Harry Truman's Back Porch

Car

2007-08-19T20:45:14Z

I had to get my alarm taken out, because they said that might be the problem. They told me it was installed very poorly, although the technician who removed it didn't think it was all that bad. He said the alarm itself was about the cheapest crap you could buy, though (the brand was Micro). I haven't really even used the alarm itself for more than a year, because I was tired of it going off for no reason all the time. I do miss the keyless entry, though. Anyway, the car actually ran smoothly for a few hours after he took it out. On the way home, though, the transmission got so jerky, it felt like the car was about to fall apart.

I brought it to the dealership the next day, and they cleared the codes out of the BCM computer, saying that might fix it. It didn't. I brought it in the following Monday. This time, the tech plugged his computer into the car and had me drive it until we got it to stall (in all the driving they'd supposedly done with the car, they never had any problems with it, even though i had them most of the time). I got another rental, and left it there for another day.

When I picked it up, they told me they had replaced a wiring harness between the crankshaft sensor and the alternator. Apparently, the wires were installed in such a way that they were touching part of the air conditioning system. The casing had melted off of two of them, leaving the wires exposed, so that when the car was tilted upward (going up a hill) or made a wide left turn, they would touch and short out. I've had it back for almost a week now, and haven't really had any problems with it, so hopefully that took care of everything.

So, all in all, that's:
10 trips to the dealership (roughly)
3 rentals
80 dollars spent (removing the alarm and upgrading one of the rentals)

Also, I spent half the day Friday running around between campuses and dealing with nasty, bitchy BCC people trying to get enrolled in this religion class that Dani told me I needed, only to find out it was the wrong one. I logged on and got into the right one in about five minutes. Punk-ass woman.

Vehicular Troubles

2007-08-03T00:05:57Z

I've been having problems with my Saturn Ion. About a year after I got it, it started doing this weird thing where if I went over certain bumps or came to a stop slowly while making a lot of turns (like in a parking lot), the engine would cut off. I took it to the dealership, and they replaced a crankshaft sensor. Problem solved.

Until about one year later (to the day, if you want to get technical) when it started to happen again. Now, however, it's thrown in a noticeable lack of power and feels like it doesn't know what gear it wants to be in about half the time. I brought it in again. Fixed again. Problem solved.

For about a day. Then it started again, but I wasn't able to bring it back in until about a week later. Unfortunately, the problem stopped happening the night before I could bring it in, so they said they couldn't find anything wrong with it. One day later: starts again. I bring it in. They fix the steering column assembly (the power steering was also having trouble) and reprogram the ECM computer. Less than twenty minutes after I pick it up, I go over a bump heading into a parking lot and the engine shuts down. Everything was still happening, too (although the steering was better).

So today I brought it in yet again. This time, they gave me a rental (this nice, shiny truck) and they haven't called me yet, which hopefully means they're really looking into it this time. I have three more years on the warranty, but I definitely don't want to be bringing it in every couple of days until then.

JW Blue

2007-06-21T16:26:12Z

So we went to the Melting Pot fondue restaurant in Boca last night. The two we'd been to previously were pretty fancy and had great atmosphere, service, food, etc. This one felt more like being at Applebees. The food was mostly pretty good, but everything else was crap. We had a table of about ten screaming kids next to us acting like they were at Chuck E. Cheese the whole time. We asked the manager to do something about it since we were paying a hell of a lot of money to try to have a nice dinner. His response was, "Well they'll leave pretty soon." By soon, I guess he meant 20 minutes later. The music ("Margheritaville", etc.) made me feel like we were at Hooters. Our waitress was okay, but not nearly as good as we usually get there. She didn't even flambe our amaretto chocolate like she was supposed to (which was one of the highlights of our previous visit).

The bartender didn't seem to know what the hell they were doing, which was odd given the types of upscale drinks they offered. I got a shitty mojito, and then figured I'd try some Johnnie Walker Blue Label ($150-200 a bottle, $30 for the single drink) since most of the dinner was going to be reimbursed. I asked for it with a splash of water (no ice). I finally got it about fifteen minutes later with so much water and ice in it, I could barely taste it. I would have sent it back, but I couldn't for reasons I can not currently disclose (wink, wink). Anyway, I'd give a rating for the scotch, but I couldn't taste it well enough.

All in all, I'm just glad we didn't have to pay for most of it. Otherwise, I'd be pissed. It really wasn't horrible, but I expect much better for a price like that, and from a place where we've had some really fantastic meals before.

