Thanks, JD

Last January, when I was unemployed for a while, doing the job search thing and driving to interviews almost every day, I got used to quickly backing my car out from the garage onto the carport, a space off to the side of our driveway where Lor parks her truck, and then taking off down the driveway. I got a little too accustomed to it, apparently, as I did the same routine while Lor was home, and the (old) truck was parked there. Imagine my surprise when the car came to a sudden, and fairly loud, halt as I backed square into the truck. It left a nice hole in my rear bumper, a nice bow in the left side of my trunk line at the seam, and several spots of chipped paint.

Better yet, Lor was in the car when it happened. Fortunately, it didn't really hurt the truck at all.

A few minutes later after the humiliation died down, it all became very funny, as those things usually do. We decided that since the car was still perfectly drivable, we would wait a while to get it fixed, at least until I had found a job, and we had finished the bathroom remodel.

So here we are one year later, and we finally got it fixed. This was our second dealing with JD Auto Body in Verona. The first was with my 2000 Jetta, which we guess was the victim of a toppled 4x4 post in the Home Depot parking lot. JD did an excellent job then, and so we went back.

They did an excellent job once again. The estimate was reasonable (they did estimates for both repairing and replacing the bumper), were able to get me on their schedule within a week, let me drop off and pick up when it was convenient for me, and were friendly the whole time.

To my admittedly untrained eye, they did a great job with the repairs. I had them fix some scratches and nicks on the front bumper in addition to repairing the rear. Both turned out looking brand new. The seam that they repaired between the trunk and the rear left panel is tighter and more aligned than the factory seam on the other side.

While I'm sure they had to wash the car to work with clean bumpers and to match the paint, they really washed it. Honestly, it is the cleanest it has been since we drove it off the lot back in 2004. It looks like a new car.

So, if your car needs body work, I highly recommend JD.

The scoop on poop

I was on my usual drive home from the park'n'ride after work the other day, when I heard something very unusual on the radio, the word "poop". That's not usually a word one hears on NPR. So, I tuned my ears in a bit more and learned that, oddly enough, there is an exhibit on poop at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, The Scoop on Poop.

I'm sure it's all in the name of science, but when I got home, Lor and I couldn't help but laugh about it. A bit later, she said "You should tell Mike." The thought of Mike Rowe doing a bit on poo at the Carnegie Museum was just too funny of a thought to resist. So, I waded through the astounding amount of Flash on Discovery Channel's website and posted a message to the Dirty Jobs suggestion board. Who knows, maybe Mike will stop by.

Subtitles

I know the morning news anchors and crew work as hard as anyone else, but even so, they have become a source of humorous morning entertainment for Lor and me.

In the morning today, they ran a short bit on Tiger Woods and his wife having had a baby less than 24 hours after the end of the U.S. Open. During the bit they showed a clip from an interview with him from just after the Open. At the bottom of the screen, they put a typical caption of his name, “Tiger Woods”, and a subtitle, “PGA Golfer”.

While sufficiently accurate, I would think that being the most dominant and recognizable golfer of one’s generation would earn a slightly more distinguished subtitle, or maybe even obviate the need for a subtitle at all.

Maybe soon they’ll have pieces on “George W. Bush”, “Politician”, or “Steve Jobs”, “Guy in black turtleneck”.