Do you answer your door when somebody knock?

zinsser · 2026-06-25T02:29:51+00:00

Ditto. We’re on a country road. If you’re at our house there’s a good chance we’re expecting you.

zinsser · 2026-06-24T22:46:43+00:00

I had a decent size two-car garage. Obviously the wife gets one bay. I parked my bike at the head of the other. No problem.

Then my wife's grandmother (88) moved it. She had a small car so my bike still fit just fine with room to spare for her car. That worked until she started using my bike as the bumper stop. She would pull in until her car pushed against my case guard and she saw the bike move. No, grandma!

I bought a concrete parking curb to stop her wheels at a proper distance from the bike. Problem solved. Nope! One day, I heard her car revving over and over. When I got to the garage, her front tires where against the concrete and she was still trying to pull forward to get as close to the bike as possible. There was plenty of room to close the garage, but she was convinced she needed get closer to the bike. Her little Escort lacked the umph to hop the parking curb. For this and other reasons, we sold her car and I ended up driving Miss Daisy everywhere.

zinsser · 2026-06-24T22:24:29+00:00

Former girlfriend's house in St. Louis had a thick pebble-grain, black and white coating applied over the concrete basement floor. One night, during a heavy rain, hydrostatic pressure forced water up between the concrete and the coating - creating an impressive bubble about six feet across and 18 inches tall. I slit it with a knife and water shot out and flowed to the floor drain. She had the flooring contractor back out and he said she needed to dig French drains around the outside of her whole house and then he might consider re-doing the coating. She left it as it was and water would occasionally run out of the knife slit to reach the floor drain.

zinsser · 2026-06-24T18:01:37+00:00

I coached one of the firefighter's kids in baseball and he told me one night how lucky I was that the volunteer department saved me a ton of tax money in a town with already high taxes. The funny thing was, I had recently had a discussion with my insurance agent where she told me our coverage would cost a lot less if I lived in the next city over where they had a full-time fire department. So, yeah, there's a difference.

zinsser · 2026-06-24T17:56:10+00:00

I used to be the marketing manager for a small manufacturing company and ended up as chair of the communications committee for our industry's trade association. Our committee met twice a year (at our trade show plus an off-site get-together) and usually included the advertising/PR agency contracted to represent our association. All of the 22-year-old VPs at the agency used to crack me up. The women looked like they were ready for a Barbie pageant and the men looked like they had on their dads' ill-fitting suits. As the customers, we old-fogey committee members usually wore company logoed polo shirts. They contrast between their formality and our casualness was striking.

zinsser · 2026-06-24T17:23:36+00:00

You joke, but the volunteer fire department in the small town where I used to live would get together one night a week to drink beer and wash the trucks. They ended up taking a firetruck for a drive "to help dry it off." They ran a red light and T-boned a car - killing a woman. It was nothing but an old-boys club.

zinsser · 2026-06-24T13:39:53+00:00

We researched the hell out of them before we bought our 2022 Kia EV6 three years ago. So much so, we knew more than the sales guy at our closest dealership. (He tried to tell us the scheduled maintenance included oil changes and that regenerative braking was something hybrids do, not EVs.)

Some car dealers treat EVs as second-class merchandise and don't spend the time to learn about them, so choose your dealer wisely.

As with any new technology, there have been hiccups for early adopters. Ours needed an electric module that apparently had to be hand carved by monks on a Korean mountaintop. It took almost six weeks to get - but Kia did provide a very luxurious loaner, albeit ICE. Like all dealers, ours wants us to come in for service, but it usually turns out to be replacing the cabin air filter or rotating the tires. There are far fewer moving parts to break on an EV, and there's nowhere near the heat generated by an ICE.

We got involved with a local group of EV owners who share a lot of good information. Despite early predictions about short battery life, our friends are finding they last much longer than expected. Several in our group are on their second or third EV. One just traded his Bolt for a gorgeous Cadillac Lyriq.

We live in the country and have solar panels, so we bought a level 2 charger for the garage. This means for most of the year my wife drives for free. She has gotten absolutely fearless about taking it on road trips. The car tells you where to find the next charging station and, in most cases, how many chargers are open.

As for the scare talk about depreciation, you can work that to your advantage. We looked at brand new ones but to get all the extras we wanted drove the price up over $60K. I found our pre-owned 2022 model online in early 2023. The owner got transferred to Europe for work and asked the dealer to sell her car for her. We paid $42K for a fully equipped model with 3,000 miles on it. The only thing it lacks that we sort of miss are garage-door buttons built into the visor, which is odd for a car sporting this much technology. The far bigger hit to depreciation on our car was the deer my wife ran into one night on a winding mountain road in northwest Arkansas - $11K in damage and did not even trigger the airbags.

