Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

We brought our Nissan Xterra to a mechanic earlier this week. The "service engine soon" light had come on after the car occasionally stalled out at idle and had recently started having trouble catching ignition. Although we brought it this time to a trusted local mechanic, Mr. Le, I dreaded getting a repair bill like we'd gotten from the Nissan dealer the last few times we went there for repairs. The dealer always seemed to find $1,400 of things wrong with the car and their explanation always was, "You got it muddy."

We followed up with Mr. Le yesterday to check the status. Good news/bad news: It was so simple he'd already fixed it. Without giving us an estimate first. But it was just $150.

"Problem simple," he said. "It your drain sensor."

I'm familiar with at least the names of parts that could explain the problems we'd experienced, and drain sensor isn't one of them. Plus, there isn't even such a thing as a drain sensor, AFAIK.  I asked him to tell me again what part was broken.

"Grain sensor," he said louder, emphasizing the Grr- sound of the word.

Knowing our Nissan is not a farm tractor I was pretty sure it doesn't have grain sensor. I asked again.

"Brain sensor! Brrrrrrrrrain sensor!"

Yes, he trilled the R good and long like a first year Spanish language teacher teaching kids the difference between "r" and "rr".

I silently asked myself what all the sensors are that rhyme with drain, grain, and brain. I couldn't think of any. I decided the conversation wasn't getting anywhere I would stop asking Mr. Le for clarification and just go pay the bill. At least then I could see the description of the part printed on the bill. 🤣

It turns out it's the crankshaft position sensor (CPS). I guess the guy was trying to say "crank sensor", though I've never heard any other mechanic call it that. Others have always called it "CPS" or used its full name.

At least Mr. Le fixed it for $150 instead of $1400 and blaming the problem on mud.

There's a water leak in our condo complex. These happen frequently with the landscape irrigation system; squirrels and other critters chew chew the half-buried plastic pipes. This leak seemed a bit more persistent than a landscaping pipe, though. Water was leaking steadily, not just for the 15 or 30 minutes a day that the irrigation system runs. Concern about the problem led to a robust discussion in our neighborhood email forum.

"Supergirl has looked at the water leak", the HOA president assured us.

That was certainly an autocorrect mistake. 🤣 Our landscaper's name is somewhat similar, at least in terms of how autocorrect works, to "Supergirl". But I couldn't resist picturing this...



...with the help of Google's Gemini AI.

That's right, AI. The thing that's going to take all of our jobs in a few years. We'll be sitting at home, surviving off our unemployment checks— at least for the 13 weeks those last— but we'll be able to entertain ourselves by prompting AI to draw pictures making light of our woes!

I made that first picture with a simple prompt like, "Draw a comic book style picture of Supergirl as a plumber." I then refined it a bit to include cues about where the leak is in our neighborhood and got this:

The other day I went digging on one the shelves in my freezer. It's the one where I store frozen meat. I knew I'd find a few surprises... though finding surprises wasn't the main point. Mostly I wanted to understand what I have so I can make plans to eat it. Still there were a few surprises.



As you can see in the photo, I tend to part out meat into small packages before freezing it. We're a two person household. And Hawk doesn't even eat much meat. A medication she's on has a side effect of making meat, especially red meat, taste bad.

Another thing you can see in the photo is that I write the dates on packages of meat when I freeze them. Often I just write MM/DD... which as you can see from the packages that are MM/DD/YY isn't enough. Multiple packages are from 2 years ago! Some without years in their date could be even older. 😳

I defrosted those shrimp from nearly 12 months ago and ate them for dinner Friday. They were a little freezer burnt and had lost some of their flavor. But they weren't bad. And now they're gone— and not in the trash. I hate it when I leave food too long and have to throw it out because it's gone bad or gone tasteless.

I defrosted a package of ground beef and made part of it as a hamburger this evening. The meet was getting gray, color-wise, but still tasted fine. The way I pack things in the freezer, setting them in air-tight bags and squeezing out most of the air. helps them stay fresh better. I'll make the rest of the package of ground beef for a meat sauce to enjoy with pasta tomorrow. Or maybe I'll make a burger again.

I also defrosted one of the packages of chicken. I've put that in the meal plan for tomorrow night. We'll see how it goes.

I mused yesterday that I was a slug on my day off. Well, today I had the day off, too. It wasn't a public holiday (yesterday was Juneteenth) so I took PTO. And today on my second day off I was slightly less of a slug.

Like yesterday I started the day by sleeping in. I didn't sleep in anywhere near as much, though. I was out of bed before 8. (It helped that I wasn't up half the night sleepless and with stomach problems.) I still frittered away the morning... though we got in a dip in the hot tub before I went out for lunch.

