Dealerships, Dingbats, Directors and Corndogs...

Well folks, I broke my promise and I haven't written for a bit, and for that I apologize.

Tonight's a little bit of a rant. For the year I've been up in Dallas, my car has been in the shop with more mechanical issues than it has ever had in the past 4 1/2 years. I never really could figure out why until a recent trip to the dealer. Coincidentally, it dawned on me that these mechanical issues have basically only come while doing business with this dealership.

Recently, it was reported that the oil pan's gasket was starting to leak a little, so I took it in for preventative maintenance. I get my car back and the engine light is on! WHAT THE FREAK!?!
I refused to touch my car until repaired and they take it away. The next day I find out that the technician had broken my 02 sensor and they wanted me to pay half of the amount of the cost of the new part! LAME! To make matters worse, it turns out to be $2o more expensive than they quoted it at.

Wow...

Well I get my car back and it is driving like crud. I change the oil in suspicion that they cheated me on the synthetic I had requested, and that helped a little, but the car was quickly worsening in performance, fuel economy and the engine sounded like it was about to explode.

I begin troubleshooting and decide to have it scanned despite the fact there was no engine light. A quick scan diagnosed that the catalytic converter located where the technician was fiddling around had failed and clogged, thus suffocating my engine, increasing carbon build up, and causing my engine to become a ticking timebomb towards certain death unless repaired.

The cost for a new catalytic is a safe $800-1,200 from the dealer, JUST FOR THE PART. Not cool when a simple repair to avoid mechanical issues becomes extremely costly, and you had nothing to do with it's poor condition. :(

I now know what I'll be focusing my tax return on...

On to something else, I've picked up my bass again and have begun making short films.

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/user/smeltikozuyesmelti?feature=mhw4#p/u/0/SH9MoOqdeXE

When life ends, it literally goes down the toilet...

As some of you may know, I got fish. Well yesterday was a sad day as there were two casualties after all my rainbow shark started dying immediately following a routine water change. To be honest, I cannot tell you what may have caused it. I've done this a billion times, and they have been through this a billion times. After a couple hours all but two of the shark snapped out of it. One of my rainbow had jumped out and was found about 10 feet away in the living room. The other was the red tail, which has always had issues with health. Crazy thing about the red tail is that he actually was improving quite well, then suddenly you could see he was in bad shape. Oh well... So long guys.

Rainbow Shark

Red Tailed Shark

On a happier note, Jim, Mike and Mel, Jared, Dad, and I all went to see Avatar yesterday. All I can say is be careful about that drink, because 2 hours into the 3 hour movie it came back to haunt me with a vengeance. I regretfully stand up and felt the effects of the 3-D or the darkness or sitting, I'll never know, but as soon as I stood up and stated making my way down the isle, I instantly lost my balance and almost fell over the row ahead of me, only to step on Jared's popcorn, and a few poor people's feet as I bumbled down the row. When I got back I then came across another fun adventure that was a first. Ever walk into a full 3-D movie theatre looking for your party? Not simple when everybody looks the same with those big goofy glasses in the dark.

Oh well, Avatar was hands down amazing. Can't wait until it comes out. Go see it in 3-D IMAX while you can.

What will be will be...

Whoever it was that put the idea in my head as a kid that I need to create a plan for my life and stick to said plan needs to be kicked in the pants. When does life EVER go as it is planned? For those who know me, you'll know that I'm a true Houstonian. I was raised there and by golly, I wanna die there. Recently, however, I've been assisting my brother with the setup and administration of his practice in Dallas.
This position was originally meant to last as a one-week favor which sorta evolved into a year-long investment.

As some may know, I have decided to return to school and pursue a degree in mechanical engineering. My goal was to return to Houston this Spring and jump right back in. Problem is, is that I don't have a job down there. Hmm... Well I found out that a company here in Dallas is potentially interested in me. :/ At the same time, my Dad has just been assigned to work with the young single adults' activities program with our church. This makes things interesting for me... My departure from Houston ended my assignment working with the activities for the young single adults for past 3 years, so I now find myself becoming involved in his assignment as well.

We'll see how things go.

Now time for a bit of a rant... WHAT IS IT WITH APPLE!? That company is retarded. My old computer died this summer causing me to lose my entire musical library consisting of a few thousand songs. I realize that they should have been backed up, but my external hard drive is currently in Houston, and I let it slip. After the computer was repaired, I found I was able to receive a massive download of all my iTunes purchases free of charge. This was good. What's bad is if we fast forward a few months till now, we would discover that again, my computer has suddenly began to die on me. I began transferring documents over to my new computer, and accidentally permanently deleted the folder with ALL of my iTunes music inside. (I understand that sounds silly and moronic, but you would have had to just been there or do it yourself). I just checked and found out that as part of iTunes, you may only download files once, and that you may be charged to regain lost files.

