Hello everyone! Apologies as usual for my lack of updates, you know the drill.
(more…)

So, I know I haven’t kept up with updating this. Since my last real post, the Integra has been looked over twice by the insurance adjuster. The first estimate he gave was a few thousand, not too bad. However, our body shop said that he forgot to include the crumpled rear floor in the estimate. We finally got him to come do the second estimate, and his second estimate said that the car is totalled. They’ll be picking it up Monday morning.

So, mom and I went over tonight to pull out the last of my stuff. I had already pulled the stereo and such, it was just a few things left to get.

And on the way home, it hit me. Out of all the cars I’ve had, this one has been the most reliable by far, and has always been there for me when our other vehicles crapped out. I know cars don’t have emotions, but I’m in tears as I type this thinking about all the times I drove the hell out of it, all the times I swore I’d sell it and get something else, and it just kept right along like a faithful companion, always by my side.

I never really appreciated it until today, and it pains me to think of it sitting in a junkyard somewhere. Feels like I’ve lost a family member.

Farewell, my beauty.

So, today I was driving my sister home from school, and we were coming down the main road (Rt. 33 for the locals), having a fun time. There were several other friends of hers in cars around us, one of them was tailgating me, but it was all good. All of a sudden, two cars in front of me, some old lady decides to make a U-turn in the middle of the road without signalling or anything, she just floors her brakes. The car in front of me did the same, as did I. I flashed my brake lights a couple of times, to let the guy behind me know I was stopping, and I gently tapped the car in front of me, but I didn’t hit her hard.
(more…)

Yesterday, Fox was searching Ebay for Rover parts, and found a cruise control diagnostics book. Having been through a lot of work trying to fix my cruise control in the truck, I figured this was worth the $10 the seller was asking for it. So, I ordered it. In the past, every time I buy (or receive) something for the truck, something else breaks. Based on this track record, going off-roading shortly after this purchase was probably a bad idea. But, I’ve had cabin fever from not off-roading for many many months now, I fixed a bunch of stuff on the truck, and dammit, I wanted to hit the trails! Fox wanted to come as well, so we hit the road this afternoon to check out a new area.
(more…)

Don’t ever speed in Dayton, VA.
(more…)

Anthrocon kicked tail, as expected. A whole weekend of furry goodness makes for a happy wuff [tailwags]. Art will be posted as soon as I get the chance to scan it. I only got two commissions, both of them conbadges.

I’m working at Dominos with fox_cub, doing delivery. It’s decent money. In other work news, I had a job interview today that I’m feeling good about, we’ll see what happens with it.

And, lastly, we’re moving! Kinda short notice, but prior to Anthrocon, mom received a letter from our landlord that basically said “We want to do something different with this property, you need to be out in 30 days”. After some research, there doesn’t seem to be much we can do, so we’re looking on the bright side and duplex-shopping. Hopefully we’ll get something good.

A lot of people posted to my last entry asking what was wrong, since I don’t normally make those single-line vague entries (there were also some insensitive fuckheads who I’d love to shoot, but that’s another story).

What happened that’s screwed me up so bad so fast? Dobie dumped me last night. Right when I thought we were doing pretty good, and when I thought I’d found my soulmate, he comes out of nowhere and says he thinks we should break up.

And what’s fucking me up the most is that he’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a mate, everything I’ve been searching for for years in one person, and I did nothing wrong (his words), yet it STILL didn’t work out! I think I’m doomed to be alone [bangs head on desk].

I just got home from work, I left early due to excruciating back pain. I don’t know what I did, but anytime I bend over, it feels like someone’s stabbing me. I need to go see a doctor, but thanks to our fucked-up economy and capitalistic healthcare system, I have virtually no health insurance, nor can I afford the cost of an ER visit.

[gives Dubya the finger and takes more Motrin]

Well, the undelete software that Canis let me borrow couldn’t recover my Outlook PST files from either of my working drives, nor could it mount my dead drive. It found every file that was ever on both drives, EXCEPT the correct Outlook.pst file. Found the one for my mom’s user account, which is bizarre because she never used Outlook. I did check it to see if it was mine, but it wasn’t.

I hadn’t realized just how much info was in that file, but I lost my messages (over 800 messages across several accounts, most of which were very important), over 400 contacts in my address book, my calendar with my work schedule, school schedule, and loads of important appointments, my signatures, my accounts, my folders, and my many organizational filters. Explains why the file was several hundred MB.

And, there are some other personal issues that have me kinda bummed, especially when compounded with this computer crap. After this ordeal, I will never again dismiss a client’s computer problems as trivial when I consider them to be simple repairs, because I imagine this is what most computer problems feel like to those who aren’t technicians, helplessness while at the mercy of a collection of metals.

Strangely enough, I’ve been thinking a lot about my dad today. Or rather, I miss him in a way, not having a father-figure around. Yeah, he was a major jerk for all 14 years that I have memory of him, but we had some good times, I think. I wonder what he’s doing now, where he is, if he’s happy. [sigh]

I need something to perk me up, but my good music is on my dead drive, I can’t afford a random road trip, this crappy video card isn’t capable of playing games, and my local friends (all three of them) are busy with other stuff. Money sucks, or rather, not having any money sucks.

Using an external drive thing didn’t help my dying HD, so it looks like I’ll be shelling out significant amounts of money to get the data professionally recovered. If any of you have money and want to help a poor pup out, you’d be my new hero. Losing this data is not an option.

As if that wasn’t enough, I tried to connect the drive to regular IDE one last time, and when I was closing up the case (it’s a Dell case, so it closes like the hood of a car), I apparently pushed too hard because it fell off the desk and landed on its back (where cables connect). Broke the power supply, possibly corrupted my new 120gb drive, bent my video card VGA port, and might have screwed up other stuff. So, a new power supply alone will be about $150, plus the possibility of replacing other parts. Oh, and I found out that my memory is actually RDRAM, not DDR SDRAM, which I’ll have to keep in mind if/when I upgrade this motherboard. For the record, I don’t know much about RDRAM, except that it’s obscure and expensive, and will probably significantly limit my motherboard replacement options, but I can’t say I’ve really looked for RDRAM-compatible boards.

Why does this crap happen to me?

The only shred of good news I’m seeing is that my luck seems to come in waves, and after a catastrophe like this, there’s bound to be some good luck coming soon. I don’t think I could take things getting any worse.