Weekend Wrap-Up

Today was our monthly local artist meet-up; not a huge turn out, but quite a few people had other understandably pressing matters that kept them away. Still, we all produced some art, discussed some new projects we had started working on, and squared away our plans for Free Comic Book Day.

For any who are going to be in Spokane on May 2nd - a few of us will be at Merlyn's from 11-3 (the store opens at 10 am) doing free sketches for any kids 10 and under. Even if you're not a kid, please swing by and pick up some free comics and check out everything else the shop has to offer.

Also, the 3rd annual Spokane Comic-Con is rapidly approaching. This year it will be at the Spokane Falls Community College on May 30th from 10-5. Jenny was actually able to get the time requested off from work, and we'll both be there, but only as fans, hanging out and having geeky fun. I'm planning on getting a table next year, as I'll (hopefully) have something to showcase. Guess we'll just see what I can get done between now and then...

Otherwise, the weekend was good, and mostly relaxing. We were supposed to hang out with our friend Jamie on Friday, but it was his mom's birthday. So maybe we'll see him later this week. We ended up going over to CdA to take the car in for an oil change, and going out to lunch with Jenny's parents, so everything worked out OK anyway.

I've been sketching some, but mostly just doing research and some writing for a new project, and I really need to get some actual artwork done this week. I got knocked out of the AFL competition over on deviantArt, but I haven't actually finished my last entry. I need to do that, and I also wanted to do some fan-art for a few characters that I didn't get to face. The un-ending hunt for a day-job continues as well.

Also, I wanted to wish "Happy Birthday!" to our good friends Alex (on the 19th) and Shannon (on the 20th)!

North! To Alaska!

The FJ Cruiser is now in my name and has new Washington plates. Even though Mom had signed over the cruiser, when I went to the Department of Licensing, they said they couldn't (wouldn't) proceed until I had a note from my mother stating that she gifted the car to me. Yes, you heard me, a note... from my mother... saying it was ok to put the cruiser in my name. So dumb. So I drove to CDA and got the note, which Mom tried to keep the sarcasam down as she wrote it. Then after a short visit so that I wouldn't waste the trip, I drove back to the DOL and they read the note, and finished the paperwork, took my check and handed over the new plates. What a pain. Peter wasn't impressed with the DOL when I told him, and he said that it was a good thing he wasn't there. I agree, because he might have said something that would have delayed me getting the cruiser in my name!

I finished the seventh Harry Potter book on Wednesday the 25th around 1AM. It was really good.

I've finished the laundry and have been packing for the trip. Looks like all the extra cameras from the wedding will have to go on our carry on, as the undeveloped film won't survive the x-rays. We're probably not going to take much, since we're going up there to visit with whomever has time, take lots of pictures and just relax. The only things we have planned so far, that I remember, is a BBQ when we first get in tomorrow with the extended family :), Sunday morning church to meet people there, and a Cake concert with friends on Friday the 10th at the Blue Loon. I wonder if the Loon is any different then the last time I saw it years ago? Doubt it.

Peter and I picked up a Tracfone to use while we're up there, so we should be easy to get a hold of. If you want the number for it, we'll either send out an e-mail, or if you have our home phone number, call that and if I'm home I'll pick up or call you back with the number. Not that it's likely that any random person is going to find the number if I post it here and call it, but I'm not going to take that chance.

Can't wait to get back up there! It might be rainy when we get there, but we chose fair season, we knew what we were getting into. And at least it's not -40F!

Monday, Monday...

Our weekend was actually pretty good, although it was (as usual) painfully short when I realized I had to go back to work today...

Friday was the big Harry Potter release night. The final book (#7) officially came out on Saturday, but we had preordered it and we drove into CdA around 10 to pick it up at Borders at midnight. Actually didn't end up getting it till almost 1am after standing around in line outside for a while. Jenny just finished re-reading book 6 and is now furiously plowing through the new one (about half way at last count). I'm still a little ways into book 5, and haven't read book 6 at all, so I've still got a while to catch up. But I did sneak a peek at the end of the new one, and read the last chapter, so I know kinda how it ends. ;)

On Saturday our friend Jamie came over and watched some more bad movies together. We also got some lunch in there somewhere, and just hung out and caught up, since it'd been a while since we'd seen him.

