Another Driver

KDB turned 17 yesterday; she passed her driver road test today! The test was challenging. Although we read in the manual that one could not use a car that has a center console between the student driver and the examiner, we were guessing that rule was outdated since most cars have consoles today. KDB was scheduled to take her test at 9:30. Once we arrived, we found that meant that it was ok for her to get in line at 9:30. The line was more than half an hour long. When we got to the front of the line, the examiner said that, if there is a console, there must be an emergency brake control near the console that he could use to stop the car in an emergency. Well, that ruled out our Lexus. The examiner said we would not be able to rent a car for the test because insurance on a rental car would not cover a test. He did say we could return before 1 PM that day instead of rescheduling. So I asked an instructor in a Drivers' Ed car that was in line. He would allow KDB to take the test in his car but there was an outrageous charge: $110 for about 15 minutes in the car, and the $110 had to be in cash. Furthermore, he had a tight schedule and could not afford any time to allow KDB to drive the car to get familiarized with it before the test! Well, instead of disappointing KDB by rescheduling sometime in the not-too-near future and having to wait in line again, I went to an ATM in Quakerbridge Mall, got the cash and set her up for the test. She had some difficult since the car handled so differently than the Lexus but she passed!

A Miracle of Modern Medicine

Last month, blood in my urine lead to the discovery that I had a kidney stone that was 7 to 8 cm in diameter. Using a non-invasive procedure called ESWL, the Urologist was able to reduce this relatively large stone to sand sized particles that I passed without too much pain. ESWL concentrates sound waves on the stone and crumbles it with that sound! It's an amazing procedure and I'm sure glad it worked so well.

Colorado Skiing for Thanksgiving Week

Thanksgiving week, we flew to Denver, drove to Avon, Colorado and skied Vail and Beaver Creek. We started at Vail which opened a couple days before we arrived. After a couple days there, the compacted powder was beginning to form some ice so we switched to Beaver Creek on its opening day. This gave us better powder. All week we had blue skies and sunny days. Although new fresh natural snow didn't arrive till the morning that we drove the 100 plus miles on I70 back to Denver, we had some great skiing. The week was so delightful that Valorie and KDB are both sold on our next ski vacation being out West. Incidentally, the day after we drove back to Denver, 275 miles of I70 was closed because of low visibility in blowing snow.