lean on me

last weekend i came home to find my mailbox leaning at about 45 degrees away from my driveway. there is a curved tire track across my neighbors driveway, cutting thru the triangle of grass between ours, and across mine, heading directly for my mailbox. thru my mastery of geometry, i've figured out that a car has struck my mailbox. there was a policeman's business card in the leaning mailbox. i've left a few messages, and he's returned with a few back, we have not actually spoken yet. i assume he has more information than i do, which i'm really anxious to get. my theory is that the police were chasing someone, who turned down my dead-end court, and tried to round the court... and then the chase abruptly ended atop to my mailbox. i hope it's something that cool at least, i don't want it to be just something boring like the recycling truck nailed it while maneuvering around the court. i figure it's at least something semi-interesting because there was some sort of police involvement. we'll see, i'll let you know after i talk to the officer and get the whole scoop. the mailbox is on a plain old wooden post, which pushed straight back up with little effort. i borrowed a shovel full of compost dirt from my neighbor to fill the earth void, and tamped it down to hold it in place again. with a little rain, the grass will blend itself right back together, and the alleged crime scene will be undetectable.
on a lighter note, i went to my first roller derby match last night. it was really an awesome time! my friends know one of the girls that skates for the M80's, i've met her a few times, but didn't know she was a roller skater. she wasn't competing however, due to a broken shoulder. she stood on the sideline, one arm in a sling, the other holding her trusty PBR, and cheered the team on. yes, you read that right, they were selling Pabst Blue Ribbon, and if that wasn't classy enough, it was only available in 24oz. 2X4 Cans!!! i had Two, and they were Fantastic!! it really helped to round out the mood of the event. they handed out little programs which had all the rules and referee signals and such, which i will have to read, because i'm still cloudy on most of what i saw. well, our team won (they're undefeated this season) and they will go on to compete in the championship sometime in october. i'll be going for sure!

goodbye to another great one

last night... couldn't decide where to go for dinner... i said anything but mexican, because i've not been impressed with any of the mexican i've had lately... the suggestion was thai food in the loop, that didn't really sound good to me, but oh well. so we're headed out 40, passing skinker, and i say "Hey, what about Chuy's?" "what's that?" i hear. only the best mexican food in st. louis! so i take the next exit and loop back like i know where i'm going, i've never driven there, only been a passenger, so i didn't have any idea where it was. a quick cruise down restaurant alley and there it is! i, of course, got a fantastic parking spot right in front... i'm good like that... it's late, around 8:30, it's totally packed, i figured it was just the happy hour crowd still there. the wait is going to be about 40 minutes, so i grab drinks from the bar. "you're out of corona?" si, we're out of almost everything. so i get a dos XX and a strawberry margarita, which he looks nervous about too... he looks back and says "that'll probably be the last one" i say fine. then standing around waiting, people are hugging the waiters as they leave, telling them goodbye, we'll miss you kinda stuff... i figured they were moving away or something... then a completely different group did the same thing. and i started looking around, and found a sign on the front door. it said that they are closing their doors, the last night of operation would be july 3rd.. it Was the 3rd! it said they were closing mostly due to the hwy 40 shut down, slow down of business and the rising prices of food. bummer, because it was a really good, fun place to eat or have a happy hour. when the bartender said "that's probably the last one", i was picturing the ice cream machine at pizza street, yes, it's empty, but it will be running again in 20 minutes... i didn't realize it at the time, but i bought the last frozen strawberry margarita from Chuy's in Dogtown. =(

