Rant: Fuck, I feel awful. A neighbor that I've met perhaps once parked in our assigned parking space with a note on the car saying that they were given permission to park in our spot (?) and their phone number. My husband got home at 1am from a work required event to find this car in our spot, parks elsewhere and calls the neighbor to set them straight. Fast forward to next day, we go to get groceries and the car is still in our spot. Residents parking in guest parking will be fined and/or towed, so I call the security guard and let him know what's up so that we don't get into trouble. I tell him that we already contact the owner of the vehicle the day before and that the car is still there. He suggests that it be towed, I say whatever and go inside. Cue the neighbor knocking on my door after dinner. Fuck. Apparently it was her mother who parked the car and she's old and it was an accident and we should have called a second time as good neighbors or knocked on their door. There was also some guild tripping in there about her being 9 months pregnant sprinkled in there. The biggest mistake in all of this was the security guard not checking the housing records because the car had a condo association sticker on it with contact info in the office. TL;DR: I got my neighbor's car towed and will probably be delivering apology brownies that totally do not at all forgive the $275 tow expense that may or may not be covered by the condo association. Fuck! Cannot express how awful I feel.
Rant: Waking up at 5:30 am instead of 10am for school. Going to be some adjustments to the sleep schedule soon.
Rave. Copilot only simulator this morning. Rant. Driving an hour to get here, then being told the hardware corrupted over the weekend and wil be repairing itself for the next few hours. So we had to cancel it, and now I have to drive 1.5 hours back to the squadron. A phone call would have been nice, assholes.
Rant: There is not even the tiniest part of me ready to go back to work today, even after a three day weekend. This is especially so because of an annoyance with my boss. My patience was worn so thin last week, and I thought I would have rebuilt it over the weekend, which was great, but no. Rave: I have a new side project of my own that I've started working on and I'm excited about it. I just want to stay home and work on it. Rave: At least at the end of the week there's another awesome weekend for me. And even if things do stay fucked up with my schedule (the annoyance with my boss) at least it will just mean that I get to spend more time with visitors. Rave: We're renting our extra room out in September so I get a break in my rent. Woo! I get to hold off paying my newly raised rent for one more month (even though it was only raised 34 whole dollars each for the new year).
Rant: Parking drama continued. El husband went out at 4:30 to go to work. Guess whose fucking car was towed, even though we contacted the security guard and he OK'd it! GOD FUCKING DAMNIT!
Rave: I love weekends that involve a bunch of trigger time on Saturday and Sunday and then end with a grilling feast. Yesterday I fired up both of my grills and made a pile of ribeyes, brats, pork chops, roasted corn, and did a kick ass beer can chicken too. We really cleaned the freezer out. I tried adding smoke with some chipped up cherry wood scraps I got from my shop and it worked very well. Rant: Seems every time I walk in the bathroom here at the office there's a growing pile of paper towels on the ground within a foot of the trash can. We don't have a janitor here, you lazy fucks, and even if we did its still your job to put your shit in the trash can. If I didn't pick them up, I don't think anyone would. Rave: My beloved "marahoochie" fern (my boss' name for it) is no longer infested by fruit flies and is back at my desk. I dunno how they got in there to begin with, but they are gone for good. Rave: I was invited to go bear hunting this fall. I haven't even seen a black bear in the wild here in Minnesota yet. I'm excited already. Bear hunting! Woohoo!
Rant: I had a 14 gal saltwater reef-tank in my office. It was beautiful. Priceless corals were kept. I had one chalice that was worth well over $1500 on the open market. It really made me happy to keep such a beautiful thing on my desk. Came in this morning and it was crashed. Appears that somehow a clamp came lose on the chiller inlet pump. This caused some water to shoot out the back, I've got the electrical equipment covered just incase, however just enough water go onto the surge protector I had connected to a battery backup unit. I can still smell burnt electrical equipment. The surge protector was burnt, and warped. Thankfully the damage stopped there, and there wasn't a fire. My tank is dead. It would have been up for 2 years in 8 days. Rant: I made a last ditch effort to save some corals. I grabbed the bucket of emergency reserve water I keep in the server room in case I need a quick 5 gal water change. I put the corals in there, and drove home 25 miles to put them in the main display. Hopefully some will turn around. I'm not holding my breath. I expect this to be a total wipe. Fuck I feel numb. The only thing I could mutter when it all sank in was 'I'm so sorry' This sucks.
Rant: For the first time in the seven years I've had him, my cat went to the vet. He's been having problems with his tooth and the vet confirmed that the root is probably abscessed and the tooth needs to be pulled. We bring him to PetCo every year to get his free shots, but he's being put under for this and I'm pretty (irrationally, I know) nervous. I'm sure he'll be fine, but it sucks nonetheless. Rant: What also sucks is that I'm probably going to be charged around $300, and the fiance's car just went into the shop this morning as well (and I need to help her with the cost of that). Whole lotta cash going out the door today. Rave: Milo will be much better off without the bad tooth and it's only money--so who cares, right?