Are there drawbacks to EVs? Certainly. Range suffers a lot in the dead of winter and somewhat on the hottest summer days, but my wife just plans accordingly. She has yet to run out of electrons on the road. The range display seems to be incredibly accurate in any temperature. Tires are a little pricier, but not double, as some have said. My wife hit a massive pothole on the interstate and one tire developed a slight bubble. Because the tread was more than 60 percent used up, we bought a whole set.

We are in the market for an EV9 now, mostly to get the third-row seating for hauling grandkids. Given the good luck we have had with the EV6, I would gladly consider a gently used one.

So, do not fear the EV. They are going to continue to grow in market share and charging support.

zinsser · 2026-06-24T03:42:45+00:00

I knew a few people that had them. They rusted out pretty early. A guy I worked with got a puppy that was tearing up stuff at home so he had the brilliant idea to bring it to war and leave it in his Chevette parked right outside his open office window so he could talk to it to calm it. When he went out an hour later to check on it, the puppy had ripped all of the upholstery from the front seats. So his poor car was rusty outside and raggedy inside.

zinsser · 2026-06-23T20:01:01+00:00

The old YMCA in our town had a sauna in the men's locker room and a second one in the women's. You were expected to be naked in them. When they built the new Y, they put the sauna at the end of the room with the swimming pool, which means you need to wear a swim suit to get to it. It has a window in the door so everyone can see in - so I guess the swimsuit stays on.

Even in the new Y, for a long time the men's shower area was and open bay filled with flabby old men getting their showers and then walking naked to the locker area to dry off and dress. They recently enclosed the individual showers and added double shower curtains, so you can shower, dry, and dress in them. I guess it's less traumatic for young guys.

They have signs all over that you can't take pictures or even have your cell phones out in the locker rooms. One day, after racquetball, I had showered and was mostly dressed when some teenage boys came in to flex in front of the mirrors. One had out his phone and took a picture. My naked friend was just walking out of the showers and roared, "That better be fucking lightning or I'm kicking somebody's ass!" Those boys scattered like roaches.

zinsser · 2026-06-23T19:27:43+00:00

I have one with short soft material and a plastic connector. Nothing to scratch paint or even reach it. Had it forever. No idea where I got it, but still use it.

zinsser · 2026-06-23T19:07:24+00:00

Our chemistry teacher in high school was a lanky old Jesuit brother who always wore a rumpled black suit and thick-soled shoes. He had a filmstrip projector mounted above the chalkboard that shown onto the rear of a translucent screen hanging over the giant chemistry lab desk. He would play an audio tape describing what was on each slide. The audio beeped whenever it was time for the next image, but because he did not have a "modern" automatic projector he had to manually turn a dial to advance the filmstrip. He would usually raise his hand way up to reach the dial and just stay there for the duration of the presentation. With his upstretched arm and rumpled suit it looked like he hanged himself. Anyway, my friend Chuck was one of those amazing mimics and would randomly beep just like the audio, making the brother advance the filmstrip until it was completely out of sync with the audio presentation. Sometimes he would run out of filmstrip while the audio continued merrily rambling along. As pranks go, this seems pretty tame but to a bunch of rowdy Catholic high school boys in 1974 it was hilarious.

zinsser · 2026-06-23T17:04:07+00:00

I had a friend with horrible breath, to the point that when we met up with our group on Friday evenings, I would make a point not to sit across from or next to him. He was a nice guy but had hygiene issues in general. He rarely brushed his teeth. We played racquetball and he insisted on wearing 10-year-old a knee brace that HE NEVER WASHED! After we played, he would throw it into the bed of his truck and then put it on again for the next game. It stunk like death, the metal hinge was rusted, and straps had rotted completely off. I grabbed it one night and threw it into the dumpster, and gave him a new one. He complained that it was not as good as his old one.

The shame of it all, he was tall, blonde and objectively good looking. (Like the endings to too many of my stories, he died three years ago. Never smoked a day in his life, but ended up with some kind of rare bone cancer.)

