The last week or so has been a pain. It started out after we got off for work for the holiday weekend last Thursday. We went to run some errands and found a nail in one of the tires on the wife’s car. Turned around and grabbed my car pledging to fix it Friday. Once in my car we didn’t even get out to the highway (thankfully) before a little plastic bushing in the shifter broke on mine. After 15 minutes of wrestling with it, I got the console apart and jimmied the car into gear so we could drive home in first. Well, maybe we’ll do the errands tomorrow I thought. I got up early to fix the tire on Friday and do some banking. Strike 3 was when I checked my balance and realized my visa check card was compromised and there was over $1k in fraudulent charges to my account. Ok, if $1400 is going to disappear from my bank account overnight, the least I want is to have a new bike to show for it… The last week has been spent trying to sort all of that out. Sunday, I went to install the window in the basement that I ordered over a month ago. I must have measured the frame 100 times diagonally, top, bottom, on each side. The algorithm Home Depot’s American Craftsman brand ordering system uses to calculate their window sizes from rough openings is terrible to say the least. I opened up the package and dry-fit the window in place… 1.75″ too skinny and .5″ too short. (strike 4) at this point I was so tired of looking at the plywood I had blocking the hole I just built in the frame. I can’t imagine how furious I’d be if I had ordered multiple windows for the top of the house ‘n they’d been that far off. They just silently lost a customer for all time. Oh, and I lost Tuesday to jury duty (strike 5). Is it Friday yet?
On the good side, the weather has been nice, I got a small ride in this weekend on Sunday, and another one Wednesday morning to the store and back before work. When I drove down town for jury duty (in first and third mostly because the zip ties I have the shifter rigged together with bind up when I use second and reverse 
), I plotted out a better route to get into south Baltimore by bike, and I found where Baltimore Bicycle Works is, which is “Baltimore’s only worker owned and operated bike shop”. I’ve been aware of for a little bit, but haven’t visited.
