Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Puppies, flat tires, and ex-girlfriends oh my!

Went to Houston today.

On my way, I stopped at my mom's vet's office in Nome and picked up a bag of dog food for her.

On the interstate, I was driving in the right lane. I moved onto the shoulder to avoid what looked like tire treads in the roadway and managed to thwack a chunk of wood that was on the shoulder before I could get back in the lane. Made a loud thunk, so I got off at the first exit and gave the underside of the car a look-over. Looked good to me.

More on that later.

When I got into Houston, I exited off of I-10 to take the toll bridge to get to my mom's house. The only eventful aspect of that was that for the first time in two years I went through a cash lane since the car didn't have an EZ Tag yet.

I got to my mom's house fine, looked at their brand new motorcycle and Sassy's puppies, which are three weeks old now and ADORABLE!

Then my mom took me to Chili's for lunch. I had the soup and salad and it was good.

And then the fun began.

When I got out, I noticed that the left front tire was flat. We aired it up at the first gas station we could find and my mom took me to Discount Tire to get it taken care of.

Apparently I ran over a nail when I hit that board and that's what took out the tire. They were able to patch it and I was on my way.

I spun down to the South Belt to take care of the stuff with the toll authority and get an EZ Tag. I had to go do it in person because, while the PT was a rental car, someone blazed through the tag lanes without one. Once they saw the bill of sale and made a copy, I was clear to get a tag on the car.

From then, I was off to Katy, on the far west side of Houston. The tire thing put be behind the eight ball a bit on time. Instead of getting out there just before rush hour as I'd planned, I was stuck in the middle of it. I decided to take the beltway to the Westpark tollway and go up SH 6 to get to the Katy Freeway and my destination.

That worked pretty well, actually. Westpark was a bit slow right around the beltway, but I knew it would be because it always is.

SH 6 was a real breeze most of the way, at least for a surface street. About the last mile or so, however, was stop and go. Much more stop than go. Tons of fun.

Once I got on the Katy Freeway it was a breeze. Past SH 6 there's no construction and the traffic was thick but moving at a good clip.

Finally, I got to my ex-girlfriend's house. Yes, you heard me right. Ex-girlfriend. The one that was doing something with that boot at an Astros game last year. We get along really well, but hadn't seen each other in about a year so I offered to hang out for a while next time I was in town.

We went to a mall near her house and pigged out on Cinnabon cinnamon rolls since she'd never had one before then did a little window shopping. I can honestly say I enjoyed it.

After I dropped her off I headed home. There was a bit of a slowdown on the east side of a town because of a wreck, but nothing too bad.

I got home about 9:30 to discover that my TV tuner software didn't record House for me like I'd set it up to. Yea, fuck you too Pinnacle. See if I ever buy your crap again.

Thankfully there was an awesome recap on TV.com.

Now it's time to get some sleep, so peace out!

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