Captain's Log.

Honey, that makes you Tennille. The contents of my unsupervised weekend must have been interesting to several folks, because through various means, I got a lot of questions about it. :) I would have to say the weekend was a balance between lethargy, goofiness, productivity, and activities, and I can think of very few improvements.

I had my brakes repaired, entertained Ms. C in my home, saw Ms. C in her home, hung with some friends eating grilled items and drinking beer, there were s'mores, hours of video games... saw crappy action movies like Jumper, and read entire book 1 of Twilight series. For the last bit I blame Ms. C. I'm hooked, damnit. I read it start to finish in about 6 hours. During the middle of said reading I vacuumed my car and went to the grocery store.

Also tried to figure out what's going on with my impending vacation - at current airline ticket prices, JUST getting tickets will leave me with $5 a day for the next 24 days. I'm not at all sure how that would work out, since I need like 80 bucks a week just for gas. I may be Priceline-ing by the seat of my pants the night before I need to leave, or just staying home. :( Bummer, but at least I have brakes.

However, tonight I have an unexpected extra night of no supervision - someone misread the tickets and is really coming home tomorrow, not today. Desire to go to work at the crack of dawn tomorrow: zero. Desire to eat box pasta and jar sauce: eleventy-billion.

Unsupervised.

Lady went to visit friends for the weekend, so I am in effect, unsupervised. Left to my own devices. I can do whatever I want. So far "whatever I want" has consisted of laundry, video games, and a lot or garlic on my dinner, but the night is young!

I have literally no plans this weekend. I have vague goals...

• Mess with car stereo, possibly replace speakers. Do not kill self with electricity.
• Pin down vacation plans, since it is allegedly this month.
• Buy garlic salt.
• Watch fireworks? Drink beer to celebrate our revolt against taxation?

Nothing firm though. I can't decide if I'm excited about that (doing absolutely nothing for hours at a time, which I have not done in forever) or not (um... friends? call me?)

Happy Feet.

I have recently rediscovered my love of dancing. I'm not very good at it, but I always have so much fun! Recent dancing escapades include a work event, a weekend in NYC, and another evening out with peeps from work. Also, about 10 minutes of a video my friend C has in preparation for wedding dancing. It clearly takes more than 10 minutes to master swing dancing, but still, it was fun. I'm almost inclined to take a class or something. This strikes me as a patently homosexual thing to do, but if the shoe fits... :) If I have somehow managed to retain any readers after my increasingly infrequent posting, give me the yea or nay, should I take a dance class, or will I just look foolish and be surrounded by weird people?

Now that you mention it, it *is* like a country song.

So this has not been the best week Baba Reens has ever had. In fact, it could be one of the worst possible weeks that Baba has ever shuffled through.

First, one of our pugs passed away unexpectedly a couple nights ago. He had had "a cold," had been seen by a veterinarian and given a prescription of rest and antibiotics, and when we didn't feel like he was getting all that better, he had spent the day at the vet again, and we were told to take him home, let him rest, and bring him back the next day. Late that night, he went. I've never had a pet pass away while I was there, and this is horrible. It is most horrible for Lady, who has known him for 7 years, but make no mistake - I am heart-broken.

Yoda and I had somewhat of a love/hate relationship, which I think stems from a time he purposely barked in such a way as to spray my face, not his, with his citronella collar. :) He would always jump up on the couch and hit my internal organs with his pointy little hoof. He was always trying to steal my dinner, I was always trying to steal his lady. Yoda and I were not often good at sharing.

But when no one was watching, we hung out on the couch and watched movies, and I fed him bits of hamburger or chicken or whatever I was cooking, and we played tug and I tried to get him to fetch even though he really only liked the "running and getting" part. He was so smart, and I would look in his eyes and rub his little velvet ears, and the house just isn't the same without him. I know he knew how I feel about him, because sometimes he'd curl up to me even when Lady was home. Also, I don't give bits of cheese to just anyone.

The second verse of my song is that I took my car in to get the brakes that the tire people claimed I needed, and once they put on working rear brakes they realized my ABS module is totally shot and now until they put a new one on, one wheel won't turn, and another can't be stopped even though it has brand new brakes. PS, I don't get paid til next week, so this is totally not a good time for me.

So, the car is stuck in the shop, and the only way I'm not totally screwed is that lovely friend L let me crash at her house last night and borrow her car today, and lovely friend C is giving me a lift from dropping off L's car to work in the morning. Tomorrow night will involve a ride partway with a co-worker and a bus, or perhaps, throwing myself on the mercy of Lady. Hopefully Saturday I will have my precious car back.