Sunday was a party over at Angel and Alana's place. Our friends Lucky and Erin were in town for the weekend and staying with them, so they had a BBQ in their honor. It was a whole lot of fun, we met a bunch of interesting people, and we even got to unload our extra napkins, plates and stuff from the wedding. :)

Jenny headed back over to CdA today to get her mom to sign off on the title for the cruiser, so it's officially ours now! She's been busy all week, running around taking care of changing her name with various institutions. Her new license just got here in the mail today. I think the only thing that's left is getting a new passport, and I need to apply for one as well, especially with all the changes in the rules for traveling through Canada...

On the Road Again....

Well, it's been a week since our last post... So, what's been going on?

The big news, of course, is that we replaced the recently deceased truck with a brand new, shiny blue F-J Cruiser! Jenny's mom had offered to "help us out" with a new car as a wedding present, using money she'd received as part of the inheritance when her father (Jenny's Grandfather) passed away. What we didn't know was that meant she was going to buy it for us outright - completely paying it off! That's right - our wedding (and birthdays and next few Christmas) present was a Brand New Car! You can say that last bit in a game show announcer voice to make it sound right. :)

We'd told her parents that we really didn't need any sort of bells and whistles, that the basic package would be more than enough. However, the local Toyota dealer didn't have any basic Cruisers, so we ended up with a whole bunch of extras that we really don't need (but are all supercool and we really are happy to have). Right now it's still in Jenny's mom's name - we'll be able to switch it over to us in the next couple of months.

Sooo.... we've been deleriously happy with our new car. :D Such simple luxuries as air conditioning and a working radio were previously unknown to us, so this just about blew us away. Now we've just got to keep it upkept so it'll last another 20 years like the truck.

We had hoped to sign our new lease and get on the list for a garage (assuming such a list exists) on Friday, but the trainee was at the office instead of the normal secretary. She told us to come back on Saturday and the regular girl could take care of it no problem, but we showed up on Saturday only to find that we needed to set up an appointment first, which of course the trainee failed to mention.... So we've got an appointment this Saturday at noon to sign our new lease - hopefully we'll make some progress towards a garage as well. We're both even more paranoid at night now that we've got our beautiful new vehicle to protect (might as well just paint a target on it...).

On the wedding front, we finally got our invitations/announcements out in the mail, atleast to the people we have addresses for. There are still a few people we don't have mailing addresses for, for whatever reason, and if you're one of those people and are reading this you know who you are and you know how to get a hold of me. :)

Also picked up my ring this week. Went with a super simple white gold band - since Jenny's is such a unique heirloom, we didn't want to try to find a suitable match at this time, just something I would like to wear that wasn't flashy. Figure that a ways down the road we can always have something custom made to match Jenny's and replace mine.

Work is still work. We hired a new girl, who put in her 2 week notice less than a week after starting. So we can't really expend much energy training her, since she'll be leaving soon, but we still have to find busy work for her to do in the meantime. I'm really surprised they didn't just let her go when she put in her notice. Eh, atleast she can clean and make copies - there's always more copies to make. Brian's leaving at the end of this month, leaving myself and Derek (who is very competent, but has still only been there for 3 or 4 months at this point), and now the boss is thinking of just not hiring a new person for the time being and see how things go. I'm not loving my job in the first place, so this is certainly not going to help the situation....

Oh, and June 1st was my (31st) birthday, so Happy Birthday to me! :)

El Coche Es Muerte

Yep, the truck is dead. DEAD. Very dead.

The Toyota people told Mom that the engine had siezed up, and that it can't be fixed, only replaced. So, our options are to either pay $3600 to replace the engine with a slightly newer one so that the truck at least runs. Or, donate the truck to a scrapyard and get the new FJ Cruiser that we wanted to get very soon anyway. Hmmm... Whatever shall we do?

What Else Could...?

Well... So far it's been an interesting weekend. Before the weekend, on Thursday, my allergies decided to become a real cold so I didn't get pretty much anything done then, and slept in on Friday. I got my haircut Friday afternoon with Jenni and kiddos. Another exciting time ending with her son in another headlock with me holding his arms. I don't know what the kid has against haircuts. That evening, Tigger came over and we went to Denny's to have dinner, then came back here to talk for a while. We knew we'd be up later then we normally are, but Peter ended up going to bed at around 3AM and Tigger and I watched the sun come up while talking and she left about quarter to 6AM. I got to sleep soon after. So Peter and I ended up sleeping in.

We were eating lunch and Peter remembered the office for the apartment complex closes at 2 on Saturdays for some asinine reason. The clock said it was 1:50, and we were still in our pj's. So we decided to get to the office some other day. We need to renew our lease soon and they've finally put notices on the garages that the owners need to come forward or move their stuff out or it will be tossed out on June 1st. Yay! So we want to make sure the office firmly knows that we want a garage, and one of the 2 in front of our apartment would be great. (Not that they don't know with Peter and I asking frequently over the past several months.)

