Monday – Sick as a dog. Went to work, was basically sent home about half way through the day, and then I went to bed. Everyone skipped rally, and Tigs ended up taking Lucy to agility while I went to bed.

Tuesday – Election judging. Wasn’t even sure I was going to make it through the first hour without vomiting, but I did. I confined myself to doing poll book duty (a job I could remain sitting for) and managed to make it through till the polls closed at 8. BUT WAIT! They didn’t actually close at 8!! Someone in government, in their infinite wisdom, decided that because the weather was bad, the polls would stay open an extra 90 minutes! That’s right folks, when there’s ice on the roads, your government wants you out driving in the dark! Of course no one told us the polls were being kept open, so we were closing up and sending people away. It wasn’t until ten after 8 or so that we found out and had to reopen things. Fun. During that entire extra hour and a half, we had maybe 3 more people come. By the time we did get to close things down I had to let my car run for about 10 minutes to warm up enough so that I could chip off enough ice to see through. I got home, took a shower, and went to bed.

Wednesday - I was back at work, feeling only slightly better then the day before. I left early for the home inspection, which went about how I thought it would. It turns out the house has some issues. The roof, the water heater, the air conditioner are all functional, but at the end of their expected useful life, the dish washer leaks a whole bunch into the basement, and there are some issues with the wiring. Then I went to school.

Thursday - more of the same, with less housing inspection.

Today - I had to go into work early (joy of joys), stay late (rapture of raptures), and then leave to offer someone sums of money (which I don’t actually have, and will be indebted to a corporation for the next 3 decades) for small patch of land and a structure that may or may not be my home in a couple of months. This mostly involved Tigs and I signing and initialing a bunch of papers. Then we left to go to an agility practice, except we forgot to give the realtor the earnest check, so I had to go back to do that. Then I met Tigs and Lucy at practice, worked with Lucy on some stuff, came home, and had dinner. Now I'm going to go take a shower and go to bed.

1. Have you ever been pulled over? How many times? I’ve been pulled over a couple of time for speeding, and driving with an expired registration.

2. What are you most likely to be pulled over for? (Speeding? Reckless driving? Expired tags/inspection? Bad signal/headlight?) In the future? Probably something stupid like a bad signal.

3. You're driving along on your merry way when you see a police car. What is your first thought? I check the speed I’m going.

4. When you see a cop car, do you hit your brakes or keep your foot on the gas? I keep my foot on the gas. Maybe let up on it a bit, depending on how fast I’m going.

5. What's your personal speed limit? How do you determine what it is for any given road? Usually around 5mph over the listed speed limit. This of course depends on how much over the limit everyone else is going.

6. What’s something you suspect you regularly overpay for? Car insurance.

7. What’s something you suspect you regularly underpay for?

8. What’s taking up more of your time than it should? The leasing office

9. What’s causing you stress only because you let it? Life.

10. If all your karma were based on your positive and negative attitudes, would it be in good shape, in bad shape, or perfectly in balance? It would be in good shape, but it would need a little work.

11. If you were a full course meal what would you be?
soup: French Onion
salad: Caesar
meat: Roast Pork
dessert: Pumpkin Pie with Vanilla Ica Cream!
beverage: Spiced Apple Cider

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Over the weekend tigergladys and I spend a couple of hours each day painting agility equipment at the club. Each day we went early and met up with the owners of another puppy named Tonks, and we gave the puppies the chance to play with each other. It went really well, they really liked each other, and they tired themselves out with greater ease and pleasure then we could do. The best part was that they offered to take Lucy during the day over the next couple of weeks, rather then us putting her into doggie daycare at Petco or the vets office.

Tuesday was Lucy’s first time spending the day not at home and not with us since we got her. She loved it, and now seems to love us less. She also came home completely exhausted. We needed to make a quick trip to Trader Joe's, and because she didn’t even get off the couch as we were leaving we decided to not lock her in the kitchen. When we got home, she had moved to the floor, but that was it. She was so exhausted I had to carry her upstairs at bedtime. She was ready to sleep on the couch rather then move!

