I'm Sad Tonight,

because I miss Mickey.

The roommate came home tonight and told me a very interesting story.  She said her daughter was driving her home a couple days ago and  as they were rounding a corner in my community they saw a cat sitting in a neighbors window.  They pulled in the driveway and shined their bright lights in as they peered into the upstairs window.  They couldn't tell if it was him for sure, but the cat bore a resplendence to Mickey.

Tonight, when they told me this story I showed them some pictures of Mickey on my computer and they couldn't tell if it was him or not.  When the daughter was driving home she called the roommate and told her the cat was in the window as she drove by.  We decided to go for a walk and investigate.  I pulled on some jeans and flip flops and we were soon walking down the block.  Since the disappearance, I have always thought that Mickey was dead so I was cautious to not put too much hope in my heart as I walked the two blocks.

The roommate told me some stories of her day as we were walking but all I could think was, "What if Mickey is really alive and living with the neighbors?"  We arrived at the house and the front window shades were open and there was light in the room but no cat.  We walked slowly down the sidewalk in hopes of seeing the mysterious Mickey look-a-like.  We rounded the corner and continued looking for glimpses of a cat in their side windows.  When we reached the end of the house we could see more open windows in the back yard and viola there was a cat sitting in the window. We squinted at the open window about 75 feet away to verify the identity of the cat.  I considered walking into their yard for a better look, but I decided that was a bit creepy.  However, I was tempted. The end result was that  it wasn't Mickey.  Even from the distance I could tell that the cat didn't have enough white fur on his face.

So I am sad tonight and my hopes of a reunion with cute little Mickey are dashed.

Home Time with Lou and Candace

I used to love to watch the home improvement show Home Time a long long long time ago.  I remember recording (VHS not DVR) the shows and anticipating watching them when I would come home from work.  I wanted my daily dose of  Dean and that that seasons co-hostess (Ok...I just cannot remember her name).  I would watch these shows and imagine what it would be like to live my own house and be able to repair household items.  I remember watching them install a toilet one time and thinking to myself, I could do that.

Today Lou and I reenacted an old time version of this show and we added a bit of the three stooges for comic relief.  Hmmm....I also don't remember so much profanity when it was showed on PBS, perhaps that was included on the Lifetime version?

Tuesday evening I was in the kitchen and the roommate remarked that the hot water heater seemed to be making an unusual amount of noise.  I listened and said that it sounded OK to me.  Honestly, I wasn't interested in that topic as I was on a short break from Oblivion and I didn't want to be disturbed.  About an hour later I came out of my video game haze and I realized that I could hear the hot water heater in my bedroom.  Crap!  I could no longer ignore the problem.

I wandered into the utility room to investigate and I gave a long sigh.  I called my handy brother to get his opinion.  I held the phone up to the heater so he could hear the popping sound.  He advised me to turn the electricity off.  I looked around and I saw no off switch and I got confused. I asked Lou where they would locate the off switch and with a bit of forced patience in his voice he replied that I needed to shut it off on the breaker.  Ohhhhhhhh.  Wow, it may have taken me a while to come to that conclusion.  After a brief discussion I told him I would call the repair number in the morning.  The company that installed the heater  placed a sticker on the front so I could call them for repairs.  Good marketing strategy. 

Wednesday morning came and I tentatively looked at my bathroom.  I was really hoping to have a hot shower and surprisingly I wasn't disappointed.  That thing must have some serious insulation because there was enough hot water for me to take a full shower.  After I was dressed I started on the dreaded task of calling the repair man.  I always hate making those types of calls.  I took a deep calming breath and I dived right in.  I spoke to the man and explained to him the situation.  He diagnosed the problem as being a calcium build up on the elements and that he could fix this for me for $250.  If I wanted to replace the two thermostats the total cost would be $300.  Uggg....really.  I didn't want to spend the money, but the need for hot showers outweighed my desire to spend my money on new electronics.  I told the guy I would think about it and let him know.