Rant: The idiocy of people who can't read an email with my name spelled correctly in 3 different places and then respond with it correctly is fucking astounding. It's right right fucking there...and there...and OH LOOK there too in my signature in bright green letters! Rave: Got this gchat this morning from my FWB that some of you insist is lying to me about my performance in bed. I may or may not now hold the record for triggering her longest orgasm. Rant/Rave: Now learned why we never have back to back sex days. Apparently little Parker causes slight tearing and she needs 2-3 days to recover. *Low fives himself.* Rave: Samsung Galaxy S3. This phone is fucking great. Even better when upgrading from a dingleberry.
RANT: People at work are being bitches and I have a headache. RAVE: Turned in a 100 page analysis packet for class, ending my summer course. Its was 15 pages of analysis and 85 pages of charts, graphs, and assorted excel sheets. Done with class for 2 more weeks, and my 2 classes in the fall are decidedly more fun and interesting. And those are my final two classes. My degree is in my sights. Can't come soon enough. RAVE: 4 day week this week, as I'm taking Friday off. Then next week, another Friday off for a 4 day Labor Day weekend. Thus, no full work weeks for the next 3 weeks. Damn thats nice.
RANT I walk downstairs around 11 this morning, because I work from home and can, and a few minutes later I see a cop in my backyard, he wants to talk. He informs me that there was a suspicious guy in the area, and that he had just been spotted inside my neighbors house and suspects he may have been in my yard as well. We walk around a bit and notice one of my sliding glass doors has had the handle completely popped off. The cop showed me how easily from there he could've gained access to that room, it was unnerving. The other annoying thing was that this guy was our schedule pool man, but not our ordinary guy. My thinking is that this guy figured he could rob houses while cleaning the pools. I'm a little disappointed in my dog, he didn't wake up or anything, the guy could have cleaned us out and he wouldn't have noticed. In his defense he is old and fat, maybe its time to get him a friend that'll be a bit more alert and younger. FYI, sliding glass doors are incredibly easy to break into, all you have to do is pop the handle cover off and essentially you're in.
Rant: So I decided to quit a close circle of friends of mine this past weekend. I'm not sure if I'm just growing up or if I'm just really tired of all the hassle that comes along with it. I'm through with taking sides. I hate how someone hasn't talked to me in months and everybody acts like it's all fucking fine and dandy. I hate hearing the casual shit talk about whoever isn't there. I hate the schemes the girls come up with to exploit or manipulate others and the guys in the group that follow their command. I hate how those guys will talk massive amounts of sexist shit about the girls, but when they're around they treat them like princesses. I find it normal that two of my friends started to casually hookup and then become a thing, but I don't find it normal that the girl left the guy and is now fucking another guy in the same circle. I hate how one of my friends used to date this guy who beat her and is now back with him. I hate that one bitch that just talks about herself and doesn't shut the fuck up. Gaaah. Time to move on. Rave: It feels good to be back. I didn't forget about you all, I just. . . . okay I forgot.
Rave 4 day work week and I'm done at the base for a little while....haven't enjoyed work that much but the pay is going to be worth it. Rant Haven't even started a small write up I've been assigned to do for the squadron newsletter...I'm running out of time.
Rant: Everyone's favorite Lance Corporal just went to Medical because his calf is sore. He's on light duty thanks to him bullshitting the corpsman, (not his fault, Navy corpsmen are trained to deal with non-dipshits who want to actually do their jobs) so we can't run him into the ground. He's malingering, I know it, his corporal knows it, and he knows we know it. We can't do anything right now, but it's been noted. We'll see where this goes. Rave? It's terrible to say this, but I am enjoying the... um... mentoring that his corporal is providing. In the last few days, we've found the following: 1. He lies about stuff that's relevant to his job, not just about stupid stuff back home. 2. He is unable to write a legible sentence. As in, he stares at the page and scrawls capital letters that would get a kindergartener sent to the Special Class. He apparently never learned the pencil grip, as he clutches the pen in his fist. Combining these two, said corporal had him write an essay about "Integrity And Why It Is Vital To The Marine Corps Ethos." When it was found that said essay was illegible and devoid of any intellectual content, said corporal went to an education supply store and got Big Chief notepads. He is now rewriting his essay, and I am going to be proofreading it. If it's still illegible, we have these bad boys waiting for him. Imagine the scene that is me walking into work to find a grown man writing in a first-grader's notebook, his NCO leaning over his shoulder and making helpful comments. I immediately thought of A Confederacy of Dunces and enjoyed the mental image of Ignatius J Reilly in uniform, writing his memoirs and making a cheese dip before cursing out the "stupidity of the terrible machinations of this inhuman artificial society" or something equally poignant. I then reverted to reality and sighed at the fact that we are currently teaching first-grade penmanship to a 25-year-old man. And trying to impress upon him that it is a bad idea to lie about a task as simple as counting the tools to make sure they're all in the box. Rant: The air traffic control tower's elevator is busted. That's fourteen flights of stairs. Rave: It's excellent exercise to carry a kettlebell up said stairs. It gets amusing looks from the controllers, too.
