My headlight is out

So, I get a call from my husband on the way to work this morning. Did you know your headlight was out? No, I didn't know this. My mom, on the other line says, how could you not know your headlight was out? Does everyone turn on their headlights and walk to the front of their car to check and see if they are both lit before they drive somewhere each day? I could see if I parked in a garage or something and could see the lights shining on the wall when I leave each day, but I don't. My lights shine onto open street. So she says that I should start checking them every day. OK. I'll do that.

I'm sick

Why is it that when people find out you are sick they say, did you go to the doctor? I just got sick yesterday, what is it that you think the doctor is going to do? If I had gone to the doctor yesterday, he would say go back home and if you are still sick in 7-10 days then come back. If you do not have signs of infection like a fever or green snot, then there really isn't anything that a doctor can do for you. I know this from going to the doctor every time I'm sick and them never giving me anything to make me feel better because I don't have any signs of infection leading them to believe I need an antibiotic. Sometimes you are just sick. Sometimes when you spend 20 hours in recycled air in airports and airplanes, you catch whatever disgusting germs were floating around in there and they make you sick. I'm a snot factory! I want to go home. If my computer had been functioning all this time then I would have my work done and would actually be able to take off when I'm sick!

I HATE Computers!

There really isn't much else to say other than I freaking hate computers!! How is it that I work for this supposed tech powerhouse of a company and I cannot have a fully functioning computer back in over a freaking week???? I hate this place!

Just back it up

Famous words from anyone hearing that your hard drive has crashed. Well, you backed up, right? Let's back up to when I started working as a corporate whore at this shitty company. Someone, and I'm not sure who, but someone told me that everything in your "my documents" folder is backed up each time you log off the network. Apparently this is a lie. Apparently I just made this up. So I have been diligently making sure all of my files are in "my documents" for two and a half years for no reason whatsoever. So, then everyone wants to say well why aren't you using some program that I have never heard of. Well, because I don't know what you are talking about. How can you not know what I'm talking about when it pops up every day? Well, if it popped up every day, don't you think I would know what you are talking about? Well, we got that email about it. Well, call off the dogs, if we got an email about it, I MUST know about it then. Because I pay close attention to all 100 of the automatically generated stupid fucking emails that come through my inbox every day. If it was something so important, then why wouldn't an action be sent from someone in our senior management chain telling us to do it? We get emails from them telling us to go to their stupid "fun" committee activities. Ice cream and Wii, you gotta know about that....organization-wide tool for backing up, learn about that on the street.

Is my stuff backed up? Yes, to a point. But, who backs up every freaking day or even week? Maybe up through a couple of months ago and that's about it. If you say you back up every day, I will call you a liar to your face!

United SUCKS

We booked a flight to go visit some family. We had gotten a good deal, which is why we decided to go. Our flight was at about 8 in the morning and we were set to arrive to our destination by 9:15. We head to the airport at about 6:15 in the morning and all things are looking good. We check in. Security line wasn't too bad other than some racist hick behind us in line talking about racial profiling. We head to our gate and the flight departures screen says we are "on time." Joy. While sitting there waiting to board, the woman at the gate starts making announcements that the flight is oversold and anyone with seats can volunteer to give up their seat for a free flight. We decide not to take it. Then the time has passed to start boarding and she tells us that there are mechanical issues and the flight will be delayed for 15 minutes or so. 15 minutes later she tells us that the issue is with the pilot's chair being broken and we'll just be delayed for a little while longer. This continues for a couple of hours then they tell us that the flight is cancelled. Yay. They tell us to go to customer service to find another flight. Of course everyone mobs customer service and when we finally get to someone, we are informed that all of the other flights are booked also. We will no longer be able to get a direct flight and now we will have to route through Philly and won't arrive until 6:30 pm. Well this sucks, but whatever. So we go rush to the gate for this next flight, which is of course a shuttle ride and the polar opposite of where we are currently standing. The fantastic news is that our bags will be going on the next flight and be sitting at the airport in Albany until we arrive.

We finally get to our next gate and are told that this flight is too oversold and while we have been "confirmed" for this flight, we do not have a seat assignment. This means that people will have to sell their seats in order for us to get on. The woman at the gate tells us that she has no idea why we were even put on this flight because there are flights out of Reagan which are direct flights and get us there earlier than this flight. So she tells us if we want one of those flights, we can get a taxi voucher and a free flight voucher. We say sure. The catch is that we have to wait until this flight is closed for her to do it. So we wait. We wait with 4 people from Spain that do not speak English and do not understand why they weren't allowed on the plane and are screaming at this woman while she is trying to make our arrangements. We kept trying to find someone to help these poor people and I do not know enough Spanish to explain oversold flights and re-routing. I never thought I would see the day when you couldn't find a Spanish speaking person in DC.

The flight attendant finally gets everything done and it takes her over an hour. We race to the complete other side of the airport to get a taxi and head from Dulles to Reagan. We arrive and go to check in and are told that the 3:12 flight is fully booked and we are not booked on that flight. We are booked on the 9:20pm flight. Awesome! So now we were 10 minutes from our house before and could've just gone home, but now we are down in DC and there is no way we are going to leave and come back. Now we get to spend 6 fabulous hours in the airport. We head to a restaurant. Get some cocktails. Buy my husband a sweater because he is freezing. Buy a phone charger because ours were checked and now we have no way to communicate with the people that are waiting to pick us up at the airport. Buy toothbrushes and toothpaste. Buy a book for entertainment. Buy new headphones for my ipod. I think we've spent a good couple hundred dollars and haven't even left the airport yet.