I called Lou and gave him the news and then he said the best thing ever.  He had to do this same repair on his water heater several months ago so he thought he could fix it for me.  Woo HOOOOOO!!!!  Go Lou!!!!  I did some research on getting the parts necessary and I arranged to have Thursday off of work.  When I told one of my bosses about the home repair and that I was going to do it with my brother I got quite an incredulous look.  The expression told me, "Hire a repairman...Dumb-ass!"  I refrained from giving him the finger as I still need to be employed there.

I woke up very happy on Thursday morning and excited to work on this new project.  I still had enough hot water for a quick almost hot shower.  Woo Hoo!!!!  Then I got to work hooking up the hose so I could drain the tank.  The first problem I encountered was my inability to turn off the water.  Seriously...I had no idea how to turn off the water to the tank or the house.  I patiently waited for Lou to arrive so he could show me.  I have to say this started the morning off a bit rocky as he really wanted me to have the tank drained before he arrived.  I believe he said that I should get up at 5:00 am to start the project.  I said OK to placate him, but I had ZERO intention of fulfilling that crazy promise.

It took him about 30 seconds to turn off the water to the tank (that is now in the memory banks) and to start the draining process.  While he was attending to that task I cooked myself a delicious breakfast of hash-browns, scrambled eggs and toast.  This is an unheard of luxury for a weekday morning.  We talked for a bit while I ate my breakfast and I listened to Lou bitch about having to wait for the tank to drain. 

The next task was to get the necessary parts.  I had contacted a company on Wednesday that works with my type of water heater and they said they have the parts in stock.  I looked up their address and they were located at 30th and Post.  Lou was a bit disgruntled about the long drive to get the parts and he wanted to try and find a place closer.  He called the dealer where he got his parts in Carmel and they said that they didn't sell the parts to my brand of water heater.  Lou wanted to keep checking but I got impatient and insisted that we just go to Central Supply.

We went to the car and started to drive away when I noticed that the water was no longer draining from the hose in the street.  We parked the car and went to investigate.  Guess what???  The tank had completed draining.  It only took an hour so there was no need for me to get up at 5am!  We decided to take the parts out of the tank so we could take them with us to the store.  The process was quick.  There was just a couple of screws and copper wires and viola we had access to the tank.  (Yes...the electricity was turned off.)   Lou tried to remove the top element and as he was pulling it out we were accosted with an offensive smell.  It was emanating from the heating element and the two inches of calcium that had built up.  It looked and smelled disgusting.  It also made the removal of the element difficult.  After some careful tugging he was able to completely free it from the hole.  We had the same problem with the bottom element but we eventually released it from the heater housing.

It was amazing that I was getting any hot water considering how much calcium build up there was.  Is calcium a good conductor of  heat?  IDK?  We piled back into the car for our trip to the store.  We arrived there about 30 minutes later and had an interesting conversation with the employee.  They didn't have that part in stock but they could sell us an upgraded item for $30 each.  The regular item would have been $10 each.  OMG....what a rip off.  As I was standing there deciding what to do, the employee mentioned that this common universal part could be found at any Lowe's or Home Depot.  My eyes got giant and we decided to head out to the Lowe's that was about a mile away.  I knew we could always head back if we couldn't find the right part.  When Lou and I got back into the car I looked at him and said. "Not at Word!".  He of course ignored me and couldn't let my mistake go.  He enjoyed teasing me for the next 20 minutes.  We easily found the proper parts at Lowe's for $20 each.  I also came out with 4 new light bulbs for my kitchen light fixture and they were $4.50 each (ouch), lawn mower oil for the yearly change and line for the weed trimmer.  All necessary items that I hate buying.

We arrived home 30 minutes later and the hot water heater had it's new elements installed and it was put back together in 15 minutes.  This was truly a simple job.  I was antsy to turn the electricity back on to verify that the heater no longer made dying noises and I am happy to report it is still back it's quiet self.  I took Lou to lunch and when we came back an hour later the water was already hot.  Hallelujah!