yard work

okay, i've thrown down the green gauntlet in the court by starting my yard work today. i put fertilizer out 2 weekends ago (before all the rain... perfect) so it's green and fairly tall in spots already. so i mowed this afternoon, tried to give it a chance to dry a little, it was still pretty soupy in low spots. when i finished mowing, i sprinkled patch master grass seed on my problem spots in the back yard, which has that killer blue fertilizer/mulch stuff in it, so it looks totally stupid, but it works pretty good.
what else is new, it's been forever since i've blogged. i need to order new burners for my grill, since i'm late getting started on grilling season. during my final grilling last year, i noticed a hot spot at the back of the middle burner cover, checked it out last weekend, and the burner tube has completely split open, it's basically a flame thrower. i have to order them from the internet, because home depot (where i bought it) doesn't carry replacement parts for this brand (don't get me started on them).
my next door neighbors (the ones i don't like) i thought the daughter was the only one that had a chance at being normal, well, i have a reason to dislike her now too. they got a new dog recently, it's some kind of little yippy kick dog, my cat could kick it's ass... so last weekend i was having ocd-fest, cleaning everything, and see legs walk past my bedroom window, it's daughter next door walking their new dog, i see the top of her head thru my kitchen window, hanging out over there for a few minutes... and sure as shit, she let it shit over there twice... anyone want a dog? or a very small fur coat??
well, my former arch-nemisis (the other contending best lawn in the court) has moved out, there are new people moving in this weekend. i heard from one of the court wives that it's an older couple... haven't met them yet, hope he's not retired and plans on working on his lawn all the time, i'll have to cut his achile's tendon... my neighbor on the other side's new fiance, that just moved in, runs a lawn sprinkler company, so we're already planning to put in-ground sprinkler systems in our yards... he can get the materials at cost, and the machinery for free, it'll be a pretty sweet deal!

decisions

i've looked through all my options, and i'm going with the sponge... for my ceiling paint anyways... i've been dreading sanding my drywall patches all over my ceiling, because of the sand finish in the paint, sanding would leave big smooth areas... so i tried wiping the patched areas down with a damp sponge, and it worked great, it took the edges away and the smooth surface out of the new mud, and let the sand finish pop thru again. it also let pieces of sponge clinging to the ceiling, and big yellow smears all over, the sand finish was rough enough to shred the sponges, but the primer should cover all of that. which i hope to get done next weekend. i'm excited, because i'm almost ready to paint color in there... finally. my interior designer changed my mind about my kitchen color, it's not going to be such a bright orange, but more of a softer mustardy yellow/orange kinda color. it matches the other colors better. sucks that i won't have time to work on it this week, i've either got something planned, or i'll be working overtime, because i have a Bunch of big projects going on at once. i was off for MLK day today, but i worked for a few hours on the one that goes out this thursday. sorry, i usually try to finish with a joke, but i'm tired, and nothing really funny is coming to mind...

my car

you never really realize the power of red bull and vodka until you feel it's wrath at 65 miles per hour, as someone turns your brand new shiny car into the BarfMobile. last night we had guy's night out, went to the fights and had a blast. Somebody took it upon himself to drink the better half of a bottle of skyy vodka and about 10 red bulls. said person was ready to go all night, and talking of going down to the landing, until we got in the car, and i asked him if he was sure he could handle the landing... he slurs Hell Yeah! and rolls down his window and starts spitting, which i've learned from past stories is the sign that he's about to hurl. so i tell him that the landing would only be open for about a half hour by the time we get there, which was more or less true, and i turn towards the highway to go home. as soon as i merged over a few lanes onto 270, his window goes down again, out goes his head... and he starts hurling, it's coming out like a red bull flavored fire hose... of course there are cars all over the place, and they won't get out of the way for me to get over really fast, so we were spraying them too, they either didn't mind, or couldn't see the red bull fountain coming from my passenger window. for the rest of the way home he sat there with a blank look, and about every 3 or 4 minutes, would roll down the window and spray some more or just spit. i even asked him one time, "damn, aren't you empty yet?" of course i kept talking to him... half to give him shit, and half to keep him awake, so he was alert enough to keep rolling down the window. so after many slurred street names and pointing and grunting, i got him to his house, and he got in by using the garage keypad code, which took him about 3 tries. i needed gas anyways, so i drove around and finally found a gas station with a touch free car wash that was actually open. filled up and sat thru the car wash hut, which was really cool. being all lemony fresh, i get home right around 3am. this morning, i cleaned out the interior, it was all over the place, both doors on that side, front and back seat, the windows on that side, and some streaks across the head liner, those were the hardest to get off. oh well, it's not like i've never done it so somebody else's car... maybe there should be a blood alcohol limit to be a passenger in a car too.

nice weather / drinking tip

well, i had a nice relaxing Sunday working my ass off... i got up on the roof and took down all the Xmas lights, then i cleaned out the garage, because during the week, i was emptying the shop vac and knocking all the drywall dust out of it's filter, in the trash can right around the corner from my garage, so there's a mushroom cloud of white drywall dust all around me, which i am used to by now. out of nowhere, this giant gust of wind rips between the houses and u-turns right this whole batch of dust into the garage... car is covered, over then next few days, there were tire tracks and feet prints that you could clearly see, it looked like a csi crime scene... so i swept the garage out, washed and vacuumed out the car, cleaned the door jambs and all. i didn't clean inside the engine bay, maybe next time... then my buddy called and said he was bbq'ing, so i cleaned myself up and went over, and finally relaxed for a bit in the nice weather.

