New Thing #249: Driving Down A New Road

One of the routes I take to school saw a lot of construction this summer. I couldn't really figure out what was going on, but there was a lot of tree clearing for a while.

There was a cop set up to monitor traffic, there was a heavy construction vehicle presence...

And then all of a sudden the trucks were gone, and there was a road where there hadn't been before.

It all looks so normal that I almost feel like I imagined the whole thing happened.

Last week, I decided to drive down the new road and see what was up.

The above picture is what the new road looks like from the already existing road.

This is what the road led to:

It's a little cul-de-sac. I was expecting, as I drove down the new road, to see a police detail and more construction vehicles continuing to build something...but it looks like they were just making a new access road to the residences around that cul-de-sac.

I was hoping I could capture a Google image of the site to illustrate it for you, and I did. I drew a red line where I estimate this new road to be:

I'm still not quite sure I understand the purpose of all of this. Even driving down the new road I had to convince myself that all of the construction had indeed actually happened. (You can see some leftover traffic cones and on the right of the picture at the top there is some exposed rock from what must have been blasted away to form the road, as well as a covering over some more rock.)

You can see on the map where Route 2 (Cambridge Turnpike) is located. There is intense construction going on there - I wonder if part of the deal with the locals affected by that construction was that they get a different access road so they don't have to get stuck in construction traffic when they try to go home...but that seems like a whole lot of environmental damage to accommodate a few houses.

My only thought is that there is more construction coming - they just haven't started it yet.

I have to admit, though, I'm kind of fascinated at how quickly a road appeared where there hadn't been one before.

If you have any more information about the goings-on in Concord (or maybe it's Lincoln), I'd be happy to hear them in the comments.

New Thing #226: Mazda CX-5

Honest to goodness, I didn't even intend to tell you about buying out the lease on the Venza because, even though it was definitely a New Thing in 2013, it is booooring. Too much paperwork and such a headache I didn't want to tell the story.

But when I got the new license plates, well, it was a must.

The other reason it's not all that exciting, though, is that shortly after we turned the Venza lease into an ownership, something much more exciting happened: My wife got a new car.

It's a Mazda CX-5.

The great thing about the new car is we will never forget the day my wife brought it home - it was the same day our nephew was born. (I got a lot of mileage - no pun intended [ok, pun intended] - out of that fun fact.)

I didn't write about it right away because I needed some time to get a feel for the car, and to drive it a bit.

It's nothing special to drive - it's nice. I like driving new cars. The Venza is far from old and decrepit, but little things are starting to sneak in, like a little bit of a tail on the steering wheel so that there's a drift if you don't touch it. You know what I mean? It slightly drifts either left or right. Not a lot, but enough to notice. With the new car you can not touch the steering wheel and go straight all day. I like that. Also, it's the same size as my wife's old car. After three years I'm still having trouble adjusting to the longer front of the Venza, especially on turns and pulling into parking lot spaces. The Mazda is easy.

My wife, since she went from buying a car to buying a car with no lease in between, kept her old plates. So there's nothing exciting to report there. (Although I don't think I told you that I probably won't return the old plates I had. I now am in possession of five sets of license plates - my old cool one, the new old boring one, the ones on my car and my wife's car, and then a license plate with the number 7778 on it - that's my birthday. A family whose kids I taught had that license plate - and when I saw them in the parking lot once I told them that I loved the plate number. They remembered, and when they had to turn in their plates, they gave them to me. So now maybe I'll keep spare plates in my trunk and when I commit crimes and need to change the look of my car I can swap them out, The Americans - style. [Just kidding, law enforcers. Just kidding. They're in my garage.] It is legal in Massachusetts, for those wondering, to keep your plates, though you can turn them in if you'd like. You just have to cancel them on-line.)

(Also, parenthetically, maybe you're wondering what constitutes a cool license plate. The birthday example above is a good one. Repeating numbers are always good. And last week I drove behind a car with a GC8 as the last three characters. I love that - "Gary Carter 8".)

Back to the new Mazda: My kids have a lot about it they're excited about. My oldest daughter, after crying when my wife got rid of the old Rav-4, has come around, and all three love that Pandora can play on the car's sound system. So they can listen to their kid's music, and that's all they need.

