Unproductive Morning

I’m staying at work late to observe a sim, so I took the morning off. It wasn’t as productive as I’d hoped.

First, I went for my scheduled 40-minute run as planned, but it was hot and I was seriously lacking energy, and I struggled to maintain a 12:00 pace. I know I will be faster when the weather cools off, but it is pretty disheartening right now to feel so slow. Halfway through my run, I also got a little scared by a passerby. I was running on the road outside my apartment complex, moving from the sketchy apartment complex next door back towards my own complex. This random guy on a bike rode up behind me on the other side of the road, and slowed down to match my pace. I glanced at him and he was looking at me. I kept running, and he kept biking, and he still kept looking at me. By that time I was back at the entrance to my own complex, and as he turned his bike to cross the road — smiling weirdly and acting like he was going to talk to me — I ran straight into my complex. He didn’t follow me inside, but the whole thing freaked me out a bit. The dude just gave me bad vibes.

After cooling off and showering, I headed over to Clear Lake Shores to take care of the speeding ticket I got a couple weeks ago. Their municipal court building is in a wooden shack, sharing space with a dentist’s office or something. It made me angry all over again. Stupid square mile of a town.

From there I drove all the way across Clear Lake to get a second estimate on the cost of repairs to my poor dented bumper, only to find that the estimator was out to lunch with his father and he’d be back “sometime after 1:00.” Sigh. I’ve only managed to get one estimate so far despite many calls and driving around, and it was for $500. About half of that was parts, and the other half was labor. After hearing this story when I got to work, my officemates told me that bumpers are one of the easiest car parts to replace, and that I should just do it myself. An online search told me that I can get the parts I need (a new bumper and bumper pad) for about $220. That doesn’t save me much over the body shop, so what I’d really be saving is paying them for labor. And while I’m intrigued by the idea of doing some car repair on my own, I’m not sure that I wouldn’t just rather pay the full $500 and have someone else do the dirty work. We’ll see.