As most of you know Friday we got a letter from the leasing office letting us know that they would be doing inspections of the property between the 4th and the 14th. With the arrival of the letter I contacted the bank where we got our car loan about getting pre-approved for a mortgage, and Tuesday we heard back. We’re pre-approved for $190,000, which depending on where we look can get us a fair house. That is of course, more then we can currently afford, though by the time Spring rolls around I should be making significantly more. So now it’s time to contact a realtor, and get ourselves into our own house!

In addition to painting, finding some place for Lucy to go for the next 2 weeks, and calling the bank, we spent a whole lot of time cleaning. It’s probably one of the top 3 cleanest the house has been since we moved in. It’s kind of nice having it all clean, but having to keep it clean for the inspections is a pain.

I finished the game of Galactic Civilizations that I was playing before. I won through cultural domination of the galaxy. It happened rather quickly too. I think I’m going to go for a variety of game styles as I go along, including an alliance/diplomatic victory, a military victory, and a technological victory, just to see how the game plays differently while attempting those styles. I have however discovered that trying to ally with some of the minor civilizations isn’t all that great an idea. It doesn’t work all that well.

I don’t know if it’s because of playing Galactic Civ that I’m also in the mood to work on my Battlefleet Gothic stuff, or I’ve been playing Galactic Civ because I’m in a sci-fi mood. And I don’t just want to paint them, but I want to do some converting and even some scratch building! Of course all this desire will come to very little. There is too much else going on that needs to be taken care of right now, and many other projects that have a significantly higher priority. Besides, I need more storage for my painted minis. I can keep the unpainted ones in ziplock bags, but ones that I’ve actually finished (and want to keep) need someplace safe to go.

Speaking of higher priority, Wednesday night was accounting. 201 seems to be more about theory and a deeper understanding of why we did all of the things we did in 101 and 102. The professor has stated a couple of times now that it’s not a bookkeeping course, it’s about understanding why you do bookkeeping the way you do. This is, as far as I’m concerned, a great thing. I love theory. Everything works and makes sense, in theory. We’ll see if theory matches reality in this case.

Thursday was payday, so we went to the bank, then came home and watched some TV.

Friday I took off to take Lucy to the vet. She was about due for her rabies vaccination. Her appointment was at 8:30, so up early we headed off. Lucy, thinking we were going to see her friend Tonks again was thrilled to get in the car, but when we hadn’t arrived after about 20 minutes she started to get a little upset with me. She eventually settled down, and just watched out the windows as we drove along. Things went fine at the vets, and he complimented Lucy on how beautiful she was. I agreed, saying she was a pretty girl. He then said that, yes, she is pretty, but he was talking about her personality.

Once we finished up at the vets I took Lucy off on a house hunt. I had found an online listing for a house from 1850 with over an acre of land for a mere $119,000. Ok, it is out in the middle of nowhere, but I’m willing to do the long commute thing for a house at that price. Anyway, we eventually found it (I forgot to print directions, and only had the printable flyer from the web) and it was awful. It was built in the 1850s, maybe updated once in the 1950s, and apparently by midgets who hate windows. Standing on the porch I could hit my head on the ceiling by standing on my toes. The sides of the house each had only one window. The front had 5. The sheds and barn on the land were kinda cool, though also needed some structural work. All in all it was a little disappointing, but not really surprising. Also it is right next to a quarry. That’s what that big white thing is on the map. It’s in a great little town though. Shame.

We then rode back to Frederick , swung by Two Paws Up and Brainstorm Comics, and then onto the park to relax, enjoy lunch, and get some homework done. We succeeded in the first two, and then Lucy started to feel the vaccines. On top of that the day was getting rather hot by this point, so we packed up and headed to the dog club building to get out of the sun. In spite of not feeling all that great Lucy really wanted to play, so again, not a lot of homework got done. Around 4 we headed home, and spent the rest of the night vegging out.

That was all last week. Tomorrow (maybe) I'll post about this past week.