How the heck does that make sense?! We're not talking about physical tangible objects, this is data with an account of all purchases made by the owner. I bought them. I paid my dollars. They are mine. I didn't buy files only to have then technically loaned to me. I'll talk to Apple, but they have already lost my business.

money...

Money. Such a stupid part of our life. Completely overrated, a pain in the butt when ya don't have enough, yet pretty handy when we have enough of it, and potentially destructive when we have too much of it.

What really makes life interesting is when timing is impacted by money. As we know by earlier posts I wound up in the hospital after a life-threatening injury. All that costs money, and in my case as somebody who did not posess health insurance at the time, it adds up to a LOT of money. Over $20,000 to be exact. To add to this I got bills yo'!

Well, we'll skip that for now, but I would like to tell ya a bit of what's been goin' on lately. This month I've been able to resolve close to $18,000 worth of the medical bills thanks to the hospital approving me for a charity loan, thus writing me off and forgiving me of my debt.

THANK YOU FREE-MARKET!!! Prime example of how universal healthcare is not needed and private organizations prevail to benefit the lives of others.

Anyways, the main chunk of the debt is gone, I'd love to work on that sucker and pay the rest of it off to be done with it once and for all. I'd gladly do so if it weren't for all the other crap that costs money until then.

As if I had nothing to kill my wallet, my transmission decided to poo out recently ($$$!!!), I needed some new clothes for work ($$$), contacts ($$$), Christmas presents ($$$), and to add insult to injury, my noble computer for the past 5 years suffered a catestrophic blow when the harddrive suddently died while installing an update. :(

That was REAL bad. I kinda rely a bunch on my computer, so to have suddenly go "thpppppt" was a super slap to the face.

Oh well. It's all good. As long as we keep a good attitude about it, we'll realize that it's only money and somehow, we'll be ok in the end.

So close and yet so far...

It is an entire month after I ordered my mount and yet I still do not have it within my possession. I have discovered that it is STILL just sitting all packaged up on a loading dock waiting for White Santa to just bring it to me. I am sad because somebody is sleepin on the job.

I guess tomorrow I'm going to have to put on my mean face, because this is absolutely ridiculous. I've worked in shipping before and I know for a fact that when you have a scheduled pickup, it's not that hard to hand over a 3 lb. package to a dude who simply just scans it and by golly-heebie-jeepers... imagine that, it's off to it's proper destination.

Grr... I need a cookie.

The other santa from the block...

So I just received word that the CP-e mount is not coming from Brown Santa. No... it's actually coming from his pasty white twin.

WHITE SANTA!

There is very little significance between these two santas. Both bring joy when they arrive at our doors within 7-10 business days...


Sometimes, like most brother's they have been known to argue and quarrel about whom is more superior. Honestly I don't give a hoot. I just know they are currently bringing me this!


So, here's today's awkward experience. I'm making my way back to the clinic after dropping off a specimen, and as I exit the stairwell I enter the hallway, see a lady bent over tending to a baby in a stroller, which is normally no big deal. What made this awkward was not so much her, but her husband who decided to make his move by raising hand high in the air to give her the spank of the century. This could have just been odd timing for me, (and truthfully I wouldn't really care anyways) but what was funny about it all was the look on the husband's face when he realized I had just walked in on the scene and froze dead in his tracks 'cause there was no way he was getting out of that one. He was busted. As I tried everything I could do to stay composed and just walk by as if I didn't see anything, his face just shot bright red, he just smiled and as I made it a little down the hall, I hear him laughing and whispering to his wife about what just occurred. I take my hat off to him though. I mean shoot, you're married. Why not?

As I was opening the door to our clinic, I could hear a crack of thunder in the distance. Job well done sir! Lord Vader is proud of you!

Waiting for Brown Santa...

That's right folks, straight from the north pole (only next door) is the fat man in red's jolly ol' cousin. Unlike his shy and trespassing neighbor, Brown Santa is a little nicer. When it comes to waiting for that new bike, mom's flowers, camping gear, shoes for your girlfriend, (or in my current case, a CP-e Wishbone bottom transmission mount), all you have to do is tell him what you'd like, and he arrives within only a few days!

I just can't wait. I've been a good boy and the final piece to my new transmission is bound to arrive any day now. :D

I've been going crazy, there was a slight hic-up at his workshop and he was never told about my mount, thus causing me to wait a whole month for it :( but everything is OK because he was sorry and that he'll be back at my house within the next couple days. *JOY!*

Speaking of Santas, for those of you who know and really love me, here are a few things off of my list..

Black Diamond Mesa Tent5.10 Tennies
Line 6 Micro Spider amplifier
Guitar Stand
Tripod microphone stand w/ boom