N'awlins at heart

Monday, March 24, 2008

King of Shake-Shake? *

I saw him. I'm pretty sure I did. And the story goes as follows...

I was heading home on the belt. Traffic normally flows between 75-80 mph. (Speed limit 65.) Due to this, when I am on the bike, I usually do about 85. That put me at 5 mph faster than the flow of traffic, and keeps me from getting stuck in those traffic pockets. So I'm heading home, just passed the stupid bitch in the left lane on her cell phone who is doing 60, and cut back over to the left. I tucked down and resumed my cruising speed of 85. It was about this time that I notice the cop with lights on, on the other side of the highway. And I glanced back to my side. There he was, the King of Shake-Shake *. But at that moment I did not realize who he was. I did notice, however, that he was pointing a radar gun at me. But it was too late. At that point I knew he had me.

As I passed him he must have thought I didn't notice him. It was at that point he raised the radar gun and shook it at me. That's right people, he shook it. As if to say "Hey Jerk Face, you do realize I have a radar gun on you and clocked you speeding." At this point I didn't need a bonus ticket of evading. (And why is it called evading? If you evaded the police, you wouldn't have gotten the ticket. Right?) So I dropped it to 70 and get out of the passing lane. (That's what it is people, the passing lane. If you ain't passing someone, get out of it!) It must have been my lucky day, because he didn't jump in his car and come after me.

Onto the next topic. On and off there have been break in's in the parking garage at work. For whatever reason, they always target trucks. Every email I have received at work in the last 2 years, that involve vehicles being broken into, have been trucks. So last Thursday my boss was the victim. Someone punched out the locks in his F-150 and stole his stereo. Friday he went to the dealer to have his locks and stereo replaced. Instead he left with a 2008 Mustang. It's actually pretty nice. But it is still technically a muscle car. So, being the jack ass that I am, I asked my boss (who shaves his head) if he was going to grow a Mullet.

I had to give him credit. His response: "That's it. Come May, you're outta here!" He really is pretty funny.

* Blog title stolen from Queen of Shake-Shake.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

You smell like old apples tied to a bag of shit. *

So, I have a new job coming up. And Murphy jumps up to kick me in the nuts. The situation goes like this. Tuesday I interview with the new boss who tells me April 7th is the date they'd like me in there. That gives me 2 weeks.

We interviewed 4 guys to replace 1 open position last week, so it works out in our lab, because we can just hire 2 of them. So Thursday afternoon I talk to my Contract Rep and she tells me she will tell my boss what it going on Friday Morning.

Friday Morning arrives, and I'm informed by Coworker D that my Rep had spoken with my boss and he talked to Coworker D about training a new guy. Then I log onto my work computer and Russell informs me his boss is freaking out. The date I'm supposed to go there is some time in May. There is a guy I'm replacing, and his contract ends in May.

So this leaves me in an awkward spot. I can sit in my current lab, with a boss knowing I'm leaving. Go to the new lab, and sit next to a guy I'm replacing that doesn't know he's about to be let go. Or be out of work for a month.

A good thing is, it's kinda out of my hands. I did speak to my current boss and he said I was welcome to work there until the move. So I'm thinking that's where I'll be. I guess they'll see if any of the other 3 guys are still looking for work in a month or so.

On an entirely different note, I was looking around on the laptop and went to check the settings of the mouse / touch pad. Looks like the programmers have jokes. I love the time they put on the clock for the settings image.

* Robot Chicken

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Sometimes I just don't think. Seriously.

So W1 and I are heading to the grocery store. I decide we should take the truck just to switch it up. So we hop in and head to Randalls. When we start to pull away I notice I have about 1/8 of a tank of gas left. Before we took the truck to go to the store I was thinking I would try to make it to work and fill up there. We decided that wasn't in my best interest. Can you imagine it? I called in late Friday because i ran out of gas on the bike. Then Monday morning I call in late with the exact same excuse. They would be sooooo unimpressed.

Yesterday we went for a ride to Stubbs Cycles. They were having a stunt show so we decided to check it out. I ran across this bike in the parking lot. It's a 1994 F2. Gives me ideas of what to do with the F3. Okay, maybe not. There were some pretty cool stunts all in all. Some with repercussions. Ha ha ha. Okay, that was actually on purpose. Must have had a new tire on order.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Oh, I think I have gas.