here's a story i get to blog about till now...
so, the day after xmas, i went to the blues hockey game with a friend. we had burgers and beers before the game, more beers at the game (i'm off work the next day, right?) then more beers after the game, we were meeting some people at McGirk's, right by my buddy's house, which is where i am definately staying the night by this point... Great irish band, with a guitar, a fiddle, and an electric bagpipe (it had an air pump attached, so it was just the pipes) very cool! so it's almost closing time, 12:30ish, and this Really Drunk guy stumbles in, literally... i mean having a hard time standing up drunk... so my buddy starts talking to the guy, cuz he's just like that... so this guy slurs "heyyyy, lemme buy you guys a driiiiink", so he staggers over to the bar and orders something, pays her $40 and doesn't get any change back. he starts waving us over because he can't carry drinks 10 feet to our table... here's the drinking tip... if some Really drunk guy is going to buy you a drink, perhaps this just might be the particular drink that has landed him in this state... so there on the bar are 3 Harp beers (for chasers) and 3 Irish car bombs. an irish car bomb is 3/4 of a draght glass of Guinness, and a shot glass, half bailey's irish cream and half jamieson irish whiskey. and he explains that you have to just chug it down or the guinness will start to curdle the bailey's, as he drops the shots into the guinnii (plural?) like depth charges... i'm always up for a challenge, so i slam mine with the drunk guy, my buddy says he can't do it cuz he has to drive (i later find out that it's just because he's done one of these before) so i slam his too. then we all stammer back to our table and drink the harp beer at a normal pace... last call lights come on, and we head a few blocks to my buddy's house, where i pass out on a futon mattress on his floor...
9:00am, he jumps in the shower and has to go to work, so i head home. what a horrible ride home it was, with a power hangover... i'm about half way, near the airport (where there are no exits or good places to pull over) and start getting the cold body sweats, i thought i was going to hurl, so i'm trying to plan a route over to the shoulder and i'll lean across, and take care of business out the passenger door... but with a quick opening of the windows, the cold air made it go away, and i was fine (with a headache) the rest of the way home...
That was the only day of my vacation that I didn't work on my house, i slept till like 3 that afternoon, and then watched tv (at low volume) for the rest of the day...

commercials

i wonder if they'll soon have a device which could automatically change the channel whenever a Billy Mays (the oxi-clean guy) commercial comes on... i'd glady "call now" and "make an easy payment of 19.95" to never have to hear this putz again... maybe it's just the channels i've been watching, but i have to listen to him about twice an hour... maybe in 2008 i'll try to watch even less tv...

anniversary

this week is my quitting smoking anniversary... actually, it was last sunday, i just haven't had time to blog since then. december 9, 1999, it's been 8 years, whew... and i don't miss it at all, can't believe I used to do that... Blech...
well, the snow was fun this weekend! today it looked like it was snowing Inside my house... i was sanding drywall mud on my living room walls all morning, see the pics in my house folder. i'll put some actual house pics in there when i get time to go thru them to find some good ones.
MikeY

oh, a little xmas note:
a severed foot is the ultimate stocking stuffer!
~Mitch Hedberg

workout

Yay! i finally got in a full workout tonight! i haven't been able to with this headache that i've had for a few months... i'd try, then my temples would start kicking like a bass drum, have you ever seen the movie scanners???
they (read as "the overlords at work") sent out an e-mail about not going overboard with xmas decorations in your cubicle, they're not to extend to the outside of your cube, etc... so i bought a big stuffed santa, and put him on top of my book shelf, sticking completely out the top of my cube walls... heh! i was looking for a tree to put in my cube, but i couldn't find a free range, uncaged, humanely slaughtered tree anywhere... i'm going to work on some stuff this weekend to put up monday morning. i'm going to make a bunch of paper ring garland and staple it all over the ceiling over my cube, like will ferrell did everywhere in elf. i'm also planning on pulling down one of the ceiling tiles and wrapping it like a present with paper, ribbon and bow, and put it back up in the grid. normally i wouldn't be all gung heaux about it, but since they sent out that e-mail... i'm just sayin...

