I have one of those. it comes every day I don’t get the sugar/caffeine shock offered by a trip to the gas station’s soda machine. it starts at around 2 and moves from the middle of my head to the front. by the end of the day, I’m squinting to see. =)

but today, I brought in a huge nalgene full of tea. it’s half empty, so I only have half a caffeine/sugar headache – the sugar half.

tomorrow we’re going to PA! I’m getting pumped… I like going home. you’re never loved more than when you’re with your family, and lately I’ve been feeling like I need that. bright n’ early tomorrow, David and I are taking off for the great East – well, he’ll be taking off. I’ll be sleeping. =) that’s the penalty for being a morning person. I’ll drive all night if you’ll let me, but forGET me getting up before 10 and driving anywhere. =)

I’d bring you all suveniers, but really… how many of you actually *want* something from PA? I’ll come back with a legally registered/inspected car and a pair of glasses. you can borrow those if you want. =)

today’s the end of my work week! I LOVE long weekends. =) bon voyage, mes ami. (hehe… is that right? I speak spanish, not french. I can pronounce what I wrote very well indeed, but I can’t spell french words for the life of me. too many years studying a phonetic language.)

anyway, I’m outta here. hasta.

the tire that was flat turned out to have a *wicked* looking screw in it… last night, I took it to the mechanics, who told me I needed to replace the tire because the hole was in the side and not in the tread. they plugged it up, moved it to the back (it’s a front-wheel drive car) and told me to get it replaced right away, which I couldn’t because no one was around to give me a ride home from the tire shop. I was pretty bitter… what good are roommates and friends if no one’s around when you need help? at times like that, I really hate living in a different city from my fiance, but really… he wouldn’t have been around to help me, anyway. he was teaching.

anyway, got up this morning and took the car in. thankfully I didn’t have any problems on the way in – it was more than twice as far as I was supposed to have driven on the plug. I had a compressor in my trunk (thanks, Mike!) and I know how to change a tire (thanks, Russ!), but what a pain. plus, it’s cold out. =)

spent most of the morning at the tire shop (no one was around to give me a ride again), but at least they gave me a discount because the tire still had so much tread in it. I paid a little over half of the tire’s original cost. but those dudes didn’t put it where I told them… I have another new tire on the passenger side front, and wanted them to put the new tire from today on the driver side front. they put it driver side rear (where the flat tire was), so now I probably have to pay someone to rotate my tires. punks.

Susan came in a little while ago to “clear the air.” she could sense that I was ticked off about some stuff, so she came in and apologized. that put me in a pretty good mood. I’ve been fuming for days about having to do some stuff over and over again… it’s very frustrating for me. I vented a little to her (kindly, of course) and she at least knows my point of view now. for today, I feel good about it.

so, not too bad of a day, although it started somewhat rockily (at work). at least the tire is fixed. all I have to do now is get an oil change and the tires rotated, and I’m ready to drive 9 hours. I got my insurance info faxed to me, so all is well for the upcoming vehicle inspections and registrations.

I’m looking forward to going home.

time after time I sit and I wait for your call
I know I’m a fool, but what can I say
whatever the price I’ll pay for you, madame blue
once long ago, one word from your lips and the world turned around
but somehow you’ve changed, you’re so far away
I long for the past and dream of the days with you, madame blue

suite madame blue, gaze in your looking glass
you’re not a child anymore
suite madame blue, the future is all but past
dressed in your jewels, you made your own rules
you conquered the world and more… heaven’s door

red white and blue, gaze in your looking glass
you’re not a child anymore
red, white, and blue, the future is all but past
so lift up your heart, make a new start
and lead us away from here

so when this was written, people felt the same way about America as they do now… disillusioned. they were thinking about the power that this country used to wield economically, idealistically, etc… and how that had been tainted by overreaching our bounds and political weaseling. but rather than just denouncing the country like folks do now, styx says to America, “regain our trust!” and still remains faithful.

I just get tired of hearing how horrible America is today.

my car. it’s a drama. right now, it’s in the shop again for the same thing – rear brakes. the mechanics are just inept, I guess. unfortunately, with the job status like it is right now, I can’t afford to take the Grand Am somewhere else and pay for the same repairs. and besides, those mechanics are supposed to have done it right!

last night we took the car in and Bethany had an in-your-personal-space chat with the poor dude who took my keys. =) for now, I’m driving her dad’s awful bulbous TAN Taurus. but hey… at least the brakes work. =)

my roommate Bethany is a lovely girl. she likes her job, generally, and enjoys most of her coworkers. she has a crabby, passive agressive boss, but gets along pretty well anyway. there is one person, however, who continues to make poor Bethany miserable.

