I just called Walgreens about a rather large photo order, asking if I could get matte paper instead of glossy. I know I've gotten matte there before, so I wanted to double check if that was still an option. The kid said yes, matte was an option. I placed my order.

Right after placing my order, the kid tells me that he only has glossy. What a bugger!

My Flickr is about to expire in two days. I am going to wait until this job business sorts itself out to re-up my paid account. That's $25 toward bills, baby!

I hate owning a car. I really do. Less than an hour ago, I went to start my Jeep to head in to work. It wouldn't start. :( I called Jess to ask for a ride to work, and then called work to tell them I would be late. The manager said that someone else had asked to stay and I could take the night off if I wanted.

I *really* wanted to work, but in the next five minutes, got stressed out to the point where it didn't seem worth it to go in and clean the floors with my toothbrush...we were *that* slow. :(

Now, here I sit, at Jerry's place. He's having a shower before we head out for dinner. I'm excited to get to go eat dinner at The Anchor, since I've heard nothing but good about the place. I'm sad I didn't get to work. I'm happy that I put my resume out to about fifteen different places today. :)

I'm feeling ok that Dave and his mechanically inclined friend were able to suss out the situation--El Jeep needs new spark plugs, some wires, and a couple of other minor parts. Dave is going to steal my Jeep tomorrow and do the work. If you ever find yourself in need of a really awesome friend, look Dave Muggli up in the phone book. You won't be disappointed. :D

I'm grateful. I am so grateful that I don't have kids, car payments, a mortgage, etc... All I have is rent, loans, Jeep insurance, and personal expenditures.

I just found out, FOR SURE, that all of my management hours have been cut, effective immediately. This is approximately a 40% pay cut.

I am grateful. I am so grateful that I have savings and a strong will to budget. Given what I have saved up, I can float ok for about six months. Ideally, I'd like to see a new job in the works by the end of next week.

If anyone wants to take a look at my resume, I'd be really thankful. I think it looks ok, but a second set of eyes taking a look never hurt anything. If anyone can pass my resume along to any leads, I'd be equally grateful.

Whatever happened to the Bud Ice Penguin? Seriously, that was genius!

Wednesday, I got up and left the Arden B at a fairly early hour. I had errands to run in Minneapolis proper. I hit up the bank to buy a cashier's check for rent and get it off in the mail. Hit the grocery. Ya know. Stuff closer to home. :)

I had to work at 3, on the cocktail side. I had some fun customers, and was done by 11:30ish. I can't remember if I went to Indy or not. I think not. Stayed up far too late, fell asleep on the couch, as per usual.

Thursday was mostly uneventful. When you stay up too late and start work at 3pm, most of your morning/early afternoon is eaten up quickly. Work was fine but slow. Scott gave me a ride home...I don't remember why I didn't ride on Thursday, but it was what it was. Likely due to rain/cold weather.

Friday was crazy busy. I got up, did stuff around the house. Got to work at 3pm again. I had a couple of tables that stayed FOREVER. They tipped well enough, so I didn't really mind. It just sucked when Erin showed up to get me and I was scrambling to get out the door. I hate making people wait!

We went to Nancy's going away party. We are all so happy for her about her new job, but super sad that she had to relocate. Val, the girl who hosted the party, had such a gorgeous house! Her kitty was super cute, too! His name is The Dude, and he's a big bear of a Mainecoon. What a sweetheart, srsly.

Saturday, I had planned on taking the bus to Tiff's, but got up early in hopes of the weather holding out so I could scoot. The forecast looked promising, so I bundled up and headed outside to start my baby up. It died about a minute into warming it up. I was not pleased as I RAN my foolish ass the four blocks to the bus, all while wearing my boots, jacket and full faced helmet.

The lovely Erin came and got me at Tiff's to go eat some breakfast. We went to Luce downtown. Good food! She had a great coupon for brunch food, so that was the deciding factor. Moose and Suzi's sounded fun, but cheap = winnar. :) Many awesome girl chats were had. She is such an awesome friend!

We got back to Tiff's just in time for Asian Dan's stylish ass to show up with my little brother's cake from the Edelweiss Bakery in Prior Lake. Asian Dan, I owe you a big one! :) I hung out and played DS until my Mom showed up to get the cake. We went to my place to give the key to my scooter to Jonathon from Scooterville so he could tow it away. :( That made me so super sad.