Way to go handy Lou and assistant Candy.  I am sure this project would have made a hysterical episode of Home Time.  Perhaps to be viewed on cable as the language was a bit inappropriate for anything else;)  The cost of the project was $45 for parts and $27 for lunch.  This was so much better than the estimated $250.  I am glad that I have such an helpful and knowledgeable brother.

IPod Dilemma

Last week I was worried about my cat and this week I am worried about my new IPod.  I know I have been talking about this purchase forever and many of you think I should just buy it already, but I want to make sure I am getting the best deal and the exact product that I want. 

For a long time I believed that I wanted the IPod Touch.  This fantastic devise is exactly like and IPhone without the phone part.  It has access to the entire application store and there are some very cool games (Peggle anyone?) that can be played on it.  It seemed to suite my desire for an IPhone without me having to switch carriers.

Then I began to think about getting a new phone.  My current phone (Samsung Instinct) worked great as my introductory smart phone.  But, I have had it with this ill working devise.  The on screen keyboard doesn’t work properly anymore and you are likely to get and X instead of a space in-between words.  Today, I was using it to view Facebook and I was trying to look at a comment on my own post and I managed to hit the “like” button  after trying to hit the comment button 20 times.  I look stupid “liking” my own post. I am pretty sure what I want my new phone to be “HTC Hero” and after thinking about it, I realized that this phone will handle my desire for applications and increased functionality.

So this takes me back to my first desire for a new IPod.  If I get the HTC Hero I really will not need all of the functionality that is available on the IPod touch.  I am a frugal person and I always want to get the best product for my money.

IPod Touch          32GB      $299

IPod Classic        160GB     $249

I get four times as much memory for $50 less when I purchase the classic version.  Already this is sounding more attractive.  My current music collection takes up about 18GB and I have some movies and TV shows that take up an additional 20GB.  Right now I am not able to sync all of my content and it would be nice to have everything back on one place.  Also, just thinking about all of my future music purchase makes me want to get the bigger hard drive.

Then there is the second dilemma with the IPod.  The above prices represent the cost on the Apple website and that prices includes personalized engraving.  If I purchase either product on Amazon there is a substantial savings except that there will be no engraving.   Both companies offer free shipping.  Is the engraving worth $24 or $36?

IPOD Touch        32GB      $262.54 ($36.46 less)

IPod Classic        160GB     $224.54 ($24.46 less)

I know I will have this product for several years and use it daily. Having it engraved will make it more special to me and personalized.  I will probably purchase a case for this IPod and I will rarely see the engraving.  However, knowing it is there will make me happy.  I currently have two ideas on what I would like engraved on my IPod. 

csrulebreaker

Or

The real trouble with reality is that there's no background music.

Either of these two things will work for me.  Does anyone have any other ideas?

So the three basic questions are:

Should I get the IPod Touch or the IPod Classic?

Should I purchase it from Apple or Amazon?

What should I get engraved on the back if I choose that option?

Difficult Cat Decision

I want to get a new cat.  I think it is time for me to have a cute and cuddly little kitten.  I have been thinking about this idea for the last month and I think I am ready for a new pet.  I found out this week that a co-worker's cat recently had adorable little kittens eight weeks ago.  She showed me some photos and there is a pretty little girl that wants to go home with  me.  Ok…I don’t know if she is a girl but that is what I envision.  Upon looking at the photos I told her I would love to take one home with me. 

I went back to my desk and discussed this exciting news with two friends.  They cautioned my excitement and enthusiasm with a cold splash of reality.  There are several factors to consider when deciding to get a new pet.  The most important one has to do with the possibility that the new cat could be a feline leukemia carrier.  Kittens need to be vaccinated at 9 weeks and 12 weeks (thanks to Ems for this info) to be fully inoculated against passing that disease onto Sparks.  In my usual manner, I want to ignore this information and think that nothing bad is going to happen to Sparks and everything will be ok when I bring the new little kitty home.  After a day and a half of reality I realize that might not be my best course of action so I have come up with a list of some alternatives. 

Let me know what you think is the best option for little Jadzia?

