Today I had the most exciting parking experience of my young
automotive career. Fortunately, it didn't have very much competition.
Anyway, I was pulling into my up to the curb on a side street a few
blocks from school as is my custom, since I don't want to pay for a
parking permit, nor wake up early enough to beat the morning traffic
jam that comes to a peak at the entrance to the parking lot. I had
French music playing on the stereo--Une Dernière
Danse, by KYO--as I maneuvered the old junker up to the curb. Then I heard a loud hissing noise. My
first reaction was, "Oh shit, that's not the music, is it?"
I turned off the stereo, killed the engine, got out of the car, and, much to my chagrin, the
hissing noise continued. My right front tire was audibly
leaking, and fast. It had only been a few moments, but the tire gave
when I nudged it with my foot. Rather distressing. It turns out that
the curb in my beloved parking spot is in rather bad shape; the trees
growing next to the side walk have spread their roots deep, and
fractured the concrete curb, making it jut outward into the street at
an odd angle. I'd noticed the pointy protrusion a few times before, but
previously the worst that had happened was that I drove over it and
bounced a little. No such luck this time. In my hurry to get to class,
I accidentally left my
keys in the ignition, a mistake I didn't catch for several hours. But
it didn't matter. No one in their right mind
would steal my car, and even if they did, it had a flat tire. Well,
such is life. It wasn't as bad as the time that my tire (hmm...also the
right front tire, now that I think about it) started to de-thread on
the highway. I've had rather poor luck with tires on that car.
And now for something completely different: my science project
(one of four) went very well today. This project was to construct an
electric car that went exactly ten meters
using a single D battery. My partner and I were the only
ones in the class that elected to do this project. We used a stripped
down toy dump truck. Our stopping method was to tape the battery down,
and have two ten meter long wires connected from the battery to the
motor--a stupidly large circuit. It's actually horribly, horribly
inefficient, because that much wire significant resistance, meaning
that the motor runs much slower. We also constructed a pull switch from
paper clips so that the car would pull the switch and break the
circuit at ten meters. Boring and crude, but foolproof. After several
trials and subsequent adjustments, our car went exactly ten meters,
earning us full points. And there was much rejoicing.