P.S. Got a bottle of Glenfiddich 15 yo. Solera Reserve, which is now cheaper than JW Black. Not the best I've had, but decent given the price. 3/5.

More scotch

2007-05-06T16:20:24Z

Glenlivet 15 y.o.
This one had some slight urine-y undertones when first tasted. Once it settles in, though, it's pretty decent. Overall, I'd give it 3/5. I expected better, given the price.

Dimple Pinch 15 y.o.
Not bad. Reminds me of JW Black. At least it's cheap. 3.5/5.

Aqua

2007-05-05T21:24:36Z

First swim of the new year. Nobody at the pool on a nice, hot Saturday afternoon for some reason. The thing that sucks most about not working Saturdays anymore is not getting a day off during the week where I could usually get the pool all to myself. On the weekends, there are usually about 20 kids in there going nuts. I guess they're all at the air and sea show.

Dani finished her drawing fund raiser last week. It brought in about $1000 altogether. $100 went to the American Cancer Society, $100 went to us for expenses, and $800 went to her Phi Theta Kappa chapter, which was by far the most they've ever raised. It was hard work, but we were really happy with how much we raised.

We're getting a lot of students in for the summer semester at work. The problem is, every time one gets admitted, another one decides to defer or quit completely. Kind of frustrating.

We saw Spiderman 3 last night. Pretty decent. Wish they would have killed MJ, though.

Tomorrow we're having a Hamlet party with some of Dani's classmates. Imagine my excitement. Really.

Sinbad

2007-04-16T03:27:05Z

We just got home from the Sinbad show, which was fun. People were calling out different topics for him to talk about, and he did a pretty great job of having jokes for everything.

Also, Dani's PTK fund raiser is going great so far. She got Best Buy to donate some iPods, and gift certificates from a lot of other places. She's made $50 so far, and it hasn't really even started yet. I'm pretty tired now, or I'd write more.

Whiskey

2007-02-18T16:20:14Z

I started drinking scotch a few months ago. The Albertsons where I used to buy alcohol closed, so they had clearance prices on on all the liquor. I decided to try a 12 yr. old blended (can't remember the name) for $15 that was originally $50. I had been looking for something I could drink straight, as mixing Coke and Dr. Pepper into things wasn't exactly helping my waistline (although I still enjoy a good ginger ale mixed with cognac). Anyway, the scotch I got was pretty good, especially when I discovered the level of smoothness you get from letting a little ice melt into it.

After Albertsons closed, I found a new liquor store down the street. I decided to try Johnnie Walker Black, which quickly became a favorite (at least at my budget). I usually buy about one bottle a month. After Christmas, they were sold out of the Walker Black, so the guy there suggested Glenrothes, a smooth Speyside that was probably my favorite that I've tried so far.

For my birthday, Dani got me a bottle of The Balvenie Double Wood, aged first in a Whisky Oak cask, and then in Sherry Oak. It has a complex flavor, and you can taste the different woods used to age it. I've only had it a couple of times so far, as I've been too busy with school to drink very often lately, but I'm really starting to like it.

I'm still learning and getting into scotch. So far, I mostly like smooth, simple flavors. As I try more of them and develop my taste for it, I imagine I'll enjoy the more complex options.

Anno Dominos Two Th000 and Seven

2007-02-09T22:29:04Z

So, I guess it's been a little while. I got A's in my classes last semester. Now I'm taking accounting, algebra and composition.

We went up to KC to visit the folks/friends a little before Christmas. We hung out with Kyle and Dave and played a lot of Monopoly. I got to try out Mom's Nikon, which is a lot nicer than the one we have. The extended family moved their Christmas up a couple of days so that we could go, which was nice. Kyle got wasted while we played poker and watched "The Patriot," so that was exciting. Then we flew back on Christmas Eve and did our Christmas thing here with Kathi, Andrea and the other Kathi at Shooters on the intracoastal.

Since then, I've been working a lot and going to school full time. On my birthday, we went to Dave and Busters, which has a lot of arcade games, but is more geared toward grown-ups, so there aren't a ton of kids running around. That was a lot of fun. Dani and I played a lot of games and arcade basketball and won a ton of tickets. We got a yo-yo and bouncy balls and stuffed animals and stuff.