cheese

i've had a very productive weekend. friday i took my car in for baby's first oil change, i get 3 free ones from the dealership, they washed it too, nice! i got home and trimmed and mowed the yard, hopefully the last time for the year, but i'll probably have to mow at least once more because it's still green and growing, well, except for the big areas where my winterizer weed & feed killed all the weeds, they're a nice brown death color. then i got up on the roof, because half of one of my xmas lights on the front of the house was not working. i head up there with my baggie of replacement bulbs, and figure i'll swap out the one where the string is dead, and it would all light up. well, not so much. so i start working my way along, replacing each one with my good bulb... 30 or so from there, i'm comparing how long it will take me to get to the end of the string to how long it would take to go get a new strand for $3.50. then all of a sudden, it all lights up! threw the bad one out and shazam! i'm at full xmas spirit potential! saturday, i brought the ladders in and scraped all the high spots and flaws from my ceilings. sunday i was up filling all the dents, hammer marks and low spots with drywall mud. i took a break around 2:00 and made a sandwich, i also heated up some cheese dip for some fritos. after heating it up in a little glass bowl (i didn't read the caution, will be hot after heating warning) i dropped it on the way from the microwave to the counter. i've never tested the explosive properties of molten cheese before... man, can it fly! i immediately noticed how the splatter streak up my leg was burning my right leg thru my jeans, and the skin melting from my left arm... it was all over the floor, cabinets, my shirt and in my hair. luckily i had the ladder in the living room, it allowed me to clean the cheese and green pepper stuck to the ceiling... a little spackling can fix anything... so next weekend will be sanding fest, i'm sure it'll be a bigger mess than the cheese dip.

good weekend

well, i had a pretty good long thanksgiving weekend. i went to pujols 5 with some buddies wednesday night, it was okay. went to big paul and bonnie's (my parent's) house for thanksgiving day, ate too much of granny's chicken and dumplings (awesome), and put a new video card in paul's computer. yanno i can't to go anywhere without fixing something. friday got up early, picked up dr. mike and went to the guitar center, cuz i had a special 20% off coupon, and had my eye on an ovation 12-string. the coupon was only good for in stock items, and they didn't have the one i wanted, so i saved some $ and didn't buy anything. then i set big paul up with a laptop since the new video card didn't fix his computer, it's the motherboard... which i have to try to find on ebay. when i got home i put up my xmas lights all the way around the roof. then i went to see my friend margi's band in st. charles, that was fun. saturday i put up my xmas tree, got the lights and ornaments on it, but i need to get some garland or something, it's pretty boring. saturday night was paula's surprise birthday party at jive & wail. that was awesome! had a blast there... till everyone left me, all i had was the shot girl trying to get me to buy the rest of her tray of shots, which was nice. sunday i scraped my living room ceiling, i still have to do the dining room & kitchen half, then re-mud the whole thing, which will hopefully happen next weekend.

lost?

everyone needs to keep an eye on me and my stuff... if my dreams last night were trying to tell me something. i usually don't dream at all, or don't remember them or however you see it... i just wake up. well last night i was dreaming, first one, i was on a camping trip with most of the people from the drunkfest float trip. there was a big bonfire, and a stack of hay bails that everyone was sitting on. i see a cute girl walk by, and just sit there and watch her go by. then i say to myself, you need to go ask her out, and stop being worried about getting rejected. so i catch up to her and start talking... and here's where the far fetched part starts, she's actually gonna give me her phone number... so i reach to get my phone (my brain and life-line) to write it down, and it's Gone!!! so i guess the dream me gave up on the girl and went frantically looking for my phone in the hay bails where i was sitting and all around the camp grounds... then i woke up in a panic, reached over to the night stand, and there was my phone... ahh, i'm better now, it's 3am so i go get a drink of water and go back to bed. then i start dreaming again... i'm driving my new car out highway 40, then down highway K, and i'm in a hurry for something, not quite sure... and i'm almost out of gas (like i won't even make it to where i'm going). so i pull into a gas station and go to fill up... the pump won't take my debit card, and you know how patient i am with electronics and machines that don't work... so i have to hit pay inside, and fill the tank. i go in the quicky mart, and have to stand in a line of about 8 people buying soda and smokes, one hooshier had a nascar calendar... their internet is down, so they can't debit or credit inside either, so i have to spend almost all of my cash on the fillup, and go out to my car.... where's my car??? it's gone!! someone's stolen my new car with a full tank of gas (which pissed me off to a whole new second level). then i woke up again, it's now 4am. i went out to get another drink of water, checked to make sure my car was in the garage... it was, everything's fine, back to bed and don't wake up till 8 when my phone alarm goes off (no dreams in the last sleep period). hit the shower and worked on my brother's house all day... we'll see what tonight's sleep brings....