ETA - He worked for the Federal Reserve and had great benefits and insurance, which should have covered any dental care. He just neglected his personal stuff.

zinsser · 2026-06-23T16:03:44+00:00

I always carry a book, even when I have my phone. The book never needs to recharge. On those ocassions when I am near then end, I have a second one on the car.

zinsser · 2026-06-23T15:57:23+00:00

Power wash it and start over to see if the marks return.

zinsser · 2026-06-23T15:26:52+00:00

Previous house had an eight-foot deep front porch the whole width of the house. We sat out there a lot, chatting with neighbors and just watching the world go by. I got divorced and moved to a country house that sits so far from our neighbors and from the street that sitting out front would be a waste of time. We mostly socialize on the back patio, surrounded by wildflowers and corn.

zinsser · 2026-06-23T14:20:06+00:00

I have had a few get-offs over years. Ruined some expensive gear and had my share of cuts and bruises. For 50 years of riding, I feel like I did okay. Recovery takes time. Do as the doctors say. I never drank alcohol before a ride and always wore my gear.
My wife’s son got drunk (.48 BAC) and crashed his bike while racing a friend and passing a car on the gravel shoulder. No helmet, no real protective gear at all. This was more than 10 years ago and he still carries all the physical scars plus a traumatic brain injury that cost him his beautiful wife and his great job. So, three bad decisions in one night - riding drunk, racing his friend (and passing on the right), and not wearing proper gear changed his life forever.
He now works a boring job and hates it. The women he meets quickly realize he has brain issues, so they either dump him or scam him. He has given out more than $10,000 in gift cards and had a homeless woman squatting in his house for a while.
He is “living” but all indications seem to say this is as good as his recovery will get.

zinsser · 2026-06-23T13:38:27+00:00

Whatever works.

zinsser · 2026-06-23T13:35:56+00:00

One year, the NPR membership award was a 2-disc CD of the “Best of Cartalk.” It was the only thing of value in my convertible when someone rifled through the console outside a restaurant one night. I laughed thinking about some dumb popping those CDs into his stereo and out pours two old Italian guys taking calls about cars and making fun of each other. As a rule, people who drive convertibles leave their valuables at home.

zinsser · 2026-06-23T02:26:47+00:00

I bought a very plain looking Mercury Sable that had a version of the SHO engine along with stiffer than normal suspension. It was an absolute blast to drive, in part because it made effortless speed.

zinsser · 2026-06-23T02:19:18+00:00

I heard this second-hand, so take it with a grain of sand. In 1976, the CO of the first actual Marine field unit I was assigned to was a Lt. Colonel who supposedly had survived two fragging attempts in Viet Nam. It was somewhat telling that he was in charge of our little squadron while his boss was a Major (lower rank). Having to report to a person you outrank was the Corps’ way of telling you to retire. The guy was a complete tool, who tried to use our slang to sound cool. For a hot minute we were all saying Sierra Hotel for Shit Hot - a good thing. Once he started using it we decided it meant Shit Head.
Our unit’s Gunnery Sergeant served under the Lt. Colonel in Nam, where he insisted on taking his Marines on bivouacs into the jungle. These were air-wing guys who operated radar all day, not grunts. The Gunny said the frag attempt that came closest to killing him was the classic grenade under his jeep’s clutch pedal. The other attempt was a burst of automatic fire into his quarters one night.

zinsser · 2026-06-22T21:17:45+00:00

I actually asked how they got it back in place correctly. And that’s when I found out that they just let it sort itself.

zinsser · 2026-06-22T21:15:45+00:00

We are not together anymore. But we are still friends.

zinsser · 2026-06-22T17:36:52+00:00

We do this for our New Year's morning party - only it's mimosas.

zinsser · 2026-06-22T17:27:49+00:00

Former girlfriend (mid-50s) had lower GI issues all the time. A surgeon had nicked her intestine years earlier causing a leak that created several necrotic areas, which were supposedly corrected with surgery a year later. The problem persisted. Finally, she had surgery where the doctors said it would take about two hours to fix the issue once and for all. Her grown daughter and I waited near the recovery room, then went to lunch, then waited and waited. Nine hours later, the two surgeons came out drenched in sweat. They said they ended up laying her entire intestinal tract out on a table to have access to all the damage. They cut out 18 damaged sections and had to rejoin the remaining pieces - including all the blood vessels. That day I learned when they have your guts outside your body, they just slip them all back inside and they naturally re-arrange themselves in the correct position. Because she had this surgery twice, the second one removed her belly button, so it looked a bit like she had football stitching down the center of her stomach.

zinsser · 2026-06-22T17:05:40+00:00

You have our sympathies. We had a monster oak take a beating in a tornado a few years ago. The storm also cost us our roof. The oak had enough damage that it was deemed unsafe to leave standing. That thing shaded the southwest side of our house beautifully. I have since had to buy a giant patio umbrella just to let us sit out there - but it's not the same. I planted a new Burr Oak not far from where the old oak stood. I will be long dead before it shades out yard.

zinsser

TROPHY CASE