A slight change in plans

by | Aug 28, 2002 | Personal

Well, it seems that things have been moved around a bit. Originally, to avoid the holliday weekend traffic, I was going to be leaving for Savannah on Tuesday. That’s changed. We’re now leaving on Sunday… maybe. You see, no one really knows for sure or is willing to give me any actual details. Everyone is in a “we’ll see what happens” state of mind and it’s starting to piss me off. If I’m leaving on Sunday, I need to know now so I can pack. If not, I’ll start packing this weekend. I also need to know if I have a dentist appointment or not. My jaw still hurts very badly and every time I bring it up I get a “not now” response. Well, fuck me, but when would be a good time? This is how my household works and has worked for quite some time. Even today I had to get up at 7am and drive the mini-van to the garage because it has some “issues”. I’m not told what issues it has, how long it’ll be there for, if I’ll need to pick it up, etc. So, my mom took the Matrix, my dad’s working, my brother is downstairs cutting his own hair (don’t ask) and I’m sitting upstairs wondering if I should bother putting my laundry in my dresser or if I should be packing it. I can’t find the boxes I brought stuff home in. I’m hungry, I’m tired and I’m friggin’ pissed off. Arg. I think this is one of those “low blood sugar” type of days. Ok, calming down… I’m better now. I just needed to vent a little. I’m a bit stressed out and so is everyone else. Everything will work out, it always does. Somehow that doesn’t work as well when you’re trying to tell yourself that though. Oh well. I’ve got some laundry to do, then I’ll find some lunch. After that I should probably clean out the Oldsmobile and start packing things that aren’t clothes. Saturday I’ll pack the computer and the clothes and then start packing the car. What fun.

Road Tripish

by | Aug 27, 2002 | Imported Entry

Yesterday was a bit of an adventure for Chris and I. Chris was wanting to move some things to Long Island and was wondering if I would like to go with him so that he didn’t have to make the trip alone. I was more than willing to go but wasn’t sure since my jaw/teeth were still in considerable pain. By yesterday morning the swelling had gone down and I was semi-able to chew solid foods again. The fact that I didn’t wake up to a raging head/toothache was a good sign. So, I decided I’d be ok to make the trip with Chris.

The trip would consist of us driving to Connecticut, picking up things from his uncles house, driving down through/around NYC and over to Long Island. There we would drop everything off, drive to the other end of L.I. and take a ferry back over to Connecticut and then drive home. Surprisingly… everything worked out. Chris and I had a fantastic habit of getting confused while we’re on road trip. Once or twice on our way home from Boston we’ve somehow ended up on roads heading towards Maine. Not this time. Thanks in large part to MapQuest, we actually made it. We even made our boat reservation to boot. All in all it was a fairly fun little adventure.

Today I’m actually doing even better and my wisdom teeth are almost back to normal. I’m still insisting on going to the detist and having the damn thing ripped out. I’m going going to go back to school and have it act up again. There hasn’t been any appointments made but I’ll fix that soon. I’ve also managed to get a hair appointment for Thursday so I can have a little trim before I go back to Savannah.

As for today itself, Chris and I actually have a bit planned. We’re going to go to Newbury Comics so he can get his last CD purchases of the summer season then over to Tweeter so he can get a disk cleaner for his car. After that we had wanted to get something to eat and rent the 2nd season of the Supranos. Both of us have seen the 1st season but we’ve missed almost all of the 2nd. So, that’s pretty much our plan. I figure we’ll be able to knock off about half of the season today and then finish up the rest later. That’s pretty much it.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Chris let me borrow his Nikon CoolPix 995 so I could take some pictures of the Matrix. I did that this morning and after I resize them I’ll be putting them up. That is all.

Pain, discomfort and a family BBQ

by | Aug 25, 2002 | Imported Entry

Well, last nights “game night” went well. Chip and I played CS almost exclusively.

CS is one of those games were you’ll have a hot streak for an hour or so and then have an extremely cold streak for an equal amount of time. It can be quite fustrating. The keys to sucess usually involve a heafty dose of caffine and occasional breaks so you don’t get burnt out. This may seems a tad involved for something that’s “just a game” but I don’t care. It’s a darn good game and I take my video gaming skills rather seriously. It’s no fun losing and when you’re good enough to win you often have more fun that way. Anyway, it was fun. It’s a shame we couldn’t pick up Jason but it was simply too far to Chelmsford to get him. It was raining and windy and Chelmsford is about an hour away normally. So, the weather wasn’t really the kind we felt safe driving in, especially to someplace we didn’t really know. Next week we’ll make some definite plans and make sure we get him up here.

