Bike Ride From Hell

Oh sigh. Why do I even try. I feel like I just have a bull's-eye painted on my ass. Just so trouble and bad luck can find me. Really, it gets to the point that it is just silly. This story is just such an event...

My Dad regularly rides with a group that of people that comprise a state bike association. He asked my brother and I if we wanted to ride with him two Sundays ago. I haven't been on my bike since last summer and was itching to take it out so figured this would be a good chance. It was suppose to be really nice out.

I got a little bit of a late start and my brother decided not to go. We got there just before 10am (the ride start time). My dad wasn't ready to go. Since most people were already there and had gotten directions, my dad and I were sharing one set of directions. This should have been a sign...

My dad didn't have his shoes on, hadn't pumped up his tires, didn't know what psi they should be pumped to because this is a new bike. Sigh. We are finally ready to go. We are the last people out of the parking lot.

We are out maybe half and hour when I flat. The back tire. Grrr. Has to be the harder one to change. So, I change the tube out. Thankfully my dad had a portable pump. Too bad the gauge didn't work. So I had no idea what psi I was at. I didn't want to blow out another tube so I didn't go as high as I could have. This meant that it felt like I was peddling through mud for the entire rest of the time.

Then, just a bit later, it feels like I have another flat. I call my sister with me cell to see if she could pick me up because this is just getting silly. She can't unless we can give her gas money because she would be borrowing a friend's car. Um, neither me nor my dad has cash so that is a no go. After that call we determine that, no, I don't have a flat. I just have low pressure and combined with my weight, it is just really pancaked. After some discussion (me strongly voting for turning around), we continue on (much to my frustration).

Not two minutes later, my dad is having trouble with his gear shift. I am able to do a quick fix that will get him by for the remainder of the ride. He won’t be able to use the large gear in the front but the other two gears are available. This should have been sign number three. But, against my better judgment, we continue on.

We arrive at the turn around point. Of course, no one else from the ride is there. We take a short break. I am pretty beat. Unfortunately, my car is not going to drive itself over to pick me up. So, off we go. I am informed that this is the shorter half of the loop that we have remaining. That’s good.

After about two miles, my dad is so far ahead of me that I can no longer see him. We are riding up a very soft incline. I am standing on my pedals and going only 9 mph. This is just ridiculous! I finally catch up with my dad as he has stopped to wait for me at a place where we need to make a turn. I tell him that I have to stop. I am too tired. Okay, we agree that he is going to continue on and then drive back and pick me up. That sounds fine. Then he mentions that if I decide to ride anymore that I want to take a right on Tuttle. Okay. Bye dad.

45 minutes later… I am so bored. I have called four friends – none of whom were home. I’ve played a couple of games of chess on my phone. I’ve stretched. Ho hum. Well, I know where to go, at least for a bit. I figure that he will just get to me sooner if I am closer so I decide to ride on. I call his cell to let him know. No answer. Okay, maybe he left it in the car.

30 minutes later… well, I have reached the end of Tuttle. I know that I am going to be making a left on Kipp but he didn’t say that so I guess I will just wait here. Call his cell to let him know. No answer still. What the hell is he doing??

50 minutes later… Has he forgotten that he is picking me up!??!?! I am now getting sunburned, I’ve run out of water, and he still isn’t picking up his cell. I have now called no less that half a dozen times. He knows I have my cell, that it is on and working – I called my sister earlier when he was still with me. Well, I can’t wait out here forever. I need to find a gas station or at least a place that there is shade. I am not completely unfamiliar with the area and feel pretty confident that I can get back.

40 minutes later…. I can’t even imagine what the hell is going on with my father. We started the ride at 10 am. It is now nearly 3pm. I am nearly back to my car even though I spend over an hour and a half waiting that the side of the road. I am on a street that I recognize and judge my distance to be 10/15 minutes away. Oh, what is that? My cell. Oh, dad. Finally! And guess what… guess where he is… at HOME!!! WTF??

He wants to take me to lunch because of the messed up directions and complete lack of thought on his part to CALL. Okay. He is going to be at the parking lot in ten minutes. Gee, he might even beat me there.