Then, Peter and I ended up moving the futon/couch into the former office, now den, and then moving the miniature painting desk too. So then the den was almost complete, just a few more things need to be moved and set up. Once we finally got showered and dressed, it was nearly 4 and we still wanted to head to CDA to visit my parents and do some shopping too. So, then we had to blow off going to the comic con at Gonzaga and were out the door at 4:30. The antique store I had been to with my folks earlier in the week was already closed when we got there, but otherwise our shopping was sucessful and we visited for a while with our Border's friends. After spending some time at my parent's house, we headed out around 10 or something, maybe earlier, I can't remember.

Everything was going fine till we passed the last exit to Post Falls. Suddenly the truck started making horrible noises and losing power. Luckily, there was an exit to the state line coming up, so I started pulling off and the truck died. I still had momentum so I got it to restart and put on my hazard lights as the person behind me looked like they were going to drive up my tailpipe. I wanted to continue on to the rest stop, but the truck died again, and I could only pull off to the side of the off ramp. I tried a few times to restart the truck, but it wouldn't start, so Peter and I got out and lifted up the hood. Right then a bunch of cars drove by and someone in one of them laughed at us like Nelson from the Simpsons ("Ha Ha!"). So I swore back at them. I don't know if they heard me, but who laughs at someone with car troubles on the side of the road?

So, then I thought maybe the truck needed more oil or something, so put in the 2 bottles I had. It still wouldn't start, so we grabbed some flashlights and headed for the rest stop to call my Dad. There was a towtruck driver and another guy already there getting ready to tow a different vehicle, and after discovering no payphone at the rest stop, I asked the guys if I could borrow a cell phone, or if they would be willing to jump the truck, even though they were busy. I described the problem and that we had seen that the battery was all corroded again. The tow-truck driver suggested that it sounded like the alternator (which had just been fixed a couple months ago), and that even if he jumped it, that the headlights would drain the battery long before we got home.

So I called Dad and he came out to help us. After taking the leads off the battery, we discovered that the one leading to the starter was so corroded, that it was nearly gone. Dad tried to put it back together and jump my truck, but it still refused to start. Since Dad's truck was now facing the wrong way on the side of a busy off ramp, a cop came by and wanted to know what was going on. While Dad was on his cell with the Chevron emergency roadside assistance people, we explained what was going on. The cop still decided to run our IDs, and it seemed to take a really long time. Although, with all the crap that's happened since we moved down here, this was the 4th or 5th time I've had to talk to a cop in the almost 3 years since we've been down here, so all that probably came up when he ran my license. But once he gave our IDs back (never asking for Dad's) he told us to turn Dad's truck around and get my truck out of there ASAP. (As though we weren't trying to!) So then we stood around waiting for the towtruck and Dad turned his truck around (and called Mom to tell her what was going on).

The towtruck was one of those flatbed ones, and I had never seen exactly how those work, so watching that was interesting. Dad told the guy we wanted it dropped off at Parker Toyota in CDA who work on all the family cars, and the guy told us we could just go then, he knew where that was and didn't need our help unloading the truck. So, Dad drove us back to his house, where we ended up borrowing Mom's car and leaving my parent's house (again) at Midnight. Also, since it's Memorial Day weekend, there's no way the truck will even be worked on till Tuesday at the earliest. But at least it's not on the side of the road!

We had been planning on stopping to get something to eat on the way home right before the truck died, so we were pretty hungry. But I just wanted to get home. Which we did make it home safe and sound.

Now, we had bought some soda in CDA since Tigger had drank the last of our Mt. Dew, and before we went to bed Peter put in away in the 'fridge. So, this morning, well... Noon, I was in the 'fridge trying to find some food when I noticed some liquid on the glass shelf above the bottom drawer. Yep, you guessed it. One of the Pepsi's (the one at the very back on the bottom) had decided to leak. I, er..., had to spend some extended time in the bathroom at that moment, so Peter ended up cleaning it up by himself. Apparently, since it was the soda in the back, everytime he moved a soda out of the box, a small wave of soda would accompany it, spilling onto the floor. So, there was a lot of sticky everywhere. And to top it all off, both Peter and I have splitting headaches.

