Some thoughts for you to have

A few things:

• My pal over at j.m.b. had a link to this which I thought was interesting since I'm somewhat presidentially wavering. It's a survey that aligns your views to those of the candidates. Interesting. And no, I'm not telling you who was my winner according to this survey. Wouldn't you love to know?
• Heard a spot on the radio about China and the need to push and shove and elbow your way into the subway. The reporter said that while you are on the platform a Chinese announcement is telling you to be courteous and allow others off before you get on, but if you did that you'd never get on at all. Add that to the things I've heard and read about life in the Chinese countryside and I don't think the words "bucolic" and "pastoral" must exist in that language. I get stressed just thinking about it.
• While I was running into the grocery store during a downpour the other day, I was reminding myself of how good we have it here in this country. Some people have to make a life-threatening journey to the market only wait for hours for a few loaves of bread and then go home to no electricity, no running water and no end of that life in sight. We don't know what inconvienence is like here. Say whatever you want about the politics and policies of this country, it's darned easy livin'. I feel fortunate for that.
• Our main computer is having a little virus problem and since I'm as technologically sound as an 8-track tape, I took it to the Geek Squad. Let me first say, my congratulations to the person who came up with their schtick. (If you don't know, they are "agents" and act all FBI-ish, even calling their counter area their precinct, which is funny to me. I guess when they first opened they had to add some color to their cars because they looked too close to official in black and white. I must say I'd fall over laughing, however, if real FBI agents started driving VW Beetles.) Anyway, they have been nothing but helpful and even though I was there for 1 and 1/2 hours today (with two kids in tow no less) I left feeling fine. So they are doing something right. They charge an arm and a leg and have that super-annoying understaffing thing at times wherein your agent is talking to people on the phone and you and filling out some other person's paperwork simultaneously, but somehow I wasn't totally angry, which that kind of stuff usually makes me. Maybe I'm getting to be more Zen than I thought. (With regard to the two kids along with me thing: I had TONS of snacks and we went to Best Buy's home theatre section and watched movie clips for about an hour. Good work, Best Buy. You and Gymboree win the easy-to-shop-here-with-kids award.) That's all on that.
• Which leads me to why there are no pictures forthcoming. I don't have the right program on this machine and won't be installing it because I don't know how. So there.
• Volvo, on the other hand, is not on my good list as far as the overall company goes. We bought our car 4 yrs ago basically because of the Volvo safety record and I really do love it. It's spacious, drives nice, super-easy with car seats, the kids sit far enough away that they can't poke each other, etc. But the airbag went bad, so we took it in to the dealer. In mid-December. First we were told there was a nation-wide back order on airbags. From the company who prides themselves on safety, that seemed a little odd. But after two weeks of driving around my death trap (isn't it funny, not so many years ago there were no airbags, now I consider them as necessary as tires...), the part came in and I took in my car so they could "pop it in", as my service advisor said. Right. Should have known, first he came out to tell me it'd be a different color (huh?) than the rest of our interior (it'd be tan, our interior is grey), then he came to tell me it wouldn't fit at all. So he got me a rental car which was two door and smelled like a New Jersey bar (translation: very smokey). It was great fun putting two car seats in that puppy. So the next day we took that back and got a 4 door with less smoke smell. We've now had the rental for two weeks and the part just came in and they discovered we need.... another part. Which will add $500 to our bill. So, all in all, good times in the transportation department. The car should be done tomorrow. But then again, I've heard that before.
• With regard to the above mentioned issue, did you know a car manufacturer does not have to provide parts to their car after it is 10 years old? So if in 3 years our airbag goes bad, Volvo can say, "Sorry. We don't make that any more," and we get to decide whether to (a) sell our car to another sucker with no airbag, (2) drive a car with no airbag, or (3) donate or otherwise junk and otherwise perfectly working car because Volvo doesn't want to keep their cars on the road. Weird.

That's more of my thoughts than you really needed, but I'm just here to share. Hope you are all well and not needing to swim around town like we are.