Well, Sunday night it looked like the Daytona 500 would be broadcast at 11:00 a.m. Monday. All bad - it was the first time the Daytona 500 was postponed and I couldn't see it because I would be at work. My manager is a NASCAR fan and told us that the race was rain delayed until 6:00 p.m. Monday night. Good - I could watch it. More on that later.
After work I was to pick up my greyhound vinyl dealie from the craft show from last weekend. I had emailed the owner of the company about picking it up at his house in Highland Park (Mike's old neighborhood when he was a teen). The guy emailed back that would be ok, but he had an appointment at 5:00 p.m. in downtown Des Moines. I replied back that I would be coming from downtown, so could we meet somewhere in the middle to hand it off - I suggested a location. He replied that sounded good. So after work I headed up 6th Avenue to sit in the empty parking lot of the closed grocery store next to the McDonald's at 6th and University Avenue. Christi and I were laughing about my "covert operation" at work. I'm just glad this was during daylight hours :) I got there early so read my book (which I always have one with me), along with checking rear and side mirrors to make sure no one was sneaking up on my car (in that neighborhood you can't be too careful). The guy arrived, the handoff was made and I was off to home.
So...6:00 p.m. and the race started. I thought the race would be completed before I had to go to bed - nope. I think it started raining - can't really remember - but the trucks with the jet dryers were out on the track for some reason - caution was out. Here comes Juan Pablo Montoya, the only car around, and he had just gotten out of camera view when at the bottom of my tv screen there was a flash of flame. I'm like, "what in the crap (yes I thought crap) did he run into? The only thing he was close to was the truck with the jet dryer.....oh my word, he ran into the truck with the jet dryer." Yep - and the explosion was the jet fuel catching on fire and what a fire aka inferno there was. Something came loose in Juan Pablo's car and he lost control and ended up hitting the truck. Juan Pablo's car was burnt to a crisp, with him calmly climbing out of. The driver of the dryer truck was a little shook up they said (duh, he's just driving along and all of a sudden out of no where the back of his truck explodes) but he was ok too. Fire crews were there trying to put the fire out - Darrel Waltrip kept saying, "I've never seen anything like that" - and there was concern the fire would ruin/melt the asphalt so the race would be stopped due to track damage they couldn't fix. While that wouldn't have been good - the race could have been called right then with a winner because it was over halfway run. So.....the fire was like an hour red flag/black flag/whatever delay. Drivers get out of their cars and start walking down to see what happened, NASCAR officials told them to go back to their cars, one driver had his cell phone with him (think about that for a minute, had his cell phone with him as he was racing in the Daytona 500) and started Tweeting and saw pictures of what happened. It was like 10:15 p.m. when I decided I had to go to bed and I thought the drivers were getting back in their cars. I found out at lunch Monday that the race ended at midnight our time with a green/white/checker. Why it took almost two hours to run 40 laps I have no clue............. I think this was the race that didn't want to end.
It's been an interesting week working live quotes and learning all the "quirks" of what the Denver office wants done on each quote. If 10+ lives on the quote do this. If 25+ lives and two voluntary coverages on the quote do this. If quoting dental high/low plans with less than 10 lives do this, if over 10 lives do it this way. Next week is more live quoting and then we learn disability.
Thursday on my way to work I ran over a shovel in the middle of 63rd Street on my to the freeway. I saw it and I tried to avoid it. I shouldn't have tried because if I wouldn't have tried I wouldn't have hit it. It was laying parallel to the curb with the end of the shovel pointing toward me - and I hit it good. I said a prayer and kept going to work. The tire didn't go flat or the car drive funny. I wondered if the tire would go flat during the day so I asked the guard in the Park n Ride how I would get someone into the ramp to help me since at 3:30 p.m. they close the gates so no cars can get in. He said I didn't get anyone in to help me. I looked at him and said I wouldn't be able to change a tire. I said a friend would need to park somewhere outside the ramp and then I would let them in the secure door right? He said that was correct and I would need to stay with the person AT ALL TIMES! There is one guy on my team so I asked him if he thought my tire would go flat during the day and he thought I should run up and check it during my lunch hour - well I didn't. When I got to the car after work, the tire was fine. On the way home I called Toyota and talked to a service guy about what happened. He told me to watch for a bubble on the side of the tire and it probably should be looked at to make sure there wasn't a cut in the tread. So today while running errands I stopped by Toyota and they put the car on the lift to check the tires on the right side and undercarriage. Everything was ok and the check didn't cost me anything - awesome!
Tomorrow is going to be a little cold (30's) and maybe 1/2" to 1" of snow but next week it's going to be in the 50's and 60's! And it's only the beginning of March! Love it!