1.        Do nothing and not get a new kitten.
2.       Throw caution to the wind and think that Sparks is invincible.
3.       Bring home little Jadzia and keep her quarantined in the spare room for 4 long weeks.  Between the roommate and me I don’t think that this is an entirely feasible solution.  I know I wouldn’t be able to stand having one of them locked in a room.
4.       Keep Jadzia at the host parents house until he has had both inoculations.  I haven’t even asked the co-worker if this was a feasible option yet.
5.       Pay $100 to get a fully vaccinated kitten at the Humane Society.

Fanciful Idea

I have had several conversations with my friends lately about possible career choices outside of the accounting field.  Every time I think about a possible option I dismiss it as being too fanciful or to poorly paid or I am severely under-qualified.  But today I came up with a brilliant idea.  Ok...it wasn't altogether my idea but it was pretty good.

I was talking to a friend I used to work with and we both participated on the weight loss committee at work.  Actually, she was the one who implemented the weight loss program at my current employer.  We were an excellent team and we both made progress in the work challenges.  She had an idea that we could start our own business.  The business would travel around to various companies teaching them how to implement and run their own employee run weight loss programs.  This sounded like something I would be good at.  I know how to do accounting, I know how to talk to people, I know how to organize activities and see the big picture and this is something that I could be passionate about.  We had a great time talking this idea through, but we always come up with the same problem.  We are both still fat! 

How could we advise companies on weight loss programs when we can't get ourselves together.  We like to think that people are more evolved but I know it isn't true.   Realistically, I don't think I would want to own my own business.  The uncertainty would make me crazy.  So I think I will house this idea on the fanciful shelf.  Perhaps one day I will take it down, shake it out and put it to good use.  In the mean time I will make up some really great daydreams about it;)

You be the Judge

The roommate sent me an email today, asking if I would drive her to the evil retailer after work to pick up some auto related items.  I replied yes and I inquired about Sparks.  She replied that Sparks must be in my room all cozy and sleeping as she hadn't seen him all day.

After work I scooped up Joanne and while we were driving she told me the following story.

After my email she decided she would go and find Sparks to give him a little love from me.  She looked in my room and didn't see him sleeping on my bed.  She then entered my room and went to the bed and patted around thinking he was asleep under the covers.   She didn't locate him and went back to the living room.  She then mentioned that her friend came over that day to take a look at her car and she was sure Sparks didn't escape out the door while they were coming in and out. 

She said that she sat in the kitchen for a few minutes and then began to worry about Sparks.  What if he did go out the door?  She began to throughly search the house.  In the living room, under the couches, on top of the cabinets, in her bathroom closet, in the spare room.  He was no where to be found.  She then checked my room again.  She checked under my bed, under my couch, and in my bathroom. 

At this point in the story I laughed and said that I often find him sleeping in my closet.  She said she checked in there and she didn't see him.  She said she found his treat bag and walked around shaking it while calling his name.  He was nowhere to be found.  She then went outside and walked around the house shaking the bag.  He had disappeared.  She said she contained the search for 45 minutes using a variety of techniques and she began to panic.  She said she almost sent me another email but she didn't want me to worry.

She checked the spare room for a second time and when she came back in the living room he was sitting in the middle of the floor grooming himself.    She never knew where he went and why he reappeared but she was glad that the missing cat scare was over.

Do you think she invaded my privacy by checking my room?
Do you think she this is how Mickey disappeared?

Random Stories

I went to dinner on Friday night with a group of ladies from my meetup.com group. There were two women whom I met for the first time, one women whom I would consider an acquaintance and another who is a friend. Dinner was delicious but the evening had a very weird vibe to it. I decided early on that I really didn't like one of the women. Her mannerisms and her speech bothered me and her conversation topics were uninteresting. I don't remember what we were talking about, but towards the end of the evening the women grabbed her phone and began to try to find something on it. She brought up some pictures and handed the phone to our end of the table and told us to scroll through them. I was shocked to discover that these were pictures of naked women with giant breasts. WTF!!! Why would she pass this around to a table of women she just met. Can you say awkward? We tried to give the phone back after we saw the first picture but she insisted that we kept scrolling through them. There ended up being about 3 or 4 pictures of naked women with fake breasts and one of a man with a abnormally large penis. After this incident I decided I couldn't wait for the evening to end and so could go home and play Oblivion. It took forever to finish things up and pay our bills, but I did call my friend as I was driving home and we laughed over this incident for 10 minutes. Outrageous!!!

