Yesterday was almost an exciting day, three different times, but nothing happened. I actually find it odd that so much could have happened yesterday, yet none of the stories panned out.
First, back on March 28th a quick but violent storm blew threw Charlotte and dumped nickle to quarter sized hail throughout the neighborhood. (For some reason I didn’t blog about it at the time.) It pelted out cars (see photo) but we saw no visible damage so we thought we had dodged a bullet. Several weeks later we noticed all our neighbors were setting their roofs repaired or replaced so we figured it couldn’t hurt to have somebody look at it. It wasn’t a surprise that the roofing guys told us we had major hail damage, but it was a surprise when our insurance company’s adjuster confirmed it. And so goes the story that we’re going to get a new roof. They delivered the construction materials on Thursday and were scheduled to replace out roof yesterday, but it was delayed due to the threat of rain.
So our roof was supposed to be replaced, but nothing happened.
Second is that Patty had jury duty yesterday. I guess that is a story but wait until you hear what the story almost was. I was called for jury duty late last year but the day before they told me not to show up. Patty wasn’t so lucky and had to report. She sat in the waiting room for most of the day but late in the afternoon was finally called as the next potential juror. While waiting to be vetted, she learned that it was a capital murder trial. Oh crap! Capital murder trials can go weeks or even months, or even longer. Well luckily the person currently being vetted before her was chosen as the final juror and Patty was free to go home. Phew.
So Patty was almost picked as a juror for a capital murder case, but nothing happened.
Third, I went with my co-worker James to a high school to video tape an awareness walk event. Everything went great and afterward I started driving the station van back again. A few miles down the road I pulled up to the light at a major intersection, in the middle lane. As soon as we stopped moving we immediately noticed white smoke coming out of the engine. Looking behind me, I now see that smoke had been billowing out in a trail behind us. I quickly threw the van in park, killed the engine,turned on the flashers, and jumped the heck out. I felt the hood and it didn’t feel hot so I tried to open it up, but couldn’t find the latch. Without it being hot I wasn’t too worried about a fire but I was nervous about standing in front of the van as it sit idle in the middle lane of a major thoroughfare. After a few minutes the smoke dissipated so I figured the best thing to do is to try to drive the van out traffic and in to the nearest parking lot. We hopped back in the van and cranked it up again. With the help of a city bus that blocked for us, we were able to hang a right turn (not the way back to the station) and drive a few blocks tot he nearest non-residential parking lot. The van started smoking along the way again so it was a good thing we didn’t have to go any further. We called for another co-worker to come pick us up, took the video equipment with us, and abandoned the van until somebody else can come tow it.
So the van I was driving broke down smoking in the middle of traffic and had to be left nearby, but nothing (worse) happened.