this woman took over as receptionist, but, oddly enough, has no skills. she can’t load paper into a copier, can’t send an email, doesn’t understand cutting and pasting in MS Word, and can’t handle the phone system. she doesn’t get the chain of command thing. she constantly asks Bethany the same questions and won’t let Bethany get any of her work done.

despite all of that, Bethany smiles and helps her when she asks. “Z”, we’ll call her, asks for help from Bethanyand gets it, but is nasty. she starts conversations and snips at Bethany for responding. Bethany says, “good morning” and Z goes off. so Bethany stops saying “good morning” and Z goes off. it’s a no-win situation. well, yesterday, things came to a head when Bethany was called into passive agressive boss’s office and told that Z felt Bethany was “crowding” her. Bethany is livid and doesn’t know how to leave Z alone more than she already is, save not helping her when she asks for it. so she’s going to try that for a while.

in honor of the horrible work week that Bethany and I have had, I’ve done some therapeutic artwork.

Bethany and Z:

you know the saying, “when it rains, it pours”?   yesterday sucked.

I took my car in yesterday morning. the brakes weren’t working again – lots of squealing and I had to start braking WAY back from intersections, which was causing me to run red lights. all of this plus an oil change mechanic saying I was having “brake system failure” made me a little nervous. this is time #3 in the shop for the rear brakes.

so, I walked in, explained what was going on, then had Elayne come pick me up. got a call later in the afternoon saying that nothing was wrong. I said, “what? nothing’s wrong but I can’t stop my car in the mornings?” he said, “well, the wheel cylinders were seeping, but that wouldn’t have caused the kind of problem you’re talking about. we replaced them anyway, though, so you should be fine.” whatever. I told him to look again and *find* the thing that was making my car not stop, if it wasn’t the “seeping” cylinders. he decided to check the abs controller, kept it overnight, and I’m still waiting to hear back. oh, and it ticked me off that he said, “well, I don’t know your braking habits, but I can’t find anything.” like I was braking too hard at 30mph from 10 car lengths back and making my car skid! ugh.

wireless, shmireless.

this sucks. long story short: I can’t get the files I need from my laptop to my computer at work.

long story long: I was out for three days. the first was last Friday – I left Thursday night for PA. I wanted to be home for my Dad’s 50th birthday. then I got back, had some funky orange juice and got sick.

didn’t go to work on Monday because I was up sick Sunday night. then I went in Tuesday morning feeling mostly fine, but the boss sent me home. she thought it was the flu and I couldn’t say it wasn’t for *sure*, so I turned around and went right back home. see, her husband had hodgkins a long time ago and had chemo. the chemo nuked the cilia in his lungs, so the flu is dangerous. he gets the flu, it’s pretty surely going to be pneumonia because there’s no cilia to push the gunk out of the lungs. he gets pneumonia, there’s a good chance he dies. so I didn’t work yesterday.

no problem, right? I had my laptop and had them email me some files the night before, so I just did my work at home on the couch. well, I brought the laptop in today (has a wireless network card) to transfer the files. ha. my card has no problem getting on the network, only with connecting to the internet. straight from lynksis’s mouth: “you are conected to the access point, but the Internet cannot be found.”

now, why is this such a big deal, you ask? can’t you just copy the files to a disk or a thumb drive or burn a cd? no, no and no. my computer at work is so high tech it doesn’t *have* a floppy drive. my laptop’s usb drive is so flaky that thumb drives are pointless. my laptop’s so old it doesn’t have a cd burner. the only option is emailing the files to myself, but I can’t do that because “the Internet cannot be found”. so I have the files in one place and can’t get them to another less than a foot away.

isn’t technology wonderful?

Netflix sucks!

this is how it works (which, btw, is the same thing but more expensive than Blockbuster): you pay $22 a month and you can have any 3 dvds at a time. they mail you the first three right away, then you just send one back when you finish with it and they mail you the next one on your list. sounds good, right? I have a friend who is an avid Netflix fan.

here’s what doesn’t work: you have to wait forever for your movies! I signed up for a free trial (why? tell you in a minute) – a free two-week trial. after signing up in 15 minutes, putting movies on my list and telling it to go, I was pretty pumped. I thought, “what a great deal!” they said something about mailing stuff out right away, “rushing” the movies to me. bah!

the free trial starts when you sign up for the service. me: Friday before 8am. when does my trial end? Sept. 30. that’s not two weeks, that’s 13 days! they’re already jipping me. they *just* now mailed the movies, to get here on Wednesday, so now my 2-week trial is only 8 days long.

