Author: Mark Alexander

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One Year

Well, it’s been one year since we went into lockdown at work. While it took a bit of adjustment at first, I came to love it and I dreaded having to return to the way things were.

Thing is, none of us was in any hurry to return to the office full time. But as I wrote previously, our society is too entrenched in the thought of getting everything back to “normal,” that any lessons we might’ve learned, or insights we gained over the past year in regards to doing things differently have been tossed out the window.

The old “normal” wasn’t working, but we’ll be damned if we make any changes.

Remember how nice it was those first few weeks? Little to no traffic on the streets? The quiet outside? The fact that wildlife was—albeit cautiously—returning to our urban enclaves?

Sure, nothing was open and we were all with a heightened sense of caution regarding pretty much everything we came in contact with outside our home (Ben and I still carry hand sanitizer in our cars, something that—along with our religious mask wearing while outside our home—has undoubtedly attributed to the fact neither one of us has gotten any of our usual winter respiratory infections this year), but for us personally, it was a welcome respite from the madness that had been society previously.

I enjoy getting up an hour later than I had been prior to COVID. I don’t miss the commute. I appreciate the added security of being home when packages are delivered. And lord knows the dogs have certainly grown used to (probably codependently so) me being home. I think they’re going to have the hardest time readjusting.

I can’t afford to retire for another four years at minimum, so we stumble back to what we were all doing a year ago, acting like nothing happened at all over the past twelve months to possibly—just possibly—move us all in a different direction.

And that makes me sad.

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To the Writers of Supernatural…

Be aware that Outraged Fanboys + Social Media = Payback is a bitch.

Hoping to just make the whole thing just go away, you’ve succeeded in making your condemned love between Cas and Dean Winchester into the one thing the entire series will be remembered for and meme’d for the ages.







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Notice Anything Wrong?

If you guessed that the stripes are backwards, you win!

As you may (or may not) remember, Rabbit got his “bonnet” stripes back in August of last year. At the time I was kind of torn as to whether or not I wanted to do the “boot” stripes as well, but ultimately decided to put it off because I wasn’t sure of the aesthetics and the cost was 150% of the front stripes. (It’s the labor of removing the badging.)

Since we have a little “extra” cash these days—thanks to our former landlord literally burning us out of house and home—I decided to revisit the rear stripes. I’d seen a few around town and online and the look really grew on me. So about a week and a half ago I took Rabbit in to get his butt done. (This is normally a one-day job.)

That afternoon I got a call from my service rep informing me that the vinyl shop had discovered that one of the stripes had a pretty bad kink in it and they’d need to get another one—and the soonest that could happen was the following Monday.

So I did some internal grumbling because I didn’t exactly relish the thought of two additional days in the loaner, but as Ben often says, “It was what it was.”

The car was ready late Monday afternoon, and I picked it up literally ten minutes before the shop closed. I walked outside and snapped the quick picture you see above.

Something seemed off, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

While I was stopped on the way home, I looked at the photo and then looked at the hood stripes. They’d applied the rear stripes backward! The narrow stripes were supposed to be inside the wide stripes as they’d done (correctly) months ago on the hood!

I called the next morning and was told to bring the car back in “for them to inspect.”

Tuesday morning I arrived and the guy who does nothing more than check you in when you arrived walked around the back and I saw him shaking his head.

“Have you ever seen this?” I asked.

He replied that no, this was a new one.

By the time I was fully checked in, every one of the service advisors had taken a gander and they were—to use a perfect word the Brits have for situations like this—gobsmacked.

And oh yeah…when they’d sent the car out to be washed, it came back without the antenna. (They normally put it somewhere in the car, but it was nowhere to be found.)

So my advisor said they’d take care of it all and put me in another loaner.

The car was ready for pickup yesterday, so at lunch I drove down to retrieve ol’ Rabbit.

The stripes were correct (braise the baby cheebus!), but the antenna—that the service advisor said had been replaced before sending it out to be washed—was missing!

Much better!

To their credit, they walked over to the parts department and returned with another brand new stubby antenna like had been on the car prior to this fiasco and screwed it in.

Apparently both the car wash and  the vinyl shops are not a direct part of this MINI dealership; they’re entities under the umbrella of the parent corporation and this was not the first time antennas had gone missing…

So after more than a week for a task that should’ve taken a day, Rabbit has his rear strips. Was it worth it? Do they bring me joy? I may not go that far, but I am quite pleased with the final product.

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Because I’m the Generous Sort

Stop laughing. I can be generous.

I rediscovered these items in notebooks that I almost did not retrieve after the fire. I’m glad I did. I foolishly let go of many things that I now wish—if I’d been in a better headspace—I’d kept.

I don’t know if any of my dear readers have a want or need, but I created some high quality scans of them and they are available for your downloading pleasure.

Brochure
Operating Instructions
Service Manual