I kept Mom company while she ate flautas at El Paraiso. I drank a beer. :P We ran some errands together--my Saturday afternoon/early evening plans were pretty much shot, due to my lack of scooter. We had registered for a Yelp event at the Soap Factory that ended up panning out nicely. Spike, Erin, Nate, Jerry and I all met up at varying points in our journey. The event was super fun! I was totally bummed to have missed out on my earlier plans, as well as the opening night of Marisol. I really need to get over there and see that show before it closes. I can't wait to see the lovely duchess_of_pie on stage!

Jerry and I went to Thad and Carmen's after the event was done. A great night of chilling with the Dahlberg's was had by all. Erin and Nate kept bugging us to come out, but we weren't feeling like being out and about. I looked super cute--Spike, Nate, Jerry AND Thad all said so. I think Thad's was motivated by the fact that I told him the other three guys all said so. :P WTG, Thad!

Sunday morning came all too quickly. Jerry took pictures of me in my dress before we left. I hope they turned out ok. :) I was super sleepy all day. I was late to Tiff's, I ran my bum off to catch buses and trains to Midtown Global Market. I got there just in time to meet Kelly with all of our booth gear. Nobody at the event knew their heads from holes in the ground, so it was a frustrating hour of setup.

Our booth neighbors, from Barbette, were super awesome. They gave us some crazy meat log things. I ate samples of lots of tasty foods at the event, drank entirely too many little cups of wine and beer, and went home fairly toasted. :P The guys from Barbette gave me a ride home so Kelly didn't have to go all the way back to Uptown. Ali lost his car, so the other guy (Matthew?) and I waited with the stuff until he found it.

After the event, I got home and took a freakin' nap. I was so tired! I met up with Jerry, Melissa, Kelvin and the other guy. They all had pizza. Jerry and Melissa had Bloody Marys, which looked more like a sandwich than a drink. :P The other two guys had beer. I had a very tasty Merlot and a Bavarian pretzel. So great! Jerry and I crashed at my place, which was nice. Jess had the heat on per my request. So toasty and warm! It was adorable to see Jerry crashing after one episode of LOST instead of ME crashing. :P That poor kid handles early mornings worse than I do.

Monday, we got up and messed around on the computers. Jerry watched a live online conference thing. We spent some time distracting each other from the conference, which was nice. ;) I made some eggs for breakfast.

Eventually, we got going. We headed to Diamonds Coffee House in NE. It's a super cute little place! I can wholeheartedly recommend that you go there and eat a veggie sammich on marble rye. Tomatoes, spinach, guacamole, pickles, cucumbers, guac...there was so much awesome stuff on that sammich!

We headed out from the coffee shop in the pouring rain toward Thad and Carmen's place. I had agreed to babysit Maewyn and Flannery so they could all go out for Ave's birthday. Maewyn pitched a bit of a fit when she realised that Mommy really was leaving, and again when she realised that Mommy really was gone. I left her to pitch her fits alone, and they ended rather rapidly.

Carmen bought sushi for dinner, and had macaroni dinners for the girls, too. Jerry and I shared the sushi plates, and the girls even ate some, too! They made cards for Ave, which was super sweet. I have my card from Flannery on my fridge. :)

Everyone came back from dinner, and we had pie. The key lime was supposed to have been kept frozen, we discovered, since it turned to pudding on our plates. :P It was still good, though! We all hung out together after Thad and Ave's parents left. Had a cocktail together, and took awesome pictures of Thad with his shirt tucked down in an awkward place. :P We have far too much fun together, I swear!

I told Carmen to keep her $20 that she wanted to pay me. Dinner and dessert were by FAR enough payment. If she had insisted on paying me, I would have just taken the $$ and bought them another bottle of gin. :P We ended up back at Jerry's place since I didn't have to be anywhere in particular until Wednesday at 4.

Tuesday, we got up at an ok hour. Dragging yourself out of bed when it's cold SUCKS. I know it will only get worse, but that doesn't mean I have to like it right now. I worked on my resume and looked around for jobs. I tried to get further on updating, but as you can plainly see, I'm still a few days behind schedule. Whoops!

We did our regular Tuesday thing. Dinner with his family. Homemade chicken noodle soup, omg! It was so tasty! His Mom even made applesauce and potato bread. I could have died and gone to heaven, I swear. Went to Suzi's for the beers. I felt like I was interrupting boy talk time between Jerry and Thad, mainly because they were talking iPhone and computer stuff that I don't understand.

