Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. I had to think a minute or two about the title of this article since I was going to say “Dodged a bullet.” But in today’s environment that would be probably not be good thing to do, even though we all know that we do not mean this literally. So what did we dodge this week in the Dogpound? I, once again, came very close to locking myself out of my office. For some strange reason the locks in our offices do not always release the push-button on the other side, so, even though you can open the door with the key, it will lock behind you. I have developed a habit of checking the knob when I enter the office, but as habits go, I do not do it every time, so last
Saturday I decided to stop in the office for a minute. I took off my jacket and went next door to make some copies, and by habit I shut the door behind me….almost shut the door. As you can guess, I just happened to check the door knob as I was leaving and sure enough it was still locked and my keys were not in my pocket. Dodged a rather embarrassing event. A bigger dodge came later that week. I had noticed that my oil light would come on every once in a while…just for a second or two, usually when I started the engine, but I did not really think much about it since I just had an oil change just a month or so ago. After the third time I thought maybe I ought to check under the hood. So Friday night, late, I went out into the garage, popped the hood, pulled the dip stick, wiped it down, put it back in and pulled it up to show…nothing! I mean other than a shimmer of oil on the stick there was no indication there was any oil in that pan. Double yikes! I scrounged around and found an old bottle of oil…about ¾ full. I poured that in and checked the oil again, and now it showed just a drop at the end of the stick. Old Betsy had to be running on fumes, and I am sure if I kept running it would have eventually locked up and goodbye engine.
I got some oil from an auto store and took the car to my mechanic. I told him the car does not burn oil and there are no oil leaks under the car. He checked it out and said that the oil pan gasket had pulled away from the edges and oil was seeping out of the pan. He could not understand how there was not a big oil slick under my car in the garage or in the parking lot where I work. I don’t know either, but I am thankful old Betsy hung in there and that my guardian angel nudged me to check the oil. “I dodged a big one that time!”
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK
“A dream without ambition is like a car without gas… you’re not going anywhere.” Sean Hampton [Footnote; could substitute oil for gas!]
QUICKIES
Overheard; “My boss has a speech impediment…it is his foot!”
Overheard; “Sure I exercise every morning. I do sit-ups. I do have to admit I only do 3…how many times can hit the snooze alarm?”
Overheard; “Just once I would like them to say, “Hi, my name is Jane, and I will be the one messing up your dinner order today.”
Overheard; “Figure this one out.” “I am a nobody. Nobody is perfect. Thus I am perfect!”
Overheard; “I used to like my neighbors, until the changed their WI-FI password.”
Side-bar note here…WI-FI does not really mean anything; it was originally called ‘IEEE 802.11b Direct Sequence. A brand consulting firm was hired to come up with a better name back in 1999. It is said to be a pun on HI-FI [high fidelity]. Now you know!
Got to run. As always be good, do good, play safe, and remember you need to feed your dreams if you want them to grow up.
JR
