Ouch

I had a maintenance appointment this morning for the VUE. It was intended to be a normal quick thing, but didn't turn out that way. Thursday night I noticed a nail in my left rear tire (didn't we do this last month?), but the angle it was in didn't look like it was doing much to the tire (didn't seem to be any loss of air or other damage). I intended to have it looked at Friday night, but the nearest tire center of repute was closed by the time I was at a point that I could do that. So I figured I'd ask the Saturn guys to look at it this morning, only it actually looked worse than it did even the day before. The tire side-wall was rippled/bulging near where the nail was at. I think it was near blow-out. The Saturn guy said the tire had to be replaced at a low-low $140. At that point, and in that situation, one doesn't really want to go driving around to bargain hunt (not to mention the fact that you tend to want matching tires on your one year old vehicle), lest there be a blow-out. I'm starting to wonder if maybe this second nail was in the tire when I noticed the other last month, but I just didn't see it until now. I may have run over something that got both tires at the same time.

So there goes the funds for new CD shopping I thought about doing today.

Since Saturn is kind enough to wash your car for you after you receive service, I thought it a good time to clean out the inside, too. So when I got home I cleaned the windows, sprayed the leather seats with leather cleaner/preserver, and armorall-ed the dash. Later I'm going to vacuum so I can use some carpet cleaner on some kid stains.


At Darby's soccer game this afternoon, she was pummeled by a kid 50% larger than her. Darby weighs about 60 pounds. This girl was said by her coach to be 90 pounds. It was not intentional, but they were both trying to kick the ball, and the larger girl got Darby's legs instead and she fell flat onto her back and hit her head. I happened to be recording some video at the time, so here's a clip to better help visualize. I put the camera down and ran onto the field to check on her and she was complain of her chest hurting, too, so I think she had the wind knocked out of her pretty good.