Saturday disaster, Sunday fixes

I've already clued in Bobby G. on Saturday night, so I'll let the rest of you in on all the fun.  The idea was to go to Cinema Grill (for those who don't have one, dinner and a movie in one shot) to watch The Avengers.  Let me skip to the disasters, then I'll move on to the good things sprinkled within.

THE MOVIE:  Here's the situation:  Iron Man is stuck inside the rotors of the Helicarrier (which he is trying to restart).  He's waiting on Captain America to throw a certain switch so he can get out without becoming the Human Steel-Wool Pad.  Cap is dangling from a cable about twenty feet from the switch an 30,000 feet above the ground, with somebody shooting at him, and his shield back in his footlocker.  Thor, after just having gotten bounced about by the Hulk, has just escaped Loki's death trap, and is currently picking dirt clods out from between his teeth.  The Hulk, for his part, took a u-turn at a fighter jet and is on his way to joining Thor in dirtclod-picking.  The expendable heroic S.H.I.E.L.D. agent is explaining to Loki with his dying breaths that he'll never win.  And the Black Widow has just B!tc#-slapped a mind-controlled Hawkeye into dreamland (and all of this is happening more or less simultaneously.  Just then, half the theatre's speaker system blows and takes the AC with it.

THE TEMPER TANTRUM:  I yell at Laurie and KC as they try  to stop me from storming away long enough to get our refund.

THE CAR:  Is dead.  A little clicking, some pre-psychotic flashes from the dashboard, and that's it.  Repeated attempts to start only makes the car refuse toi give the key back.

THE NEW BATTERY: $119.

SOCKETS:  Have to fall under the exact geographical center of the car.

But now, the good things:

THE RESTROOM TRIP:  Which I took as the manager came down and announced that the speakers were blown, that he was "concerned" that this might happen "because this was a loud movie".  That comment would have pushed the tantrum to a whole new level of embarrassing, I guarantee it.  But, thankfully, I was upstairs having a urinary.

THE MOVIE:  What we saw of it might have been the best movie I ever saw.  Seeings as I have been reading the Avengers since I was six years old, I might not be an unbiased judge.  But it's blown away Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 2 its first weekend, so I don't think I'm alone.

THE MEAL: Was very good.  And I don't think many people paid for it- I know we didn't.  And I don't think anyone else did either, but again, I was having that urinary at the time.

CORONA:  Was a pretty decent beer.

LAURIE'S SISTER AND BROTHER-IN-LAW:  Came to the rescue.  Tried unsuccessfully to jump it.  There were no previous signs the battery was bad, and I was afraid it might be the computer brain.  But...

LAURIE'S NEPHEW ANDY:  Lives less than a mile from the theatre, so we called him.  He is a car expert, and you can find his shop on Facebook at The Swap Shop.  He hooked a tester to the battery and proclaimed he was "98% sure" it was indeed just the battery.  Very nice of the damned thing to die so close to him.

THE SUPERMOON:  We had a great view as it rose over McDonalds.

BROTHER-IN-LAW:  Came back and picked me up after a day of fishing Sunday to get the battery tested (D.O.A.) and help me install the new one.

FISHERMEN:  Carry mini-fish nets to retrieve wayward sockets.


And now, the net results:
One new battery, during good weather and near home.
A free meal, and three free passes to The Avengers when we decide to try again.
Laurie and sister bonded over I-Pad games.
Saw half of a good movie.
Know what to order for drinks next time.
Realizing, as Laurie pointed out, "The biggest disaster wasn't anything that happened, but our response to it."
So, The Avengers, Laurie's family, and Andy for coming out on his night off, get an A+.
Cinema Grill gets an A for the grill part, and an F on the Cinema part, though they have the chance to raise their grade with extra credit.
Car, especially the battery, F.
Chris, D+ (I'm pleading extenuating circumstances to raise my grade.)

Frosty black cars

Here's the pics I promised of the new car- please excuse the frost, it was a whopping 12 degrees when we went out.











For once we can't sing, "I'm too sexy for my car..."




After this, I treated Scrappy to a walk through the back fence row. We tried a deeper than usual exploration Friday...