One of the requirements of this car for my wife and I was that three car seats had to fit across the back seat. (The Rav couldn't fit three. Oh - that's another thing the kids like. They liked saying 'Rav, like ravioli.' They've discovered 'Mazda sounds like pasta!') So we no longer have to maneuver our schedules based on which car is bringing around which kids - it's quite freeing.

And, this is no small point - as disappointed and frustrated as we were in our Toyota company with the complications from buying out the lease, my wife loved her experience at Wellesley Mazda. If you're interested in a Mazda, let us know - she has some contact information she can give you. It was that good.

New Thing #220: New License Plates

I love license plates. When I was a kid I kept a pad and pencil in the backseat and wrote down license plate numbers.

I think that was because when I was a kid we had a license plate that spelled BEE, and I thought it was cool that plates could have words in them.

Or it was because I was weird.

I probably still am weird - but license plates are kind of thrilling to me.

So when I get new ones - it's a very big deal.

This week, I got a new license plate number.

The process - what a headache. Let me go through that quickly with you. In June 2010 we leased a Toyota Venza. We really liked the car, and decided pretty early on we would probably buy it. Three years later, the lease was up and we began the process of buying the car. It involved a lot of misinformation from the dealership where we bought the car, and a lot of FedEx-ing back and forth paperwork with a loan company to get papers notarized and signed and such.

The last step (so it seems) was a trip to the RMV for new registration. I waited at the RMV for 2 hours on Monday (only to find out there was an error and I had to go back on Tuesday, but I will not get into that here), and was surprised when I was given new license plates along with everything else. (Lessons learned: Do NOT use Ira Toyota in Milford. They're terrible. And the RMV is the worst-run organization in the history of the world. Except, maybe, for Ira Toyota in Milford.)

So, I was left to put my new license plates on the car. Simple enough, right? Well, you know me and tools...

I unscrewed the front license plate no problem. Replaced it. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy, as my daughters have taken to saying. But now I was getting cocky. I moved around to the back of the car and the screws looked different - more plastic-like. The screw resisted my turn a bit...so I turned harder. Snap.

"That was weird," I thought. So I moved to the other screw. I turned. And twisted. And turned. Snap. Broke 'em both. The license plate came off, but now I was left with two headless screws protruding from the back of my car. I wracked my brain. I had no idea what to do. So I called my dad.

He suggested I remove the inside back panel and see if I could get at the screws from the inside. I did. I couldn't. There's like a sleeve around the screw. It's the strangest thing. (Look at that picture to the right. This is the exterior view of the screws, obviously. And that's masking tape surrounding the spot where the screws were protruding. If that doesn't say something weird's afoot, I don't know what does.)

Anyway, I decided I would try to cap the headless screws with a bolt cover. Which would work great, except that when I ran to Home Depot just before closing, I got the size too small. So, that is how, at 6 in the morning on Tuesday I became one of the first Home Depot customers after being one of the last the previous night, and then finished off completing the most convoluted license plate attachment in history. (My neighbors must just set up at their windows and laugh at me. I'm certain of it. Usually I do things I might screw up inside the privacy of my own home...but a. I didn't think I'd screw this one up, and b. I had no choice but to do it in plain sight in the driveway.)

The license plate itself? Well, I already told you - the letters and numbers are important to me. And that was the only thing about the Venza that disappointed me - I didn't love its license plate.

It had a hard act to follow - my previous car, and license plate - a Corolla - had a repeating number followed by YE. So I could actually say it. Two six two six YE. So great.

Since I leased the new car, I had to get rid of that one and replace it with the non-memorable one...which is now retired. (I'm not going to go printing all of my license plate numbers here - you know, in case it leads to a stolen identity or something.)

I am proud to say that, from the category of "Every cloud has a silver lining", this license plate is the silver lining of this whole ordeal. The number is the same as my New York City Junior High School, and then the letters practically spell "Venza" - VZ - and then there's a repeated number to cap it off.

It's a great license plate number.

Trust me. I'm an expert.

New Thing #157: Ill-Timed Car Trouble

On Wednesday night, I was supposed to go to the Red Sox game. I got a ticket through work - I threw my name in for one and I ended up with a ticket a few weeks ago.

I failed to realize at the time that it was scheduled to be the night before the last day of school - always a busy time.