Some good things though, we have our wedding invitations and they look beautiful. And, we picked up at Borders one of the Kaiser Chiefs' CDs. We hear them on Triple J all the time, so we knew we would like the rest of their album. While Tigger was here I got some good pictures of her because she was complaining that she didn't have any new (and good) pictures of herself, and I happened to have my digital camera handy. AND! And, now we are much more motivated to get our own car insurance and to get that new vehicle that Mom said she's going to help us get. So that's good.

So, now I'm going to interrupt Peter from rearranging the living room (now studio!) so he can look over what I've written and see if there's anything he'd like to add... -Jenny

Sick and Not Quite So Tired....

I spent all of yesterday at work with the hugest migraine type headache that felt like my head was going to explode, while fighting off bouts of nausea and alternating hot/cold flashes. So today I stayed home and slept for 12 hours. I'm still sick, but I suppose I do feel better - as long as I don't move around too much and stay out of direct sunlight.

Turns out the truck's problem was the alternator - Jenny took it to the local Toyota place this morning and they replaced it and fixed up the leads on the battery. Didn't cost near as much as we thought it would, and atleast it's fixed (until something else comes up).

It also appears that while our tax problem should be remedied, they are still claiming that we owe money. I had sent in a "final payment" check after getting a total from an IRS rep, but then received another statement with a completely different amount a couple of weeks ago. I called the IRS back, explained the whole situation, and the rep I talked to that time had No Idea where this new amount came from. And although the final check cleared, and I have copies of the check in question with all the US Treasury jargon plastered all over it, she could find no record of a check for that amount being received. But she did have a record of a check being received for an amount that I never sent! Sooo.... I've got to send in copies of said check to some IRS office where (hopefully) some guy in a suit will push a magic button and fix everything. I'm not holding my breath.

Truck Problems, etc.

The truck is acting really wierd today, and we're afraid it might be the alternator. The battery hasn't gone dead, but everything's running down really quickly. First the wipers went really slow, then the dash lights dimmed, and by the time we got home, we could barely see if the headlights were on. Jenny's folks came over tonight and her dad took a look at the battery and cleaned the leads. They also left her mom's car and one of the cellphones with us, so if the car does die tomorrow we won't be completely helpless. Both of us work dayshifts tomorrow, so hopefully we'll be able to get to work and back.

The weekend went fine - I did get the bathroom cleaned, and the rest of the house was gone over as well. Headed into CdA on Sunday, where we treated to Outback by Jenny's folks! I also picked up the Postal Service CD finally (only took me 2 years) - Atlanta was pleased. Also stopped by Gamers Haven and chatted with Bob for a while and picked up the new Empire book.

Tonight's the big premiere/return of a bunch of our shows: Prison Break, Heroes, and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. So that's what we're going to be doing for the next 3 hours....

Update

The side windows on the truck are finally fixed, and it cost us less than $300 for parts + labor + tax (hurrah for small victories). Now we just have to hope that we won't have to get everything fixed again before we're able to get a garage (or give up and move out).

We went out to CdA yesterday - hung out at Borders for a while and did some laundry at Jenny's folks' place. Also found the tattoo shop that Lucky's working at now and hung out with him for a while there before heading home. We'll probably head back there this week sometime, since Jenny needs to get one of her ears re-pierced (one of her lobes closed up).

Talked to the IRS today about our business/tax issues and got some answers on that front. Things are in motion to getting that all cleared up. It'll take a while before it'll all get paid, but it will happen, eventually.

And I found out that WalMart owes me a day's wages for a day of orientation that I went to back before I left Fairbanks and briefly thought about working there. I had completely forgot about that, actually.... Oh well, I'll take the money. :)

While I'm sure there's plenty of other things I meant to write about earlier, that's all I can remember right now. Guess one of us will write more when we think of something. For now, it's off to watch Studio 60!

Aluta Continua

We got the windshield replaced Saturday morning, but are still going to keep borrowing the Camry from Jenny's folks for the time being. If the person or persons responsible for the smashing are in the neighborhood, I don't want to announce to them that

1. We fixed the windshield, so they've got something to smash
2. We got it fixed really quick, so obviously we've got gobs and gobs of cash sitting around that we can throw at car repairs (because we don't)

And, yeah, the insurance did not cover the windshield, so that was $165 out of pocket. And each of the doors is going to be atleast that much (probably more) to fix. Yay.

At this point, my feeling is that we need to go to our landlord and demand a garage, since we do not feel safe leaving our vehicle unattended. And if they can't find one to rent to us ASAP, then we find a house to live in, pack up and leave (after turning in our required notice and what not, 'cause we are not giving up our deposit at this place).