As you can see, this area is a cluttered mishmash of brush that tends to stick out at eye level. Here we are down the trail that runs meandering through the west side.

Friday we were greeted by a huge owl who flew past to get out of our way, joined on his new perch a few seconds later by his gossipy neighbor, a large crow who sat right next to him. No such luck today, but I did snap some pics of our other discovery- a rather large piece of some ancient farm machinery.

If you follow most of the way back, you come out on a hill that sits behind and between Woodbridge and the Woodlands of Riverside addition. In the summer, when this is a bug-ridden battle for survival, this spot is a sea of tall grass. Now, it is a frosty wonderland.

Now, I did say the west side. Why don't we do the east side? Well, because it is a trail-less mass of very sharp briars...

...and we both still have scars from Friday's stubborn attempt.

Saturday's walk, while safer, was about as successful. Going down to the river in the midst of the snow squall, we jammed Scrappy's leash (which KC and Laurie managed to fix, thank you); in crossing Stony Run, I heard a "CROOOOOK" which made me stop so fast I almost went down with a charlie horse; and Scrappy came home with slobber-sickles on his chin.

A NEW CAR!!!!

Well, we talked to the man at Preferred and he got us into a 2009 Impala. Dark blue, 7 years newer, 50k less miles, and about $30 a month more than what we were paying. I'll take some pictures in the daylight tomorrow so y'all can see it.

Main thing is, they paid off the Taurus free and clear, knocked down the price to get it off the lot, and gave us $2,000 for the Taurus on top of it. With these circumstances, it would've been hard to justify hanging onto the Taurus- we'd never get as much out of it again.

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In the midst of our good news, we got the bad news about Gabrielle Giffords getting shot in Arizona by that nutjob. Sounds like another tinfoil-antenna type that got issued a sidearm through stupidity. I'd just like to take this moment to point out to all you loose-hinge, conspiracy-seeing, disgruntled at employer-ing, give my life for Allah-ing $#!t for brains out there like Jared Laughner- if nobody cares about your BS before, they sure won't give a crap afterwards. Or, to put it another way,

Back off before I call her on you!!!

Why aren't you at work?

Because someone has to get the car fixed. Our 2002 Taurus did what 2002 Tauruses are allegedly good at- having a coil spring break and take out a tire. I'd read that this model had stuff like that happen, and when Laurie called me outside to fix the flat, it took very little time to see what happened. Of course on Sunday, of course when no one is open to take care of it, but thank God in the parking lot rather than while driving. So after about an hour of fussing over the next step, I got hold of a co-worker who could take Laurie in this a.m. so ONE of us didn't have to lose 2 days pay (today plus holiday).



In the meanwhile, I finally decided to go ahead and start Commissioner's cup '11, where I take total scores of our fantasy teams and add 'em up through the super bowl. Here at the start, the Ducks have the lead at 79, followed by the Elks at63, the Beagles at 47, Angels and T-Cubs at 40, KCAs and Rhinos at 39, Rangers at 34, SVA at 32, Clock BBQs at 27, Buzz at 25, and the B2s at 18.



In other football, it's that time of year to discover who your coach next year will be. Yesterday's results left Tennessee's Jeff Fisher, Oakland's Tom Cable, the Dolphins' Tony Sparano, Cincy's Marvin Lewis, and Cleveland's Eric Mangini in doubt. The Giant's man of the perpetual WTF face, Tom Coughlin, got told yesterday he's safe; the Vike's Leslie Frazier got told the interim tag is gone, and probably so did the Cowboy's Jason Garrett. Not so in San Fran and Denver, where both teams are rumoured to be in the Jim Harbaugh sweepstakes, along with the U of Michigan. John Fox got told coming in that he was done after his Carolina Panthers played (if you can call it that) Sunday. He can go home and wait by the phone. My hope is that Miami keeps Sparano; I fail to see how it was his fault that management failed to comprehend the lemon-hood of QB Chad Henne and WR Brandon Marshall. We need a quality QB, a deep threat that will actually catch a ball on occasion, and the next generation RB to phase out Ronnie Brown; not a new coach. I would be perplexed as to why the Raiders would dump Cable (since they've seemingly gotten past his sticky character issues), but the Raiders can be like that. One would think it would be a gimmie that a coach with a 4-12 record and a contract that's up would be gone (sorry, Marvin; you were just too tolerant of thugs and thuggery); and it can also be assumed now that Mike Holmgren can say, "Okay, I gave him (Mangini) a chance; now to pick my guy," he will do so. Coughlin I really like, and am glad the Giants kept him. Their WRs were hampered enough that go-to guy devolved onto TE Kevin (I only make good plays right after Chris bitches about me) Boss, which in turn changed Eli Manning from a 14-INT QB to a 25-INT one. And Fisher I would have fired two years ago if I was Bud Adams, but I never did like him.