On the upside, according to Wii Fit I lost 7 more pounds, which added to the first 5 means that in only 5 more pounds, my Wii Fit guy will be merely "overweight" rather than "obese." I can't wait. :) Maybe with all the stress I'll stop eating. As if! (No, I am not suggesting that I hope I stop eating, or that I would ever in fact be capable of doing so.) Anyway, that's what's up with me. Let's hope that whole "bad things in 3's" thing is BS, because I really can't take another bad thing right now.

Free-wheeling

First off, an update: yesterday, the city began replacing the broken fire hydrant at the end of our street. So like, a month after it broke. Whatever, at least it's getting fixed. :)

Also, I have now been going to the gym 3-4 days a week for... three weeks. It may not sound like much, but I'm feeling pretty proud of myself. I have lost almost 5 pounds. This seems miraculous.

On to the main event. At the end of March, as you may recall, my ancient vehicle failed inspection for two tires. I had these tires replaced THAT day at a local chain. They put them on the front.

Yesterday, while driving to work, I began to hear an increasingly loud and ominous sound coming from the front passenger tire area. I was about 40 minutes into my 1hr+ commute, and I decided that I should pull into the nearest car fixing-type place and STOP driving. Lucky I did, because as soon as I did, my wheel fell off.

Perhaps "snapped off" is a better phrase. Apparently, my lug nuts were so tight that they were snapping off the little spikes that hold my wheel onto my car, and by the time I started hearing this noise, I had only one spike left, which snapped in the parking lot of the fixing place, and voila, wheel on ground.

The fixing man tried to impress upon me that while the repairs would most likely be quite expensive (especially if any of my remaining tires were on the verge of snapping off) at least I was not, in fact, dead. Apparently this wheel-snapping business can cause death or serious injury if you are not basically stopped when it occurs. This did not actually make me feel better, though I suppose I am very thankful that I did not ignore the noise and keep driving.

Later yesterday, while getting the oil in Lady's car changed, I told this story to the oil change man, and he declared that if that had happened as a result of his tire installing, he would tow the car and fix it for free. So, I called the tire place that put on those tires in March. I calmly told them what happened.

A manager-man at the tire place was incredibly responsive, and apparently they are (as I type) towing the car to their shop and will make everything all better and I will never see a bill. I am not sure I will believe this until I am actually driving my repaired car, but if indeed it is true then omigod how awesome! Hopefully I'll have the car back later today, but for today, it seems I have a day off and a free car repair.

Driving Range

I am, not surprisingly, significantly better at Wii golf. :)

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Down to bidness.

Work is going pretty well lately. The conference was good, my presentation thingy seemed to go well, and I'm already getting emails about presenting at the regional version of said conference coming up soon. A project I've spent a lot of time on is just going "public" or "live" or whatever, and it looks like things are working out. I've had some great compliments about the site also, and so all around I'd say things are great there. In fact, some days it's the only place I feel good about myself. Weird, I never thought of myself as a Company Man, but the term comes to mind.

A week ago I took a small step in spring cleaning, but a giant leap for my own organization. I have this long skinny hallway of a closet, and last Friday I pulled every last thing out. I made piles to throw out, donate, recycle or shred (tons of old pay stubs and paperwork in there) and once everything was in it's new home I was feeling fabulous. Seems like I need to follow suit with the rest of my stuff, and my lifestyle in general.

I acquired a month pass to an old-school gym by our house a couple days ago, and one of the many things I will be doing today on my day off is going there again. It felt good to work out, though I was pretty shocked by how much I can't lift after a long absence from doing it. The manager guy there is SO nice, and it doesn't seem crowded with pilates people, so I'm planning for this to become a new habit.

Also, money. I've been listening to this podcast on personal finance by some dude with a fairly commonsense plan for getting out of debt. It boils down to making a budget and paying your bills. People call into his show with either questions for him, or to let him know they are all paid up. The guy himself is fairly churchy, but it doesn't bleed into the show too much so I just tune it out when it does.

Anyway, I'm planning to follow the program so I can be good house-buying material at some point. The first thing he says is to get a thousand bucks in an account for emergencies. At first this sounded totally impossible to me, but last month I had to set aside a few hundred bucks in taxes I owed, so I theoretically could do that a few months in a row and have it. My big prob is spending on snacks and beverages for my crazy commute. I guess I better stick a cooler in the car? Anyone have suggestions?