Monday,
September 11, 2013
I received an email from Mimi saying that it wasn’t
an emergency, but she thought something was wrong with the Direct TV connection
since she wasn’t getting any sound.
It sounded like an emergency to me…I hate trying to lip read what actors
are saying especially when they’re turned sideways. Anyway, I stopped in on my way to the park to check it out.
“It works on the other TV’s, just not this one,”
she said as I looked a people’s lips moving on the screen. There was definitely no sound coming
out, though.
I pulled out the TV to get a look at where the
Direct cable came into the TV, but couldn’t see how this could be the issue
since she had a picture. She was
fiddling with the remote while I worked, clicking on the ‘mute’ and
demonstrating that the TV actually said ‘mute’ so the button must be
working. She clicked it back on
and the ‘mute’ disappeared. This
got me to thinking and I asked her to give me the remote. I found the volume “+” sign and held it
down. Suddenly, the talking heads
were making noise.
“You…you…fixed it! What did you do?” she asked.
“I turned up the volume,” I said.
She hung her head…and then laughed at herself. Mimi makes me feel like such a
techie…she is SO electronically challenged.
I drove to the park and did a short hike on a sore
leg before heading home. I’d
almost reached my street and was moving over to the turning lane, when I
noticed with some irritation that the car that had been riding too close was
still on my bumper. I turned onto
Millridge and it followed closely…and then turned it’s rooftop blinkers
on. I had no idea what I’d done
wrong, but I was pretty sure I was driving well within the speed limit. He sat in his car running my plate for
3-4 minutes before finally getting out and coming to my window. I rolled it down to be met with the
glare of his flashlight.
“Do you know why I pulled you over, sir?” he asked
politely.
I didn’t and I wasn’t about to give him something
he hadn’t noticed, but he filled the gap quickly.
“You’ve got a rusty license plate. Oh…and the license plate light is
out…which you can get at Auto Zone.
If we can’t read the numbers easily, we have to pull folks over and
advise them to get a new plate.
I’m just giving you a verbal warning,” he concluded and returned to his
car.
I drove home thinking ‘really…you went to the
trouble of pulling me over to tell me I had a rusty license plate?” I pulled in
the garage, exited the car and walked to the back to view the rusty plate. To my surprise, the license plate light
WAS working and as I backed up to about thirty feet from the rear of the car
and could still read the number, I really began to wonder what that had been
all about. Either the officer, who
was right on top of my bumper with high beams directed towards the plate, was
having issues with his vision, or he’d pulled me over because my car was junky
looking and he wanted to see what I was doing in the upscale city of Highland
Heights. When he ran my plate and
saw I lived on the street, he needed to come up with something quickly since I
was observing all traffic laws and my car was functioning beautifully…thanks
Dan. The best he could do was the
‘rusty plate’ thing. I really don’t
know what else to think.
Oh…and the state of Ohio is the only one that
mandates license plates must be made from galvanized steel, which rusts. Other states use aluminum, which doesn’t. Well, plate tags expire in April so I
think I’ll live dangerously until then…outside ‘the law’ and drive with
semi-rusty plates that one near-sighted officer can’t read.
Hike
duration: 60 minutes.
Training
Heart Rate: 90 bpm.
Calories
burned during workout: 350.
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