Journal SiliconJesus's Journal: New Blog Entry 3

Since I'm friendless in blogspace, I'll post the link and article here.

My Blog

8.15.2004
Busy weekend
Another weekend has come and gone. This one really flew by. Friday, we had a luncheon at work to tell us how great we were all doing (I had actually spent part of the day mailing off my resumé to a friend who is looking for three Unix developers / administrators). The company I work for is being acquired, and we're all being told how much greater the opportunities will be once the acquisition has been completed.

That luncheon took longer than the big bosses would have liked, but hell - it was 30 minutes away (I arrived with my boss and his boss, so my ass was covered). After work, I ran to the DMV, got a temp registration and tags for the car I picked up on Saturday, then ran to the bank as Bank of America doesn't see fit to put so much as an ATM in the goddamn town, but has at least 10 billboards with "We're always right around the corner..." across the top in a 10,000 point font. According to their website, the closest ATM to my house is 24 miles away, and the closest branch is 37 miles away... in another state... two states away (where I live in Maryland is funny like that).

Saturday morning I woke up very late for me (around eight am), rolled over, out of bed and took a quick shower. I called Chris, the guy I was picking up the car from (I actually bought it from his girlfriend) but he didn't answer the phone. I left a message, and helped get breakfast together with the wife while the boy watched Wiggles in the family room. We had some toast (HA! I hate my fucking toaster) and bacon which the boy loves. I called my buddy again and woke him up enough to get directions. I knew where he was was a ways off, but I didn't realize how far.

We left our house around eleven am, and headed up the road. Pennsylvania has this odd habit of totally fucking up anything even slightly resembling road construction. They didn't disappoint this time either. Pot holes the size of Volkswagons and construction areas with ABSOLUTELY no work being done and one lane INTERSTATES for 10 miles.

We stopped one hundred miles into the hike and grabbed food. The boy was good and napped about an hour on the way up. After a rather large meal at Wendy's (#4, biggie, Orange Soda - no ice, small frosty, 3 chicken nuggets), I called Chris again and apparently re-woke him. He said he was gonna head over and get the car to his house (it was parked at his parents) and it should be ready when I got there, or soon thereafter). We reentered the stupidity that was PENNDOT's imitation of an Interstate disguised as a neverending construction zone (TURN ON HEADLIGHTS IN CONSTRUCTION ZONE - PENNSYLVANIA STATE LAW), until we managed to make it to upstate PA southwest of Scranton. Amazingly, it was a very easy trip aside from the mileage. Chris was already under the hood of the car, changing out the sparkplugs. It was a bit dirty, but that's what you expect when you're dealing with a car that had been in storage for the last 6 months. After working on it, exchanging the money, and slapping the Maryland plates on the car, we were off.

The ride back was relatively uneventful. A couple of times, I saw cops pulling people over going slower than me, but it really didn't slow me down much. I actually got up to 100 mph at least once. This is going to be a decent commuter car, but best of all, the lack of two cylanders and about 1000 lbs will help me get much better mileage. I averaged about 45 mpg on the way back ~187 miles.

Today was relatively uneventful. Watched some of the Olympics, cleaned up the new car, and my wife's Mazda. My mother-in-law is coming to stay with us for a couple of days while my wife goes to class full time in Baltimore three days this week. I'm grateful that she can work her schedule around us to help watch Zach, but after a few hours, she tends to drive me a tad crazy. I'm sure I can manage for three days.