Finally, we've been watching Holmes On Homes and Holmes Inspection on HGTV lately- Sunday nights. This guy should be required viewing for all contractors, inspectors, and people looking to remodel. A quote he had last night stuck with me: "Why be in a hurry? To make it ugly?" This guy actually inspires me to do better on my job- albeit inspiring me is like the commercial for "USA Prime Credit" where Lou Holtz calls "Peggy" and tells him he needs to send Lou out a replacement card tomorrow. "Peggy" says, "One Month," to which Lou goes into one of his inspirational talks. "Peggy" stands up and says, "You inspire me! Three weeks."

Leftovers of this week

Here's this week's catch-up.
1. In the process of our usual waking-up on Saturday process, Scrappy was doing his thing- groaning, licking, giving me the "baby eye" (this is where he pushes the bridge of his nose against mine, so that the one eye I have that isn't blocked by his snout is staring into his one eye that isn't blocked by my cheek), and thus was completely oblivious as 2 deer sauntered out the parking lot and into the fence row. That brings deer sightings for the year up to five.
2. Our goofy car is in the shop. We found the battery dead Monday morning, and preferred auto believed it to be a lights-left-on issue, which would have been odd since it hadn't moved since Saturday afternoon. It turned out to be a rebellious door-ajar sensor, which in turn was leaving the dome and exterior rear-view lights on at random. After a Thursday in which they worked normal, then wouldn't go out, then went out, then stayed on even while the car was moving, then went out 2 miles later, then wouldn't come on at all, then went back to normal , all in a three hour period, we took it back to Preferred who gave us a weekend loaner. This was a Chrysler (!) Concorde that sounded like it might fly apart at any minute, but was actually the result of a gaily rolling air tank in the trunk. In fact, as I type, Preferred has just called to say it's ready to pick up.
3. That three hour period coincided with my trip to see Dr. Sowden on the results of my ultrasound, which I documented in all its amusing detail on the 28th. He said a) the graft went closed, which is why the techs couldn't figure out what was going on, b) that "if they would have called me, it would have been done in 5 minutes" rather than the 3 hours it took, and c) everything's fine, no more ultrasounds, no more Sowden. I am "just a normal guy with two veins in his leg instead of three."
4. We worked our first OT of the season Friday, 6 hours, till noon. Probably wouldn't have been necessary without all the accursed fabric issues we're having. We have a ton of fabrics on hold for issues, including 1 Amazon (the blue that can't decide what color to be that I wrote about previously) 2 J Penny (that we have either run out of or can't get a decent roll w/o defects) at least one for Target (which defects have caused us to set probably a dozen 100-yd rolls aside as unusable) 3 for Country Casual (in which the latest rolls to come in do not match the older ones that are alomst used up in either shade or weave), and one I was just told about yesterday that the swatch that is supposed to bethe right color, weave, etc., neither matches the first rolls that came in, which are pretty much already used, or the new ones that came in this week.
5. Anyone else feel the hockey world shake to its foundations Thursday night? Not only do the Invincible Russians get knocked off in an OT shootout by Slovakia, but the only thing that prevented the same thing from happening to the Invincible Canadians at the hands of Switzerland is the fact that Sidney Crosby cannot be stopped in shootouts. The USA goes from hoping for a bronze to contention for a gold in two easy steps.
6. Finally, this blog has a follower now! Hurray! Tanks and God bless you!