Washman-Shell on SE 10th and Powell

Here's the footage from my local car wash I couldn't figure out to upload in the last post. The music playing in the background is "Trekka" by Puscifer, off of their V is for Vagina album. It's kind of hard to hear the music over the sounds of the car wash machinery and water jets.

My car gets pretty dirty because it sits unused most of the time. I'm very fortunate that I can walk and bike to most of the places I have to go. One downside from not using my car seems to be that it's an aviary fecal target. Every bird in the neighborhood decides to shit on my car and it gets pretty disgusting. Another downside is that this seems to happen regardless of where I'm parking, whether it's in front of my place or strategically parked down the street, away from trees or telephone wires. We've also had some large trees heavily pollenating the neighborhood so the Washman is great place to clear those layers of crap off (both literally and figuratively).

I like this gas station/car wash marriage. The staff are nice, efficient and thorough. They always tape my rear windshield wiper down before entering into the car wash and tell me to have a nice day. It's in a great location--it's easy to access and leave from. The staff also don't laugh at me when I'm trying to line up my front left tire with the automated car wash track. (You would think with all of the practice I've had that I'd have it down by now). 

Sometimes I like to fake them out and move my tire in the opposite direction of the conveyer track just to see them wildly wave and use hand signals to get me back on track.  

The Cask of Unrelated Asides

Something occurred to me today and has been dominating my thoughts with a haunting force for the past few hours. It seemed an encounter I had today opened something else that had been walled off. This conjures visions of "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allen Poe. Not unlike Montresor, I led my feelings and interactions down the damp and dimly lit passage and walled them up in the deep catacombs. 

I have a pretty intense job. I try to minimize it by getting caught up in the details of business and process, but when it comes down to it, these widgets are people--unique individual vignettes where drama and circumstance intersect. Looking back, I see an infinite road lined with a lot of people and a lot of stories. At this point in my life, I've been working in this capacity for about 2 1/2 years. Hard to believe it's been this long! I enjoy what I do and am making these gigantic professional leaps. I'm also learning about many of the challenges people face and having that additional insight is both a blessing and a curse. 

Even though I can't get into any specifics here about my experiences, I am preserving these thoughts and feelings for the right time. And of course, names and details are always changed to protect identity. 

On an unrelated aside, an interesting and so far effective strategy is to embrace the people who hate your guts. Seriously. Not go overboard or anything, but just use language like "what can I do to support you?" or "what can I do to help?" It not only disarms adversaries, it puts them in a position of either cooperating (and knocking the bullshit off) or showing their fucked up side. Either way the high road is the one to take. In addition to resolving the situation, your heart and soul will also feel better for it. 

On another completely unrelated note, I took some video from inside the parking garage a while ago. Someone at the front of the pack was going very slowly in the off chance there was an overlooked parking spot somewhere before the 11th floor, which is the minimum level our group will be parking on. I never understand these people who drive very slow through parking garages. 

I had some great footage of going through the car wash however it was about 2 1/2 minutes, which somehow was too big for whatever I'm doing on blogger.