So this Christmas was great, once I got to Iowa!. Lots of snow, lots of family, lots of food!
I got some great gifts,
Constantine got me a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses, a new wireless keyboard and a blender.
I got a ton of DVD’s, a new comforter for my bed, a cake stand/punch bowl, a new logitech remote for my tv stuff, and lots of other random stuff.
I had a great time, but I’m glad to be back in Cali.
Sorry for such a lame post, but not really in the mood! Adios!
You will not believe the story I am about to tell you.
I left LA at Noon on Thursday…. I got to my parents house at 4:30 on Saturday afternoon..
Where have I been you ask?
Well, lets start at the begining. Got on the plane with no problems in LA, flew to Dallas and we were late getting in there, I run to my next gate and AS I am walking up to the gate, I get a txt message from American Airlines. “Flight Cancelled”… A few seconds later, they announce it. “All flights into Des Moines, Fort Dodge, Omaha, Cedar Rapids, and Minneapolis are cancelled for the night”.
Last flight into Des Moines, and it’s fucking Cancelled. Here’s where the fun starts! I get in line, there’s room on the flights tomorrow at 7am, 9am and 7pm. By the time I get up there.. ALL of them gone. The guy BEHIND me who was smart enough to get on the phone, got the LAST seat on the 7pm flight the next day.
My only option, fly to Wisconsin and then Des Moines at 2pm the next day. Getting into Des Moines at 11:00pm on Friday. Of course, since it was “weather” related, I had to pay for a hotel and what not. VERY annoying.
Friday comes around and I go to the airport, the flight for wisconsin is right next to a flight going to DM, I go and try and get on the stand by list. There’s 40 people ahead of me! Can you believe it!
My flight to Wisconsin was an HOUR late getting out of the gate, due to mechanical issues. We fly to Wisconsin, we’re still an hour late, but I should have JUST enough time to get to my next flight… flaps down… landing gear down… landing gear UP! Flaps up! We’re going back up… We were SOOO close! We circle for a while and then they announce that the Wisconsin airport is CLOSED! UGH! We were so fucking close!
Re-route us to Grand Rapids, Michigan! Whereever the fuck that is!.. We land, NO other flights going out that nght to anywhere. NO direct flights to Des Moines, NOTHING! My only option to get to DM was to try and get a flight back to Wisconsin the next morning, get on a flight to Las Vegas, fly from Las Vegas to Denver and then Denver to Des Moines! NO WAY am I going to take that chance. I opted to take the next flight out the next morning to Minneapolis and then try and figure out a way to get to DM from there.
Thank god the airline paid for my hotel that night. But I still had to pay for food and ANOTHER night of not being home!
Sooo, I get up at 4am Saturday morning, go to the airport, get on the plane and then they make us sit around for MORE MECHANICAL problems!
Finallly we are on the plane to Minneapolis. My parents can’t get out of Iowa, it’s too foggy, there’s no rental cars, so I have to take a greyhound bus… We land at 7:30, and the only bus leaving that morning is at 8:30… I get to a cab, and we start driving, and it starts SNOWING like a mother fucker! My cabby says we might not make it! OH GOD!
Thankfully I made it JUST in time for the bus, I was the last one there! And thank god too because by the time we got to Iowa 5 HOURS later, it was snowing here like a crazy too! 6 inches of snow today they are saying!
So that’s been the crazy travel experience of this weekend! :'( One hellish trip to get back home for christmas.
I should have just freaking gotten a car in Dallas and driven home. I could have been back Friday morning!
One funny thing is that Const and I watched X-Files on Wed night, one about some Amish type people who are killing people. Anyways, some Amish people get on the bus today and one of the kids is Albino and has BRIGHT PURPLE eyes!!! Scary!
I can’t believe though how much this trip has cost me. Over $300 in expenses from food, to hotel to the bus ride home! :'( I dunno what to do about that. I want a FREE fucking flight or something for all this shit. But I just get so pissed that if I call I am just going to yell!