On the way home from lunch I ran one small errand then got back to frittering. Hawk suggested we go out for a hike instead of just frittering. I agreed. We changed into our hike-y clothes and drove out to the Sunnyvale Baylands.

It was a nothing-special hike, just a walk in a local park. Hawk is still getting over sickness so we didn't want to commit to anything big or strenuous. It was good to get out. The conditions weren't great, though. There was a strong wind on the bay, and the smells from the sewage treatment plants in the area were fierce. 💩😷 Also, the water was green. Bright green. When the bay looks like a bazillion people went 🤢🤮 it's kind of a turnoff. BTW, the green water isn't literally because 🤮; it's most likely because of a high concentration of algae or other microorganisms, and they can also contribute to the water smelling like 💩.

Despite the conditions we got a good hike in. I know because my feet were achy at dinnertime.

For dinner I had "freezer surprise". I'd dug through one of the shelves in the freezer earlier in the day and uncovered a bunch of stuff I'd forgotten I have. I defrosted and ate one of those finds, a package of precooked shrimp.

Tonight I'm frittering again. Hawk hopes she'll be up for a bigger hike tomorrow. Maybe we'll go back up into the mountains, like when we hiked at Russian Ridge two weeks ago. If not, maybe we'll get together with friends who are hosting a boardgames day.

For several weeks we'd been planning to travel this weekend. Tomorrow is Juneteenth, which is a company holiday, and I used PTO for Friday to have a four day weekend. It'd be our first trip of the summer. Unfortunately we decided Monday to cancel it. Why? Because we're still sick.

Hawk visited the doctor on Monday and was diagnosed with bronchitis and an ear infection. I'm still getting over my cold... which may actually be/have been bronchitis, too. We hope to be better by tomorrow or Friday, but just in case we're not we made the tough decision to cancel our travel plans.

I hate missing the opportunity for a vacation, even a short one. Being sick really sucks.

Yesterday I wrote about trying shit beer just because it's well reviewed in a Buzzfeed listicle. Well, there was another beer on one of those shit lists that I was keeping in the back of my mind. Not because it's actually shit but because I've had it before and— at the time at least— didn't think it was shit. I mean, how could this beer be shit when it didn't just impress 10 random bartenders surveyed for a 2020s Buzzfeed listicle but inspired a blockbuster movie franchise in the 1970s and 1980s?

That's right, this beer inspired a movie.

I'm talking about Smokey and the Bandit.

And it wasn't just a touchstone of American cinema from 1977 but it also launched the career of movie star Burt Reynolds.

And the beer? I'm talking, of course, about Coors Banquet.



"Wait," you might be thinking, "Isn't Smokey and the Bandit about Burt Reynolds exuding ``country cool'' while outfoxing a bunch of incompetent Southern sheriffs who are trying to write him speeding tickets?"

Yes, it is about all that. But the driving motive of the story, the thing that kicks off all the action, is beer. And not just any beer, but specifically Coors Banquet.

It's part of American folklore that Coors, based in Golden, Colorado, didn't distribute its beer west of the Mississippi River until 1986. For decades people who traveled across the US found that this really tasty beer that was available in Western states wasn't available in the rest of the country. Among beer aficionados it became notorious. Travelers would bring cases home with them. Coors is even reputed to have been carried aboard Air Force One multiple times, as presidents Eisenhower and Ford were fans of it. Thus the MacGuffin for Smokey and the Bandit in 1977: a wealthy gambler in Atlanta challenges a truck driving team to bring him a shipment of 400 cases of Coors Banquet— illegally— in time to show off to his peers at a racing event. They have to drive from Georgia to Texas to fetch it, then back in record time to deliver it.

So, after that wind-up, how does it taste?

It's... not shit.

Unlike other "shit" beers I've tried— unlike pretty much all other traditional mass-produced US beers— it doesn't have a nasty taste. It doesn't have a nasty taste at the beginning that fades away, it doesn't taste nasty at the end. It doesn't taste nasty on its own, it doesn't tasty nasty with food. It just tastes... decent. Like mass-produced US beer if it... wasn't shit. 😳

Mind you, it's not a richly flavorful beer. It's basic beer. But it's decent basic beer. Like, I could set this alongside any of countless basic European beers and it'd fit right in.

Mind you #2, this is not Coors Light. The "Silver Bullet" is a hugely selling beer, propelled by the sales and marketing behind its lower calorie formulation. It's lower in calories and also way lighter in taste. Coors Banquet is the original Coors and has a richer taste.