A few days ago, we went to a Stevie Nicks concert at the Hard Rock. It was pretty cool. I had to skip my accounting class, but I think it'll be okay. Stevie sang "Edge of Seventeen", "Gold Dust Woman", "Landslide", and a lot of other good stuff. This was a couple days before Anna Nichole Smith died there.

Today, we started volunteering at The Sawgrass Nature Center's animal hospital. We went in and cleaned cages and fed the animals. They have lizards, snakes, parrots, rabbits, an owl, a prairie dog, skunks (de-scented), opossums, tortoises, ducks, a monitor lizard, and even an alligator. The place is pretty new and they're doing construction around it to build wetlands and other things for the nature center. I liked the animals a lot. We're going again on Sunday.

I guess that's been about it. More later.

Thanksgiving, etc.

2006-12-03T22:20:44Z

So I jumped the gun a little bit on the last post about the job. It actually turned out that I wasn't eligible for the position they wanted to give me because I don't have a degree. But after another month or so of screwing around, we came to a reasonable agreement, which basically means I get a raise but no benefits.

In other news, Dani dressed up as a pirate for Halloween. We went to Shooters, which was having a big Halloween costume block party. Other than that, didn't do a whole lot.

Kathi, Andrea and Jorge came over for Thanksgiving, which was cool. I made a ham for the first time, which surprisingly turned out pretty decent. We had a ton of food, which was all very good. And the Chiefs beat Denver, which put us in pretty decent shape for a playoff run (although the jackasses just lost to Cleveland. Who loses to Cleveland?).

Check out this cat:

The next day, we drove up to Tallahassee, which took about 7 1/2 hours. We went over to the FSU film school to see Dave and Justin, who were doing the visual effects for Justin's latest short. We got a tour of the film school area (sound stages, etc.) and then Justin showed us the last few minutes of his film - minus most of the effects - which looked like a Hollywood movie. I can't wait to see the finished product. Afterward, we went and got some Mexican food, saw "Borat" (again) and tried to go to "Sunland" or something like that - a children's psych-ward that was shut down decades ago. Unfortunately, it was recently demolished, so we didn't get to to explore it like Justin and Dave had before. I hear it was pretty damn creepy. We did, however, sneak into the FSU football stadium and had to sneak around 007-style after realizing the door we got in through locked behind us. We eventually got out, though.

The next day, we wanted to go downtown, but the FSU-UF game was going on, so traffic was crazy. We ended up just heading back early.

This week, we've all been sick as hell. I've got finals coming up, and then our Christmas trip back to KC after that.

Job and School

2006-10-01T13:57:47Z

So it looks like my permanent job (with benefits) is finally going through. My official application will be turned in tomorrow, so hopefully it won't take too long for all the paperwork.

Dani had two of her teeth extracted the thursday before last. She had implants put into her jaw along with some big screws. The anesthetic didn't work, so she could feel the whole procedure. She's been in a lot of pain since then, but they finally gave her some Combunox, which is a lot stronger than Vicodin.

So far, I have A's in my classes, which is good because I need to raise that 2.0 GPA I have from Northwest MO. I'm not aiming for a 4.0, but a 3.0 by the time I get my Associates degree would be nice.

Poker

2006-08-27T17:49:54Z

Yesterday, we went to the Hard Rock again because we were bored and the race track - which features double the rednecks at one third of the price - was closed.

Dani played another sit 'n' go. They went from 9 people per table to 10 since the last time we were there, even though the prize pool didn't increase.

But anyway, she played better than ever this time, and was dominating the table for much of the game. Toward the end, this guy that looked like he was about 18 started knocking everyone out and took the lead. He got pocket kings four times. He ended up winning, but Dani came in second and took the $350 prize.

So far, her first three games have gone like this:

1: Second place. $350
2: Fourth place. One away from finishing in the money (even though she had terrible cards the whole game)
3: Second place. $350

So she's netted $280 in her first three games, and she gets better all the time. She's learned a ton in the last 6 months (since her second game) and she's not getting as nervous as she did before, nor is she getting bullied. I really think as she gets a little more experience and continues to improve, she could finish in the money most of the time and probably win a pretty good percentage of the time. If she can build up enough money to start playing the $250, $500 and $1000 games, she could start making some pretty serious money (first prize in $1000 game = 5 grand).

We're a little short on cash for her to be playing regularly right now, but if things go well, she might be able to start playing a few times a month before too long.

Anniversary

2006-08-17T22:11:03Z

Today, it's been one year since me and the lady tied the knot. It's been a great year, full of moving and working and eating and going to movies, and I totally look forward to many more.

It started off kind of shaky. We were both in a cranky mood, and kind of bothering each other for the first half of the day (We're married. It happens). However, we had reservations for a nice french restaurant that evening, which got us back on track.

The place is called La Vie en Rose Cafe in Pompano Beach. I worked at the Blockbuster across the street for a few months, but I never thought of going there. When we got there (majorly overdressed), they led us to our own little semi-enclosed room near the back, which was a nice surprise. We had our own little table, decorations etc. Dani looked amazing, as always. A guitarist played some great live music near the front of the restaurant. There was a nice tapenade on the table when we got there. We decided to order the "lovers' special", which included two 4-course meals and a bottle of wine. I ordered the Lorikeet Brut champagne from Australia, because we're both bird lovers and we always like to visit Lorikeet enclosures at zoos, etc. That, and I felt like champagne.

I had the onion soup, which was by far the best I've ever had. Dani got a salmon dish and I had scallops in a light cream sauce with a flaky clamshell-shaped pastry on top. It was one of the best meals I've had in years. The music, along with the rustic, old-fashioned decorations, reminded me of Christmas for some reason. I ended up drinking almost all of the champagne because Dani's interstitial cystitis gives her major trouble if she drinks much alcohol. Dani and I talked about the past year, as well as some of our current goings on. After some great chocolate mousse cake, we drove home in the rain.

We ate some of the top of our wedding cake, which my mom packed and shipped down here this week. It was only slightly screwed up :P and I had a couple martinis using the Tito's vodka we got a couple days ago. Between that and the champagne, I was thoroughly intoxicated (which is why I'm writing this a couple days later). I went to sleep and went to work the next day feeling like crap.

Anyway, it was a great night, and a great year. More to come.

Our trip to St. John

2006-06-30T20:00:09Z

The lady and I went to the Virgin Islands over the weekend. St. John, mostly. My parents were going, and we don't see them much, being 1,500 miles away and all, so we mostly went to see them. Luckily, they helped us out with the $850 plane tickets.

We woke up at 5:00 Sunday morning and headed for the Fort Lauderdale airport. It was my first time leaving the continental U.S. so that was sort of exciting. We headed for San Juan, Puerto Rico first before boarding a propeller-driven puddle-jumper (my first time on one of those, too). It was a short flight to St. Thomas, where we met up with my folks and took a taxi to the ferry. They took us to the ferry a lot farther away and charged us quite a bit more than what they originally said. My dad initially refused to pay the extra money, until the driver started to call the police. Apparently this is a common practice down there.

After the ferry to St. John, we picked up our SUV rental from a guy named Conrad Sutton, who had paintings on his wall fashioned out of different shades of deer fur. Everyone there drives a Jeep or an SUV because the roads go up and down and around and left and right and whatever else you can think of, with cliffs and curves and inclines that seem to approach ninety degrees. After an hour, we reached the Concordia Estates, a collection of “eco-tents” which are basically small cabin frames with canvas over them instead of wood. They’re solar powered, with “composting toilets” and a shower supplied by a large iron tank that sits in a window, getting hotter as the day goes on. Dani and I had two mattresses on a platform about eight feet off the ground, with a ladder that reminded me of a bunk bed. It took a considerable amount of work getting to our tent because the whole camp was built on the side of a steep hill, with a maze of stairways and raised wooden walkways that reminded me of the Ewok village in Return of the Jedi. The only particularly good feature of the place was the view. Our balcony overlooked a great, green peninsula with two large hills in the distance. To the east, waves crashed against a rocky beach opposite the calm, clear-blue waters of the cove to the west. We spent a good portion of our time on the balcony, reading or admiring the view. It was even better at night. The stars looked like they were 100 feet away, which blew Dani away (you don’t see a lot of stars in South Florida), leading to discussions about astronauts and an ever-increasing fascination with black holes.

