Gonzai Gallery

A change in year is not helping things at all. This has been one of the worst weeks ever.

Some of it is universal; I may not be the biggest Harry Potter fan, but I did adore Alan Rickman. By Grabthar's Hammer, this sucked. And Bowie. We got cable the same month MTV debuted, so I got my fill of Ashes to Ashes, Fashion, etc., loved the 80s version of Bowie, then went back & discovered that Ziggy Stardust is one of the best records, ever, full stop. Today just heard about Ted Marchibroda, the first ever coach of the Baltimore Ravens. Enough with the death already.

On a more personal level, I hurt my heel in the car accident & it's been getting worse every day. Last week we started using a new software system at work without training or practice, & the data supplied by our client conflicted with the previous set they sent us. I wound up standing at my supervisor's computer for hours at a time while we compared databases looking for the (many errors) sent by our client. That hurt my foot even more. It took us all day Monday to finish fixing the database & printing documents. When I got home, my paycheck was in the mailbox; I usually take it to work in my pocketbook & then to the bank at lunchtime. This will be important later. Monday night, CJ flipped out around 1am, and stayed that way, barking for hours. I finally got up, and after another hour figured out the problem - battery ran low on the smoke alarm. Meanwhile I was freezing & couldn't get back to sleep. Great.

Tuesday, I arrived at work to find out that all the documents we'd printed Friday & Monday - over 2500 of them - were wrong. We had to delete some data that we didn't want on the documents; turned out the new software decided to helpfully put it back when we printed. We had to reprint every one of them. Forget going to the bank - I didn't get lunch & almost didn't get a chance to go potty all day. Meanwhile my supervisor & the third member of our office were at each other's throats all day, & it became pretty clear I was not going home at 4 for the second day in a row. After 4, I kept working on documents while my supervisor went to ask the boss some questions. When he came back, he came back with the boss, the office manager & boxes. And started packing his stuff into them. I thought he had quit. Seems there was another issue altogether I didn't know about, & combined with software issues, there was blow up & he was fired. I'm a temp, who was brought on specifically to be his assistant, so I had to ask the office manager if I should come in on Wednesday. Meanwhile, We were still printing the documents, and as a result of the firing, all of the documents needed the supervisor's name crossed out and signed by someone else. Some other workers stayed late, but the whole mess wasn't finished until after 7:30, & I didn't get home until almost 8. (I called the neighbor & asked here to feed/out the dogs.) When I got home, it was 40 degrees in my bedroom - the wind was blowing straight in & the heater couldn't keep up. So I 'slept' Tuesday night on the couch. Didn't actually sleep much & was one hurting puppy in the morning.

So Wednesday was a continuing adventure in frantically trying to print documents & deliver them to various courts, which included broken hand carts, heavy boxes, metal detectors, nosy clerks & my own failure to poker face (the clerk correctly guessed from my body language & refusal to answer questions that things were a mess, & since we'd just filed over a 1000 documents with the name crossed out...well, we handed over a lot of evidence.) Managed to eat lunch but still no time for the bank. On my way home, I discovered that the keyfob to my new car wasn't working.

Thursday was worse; the third person in our office was now the boss, as it were, & she was pissy, surly & wanted someone to yell at. Guess who. Anyway, never stopped working the entire day, no food, no bank, barely made it to the potty & then only when I snuck out when she was smoking. I nearly quit Thursday. & I got in trouble with the higher ups, because my contract with the temp agency requires that I inform them of any 'change in status' so I called them Wednesday & told them what was going on. Between the temp agency & the loose-lipped clerk, a lot of people knew about the firing, & I started to think I was going to get fired because of that.

Friday wasn't quite as bad as Thursday, but not much better. It was worse for the 'new' boss, she almost quit yesterday. And again, no lunch & no chance to go to the bank. Every bit of me hurts like heck.

Then today, I was finally going to take the check to the bank. And...it's gone. Missing. I searched everywhere, but the check isn't in my pocketbook & it isn't anywhere else either. The only place I haven't been able to look is the drawer at work where I keep my pocketbook. I'm hoping beyond hope the check fell out of the pocketbook & into the drawer at some point during the week, but if it didn't, then I'm out a paycheck indefinitely. Haven't gotten this week's check either, so the money thing is is not good. Oh yeah, the keyfob is damaged & can't be fixed without an appointment at the car dealership. Joy.

2016, you are sucking.

Another year, another Euroquest on the books. It's the only gaming tournament I participate in, so I was there for pretty much the duration & participated in as many tournaments as I could. Skipped the wild card this time, a whopping two Can't Stop games both of which were horrid, & only a few 'Play to Win' games, I played but didn't win. Also stayed out of the side tourneys & demos. In the past 5-6 years, I made it into 5 semi-finals & 1 final. This year, I made 2 finals, qualified for 6 semis and played in 4 of them. Twice I was eligible for 2 semis that were played at the same time. Figures. Also was reduced to just 1 heat of Ticket to Ride - my strong game - by both finals being against TTR heats. My one heat of TTR (& lone heat of Castles of Burgundy, another one I'm good at) were atrociously bad. Some of the worst games I've every played of them.