motivation

i'm having a serious lack of motivation lately, i don't know if it's the change in weather or what... i haven't practiced guitar in a few months, i haven't worked out for the last 2 or 3 weeks, i keep putting off my painting project in the house... i think most of it is due to this sinus bullshit i've had going on... i've had a headache for about 2 months straight, intensity varies from day to day, but it's really starting to wear on me. i've been sleeping even less than usual, which isn't good, my usual amount of sleep isn't supposed to be healthy. i took 2 weeks worth of antibiotics and musinex stuff, and neither did anything, i have no drainage at all, and the sinus pressure is still there, so it might not even be a sinus infection. i know nothing of these matters, only that it hurts and it sucks. so i played a guitar for about 15 minutes earlier, i was going to really try to work out tonight, but lifting is just going to make my headache pound... i'm going to make a big push on the living room this weekend. i need to mud the ceiling and sand all the walls, and hopefully start painting my texture coat of primer this weekend. we'll see how it goes, i'm sure i'll have to work on something for somebody else, or i'll sit around and just not do anything, and waste another entire weekend... we'll see.

birthday

so today was my 37th birthday, i got a good glimpse of what getting older is like right off the bat. well, as previously blogged, i got up at 5:15, went and got donuts, went in to work. paid for a parking meter next to the building, so i could go to my meeting at 8. my boss sent me an e-mail late monday about this meeting, he was going to be out of town, and could i go? sure, i don't know much about the project the meeting was about, but i could go and answer the electrical contractor's questions. so i get to the architect's office at 5 minutes till 8. pay for an hour's worth on a meter right by their building on washington. their freaking office door is locked. it's a glass storefront office, so i'm looking in, there's nobody anywhere... freaking architects are always late. so i start to think... and open the appointment on my calendar from my phone... it's supposed to be at the contractor's office, not the architect's. so i call in to my office to find out where the contractor's office is, i have no idea, never been there. our receptionist is on vacation, and i guess nobody was covering the front desk, because nobody answered the office phone, i tried calling in until almost 8:30... at which point i was already at my parking garage. so i make the hike to my office, pissed at myself for completely missing this meeting, and not having their address or phone number to at least call them and tell them i wouldn't be there. so i get to my desk and there's an e-mail from the secretary that i was trying to call for directions... i had e-mailed her to let her know i was going to be out of the office and wouldn't be at our engineering meeting... she replied "isn't that meeting for next tuesday?" so i re-read the e-mail for about the 6th time now... Yes, it is for next week. I had the wrong Date and Location for this meeting. holy crap, getting old sucks so far.

rant in e-minor

well, i'm in a bitchy mood. someone started this stupid tradition at my office that when it's Your birthday, You have to bring in donuts or bagels or something. so tomorrow, i have to wake up Early-ER so i can go buy donuts to put out in the kitchen... you've seen piranha swarm on a side of beef lowered into a river, right?? then i have to go to an architect's office, and pay to park, for a meeting by 8am, so i won't even get to play "how many donuts till i throw up"...
update on the garage door opener, i called my sears today, and mistakenly forgot to ask the lady that answered if she had a brain, told her my opener problems, so she could put me on hold for 10 minutes, so i could explain the whole thing again to some other moron who had no idea what he was doing. he told me to call the support number, that he had to look up, so i'll try that tomorrow. i guess i haven't ever thought about the knowledge a sears employee should have, i've never had to ask one of them how to do something... i always thought that'd be a cool job for me after i retire, because you know i'm not going to sit around and relax... but i'd be Way over qualified, because i own and have actually used most of the equipment and tools they carry... the nerve of me...
i have some mexican neighbors... don't get me wrong, they're all really nice, the ones that don't speak english at least wave... more than i can say for my asshole neighbors... anyways, there's about 14 people in a 3 bedroom house, and they have at least 9 cars... so every night from 10 to around midnight, there's a circue de solei de mexico acrobatic car maneuvering show. they have 2 that don't run in the garage, 4 in the driveway and 3 or so, given the time of day, up farther in the court. well, the last ones in have to pull in the driveway so the others can get out early... it's kinda funny to watch. the cat gets all up in a snit while this is going on, i don't know if he doesn't like the headlights dancing around in circles, or if he just doesn't like the neighbors... is there some on-going fued between china and mexico that i don't know about? he is siamese, you know... i don't know how deep he's involved in his heritage, when i speak chinese to him, he acts like he doesn't know what i'm talking about...