We have the worst time getting to sleep now, because every little noise sounds like someone messing with the truck, and every car pulling into the parking lot could be them coming back to slash our tires or pour sugar in the gas tank.... This is rediculous.

We did go into CDA on Sunday and hung out at Borders for a while, catching up with various peoples. That was a lot of fun, actually. Lucky mentioned the possibility of hiring us (both of us) on for temp/part time holiday work this Christmas season, which would be awesome as long as our schedules worked out, and it was worth the commute, milage/gas wise. Got to talk to Sean about that, post haste....

The CBS fall season starts this week. Tonight is the premiere of How I Met Your Mother, 2 & a Half Men and CSI: Miami. Jenny's at work late tonight, so I'm taping Prisonbreak, 2 & a Half Men, and CSI for her. Oh, and the series premiere of Studio 60 is on NBC at 10 - got to watch that too. Oh, and also, CBS is running re-runs of Scrubs at 7:30, starting with the very first episode tonight. Coolness.

Edit: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was excellent! This is definately getting added to my "must see" list for the week (even if I have to tape it since it's on at the same time as CSI: Miami). And as a follow up to something from a few posts back - Stand Off actually turned out to be fairly entertaining. I'll be surprised if it sticks around past this season, but I'll enjoy it while it's on.

Criminals are a Cowardly and Superstitious Lot....

We were awoken last night around 3am by one of our neighbors pounding on our door and ringing the doorbell and shouting about someone smashing up our car. We staggered outside to find that someone had just smashed out most of the windows of the truck!

Several of our neighbors had heard some guys talking/shouting outside, but didn't look out to see what was going on. But then, after the sounds of glass breaking and cars revving and tearing away, a few of them went out to see what was happening. Amazingly, we didn't really hear any of it - we'd both taken NyQuil and were zonked out, and I'm a really sound sleeper anyway.

When our neighbor first woke us up, she was shouting something about a "blue Honda Civic", and we first thought she meant that was the car that had got hit, and Jenny was trying to tell her that "no, I've got a Toyota pickup". But what she meant was that a few of the neighbors had seen two cars taking off after the attack, and one of them was a blue Honda Civic. Unfortunately, no one actually saw the person or persons who did the smashing.

While we don't know for sure who did this, we have a theory: back in April, our nextdoor neighbor's car got stolen right out of it's parking space out front, and Jenny witnessed them doing it. She went with the neighbor and his roommate to help identify the thieves, and even spoke to a reporter on TV for a few seconds about the event.

She wrote about these happenings at the time of their occurence:
Eye Witness To Crime
More Eye Witness

We have no enemies that we know of (we barely know anyone here in Spokane as it is), so our theory is that this is a retaliation against Jenny helping this guy get arrested (not that he really need any...). We spoke to our neighbor (the one who's car was stolen) about it, and it turns out the guy only spent about a month in jail for his efforts, plus we're sure he's got other buddies who might have perpetrated this as well. We just don't know....

Two police officers came last night after we called 911 and took pictures of the scene and took statements from everyone, but there really wasn't much they could do. Since no one saw the person/people who did the smashing, and no one got a license number of the cars, they don't have anyone to look for. We explained the whole car theft/retaliation idea, but they seemed convinced that this was a "random act of violence" and that there was no connection between the two incidents.

So now we're trying to figure out what we want to do next. We don't want to have to move, but there's nothing stopping someone from coming back and doing this again, after we've replaced all the windows or got a new vehicle. The apartment complex has garages that we can theoretically rent for $40 a month, but the office doesn't know which garage belongs to which tenants. So, until they take a census of the whole complex, they can't rent out any more garages. Although one of the neighbors we talked to today said her car's windows were smashed out a while back, and it was inside her garage....

For now, we've got to first replace the windshield, and then eventually the side windows (when it gets a little colder), so we've got to come up with the money for that. In addition, I'm in the process of trying to pay off the remaining money that Chris and I owe to the IRS for the business, which is going to cost me about $2800 that I don't have. I've got $1400 set aside at the moment, to put a dent in the total, but will have to pay the rest of it in installments over the next couple of years. I would have paid this amount already, but we're waiting for Jenny's bank to send her new check card, so that she can access her money again (so we can buy little things like food and gas). Her old card expired at the end of last month, but they didn't mail out the new one until the first of this month. Really smart. Nr.

If you'd like to learn more about the car theft incident, you can read the police report online here:

Stolen Vehicle Incident Ends in Arrest

This report includes such fun facts as the names of the two principle people responsible, and their home address. How I love the Internet and the power of Google!

And now, marvel at the carnage: