Off to Greensboro
I finished the Modeling Physics workshop in Charlotte, and am now sitting in the Tate Street Coffee shop outside UNC Greensboro. I checked into the dorm late this afternoon, and am happily preparing for more physics tomorrow.
We finished the workshop on Friday with lunch at a nice Greek restaurant across the street from UNC Charlotte, then I started driving to Fayetteville to see Karen again. I decided I could use a day off before returning to the world of physics education, and Karen and I had such a nice time in Asheville we decided another day together would be nice.
On the drive down, I discovered that my cruise control installation really wasn’t working that well. The install a mechanical device that controls the throttle, and it was sticking on other parts of the car. This meant that when I ran up the revs on the engine to pass a car, I suddenly discovered that the engine kept running at full throttle. Not a nice feeling. I pulled over and opened the hood. After a bit of tweaking of the control mechanism, I decided that I wasn’t going to be able to get it fixed at that time, and I unscrewed the control device and took it out. It’s now sitting on the back seat of my car. I’ll take another try at it while I’m here in Greensboro (and while the engine parts are cool!) It should be no real problem to fix, but I’m upset with the store for doing such a sloppy job with the installation.
Soon after removing the cruise, it started to rain and I had to run the wipers. I started to hear a screeching sound, and discovered that one of the wiper blades was coming out of the holder. I pulled over at the next exit and pushed it in, but I had just bought replacement wipers and had to buy the whole assemble (~$8 vs $3) because I was told that they now longer sell just the inserts because people have too hard a time installing them correctly. But the insert wasn’t installed in the assembly correctly!
About this time I just started laughing, ’cause you either gotta laugh or cry, and it didn’t seem worth crying over. At least the CAR I bought is running well. It’s only the things I added to it that are giving me problems (although the new tires are great, and I’m getting great mileage with them).
Karen and I spent the morning having breakfast, looking at photos of a couple of her trips (including Alaska to Diane H’s wedding and see Viv), then lunch at a nice Thai restaurant. It was great to have good Thai food, and the server was very aware of vegetarian’s needs. No having to tell them that chicken soup is not vegetarian if it doesn’t include big pieces of meat 🙂
I missed a couple workshops today, but no great loss. The person I really want to see, George Coyne, doesn’t talk until Wednesday. I bumped into my friend Tim E in the dorm halls. I have helped Tim with physics software and a couple physics books (my name is in the second one). Unfortunately, Tim didn’t have enough people sign up for his workshop to hold it. The two people who had signed up dropped in and he had a chance to talk with them about the material.
Well, it’s time for bed. Tomorrow I’ll try to post a few photos from the past week.
Lots of love,
Lee