I made up a limerick about the evening (I am aware that it doesn't exactly rhyme but I still found it amusing).

I went to a Meetup dinner
the food was not bitter
out came a phone
that should have been left at home
because it contained some raunch

I went to see Romeo and Juliet at the IRT a couple of weeks ago and a disgusting thing happened while I was there. It was the end of the play and Juliet's contemplating taking the vile of magic drug that will make her appear dead for two days. The stage is dark and her tone is serious then all of a sudden we hear something akin to a drink spilling on the floor. I look over to my right and I see some commotion and then I hear it . The sound of someone vomiting. The person was located on the other side of the theater and you could see them moving. Remember there is an extremely important and moving scene on the stage but all attention is on the person vomiting. A women comes in and ushers the sick person and family out of the theater and then moves the people in the row directly behind them the empty seats at the back of the theater.

The commotion dies down and I try to refocus my attention on the play but I keep glancing over and I see the people in the nearest row using their shirts to cover their noses and making gagging noises and faces. I really tried to ignore them but I couldn't. I just kept looking over. Then about five minutes later I started to focus on the play again when a manager guy comes in with what looks like a giant baggie and proceeds to clean up the mess. Again distracted Candy. I don't believe that the remaining portions of the play ever got my full attention. I just couldn't stop giggling in my head. Someone vomited in the theater. Gross!

Now for my shiny eyed musings. This was one of the best productions of Romeo and Juliet I have ever witnessed. They changed the setting to be 1940 racially charged America. The Montague family was an affluent black family and the Capulet family was an affluent white family. They did an extremely great job of adapting the familiar story to this new setting. They still utilized much of Shakespeare's original script and anything they added was written in traditional Shakespearean style. Bravo! I am not a huge Shakespeare's fan mostly because if not done well, the language confuses me. But, this version was outstanding and kept me enthralled the entire time (except for the vomiting).

&*###@$^^&&**(

Doesn't the title say it all.  I am angry because it seems to me that all things technological are breaking on me.  The latest thing being my home internet.  It hasn't been working very effectively for the last two weeks, but I have been ignoring it and connecting to a neighbors unsecured network.  Every time I would think about the problem it would confound me because I just couldn't come up with an answer as to why I was having problems. 
Saturday was the last straw as everything stopped working.  No internet anywhere, even the 360!  I assure you I act like a spoiled child when my toys are not working for me.  On Sunday, I told my long and sad story to ems just to get it of of my chest, and hoping that I would have a flash of brilliance that would solve my problem.  Unfortunately, my brilliance was dulled on Sunday and no fix came to me.  Ems decided that Z would be able to fix my problem and with a bit of encouragement he said he would try to help me.  After my long and dull explanation he thought my problem might stem from a windows update problem.

Did I mention that I disabled all windows updates?  I mean ALL of them!  This means when I reformatted my hard drive in December and reinitialized Vista that I never processed any updates.  Yea...there was a crap load of updates.  The process took about 2.5 hours and I went home cautiously optimistic that everything was going to work.  Guess what?  My fucking internet still didn't work.  I was dejected and obsessed with this problem.  I went to bed on Sunday night consumed with thoughts about possible problems and fixes.  I believe one of them involved me smashing every electronic devise (internet, laptop, phone, IPod) that didn't work properly with a baseball bat.  I am glad that my violent tendencies dissipate quickly.

The entire time I was at work on Monday I was preoccupied with the internet problem. I spoke with a few friends in our IT department and they gave me a couple ideas but I knew my first order of action was to call Comcast when I arrived home.  Upon arriving home I receiving the cold shoulder from the roommate,  I believe she didn't appreciate being home all day sans internet.  O well and sorry about your luck!  I started some laundry, put the groceries away, carried in my newly acquired coffee table and then tried to mentally prepare myself for a phone call to Comcast customer service.

