Day: December 15, 2021

Delayed Gratification

Fandango35 Comments

I was originally hoping that my wife and I would take our new electric bikes on their inaugural ride on Monday, but Murphy’s Law took hold and it’s probably not going to happen until tomorrow.

Here was the plan:

  1. Order online and receive delivery of the two ebikes from the manufacture and drop them off (still boxed up) at a bike shop for assembly.
  2. Order online and receive deliver of a trailer hitch for my car.
  3. Order online and receive delivery of a bike rack specifically designed to accommodate two ebikes (which are significantly heavier than traditional bicycles). Our bikes with battery weigh 63 pounds each.
  4. Have the trailer hitch that I ordered online installed on my car.
  5. Receive and assemble the bike rack.
  6. Mount the bike rack on my car’s hitch and pick up the fully assembled bikes from the bike shop.
  7. Ride the new ebikes.

Here’s what happened:

The bikes arrived on time and I made an appointment with the bike shop to drop them off. That was last Monday.

The hitch arrived on Tuesday and I took it to the guy I’d arranged to have install it on Thursday. I told you here about the fiasco about installing the hitch on my car, which was supposed to take an hour but ended up taking almost six.

The bike rack I ordered, which was supposed to delivered on Friday so that I could mount it to my car’s newly installed hitch and pick up the assembled ebikes on Saturday, didn’t arrive. It was rescheduled for delivery on Monday.

The bike rack was delivered on Monday, but after 6:00 in the evening.

On Tuesday morning, I started putting that damn bike rack together, attempting to follow the rather cryptic directions (few words, mostly pictures) that would require a mechanical engineer to decipher.

It took me about five hours to put it together and mount it onto my car’s hitch. It wasn’t raining, so I drove to the bike shop, picked up my assembled ebikes and put them on the rack. My plan was to get home in the early afternoon and for my wife and me to take them out for a short ride.

Unfortunately, when I got home and removed the bikes from the rack, I discovered that the bikes’ batteries needed charging and it takes 6-8 hours to fully charge them.

Now, today, we got a text from our son and daughter-in-law first thing this morning asking if we could go over to their place for a few hours to help out with our very young grandkids. So we did, and now we’re back home. But it just started to rain and it’s supposed to rain non-stop until 5:00 tomorrow night.

Maybe we’ll get to finally ride our ebikes on Friday. Maybe.

I’m just Not Feeling It

Fandango11 Comments

The coach called Lewkowski over to the sideline. “What’s going on with you, son?” the coach asked. “Bradley handed you the ball and you immediately fumbled it. Then he threw you a pass that should have been an easy catch, but you dropped it. We’ve only got ten minutes left in the game to come from behind and pull off a victory. But you need to stick with the method we’ve been practicing all season that got us to the playoffs.”

“Coach,” Lewkowski said, “I’m sorry but I’m just not feeling the synergy on the field right now. You need to have faith in me and give me the freedom to do my thing.”

The coach turned bright red with anger. “You’re right, Lewkowski,” he said. “I want you to feel the synergy between your butt and that bench. And as to freedom to do your thing, feel free to sit your fat ass down for the rest of the game.”

Written for these daily prompts: Ragtag Daily Prompt (fumble), Word of the Day Challenge (catch), My Vivid Blog (left), The Daily Spur (method), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (synergy), and E.M.’s Random Word Prompt (freedom).

One-Liner Wednesday — The Past and the Future

Fandango19 Comments

For this week’s One-Liner Wednesday prompt from Linda G. Hill, I’m unabashedly stealing a quote that Marla, at Marla’s World, posted this past Friday. Why? Because it resonated with me.

Here’s the quote Marla posted. It’s from American writer James Meredith.

“Nothing is a bigger waste of time than regretting the past and worrying about the future.”

I also found this very similar quote from another American author, Roy T. Bennett:

“No amount of regretting can change the past, and no amount of worrying can change the future.”

Fandango’s Provocative Question #148

Fandango38 Comments
FPQ

Welcome once again to Fandango’s Provocative Question. Each week I will pose what I think is a provocative question for your consideration.

By provocative, I don’t mean a question that will cause annoyance or anger. Nor do I mean a question intended to arouse sexual desire or interest.

What I do mean is a question that is likely to get you to think, to be creative, and to provoke a response. Hopefully a positive response.

This, I think, is going to be a fun one, especially if you’re a movie buff. There’s a guy I know who practically has all of the dialogue from the movie “Caddyshack” memorized. One of my wife’s friends is an expert when it comes to reenacting scenes from “When Harry Met Sally,” especially Meg Ryan’s scene in the deli. Maybe yours is “Casablanca.” Or “A Few Good Men.” How about “The Wizard of Oz,” “Gone with the Wind,” “The Goddather,” “Forrest Gump,” or any Monty Python movie?

Mine is:

So here’s my provocative fun question this week.

What movie, if any, can you practically quote from start to finish?

If you choose to participate, write a post with your response to the question. Once you are done, tag your post with #FPQ and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments. But remember to check to confirm that your pingback or your link shows up in the comments.

FOWC with Fandango — Synergy

Fandango12 Comments
FOWC

Welcome to December 15, 2021 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “synergy.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. You will marvel at their creativity.