Nate came to my rescue and we talked about life in general. I'm sad Erin couldn't make it, but I hope she can soon. I think everyone would really like her. :) I hope *I* can keep going over the winter. Blerg, MN winters!

Wednesday, we got up and I made some eggs again. Tasty business! And I'm getting really good at it! Tiff, you are a genius in the kitchen. Jerry loves the basted eggs. :) Jerry remembered that he had allergy shots at 1, so we had to jet. We also went to the Aveda Institute for haircuts! Jerry needed one for his interview, and I needed one because my hair was out of control. :P The girl did a great job on mine, but she was so slow! Mostly, I appreciate how slow she was, because I feel like she did a good job. Plus, it's nice to have someone take extreme care when you are doing a fairly major hair cut. :)

After that, we had to fairly fly over to my place. I grabbed my shirt, apron and shoes and bolted out the door. I met with a friend of Nate's from Keller Williams. They are doing a party this month, and want us to cater. Super! Work was fairly uneventful, and I left with $14 after tip-out. LAME. I stayed for an hour or so to do the schedule. I'll do the next week's schedule soon, I'm sure.

I met Crystal at Independent for a beer. We chatted about this and that. Her hair looks super cute! Still fairly red, but it's a darker red. I like it. :) We went to Rainbow to use the coinstar thing. Next time, I told her I'd do it for her at Wells Fargo for FREE. We parted ways, and I tried to find tasty things in the grocery, to no avail. Jerry walked me home over the phone. I watched a bit of 30 Rock, fell asleep on the couch. Blah.

Thursday, I got up at a decent hour. I met a guy in Uptown to take a test drive of his car. It's a nice enough car, and would likely last through the winter just fine. He wanted $1400 for it...I'd maybe give him a grand based on what needs to be done. The lovely Nate came with me for the test drive. After the ride, I headed to work.

We had a CRAZY dinner rush. I made $82 in tips! So great. We literally had zero customers in the place at 11pm, so we got the OK from John to close. I wish we wouldn't have. As I was leaving, a couple of groups of people tried to go in, but it was closed. They were not pleased, and neither was I. People won't know that we're open if we don't consistently stay open til a set hour.

The loaner died when I tried to leave. I walked most of the way home, and then my co-worker brought me home after buying me a shot. Crazy. I called Bob at Scooteville and left a message, so they knew when and how I got home, and that it was NOT on the loaner they gave me.

Of course, shortly after I got home, my phone wouldn't work. Turns out, Wifey's phone didn't work either, so it was some glitch in the T-Mobile systems at 1am. greh.

Friday, being today, has been pretty calm. I got up around 11. Took a call from Anna saying she was sick and didn't feel up to Uptown. I totally understand, and really wanted her to stay home if she was sick.

I met Bob from Scooterville behind Abilene to do the scooter exchange. I had no idea he was going to bring me a Buddy, but I'm glad he did. It's such a nice ride! I'm sad that we are slated to get snow tonight...I'm going to attempt to sneak my baby into the garage for the imminent doom. Holy crap, I just called it *my* baby. EEEEE!

Right now, I'm struggling to keep my eyes open. I think I'm getting sick. I have to pee every couple of hours and I'm tired as hell. No, I'm NOT pregnant, thankyouverymuch. :P

That leaves us where we are NOW. Caught up on updating eljay. Sleepy as all get out. Not wanting to go to work tonight. Not wanting to go to Tiff's super early tomorrow. Not wanting to go to Tiff's at 8 on Sunday. Not wanting to work Sunday afternoon. Why am I so negative right now? What do I WANT to do, I wonder?

Meet The Buddy. The 3rd scooter I've driven in 24 hours. The first was mine, the second was the goofy BnW they lent me, and now this.

Bob himself came out with the crazy Scooterville truck. He took the red one away and left me with the Buddy.

It's cute. I don't know if I like the "sea foam" green...if I did go with a Buddy, I'd lean toward a black one, I think. It's super small, which I actually rather like. Jerry has a Buddy, and it's fierce for its size, physically and engine-wise. It's got a copious amount of storage, and looks pretty awesome with a basket on the back.

I'm impressed that they have been coming out to help the way that they have. They weren't as responsive earlier when I had problems, but now that they see this is an ongoing issue, I'm glad they've shaped up.