This phone call actually went a bit better than expected.  Fairly early on we discovered that the modem was working properly so we focused on the wireless router.  We tried to do a few diagnosing things to no avail. I was able to direct wire my laptop to the modem and viola the internet worked.  It seemed like a miracle but I knew it wasn't an option to sit on the floor in the spare room every time I wanted to use the internet.  That was so not a practical option.  For some reason near the end of the conversation she had me disable all wireless networks.  This piece of information comes up a bit later but hello...that isn't going to help me log on to any network.

Now that the problem is narrowed down to the wireless router I gather more Patience and make my second annoying phone call of the night.  It only takes about fifteen minutes to reach a human who has some questionable English skills.  I giver her my information and product information and ten minutes later she comes back to tell me that I am no longer covered under my warranty.  Apparently, it ended in November 2009.  Seriously!  She gave me three options which were ridiculous. 

#1)  I can purchase an additional 1 day warranty for $29.99, and that will cover her helping me fix my router problems for the next 24 hours.
#2)  I can purchase a six month warranty package for $39.00.
#3)  Do nothing.

My first response was, "No Thanks, I can purchase a new router for $50, therefore it isn't logical to me to purchase an additional warranty on a product that may or may not still work."  She then pipes up with the following offer:

Linksys:  If you are considering purchasing a new router I can sell you one for $59.99....bla bla bla marketing stuff.
Me:  Is that ### model number?  (I had just looked up Linksys wireless routers on Amazon and I wanted to compare prices.)
Linksys:  No it isn't.  But I can sell you that upgraded modeled for a discounted price of $79.99.
Me:  I can purchase that model on Amazon for $59.99
Linksys:  Our product will include free shipping.
Me:  So will Amazon's.
Me:  What was the model number of item your first offered to me at $59.99.
Linksys:  That is a lesser quality product, but the model number is ####.
Me:  That product is available on Amazon for $39.99.

This conversation finally ended a few minutes later but I was horrified that she kept trying to get me to purchase the router from her when I could clearly get it from Amazon for $20 less.  I guess she took her job seriously.  My anger level was pretty high after this second phone call as my problem still wasn't fixed.

I called Lou and hoped he would answer (he had been gone to Great Wolf Lodge for two days) as I really needed to vent. I was happy that he answered his phone and I asked him if he had 10 minutes to listen to me whine and complain about my internet problem.  I assure you this wasn't the first time he had heard about it.  I started speaking at hyper speed with my brain racing along at an even faster pace.  He is used to my hyperness and he listened patiently to my entire story and then he said the most beautiful sentence.

"Candy, I have an extra router if you want it!"  OMG ... finally some positive news.  I said I would be right over.  He was like now?  I said yes...it was about 8:00pm.  I raced over to his house wearing my crop pant PJ bottoms, T-Shirt and flip flops.  I am sure I was under-dressed.   While driving I was hoping that he would be able to find all of the components and I would really be able to fix my problem.  Hurray, he did!  I arrived home 30 minutes later with my new router and disk.

It took me another hour or so to properly install all of the components while I was trying to cook dinner, clean and work on laundry.  I finally put food in my mouth at 9pm and it was horrible.  I shoved in enough so I wouldn't feel so hungry anymore and pushed the rest aside to finish my tasks.  I finished my instillation at about 10pm which means I had been working on this task for four hours.  Woa!  The earlier referenced disabling of my entire network threw me off for a bit, but I am glad that I remembered how to enable it again.

I hope you have all enjoyed meeting tenacious Candy tonight.  This is how I get when I encounter a problem that I think I can fix.  I just don't stop, even when logic tells me I should, until I have finished the task.  This quality is good some of the time and very bad some of the time.  This time it was good as the end result was home internet!

****Rapid Clapping of my Hands***** 

Finally, closure to my problem.