Today we have a cookout/birthday party for my grandmother. We had all snuck around and gotten a family portrait done and printed up for her and she really seemed to enjoy it. Having my tooth problem I had to stick to hotdogs and potato salad so I missed out on what I’m told were “quite tasty burgers.” Wait, I haven’t mentioned my dental problem have I? Ah, well, it seems that one of my wisdom teeth, in it’s infinite “wisdom”, has decided to make this weekend “come out and greet the world” weekend. The whole right side of my face is swollen extremely large and my teeth/gums aren’t exactly feeling 100%. Actually, it’s possibly the most painful experience of my life. Seriously. Now I know why teething babies cry so much. Allegedly tomorrow my Mom is making an emergency appointment with the dentist to have it (or both of them) removed.

Now, I’m the type of person who has a deep and unnatural hatred for the dentist. All my life, everytime I go to the dentist it’s been nothing but extreme plain and discomfort. So, in turn, I hate it. Add to this my also deep and unnatural fear of anethesia. It really really frightens me. Being put “to sleep” by something I don’t have complete and total control over really scares the crap out of me. What if the dentist screws up? What if I don’t wake up? What if something goes wrong and I don’t know it? All these thing run through my head when I think about “going under.” However, in light of the extreme pain I’m in and the fact that I CAN’T CHEW, I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get this over with. I can put my fears aside if it means I’ll be pain free in a few days. It also means that the probable cause of my headaches might go away, a possibility that intrests me as well. So, in this case, the good outweighs to bad and I’ll probably bite the bullet and simply get it over with. But I still won’t like it. Or even the concept of it. I’m just not thinking about it at the moment… or at least trying not to.

Thats about all thats going on with me. Pain, discomfort and a family BBQ, what a great combonation.

New car features.

by | Aug 24, 2002 | Personal

I some how completely forgot to mention which model it is. The Matrix comes in 3 models: base, XR and XRS. The only difference between the XR and the XRS is some “sporty” rice-rocket-ish molding along the side pannels. I’m serious. Same engine, same everything. So, not wanting to go with simply the baseline, we opted for the XR. Now, the regular Matrix is cool, but the Matrix XR adds some cool features. We also added some additional features because they were available and it seemed like a good idea. The additional feature we get with the XR are:

– Remote keyless entry system
– Rear window wiper (yes, this doesn’t come standard. odd.)
– Power windows
– Power door locks
– 3-spoke “sport” leather wrapped steering wheel
– One 115-volt and two 12-volt auxiliary power outlets (yes, that’s in addition to the normal one or two “cigarette lighter” outlets. The 115v outlet is a huge deal. Think about the war-driving capabilities. hehe)
– variable intermittent windshield wipers (instead of the on/off variety)
– Driver’s seat vertical height adjuster
– Passenger’s seat vertical height adjuster
– Interior mirror-mounted maplights
– Moon/Sun roof

The features we added:
– Premium 3-in-1 AM/FM ETR/Cassette/CD with 6 speakers
– Integrated fog lamps
– Cruise control
– 4-wheel Anti-lock Brake System (ABS)

All that random crap, plus the standard stuff (airbags, cup holders, etc) makes this an attractive little package. We stuck with Toyota because we’ve purchased so many cars from them before that they were willing to give us insain deals. This will in fact be our 8th (!) Toyota. Our other Toyota option was a Carolla LE which was very attractive as well but simply doesn’t offer as much cargo room. I liked it a lot as soon as the test drive began but it took a test drive of their own to convince the parents. As soon as they drove it they loved it too. It’s really really easy to drive. It feels just like the Carolla and Camrys we’ve had in the past. There was practically no learning curve, no “where the hell is this button” problems. It’s a Toyota and they have a habit of using nearly the same designs all across the board. Anyway, I was looking at the Toyota site and found something I think Chris would find amusing. Buddy, if this isn’t convincing… I don’t know what it.

I haven’t decided on any names yet, any one have any suggestions? And yes… it is a requirement that boys name their cars. Well, at least with Chris and I anyways. Tehehe. Just ask Chris about Winona.

So, after all the fun and excitement of picking up a new car, what’s left but to play video games? I assume the game night is still on. Odds are that it’ll just be Chip and I but we usually have more fun that way anyways. I’ll have to give him a call later.

That is all.