More Hate

Stupid Michigan.

This is why I hate winter here. This is my car, which I hate for reasons mentioned in yesterday's rant. The white crap on it is the first snowfall of the year. We'll get more, a lot more. It looks cute and fun, until you realize that you have to shovel it out of the way so you can get the car out.

You also have to scrape your windows clear of it at 5:30AM in order to see anything. Even after that, you still have to drive carefully, since at that hour of the morning, they won't have cleared the roads yet.

You might think this wouldn't matter much to me. After all, I hardly ever go outside unless I have to, right? Well, when it's cold enough to do this, the floors are cold, even if the room is 75 degrees. The walls are cold. If you leave the door open for long, the room is cold. I used to like cold, but then I was younger.

"You're a mean one, Mister Grinch..."

Oh yeah, the weather!

I so enjoyed typing up the details of my wonderful weekend, I forgot the reason I came here in the first place.

So, I saw a job posting at SOE for a junior programmer. I shot an email to Grimwell, figuring perhaps he could poke at it and let me know if it pays enough to afford to have a small apartment with a cable modem, a refrigerator, and enough gas to get to and from work.

Here's another good reason to consider moving. Kalamazoo vs San Diego.

Cars suck II

Yep, cars still suck.

So, I had to work on Black Friday. No biggie, it actually wasn't so bad. Of course, I spent the first few hours up at the registers bagging. This was easy compared to the folks in the trenches trying to direct the mob towards their products. Even 3 hours into the day, I still had fun trying to direct people, and it was much more relaxed by then.

However, in the few minutes it took me to get from work to the credit union, where I deposit my teeny tiny checks each week, I managed to run over something and got a full wheel-on-the-pavement flat. Fantastic. Much cursing and swearing later, I got the tiny playtoy spare tire on, the big tire lumped into the back, and my ass home. I figured this was annoying, but I could still go to lunch Saturday and get my new set of tires on Monday after work.

So, today, I get up early and get out the door with an extra 10 minutes so I won't have to drive too fast on the bubble tire. I get in the car, pull out, and hear the tire "wubbing". Ok, pull back in and scream a bit while I get the compressor out and inflate the OTHER front tire. About two miles down the road, it starts sounding like it's on the pavement again, so I re-fill it at the nearest gas station and head home. Work is about 10 miles away, and there aren't 5 gas stations nicely placed between here and there, even if I could somehow not be late.

So, I guess I'll still get my new tires today, but they'll cost me a day's pay extra and I'll probably get suspended (or at least a write up) because Menard's doesn't care if God Himself strikes you down with a bolt of lightning, unless you have a doctor's note to excuse it.