Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. Hope you had a nice Easter and are ready for the Tax Man. Over the Easter holiday weekend I decided to give old Betsy [my 2004 Honda]some much needed and deserved rest, and rented a car to make sure all of my holiday travel was uneventful. I am not saying Betsy would not come through as she always does [I know she can hear me through the garage walls], but her engine light was on again and I wanted to get to the mechanic before I drove her too much further. The car rental place has a nice program…called the Weekend package. Pick the car up on Friday and return it Sunday night or Monday morning, and not burn your wallet in the process. I was fortunate to get a virtually brand new Nissan Rouge…it only had 6,000 miles on her and there was still a slight scent of newness in the leather seats. Of course with every new car coming out these days, they are adding more and more safety features. For example, the rearview camera for backing out of your garage or parking spot. I am still trying to put my full confidence in that screen; I still sneak a peek to make sure I am not going to run into anything. I did get a bit of surprise when backing out of the garage…there is now a split screen…1/2 showed the gravel lane…the other ½ showed me a 360 degrees picture around the car…almost like radar showing the four garage walls and everything else inside it. Pretty neat stuff! I got another surprise later on…I set my cruise control and I noticed it was running a few miles less than what I had set it for. So I re-set it and a little later it was again dragging behind my cruise setting. I figured there must be some kind of miscalculation between the speedometer and the control setting. As I crept up on some traffic I moved over into the passing lane and lo and behold the car immediately accelerated back up to my actual cruise control setting. It appears they have added a safety feature that does not allow your cruise control to run you right up the tailpipe of the car in front of you. Instead it matches the cars speed until which time you decided to switch lanes and then it gives the engine the green light to push the pedal to the metal. Oh yes…just as a side-bar…that “pedal to the metal” ….is just an expression…heaven forbid that I would speed..even a little bit. [Wink!]
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK
“Safety does not happen by accident.” Dogpound Wisdom
The fellow stormed into the postmaster’s office in a fury. “I’ve been getting threatening letters in the mail for months and I want them stopped.” “Of course,” said the postmaster. “Sending threatening letters through the mail is a federal offense. Do you know who’s sending them?”
“Yes,” shouted the man. “It’s those idiots down at the Internal Revenue Service.”
PARTY
A lady threw a party for her granddaughter. She had gone all out with a caterer, a band, and even a clown. Just before the party started, two bums showed up looking for a handout.
Feeling sorry for the bums, the woman told them that she would give them a meal if they would chop some wood for her out back. Gratefully, they headed to the rear of the house. The guests arrived, and all was going well with the children having a wonderful time. But the clown hadn’t shown up. After a half an hour, the clown finally called to report that he was stuck in traffic, and he would probably not make the party at all. The woman was very disappointed and unsuccessfully tried to entertain the children herself. She happened to look out the window and saw one of the bums doing cartwheels across the lawn. She watched in awe as he swung from tree branches, did mid-air flips, and leaped high into the air. She spoke to the other bum and said, “What your friend is doing is absolutely marvelous. I’ve never seen such a thing. Do you think your friend would consider repeating this performance for the children at the party? I would pay him $100!” The other bum said, “Well, I dunno. Let me ask him. HEY WILLIE! FOR $100, WOULD YOU CHOP OFF ANOTHER TOE?”
That is a wrap for me. As always be good, do good, play safe and remember safety always starts and ends with you. Be careful out there! JR
