Tag: red light

Worst Fears Realized

On By Michel McDonaldIn DreamsLeave a comment

I just woke up out of the worst dream a nerd could ever have in his ENTIRE life!  Have you ever had a dream where you worst fears have been realized?  I just did.

Darrin and I were traveling… somewhere which I still am not clear with.  I was leaving my Aunt Louise’s house in Texas and for some reason Darrin was with me.  So we were going to go on another trip but the only way to get to the airport was by city bus.  So we had all of our things on the bus with us, he pretty much just had clothes.  He’s not real into nerdy things like me.  I on the other hand had some clothes but for the most part all my electronics.

List: I had my laptop, psp, cell phone, video camera (dvd cam), bi-pap machine and my Dell DJ which doesn’t work right now lol.  I also had some books in my suitcase.  If I had a Kindle I would’ve been totally screwed but my bags would’ve been lighter lol.

The bus runs a red light and we get pulled over.  All the passengers are taken off the bus and put onto another bus for a few minutes.  Then the police come to the bus we were taken to and says we can get on our bus now.  The bus pretty much empties and I’m the last one off.  I get off the bus and look around and the bus I was originally on was nowhere to be seen.  It was totally gone… with ALL of my stuff.  Darrin was gone too.

I had to think… real hard… maybe Darrin will keep an eye on my stuff and when he gets to our destination he will bring it with him.  Although, I finally catch the next bus and get to our destination which for some odd reason is another bus but it’s a totally different kind of bus which I would so love to explain except that I can’t because it was so strange I literally have to draw you a picture to describe it.  And since I can’t draw let me just say it was strange.

I get on that bus and say please tell me you have all my stuff and Darrin says “what stuff?”  AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!  What do you mean what stuff?  OMG I cannot believe it.  So I pick up a cell phone which by the way makes no sense.  It wasn’t my cell phone but I look at it and it has “property of….” and it says a name that I can’t recall and I realize that the person who took all my things have already assimilated it all.  But how could I know that by looking at “a” cell phone?  Hey, it’s a dream sequence, what do you want?

We end up at someones house and Darrin is sleeping in a bed and I’m trying to use the phone to call my cell phone and my cousin Brandi is on the other line and she won’t get off the phone.  And so I keep picking up the phone and instead of a dial tone I can hear her talking and she tells me to get off the phone.

Ok, I realize that all these things can be replaced.  My cell phone is actually just a pre-paid cell phone.  I’ve had it since 2002 and pre-paid gives you a crappy amount of minutes.  I think for $25 I get 2.5 hours to talk.  I think that the newer pre-paid are different.

Anyway, I can always get a new everything else but come on, all my pictures are on the SD card in my camcorder, all my saved games are in the memory stick in my PSP and my simm card in my cell phone with all my phone numbers.  It’s a hassle to have to get it all back and it costs way more money than I have to spend.  It took me years to get all of those electronics and all by pure luck too.  Some were gifts and some were things that took me years to save up for.

Bike Light

On By Michel McDonaldIn CyclingLeave a comment

I think it was the day before yesterday or something but I noticed that the light generator wasn’t touching the tire when you flip the switch and so I fixed it and then checked out the lights to make sure they were ok by pushing the peddles.  I noticed that the back red light was working fine but the headlight wasn’t working at all.  I flipped the bike upside down and pushed the peddles with my hand to make the back tire turn and the light was just not coming on.

I took the light fixture off the bike and took it apart to see if the light bulb was just out and when I went to turn it to remove it the glass part came off and the metal was just not unscrewing at all.  I’m pretty sure it’s because the light set that I bought was old, it was made in 1991.  I searched high and low trying to find a new bulb, I went to Albertson’s, no go.  I went to Walgreens, not there.  I figured that maybe an auto parts store might have them because they have little tiny lights too but alas the car lights were the same size but no threads.  The guy at the counter told me to try Home Depot or Floyd’s hardware store.

I decided that since I can’t use my bike anyway I might as well wait until I can to worry about it.  But then I noticed a Halloween tap light sitting in a drawer and noticed that the light bulb looked the same.  I unscrewed the 3 screws on the bottom and was able to unscrew the bulb and sure enough, the exact same light bulb.

I brought it to the bike area (this was yesterday) and screwed it in and flipped the bike over and plugged the wire into the generator and pushed on the peddles but unfortunately it didn’t turn the light on.  I put it back in the tap light and put some batteries in there and tapped it and it turned on just fine.

I went searching in a computer drawer with old computer stuff and found some old mic’s from when I got my first computer and never used the mic’s and was all ready to strip the wires to use it but it was late at night and I couldn’t find my scissors so I waited until today.  This morning after Darrin went to church I got up and went out there and my scissors were by the bike so I got all the stuff ready and sat down on the stool out there.  I tried it one more time with the wire that came with the light set but this time I stripped the wire that touches the light to see if it was just messed up there but no go.  I then thought, well what if the light has to be on the bracket on the bike frame so I just placed it on there and turned the peddles and sure enough the light came on.

At this point I’m not quite sure if it’s just sheer stupidity or if my ADD is really that bad lol.  At any rate I’m glad I finally figured it out and got one more problem out of the way so I can get back on with my life.