Dumb
Dunkin’ Donuts Debacle
Perhaps debacle is too strong a word. But it was frustrating nonetheless.
So I pull into the drive-thru Tuesday morning on the way to work… order a banana nut muffin. Get down the road and bite into it only to find it’s a cranberry muffin. Ok. No biggie. Still tasty.
Wednesday I uncharacteristically go to DD again. Now I’m not a huge fan of the place, but just had a hankering for that banana nut muffin I DIDN’T get the first time ’round. I think you see where this is going… AGAIN, I get a cranberry muffin. Um, hello?! What’s going on here? This time I turn the car around, drive back and walk in.
“You guys are killin’ me here!” I sputter.
“What?” the pimply faced teen behind the counter asks.
“This is the 2nd day in a row you gave me a cranberry muffin when I asked for a banana nut muffin. Are you guys putting them in the wrong trays or something?”
Minimum-wage Boy cracks open one off the shelf. “Huh. Yeah, it is cranberry.”
Manager walks over and says apologetically, “They can’t really tell them apart in the back when they make them. Sorry about that.” “Here you go,” she says handing me a correct muffin. “You can keep the other one.”
That’s it? How many other poor slobs got screwed on this mis-shelving as they drove away? They didn’t seem overly concerned. My already mediocre opinion of DD has slipped another few notches.
I’d like to see the car after this…
A few months ago MacGregor Golf Club had an incident where their fence/sign was damaged by a wayward car. The signs are on a relatively sharp curve of the road.
A few weeks ago they started a big masonry project to improved their crappy walls/signs. It was starting to take shape nicely. Until…
Interesting. If you look at the photo you can see the tire tracks in the grass. It doesn’t look like they braked. But rather, that they drove straight through, and continued after the wall on to the road beyond.
I just love the cinder block shrapnel scattered about for dozens of feet. What the heck did their vehicle look like after this?
What do you think? Deliberate? Accident? I think it was deliberate.
The night before the big ride
I’m all packed. Got my food, drinks, batteries, spare clothes, duffel bag with change of clothes for the rest stop in Wilmington.
The bike is ready. Um, yeah, about the bike. My trusty carbon Trek is out of commission. Done. Kaput. Fini. A scant day before the event and it was struck down in its prime. (Literally.) As well as my spare bike. Yup, the blue Cannondale, too. What are the odds? Without going into the gory details (there may have been an overpass involved) let’s just say that a well intended favor by a friend went horribly awry. It’s in the hands of insurance adjusters now. Say a prayer to the insurance gods for me.
So where does that leave me? Using a spare bike from said friend who is absolutely beside himself with guilt. It was an accident. I’m not upset (well, maybe a little, but I hide it well). I’m just disappointed I have to tackle the biggest cycling event of my life with a strange bike. Not that the bike is strange–it’s a very high quality Italian bike–it’s just strange to me. I’ve put maybe, MAYBE, two miles on it testing the fit and seat position. Couldn’t really dial it in at his house, but when I took it home, I think I figured out where it needed to be for me to feel a little more ‘at home’ on this new bike. The gearing is different on this bike from mine. I’m not sure by how much. Hopefully my hill-climbing mojo is strong enough to carry me over the coming 10,000′+ of climbing.
We moved the aero bars over to his bike and I discovered that one of the pads (an integral part) was also broken in the accident and hanging on by a thread (note to self: electrical tape that sucker down before the start tomorrow to avoid losing it somewhere).
The last night ride, the 400km, showed me how substandard my lighting really was. So, still not ready to commit to a multi-hundred dollar pro light, I picked up a helmet-mount LED light at EMS. It was the highest wattage (3 watts) with an extremely long run-time (to the tune of 70 hours. One high! I only need about 9 hours!). A quick test at sundown and it seemed promising. Having a light on the helmet will be good in that I can direct the light where I need it and not rely on the handlebar mounted LED as much. I don’t think we’ll have rain at night which will also help with visibility.
I may try blogging from the road (via my BlackBerry… if I have reception), so if you see a short post, with typos, and maybe incoherent thoughts, that would be why. I’ll probably assemble them into one single post once all is said and done.
Start: 4am, Saturday morning.
Finish: 3pm, Sunday afternoon. (hopefully)
The route: This is a rough approximation of the route. There are some turns that don’t look right, but the overall gist is there.
