I am back from our road trip and whining

We have dear friends who live in Sydney, Australia. When we were much younger we used to vacation with them.

In May they told us they were coming to California to a wedding, and wondered if we would like to show them America, as we had rashly promised to do earlier in the year. So we did, and we drove to Irvine, picked them up, and drove back via many parks, canyons, and monuments. We took three weeks, and drove over 5000 miles.

More about that later when I have finished culling my 1500 pictures down to a more reasonable number.

What I want to do today is whine.

Last Thursday night, driving from downtown Chicago to Highland Park in a drizzle, I ran over a Chicago pothole and blew out two tires.

This morning I started the tedious process of claiming the cost of the tires from the City of Chicago - and that is where my troubles really started. I found the website with claim instructions, and proceeded to fill out the form.

I needed coffee before I started. I cranked up our wonderful Jura Capressa coffee maker, and it said "CLEAN MACHINE" - so I dutifully ran the cleaning cycle feeding it the little white tablet when asked. The cycle ended - and it said "CLEAN MACHINE" again - so again I did. This time, it groaned (really groaned) to a halt, and said, helpfully, "error 8"

I called the help number listed on the little crumpled, coffee stained card, and after a suitable delay I was caller 4 in the queue. When I spoke to the man, he said to feel around in the innards of the machine and remove whatever gunk I found and run the cleaning cycle again. I did this. Ran the cycle again. "ERROR 8" again. Did it again. Success! A cup of coffee!

Back to the claim form - I could not specify the location of the pothole. I thought we were driving on Clybourne, but I could not remember the exact location of the gas station at which I stopped after the big bang. I scanned Google maps and other satellite views of the city, but no luck. Hilda came home - her iPhone had pictures with GPS coordinates in them and I located the place where the problem occurred.

Next I discovered that I did not have acceptable documentation to prove the cost of the claim, so I called the dealer that replaced the tires, and they said they would FAX me the receipt.

The FAX did not come. My online FAX service has stopped providing the service.

I cranked up my FAX modem on my iMac. Not working. I called the phone company. FAX phone line had troubles. ATT will fix it, sometime. I connected the FAX to the other line - also not working!

I gave up and we went out to see the movie "Julie and Julia"