My Floorboard Swimming Pool

So I drive a car that is now 15 years old. It's a good car. I really can't complain. Yes, it has some issues. None of the windows roll all the way down anymore.* (refer to the a later paragraph for humor). The lock on the driver's side door is sometimes finicky to the point where I can't get my key inserted. And sometimes, even if I can get the key in, it won't turn. So, sometimes I have to unlock the car from the passenger side. But overall, it's a great car. It runs. It's paid for. I plan to keep it until it dies. But one thing that has become more and more noticable as I live in a state that is very wet is that I have a leak somewhere. Now, there has been a leak in this car since I first got it. Because the first time I noticed it, I was living in Dothan and we thought it was the heater core. So, we had Jon (Julie's husband) replace the heater core for us. So nice of him to do it. I don't even know what the heater core is. We just heard that when there is water building up on the floorboard, that's what the problem is. Only, apparently not. Because it has continued to leak. And I've just dealt with it. Sure, my right pant-leg will get wet on the cuffs. But nothing too bad. Well, today at work, I happened to park on an incline with the front of my car facing downhill. So when I got in it tonight, there was literally a puddle on my floorboard. I'm going to have to sop it up tomorrow... As I drove it home, a lot of it soaked back into the carpet in other parts of the floorboard. Thankfully it only gets wet on the driver's side floorboard and not in the back seats. At least there is that. Oh, and the other downfall to this is that it fogs up the inside of my car in a major way. All that condensation... In fact, one particularly cold day up here last month, I had ice on the inside of my windshield. Hahaha... So yeah, I have a swimming pool in my floorboard. How many of you have that awesome feature in your car ;)?

*So, for some reason I have this weird fear of my car going in the water and I wouldn't be able to get out. Because, even if my windows did roll all the way down (which they don't, as I mentioned above), how much time would I have with an electric window to roll it down before the water shorts it out? So, I heard -- from my friend Virginia -- that they make these window breaking things. I had never heard of such a wondrous invention, but it seemed pretty darn smart to me! But then I never thought of it again. Until I saw it at RiteAid last month. But they were like $6. I am cheap. So I didn't buy it. And Christina was with me that day. She made fun of me for my fear -- and for wanting to buy one. Anyway, then they went on sale for 50% off. So, I bought one. Apparently, my life is not worth $6, but it is worth $3. Well, so I've already played with this thing (not on my car windows, just in case it works -- which I really hope it does). I tested it on a wall. And it seems like the wimpiest craptastic-iest thing ever. I don't know how it would ever break a car window. But, we'll just assume that it will and I can be happy. Because Christina is probably right... I'll probably never have occasion to use it anyway. And then, what Elka said is also true... Wait til the car fills all the way up and then get out of the car -- because the pressure should be equal inside and outside of the car. And okay, so that all sounds intelligent. But seriously... When you are a little freaked out about that, you just don't have time to think logically and buying the $3 escape thing is a good peace-of-mind tool :).

I started a blog last year dedicated to book reviews and the such. I didn't really do a great job of keeping up with it. I'm trying to do better. I figure I should pretend like I'm a librarian and do something techologically bookie :). If you are at all interested, you can check it out here. Like I said, I didn't do a great job of keeping up with it, even though I was reading -- at least a little bit. I think my grand-total of books read in 2009 was 9 books. Just call me the slacker librarian. How sad is that? I just found a million other things that occupied my time. I'm hoping I will do better in 2010. I'm off to a good start. I finished Critical Judgement by Michael Palmer last night and am a couple of chapters into Janet Evanovich's Plum Spooky. This should be a fast read. Her books are fluff, but they are a good laugh. Good for the soul :).

Well, there really isn't too much to report. Life is pretty much more of the same here. So maybe I'll go read a little. And work on adding another book to my "read" list so that I can cross off another one from my "to read" list :).