Not a good day

We wandered over to the Toyota dealer yesterday to have an oil change.  The local EZ-Lube or whatever does it in about 15 minutes.  The dealer managed to stretch it out to over 2.5 hours!!!  Needless to say, we were under-whelmed.  I must say the Service Director did give us basically a full refund.  Still, my bride was pretty darned hungry by the time we got to eat.  We also got to deal with a fouled up prescription so by the time we got home about 16:30 we'd been gone all day and had darned little to show for it.  We didn't even get close to the Smith Center for the Performing Arts as we had hoped.  Oh well, I guess it isn't going anyplace.

I've been staying as far away from coverage of the Republican National Convention as possible.  Mr. Romney is now the official candidate and I actually rather respect him.  The medical insurance scheme he came up with while Massachusetts governor was pretty clever.  And since he was a Republican there was no use of the 'socialist' term at all.  I'm a little worried that the remainder of the party may pull him to the right and he'll end up like that idiot from Missouri who talked about 'legitimate rape'.  Mr. Romney has already proven on his swing through Europe and the Middle East that his brain isn't always engaged while his mouth is in action.  I'm not so certain about Mr. Ryan who is to be the VP candidate.  He wrote a Republican version of the budget that I thought pandered to the naivety of  the 'tea party'.  His own legislative background is slight; but since Mr. Obama's is pretty slight as well maybe that is the new 'normal'.

I don't tend to watch a lot of television but do end up watching more than I should!   Last night I found a show called "Hard Time" on National Geographic Channel.  I guess it's been on for several years but I only just found it.  I do recommend it if you want to see a very strange side to life.  The particular episode I watched followed some inmates at Ross Correctional Institution in Chillicothe, Ohio.  It was very touching how these guys became institutionalized and were soon close to unfit for life on the outside.  One guy was 16 when he was involved with a murder (didn't actually do it, just tried to cover it up); now he is 27 and has been paroled.  He was clearly worried that he wasn't going to be able to make it on the outside.  A guard takes him outside the gate and stands around in the snow with him while they wait for someone who is coming to pick him up.  He says something like "So I'm free.  I could just walk down the road?"  He has never driven a car.  He has never slept with a woman.  He has never held a real job.  He has tattoos all over; on the back of his neck, his throat, his skull.  The show made it clear that even in a prison where they were really trying to give inmates a chance to learn; the inmate had to motivate himself and some of them, like this guy, didn't care at all.  I was almost surprised he didn't get into some kind of trouble so his parole would be revoked.  It was an amazing view of life.

Here's to living life on the outside.  Makes the idiots at the Toyota garage seem endearing; almost!  Have a good one.