where to start?

wow, where do i start? it's been forever since i've blogged. the livestrong bracelet that i've worn for 6 or 7 years broke this morning. i bought 20 of them way back when, so i got a new one out, holy crap had the old one stretched out, this one fits right and everything. i have had a sinus headache and ringing ears for about 3 weeks now. i called my doctor, and he couldn't get me in for about 3 weeks, but they called and moved that one back 3 more weeks. so i went to an urgent care place friday, and low and behold, i was right... it's a sinus infection, and they prescribed me some antibiotics, which my doc could have easily done over the phone, but no... since i haven't seen him for 6 years, he has to see me as a new patient and all my records have been put away in storage. so i might still go and get a whole physical and blood checked, etc. when my appointment comes around. the really cute nurse asked me if i knew when my last tetinus shot was, and i said about 6 years ago, the last time i saw a doctor, when i put a large hole in my wrist with a flat claw (with big pointy nasty teeth). then she asked if amoxicillin usually worked for me, and i told her i had no idea, i don't think i've ever had it... so i've been taking this crap, and she told me to get some mucinex too, for 3 days now, and i still have a headache, dammit. this is why i don't have faith in most medicines, because they never do much for me. most of these pill pushers are just witch doctors with co-pays.
i've been fighting with my garage door opener for several months, it had a broken wire or loose solder or something that would make it's power shut off. with a swift punch or smack, it would turn back on and be fine. so a few weekends ago, i had it open, poking around, trying to find the bad connection, and Zap! a puff of smoke and a spark or 3, and the opener was fully dead. at least i found where the bad solder was on the power circuit board. (it was the one with the black char marks shooting out from it, sorry, i didn't take a picture). so i went to sears and got a new one, same one, just the 5 year newer version. of course i couldn't just replace the motor part, they've completely changed the design of the rail and chain, etc. so i had to take down the whole deal and assemble and put up the entire new opener. i have to call sears tomorrow, because either it's haunted, or somebody that lives around me has the same remote code. it keeps opening or closing on it's own. so i have it on lock, so the rogue remote can't open it, and i have to keep getting out to use the keypad (which had to be replaced as well).
well, there's more, but i'll put it in other posts... i tend to not read the really long blog entries anyways... maybe this will give me a reason to blog more often.

DrunkFest

well, made it through another drunkfest float trip... the tent is all hosed out and dried and put away, laundry is all done, what exactly is it that makes river clothes smell like rotten ass? the float was awesome, weather was perfect, beer was cold. i ran into some friends from last year and met some new ones this year. hopefully i remembered a phone number correctly, i would say my math skills might have been a little fuzzy at the time. i'll try calling some night this week. my only injuries are matching big cuts and bruises on the front of my shin bones from dragging into underwater trees. i was trying to map them out, i think i found them all. i took out my car battery for the radio box, mine was used on the second half of the float. in doing so, it cleared my stupid engine light i've been worrying about lately, and it didn't come back on through the whole ride home, so that's a good thing. so a big thanks again to my good friends that set up, organize, and make happen... the drunkfest!

crappy day

well, today pretty much sucked... work really dragged on, and i didn't get this job as done as i wanted to for a printing today... i didn't go over to dr. mike's for tequila shots, because i thought i had too much to do. i was going to go do some more shopping, but didn't go. i had to fill out about 50 forms because my work changed our insurance... i would rather have my fingernails pulled out one at a time than fill out forms... especially the same crap on multiple forms like tonight... and then there's all the boxes and questions that i don't know the answers to. it was about 2 hours of my life that i'll never get back, and it's not done yet.. i'll have to sit with the accounting lady that runs our insurance, and go thru it all and fill in the missing crap... with today's technology, couldn't our accounting lady give our basic info in a database to the insurance company... which could run a script to fill in all of these stupid forms, and save it all as a pdf, and not waste an entire folder of paperwork that i will never read... in fact, i'll probably put it in a drawer with the last huge packet of worthless info from the insurance company we just switched from... i'm just really tired lately of people doing things the old way, let's re-evaluate and find better, more efficient ways to do the things we do every day...