Rave: we're getting our car back and not having to pay for getting it out Rant: this condo association is the most ill handled organization that I've had to personally deal with, ever. I called and went over to the office several times today and couldn't get the building manager (who is in charge of the maintenance, security guards, and problems such as this) and never got a call back or any info whatsoever. I had to get the unit number of the fucking board president from the other cat trapping lady and go make a menace of myself in person. The board president first tried to blow me off but then got an idea of what was going on and had to contact the building manager through his personal cell. Then, they didn't have money to give me for the tow fee, so we had to meet the building manager at his bank so that he could withdraw money from his personal account! Jesus! And on top of that, apparently we have to have some sort of meeting with our neighbor and the building manager or something later. Please kill me now.
Rant: Went to wipe sweat off my face today at work and while not paying attention set my wrist down directly on the section of I-beam I had just welded. Thankfully I took off my gloves before to make sure I burned it that much more.
Rave: We leave Thursday morning for vacation in Flagstaff, AZ. The only thing we need is spending money as it's a gift from my in-laws. It will be beautiful mid-70's temperatures if weather.com is to be believed. Wonderful. Rant: What could there possibly be to rant about with a paid vacation you might ask? Yeah, we're driving there. From Eastern PA. In-laws are renting a van and we're loading it up and heading on out. I think every time we cross state lines I'll make the kids get out so I can take their picture and watch their faces get progressively more miserable each time I do it. I've got to stay entertained somehow.
Rave: Bought my wife an iPad today. She spends a good 3 hours a day on her phone on facebook, checking email, reading books, and surfing the internet. She hasn't used her laptop in months. She will be in a very good mood once that arrives. Rant: My wife spent her day with her extended family. Her family is batshit insane, and that insanity has only increased recently. This has involved arrests, divorces, nursing homes, and drugs. This is the first time she has seen her extended family in three months, and from what I am told, she has no intention of seeing them again any time soon. Her mom is the sane one (and anyone who has read my previous rants about my mother-in-law knows how crazy she is). Rave: Our daughter is quite perceptive. Apparently, for the first time ever, she was extremely shy. When anyone besides my wife or mother-in-law tried to hold her today, she was wailing and crying, only to calm down immediately when my wife took her. In other words, even my 4-month-old knows how fucking crazy that family is. I find this hilarious.
Rant: After a month or so of being unable to contact the woman in Mississippi who I entrusted my valuables to, I decided to start making inquiries. I found out that she flaked the fuck out. She up and married a guy she knew for 3 weeks, who has 11 kids & spends a great deal of his time locked up. She lost her job with the sheriffs department for sneaking him out of jail. No one...including her mother or her 2 sons know where the hell she is. You might expect this shit out of a 22 year old, but certainly not out of someone in their 40's. So what kind of valuables have I probably lost? My guns (Including my late father's guns), 2 guitars (A Gibson SG & a Fender acoustic), about a dozen mint 1930's-1940's Bulova watches, a very expensive Tiffany style lamp (Think $1000+), and my baseball cards. Oh yeah, her husband also cut down about 30 trees on my property and rolled my tractor on to it's side. Before you write the baseball cards off as a minor issue, bear in mind that I've bought and sold cards for almost 40 years...these were the ones I decided to keep. There were several thousand from between 1952 & 1973, many of them graded PSA 8 or above. Fair market value on what she was holding was probably $8-10K. (Not going by book value, but fair market value. Book value would've been well over $75K, but no one ever pays that.) And there were about 200 or so that I personally had autographed...very little dollar value, but lots of sentimental value. Rant Part Duex: I'm going to spoiler this because it's just fucking gross. Spoiler A couple days ago I discovered a lump under my testicles. It grew to the size of a walnut and hurt like hell. I was starting to get quite concerned and then it burst. Then I got really fucking concerned. When I went into the bathroom to clean up I prepared myself for the worst. The worst being blood. Oh, how I underestimated the body's ability to produce some vile, horrible stuff. It smelled and looked like I'd shit myself, but from out the front rather then where you normally expel shit from. The smell was absolutely putrid. I had to spray the bathroom down with deodorizer just to breathe. I still don't know what the fuck caused it. Ah, the joys of getting old.