In good news, it’s snowing like crazy here, and it’s sooooo pretty! I just wish Consty was here to cuddle with! 🙂
My flight into Des Moines has been CANCELED!
I am stuck in fucking Dallas Texas!
There’s only 3 flights direct from here to DM tomorrow.
I got to the counter and the guy NEXT to me took the LAST seat on the LAST flight into DM. Soooo
Instead, I am flying from HERE…
To Wisconsin…
To CHICAGO!
To Des Moines.
I leave here at 2:20pm and get into DM at 11:50pm… And then I have family Christmas starting at 9am Saturday. And I have to gift wrap and what not.
Can you believe this FUCKING SHIT!
ARG!
At least last night was amazing… Const got me a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses, which I’ve been really wanting ever since he introduced me to them, a blender which I’ve been wanting for years, and a new keyboard for my Mac! Which I almost bought for myself this past tuesday! Good thing I didn’t!
On the news now…
The “TSA” is the most hated government agency in the US! Hhaha. They rank BEHIND the IRS even! 🙂
I think I’m ready for the “L” word…. Scared!
I sold my old car this morning too!!! I’m a very sad about that, When she drove away, the last time I’ll see her, I cried a little! :'(
The other day I started trying to install Oracle on my home computer… I didn’t quite realize how old those suckers were.
Neither of my two servers have enough RAM to run Oracle server. How sad is that! I have both an AMD 64 3200+ with 512 Megs of RAM and a Pentium 4 1.6ghz with 1 gig of RAM. Both of which are RIGHT at the minimums for Oracle to run. Later that day, I was doing one of my FAVORITE past times of Stumbling. And I found this great site with a list of all the processors and the associated benchmarks. My oldest computer is the 5th from the bottom at 221 and my other computer is at 401! :'( I gotta upgrade those suckers! They are sooo slow!
I can get a Dell $500 computer which would be rated at 1,400 on that list! :'( Too bad I can’t afford SHIT anymore!
Speaking of, I was looking over my finances the last couple months and there’s about $900/month that I can’t account for. I know I’ve been spending a lot more lately then normal, but MY GOD! $900/month worth! That’s fucking insane.
I have taken actions to rein in my spending today. First, I changed my direct deposit so that savings money is AUTOMATICALLY transfered to my savings account. Second I have changed banks so that my spending and my bills account are at SEPARATE banks, the direct deposit change also changed so that these will be AUTOMATICALLY funded with the correct amounts. And lastly, I have paid off my Amex card (which thanks to the new car had ballooned to over $7k!!) and will not be using it anymore except for in emergencies and buying stuff online.
I am also creating a new rule for myself, any purchase which must be funded by a loan, must be kept and used for twice the length of the loan. IE. I financed the new car for 3 years, it must be kept for a minimum of 6 years. Although I am personally shooting for closer to 10 years, unless gas prices go crazy high.
In gas news, Congress passed the new CAFE requirements, so the average vehicle will be getting 35mpg by 2020. Personally, I think it should be 2015 at the latest, but at least it’s a start in the right direction… uhoh! There I go with the whole Pot, kettle, black thing!
This past weekend was really great, Saturday night we had the last dinner party of the year. Constantine bought the group UNO Attack. It’s SO much fun! Everyone should go out and buy it! Jason of course cooked an amazing dinner of Chicken Catchatori and I made Eggnog CheeseCake. Delicious! I was so fat buy the time the night was over!
Sunday I had a business meeting at 9am and then Constantine, Jason, Erick and I went out to Noah’s in Manhattan Beach for breakfast. I did laundry the rest of the day and cleaned the house, I emptied out all my cabinets and washed every dish I own, washed the cabinets themselves, and some other stuff.
Monday I started cooking our dinner for Wed, I made the dessert and the noodles. I’m making Constantine a traditional Black family holiday meal. Although, not as CRAZY as our real family gatherings with all the candies, and side dishes, the 800 pies and what not. Just the standard main fair of Roast, Mashed Potatoes, Noodles, Corn and one dessert! 🙂 It’s going to be delish! I can’t wait!
