Category Archives: travel

Adjustment Period

  By Melly | May 20, 2012 - 5:59 pm | , , , ,
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When people move into new surroundings, it takes a little bit of time to get adjusted. Some people seem to adapt a little easier or faster than others. I take a while to get comfortable. It don’t know why. I love to travel, but I don’t like feeling lost. I like to explore, but I like to keep track of where I am and how to get back. I wonder if there is a personality disorder for people who are perpetual gypsies. There are several songs about that, with lines like, “Home is where I hang my hat” and “Pappa was a rolling stone.”

I love vacations, but I seem to keep going back to the same places. I wonder why? There are certainly places I’ve never been that would be interesting and vacation-worthy.  Maybe it’s because I only have a short period of time and don’t want to risk something so valuable on the unknown?

Rental Car Shortage

  By Melly | March 20, 2012 - 10:42 am | , ,
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By now I’m sure everyone has seen the TV ads for certain rental car companies that feature very cheap daily rental rates. I was interested in renting a car for a couple of days to take a weekend getaway, so I called the rental car company to book a car. Well, turns out they don’t have any cars available to rent for that weekend. So I asked about the following weekend and they said they were all booked for that weekend, too.

That seemed a little weird to me, but it turns out that because we had a big hail storm recently a lot of cars were damaged by the hail and are in the body shops for repairs. Because it was a big storm, all the body shops are backed up, so people are using up all the rental car inventory until their cars are fixed.

Check Engine Light

  By Melly | January 18, 2012 - 12:46 pm | , ,
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Of course, my car has tags that need to be renewed next month. And to get them renewed I have to take my car to a government inspection station. The check the car for emissions compliance and and charge $10 for the hour long ordeal. The actual inspection itself only takes about 5 minutes. But since there are only a few official inspection stations here, that means getting into a very long lone and waiting your turn to pull into the big bay door and actually having the inspection performed.

One thing I learned last year, the hard way, is that if you have the Check Engine light on, your car will not pass the inspection and you cannot get your tags renewed. There are no exceptions to this on late model cars. You either fix the problem so the Check Engine light goes out, or you cannot drive the car until you get it fixed. Period.

That fun little requirement to get the Check Engine light fixed cost me $800 last year to replace a sensor. This is ridiculously expensive for a little piece of metal with a computer chip in it. My laptop doesn’t even cost $800!

So, of course, the Check Engine light has come on again and I already know that I can’t get it through the emissions inspection until I get the car fixed. I don’t have $800 laying around to get another sensor replaced. FML.

Prayers for Joplin MO

  By Melly | May 23, 2011 - 10:08 am | , ,
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The devastation of the little town of Joplin is just unimaginable to me. It looks like every single house and building in the town has been wiped off the face of this Earth All that you can see in the video footage is piles of rubble and what remains of snapped off trees. Even the hospital was damaged severely.

I am so sorry this tragedy has struck Joplin – my heart and prayers are with you.