Skydiving and autos

So last week I turned 55. To celebrate, I went skydiving. You can see the video here: I can see this becoming an annual thing....

Also, the agency bought a car, of which I have exclusive use. It's a 2010 Nissan Altima Hybrid. It's been a couple of weeks, and already I'm questioning the wisdom of having a car in NYC. We paid for it outright, but the Agency pays over $100 per month to keep it parked during the day, and I personally pay nearly $200 per month to park it at my house. Yes, I could park it on the street, but already my life and schedule are impacted by "will I find parking when I get home?" -- it's just simpler to pay for parking.

And it's a hybrid. And it's a push to start. And there's only one key. So yesterday I left work because I had a dentist's appointment. I "rushed" home as much as I could in the rain and the insanity that is NYC traffic. The trip from home to work shouldn't take more than 10 minutes in a car. It took me nearly 30 minutes yesterday, mostly because people are just stupid.

So I get home and find a great space in front of the house. I cut off the windshield wipers and turn off the radio, then rush inside to pick up my cable box and umbrella. Head downtown. First I go to my dentist's office, and he makes my new bridge fit perfectly. Then I come up to 96th street and return my cable box and modem (I just went FiOS). And then I headed back down to Penn Station to go to the Liberty game.

About halftime, I get a call on my cell. It was my super. "You know," he tells me, "that you left your car on." No, I didn't know, and I was a good 45 minutes away in Jersey. He told me I had a quarter tank (I'd had less than half a tank when I turned on the car at 2-something -- I wanted to see how much of the month I could make it through on yhalf a tank of gas.

Long story short: when I got home a bit after 11, the car was still running, and still had a quarter tank of gas! Guess this whole turning-off-the-car-that-doesn't make-you-have-a-key-in-hand thing is going to take a bit of adjustment. Since you need to have the key within 30 inches to start the car, I would have thought it would have cut off if the key went more than 30 inches away from it. But that wasn't the case....

So I still have more to learn.

But the skydiving was fun!