Most of the “natives” on the island were pretty rude, and made it clear they wanted you to fork over your money and get out. Everything was extremely overpriced on the island, costing about 3-4 times what it does here. Most of the restaurants charged anywhere from $15-45 per entrée for pretty mediocre food. The only thing cheap was rum. We drank pina colladas and “painkillers”, daiquiris and rum punch, followed by rum and Coke and the occasional beer. The drinking age is 18, so Dani got her first legal drinks. The best meal we ate was at a “fancy” (there were still bugs flying around and toilets that hardly worked) French place, the Chateau Bordeaux. We arrived wearing T-shirts and shorts because we had tried to go somewhere else, but it turned out to be closed. Everyone else was wearing nice clothes, and the staff was hesitant to let us in. The food was good; for the price, it had better be. When we were getting ready to pay, we heard the waiter call the police and say that one of the tables couldn’t or wouldn’t pay for their meal. There were only two other parties, and it seemed like he was talking about us, but I guess we’ll never be sure. The credit card went through and we left. The other memorable place we ate had a lot of goats running around, one of which was standing on its hind legs reaching for leaves in the trees, and later jumped halfway onto our table trying to reach the Sweet ‘n Low in the middle.

We saw a lot of goats running around wild, some chickens, burros (wild gray donkeys) and hundreds of hermit crabs. I also saw a mongoose or two, later finding out that almost the entire population of snakes on the island had been wiped out since the mongoose was introduced. I also saw a lot of fish and sea urchins, mostly while snorkeling at Trunk Bay and in the cove to the west of our balcony. I couldn’t wear my glasses, which meant I couldn’t see everything too well, but it was still fun. There was a huge school of tiny fish at Trunk Bay that grouped together in the shape of a 3-4 foot-wide ribbon that seemed to go on forever. The ribbon would curve once in a while, but they always kept a perfect formation. I scraped my knee on what might have been “Fire Coral”, which made my skin sting and tingle for the rest of the day. Despite that, it felt good to get in the water and go swimming. I don’t do it very often.

On Wednesday, we drove back to Cruz Bay on the north side of the island and prepared to catch the ferry. Dani got an anklet for her mom from one of the many street vendors. We said goodbye to my family and boarded the ferry, headed for the airport. Back in San Juan, we got a bottle of Captain Morgan and some other rum I’ve never heard of for $8 each at the duty free shop. Then we came home, back to plumbing and electricity that works, toilets that don’t come with warning signs ("#1 rule of the sun...we do NOT flush for #1!"), and streets that don’t make you feel like you’ve been riding a roller coaster for an hour and a half. It was a good time, and it was definitely worth going, but I’m glad to be back. When you get down to it, I guess that’s what vacation’s all about.

Dani's Supernatural Sports Powers

2006-06-21T05:02:05Z

Dani has some kind of strange power over sports teams in the playoffs. I don't know why, but check it out:

1. In 2003, we started watching the Florida Marlins after they fell behind in a playoff series with the Cubs. They were about to lose the game that would have put them away for good, but as soon as she became interested, a famous play involving a Cubs fan catching a foul ball that would have been an out led to an eight-run inning for the Marlins, and eventually to defeating the mighty Yankees in the World Series (we went to game five at Dolphin Stadium; Marlins won).

2. Dani decided to start rooting for the Red Sox in 2004 after they fell behind three games to none in the AL Championship series against the Yanks, and told me that they were going to win the next four games and advance to the World Series, something no team had ever accomplished before. They proceeded to win eight games in a row, breaking "the curse" and becoming world champions for the first time in the good part of a century.

3. A week ago, after the Miami Heat dropped the first two games in Dallas, looking lifeless, Dani decided to bless them with her support. A few minutes ago, they became only the third team in history to win the NBA Finals after losing the first two games. Like the others before them, the Heat played like a different team when she was watching. Maybe it was just because these teams were backed into a corner and responded well, but I am noticing a trend...

I don't know what it is, but I'm thinking of starting a bidding war between George Steinbrenner and Mark Cuban: "She'll root for your team all season for $1 million. You might go undefeated!"

ACG 101

2006-06-14T21:16:18Z

Today we went to this charity thing at the Hard Rock where we ate lunch and met some local celebrities who were waiting tables for the event. We met Paul, Young Ron and Jenners from my favorite South Florida radio show. They were all very cool and nice. Our celebrity waiter was some chick from the "Deco Drive" show in Miami, but we hardly saw her the whole time, so we mostly just had a regular waiter. It was a nice couple hours off work, anyway. The tip went to a breast cancer foundation, so we left a 100% tip.

