Driveway

So we finally got our new driveway. A couple of weeks ago they came in to put some dirt and crushed stone down, nice and flat with one of those flattener doo-hickeys that they drive and nobody wants to be run over by. But then it's been raining every afternoon, so they haven't been able to finish. They came by yesterday, and somehow must have realized that the forecast of late-day thunderstorms was not going to come to fruition, because it was indeed dry.

My basketball hoop is on order, of course, now that the driveway is paved. The question now, is whether my wife will get pissed if I use actual paint instead of chalk to mark the court.

Had some problems earlier this month removing the swimming pool cover. As in, it got waterlogged and I had to dump the top of the cover into the water because I couldn't lift it out. So the pool was green and filled with lots and lots of dead leaves. The whole leaves aren't the problem, it's the decayed leaf powder that doesn't stay on the bottom of the pool to be vacuumed up. It's about 90-95% cleaned up, and the water is clear and algae-free, though.

This is the time of year crabgrass starts up. I sprayed some WeedStop on it, and it does work pretty well. But it's like green grass with big brown spotches of dead crabgrass. I suppose that's fine.

So Monday I took my car in for its 100,000 mile tune-up. No real problems, got new front brakes but everything else was okay...except the radio, which apparently was faulty and thus not the speakers' fault for the lack of audio in the car. About $750. Wednesday, my insulin pump wasn't hooked up right, so I ducked out around 11 to go home and re-attach it. That's when I got smashed into. The lady tried to cross two lanes of traffic to pull into a parking lot for a diner. The left lane was all stopped at a traffic light, about 10 cars deep, so someone must have given her a gap to go. The right lane, the turning land for the onramp to the highway, was clear, so I was still moving at about 20-25 mph approaching the light. So she didn't look for me, and I didn't see her until she cut me off ("failure to yield", a 14-242 apparently). No injuries at such a slow speed. Just a real hassle. And of course, maintenance costs aren't usually reimbursed by an insurer -- her Geico is going to give me $300 to offset that a little. But anyways, the car's being totaled. I had to go retrieve everything from the body shop they towed it to -- license plates, my E-Z Pass tag, sporting goods, sunglasses....the only thing left at this point might be to try to siphon the 2/3 tank of gas into a portable container that we can use for the lawn mower. I'm amused at referring to her as an "old lady", as she's a few weeks younger than my parents.