I get back. No dad. Okay, put the bike in my car, change my shoes, brush my hair, turn on my radio and roll down the windows. Still no dad. WHERE IS HE?? I call the cell. Oh, yeah, guess what? No answer. I hate him right about now. I have been outside for over five hours. I was running late in the morning so I didn’t eat breakfast. I have been up for six hours with no food, only two bottles of water on a day that is was nearly 80 degrees out, was on a bike (or sitting by a bike) for over five hours, and now he is late! Finally, after about 8 or 9 minutes of waiting he shows up.

My father does stuff like this all of the time. He has almost no sense of logic. I guess I screwed up. I thought he would have his cell and use it. I thought he gave me good directions. I thought that even if he didn’t have his cell, he could call from a gas station if he was having trouble finding me, and I thought he would actually get back to the parking lot in a timely manner. In retrospect I should have 1) taken the directions from him – at least he has done the ride before. 2) I should not have assumed he would have his cell. 3) I should have turned around after the first flat. I am undecided if I am going to ride with him again. It was just so absolutely miserable. We'll have to see if time can heal this wound... and my sunburn.

More Reality TV

Every Tuesday my family gathers for American Idol. Yes, we are AI addicts. We have been doing the gathering for months. All the way back to the time when they were doing the trio sings. We all sit around the TV, eat dinner, watch the show, and try to speak loudly enough as to be able to talk over the show and everyone else in the room who also wants to throw his or her two cents in.

Now it is getting towards the end of the season so the contestants remaining are all fairly entertaining. My sister is all about Consta-suck. Ooops, I mean Constantine.

I personally am rooting for Vonzell. I think she is adorable and just as "marketable" as the others left. Bo is cool. He is also someone I would like to see in the final round.

Apparently, half of the viewership is made up of morons who aren't actally listening to the singing and just oogling the singer. I have come to this conclusion based on the fact that Carrie (aka: Robot-girl) is still on the show and apparently doing quite well during the phone voting.

Anyway, I wrote this blog because people never leave me comments... so maybe this will spur some of you to action. If for no other reason than to make fun of my addiction or to explain to me the qualities of robot-girl that make her an acceptable AI.

PS: Just a shout-out to the bf for a particularly amusing blog on plane travel. People should check it out. http://angryorange.blogspot.com/2005/04/business-travel.html

Honeymoon

This is a short post... I just want to know... where does this word "honeymoon" come from? I'm sure that about five minutes of web surfing would lead to the answer but I'm feeling lazy. I mean, it must come from some long-ago idea. Originally I thought, eh, just means your honey moon's you. But, nah, probably not. I mean, weren't people still "blowing out the candles" before jumping into bed with enough clothes on to go to the town square when this term came about? They never saw each other naked.

Anyway, just bored over here and uninterested in working on the thesis. Gives the mind time to wander...

Before

Make sure to scroll down past the "before" shots to see the "after" shots. I uploaded them in reverse to help with the online blog "reveal" effect.

I had no idea it would be such a massive project. Took four adults working nearly non-stop for ten hours to empty the basement, another three hours for two adults to paint the walls, and over a week for one adult to burn all of the excess lumber that hadn't already rotted to dirt. Yes, rotted to dirt. Found some of that joy in the closet. And, all together now... eeeeeeewww.



first "room"


second "room" = laundry


close-up of the laundry area... notice the delightful cobwebs by the light... yeah, a place to get clothes REAL 'clean'


the entrance to the scary closet


nasty, water damaged floor of scary closet

After

first room without the couch and other undesirables


where the nasty, nasty closet use to be


laundry room... doesn't it look so much better?


a close up of the color scheme (my sister's idea entirely)

RCC is Stupid - Yes, the entire school...

OMG! This is a truly rant-a-litious blog coming your way today. *Warning* In addition to being purely pissed off ranting, it is quite a long blog. I am being driven mad by my employer RCC (Random Community College). Apparently, in this age of technology and communications... they have NONE! Aaargh.

So this is how it all played out yesterday...

