Taxes filed
Well Andrea did her taxes last night and it got me motivated to do mine too. Don’t have my W-2 yet, but I was able to use my last paycheck of the year and get all the info filled in online. I tell ya what, the internet friggin’ rocks when it comes to things like this. It’s sent off they’ll get it today, and I’ll have my refund in 8-15 days put straight in my account. How did the world work before!?
Getting a pretty decent refund too. Combined with the insurance money from the El Camino and I should have a pretty nice chunk of cash to put towards another project. Though I’m torn on what that should be! But figure that out, get the new springs and shocks for the Toronado. And I think with the rest of it, I’m finally going to start up an IRA. Wow, aren’t I a grown up!
Get your facts straight.
My phone starts ringing at about 7:24am this morning. It’s my day off and I was wondering who in the hell was calling me this early. I pick up the phone and it’s my manager at the store. He says “Did you know you work 7-4 today?” I was all groggy from just waking up after going to bed at 3am. I said “No. I thought I had today off since I asked for it off.” He said “It says on my computer that that’s what you work today. If you could come in as soon as possible everything will be ok.”
I’m thinking I already have my 40 hours for the week, why would they have me scheduled for another 8 hours? I told him “I asked for the day off cause I have family coming to visit, so I really can’t come in. Plus, that would put me over my 40 hours.” He proceeds to tell me “That’s all right. You could work till 1 and the rest of the day should be fine.” I said “The schedule on the wall doesn’t say that I’m scheduled today.” He goes “Really? Let me go check. …. Yeah, it doesn’t have you on that one, go ahead and forget about it and go back to sleep.”
I didn’t even bother to say goodbye, I just hung up and went back to sleep. That just goes to show you that computers can really help you, but they can also put you on the schedule when you’re supposed to have the day off. Tricky little things!
Yay! A day off!!
I woke up at 5 a.m. and almost rolled over and went back to sleep, but then I remembered… IT’S SATURDAY!!! A wonderful, glorious day off! THESE are my favorite days. Nothing on my schedule of events more strenuous than a little crossword puzzling or a bit of Rock Starring. These days don’t happen very often and I am going to enjoy it! I’ll probably be bored to death by one o’clock this afternoon and take a nap. Man!!! doesn’t that sounds AWESOME?! I Love It!!!!!!
LIFE IS GREAT!
Settled on the El Camino.
The insurance adjuster got back with me today, sooner than I thought. The damage did total the car, as expected. We’re going to meet next week and exchange the title and they’re going to cut me a check for $850. I’m pretty satisfied. I’d have a pretty hard time selling the car for that much, even without the roof damage. I had the option to keep the car and get about $300 less, but I’d still be stuck getting the roof fixed which would be costly to get done right. Best to cut my losses and move on to the next project, I think.
01.16.08Trying out a new theme.
Change is good, right? Can’t remember how long I was with the old theme, but figured I’d change it up a bit. Supposedly this theme I can customize the header image and cool things like that. We’ll see. Might roll back to the old one. It was pretty plain, but flexable. So we’ll see where a little tweaking takes things.
Watch your head, you could be next!
Well this last weekend my grandma went in the hospital for a cerebral hemorrhage. Really a bad deal, but seems to be heading towards the best possible outcome all things considered. When I first got the call last Thursday, the talk was to hurry because there might not be much time. Luckily its now Monday and they’ve moved her from Critical Care to a regular hospital room. For now it looks like long term therapy though, she has a lot of the same effects of a stroke. She has limited movement on her left side, and has some difficulty getting the words she wants out. Still has quite a bit of pain too. But hopefully with time, she can get close to 100%, but there’s no way to know. Just lots of prayers is about all we can do for now!
AND THEN TODAY…
I’m out helping put the new transmitter in at KQLA in Manhattan. It’s big and heavy, so 5 of us were muscling it around trying to get it down a ramp into the building, and one of the guys grabs a safe jack and lifts it to slide it over the transmitter into the building so the guys in there could use it. As he’s lifting it, the handle swings down and smacks me square on the top of the head HARD! It’s a hard device to describe, but imagine getting a five foot long wooden baseball bat dropped on your head from about 4 feet.
I didn’t quite know what happened at first. We were using a winch, and I thought maybe the winch cable snapped and got me. I couldn’t even tell where I got hit. Then I looked down and the cable was still there, then realized my head was throbbing pretty good. I take off my hat to feel how big a bump I got, then noticed my hand was covered in blood. I was pretty freaked out for a few seconds, but they looked it over, and it must have just broke the skin, but no gash. So I just got my bell rung real good. But still, kinda scary.
So I dunno what’s going around, but you might wear a helmet just in case!
A couple last pictures.
Well the insurance adjuster is supposed to be intouch with me here in the next day or so. So I figured I’d get the El Camino washed off and looking as good as it CAN look. At least I can say I got some use out of it. Hauled a several loads of limbs out of the place and had fun driving it to work a couple days.
Never did get much work done on it since I started painting the Toronado shortly after I got this. Just got the new bumper put on, trim rings on the wheels and a couple odds and ends. Never did get around to getting the real tail lights working though. But sure seems like she came a long way since I got her:
I’ll probably save a lot of parts incase I get another El Camino of the same body style, or just sell a bunch of parts. Who knows. Either way I think I got my money’s worth out of it, and I can say I owned an El Camino!
01.10.08This will be cool! (When we learn how to play!)
When Andrew came out for Christmas he was telling his dad that he’d gotten a ps3 and Rock Band and it was all sorts of fun! Duane said he’d like to have it. I poo-poo-ed the whole idea, thinking I’d never find it at Walmart. Well, turns out I was WRONG! (In all sorts of ways!)
First of all, I had no idea what the game is. I just figured it was another version of Guitar Hero, and in my defense it sort of is. It’s just a lot more involved.
Secondly, I really didn’t think I would find it in the store. Well, Jamie and I were shopping yesterday and we nearly tripped over a big shipment of them sitting in the middle of the aisle waiting to be put away.
Lastly, after the holidays we’re one of those people that really needs to watch the cash flow. Oh wait, I was totally right on that one. But this game looked to be too much fun to pass up and I decided to blow the extra money for the ‘special edition’.
This is a fun game! It gets everyone involved. There are drums, guitar and microphone. Granted, we can’t figure out how the microphone works yet, but I just took a half hour after work last night and played a couple of songs. The drums are hard, guitar is a little easier than Guitar Hero.
We’ll have to bring it up when we come visit. You guys can join our Rock Band!!
Our dog is actually kinda smart.
She is learning tricks. Or commands at least. She will sit, and stay. You can even tell her to stay, walk out of the room holding food in your hand come back in a few seconds and she’ll be right where she was. She’s even starting to get the hang of “shake”. All this talent provided she’s not too excited and jumping around like a cartoon spring coil!
I’m still a cat person, but this has been the best dog I’ve ever had. Although that’s not saying much!
Ahh…now I get it.