The last week has been fun, computer-wise. On Tuesday (8/21), while I was home studying, the printer died. I spent an hour trying to get it up and running again with nothing to show for it. So when Tigs got home we checked the net for what was on the market, and then hit the stores. We ended up with a very cool wireless photo-printer, with crazy cheap ink. Of course that was another $200 I didn’t expect to be spending this weekend. Anyway, we brought it home, and after a couple of hours and a whole lot of cursing later we managed to get it talking to our router, but failed to secure the wireless network. But it all worked.

Wednesday I registered and paid for the fall semester classes ($600), bought the books for them ($300), and then went on to take the accounting final. I must have done pretty well on it, as I got an A in the class. As soon as it was posted I sent in my reimbursement form. The 4 months of the fall semester, plus the month to wait for the check are going to be less then fun with that, plus the tires, plus the printer all sitting on my credit card. Ug. And then I’ll be taking 2 more in the spring. But by mid-summer I should be making enough to make up for it!

Wednesday night the internet decided it didn’t want to play with us anymore, and it’s been like that since.

Thursday night we called Comcast at around 8, after futzing with the internet and trying to make it work for a few more hours. Shockingly we actually got hold of a real live person, and after he did what was necessary to prove that we aren’t ID10T users he scheduled a tech to come and check things out.

On Tuesday. *sigh* Between 6 & 8, or so they say.

So it was a weekend without the internet. I know for some of you this would be easily as horrifying as a zombie horde coming over the next hill, or learning that Fox is yet again canceling an awesome show that barely got off the ground. In reality it wasn’t all that bad. Besides, it was a busy weekend, so we wouldn’t have spent a whole lot of time online anyway.

On Saturday we started the day by checking out the AKC Obedience trial at the dog club, and hung out there for a while. Then around 11 we headed home, packed up some stuff, and headed out to an all corgi picnic. In spite of the high humidity and very sunny sky it was a lot of fun, and it turns out that a number of ODTC members are also members of the corgi club. (Although none of them were there.) The picnic was in honor of rescue corgis, but it was open to all. Lucy had a somewhat stressful time, but overall enjoyed herself. Plus, there were puppies! (Lucy loves puppies.) The picnic wrapped up around 4, and we went home, all of us feeling tired and worn out by the heat.

Pictures will be posted soon!

At home I decided to treat myself to some painting time. I looked through some of the stuff cluttering the top of my painting table, and picked out the two assassins that were sitting there. The standard GW paint scheme is really boring: black body suits and some details picked out in primary colors. I wanted something a little more interesting to paint, though I did keep the skull masks bone looking. I opted for a dark green body suit with some fairly intense highlights. It’s not perfect, but the effect is close to what I was going for.

Again, pictures will be posted soon!

Sunday morning we went to the farmers market and picked up this week's veggies. When we came home I worked on the minis some more. As it is I still have about an hours worth of work before they’re done. Then they’ll be listed on e-bay. Why will I be selling them? Mostly because I’m not really impressed by the sculpts, they don’t fit into my army, and I don’t have anywhere to keep them.

Around noon we headed back over to the club to watch some more obedience. The main thing we wanted to see was the basic rally. (Since the Monster is signed up for a class in September.) Now, most of the time events are run from basic to open to advanced. Of course, this time it was reversed, so we didn’t get out of there till around 8. A long time, especially since I hadn’t eaten lunch. However it was cool to watch all the different dogs run through the course. Tigs was really good at picking out which of them had the top scores. Then we went home, made dinner, and watched some Reno 911.

Monday night I had my first management class. It’s MGT 105 – Principles of Management. It’s going to be a ridiculously relatively easy course, with about 500 pages of reading over 15 weeks, and some written (easy) assignments. The book though… oh god it is BAD. In the first 10-15 pages there were 3 MAJOR grammatical errors. Major enough that the editor should be shot for incompetence! Seriously they were bad enough that I noticed them! Either way, it’ll be a relatively easy “A.”

Management isn’t anything I need for the accounting certificate, but when I want to take the CPA exam I’ll need to have about 30 credits in accounting courses, and another 30 in related subjects. I already have a significant chunk of that done (more than half), so it’s mostly just filler, since I couldn’t fit another accounting course in with the intermediate accounting and dog agility. With luck they won’t stick all the accounting classes on Tuesday night again in the spring. (Again, dog agility.)