A few weeks ago, we almost got kicked out of our apartment for trying to protect the muscovy ducks that live outside. The managers hired a company to come out and round them up, take them away and gas them. We chased some of them in the water, which pissed a lot of people off, but they're not trying to get rid of the ducks anymore. It turned out there were some issues with our lease, so that almost got ugly. These ducks are really cool and entertaining. They eat all kinds of mosquitoes and bugs which would otheriwise be taking over our complex (this being South Florida and all), and they spend most of their time walking around wagging their tails. A lot of people down here consider them pests and treat them pretty much like cockroaches. But anyway, I guess that turned out as well as could be expected.

The one on the bottom is our favorite duck. His name is Big Daddy. He was the leader of the flock before they came and took most of his friends. Now he just walks around with a look on his face like "Fuck this shit".

I'm still waiting on FAU to give me my permanent job so I can get benefits and a raise.

We're going to St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands in a week and a half. So that should be cool. I'll have to take some pictures.

Birthday

2006-01-27T04:55:34Z

Today was my birthday + we ate some good food and saw a good live band + we went to the casino and put down $140 on Dani's first real game of Texas hold 'em + she came in second and won $350 = awesome.

+ I'm waiting for my birthday present (Garmin GPS Navigator for my car) to come in a day or two = ultra-awesome.

Startling Update!

2006-01-25T05:05:57Z

So I worked at this crappy job for a couple weeks after we got here where I ran around in the ninety degree sun all day taking pictures of cars, and they gave me shitty equipment that didn't work, and I ended up quitting. We were living with Dani's mom Kathi and her husband Newton who's Brazilian and acts/sounds quite a bit like a two-year-old. He ended up moving out around October and it doesn't look like they're going to get back together, which is probably good for everybody involved.

A week after we got here, Katrina hit. It was only a tropical storm at that point, but it still knocked down trees in our apartment complex. In October, Wilma was headed for us just about the time Kathi had a job interview up in Tallahassee. Everyone said Wilma wouldn't be a big deal, but I had a bad feeling about it (because every time a storm hit the gulf around that time, it went frickin' nuts) so we ended up going with her. We went to the state capitol building and to Wakullah Springs, which was pretty cool. I also went on a film shoot with Justin who I knew from my film club back at Northwest MO State. He's majoring in film at FSU now and I got to hang out on the set for a few hours, which was very cool. Wilma hit and pretty well fucked up about half the state, so we decided to stay an extra day, and then decided to stay a few more days in Orlando. We went to Sea World and I had a dolphin jump onto this ledge next to me at the dolphin cove and let me pet it for a while, which was cool. Eventually, we headed home to Ft. Lauderdale. We got back at night. There were no lights, no traffic lights, debris and trees in the middle of the road. It took about a week after Wilma hit before our water was safe to drink, and about a week and a half to get our power back. For some people, it took a month to get power. It seems like about half the trees in South Florida either got torn down or at least ripped up pretty bad and stripped of a lot of their branches. A lot of trees that were 50-100 years old, and had obviously seen a lot of hurricanes, were torn down. Still, it obviously could have been worse.

Anyway, back to the beginning. After that crappy job with the cars, Kathi hooked me up with a job at Florida Atlantic University with their executive accounting program. Dani's dad is the executive director of the pogram, and Kathi is a program coordinator. My official title is IT assistant. I pretty much help people whose email is screwing up and stuff like that. I also wake up at 5 AM on Saturdays so that I can be there by 6 AM to set up video cameras and computers to record the lectures for the program. That part kind of sucks, but they pay me a lot more than I'm worth, and I'm starting to get to do some pretty cool creative stuff. I'm working on updating their websites, getting ready to do some marketing videos, etc. I'm hoping they'll make me full time pretty soon, and I'll get insurance and all that good stuff.

Dani's been working at Chilis doing to-go pretty much since we got here. The tips aren't great, but she likes it there. She also became a Hooters girl a few months ago. She makes anywhere from $50 on a slow daytime shift to $200 on a good night. Most of the girls that work there are pretty nice, and she's becoming friends with some of them. We've both been trying to go to school, but we missed registration for this semester, so hopefully we can get going next time.

Besides that, we went back and visited the family before Christmas. That was pretty cool. We saw Kyle and Dave and I got to drink a lot of Boulevard Wheat beer because they don't sell any good wheat beer down here and that's my favorite. We got back on Christmas Eve. I call my parents every Sunday. I also talk to Kyle about once a week. Hopefully he'll find a good job soon. He's a good friend and he deserves it.

I guess that's about all for now. I'll post again in another four months or so.

