Wulfie and the Soldier Boy

So Jack died. I already covered that. Brian and Caroline upgraded to a Swagger Wagon, and were nice enough to sell me one of their cars. He's a 2003 VW Jetta, Wolfsburg edition. I've named him Wolfgang, Wulfie for short. A good, strong, German name. He's great. A nice, quiet, smooth ride. It has a factory-installed CD player, that may not appeal to the criminal element around here and prevent it from getting stolen. We'll see. They might break in after they see what is right underneath... a tape deck! I know. Awesome, right? I hadn't noticed it until my ride home from work today. When I got home, I looked around and found an unlabeled black cassette tape on one of my bookshelves. Now, I haven't had a cassette player in a decade, give or take a few years. I'm not 100% sure on that timeline, but I do know that it has been a good long while. There have been at least 5 or 6 moves since then. And for some reason I still have it here in Arizona. I was so psyched to find out what was on it that I went out and listened to the first bit of Side A.

Here's the lineup so far:


Great Balls of Fire - Jerry Lee Lewis
When I think about Angels - Jamie O'Neal
Te Aviso, Te Anuncio - Shakira

Any guesses as to what the remaining songs will be? I don't see the pattern yet, but I'm sure the whole tape is great.

Back to the car. It has a beepy thing to open the doors, automatic windows, an automatic transmission, cruise control, a speedometer that goes up to 160 mph, and a full spare. Which is good, because I totally ripped one in public on the way home from LA. Ripped a tire, that is. Yeah, I was pulling into a gas station and there was a truck pulling a trailer taking up the middle of the entrance, and I thought I had enough room to get by. I hit the curb, and just knew. I pulled forward to the pump, got out and just looked at the tire. Some kid pointed out that it was flat. Thanks kid. It was a really busy gas station, so I decided to pull away from the pumps to change my tire. There was a nice handicapped spot directly ahead of me, so I pulled forward. I got out and looked at the tire again. Sighed, and then figured out how to pop my trunk.

I pulled out the spare (yay for full spares!), and the jack. I tried to figure out how to remove the bolt covers (because my new car is hip like that). My brother-on-law Ben taught me how to change a tire years ago, but the bolt covers must have left me with a helpless look on my face. A nice soldier dude (Air Force, I think) offered to help me. He went and got a screwdriver and took off the bolt covers while I started figuring out my new jack. It didn't take very long to get the spare on. I thanked the nice soldier man, and filled the air in the spare with the air hose that happened to be right in front of that particular parking space.

Driving off into the sunset never felt better!

Here's a side-shot of Wulfie. Isn't he fun!