I’ve also managed to squeeze in some Galactic Civilizations time. The first couple of games I played back when I first got it ended quite badly for me. This time I played at the easiest level (rather then normal) and on the next to smallest map. I’m actually doing well in it now, but honestly at this level that’s not all that hard. At this point in the game I’ve hit the middle part where no one is powerful enough to take on anyone else directly, so everyone is trying to build themselves up as quickly and as powerfully as possible. There have been a few little skirmishes, and I’ve lost some ships, but nothing too bad. I also have a couple of battleships currently being built. Once those launch things should move quickly. Plus my culture is dominating most of the map. I’m going to see if I can use it to “encourage” some stars to defect to my Federation.

Tuesday night the cabledude was due to come and fix our line. The window we were given was from 6-8pm. So around 6/6:15 Tigs took Lucy to the park, and I waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

Finally at about 7:50 the Comcast truck pulled into the parking spot in front of the house. The tech grabbed her stuff, came in, and checked the line. The cord was a little lose, but it had a strong signal once she tightened it up. Then we checked the connection, and it worked. She stayed maybe 10 minutes. Where the connection doesn’t work is through the router, either wireless or through an ethernet cable. So last night Tigs ordered a Buffalo router, which should be arriving on Friday. It’ll be nice to have internet on my computer again. And then I’ll be able to upload this massive post, rather then keeping it on a word document.
Or just post it from the laptop, with a 50 ft ethernet cable plugged directly into the modem.

I’m giving myself half an hour at work to update. Exciting hua? So whatever I write over the course of the next half hour will be posted when I get home tonight.

I got my check today, the first check from my new job. I wish this was in and of itself a highly exciting event, but knowing what my hourly pay is it’s not too hard to figure out what my pay check would be, so no surprise. The good news is that we can now pay the car insurance. However before paying it, I’ll be calling them to ask them to lower our rate. Hey, can’t hurt right? And it worked with one of my credit cards! The other one they wanted me to call back in January. Weird, but ok.

This whole week I’ve been mostly working on the employee files. What a mess. And what interesting reading. Part of the reason I’m not further along is that I come across such interesting bits of reading. For instance the person who was always late, and got caught parking in front of the building, badging in for the day, going back outside to park the car, and then going back into work! Or the towel that got left in a person after a surgery, the nurse who got blamed for it, and the surgeon who then came and said it wasn’t her fault. Fun stuff!

It’s traditional to talk about Christmas, you know, after the fact. Lists and all that. I don’t really feel like sharing much of that, but I do want to tell you about the most unexpected gift I got this year; an electronic keyboard. And all the accessories! We’re not talking about some cheap keyboard either, this is a nice one! Now for a while now I’ve wanted to learn to play an instrument. I played violin and cello for a very little while back when I lived in Lancaster, but I haven’t touched anything since, and I never learned how to sight read music. I always felt a little bad about that, and jealous of my cousins who all play one instrument really well, and several others passably. I wanted to be able to play at least one instrument, and do it reasonably well. This falls under the heading of making myself a better person though learning new skills.

So anyway, Christmas evening, we (Tigs, Lucy, and I) are up at my aunt’s house, and there is a pile of boxes for us. One of these is a big box, two are long skinny ones, and there are a couple of smaller ones. I don’t think we conveyed just how blown away we were by the gift. A lot of thought went into it, and it was to both of us! Tigs can’t practice either of her instruments due to rules about it at the townhouse. They provided headphones. And a music stand, and a stand for the keyboard! We’ve since set up the stand, but haven’t plugged in the keyboard yet. It’s intimidating. Not just the whole learn a new instrument thing, but also the whole very expensive keyboard with a whole lot of electronics! We’ve borrowed a “teach yourself to play and read music” book, and we are both going to give it a shot!

