June 3, 2008

Another long day.

We took the car to a body shop in Shawnee. The windshield had been broken for a long time. When the hail storm came through a couple of months ago it did some damage to the hood and roof, but the insurance adjustor signed off on having the windshield fixed as well. Allstate, folks. You’re in good hands with ‘em.

Stopped off at Starbucks, and if you can believe it, this was the first time I’ve ever been in one. The odor of coffee hits you the moment you walk in the door and it’s heavenly. I had the caramel machico espresso. Nice and strong. The wife said it was TOO strong. Nah.

We had a good chunk of time we had to kill waiting for the car to get worked on, so we decided to go Oklahoma City. It had been a long time since we’d gone to the Omnidome, so that turned out to be the plan.

We arrived a bit early so we figured we might as well get a bite to eat. Surprisingly there are very few eateries in that area. You’d think there would be several choices. Not only is the Omnidome (OK Science Museum) located there, but the Zoo, Remington Park, and several other, smaller museums.

Strapped for time, we found ourselves at a McDonalds. There was a time when I didn’t mind their food. I’ve never been crazy about it, but these days I don’t care for it at all. I think my distaste stems from the time, a couple of years ago, when I gorged myself on Double Cheeseburgers. I don’t know why I never noticed it before, but the meat was a bit gristly. If there’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s gristly meat. I thought it might just be the stuff they use in the Double Cheeseburgers. They’re a lot cheaper than the other sandwiches. But no, I got a Big Mac not too much later and it was just as bad.

In a pinch I’ll eat there. Unfortunately I don’t care much for anything else on the menu besides the burgers. So I ate a Big Mac and tried not to think about it.

We bought our tickets to the Omnidome about 8 minutes before the show was to begin. Just as we’re heading for the theater we get a call from the body shop. They said that something was wrong with out gear shift…they backed it up out of the parking lot, then when they tried to put it in first gear something snapped and it went limp. The guy said they could fix it, and maybe I was wrong but I was under the strong impression that it was something they had done so they could charge us more. I was a bit miffed about it throughout the rest of the day, but as it turned out they were able to repair it for free. You have to understand…I’d never had ANY problems with the transmission in this car and I had just driven it 25 miles to get there. Was it merely coincidence that it screwed up at the exact same time that a mechanic was scheduled to work on it? Oh, well. It turned out for the best.

Back to the Omnidome. The feature we saw was about the Grand Canyon. Wow! If you’ve never been to the Omnidome I whole heartedly recommend it. It’s the next best thing to being there. I’ve seen three or four Omnidome films before this one and they’ve all been fantastic.

A visit to Barnes and Noble followed. Amazingly, I got out of there without a single thing. Bryan found a book that proports to improve the singing voice. He’s been working on that for a while now, and this seemed like just what he needed. It was all he wanted, at least, until I showed him an issue of Mad Classic. So he got two things. Swell.

Returned to the Body Shop and picked up the car. On the way home I stopped at the Shawnee Goodwill thrift store and bought a couple of books. I found a nice hardbound copy of Roget’s Thesaurus. Our copy is paperback and has fewer entries. Also found a hardbound anthology, “The Best of Weird Tales”. One can never have too many fantasy story collections in the personal library.

So that’s about all I have for today. Lot of diary type posts the last few days, huh? I’m thinking of writing something a little more “weighty” in the near future. Something along the lines of “What is it like for me to live with bipolar disorder?” Promises to be a fun read for one and all.