I had a dream the other night that I was in a “lending bookstore” and was drawn to a specific shelf and a specific book. It was a huge paperback book set up like a concordance for a massive series. I flipped through it, was fascinated by it, and decided I was either going to buy it or check it out.
And then I woke up.
I was awake just long enough to wonder what the title was, then fell back asleep and went right back into the dream. I managed to find the book again and this time I flipped it over to see the cover: The Ipswitch Compendium. I realized I was sleep when I thought I’d like to try to find this in the real world.
When I woke up again, I got up to write down what I remembered from the dream – including the sticker on the cover that listed the replacement value at $306.00
And before I went back to bed it occurred to me that using someone else’s dream would be a great place to hide something. And I wondered who had hidden this very interesting book in my dream.
The next day I looked up Ipswitch and realized where I had seen the name before. Instead of some mythical land – perhaps something from H.P. Lovecraft – it’s actually the name of a software company that made an FTP program.
So, a little disappointing. But a great idea for a story of my own.
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The cold weather has dropped the air pressure in my tires low enough to trigger the “one or more of your tires is low on pressure but I can’t be bothered to tell you which one or ones” warning on my dashboard.
So, when I got done with work and dinner, I stopped by a local gas station that has a free air-pump.
I waited in line while the woman with a van in front of me got air in her tires. She messed around it with for awhile, then got in and pulled away.
I pulled my car up as another car pulled in behind me – then set the pressure and started the pump. It reported low pressure on the first tire, tried gamely to increase it, then gave up with an error message on the display. I tried it again and got the same error – then I gave up too.
Instead of pulling away right away, I went to car behind me to let them know it wasn’t working. The guy thanked me since I’d saved him the hassle – and we both headed out in different directions.
I went to another gas station and found the air pump – except this one wasn’t free. I glared at the pump and considered going some place else – but I was tired and just wanted the day to be done. So, I checked all the tires with my gauge, confirmed that all of them were about equally low – which actually seemed like a good thing – and then paid my $1.50 for 5 minutes of compressed air.
Sigh.
I was done in a couple minutes and the pump was pretty fast. I double checked all the tires when I was done to make sure I’d at least gotten my money’s worth – then I was on my way as the timer ticked down and shut off.
It’s kinda like buying dirt, I guess. Yeah, sometimes you need to it when you don’t have enough, but it just kinda ticked me off.
On the plus side, the warning light on my dashboard shut off.