In other artistic topics, I haven’t done much painting lately. I think I want to clean up the desk that I’ve got a bunch of minis and crap on so that I don’t have to pull everything out and set it all up if I want to slap some paint on something. I’ve also wanted to sculpt again. I think I’m going to pull out the cheap clay I’ve got and see what sorts of simple things I can do with it, and work up to more difficult items. Maybe I’ll do some animals. Chickens? Something simple anyway, and I’ll post it before the New Year!

Can you believe Monday is New Years day? It’s almost 2007. It shouldn’t be so hard to believe either, seeing how crazy and busy this past year has been! Priya and Lucy came into our lives, and Raoul and Nebula left us. We moved to a new region of the nation, had temp jobs, got real jobs… and that isn’t even counting tons of the small stuff!

Anyway, my 30 minutes is up. I lost some time rewriting the middle bits about the keyboard, otherwise this might be a bit longer. 742 words. Well more now.

What’s your New Years resolution? Mine is to learn to play the piano!

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1. What events shaped your life in 2006?
I think moving to Maryland was probably the biggest event in 2006

2. How about you proudest/biggest achievement of the year?
Getting a permanent job ranks high on the list

3. Did you keep any of your new year's resolutions?
I don't recall making any last year

4. What is your fondest memory of 2006?
picking Lucy up from the airport is one of them.

5. What are you looking forward to most in the new year?
Getting us on firm financial footing.

( Star Trek Personality Test )

It’s been a while since I last posted, and I actually have something worth posting about. And no, it’s not a painted mini. As you can imagine having a puppy that was just spayed can kinda take up a lot of time. So I haven’t touched a mini since I put away the Aragorns. Never fear though, there will be more soon-ish.

Onto the News! (This was written last week, and so is more back story then actual news)

I have a job! Exciting, hua? I’m going to be working at Good Samaritan Hospital in Baltimore !! I’ve already filled out the paperwork and done the blood test, and yet another TB test. Monday is orientation, and then its on from there. The plan then is to take advantage of their educational benefits and get me my masters degree. Then I can get me a job that will pay me enough to get a house! Getting a house is the big life goal for the next 2-3 years. After that, I’m not sure what the big goal will be. Probably fixing the house up!!

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It is now a week into the job. Monday was orientation, and then I started actually working on Tuesday. It's been rather hectic as I come into the job with next to no hospital experience, and no experience with how an OR is run. I've spent a lot of time attending meetings and listening to people talk about things I don't know. I've also been going through what laughingly could be called their personnel files, and their payroll records, and trying to get those all updated. Both of these projects could take me well into the next several weeks. Lots to do, which keeps me from being bored.

Oh, and I have my own office. No window, but it's better then a cubical!! Oh, and I gave blood yesterday!

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We’ve been watching The Dog Whisperer from Netflix. The whole premise is that these people in LA who have dogs with issues call up Caesar to come and help them figure out what to do. The problems are usually aggression, nervousness, boredom, and lack of dominance in their lives. Basically the dogs are treated like rational humans, rather then as… well... dogs! It’s a great series, mostly because the owners are the ones with the problems, not the dogs! Watching the realization come over the owners is always the best part of the show. Well, that, and watching Caesar imitate dogs. He has this fantastic bond with his own pack, and just watching the show has shown Tigs and I a few things we could be doing better, so we’re working on that.

Happy Endings
I had higher hopes for this movie, and for the most part, they let me down. The most amusing thing about it was the written commentary that occasionally popped up during the various scenes. They made the movie interesting. Without it, it was mostly a bunch of people doing stupid things, and mostly I didn’t care.

( Five from a former Friday )

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I have a stack of books sitting next to me right now that I need to enter into 50bookchallenge before this years challenge ends!

Anyway, off to the library!

Hi everyone! Long time no update. Sorry about that. I haven’t been spending much (if any) time on the computer at home, and work has been actually busy. I feel a little bad about it, but then I also haven’t gotten any frantic comments or calls asking if I’m ok. So I guess it’s update time!

Work
I am still working at the help desk though Kelly. I actually worked Sunday which was incredibly slow (I think I took 8 calls the whole day) to make up for missing time on Monday and Thursday. I’ll also be working this Saturday in order to get a little overtime. There are some upsides to how slow working the weekend is, all the extra reading time! There wasn’t anything else to do, so I finished one book, and made it half way through another.

