as part of some open rec league. At first S and I were concerned: M took some lessons five or six years ago, but they were very basic, she did not show any particular aptitude for the sport, and other than wacking balls with her sisters in the driveway, she has never actually played tennis.

Looking back on her experience with cross country, we were also worried about the humiliation factor. Sure, you stand out when you are one of the last runners in a race. But you’re also in a huge field with hundreds of people milling about and not really a focus. Whereas on a tennis court, even if you are playing one of 12 concurrent matches, you are kind of out there on your own. We were also concerned because CHS won the girls state title last spring. They have some serious talent.

She did not seem concerned about any of that so we decided to support her taking chances and trying new things. Although we know she is motivated to play because two of her best friends are playing. Neither of them has played before, but they both play other club sports so may pick it up quicker.

We made M go talk to the coach and explain her background and make sure he was open to her playing. Apparently he was thrilled that she was interested. We asked around and he seems to be one of those coaches who loves it when girls who have never played want to give it a shot. And the more I thought about it, and remembered my reporting days when I would cover tennis matches, I imagine most high schools have a big group of freshmen who have never played. Some of them may be athletic and can grasp the game quickly. But most are going to struggle. In that sense, I’m hoping M fits right in.

Anyway, Sunday was a nice day so I took her across the street to the high school to hit some balls. She surprised me a bit. She obviously struggled, but she was able to mix some good hits in. Serving is going to be a challenge, but again I imagine that will be the case for most of the girls she plays. I had her hit against the wall for awhile, we moved to the junior court to get a feel for hitting over a net, then walked over to the main courts so she could get used to its size.

After we hit balls for about 45 minutes, I gave her the car keys and we drove around the school parking lot for about 15 minutes. S has driven with her several times, but this was my first time with her. M was very nervous and tentative. She overthinks things. Her turns and stops are a little rough/abrupt. But she did just fine. I let her drive the two blocks home and we made it safely.

L had gone with us and was, apparently, very hesitant about riding in a car M was driving. S told me that L threatened not to go when she heard M would be doing some driving practice after we finished with tennis.

Monday we got M’s signup notice for her in-car driving lessons. Remembering my driver’s ed experience, I think she will improve much quicker when it is a non-parent who has been trained on how to teach kids to drive helping her rather than a parent.

It’s all kind of scary. I am eager for her to gain the independence that comes with a driver’s license, especially since it will make my mornings and afternoons much easier. But, man, seeing kids drive crazy in the parking lot every day when I’m dropping her off and picking her up can’t help but make me fear what she’s getting into. The experience has also made me evaluate how I drive. I realize so much of what I do is based on instinct and 30 years of experience. You don’t really look at the car approaching you in the opposite lane, but just sense its presence and trust it will not veer into your path. When M drives you can see her minor panic as she shifts her focus from the approaching car to the curb on the opposite side and fights to keep the car centered between the two.

She is learning how to drive in S’s new car, a Mazda CX–3. S’ previous two cars were both Jeep Cherokees, which she loved. But before her last lease expired we looked at what affordable, small SUVs and crossovers were the safest and the Mazda came up. So she is leasing a new CX–3 with the idea that M will get comfortable driving it and once she gets her license we will buy her a used one.

The final first of the week was me getting my CPAP machine on Monday. I’ve slept with it two nights, which has been a chore. The biggest issue is that I’ve started with the full mask, which covers my nose and mouth and keeps me from sleeping on my stomach as I prefer. So far I’ve also struggled to sleep on my side, too, although this morning I’ve been watching videos with tips on how to do that. I’ve always struggled to sleep on my back at night. I can take a nap during the day face-up. But at night I really struggle to relax and stay asleep in that position.

Night one was tough. It took me a long time to fall asleep and then I woke often because of the strange, new sensation of having a mask on my face. Last night was a little better, although I think I had some of the straps on the mask too tight and the bridge of my nose is quite sore today.

From what I’ve read, it can take several weeks for CPAP to begin having positive effects. I’m hopeful it works for me and soon I won’t be walking around like a zombie in the afternoon.