Honeymoon

2005-08-28T16:03:05Z

So we didn't really start packing until the night before we left. We stayed up until 7 in the morning lugging half our shit out to the dumpster. We still had twice as much left over as would fit in the car. We woke up at noon and finished loading what we could. After lunch at La Fuente, mom got us a roof rack which made the roof of my car look like it was about to collapse when we put our suitcases on it (it's ok now, though). We deposited our wedding gifts, got the water drained out of my car alarm, and we were off.

It was about 5:30 before we hit the road, so I really just wanted to make it to St. Louis for the night. We had a tarp over the roof rack which kept flapping around and making tons of noise. I spent about an hour messing with it every time we stopped until I finally just ripped it off. We passed through St. Louis and decided to head to Mt. Vernon, IL. We stayed at Comfort Inn. It was crappy.

The next day we hit the road and came upon a sign proclaiming something along the lines of "Metropolis, IL. Home of Superman! Come see our giant Superman statue!" We were kind of bored, so we got off the highway. It turned out to be about 30 minutes away from the highway. On the way, we passed a supermarket with a giant statue of a guy carrying groceries (about 25 ft. tall). Wow, we thought. This Superman statue must be huge if the grocery store has one that big. We finally came to the statue. It was about as tall as me, and carved out of wood. We drove half an hour back to the highway, thinking about what a pussy Superman was next to the grocery store guy. We found a White Castle in Tennessee and had lunch. It was right off the highway, but would have been well worth the half hour drive to see the pussy Superman. Why McDonalds is allowed to flourish while White Castle fades into obscurity is a puzzle that will baffle historians for decades to come. BTW, I forgot to mention it was raining basically the whole time we'd been driving, both days. That night, on our way to Chattanooga, we drove through the Smoky Mountains in the dark and in heavy rain, full of twists and turns and slopes. We reached our hotel, the Staybridge Suites, which was very nice. It had seperate living room/bedroom/bathroom/kitchen complete with dishes/stove/dishwasher, etc. They had an office where you could use the internet and print as many pages as you want for free. They had DVDs you could borrow for free to use in the DVD player in your room. I watched Sin City again, which I had bought at Walmart earlier.

The next day, we went to the Tennessee Aquarium, which was very cool. It had the largest fresh-water tank in the world, along with a bunch of sharks (I got to touch a couple) and weird dragon-looking things and a huge eel that probably could have eaten anything in the building, including the 8-foot sharks. We headed into Georgia afterward for the longest part of our trip. It was basically a few hundred miles of gas stations and hot weather. We saw a brochure for the "towing and tow-truck hall of fame" but decided not to mess with it. We ate at Denny's in Jacksonville, FL, which gave us the sense that Fred Durst was probably the best thing they had going for them. We got to St. Augustine, FL that night (oldest city in the U.S.) and headed for the Hilton, where we had reservations. We pulled in and saw there was an $18 mandatory valet service. The building was brand new, but made to look very old. It was very nice, but not very inviting. Later, we found out they charged by the minute to use their internet and continental breakfast was $15 a person. Skimming through their room service menu, we found out a bottle of Skyy vodka was $110. Basically, the place was no nicer than the hotel the night before, but they charged you out the ass for everything you did.

The next day, we took a walk around downtown St. Augustine, which was really pretty amazing. It seemed like every other house was a 200-year-old castle. We ate breakfast and headed to one castle that had been turned into a Ripley's Believe It Or Not and saw a bunch of shrunken heads and cool crap like that. Then we headed south toward Fort Lauderdale, where our story ends, and our hero went to work for 12 fucking hours in the hot sun the next day. But that's another story, for another time. And so I bid thee farewell.

...Fucking sun.

bottomdolla @ 2005-08-23T22:56:00

2005-08-24T02:56:46Z

Florida is hot and shit.

And, um...I got married

And...I need an apartment or something.

The Escort is no more

2005-07-14T04:18:41Z

My Escort overheated a couple nights ago (probably because I hadn't checked the fluids in about a year because I only needed the car for one more month). It would have cost probably 5X what the car was worth to fix it. So I took the day off and got U Wrench It to agree to haul it away and then Dave and I went out looking for something new. We tried Saturn first. The guys at the dealership were cool and I liked the car I test-drove quite a bit. It was a 2005 Ion-2 with CD player, air conditioner and about 50 other things my Escort didn't have. Then we headed to Noland and checked out some of the dealerships there. The Chrysler guy annoyed the hell out of us for about an hour and had me drive a Neon, which made the Saturn seem like a Ferrari.

