Know which way the wind blows...

Another rainy night in the McCompound so still no kids with firecrackers in the parking lot. There were one short round of crackles in the break between the storms but not the ruckus I was expecting. They're big on firecrackers down here. They're legal you know.

Speaking of the rain, I was freaking out a couple of days ago. Electric windows are a great thing in a car, until they stop working. I almost never use my driver's side window because the motor is making a funny noise and the mechanic says it's about to die. And the AC doesn't work anymore because it needs freeon. So I've been making do by opening the other three windows.

Well when I got home the other night, the back driver's side wouldn't go all the way up. It wasn't making a funny noise. It just didn't go anywhere. Now I'm thinking it's an electrical problem on the whole side of the car. I fooled around with it and got it up to within about an inch of the top but couldn't close it. Fortunately the first rainstorm blew in from the other direction, so it didn't flood and I went out the next day to figure out what to do.

Of course with my usual mechanical aptitude, I forgot that I needed the turn the car on first and I'm pushing the button and pounding on the glass and getting nothing. So I'm cursing the car out when it dawns on me, and I start her up. It goes up without problem. Like magic. But now I'm afraid to open it again, in case it's really broken.

So here I am thinking I'm going to fry in that car now only being able to open one set of windows but it turns out that the air circulation is actually better that way. I'm now getting a breeze good enough to lift up the back of my hair. Funny.

And speaking of funny, there's been another successful helium balloon powered lawn chair flight. Regular readers know how much I loved the original lawn chair guy. This new guy has it down. This is his third try and he made it something like 200 miles. Sadly, there was also another failed attempt by a priest in Brazil that ended in his tragic death. Get all the details and some video at my other place.