I made my final car payment today. Phew.

If the car breaks down next week I will be pissed.

So I'm tooling along the road, and I have to move over because a cop is writing a ticket to a guy in the right lane. I note in passing that 1) the guy has the same make/model as my previous car and 2) his car is covered with Ron Paul stickers. I continue on my way.

2 miles and 10 minutes later...same guy passes me, on the right, runs a red light so he can make a left turn, and guns it, going well over 50mph in a 35 zone. A couple minutes later, I pass him again...pulled over in the right lane getting a ticket from a different cop.

How does this guy keep his license?

It was DC Horde meetup day in Alexandria, so I saddled up and drove to Virginia. Easier said than done. They're doing 1812 stuff in Baltimore, so had to go around the long way to avoid traffic/etc in the city. Get to DC and discover oopsie! I never checked on the Nats' schedule. They're home. Day game. Crawl through the city. Found the park in Alexandria just fine, found the people, we picniced, we rambled, we petted dogs and fed ducks, we played Cards Against Humanity. I have been deemed sick and twisted (and also useful, as only I thought to bring paper towels to a picnic.) The ride back - over two freakin' hours. First I gave Carlos the Dwarf a ride back to the Metro, except not only was traffic bumper to bumper, we couldn't figure out how to get into the station. Then I tried to find a place nearby to get a cold drink, but when I left the store to return to I-95...the ramp to 95 is closed. The closing forced me back into downtown, where I wandered in gridlock before (almost accidentally) finding my way back to 95. Hooray! Not so fast, sucker. There was an accident on the Beltway just in front of the ramp. I was stuck there for a while. Finally freed and back on the highway until...BW Parkway, packed solid. At dinnertime Saturday. Uh, why? The one good thing was I listened to 3.5 CDs that have been sitting in my car for months because I never seem to get past the radio. But sheesh, 4+hours in the car today. I'm not used to that.

Firstly, for my new friends *waves*, the Green Monster is my old and fairly decrepit green minivan that I bought for doing arts and crafts shows.

Secondly...I'm thinking of cutting ties with the Monster. I haven't driven it in over a year, not since last year's show season, and only twice last year. With the state of my hand, my shoulder and my mother, I didn't do any shows this year and I really don't know if I'll be up for doing them next year, in which case the Monster won't be needed in 2012 either. Meanwhile the registration expires next week, and the battery is completely dead and needs replacing. So that's $250 or so just to get it on the road and legal. And another $250 a year in insurance, which is a sizeable chunk of change for me these days. For something I haven't used in over a year and best case wouldn't use until at least November, if not longer. I'm of a mind my best options are to either let it continue to sit (but I don't know if legally I can do that because of the registration, and I'd still have to pay insurance) or donate it to charity (saves me the money but I won't have a vehicle large enough for shows if/when I decide to do them again). If I go with the donation option, I have to get everything out of it (it's kinda become a rolling storage locker) and find the title to it when I haven't even wrapped gifts yet. But I have to donate it before Dec 31 to duck the registration thing. Eesh. Decisions, hard decisions...

In my house browsing, I discovered there is a road in the area called 'Nuthatch Court'. Really. And I suppose it would be appropos if we were to live on it...

If I have amassed enough points on the quizzes and tests to pass the course, why do I still have to do a report? (Update: Grades just posted. Final tally 289/300. 100 on the report.)

While I'm on that one, why do I need to prove I've graduated high school when they're going to run a background check on me anyway? Shouldn't they find that in the check?

I'm losing my patience with GEICO. They have raised my premium $45-$60 each term the last two years, raising my overall price more than a third over what it was; I haven't had any accidents or tickets. They say it's 'cost of business in Maryland'. I think it may cost them MY business in Maryland.

The ne'er do well family across the street appears to have moved out. I vote for the house to be torn down. They've had three bad (often criminal) tenants and a lot of unattended vacancy there in the last ten years. Enough already.

When I finally got myself going, at least, I desperately needed some sleep but they're building some sort of business a block away and the bastards started hammering on the roof at 7am. Once I was movi ng, though, I went to the gym, gave CJ a bath, did grocery shopping, put away all the laundry, cleaned and dusted off my desk (for the first time in 4 years at least), searched for new software, did some cleaning of my computer drives, and took the car back to the garage because it was rattling. After a lot of test drives and tinkering the conclusion was that one of the shocks they installed last week was bad from the gitgo. They didn't have a new one in stock so the car has to come back later next week. Spiffy. At least I don't have to pay for it. Don't really need the car next week anyway with the surgery on Wednesday, I'll probably be prohibited from driving for at least a week.

TV time now...

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Ordinarily I would wait a while after winning to even claim the prize, but there's an awesome house on the market that I absolutely love. So as soon as I had the lawyer/accountant/adviser thing set up I would buy that house. (And a car with 4 wheel drive because the driveway to that house kinda requires it.) And that would be it for big purchases.