Bob is going to crunch some numbers. We're going to stay in touch with each other. I'd ideally like to see myself give up scooting for the season and get a new one in the spring. I just hope that they'll give me the same deal in the spring--if I have to put up the $$ now, I wouldn't be able to buy a car right now. I also would rather have the scooter live on their showroom floor than in my parent's garage all winter.

*sigh*

I just hope this all gets settled sooner than later.

The loaner died. I went to start it after work last night to leave and have a drink with some co-workers, then head home. While they were paying parking, I started it up to let it warm up for a minute. During that minute, it died and the "battery indicator" came on. I tried to start it for at least another five minutes to no avail. I *did* manage to get it started once, but as soon as I hit the gas, it died.

It did not rain last night.

It was NOT that cold out last night.

I called up Jerry, who jokingly suggested that maybe my super power is that I kill every scooter I touch. :P

I really think this is God's way of telling me that I'm not meant to have a scooter. :(

This is the scooter I currently have on loan from Scooterville. This past weekend, my beautiful green Kymco Super 8 was taken into the shop...again...for the same water in the fuel line problem. When I talked to them today, they said they drained out the gas and found a large quantity of water again.

They "rerouted" a tube that allows emissions to exit the scooter. Apparently, they found this tube sitting in a "puddle of water". How that happened, I have no idea. They really felt that rerouting the tube, as well as keeping a cover on my scooter when it is out in the elements would keep it working well.

When I got to the shop to pick it up, they still hadn't done the oil change I had requested on Saturday when they came to pick it up. Jonathon had picked it up at my place, and his face fell when I asked about the oil change--he remembers me asking. I went to Taco Bell and had some lunch to kill the hour that they needed to perform said oil change.

I got back to the shop and my scooter was waiting out front for me to pick it up. The oil level had been pretty low, so they gave me a partial can of oil to keep on hand since I do a lot of high speed travel. I thought that was really nice!

Instead of refunding the cost of the first repair that was done for the water in the gas problem, they took care of the oil change and gave me a shiny new cover. I thought that was alright, since I would have spent more than $65 on those two items alone.

As I was leaving Scooterville to head toward home, the scooter wasn't going forward quite as well as it could have. I knew I should have stayed closer to the shop, especially when a block later, it died and refused to start again.

I called Scooterville and got Laura on the phone. She gave me over to Jonathon, who said he would come pick me up momentarily. I hung up with him and started to cry. Partially because I'm sad, but mostly because I'm so damned frustrated at this point.

Jonathon showed up about ten minutes later. In that span of time, I could have easily walked it in to the shop. On the way back to the shop, we didn't have much to say, and admitted as much. I think at this point, pretty much everything has already been said. I'm not happy, they have tried to fix the same problem too many times, it's time to move on to a replacement or a refund at this point. I still want a scooter, just not the Super 8.

When we got to the shop, Jonathon showed me the options he had available as a loaner scooter. I opted for the red monstrosity that you see in the picture. It was the only 150cc they had, and I wasn't about to go down to a 50cc until they sort this out. I'm covered under their insurance policy in case anything happens, which is good.

This thing is laid out a bit different than mine. It's not as upright, and that's about the only thing I like about it. It's not as zippy as mine, it doesn't handle as well...bah.

I just really want Bob to get back to me as to what is going to happen now. I told them today that I am interested in moving forward with a different brand of scooter. I'm pissed off at myself for not having listened to 433 and Jerry, who tried to talk me into a Buddy. I'm pissed at myself for going with a 2009 model that they have no historical data on. I'm pissed that this will be the second year in a row that I bought a shitty scooter.

I want this resolved NOW, while there is still time to ride this season.

I still feel hung over as hell. I felt ok when I got up this morning...now, I feel worse. I seriously feel like I need to throw up. I don't want to. :(

The last week or so, I've been having trouble getting my scooter up on the center kick stand. The last couple of days, I've been using the side kickstand because I'm lazy. Earlier today, I noticed a fairly loud rattling sound coming from the undercarriage of my scooter. At dinner tonight, I dropped under the scooter to see if I could see anything. The center kickstand is falling off my scooter!

Granted, this time, it's (hopefully) as simple as putting a new bolt on, but COME ON. It's a 2009 scooter, and Scooterville "stands behind everything that they sell". This is just getting silly. Two carb cleans in less than a month. Four ounces of water in my fuel tank. Dying on me leaving the dealership after they "fixed" the problem.

