So I'm going back from my weekly Pacini visit and I head towards Little Five to pick up a birthday gift for Deana's nephew when "ba-boonk" I run over something. I saw a glimpse of it the second before I hit it, it looked to be the size of a soft ball. For a split second I thought, well maybe it was just loud. But sure enough as I had assumed my tire was flat. I roll over to the side of I-20 and try to figure out how to change a tire. It took me five minuets to get the supplies out of the back cause they were strapped in tight with bolts and plastic loops. SO then I begin trying to figure out how to do it. It doesn't go well. I end up on the phone with Deana asking her which way you turn the things to get the tire off. She tells me you can't have the car jacked up already, you have to loosen them first. SO I get ready to get off the phone and start the process over again when up rolls a state transportation vehicle.
Now just as a general disclaimer. I realize the government does millions of things that make my life functional, safe, and productive and they do it at an amazingly cost-effective level. But on that day, that guy showing up and changing my tire saved me a good hour of sitting in the heat on the side of I-20 with cars wizzing past me as I bumbled my way through it. I'm sure I would have gotten it done, I was making slow progress. But he jumpped out. Took that bad boy off, pumped up the doughnut a little more than it already was and had me going within 10 minutes.
So Deana says she'll follow me home to buy new tires when she gets off so I go sit in little five and wait for her. We moozie back hovering at or around 50 mph all the way back to McDonough and I slap down 160 bucks that I don't have on my credit card for two new tires. Yeah. But thats life. I made it home in one piece. So life is good.
making this blog for me and my life. Moving all politics and philosophy, for the most part to A Speculative Fiction which I started up around the same time as this blog but moved all the posting over here due to the fact that I like Vox
I guess this means Henry County Georgia is not the economic/political/cultural driving force in the area. When the New York TImes does not have ANY delivery serivice to your area... you know you ain't in a viable part of town.
Just got an email letting me know that Democracy for America will bring my 5 dollars for Health Care blog post to the front page of their Blog for America site tomorrow morning.
Vacancy Rate Hits New Record: Media Can't Find Commerce Department
There's a small group of people in the United States who follow house prices. According to an obscure discipline known as "economics," an excess supply of an item usually leads to a reduction in price. A little known government agency, the "Commerce Department," reported last week that the vacany rate for ownership units hit yet another record high in the first quarter.
The vacancy rate for ownership units inched up from 2.7 percent in the fourth quarter to 2.8 percent in the first quarter. It had never hit even 2.0 percent until the fourth quarter of 2005. The vacancy rate for rental housing also rose to 10.1 percent, just 0.3 percentage points below the all-time high in the first quarter of 2004.
As best I can tell this release got no coverage at all in the media, probably because the public has so little interest in housing prices.
Must say I like it... great video to boot.
I thought it was great. If you didn't see it, check it out...
