An Office in Hand

A Meander

3/3/19 Church then A Meander.

I got to church about 15 minutes late. But Miki was happy to see me.
Afterward we ate at Wild Ginger restaurant in Gloucester.
Then we separated for the afternoon so we could take care of other  business.

But I never quite got there.

Today I went meandering in my shiny, Kia Stinger G.T.2,  red race car.

What is meandering?
        Well it is just going no where in particular.
How long a trip is it and how do you know when you get there? Its hard to say.
        You will just know- When you get back.
        To wander without purpose.

And so it was that I ran up through West Point toward Richmond. Managed to click off a few miles “north of 80-mph” on highway 17. The weather had been promising something, and it came on as drizzly foggy sprits which hurled themselves into my cherry red armored machine’s automatic wipers outside, inside the computerized climate control kept up to date to the vagaries of weather.

I had thought perhaps today to run into the Richmond to the Apple store and buy a X iphone too as my main line and move my iPhone 7 to my private line retiring the old 5 which had started my iPhone love affair.

If I have one complaint with the Apple system it is that the company controls the compatibility of older models to current upgrades of their operating system the most noxious being forcing the older phones to loose their battery life progressively faster and faster. Battery replacement is no help. That and the inability to update contact and photo files to newer models. These are probably empirical complaints, since I can’t prove them.  Apple deliberate unnecessary forced my model 5 to obsolescence. But, I am not convinced.

Apple’s gamble; - that I will forgive and forget my irritations and willingly pay $1,000.00 plus for the current phone of my choice seems sound, because I have finally decided to do it. While the current market value of my 5 is $50.00. I paid $650.00 for it new!

But this is after all a meander.  And clearly not just geographical. Somewhere around 8 miles out of Richmond it comes to me that I probably need the older 5 phone for the visit to go most efficiently. Too, the gray weather has started to depress me, my radio entertainment; a replay of Rush Limbaugh’s Monday broadcast which I missed; has gone to a long commercial break, and I decide I need to take a nap.

I find a clean safe place off an I-64 exit to stop for a while without being bothered and park the racing red Kia Stinger. Its drizzling, what when I was an Air Force Weatherman we called very light precipitation. I shut the machine down, lock the doors, tilt the seat back and tell Siri, the iphone geni, to “wake me in 15 minutes.”
She answers; “I’ve set your wake up alarm for 2:57pm.”

Two or three 15 - minute renditions later, I decide I’m awake enough to move on. Its still “- - precip.” The 370 hp engine springs to life eager for more, the wipers automatically clear the windshield, and we ease back onto the road. Immediately as the car accelerates my bladder requests another brief stop, and I find a secluded stopping place.

Finally car and driver are road ready, and we blend into I-64 traffic at 70-mph, I quicky find a hole in the passing lane and the engine moves us up to 95 +-mph before I ease the throttle. The engine chortles and burbles its twin turbo-charged disappointment, the new Michelins hold the wet road; tight as a fly’s feet on a dime sheet of Woolworth fly paper; engine and eight speed tranny ease off - the speed smoothly melts away. We are still alone in the fast lane.

A Speed limit sign flashes past in the foggy mist; “75,” with its admonition “slower traffic stay right.”  An old question pops in my head. I’m doing 75, what if a Corvette comes up behind me. Clearly she’s going faster to my now slow speed of 75.  Should I move over?

If I do and the Vette races past, in excess of 75 - What if I kick the Kia up to 100 and come up on her back bumper? Does she need to move over? We play the game in my mind until I imagine the Highway Patrol car coming up with flashing blue lights - then we both move over.

In no time, I’m in the Williamsburg traffic tangle, and caught in the 70 -80-mph I-64 dance until I slip off to head for Yorktown. On the Colonial Parkway I’m very well behaved since driving while colored - red is sometimes enough to get you stopped.

Coming through Williamsburg I had a Virginia State car as a traffic companion through some three miles of traffic. Being fiery red on a grey and messy day can’t help garner some official interest. I stop at several of the York river scenic pull-outs to break the rhythm. At one I find a Parks Service cruiser trying to be merge into the other parked cars while alert for a little Sunday afternoon action. I set the cruise control on a merciless 45-mph and keep my feet to myself.

Between the steering assist and the adaptable cruise control, the machine is virtually in the hands of its on-board computers. My job is to oversee them as a safety backup, but the Kia knows where it is going, how fast it can go, and when not to. Part of the meander is to force myself to learn to trust the car. It sees better in fog than I do. It brakes for obstacles often before I might even recognize them, and it insists on staying inside the lane, nudges the steering wheel to hold the lane if I drift sideways.

At one point, a car literally stops about 1/4 mile ahead,  while the driver ponders turning off or not, I so want to hit the brake pedal, but I resist glad I drained my bladder earlier, and then the computer mashes the big Bembo  over-sized caliper pads down and we briskly and smoothly stop well short of the road block.  Almost a living entity the Kia puts itself into park and waits for me to make an executive decision. On the display panel it offers “use pedal or cruise control switch to resume driving.” I tap the accelerator and it obediently takes over again quickly putting us at cruise speed.

But this is a meander, and crossing the York  river I realize I need to top off the fuel tank for my next adventure. On the  iPhone I check local gas prices. $2.25/ gallon. Three hours earlier when I left Gloucester the low was $2.09! Almost a ten percent hike in three hours?! Well maybe we don’t need to fill up today. Let’ just head up to Gloucester and see if the prices are high there too.

They are. And now I’ve pursued my memory, to where I thought I could still save, only to find it too is up. Now there is something to consider. How far should you allow yourself to drive to save on cheaper gas?

I have been driving the Kia’s computer has said I am averaging 23mpg. So if the gas is $2.30/gallon, then each tenth of a mile is .23-cents. To drive the Kia just under 2 foot ball fields lengths is costing me .23-cents. Well not quite, but you get the idea. But the price has gone up 16-cents per gallon since this morning.

My tank is about half empty, 10 gallons low. So at the new price the gas will cost me $1.60 more than if I could fill it at the lower price. The price of a hamburger or soft drink. But if I can find the lower price, how far can I drive and still save?

I’m on my way home now stopped at a red light I run Gas Buddy one more time for prices close to me up pops $2.08, and Buddy says its just 12 minutes from me. Seven miles! The light traffic evaporates, I’m totally alone and I do a 180 in the village center before any approaching drivers have time to react.

I pull into the Shell station in North, Virginia 8 minutes later. The price is just $2.08! While I’m feeding my credit card to the pump the pump screen says I can save an additional .05-cents. If I enter their saver’s program and give them my cell #. Hell that’s no big secret so I do. And instantly the pump price drops 5-cents to $2.03/gallon. Ten gallons later I check my receipt, I saved an additional .50-cents! Way better than the $2.259!

And what I wondered was the reason for the 9/10's additional money that we spend for our gasoline. The Government. When they started taxing gasoline in the 1930's didn't dare tack a full penny on the price of  $.15/gallon gasoline, so they broke it down. And we continue to pay it to this day.

And by the way, did you know that the tax on gasoline has only been reduced once since then? The next time some fat head tells you its been 10, 20, or more years since they've raised taxes on gas, ask him how long its been since they lowered them!

Back on cruise control headed home, the rain is coming down in full force. The car knows the way home, and so do I.

But now - I know now where I was meandering to.