It's finally caught up with me.

When I moved here I was too broke to register my car in California so
I was waiting until the registration expired and I figured I'd do it
then.

Then I got hit by the drunk driver right as it expired, and I was out
of pocket some money and I didn't have the money then either.

Then, I kind of had the money, but didn't want to spend it on
something like car registration. Nor did I want to deal with the DMV.

Today I got to the airport and parked at 5:30am and caught my flight.
I was dead tired. So when I got back and my car was missing, I figured
I must have forgotten where I parked it. I spent a full hour walking
through the garage looking for it before giving up and going to the
booth to ask if they could help me find it.

They inform me that it's probably been towed, and I need to call the
airport police. They tell me that yes, it has been towed and I can get
it back when I register my car. I have to take an airport shuttle to
the police station to get proof of insurance out of my glove box. I am
sitting in the airport police station lobby right now, where I am
waiting for a friend to come and pick me up so I don't have to pay for
a 40 mile cab ride in rush hour traffic.

Tomorrow morning I will have to take a cab to the nearest DMV, pray I
have everything I need to get my car registered and then take a cab
here and give them paper work proving my car is registered. Then pay
the impound fee, the ticket, the tow charge, etc.

All by an 11am meeting. I should just cancel that right now.

Frankly, it would be easier to rent a car tomorrow and deal with this
on the weekend, but I can't rent a car because I don't have a credit
card. The only way I can rent a car is if I have plane tickets proving
I've got a return flight.

This is all my own fault. Every last bit of it. But that doesn't mean
it doesn't suck. Hopefully I have the money to cover all of this
tomorrow.

Holy cow

I just experienced my first earthquake and I have to admit I'm a
little shaken up.

The ground still feels like it's moving, and the earthquake was about
an hour ago.

I was walking a construction site, and one of the guys goes,
"earthquake." and I was kind of sad I missed it and then I felt the
ground start rumbling.

A construction site is probably not where one wants to be during an
earthquake. But luckily my site is awaiting it's first inspection, and
everything is fairly well secured. And the base building is really
solid, brand new construction, concrete.

The head guy tells everyone to start heading for the doors, which is
of course an order I was happy to follow. I got outside, and was
shaking and said, "I feel like the ground is still moving." my
contactor said, "that's because it is." you could see the power lines
swaying. The construction guys were sooo non-chalant. One was on the
third floor balcony and yelled, "come up here. You can feel it
better." No thank you.

I think I can go a good long while without going through that again.

Karma

I feel like I'm owed something good sometime soon. I've had my laundry
stolen. I've had my iPod stolen. And I don't think I'm ever going to
see my jumper cables again.

Last week I was running late for work, got halfway down my street and
realized I'd forgotten my work cellphone. I turned around and came
back to get it. As I'm leaving the house for a second time, even later
for work, one of my neighbors approaches me asking if I have jumper
cables. I said yes and he asked if I could also take a minute to help
jump start his car.

He lives a little further down the road from me and I drove down there
and let him handle the jump start process. His girlfriend said, "thank
you so much. We're running late for work already." I told them to hang
on to the jumper cables for the rest of the day in case the car didn't
start again later and the girlfriend said, "thank you so much. We'll
get these back to you. You have such good karma coming your way."

Well, so far I've seen neither the jumper cables nor the good karma.

PS- I know karma doesn't really work like that. But life would be a
little nicer if everyone behaved as if it did.

Day 9

I've been without fast food for 9 days now. I've been limiting myself
to 3 cokes a day for 9 days now.

I skipped lent this year due to poor timing. Buy the good thing about
not being religious is that you can do lent any time. I'm definitely
going to do the whole 40 days 40 nights plus Sundays thing. But I may
extend it to see just how long I can go.

The fast food thing is harder than the coke thing. I tend to open a
lot of cokes, but I never finish them. So I'm just more careful about
how many I open.

The fast food thing though... That's hard. It's just so easy with how
my life works to eat fast food. If I'm going from one meeting to the
next with only 20 minutes to spare, what else am I going to do?
Answer- maybe carry cereal bars around? I don't know.

So far I haven't craved it yet though. That's good. I've only wanted
it becuase it's easy. When I start craving it, that's when it gets
hard.

Agh!

An 8G iPod is not big enough. Ever since the great iPod theft of '08
I've only had my iPhone to use and stuff comes up too frequently. I
need the variety that comes with more storage space.