So I started to regret it...but then I got psyched up for the game again - especially Wednesday.

I had hot dogs for lunch, and was getting hungry in the afternoon.

I was looking forward to a sausage and pepper sandwich, or something great at the game.

I figured I'd find a New Thing to write about at Fenway Park too.

But I never got there.

What you're looking at in that picture above is a piece of my car hanging off the bottom of the car. (My wife's car, if we're being technical about it.)

I was driving down Storrow Drive when all of a sudden I started hearing a loud scratching noise. Eventually I realized it was coming from me...and then I feared I had a flat tire. I pulled over on Commonwealth Avenue - less than a mile from Fenway Park (whether I would have found any metered parking there became moot) - and was relieved to see the tires were fine. When I peeked under the car, though, I saw our problem.

Recently my wife had a rattling noise on the car - she brought it in and apparently there was a piece of metal hanging off and making the noise. The guys at the garage removed it, free of charge, and we were on our way. I think this is related debris that is hanging off - and it was scraping the road. The guys at the garage said they were meaningless pieces of metal. But - and I don't know much about cars, so humor me here - I imagine you can't have too many metal pieces fall off the bottom of your car before you're dealing with a major problem. So we'll see what the deal is here.

I have more to tell you about Wednesday's situation, but allow me to break in for a moment to tell you about 'Old Time Garage' in Newton, Massachusetts. These guys are amazing - tremendously honest and reliable. If there's nothing wrong with your car, they'll tell you. We've experienced that before. They're great. Highly recommend them.

They're right down the street from Newton-Wellesley Hospital on Route 16. We have had great experiences on that stretch of road, first with 3 daughters being born at the hospital and then with the garage.

OK. Back to Wednesday night. I'm going to look on the bright side:

-I really started to learn how to drive with a piece of a car hanging an inch or so off the ground. Smooth roads, avoiding manhole covers, and not hitting the brakes too much are all key elements for success. (It was slightly embarrassing though - because when that thing scraped the ground it was LOUD.)

-Amazingly, I had never driven to the end of Beacon Street before. My wife, once I told her where I was on Comm. Ave. and where I'd be able to get to Beacon, said I should just take Beacon to where it ends and then I'd be on Route 16 by the hospital. What an interesting tour - I saw all of these places I had seen from different approaches (Boston College, Coolidge Corner, Cleveland Circle, the Reservoir, Newton Center), and didn't realize that Beacon Street cut through them all. And I lived on Beacon Street for 2 years - just shows you how reluctant I was to do New Things and go to new places for much of my life.

-I got to spend some time with my daughters and rest up for the last day of school.

So that's my story. I'll have to make my first trip of the year to Fenway another time. I did watch some of the game on TV.

New Thing #44: A Broken Windshield

Who do you call when your windshield's busted? If you live in New England and have listened to any AM radio you know the answer to that question.

As a matter of fact, you know of many windshield replacement companies, all of whom advertise on the radio.

In my 15+ years of living in Massachusetts, and 10+ as a car owner, I've never needed to utilize any of those windshield-replacement businesses.

Until now.

Obviously, this was an unexpected New Thing. (Editor's note: I think I'm using too many quotation marks. New style guide rule: I will capitalize, not set off in quotes, New Thing when referring to these events.)

On Monday my wife took the Venza and she said a rock hit the windshield and left an impression. (That impression is the picture below.)

Tuesday I took the Venza, and I'm not sure anything even hit the car, but that one impression became a line almost all the way across the windshield. (That line is pictured above. The damage looks worse from the inside of the car than the outside...but when you touch it from the outside, it feels like anything that touches the glass will cause it to all fall apart.)

She called to see if it could be replaced in the parking lot at work...the company was all booked.

They're going to come to the house Wednesday, perhaps as you're reading this.

That's kind of a bummer. Even though things are so busy at work that I don't know that I could take even 5 minutes to come out and meet the glass fixers, I would have liked to have seen the process.

Because if you've heard the commercials, you know they come to your car. They replace the glass anywhere. They have specially trained technicians, and portable ovens that keep the glass at just the right temperatures.

It sounds like it would be a process that was worth watching.

As it is, hopefully the new windshield goes smoothly. And in the future my only experience with windshield replacement companies is the occasional (constant?) annoying commercial on the radio.