Future Work?
So far this month I’ve interviewed at a marketing company (joke interview), Good Samaritan Hospital, Games Workshop, and I have another interview with the city tourism organization Monday morning. Now I love these interviews, they’re great, and it’s all very exciting. The downside to them is that I have to miss work to go to them, and then I have to wait to hear anything. I’ve heard from Games Workshop, and they just can’t offer me the money I’d need, (they offered me less than I am currently making as a temp...how sad is that?) however I’ve put in another application for an accounting position, so we’ll see how that goes.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed, as there are a number of jobs that are out there that offer what I’m looking for. Now I just need one to come through for me…

Home
Have any of you heard about this?!? This is the reason both Tigs and I want an old farmhouse on a couple of acres where no one can come and tell us “No grills on your back porch” or “Your blinds must be white” or “No satanic peace signs.” Seriously why would anyone agree be part of a “community” where they can tell you what to do with the home you OWN!! If you want people to tell you what you can and can not do to your own home, why not just rent?!?

Six Feet Under
Just like writergrl, tigergladys and I finished watching the series finale last night. I thought that Sex and the City was the perfect series finale, but SFU nudged the bar just that much higher. I wish there was a Star Trek series... or even just a solid sci-fi series that HBO would take on. Given the freedom, I think there would be some really strong tales that could be told.

Puppy
We've got Sit solidly understood. Down and Stand are still very iffy. The puppy class is fun, and I think it's helping her with socialization more than learning commands. That's ok, the commands will come with time. tigergladys has been extremely diligent working with Lucy, and it shows.

Thanksgiving
The holiday was spent at my Aunt Kim's house. Lots of cooking, lots of playing with the puppy, and generally a good time (except for Tigs almost choking to death)... now if only we hadn't needed to work on Friday...

Today is dragging far more then yesterday did. At least it's lunch time. I have meant to write about this past weekend, but it's suddenly difficult to get a lot of time on the computer right now.

Saturday
silentrequiem took tigergladys and I, along with jainasolo5 to see "For the Glory" the Civil War musical. I was impressed by some of the songs and actors, mostly the slaves and the abolitionist. The union captain was pretty good too. The rest of it? Eh, I wasn't all that impressed. The costumes were utter and total crap. In fact tonight at Wal-Mart I saw one of the jackets one of the actors was wearing! Zipper and all! There wasn't really any plot, just songs about the civil war, and no talking, just the songs. I was hoping for something a little more... 1776, a little more story, and much less narrative about the war. Though I don't know how many people are ready for a singing and dancing Abe Lincoln.

Sunday
Montgomery County Fair, again with Tigs, silentrequiem, and jainasolo5. It was fun to go to, not too hot. See Tigs' post for pictures of the animals.

Yesterday
Work went very quickly, as I hope this afternoon will. When we got home we took Lucy out to the park (pictures forthcoming). She wanted to smell everything! We then went home, made dinner, tried to watch a netflix movie, but found the disk damaged, so we watched 6 feet under with Lucy sitting between us. Then we took her for another walk around the neighborhood, and called it a night.

Note to self - Charge and bring in IPod tomorrow... light rock is killing me! **Not sure where the IPod is... bother...

( Two memes! )

( Books! 16-18! )

Life goes on as it is has for as long as life has been around... I am now an uncle, and have lost my last living grandparent. My nephews Aidan and Nathaniel we're born on Saturday, and my Nana died yesterday. I'm also getting over a cold, and working in the pathology department of Johns Hopkins.

I'm looking forward to being able to spoil my new nephews... I hope they'll like books. And hamsters and puppies. :-)

devilsquid & rikkashaye sent Tigs and I an awesome care package from Okinawa. Aside from the assortment of Oriental snack foods they also sent us a beautiful framed piece of calligraphy.