I also bleached basically everything in my house last night, the counter tops, the stove, the floors, the bathroom. It’s almost as if my cleaning lady had come again! Oh how I miss her! :'(
Tonight we are going to the Charles Phoenix Holiday Jubilee and before that we’re going to dinner at Philippes the ORIGINAL home of the french dip! Should be a wonderful night!
Tomorrow Constantine and I are having our holiday festivities with the previously mentioned meal, and then present opening! I can’t wait to see if he’ll like what I got him! I sure hope so, because that boy doesn’t give ANY hints about what he wants… And he’s seen how my family does christmas shopping.
“Hey mom what do you want?”
“Oh, an all in one printer”
“Do you have any models in mind”
“Not really”
“Ok, I’m going to go out and get it”
So shopping without hints was hard for me! But I feel that I got him something he’ll really like. 🙂
It’s ok. You can tell me.. I’m the biggest asshole ever.
I did get the G35… It was just such a great deal. I talked it over with Constantine before hand and gave him plenty of chances to say. “No don’t do it.” And if he had, I wouldn’t have done it.
Anyways, I ended up getting one from a different dealer. Which I’m glad I did look around because I found an even better deal then the one I talked about.
So the one I got is…
2007 Infiniti G35 Sedan
2,281 Miles
U01 – Navigation Pkg
– DVD-Based Voice Activated Navigation System w/Touch Screen and 9Gig Hard drive
– Plus XM Radio Feature.
P01 – Premium Pkg
– All Models Include Dual-Zone Automatic Air Conditioning
– Bluetooth Wireless Connectivity
– Garage Door Opener
– Driver’s Seat & Steering Wheel Memory
– Inside Automatic Day/Night Mirror
– Power Glass Moon Roof
– Bose Radio System.
– Power Tilt & Telescoping Steering Wheel.
– Heated O/S Mirrors w/Memory
– “Studio on Wheels” Radio System
– Power Driver’s Lumbar Seat Adjuster
– Heated Front Seats.
F01 – Technology Pkg
– Includes Brake Assist
– Adaptive Front Lighting System
– Reverse Backup Monitor
– Intelligent Speed Control.
It’s technically used, as it was a demo car at the Infiniti Headquarters here in SoCal, but it’s never been registered or anything, so get the full warranty and I got a GREAT deal on it!
I am having a little bit of buyers remorse and freaking out about the money, especially the gas money!! I kinda wish I had just gone with the Lexus IS250 which would have cost me a little bit more so that then I wouldn’t have this horrible feeling of taking Constantine’s car and I could probably enjoy it a little more.
I was sitting at the dealer and called him and talked for like 10 minutes making sure it was 100% ok with him. He did say that it’d be kinda cute, which I suppose it is. But I’m just getting Soooo much shit from everyone else. Which I suppose is well deserved.
The Adaptive front lighting system is really cool, when you go around corners it turns the headlights so you can see what’s there. But the Intelligent Speed control is a million times better.
This morning on my way into the office I got on the freeway and set it at 75, and then didn’t do anything the rest of the ride except for steer. Some guy at one point cut infront of me and then slowed down. My car, began braking and slowed down as well! It was fucking cooool! I had my foot ready and posed incase it didn’t do anything, but it did. Then as soon as that guy got out of the way, it was back up to 75. When we caught up to the cars in front of us, it slowed down again! Sooo neat!
The navigation on the other hand is dumber then bricks. I put in my destination this morning and instead of routing me directly to the freeway, it told me to take PCH all the way to long beach and then get on the 22 to the 405. Had I followed it, it would have taken me about 1.5 hours to get to work, instead of the 45 minutes it normally takes! I checked it to make sure it was set to use freeways and it was. So I’m not sure what’s up with that.
I’m also wishing that there would have been an option for a smaller engine. 306 HP is just too much, it would have been just fine with 200ish HP or so and would get much better gas milage.
Anyways. Here’s a few media release pics:
