September 13, 2002
9/13
Okay, so I started my new job. Let me tell you about that before I tell you about the hell that has been our life for the last month or so. The job is very cool. There's also some downtime, which is nice, since that means that I can update my journal, and I can get mundane things like filling done on the less hectic days. For example, I don't have much going on and my boss is going to Japan next week. So all next week, I'm just going through the current files to learn what's in them. Plus, I may reorganize his office. I have my own office, with real walls and everything, with a beautiful desk, and no cubicles. Lovely. The building itself is absolutely beautiful in rich wood and rose marble. It's immaculate - the maintenance and security staff seem to be amazing so far. And the security guys actually LOOK like security guys. Not skinny men who couldn't get into the police academy but still want to wear a gun... Big guys who have to go sideways through doors, and look as if this is their "day" job. Their nightjob is as a bouncer in a biker bar. :) There's a nice little, if pricey, deli. There's a gym, and it only costs $50 per year. Only open to tennants of the building - with full showers etc. I like the job, I like the people, I like my boss. I think I'll do just fine here.Okay, so the rest of the month hasn't been so good.
My computer got a virus. From a fellow journaler no less. I know her emails, which is why I opened the darned thing. Turns out it's a worm that sends itself out to people in your address book without your knowledge. Anyway, so it actually couldn't be fixed. Or it could, but not without edits to certain regedit files that you just don't touch if you don't know what you're doing. But this file actually actacks random executables. So, it got to my windows.exe. Uh oh. And it wouldn't open in safe mode. So I had a computer that I couldn't safely fix. It had gotten to the fixes. I had to wipe out the whole thing and start all over. Which means I lost all our financial data. And the backup disk I had for quicken had an error on it, and therefore won't load. I had to re-do the data entry for the entire 4 years I've been married. As I did it over the course of a few days, I got pretty good at the data entry. So now that's fixed. Thank goodness.
My parents have been out of town which means they haven't been watching Joseph, Brandy our babysitter has, while I'm at work. Fine. Except that we had a fire in the Glendale mountains a few days ago. Brandy called me, and she was actually quite calm. Apparently, the fire had peaked over her ridge, and they were talking evacutation, oh and what would I like her to do with my kids. You see, Jay wasn't answering the phone at home. Ugghhhh. So we had to work that out. Then that night, we saw the flames peaking over the mountains by us. That was a little scary too. Joseph loved it though. "Fireworks??" Although it comes out more like "Firewoks".
So. The car. First, Jay runs out of gas. Okay. I get dad to babysit, and get some gas in can, and go to get Jay. On the freeway, I can't get to Jay since a tow-truck is in my way. Hmmm. I get off the freeway (since I have to double back anyway), and I call him from a payphone on his cel phone. He tells me it's this free service run by the city, basically to get him off the road, so that he doesn't cause an accident or backup. Fine. Where is he? Jay tells me, and I head off. Apprently though, the little bit of gas the tow put in our car didn't work. We try the 3 gallons I brought. No dice. By now the tow truck has already left. The car tries to turn over but won't. There's black smoke coming from the tailpipe - never a good sign in my estimation, and first it smells like rotten eggs, and then it smells like black licorice. Go figure. So, we call AAA. Tow truck comes out (after calling me back saying they were next to my car and where am I? - Ummm. Standing next to the car). Of course, when the tow guy comes, the car starts up fine, Jay does a test circuit around the block, no problem, no service rendered, and we head off. I'm following Jay, to make sure he makes it okay. He doesn't. I think he's blinking to go into the left lane, I go first to make it easy for him, but he pulls off to the right shoulder and I fly right on by him. That's how we find out one of our back lights are out. So, I walk nearly a quarter mile back towards him, since I have the AAA card, and he has the cel phone. I get the phone, and walk all the way back to the truck, do the get off get on get off get on thing with the freeway to get back to Jay. By the time I get there ANOTHER one of those free service mini tows is there, this time with a cop. Yay. Luckilly the cop just wanted to make sure we were okay, and the mini-tow guy called the regular tow truck for us, since it would be dispatched quicker that way. Tow truck comes, it's the same guy. He was really nice, and towed us for free all the way to the house, even though it was over the 7 mile maximum on our AAA coverage. Next day, it starts up okay, so Jay heads to Jiffy Lube. It needed it's 3000 mile check anyway, and we could get our fuel filter changed there, which is what my dad thought it was. Car dies a block away from Jiffy Lube. Since it's straight up hill, Jay has to get it towed, nobody can push a car straight up. They do the fluids and checks, and change the filter, etc. No dice, still doesn't work, and they sheared off the top to the dip stick, so that the stick is rolling around in the oil pan thing-y. Great. We still have to pay $85. Yipee. No manager around either of course. So Jay wrote in what happened. Another tow, this time to my dad's automotive place. Once there, while the tow guy was dismantling the towing mechanism, he put it through our quarter panel. About $1500 worth of damage which they are supposed to pay for. I'll believe it when I see it. So, it turns out to have been the fuel pump. It's fixed and happy, and we have the car. Only now, even though the fuel pump is supposed to be covered by our service contract, they don't have our service contract listed. Of course we paid $2000 for it. We'll see how that goes. Luckilly, the garage let us have the car even thoguh the work isn't paid for, because my dad gives them so much business. And they know we're not lying about the fight with the service contract since they were the ones to let us know there was a problem with it in the first place.
So. This hasn't been the greatest month in the world, along with the memories of 9/11 coming up during the anniversary. A lot has happened for us in that year. We created a whole human being, and I got a job, and Jay started school.
It's gotta - just gotta - get better.