Leslie is in negotiations with the plumber to get us $200 each for
replacement iPods. Yes, mine was older but there was a lot of music on
it that I can't get back without spending a lot of money. Plus, a
comperable one is $250, so we're each taking a hit.

If we get any money out of him the plan is to put it in savings for
when I buy a laptop BUT I'm not sure how long I can live on an 8G
iPhone alone.

Ah, the problems we modern people have.

Me on a horse

Look, I'm on a horse.

And now it's the day after and I'm battered and bruised. Tired and
worn. We rode from Hollywood to Burbank, past the Hollywood sign,
through an old landfill, under a freeway to a Mexican restaurant.

Then had a quick dinner and got back on the horses (already in pain)
and did the hour and a half ride back.

It was fun, but I can't say I'd do it in such a large group again. You
have to ride single file so it's not like you can actually talk to the
27 other people you're there with.

And the picture might not work.
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I am going to clean my room.

My room is a mess. I admit it. An absolute mess. I tell myself its a
mess because its so small and I have nowhere to put my stuff. But
honestly- my messes are like a gas. They expand to fit their container.

My room is the kind of mess that starts jokes. People have had a field
day with the thought of the plumber actually coming in to my room and
risking life and limb for an out-dated iPod.

So this weekend I am buying a storage bin and putting anything I don't
actually need in my room in the bin. The bin will get put in our
storage room and anytime I need something I'll know where to look.

Then I'll clean.

Then I'll see how long it is til it looks like this again.

Modern Guilt

Nothing truly inventive or groundbreaking. Just highly listenable
Beck. Lucky for me I've got my iPhone to listen to it on.

Leslie and I were robbed.

Today's blog was going to be about WALL-e, the flex power deal, and some general stuff, but now I'm just too distracted by being robbed.

First it was my laundry from the laundrymat. Now its my iPod.

Leslie and I have been having some plumbing issues. Today they were finally fixed, completely. But in exchange, dude took our iPods. Leslie noticed hers was missing first, which triggered me looking for mine.

Those of you who know me will ask, "how do you know if something is missing from your room?" Oh, I know, most of the time. I have a semi-photographic memory for where stuff is. Last night my stomach wasn't feeling too great, and i needed pepto. I knew it was under the pile of stuff in the blue box on my book shelf. Because in my mind I could see it there.

I know my iPod was on my floor A) because I could see it there and B) because it was under the legs of my chair and I kept thinking, "I should move that before I crush it with the legs of my chair."

Funny thing was this- I was checking my jewelry box to make sure everything was there as she comes in to the room to say, "I think I'm going crazy because I think the plumber stole my iPod."

I'm hoping I post this and it turns out, and I have to swallow my words about worker dude stealing my iPod. I hope Leslie is wrong and she did take hers to work.

Two years

I always mark the anniversary of the last time I ended up in the ER
for a migraine. Today makes 2 years. Easy to remember as it was July
4th.

I'm lying on the couch. I've just taken my last Imitrex. And the pain
pills aren't making a dent. I want to eat but I'm too scared that it
would be a bad idea. Im supposed to go to a barbeque today but that
might not be happeing.

I always get migraines after I've been under a lot of stress and the
stress is over. This is one of those for sure.

I'm not saying I need to go to the ER, but if thus second Imittrex
doesn't work I'm screwed.

White Ninja

I read cartoons. Not graphic novels, but the stuff you see in the
paper or the new yorker etc. This topic is a blog I've been meaning to
write for awhile and I'll fully go into it later.

Anyway, I was at B&N picking up the new Dilbert and Get Fuzzy books
and noticed White Ninja on the shelf. Half are pointlessly stupid.
The "were going to do something that doesn't make sense and it will be
funny because its so random" kind of pointlessly stupid. Like the
family guy (which isn't funny.) Half are hilarious. Worth every dime
of my ten bucks.

Its been around long enough to get a whole book published so I'm sure
I'm late to this discovery. Anyway. . .

www.whiteninjacomics.com

Maybe you'll laugh.

Also I bet one eyed people can't use iPhones. The way the key board
works you have to have good depth perception. I realized this just now
because I'm tired and I'm trying to type with one eye shut and I'm
making enough mistakes that its auto correcting to the wrong word most
of the time.