I was preparing for class and that means that I need to upload some information onto the class website. I also had to write up this short summary of the grades of my students for the dept. chair. They are trying to revamp the class and need data about the students' and his or her relative amount of experience in chemistry prior to class. Well, I had them fill out this form at the beginning of class that asked them how prepared they were - not whether or not they had taken chemistry. And I had them do it online. So I had to open all of those files and read his or her response and mark it on the grade sheet (guessing sometimes as to which column they would fall - prior chem class or not). Sigh. Of course, the website was slow about moving between pages. Finally finished and sent the summary off. Also dropped a quick note to the "lead" instructor for the course asking where I was teaching lab that night because I still hadn't been given that information. Yes... that's right, I didn't know where I was teaching lab. And ?why? you might ask. Well, because RCC has decided that the best time to renovate the science building is in the middle of the fucking term!! ID-DI-OTS! Yes, with two Ds. You really need to draw out the word for it to mean all it should.

Originally, when I talked with the guys (dept. chair & lead instructor) two weeks ago, I was going to be teaching lab in the building where I give lecture - just a different room than the one we had been in previously. Yesterday, I get a response e-mail at 3:30 PM. Now, remember, I have an hour long commute, have office hours at 5:30, and teach at 6:30. So, yeah, thanks for the timely e-mail asshole. This leaves me a little less than an hour to check out the lab space if I leave immediately. Not a big deal really. Well, shouldn't be. I’m ready to go down, I have read the lab, and feel like I have a handle on the material and the experiment they will be doing. Ah yeah. That was until I got this 3:30 e-mail.

He fucking changed the order of the labs, AGAIN! Earlier in the semester (read - the last two weeks) he switched labs because of the renovation. I, however, noticed that the change would need to be made and asked about it. So I was prepared and also had time to let the students know of the change. Um, not so in this case. The lab I read and the one all of my students (should have) read isn't the one we are doing tonight. Oh, and my key should open the lab in the new building. Why do I doubt this... sigh. Okay, off to school. I have to familiarize myself with a new (lengthy) lab experiment and lab space in addition to getting the take-home exam copied.

Oh, and did I mention, I don't know where the new building is.

I get there, get the exams copied, and go to check out the new building and room. Oh, whaddya know. My fucking key doesn't work! Aaargh. I call the lead and tell him the problem. Oh, just go get security to open it for you. Okay, back across campus to the security office. No one is there. Have the copy lady page them for me. Meet the security officer at the lab. She has to try four keys before one works. Aaah, the quality at this joint just blows the mind. Anyway... I tell the security woman that I will need someone to let me in again when we actually have class here at 8pm. She says she will leave a note for the next shift. Great.

By this time, I have just given up and cancelled my office hours. I prep lab. No problem. Go to class. Class is fine. Off to lab. Get there right at 8pm. Oh, whaddya know... FUCKING LOCKED. I call security. Oh whadday know... FUCKING MESSAGE MACHINE. I go over to the security office. Oh whadday know... NO ONE FUCKING THERE. I call the lead. He ends up coming in and unlocking the door. 8:25pm. I end up cutting over half the lab because it turns out we can't do it in this room anyway.

Oh, and this lab is like a warehouse. There are no sinks, no hoods, no burners, no paper towels, no emergency washes. This is just a lawsuit waiting to happen. What a joke. We are disposing of all of the trash into a bucket and dumping everything into the dumpster after class. Very sketch. Yeah, and did I mention, no burners. So the entire second half of the lab that I worried about reading and understanding and working out the calculations so I was prepared... a big ugly WASTE! He couldn't mention that in the e-mail?? This is a little sidenote - the ventilation system is this: Open the door to the hall on the west side of the room, and open the garage door on the east side of the room. Yeah. Garage door. Told ya it was a warehouse.

So, I find myself teaching biochem for the last three weeks (which I hate and wasn't looking forward to), working in a lab that isn't a lab that's also in a different building so I have to end class early even though we are behind in the material, there is no printer for me to make quick copies or overheads (removed for renovations) and no mailroom (dismantled for a few weeks during the office move), and the lead changing the fucking experiments on me without letting me know. Oh, and here's the best part... I asked why he switched these experiments... because - I couldn't even believe this - because... this lab was easier to set up!!

