Thursday, May 29, 2008

Good Morning...Oh Crap!-With Updated Wrap-up Goodness.

So the morning has gotten off to a terrific start. The alarm went off at 4:00 a.m. It woke me up. I made coffee. GF and I drank coffee.

So far, so good.

We walked out the door at 4:50 a.m. so I could take GF to the airport (visiting family). Yesterday, when I got home, there was nowhere to park on my block so I parked around the corner. Well, it turns out that since they installed the bike lane on that street, they also changed the parking regulations and the side I parked on not only has street cleaning twice per week, it now has No Standing 4:00p.m.-7:00p.m. Monday thru Friday. Shit!

Car? Towed!

We called a car service to take GF to the airport. That went fine and she called to say she got checked in fine and would make her flight. I'm going to have some issues with getting the car out of the tow-pound. First of all there will be $150 for the towing itself. (Why do I have to pay you to tow my car when I didn't even ask you to do it?) There will also be a fine for parking in a No Standing Zone (probably $55). The car is a rental and that won't make it any easier retrieving the damned thing since all of the paperwork is in the glove compartment and they don't let you go to the car until you show them the paperwork. Crap. This isn't gonna be any fun at all.

UPDATE: Well, it's 7:00pm and I'm home from a mostly craptacular day. The towing cost $185 and the ticket for the No Standing Zone is One-Hundred and Fifteen fucking dollars!
And guess what? They only had on person working at the Tow Pound and it took me three and 1/2 hours to get the car. Fuckety, Fuck Fuck!

On the good side, the job I'm on right now initially hired me only to scout for three or four weeks (four weeks ago). They want me to stay on an manage, so I get a little raise and I'm on the job through the middle of August. Yay!

First I'm gonna have a drink to work off the car towing crappiness. Then I might have another one to celebrate employment.

On a more pleasant note, we start writing Charlotte Misner this weekend (Saturday by our calendar, Sunday by the Narnian calendar). Kate, Jeri, Michelle, Matt, Tom, Kimby, Tania, and Saqib have all signed on. Eric is still being all coy and shit. There's still time to join us. Let me know in the comments if you want your name added to the list of participants. (Besides that; who am I fooling. Since everybody gets a week to write their chapter, I think you're safe joining us anytime before August. I'm not big on enforcing deadlines when they don't make any real difference.) I'll put up the promised post tonight with a more thorough description of how this one will work, but for a basic description, go here.

Time to go start my battle with intransigent bureaucracy. (The hell with fighting them; I even had trouble spelling it.)

6 comments:

Random Michelle K said...

If I have any leftover chocolate, I'll send it your way.

Jim Wright said...

Towed Rental Car? Hmmm, I'd just call the rental company and report it stolen, and demand, demand I say, a replacement. ;)

Just another reason I don't live in the city, one of many, many reasons.

As to the writing thing - dammit I just don't have the time. But you know, I never have the time. Screw it, sign me up, Nathan. I'm in.

Nathan said...

Excellent Jim,

And I don't have time right now, but the sorry story with the car is only just now wrapping up at 1:53 p.m., so I'll post an updated later.

MWT said...

Hmmm... one of my favorite parts about Las Vegas was the free parking every-friggin' where. No need to worry about any of those zoning and meter-feeding things ever.

On the other hand, I've been spending my last few days wondering whether I should go into yet another round of bureaucracy battling with my health insurance company, or just pay the bleeping $94 that they think I owe the lab. (How is it my problem if neither the insurance company, the lab, or the other lab can keep track of accurate paperwork, and if the insurance company and the lab are bickering with each other?)

Thirdly... I think I'm going to wait and see how the first few chapters of the story goes before I decide whether to join in. My creative writing plate is kind of full at the moment; one of the writing communities I'm in does a half-nano marathon in June and July, which is 1000 words per day for 60 days. We call it Summer Fun Run (SFR). Anyone else want to join? ;)

Nathan said...

MWT

At this point I'm fine with people signing on later. We've got a respectable enough sized crowd to get things started and I'm sure I'll close participation off at some point, but that's in some nebulous future.

Eric said...

If it's okay, then I'd like to follow MWT's lead and see how the chapters go....