Jerry talked to the manager guy, Jonathon, who in turn talked to the owner, Bob. I asked Jonathon today if he had, indeed, talked to Bob about my situation. He said that he had, but that I would be welcome to talk to Bob again tomorrow when I go in to have them fix this shiny new problem. Tonight, I will be writing a pretty solid list of concerns and issues I want to see addressed.

Once again, 433 was right--I should have bought a Buddy. ;)

Tonight, John poked me on the chest with a flat head scew driver. Yep. Right in the scar.

I yelled at him and immediately jumped back, holding my chest. He looked at me like I was crazy. I told him to never NEVER NEVER do that to me again. I showed him why.

I was so upset that I almost started crying. I could cry right now, thinking about how much this is going to make it grow, or if it's going to explode again like it did a month ago.

>:(

I'm having a severely off day. :(

Thus far, here is a list of the items that Mojito (Jerry's cat) has eaten:

* the string from my white Old Navy halter top
* the strap from my black Old Navy tank top
* the string from my green Abercrombie hoodie
* one corner of my new netbook's carrying case (she ate this THE DAY I got it in the mail)
* the face of my screaming Woot Monkey keychain
* the string and part of the hood of my blue Quicksilver hoodie

She's really got it in for me, I swear.

Last week, I was supposed to take my motorcycle road test. It got rained out, so I rescheduled for today.

There are TWO things that will automatically fail you. One is if you perform "an illegal/dangerous act". The other? Laying out your bike on the course.

Guess whose lame ass laid their scooter out?

Me.

Guess who is sore as a mo-fo?

Me.

Yay me.

Guess who is going for a beer with Amanda?

Me.

At least something good is coming out of this stupid move of mine. :P

My bottom left wisdom tooth has been hurting for the last three hours.
My sinuses are all plugged up.
My legs are sore from work tonight.
I've been sneezing like a crazy person all day, even though I took an allergy pill.
I've got a headache and a dry throat.

Something's gotta give, body! :/

Wednesday night, got out to the Arden B at a reasonable hour. Stayed up WAAAAAY too late, as per usual. :P

Thursday, got up at 10:45...should have been 10 so we could do some stretches. Whoops. Went to lunch with a friend of Jerry's from Symantec (Josh) and his wife. Josh's wife, not Jerry's wife. :P Had a tasty lunch of burritos at Chipotle.

We scooted around town a bit. Ran a few errands. Got home to play with the kitty and found out her new toy was lost to the winds on Snelling. So sad! I got some fabric to make some kitty toys, so we'll see how that goes.

Hung about the house for a while. We waffled back and forth as to whether or not we wanted to go to Minneapolis to see ATPH or not. Decided not when we weighed out the pros and cons. Plus, Jerry needed to be back in Arden B in the morning to finish up some work. We ran into town to send my phone off via UPS. They are so lame! We had dinner at Taco Bell, even though Spicy Chicken has been taken off their menu. We seriously need to protest this one, folks. Not. Even. Kidding. >:(

I took a bath when we got home. Jerry gave me a new mug for my collection--the super duper awesome bamboo one! :D I ended up passing out at midnight due to some allergy complications. Jerry got done with work around 2:30 and came to bed. I really need to get some pills to keep at his place so my head doesn't explode. :P

In relation to the mug, I totally learned an important lesson. I may NOT leave a straw in the mug for any period of time. Mojito, Jerry's cat, tried to sneak the straw out of the mug, only to knock it over, dump water EVERYWHERE, and crack my mug in half. I am so sad! Next time, no mugs on the bedside table. :(

Friday, got up around noon. Thankfully, I remembered that I was scheduled in at 3 instead of 5. Booked it out of the Arden B to head back toward Minneapolis for werk. I stopped in at King Rose Floral to buy some roses for mother's day. I know I'll see a few mothers on Sunday, so I wanted to have roses on hand. Unfortunately, the conditions are just right that they all bloomed WONDERFULLY today, so they probably won't be terribly beautiful on Sunday. I'll have to try and pick some more up tomorrow. Until then, I've got two dozen roses on my kitchen counter! :D

That leaves us where we are now. I'm kicking back with a beer, waiting for Amanda, Chris and the Pantswife to stop on over. I need to take a five second shower once anyone gets here. I smell like a bar! :P Here's to a successful Friday night of Rock Band and beer!