In summary:
-- The business affairs (ie: mail) aren't available
-- The supplies are not working - the markers for the dry erase board are so bad that I had a student buy me new ones to use, the printer has disappeared because they don't have electicity to the trailers yet, and the mailroom supply cabinets have been emptied
-- The facilities are primitive at best
-- Lab experiments get switched at random from the syllabus schedule without warning
-- Security is incompetent
-- I get paid a pittance

God help me... I'm going to have a brain aneurism!

I'm a weenie

Originally drafted 3-20-05:

I don't like to admit it, but I am. I am afraid of a little sliver of metal.

Not much is new on this side of the lake. The big thing on the horizon is that I was suppose to go donate plasma with my sister because they pay cash. Something like $25 a visit. Given that I am having trouble finding money for the gas addict (AKA: Kia), I figured I would give it a try. Should be horrible. I am afraid of needles. I start to cry even though I am doing everything to try not to. It's irrational. But donating is easy cash and I don't need to use my brain. Only problem is that the first time takes 3-4 hours because of pre-screening testing crap. And the sis has a job that starts around 1pm everyday. I was entirely too tired to go Tuesday and the other day we planned for, Friday, I just completely forgot. So, we are on to try again this next week. Ugh.

Attempted to update 3-29-05:

What a mess. We didn't go last week Tuesday. I got up and was getting ready to head over to pick up my sister. Gave her a ring to find out if she was up and near ready. She said she was and that we were on. Then... about three, maybe five minutes later she calls back. She doesn't have her social security card. Um. Okay. Where is it? Oh, how handy - it's in a safe deposit box downtown. And not her's. My dad's. So even if we had time, we couldn't pick it up. Guess we aren't going AGAIN. Friday (the only other day of the week that would work with our schedule's) is out because I was heading down to Chicago. Next week then?

Tuesday morning. She's awake. I'm awake. With both have ID's, proof of residence, and soc. cards. Off we go. We get to the clinic just after 9am. There is a sign up sheet with five names on it already. The woman at the desk tells us that it could be one maybe even two hours of waiting. We have a little over four hours so that shouldn't be a problem.

10:15am. Still waiting.

10:30am. Still waiting.

10:45am. Still waiting.

11:00am. Still waiting.

Okay, the sis is going to check the list because it has now been two hours and neither of us has been seen. We were thinking that we could wait and at least get the mini-physicals done then come back and do the actually donating later in the week. There is still one name in front of us!! Geez. What the heck is taking so long?? We figured it out and they were averaging one person every half hour. Um, maybe they should have more than one really slow person doing physicals. I mean, a complete, full, annual check-up takes less than an hour. What Are They Doing?? We came to the decision to leave. We were going to be cutting it close just doing the mini-physical given the time-line we seem to be on. What a joke. Very frustrating.

We plan to go tomorrow at 7am. The butt crack of dawn when the idiots open up the joint.


Text added 3-30-05:

Yeah... 7am... not happening. I thought I was going to throw up when the alarm went off. There was no way I was going. At this point, I think we may have officially given up the idea.

We found out when we were there yesterday that they only pay $20 after your first time. A tank of gas costs more. If I was truely so poor as to be in danger of losing the roof over my head or having my car repossessed, then I might be more inclined to continue to pursue this venture. However, given the scheduling difficulty, the massive time commitment, and my general irrational reaction to needles... this just isn't worth it. Instead I will be creating a website where annonymous people can make donations to the "Save Amy's Sanity" fund. And yes, there will be a space on the form for comments. Who's first?? Hahahahaha

The Dank, Dark Scary Place

My mom has a b-day coming up soon. Most people that know of my situation know that I have been mooching off of her for the past few months as I struggle to make nearly no money doing a job I both love and hate while concurrently working on a project that I completely hate that makes me no money (thesis). My rent is going to be paid in manual labor (because I, sadly, have nothing else to offer). I'm not sure when I will pay this debt but I'm thinking there will be a very busy and laborious week sometime this summer... the deal was painting a ceiling per month or other jobs which are to be negotiated at the time payment comes due.

