HDTVs and Thunderstorms

Wow, so this has been quite an evening. After coming home from a nine hour workday, I decide I need to go to the almighty Walmart to get some food and other random items. Mike decides to go looking for a joystick for his recently acquired (legally) copy of X-plane. While he was looking for it, I found the HDTVs like I always do. I'm kind of looking for one, and if I saw one for a good deal, I'd consider getting it. Well, Walmart was selling a bunch of display models, and I was focused on the Philips 42" LCD 1080p tv that was selling for $750 or something like that. After thinking it over for a few minutes, I decide to hold off and we proceed to finish our Walmart run.

After ordering pizza and watching some Battlestar Galactica and Futurama, I decided I wanted to go back to Walmart and think about that tv again. A new tv would look good in our apartment, so Mike and I headed back to Walmart. Unfortunately, it had started raining pretty good, but that didn't stop us. As we drove down the four lane turned three lane road (1.5 lanes per direction because water doesn't drain in Kansas), we noticed some cars turning around and some standing water ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE ROAD. It wasn't moving, just standing water. We hold up a minute, watch some trucks go through it, and I'm really considering trudging through the water just because I do things like that. Well, we finally see a Toyota Camery slowly work its way through the approximately 8 inch deep water, and I think "If they have the balls to do it, I do to." So we take to the water crossing, making our way through the water, hoping that we won't have to push the car out of the water. My car starts to sputter. I realized water was getting into the intake. So I pushed my car a little harder, and we finally made it out. High fives were given to honor our victory over nature. Then at the traffic light, I realized my brakes weren't working as well as they should. Oops, got a little too wet, but oh well. Hooray for doing slightly stupid things. I'm still glad I didn't have to make the walk of shame, pushing my car out of the water.

At Walmart once again, I checked under the hood just to make sure I didn't destroy anything. No major damage, so we proceeded back to electronics. After several minutes of staring at tvs, I decided I didn't want to risk buying a show model, no matter how cheap it was. So getting an HDTV will have to wait a while longer. I may not have a new tv, but we had a great time almost killing my car. As much abuse as it has been through, I'm glad it's still running as well as it does, especially considering it's a 16 year old car.