now, if the 3 movies I chose were just regular movies, this wouldn’t be so bad. I’d still be miffed about the false advertising, don’t get me wrong… but I ordered the first 3 discs of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 6. =) we can’t rent it at Blockbuster because they don’t have anything higher than season 3. no one demands it but us, and I don’t think that’s enough to get them to buy it. can’t imagine why no one else wants to watch Buffy…

oh, well. we’ll just have to do 3 episodes a day to get those discs watched in time. =) and really, I’m grateful that at least we can get hold of them without buying them. so there’s my world gratitude – I’m grateful that Buffy season 6 is out. =) all the same, don’t get Netflix – go to Blockbuster.

today is: world gratitude day

does it ever end?!

car trouble. again. if there were any way to just quit driving, I would. unfortunately, Indy doesn’t have the world’s most extensive mass transit system (that is, when the danged thing is actually running), and I can’t ride my bike to work because it has flat tires. oh, and it’s a 15-minute drive in my car. when it works.

let’s do a quick run-through of all the things I’ve had to do to this ‘98 Grand Am (which, being such a relatively new car, shouldn’t be having so many issues!):

• 6 – count ‘em – 6 alternators (before they figured out that some kind of exhaust was blowing STRAIGHT onto my alternators, causing them to basically MELT on the inside. $800. first one died and needed replaced – $400. second one died 2 days after the warranty on the first new one expired. what were the odds? $400. got a napa part, though, so the other four alternators were completely free.
• 2 batteries, because alternators dying with such frequency wreaks havoc on the battery. $140.
• air conditioner compressor. not the clutch, like they said when I took it in for an $80 repair. oh no. it was the compressor, which, they say, could have caused my whole engine to seize up had I not replaced it. at the same time, they replace the window motor assembly in the passenger side door after I rolled it down and it didn’t go back up and there was a big storm. those repairs together with a state inspection and new brakes cost about $1200. thank you, thank you, thank you, Mom and Dad.
• front rotors. a known problem in my model/year of car, and one I expected and saved for, unlike these others. but, had to replace them *3* times, as each new set was warped shortly after replacing. my most recent repair (save today’s) was one of these replacements. how did I know when the rotors started warping, you ask? well, something about rolling into intersections (don’t worry – they weren’t crowded, mom!) tipped me off. paid $250 for the first replacement, and haven’t paid parts or labor since. did I mention how much I LOVE napa?

now. onto today’s excitement.

they’ve been telling me for a while that I needed to replace my right rear wheel bearings. I asked them, each time I saw them for the above repairs, if it was dangerous or if I could wait until I had a little more money. they said, no, it’s just going to be very loud. I said, alright. I can deal with loud, especially since the repair is $350.

turns out it is dangerous. so, when my car rocked a little pulling out of my parking space yesterday, I took the car in. yup, it’s going to cost me $350, but wait! that’s not all! (I said that in my game show host voice… =)

my serpentine belt has dry-rotted and needs replaced. only about $40, so it’s a CHEAP repair. and… drumroll please… I will soon need to replace my rear shocks. $190.

add the costs of all of those repairs. that equals HALF what I owe on the car. anyone wonder why I haven’t paid it off yet?

*sigh*

today was church day. we had a good morning – I had to play my sax in church… hey – speaking of saxes, I’m going to interrupt this story with my favorite news of the year:

I made the Indiana Wind Symphony!!

I’d given up on it – I didn’t audition well at all (I’m a good player, but I didn’t play like a good player), so I was just accepting the fact that I’d have to wait until next year to play… I was so disappointed, but played it off…

but I made it! I get to play again, finally! Dr. Conrad, the director, called yesterday while I was at David’s – our first rehearsal is Wednesday.

anyway, back to the yuck. so, Bethany’s sis is visiting us. she likes to use a *lot* of toilet paper. we don’t (correction: didn’t – Bethany and/or I have lived in that apt. for 3 years and never needed it once) own a plunger. =)

Becky uses the bathroom and the toilet clogs. she says, “Bethany, it won’t flush” and Bethany tries to flush it again. immediately it starts overflowing, and it’s all over the bathroom floor. I look at Beth and put my shoes on – I know we’re taking a trip to the store to buy a plunger. =) Becky stayed behind and sopped up the mess with towels (EWW! – they got thrown right into the washer and washed a couple of times). Bethany and I spent the rest of our afternoon super-cleaning the bathroom and doing laundry.

hehe… makes me wonder what the pharisees would have said. don’t work on the Sabbath (yes, I know that the Lord’s Day isn’t Sabbath, but if this had happened on the Sabbath 2000 years ago, etc…), right? would they have let us clean up that mess so that we could use the bathroom, or would we have had to wait until dark?

anyway, it was gross. and now we own a plunger.