So, a few months back I got the speedohealer. My bike speedometer is 100% accurate. That is a plus. The minus is, I use to hit the reserve between 130 and 145 miles, now I have to hit it around 105 miles.

So I headed into work yesterday. My boss says if we are going to be later than 10:00, to call and let them know. I told him I'd be in around 10:15. I was literally 2 miles from work on the highway when I got in the left (passing lane) and felt the ever so familiar stalling sensation. Normally not a big deal. I've done it so often I can reach down with my left hand a flip the reserve on and be good to go. This time it was different. Because I was passing someone, there was a car riding my ass behind me. I could tell the bike was already slowing down and decided rather than get run over, I'd pull to the side of the road and flip it there. When I pulled over the bike had totally stalled out. I flipped on the reserve, pushed the start button, and it wouldn't turn over. I guess the small amount of gas left didn't weigh enough to give it the shot it needed to turn over.

I calmly called W1 so she wouldn't worry. Unfortunately, I was on the side of a busy highway so all she could hear was cars and trucks zooming by, and me saying her name (since I couldn't hear her well either due to the noise). Her first thought was paramedics were calling her from the side of the road, as I was already later than usual. Once I got off the phone with her, I called Rescue Russell. Being 2 miles away from work he stopped at a gas station and got some gas in a can for me. After I put a little in the tank, I was good to go, and made it in at the early hour of 11:00 AM.

While siting on the side of the road waiting, 2 cop cars passed without a second look. Then a motorcycle cop gave me the thumbs up as he passed, to ask if I was okay. I gave him the finger, ha ha, just kidding, I gave him the thumbs up to let him know I was fine. In the time I sat there waiting 4 sportbikes stopped to check on me, and 2 cars. I was pretty impressed considering I was only sitting there for 20-30 minutes. One of the sportbikes passed, exited the highway, u-turned, and came back to check on me. And one of the 2 cars was a co-worker from my lab, who was also running late. I thought that was nice of him. But I did catch a ration of shit from the rest of the lab when I did finally make it in.

Worst part of the story. Right after I left the apartment this morning the tires felt weird. So I stopped at a gas station to put air in them. With the weather changing from hot to cold so often they tend to get low. I was going to gas up while I was there, but I has to stop at 2 gas stations to find a working air hose. Noticing I was at 85 miles at the time I "just figured" I had enough gas to make it in. And stopping for air made me later than usual which makes W1 worry. (No I am not blaming her for this!) So yeah, I ran out of gas on the way to work, 20 minutes after I stopped at not one, but two gas stations.

3 lessons learned from this experience (one I have known for a while).

1. Fill up before work when I'm at 80 miles on a tank of gas.
2. Hit the reserve while still moving.
3. Don't figure!

Thursday, March 06, 2008

*And since we've no place to go. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

What a week! This has been one of the worst in a while, and it's not over yet. Although, work wise, it's almost over for me. We are heading to Dallas tomorrow for Tim and Kristen's wedding. I can't wait. It's going to be great to see a lot of people we haven't seen in a while. Plus, I will be able to check off Dallas as another city in Texas that we have finally visited. (Heads up Austin, you're next!) Now the news I got today was, it may actually snow in Dallas this weekend. What the Hell is that? This is Texas people, the south! Snow? Come on now!

This did remind me of being younger and visiting N.Y.. We were at Grandma H's house and we were sliding down the hill in the snow on those blue window treatment plastic things. Aunt L had bought little Tim and David a plastic red sled. She let us borrow it, and the 3 of us (Me, S1+o, and Aunt P) decided to ride down all at once. Short story long we destroyed their poor sled before they ever got a chance to use it. As a joke I wanted to pick one up for Tim and give it to him as a wedding gift. I never thought that he may actually be able to use it this weekend in Dallas. (Side note, I did not pick one up. You try to find a snow sled in Texas! Good luck with that.) But I still think it would have been funny. Maybe I'll do a toast at the wedding. "I know I totally destroyed your toy sled before you ever got to use it..."

