February 2011 Report

February 2011 has been a grim reminder of why I’m done with cold weather locations. We started the month buried under a couple of feet of snow. As if that wasn’t enough Mother Nature decided to top it off with a solid layer of ice. Just to make sure we were good and miserable the temperature rarely reached 30 degrees, we stayed frozen solid for weeks on end. Finally on the 17th and 18th of the month she decided to mess with our minds. Thursday 55 degrees, Friday 65 degrees, everything is melting, we’re outside with no coats, soaking up the sun, BAM, not so fast, Saturday back down below freezing, 50 mph winds and Monday 5” of new snow…winter is back.

Happy Birthday Brandon!

Brandon said he wanted a blue cake…well he got one, inside and out, it was blue, tasted pretty good too.

At 2:22 PM on 2/22 Brandon turned 17 and in the Garden State that means you can now legally drive. That is of course assuming you pass a drivers test. In the days leading up to his birthday Brandon did lots of practicing on his parallel parking, stop sign positioning and k-turn skills. He was ready. The day before the test he checked the registration and insurance cards in my car to ensure they were in place and up to date. Next he collected the mountain of documentation that legal US residents must present to prove residence (it is much easier if you are an illegal immigrant), everything was all ready to go. Finally he was off to bed in an attempt to get a few hours of sleep, sleep that did not come easily.

The next morning we left the house for some final practice and headed to the DMV. As you would expect the line was long, we waited patiently, finally we were #1. I exited the car and the tester checked to ensure the documentation was correct and turn signals all worked. So far so good.

Rob’s view of the next few minutes: I walked over to the waiting area, ready my camera phone to get a few shots of him taking the test. I watch as Brandon begins to pull forward and wonder…why isn’t he using his turn signal, why is he only going forward about 20 feet, why has he stopped, why is he rolling down his window, why is the tester getting out of the car, why is she asking me to come over to her?

Brandon’s view of the next few minutes: The instructor gets into the car and finishes her paperwork. She asks me to put the car in gear and to take my foot off the break. She grabs the hand break and pulls, nothing, the car continues to role forward, she instructs me to put on the foot break. She informs me that we cannot continue with a vehicle that does not have a working hand break available for her to use in case of emergency. I role down my window to get fresh air because it feels like I am going to pass out. She writes up the reason for my test failure and tells me that if I can get a new car and get back by noon I can still take the test. My hands are shaking so bad I can hardly sign my name, she gets out of the car to explain what is going on to dad.

I know what you are thinking, just run home and get Kim’s car…not so fast, Kim’s car doesn’t have a hand break, can’t be used for the test. The only other car we have at home is the truck, problem, manual transmission, and Brandon while good with the truck hasn’t really practiced the parallel parking etc. My first thought was to run to the shop that supposedly fixed my car after the accident and have them complete the job, but time was running out. The neighbors that we could ask to borrow a car are gone for the day, panic! Perhaps you’re thinking, no big deal just take the test the next day, nice try, there is month wait before the next available test opening (that’s a decade in teenage years).

In an attempt to bring this saga to a close, after some quick phone work by Mom, we were able to find an instructor from the driving school we used to get him his state mandated instruction, who was available to meet us at the DMV so Brandon could use his car (no it wasn’t free). The good thing was we had 30 minutes before the noon deadline so the guy took Brandon for a quick run through of the required skills so he could get used to the car. They got back in line and were one of the last people to make it in before the AM test session ended.

When Brandon finally came walking up to me after the all the stress of the morning, in spite of wanting to trick me, he couldn’t hide the ear to ear smile on his face. He passed with flying colors. Congratulations B!

Yes he is enjoying the freedom driving brings. Kim and I are still trying ot figure out if the convenience of not having to drive him everywhere outweighs the stress of wondering where he is.

Here is a picture of Chayce at ASU leading the crowd in a Cheer Just kidding, he doesn’t send us any photos or details of what he is up to. What I do know is that he loves ASU, is doing great at school, loves the AZ weather, is becoming an awesome racquetball player and is coming home for Spring Break in March woo hoo.

Here is a better picture of Chayce

Oh I forgot he does love to flaunt that Grandma R loves him more then me by showing off the box of college kid cookies he got from her.

Hope you all have a good March and spring begins to show itself soon.