Re-Volted, Walking Dead Wow, Merle’s Door

So I picked up the dogs in Ali’s Volt and brought them back to the house last night.  I only had driven it once before.  The car is just so damn cool.  The cockpit is surrounded with information everywhere with enough buttons and video screens to keep any geek entertained.  Once I get the the SSR paid off I could definitely see something like a Volt being in my automotive future. Techno wizardry aside, it is also awesome to be able to drive 40 miles + without burning an ounce of gasoline.

I decided to try to get the Volt in the garage next to the SSR so it wouldn’t get blasted by dirty sprinkler water.  I no longer have the garage optimized for two vehicles but I was able to squeeze both Chevy’s in there with a few inches to spare.

I was worried that the Volt charging harness might pop the GFCI circuit in the garage, but it gave it’s “I’m happily charging” chirp after plugging it in.

I finally was able to watch this week’s Walking Dead last night although I did so by loading the Xfinity web site on my computer.  It was an aggravating experience.  The streaming performance was awful with constant pausing.  Even after I changed the settings to stream at the lowest resolution, which looks pretty shitty, I would still have some pausing of the stream.  Ironically, when I was forced to sit through the commercial breaks, which were in full resolution, they streamed just fine.

I supposedly have the “Blast” internet service which boasts speeds up to 50 mps.  To have this sort of shitty performance streaming content from their native network is inexcusable.

Well poor streaming aside, this weeks episode was just fantastic.  The show is written, shot and produced in a way precious few shows can match.  I am rarely one to encourage jumping on a bandwagon but if you have not gotten hooked into Walking Dead yet, fire up your Netflix account and get started.  It is that good.

Last night I went out on the lanai and propped open the one screen door to the yard.  Both of the girls looked at me in a slightly confused way.  I told them “go ahead, you can go outside and come back in when you want to”.  Nicki was the first one to head out and proceeded to find a comfy section of grass and take a nap.  Sadie joined her a little later.

The book I am reading, Merle’s Door, is all about a man and his life with his beloved dog, Merle. One of the themes of the book is how interesting it was to see how Merle interacted with the world, a world where he had very few physical barriers since the author lived in a remote area of Colorado.

I have always trusted the dogs to be more autonomous than Alison has as she is always first thinking of the horror if something DID go wrong.  Both of the girls hung out in the yard for quite awhile.  Once the sun went down and it started to cool off, they both returned inside and joined me, content.

This morning I drove into work on pure electric and was able to find a nearby outlet in the parking garage for me to “refuel” while I worked.  With as much as I drive,  at least 1500 miles a month, I am spending $400-$500 a month just on gas.  With a Volt I would probably knock that number down by 75%

This Easter weekend appears to be just another two days off for me.  Mom has absolutely no interest in doing any sort celebration, not that we ever did anything beyond just getting together for a family meal and exchanging cards and stuff.  Instead I will just be stopping by with the dogs to say hi sometime Sunday afternoon.

Mom has created a mental scenario that on the days that she works, the rest of her day gets sucked into a black hole, nothing else can take place.  It’s almost like she has a severe allergic reaction to doing anything outside of her self defined routine, even if that thing is seeing me.