So, pop open a gold label Coors and watch country-cool Burt Reynolds outfox a bunch of dim-witted Southern sheriffs trying to write him a speeding ticket.

Every so often I get inspired by one of those Buzzfeed listicles, "We asked 10 bartenders what shit beer they like." Of course they don't actually call it shit beer; they use some euphemism like "cheap beer" or "traditional American style lager". Y'know, the pisswater American macrobrews like Bud and Miller, except not Bud or Miller. Usually. That's how I was inspired to try a 12-pack of Miller Hi-Life a few years ago as part of my ongoing beer tasting project. Verdict: pisswater beer was kinda... pisswatery. Well, after a few years I was motivated by another of these "shit beer that online randos say they like" listicles to try Narragansett Lager.

Those of you of a certain age who hail from Rhode Island, all maybe 200,000 of you, may object to my lumping Narragansett in with shit beers. 'Gansett is your state brew! There was a time decades ago when regional beers were more prominent— and generally they were better, if even by a little bit, than the nationally distributed swill of Bud, Miller, or what Schlitz degenerated into.

The fact that Narragansett is a regional beer from all the way across the country made me wonder if I'd be able to find it here in California. It turns out it's not so hard. My trusty regular source, Total Wine & More, keeps it in stock. I picked up a 6er of it when we were out last weekend.

The first thing of note about Narragansett is that it come in 16oz. cans. It sells for a price similar to packs of 12oz. cans, though, making it a bit of a deal right there.

The next thing I noticed, when I poured it into a glass, is that it foams into quite a head if not poured carefully. The glass pictured (right/above) is an 18oz glass, and that's not even the full can I managed to pour in before the head filled it up.

So, how does it taste? In a word: Uhh....

Uhh is because this beer starts out nasty. It has a sour, skunky taste at first sip. Fortunately that clears up quickly and the beer becomes somewhat pleasant, if bland. But still, starting out icky and then only improving to "bland" is hardly a recommendation.

Maybe I should stop trying to believe these Buzzfeed listicles that the best shit beers are any good.

Playing through the pain of my cold continues. But today I was home, so it was easier. I no longer had the offensively scented hotel meeting rooms or colleague who'd bathed in cologne to deal with. Thus without these environmental irritants my allergies subsided by late last night and I only had to deal with a cold today. And the suite of OTC medicines I've been dosing myself with kept the symptoms fairly well under control.

In addition to it being easier to manage symptoms at home, I also had the benefit of company for my misery. Hawk is sick, too. She caught the same cold I had. She's cycling through the symptoms a few days behind me, so while I was getting over the worst of it last night— I hope— she was headed into the worst of it.

As I'm hopefully over the worst of it I'm hoping to get out for a hike again this weekend, like our hike last weekend at Russian Ridge. Though if Hawk's still in the worst stage of her cold we might need to opt for something lower intensity like Byxbee Park.

Ironically the day after a(nother) 6:30am meeting was canceled on short notice, after I'd already gotten up early for the day, today the opposite happened. A meeting scheduled for 9am was moved 2 hours earlier, to 7am, and I was only told at 7:45.

This was Day 2 of my all-day intensive training I traveled to Orange County for. My boss sent me a Slack message at 7:45am. "Hey, not sure if you saw the message, but [C level exec] said we're starting today at 7am."

Oookay. "Give me about 10 minutes to get down there," I wrote back.

I was already showered and dressed for the day— I had an 8am online meeting I was preparing for— so all I had to do was quickly pack my suitcase to leave my room for the day. And that was quick because I laid things out in order last night.

BTW, it turns out there was no message I could've seen before 7:45am. The CxO announced the change orally at dinner last night. The dinner I skipped because I was sick. There was no email update or slack message to the group. Just my boss reaching out to me individually 45 minutes late to ask me if I "saw" it.

Sheesh.

I had a 6:30am meeting today. For sure that's not my favorite time of day to meet, but it was with a major customer who we're trying to close a big deal with this year, and it was a compromise on time zones and availability. Especially after being up late last night it was rough getting up at 5:30am. Then I saw the meeting was canceled.

The "sorry, something came up" message was sent at 5:30am. I didn't see it until closer to 6, after I'd showered, dressed, and first took a peek at my email. By then it was too late to go back to bed in hopes of catching another 45 minutes of shut-eye. Even if I'd seen the message right when it was sent, it was already too late.

Needless to say, I hate it when before-normal-hours meetings get canceled at the last moment like this. I accept the need to handle occasional out-of-hours meetings as a necessary part of the 21st century work environment, where employers have hired staff scattered all over the world to save money. But I wish said staff would should more consideration for the situation we're in.