no gas day / walmart

well, i filled up the p.o.s. with gas on my way home from dave's tonight, mostly because it was empty, but partially because the asshole in me wanted to thwart the efforts of the mindless idiots who passed around the mass e-mailing of the "don't get gas on this day" e-mail again. what small thinking... the little band of nitwits think they will crush the giant oil and gasoline companies... then those same people, who thought they were actually affecting the world, will all need to fill their gigantic sport utility or minivan up tomorrow or the next day, and average the week back out perfectly for the giant oil and gasoline companies. idiots! gosh!

after i got gas (heh! still chuckling to self) i stopped in at wal-mart to return some jeans i bought late last night. i was on a supply run, i go late in order to avoid the mad sea of wal-mart shoppers. so i grab all the stuff i went there for, and went by the clothes section and looked at the discount racks, and they had some jeans on sale, in my size, so i grabbed a dark pair and a light pair. turns out, they use a different size inch on their tape measures in malaysia. they were too tight, and not long enough, either that, or i'm just built like a circus freak. so, it's almost 10:00 and the lady at the door puts stickers on the jeans and tells me to hurry, the return desk is getting ready to close... i haul ass, well, my normal walking speed, thru the store, back to the return counter, and there's some lady there... returning a Stack of clothes... that she had obviously shoplifted... we're not talking about a few shirts that "made her look fat" she did that naturally... she had men's clothes, kid's clothes, bathing suits, women's pants and shirts, in all different sizes and colors and styles... we're talking about 35 to 40 items, and guess what... no receipt for any of it... so the poor worker bee finishes zapping all the tags, and tells the lady she needs a manager's approval because it's such a large return amount, without a receipt. a few minutes go by... she tells me, sorry, i have to wait till this goes thru to deal with you, even though there's another perfectly good register on the counter... a few more minutes go by, manager #1 shows up. she's all of about 18 1/2 years old, with her little manager badge, probably needed to get out of there because she's got homeroom at 8am... she punches some buttons, makes "shady" explain the whole scenario again... then calls manager #2. another few minutes of my life click away... #2 gets the rundown from #1 and the worker bee, takes #2 around the corner for a huddle... they come back and tell her that "they'll allow the return but next time she's gonna need a receipt" read as "you can still shoplift here, but you'll have to go to a different wal-mart to commit the actual return money crime". i walked up to the counter (faking like i was getting impatient) just to try to see what they printed for her or how much they gave her back, but i couldn't tell. so, she heads off to buy her crack and my return of 2 pairs of jeans takes all of about 45 seconds, and i'm outta there...

softball

well, we lost the softball game tonight, not terribly badly though. the first couple of innings they had me playing center field, and i only got to chase 2 big hits down and throw them in. then i switched to 3rd base, and in my first inning there, i made all 3 outs. i caught 2 line drives, then someone grabbed a base hit and threw it to me to force the runner out at 3rd.. it was pretty cool. i made one more out in the next inning, then i messed up. i got the ball and had someone trapped between 2nd and 3rd, so i quickly did as braxton's old coach told them, held the ball up and charged the runner, then as they turned to run and were almost back to second, i threw it to the lady playing 2nd base. the runner turned before she could tag him, so she threw it back to me, i was in perfect position and should have just caught it and tagged him.... but i had to stretch way out to catch her throw, and fell and dropped it... as the guy runs past me and makes it to 3rd... i suck... but my good plays outnumbered my screw ups by far, i only didn't make it on base one time, and that time was because i just barely got beat by the throw. had some excitement about half way thru the game, one of our older players started spitting up and fell on his face and was convulsing on the ground right next to me. he was totally unconscious for a minute or so, just acting like he was choking, except i could tell he was breathing. i kind of propped him up and all of a sudden he came to, and started telling the 2 people who were already on cell calls to 911 to cancel the ambuli (plural?). he had just taken a swig of a beer, and he's got some kind of throat condition, he gets a bubble if not paying attention while drinking (anything, not just beer) and his oxygen level bottoms out, and he passes out... it was weird. he sat in my chair for a few minutes and was completely fine... he pitched the rest of the game... until we lost... not entirely due to my error on the run down... oh well.