On the left hand side is the Artists' stamp and signature, and on the right hand side is "June 2006 Japan"
How cool is that?
( This, however was my favorite snack! )

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Last Monday I had to head back into the heart of Baltimore to drop off a copy of my passport to the temp agency for my I-9 form. I also decided that I would swing by Glen Burnie and drop off an application at Games Workshop for a trade sales position that was listed on the web site. I got to GW, told the front desk that I would like to see someone in HR. It took a few minutes, but the head of HR (whose name I don't remember - bad me!) came out, glanced at my resume and cover letter, and let me know that the position had been filled and that the web-servitors were a little behind. Honestly I figured as much, seeing as the position had been listed for months, and the web site not updated in over a month at that point. I thanked her for her time, and went into the battle bunker for a little bit.

Fast forward to last Thursday. Tigergladys and I have driven up to CT so that she could take her drivers license test. Yeah, nothing like having it scheduled for 2 weeks after you move to a different region of the country... Anyway, we were in the Westbrook outlet plaza's parking lot practicing backing in and the phone rings. Neither of us recognise the number so I answer. It was Games Workshop! The head of the Battle Bunker (Jeff?) calling to ask me to an interview. Now, seeing as it was the Battle Bunker calling, and not HR I presumed that they wanted to interview me for a retail position. Well, I was wrong. They wanted to get me in an interview, they were bringing in the head of Trade Sales as well, but it was for an unspecified position. Now, they could just be interested in bringing me in to see how good I am, and not have a position in mind, or they could have a position that they haven't advertised for yet... or several other possibilities. Either way, just getting the interview is very cool. Now if they have a first shift position, M-F, that pays well enough, now that would be beyond fantastic. I'm trying not to get my hopes up however.

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( This of course brings us to last Friday. )
Yup, she passed! And I am amazingly proud of her. Not that it wasn't expected, as she has been driving for a while now (6 years illegally), but she only got 1 wrong on the written portion, and no marks against her on the road test!! How fantastic is that?!? Especially when you consider the girl who went before her drove into oncoming traffic!

The original plan for the test was to use my car, however, due to a rule that states the name on the registration (mine) must match the name on the insurance card (dad's). I attempted to call the insurance company and see if they could send me something (maybe by fax, or I could stop at one of their local offices) that had my name on it. I never even got to ask. I sat through a very long automated directory, talked briefly with an operator, and was placed on hold. After about 10 minutes on hold they hung up on me. This is sadly the standard of service I have come to expect from Horace Mann. Can you guess what I am going to do for car insurance after I re-register in MD? Not Horace Mann!!

Back to the night before the test! So now Tigs can't use my car. The mother wanted her to use her white car, which has had its transition replaced six times now, because it keeps falling out! It also drives like a tank, and has several internal pieces missing from the cab. Her fathers red car, far newer and in much better shape, was the one she wanted to use. It handles like the kia, and is simply a much nicer car. The mother was very anti-new car and was pressing her to use her old white car. One quick phone call to her dad, and it was arranged that she would use the new car! The arguing was not fun though. Then they both left and she couldn't use either one.

The next morning we were up early and driving around the Old Saybrook area. Then to the DMV, and then the test! After that we spent about $100 at the book barn. Are you really shocked? I mean, come on! This is us! Full bookshelves just means we need more bookshelves!

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My cousin Andrew works as a drummer at a dinner theater. I believe I have mentioned this before. Well the current production is 1776, which you may know is my favorite musical of all time! This production was... special. Due to the sensitivity of Lancaster residents they changed the language. That's right, they changed the language! Plus some of the actors they chose... well, Abigail was an unconvincing brassy blond, Jefferson was whiny and emotional, Adams was nasally... and they changed the language! On my to do list for today is to write the theater a letter expressing my distaste on the subject.
Things they changed:
the opening scene of Adams in the bell tower - omitted
The first part of Yours, Yours, Yours with Adams and Abigail singing - omitted
Jefferson's "literary license" - omitted (the first time it's not used, but is the second, making the second lose much meaning).
Whores and whoring changed to strumpets and strumpeting
Sweet Jesus changed to Holy Moses
Bastard changed to illegitimate and nincompoop

Nincompoop?!?!?!

And these are just the things I can remember off the top of my head days later...

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This is getting kinda long and I have other things to do today.
Peace, Love, & Hope