I dropped my truck off to a friend of a friend to have my brakes looked at. I didn't want to get the "This guy doesn't know cars if he's not doing his own breaks, so lets tell him he needs lots of other stuff" deal. How wrong was I? Well, I found out I didn't need rear brakes. Apparently the guy I bought the truck from already changed them. Unfortunately, he apparently didn't know much about them either, because he put them back together wrong. So they never worked. (Bonus for me, I have new brakes now.) But because they were put together wrong the spring was worn out and had to be changed. Also the teeth on the mechanism that sets the parking brake wore out too, so I had to replace that whole assembly. All for the whopping price of $198 and some change. He then informed me my front pads had about 30% life left in them, and would need to be changed soon. He offered to do that for the low low price of $220. Now I'm not the most mechanically inclined person, but they are disk brakes. I can do them myself in 30 minutes top. And the pads (if I got the best quality they make) run about $30 a pair. That leads me to believe the labor on that 30 minute job is $160? But that would include "turning the rotors" (translation: half assing by shaving the rotors so they are even again) if necessary. But guess what? Yours truly had to replace the rotors on a previous car. The rotors were a whopping $25 BRAND NEW!

After leaving the shop I noticed the green neon on the driver side no longer lit up. I assumed they pulled the ground wire loose when removing the parking brake assembly. It's happened before, no biggie. So when I got home last night I grabbed my tools and headed out to fix it. That is when I discovered they shattered the bulb on it. SON OF A BITCH! I paid almost $200 to have you break more shit? Thanks for the hook up! Yeah, I'm usually pretty mellow, but you bet your ass I was on the phone with him today. He'll be replacing that!

Lastly, I was heading to work this morning. I wasn't on the road 5 minutes and noticed the car 1 lane over ahead of me had something hanging under it. It almost looked like a single wheel in the center of the car. I thought it was a little odd. Then I look to my right and see 4 guys fixing a fence. They start pointing and laughing at the car. At that point I had to speed up. I was doing the speed limit and not catching up so he was doing at least 35mph. I went up to 45mph and passed him. Sure enough, it was one of these. I started cracking up. He must have had that thing pegged 'cause he was doing about 40mph. When I stopped at the red light he pulled up in the turning lane to my left. I knew nobody would believe me so I whipped out my phone and snapped a picture. There's your proof people.

*Traditional

Monday, March 03, 2008

Kids rock.

A coworker sent me this video. Pretty funny, if you have 5 minutes to spare, it's a good waste of time. Ha ha ha.

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Jealous much?

I am. With the wedding coming up this weekend it makes me think. I think a lot about the families who are lucky enough to be together all of the time. Not just brothers, sistes, and parents. I mean, Aunt's, Uncles, Grandparents, cousins seeing other cousins on a daily basis. Mind you I don't miss you all enough to see you every day, gettin on my nerves and stuff. Ha ha, I'm just kidding. But seriously, it must be nice to have the entire family close. Thinking af seeing all sorts of family that I rarely get to see is exciting.

Today we took a few hours, and rode up to a bar a few miles away. They had $15 all you can eat crawfish. I could have kept eating, but I didn't want to put the bar out of business. At least not on the 1st Sunday they're having it. I'll wait a few more weeks before they put our picture at the bar with a note saying "Not allowed to eat the all you can eat crawfish". It was good though. I would not have minded a little more heat, but for Texas it was really good. I'm sure I put away 8-10 lbs, and the "Seafood Boat" up the road had them at $14 for 2 lbs yesterday. I definitely feel we got our money's worth.

Last week i had another episode with Jeannie 2. First she was trying to get me to move a bunch of crap for her. Nope, had to sick my boss on that ass. He quickly put her in check. Then, later in the day she came by to chat with me. While chatting, she was steadily clipping her nails next to my desk, with wire snippers. How disgusting! That is what I mean by, NO HOME TRAINING! It was just gross. Clippings all over the floor, in the carpet. Just nasty!

I am really excited about the new place. I hope we are able to get it. It was perfect. The few things that were "the down side" were very inexpensive fixes. I mean, $10 can of paint, $2 latch for a closet. Other than that the place is great. We'll finally have a place to put up W1's porch swing. (And get it out of the ChiaHouse.) Of course, now I wish we could have figured out a way to keep that waterbed. Oh well, we have plenty of time to get a new one. If we get it i think there is gonna be quite a yoga area for a while. We seem to have enough furniture for the Master bedroom, Computer room, Den and Kitchen. I guess the bathrooms too. The spare bedroom is going to be empty along with the Formal living Room and Dining Room (or yoga room for now). But I have noticed from all the places we lived in when we were in NOLA, we will not have a lot of trouble filling up the empty spaces. We never do. Unfortunately we also lost "Recliner Alley", maybe that's a goal to strive for. Ha ha ha.