Ode to outrageous automotive repair costs

We got the car back late yesterday... Looks great, Jon will post a pic later... But $10,000 later, it should look fabulous! We tried to call the party responsible... Yeah, the phone number listed on the police report was wrong... Or at least they told us that the person we were looking for was not at that number. How convenient! We're going to send him a certified letter, in hopes that we can recover the deductible... Wish us luck!

On the other project... We had Paul and Tina over on Tuesday to help put up the trusses. Don't you love Wisconsin... On the only day we could secure help... It rained. We worked anyway, for about thirty minutes, when the rain fell harder. Yesterday Jon and Don spent about an hour securing the one truss we actually managed to put up on Tuesday... Then they went to start putting up the next one, and discovered that they have special trusses for the front and back wall... Fancy that! So all that work, both Tuesday and Wednesday, went to waste! So, today, Thursday, we are no further than we were on Tuesday... We have one truss. And my husband thought that it would be done in one evening... Huh...

The sky outside my window look good, puffy white clouds amid blue skies... Hope it looks the same in South Milwaukee... I would like to see some real progress today... Here is hoping. (I seem to be doing a lot of that these days!)

A Series of Unfortunate Fortunate Events

Ahhhh... Mondays. What's been going on since Friday.

The weekend went very well. Our Nephew came to visit. A word to the wise. Never let a destructive 6 year old in your Animal Crossing town. Hurricane Evan came through on Sunday, not many trees survived and there is trash everywhere. At least it gives me a reason to play it again.


Our garage is finally starting to really come along. We got all the walls up on Saturday. I hope to have the trusses up tonight, and be roofing by the weekend.

Heh, just noticed a spider on my offices wall.

My iPod screen got cracked from me dropping it last week. I tried to have Apple replace it but they do not cover cracked LCDs even within the first 30 days. Luckily I managed to return it to Best Buy, no questions asked. Not only did I get a new one, but I also got an upgrade to an iPod photo as they don't make the black and white ones anymore. Boo Yah!

To Old Friends

Today I discovered a whole community of our friends who have blogs on livejournal. We made so many true friends in high school and college (to a much lesser degree) that we have lost contact with. It is so cool to be able to read about what is happening in their lives, and leave little notes to remind them that we are here! Sometimes we wonder if anyone is out there reading our blog, old friends, new friends, family... I guess its ok if there is no one, but if you are there leave us a note. If you also have a blog, leave us an address! There is some weird quirk in our DNA that makes everyone else's lives so much more interesting than our own! To all of our commrades, keep in touch!

Weather

Damn rain. Second day in a row that I will not be going home for lunch. At least I feed the cats this morning so they will not be so hungry when I get home later. Even if I did go home its not like Benji would releave himself anyways. Hed just sit on the deck and look really sad before coming back in and drenching everything.



And I wanted to get some construction done today. Funny Me.

Motivation

Paul Graham

I can't stop reading this guy's essays. Its some good stuff, in my humble opinion. He tends to talk about programers, or "hackers" as he calls them, but a lot of it can be applied to any situation. Some of it may be comon sence, but its always nice to re-affirm what you know.

I love this poster. Ironically we have these all over my factory.

Funny Husband

Isn't my husband funny (and cute?) and handy (usually) and, well he wears lots of hats! The job is getting better... I am becoming more and more independent from my counterpart (she started the same day I did, yet she's constantly asking me questions about stuff...) Today, I got voice mail and yesterday, I got a key!!! (no more getting locked out when I go to the bathroom!) Isn't it funny how you start out life being pleased by small things like nipples and clean diapers, and then you get really needy (Nintendo, computers, college tuition...Etc) and then you become so stoked because you got a garbage can or keys at work! Life is a very strange thing!

Cute as a kitten

Wow, my wife managed not one, but two posts before I posted again. Amazing.

My brother and his girlfriend found two kittens last week in their backyard. I am extremely jealous. How often do you go into your back yard and say "Hey, Look! Kittens!" (Note to self, plant kittens in back yard. Then Julie can't refuse to keep them) It seems most cats come from the back yard. My families first cat cam out of the ravine in the back of our house. I am happy for them. They just lost one of their other cats a couple months ago, and nothing mends a broken heart like cute, cuddly, balls of fur!

Toast

I would like to propose a toast to boredom.... (and subsequently)to jobs with no actual work to do. The days go much faster when one's employer actually keeps one busy. Perhaps this is the test, how long can a new employee last just sitting in their cube staring at plastic? The answer is one week, seven hours, nineteen minutes and twelve seconds... From experience... I am off to explode... 10... 9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...

Stressed

Thank somebody... it's FRIDAY! The end of another glorious stress ridden week! Does this maddness ever end?



There is no news on my car... seems that our insurance agent conviently took vaccation. Do you think she could have mentioned that to us? No, that would have been far too easy!

Then there is my new job... Yup I have work! I am the Associate Registrar of Herzing Online College. Very important... I have spent the last five days filling and folding papers! However, I did sign my first paper as a "college official" yesterday (yippi) I am told my business cards should be comming in soon. I wonder if they will mention my paper folding talents? At least it pays well! For this sort of money, I fold paper forever! (ok, maybe not forever... a really long time?) Its better than alphabetizing for 7.5 hours each day!

Tommarow, We're off to Nat's wedding. Should be good. I'm looking forward to a good time, letting loose! (Not looking forward to the drive though)

Disclaimer... I can't get the spell check to work, so I don't want to har anythin about the pristine spellin contaned in sid post! :0) (read with southern accent, makes life interesting) Sorry... ok, I am done, I told you, its been a long week!

Contact...

I'm sitting here watching contact for the 100th time. Its a great movie still, one of my favorites. Interesting how it still seams totaly relevent even today.

We have finally started construction on the garage. We have one wall built and half of another one. We are off to Nats wedding this weekend so no work then. We hope to have all the walls constructed and erected by the end of next weekend. Heres hoping.

Big Bada Boom

Arn't peverbial Mondays great, especially when they are Tusedays after a holiday. Our week started off with a bang, and not a good one.





Thank fully no one was hurt, and the accident was entirely the other guys fault. Of course he does not have insurance. Oh well. It will probably be tommorrow before we know if it is totaled or not. It seems like we go through this once a year now.

Zi Plane! Zi Plane!

We are heading up north to go my wife's cousins wedding tonight. Hopefully we will have a good time. Saturday we are going flying with my mother, which should be fun with the new controls. It's all glass, as my mother would say. She has one of these.

I must have misplaced the pictures she sent me. Her's looks slightly different. Then its back home late Saturday. Our concrete finally got poured yesterday, and we should be able to start serious construction by the middle of next week. Going to have some friends over on the 4th, will be checking out the local South Milwaukee fire works, which are actually quite good. Should remember to bring the SLR to get some nice pictures.