One of the ideas I had to work off my debt was to clean out the basement. This is a very nasty area of the house that my mom has been ignoring for some time. At some point, my brother went about the task of ripping down this hideous panel walling that had been put in years and years ago. Unfortunately, as is my brother's habit, the job was left half done. There are wall pieces still up, a table saw in the basement, the nasty water-damaged cabinets (flood in the basement many, many years ago), along with other random items that should be tossed to the curb.

So, with the help of my sibs (should be four of us total), tonight we are going to get the place cleared out... happy birthday mom. This will require lots of cleaning, hauling, and demolishing. Should be completely, totally nasty. I plan to wear full coverage clothing along with two bandanas - one for my hair and one for my face. Ugh.

Wouldn't have thought of this project but yesterday my mom suggested hiring me to do laudry because the place is so gross she doesn't even want to go downstairs to use the washing machine. Clearly, an intervention is necessary. I'll blog about the results, the nastiness encountered, and the response received later.

Wish us luck that we return from the dank, dark scary place called my mom's basement on this mission of rescue...

Computers Are Evil

I recently had a rather bad scare with my laptop. I have always really liked my laptop. It's fairly tricked out given the price range I was in and has always treated me well. Boots up fairly quickly, connects to wireless hubs that are in the building next door, burns CDs and DVDs without errors, and generally runs flawlessly.

Well, that was, until very recently. My hard drive shat on me. Yup. Wouldn't boot. We (the computer-savvy males in my life and now me) think that it may be because I left it on too long. Now, it boots but it will tell me that it has recovered from a serious error. And I can't seem to be able to use my CD/DVD drive. Making it annoyingly hard to back stuff up. Yuck. I am still working on moving all of my stuff to a different drive via a network connection. Problem is, I have a ton of thesis data (figures, graphs, presentations, papers, and so forth). Really, I am just happy that the data isn't lost! Just one more reason that I hate my thesis, hate graduate school, and hate that I have to be doing this work from home instead of on the computers in the lab that are backed up on a server with a mirror server (just in case). Grrr.

But, computers are evil. My computer decided to die the morning I was going to print an exam for the class I teach. It is a long story, but the copy center can't accept e-mails so I have to go there in person. My plan was to print out the exam after a last read-thru and take it to the center. Well, when my computer wouldn't boot for five hours, I ended up dragging my mom down to school with me (an hour drive one way) and we both retyped the exam. She did the true/false and multichoice while I did the short answer questions. It was a mad scramble. It had to be to the copy center by 5pm and the exam was being given out to the class that night so it had to be done right then. Hence - computers are evil.

On side note: I own my mom BIG TIME! I would never have finished in time so I would have had to go to Kinko's and shell out hundreds of dollars (literally - 11pg exam for 50 students). Not to mention, I spent the time during the drive down polishing my lecture which would have been much worse without the extra time. I didn't plan on fighting with my computer for five hours that day. I have no idea how to repay her. I think I will have to paint a few ceilings to pay off that debt.

Go Green! Go White!

I'm not a basketball fan. You wouldn't know it to talk to me lately. Since both the men's team AND the women's team went to the final four of the NCAA tournament. The men lost to the Tarheels and won't be playing in the final game. And they have no one but themselves to blame. They couldn't hit a basket in the second half to save their lives. However, if you want a job done right, let a woman do it... The women's team defeated Tenn. to move onto the FINALS!! Sweet! Great time to be a Spartan!

Anyway... for the women... Go Green! Go White! Go Spartans!

I wish...

Well, I wish a lot of things. But lately, I have been thinking that any talent in the kitchen would be nice. I am kickass at following a recipe but in the arena of just "tossing a few things together"... well, I don't end up with a gourmet meal. In fact, discerning what belongs on a dinner plate and in a trash bag is not always so easy. sigh.

Does anyone know... is there any way to get better at it without sacrificing large amounts of defenseless meat and produce?