The Year of Challenges

In a couple of weeks, I’ll turn 39 years old. Awesome, right? I’m looking at the event as an opportunity to reflect, and ultimately, challenge myself to do some new things before I hit 40 in 2013. As grown-ups, we all fall victim to routines – work, school, practice, etc. – and I’m no different. So, it’s time to mix it up, and take some steps to do different things. Challenge myself.

This is where you come in. I need challenges, and I’m inviting you to submit them to me. I’ll take my favorites, publish them, and then try to accomplish them while tracking my progress over the next year on this blog. So, email me, send me a Facebook message, a tweet, a letter, with whatever you’ve got. Feel free to share this blog with others, I'll take submissions from anyone. I’m looking forward to seeing the challenges and hope like hell that more than 3 of you respond.

In full disclosure, I must say this isn’t an original idea. Most aren’t. A talented writer I use to work with, Noel Potts, is currently in the middle of completing her challenges. But, she’s doing a steroids version of it – 30 challenges in a year for her 30^th birthday. Shit. 30? Really? Anyway, please visit her blog – it’s really inspiring. I respect the hell out of that, but I’m married with two kids, and already pretty busy. If I try to conquer 40, 30 or 20 challenges, I’ll fail miserably. I’m not even positive I can do 10. But, I’ll give it a shot.

There are a few things I won’t consider. I won’t endanger myself or my family, I won’t jeopardize my employment, and although I’d love to take on a challenge that requires me to travel the world, that’s likely not happening. 

Ready? Go.

The Tale of a Lightbulb and Public Profanity.

A few weeks ago, a headlight went out on my Passat. Pain in the ass sure, but whatever, no big deal. So I headed up AutoZone, looked up the replacement bulb, and plunked down $16 for a new one. Cut to 2 hours later, after reading blogs and watching YouTube videos on how to change the damn thing I realized I may not be cut out for this. Shit, my guy card takes a serious hit when I can’t change a freaking headlight.

Then I did what most guys would do. I ignored it. Because, the prospect of taking my car in for service ranks right up there with a stop by the DMV. You see, it never quite works out how you think it should. But this week, I bucked up, called the dealer and found that for $40 and 45 minutes, my car would stop looking like it was winking. I made the appointment for yesterday. 8AM. Let’s do this.

I arrived on time (10 minutes late), and was greeted by a young, attractive service rep. I’m pretty sure she was in to me. I mean, she smiled, welcomed me to Jim Ellis, and walked me in to service area. No way everyone gets that kind of treatment. But I digress. She introduced me to Dave, and that’s when things got dicey. Dave worked up the order, and then walked outside to look at the car. When he came back, we had the following exchange:

Dave: Mr. Hatfield, um, we have an issue. You see, your headlights are part of an upgrade package – they’re Xenon headlights. And the bulb is 140 dollars by itself.

Me: (Silence. Dumbstruck).

Dave: And, well, it’s a pretty time intensive repair – like three hours.

Me: (again, dumbstrucked).

Dave: The total cost is 390 dollars.

Me: (mouth agape). Fuck.

Me: Uh, sorry I said that.

Dave: No, that was an appropriate response.

So, there you have it. The cost to replace my headlight bulb is $390. Yeah, I'll call around to other shops to get quotes, but I still can't get over the asshats at VW and the fact that they designed a car that requires you to remove the bumper to change the headlight. 

I’m just going to see how long I can go without driving at night.

One more time, with feeling. Fuck.