We checked a couple other places out pretty quick, but finally settled back on the Saturn dealer, and picked the car I originally drove. The payments are about $270 a month, but I didn't have to put a down-payment on it and it's only 0.9% interest. Pretty long day, but as long as I don't have too much trouble making the payments, I think it'll be a pretty good car.

bottomdolla @ 2005-06-04T06:00:00

2005-06-04T12:15:56Z

So tonight I drove home in a monsoon. I got off work at 2 AM. The rain was moving in a horizontal direction at about 50-60 mph. In the 15 seconds it took me to walk to my car after leaving the building, I got totally drenched as if I had just jumped in a swimming pool. As if that wasn't enough, I felt like someone had just beat the shit out of me for 20 minutes and dropped me in a freezing cold river. I literally couldn't breathe by the time I got to my car.

Then the fun started. I couldn't see behind me as each of my windows seemed to be covered in one giant cloudy raindrop. Narrowly avoiding a few breathless, ready-to-collapse pedestrians, I finally made it onto the street. Granted, I couldn't see the street most of the time, and I found myself veering from one side of the road to the other as I caught glimpses of oncoming obstacles. At this point, the windshield wiper on the left (the most important one) got blown off the edge of the windshield and started smacking the driver's-side window for a few seconds before jerking back onto the windshield and continuing its work. Then it happened again. And again. Before long, it got completely stuck on the side of the car, leaving me completely blind to anything in front of me (I was on the highway at this point). So I opened my window and pushed it back. And it slid right back off. Pushed it again. Back it comes. Since I was starting to go around corners, and I wasn't seeing most of them until they were about five feet away, I decided I would have to block the wiper from sliding off with my hand sticking out the window, wind and rain blowing in my face.

It occurred to me after about 30 seconds that the rain hitting the back of my hand felt not unlike a few dozen BB guns firing directly into my knuckles every second. That went on for twenty minutes. Every time I thought my hand was starting to get numb, it would laughingly climb to a new plateau of pain; and that's not counting the wind throwing the windshield wiper at my palm every few seconds, visions of a hammer coursing through my head at every strike.

Finally I made it home, bent my windshield wiper back into place, changed out of my soaked clothes (even the stuff in my pockets was dripping wet), and decided I would never leave the apartment again.

Here are my hands. Guess which one did the dirty work.

Star Wars

2005-05-22T08:22:05Z

That may have been the worst sound design/sound editing I've ever heard in a big-budget movie.

I think it's a bad sign for the movie that I spent more time thinking about that than anything else.

Movie critics blow.

Icon

2005-04-26T09:30:51Z

New icon! What's everybody think?

yo

2005-03-25T09:28:12Z

So today we went to China Super Buffet!!! with Jake and Dave.

Saturday we're going to hang out with Kyle. We shall go to China Super Buffet!!!

I need to talk to Jameson about throwing together a song. Jameson, let's do a song.

The end.

I hate idiots that get paid more than me

2005-03-13T07:49:07Z

So last night, my boss Steve is having our nightly bullshit meeting about nothing, and after a while he asks who'd like to work on some files (while everyone else sits on their ass for 2 hours). I volunteered along with a couple other people, so in front of everybody he says, "Sean, you need to step up your production."

Now, at first I was simply embarassed about this, as he had said it in front of the whole group and all. Before long, though, and after talking to some older employees, who also thought it was bullshit, a couple of thoughts dawned on me. I didn't say them to him because I wouldn't have had a job anymore, but had he looked at me the wrong way the rest of the night, he'd have gotten the following, in front of everybody since he had made it a public issue:

A)You've been telling us for over a week now that we're ahead of schedule, and that we should be doing about 50 files a night.

B)For the last 2 or 3 weeks, I've been turning in right around 50 or 60 files a night, which by the way, is the same range as about 7 or 8 other people i talked to. If you have a problem with that, give us a new fucking number.

C)From now on, if you have something to say to me, you pull me aside and you say it. You don't put it out in front of all these people. It's not their fucking business. One of the first things you learn in any 8th grade-level management class is that's ignorant and ineffective. Act like there's a reason you're wearing that (supervisor) vest.

Then he would have cried and told me to pack my shit. But it didn't happen. So.........