The time finally arrives for our 9:20 flight. We are actually boarding!! We call our rides and tell them. We get on the plane. The plane starts moving. I'm delighted. They come on and tell us they haven't been cleared for take off. We wait. We wait some more. We wait in the plane for an hour and a fucking half! By the time we actually arrive at our destination, it is after midnight. Then our bags are of course locked in the United room where no United workers are. The number on the door of course calls to India and we cannot find anyone who works for the airport anywhere. We are walking around trying to find anyone who can help. About 45 minutes later, someone finally lets us in. We have an hour and a half drive to get to the place we are staying. We finally get there at about 2 am.

20 hours for an hour and 15 minute flight. This kind of shit only happens in my life. The great news is we have a free flight for United and get to do this all over again sometime in the next year.

Update: My horoscope the day before we left...
If you have any upcoming travel plans, make sure that you have all the details finalized, today. Confirm dates and locations, double check routes and travel times. There could be a change that causes you to rethink one aspect of your trip. You can't take anything for granted.

I shall start planning my entire life around my daily horoscope.

Why do you do that?

This is a great question that I love to hear when bitching about my commute. I was recently telling a friend that is not local that I leave for work by 6 every morning to get to work by 7. They just found this insane, as most other people do that don't live around here. Yes, I leave by 6 am and it takes me almost an hour to get 12 miles. This is for sure the most awesome start to any morning. Everyone should be so lucky. I recommend that everyone move to the DC area so that your days will be filled with sunshine just like mine. But, the question always asked is an interesting one. "Why do you do that?" Why do we do this? Why do we put ourselves through the crap that we do just to maintain in this area? Do we have higher salaries, sure, but are we getting ahead? Not really. We have access to more "stuff" but when do we ever do any of it? Most of us are so drained from our work lives, commutes, etc. that we are just happy to have an evening to sit on the couch and do nothing. By the time you get home on weeknights you basically have just enough time to eat, clean up, catch up on all the work emails that you didn't have time to do, and go to bed to prepare for another day of fun. Weekends are full of doing all the shit that piles up all week that you don't have time to do. Laundry, grocery shopping, dry cleaning, post office, cleaning the house, etc. I don't even have freaking kids. I can't imagine what that would do to your life. Maybe by some stroke of luck you find the time to hang out with some family or friends for a few hours and that is your life in a nutshell. So, I get back to my friend's question, why do we do this?

Remind me why it is better to buy?

So we bought our townhouse almost two years ago. We bought at a time that was supposedly "good" to buy. However, no one could've called how much the housing market was going to tank after that. Let's put the fact that it is "normal" in this area to spend $400-500K on a freaking townhouse to begin with aside for a moment. Since purchasing our townhouse, which we bought slightly under the appraised value, our house value has dropped $75K and our land value has increased $25K. This means that we have a total loss of $50K so far. Given that our $3300/month payments are mostly interest since we have only had it for less than two years, we now owe more than it is worth. Awesome! This means our plan of living there for 3-5 years is now shot. I'm so thrilled that I get to live in this area even longer! Yay!

The media would have you believe that the rates are so low right now and with all of the foreclosures that the mortgage companies are doing whatever they can to help people out. Since we have one of those stupid hybrid loans, I decide I'm going to call the mortgage company to try to figure out how to refinance the house. Apparently refinancing the house is not as simple as you might think. In order to refinance your place, you can only refinance 90% of the home's value. Would you like to know how the "home's value" is calculated? Not by your shitty county property assessed value, no that would make too much sense. It is based on the 90 day average of comparable home sales in your neighborhood! Which at the present time are $100K or or more below what we paid! Fan-fucking-tastic! So, in order to refinance, you have to pay the other "value" in the house, what is left on the loan between the difference of the two, plus closing costs. So if you want to refinance your overpriced townhouse, be prepared to pull $50 or 60K out of your pocket to do so. Since you have been paying out the ass for everything else, I'm sure you have that kind of cash laying around to do it with too.

I hate this area.

No, we are not going to be friends

I really hate it when you are introduced to someone at work and the person in common says "oh my god I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner. You guys will really hit it off. You should hang out!" This only makes me instantly dislike this person. I really don't know why, but it is just how it happens. Then once you get to know the person you wonder, what reason could their possibly be that anyone would think I would "hit it off" with this individual? They are wretched. So I guess that means that I am viewed as wretched by this person? So now I have to be pretend friends with this person because someone in senior management thought we should be BFFs and put us on the same project? I hate this freaking place.

Update: Apparently everyone hates this person and it is not just me.

Fun?

Just like any other corporate gig, there are always events planned to network and socialize and team build. The problem is that they are created by committees of idiots. The latest stupidity by the "Fun Committee" is an Ice Cream/Wii social. Isn't the point of a "Fun Committee" to plan things that are actually fun. I guess it really wouldn't matter what they planned anyway because I would have to actually want to spend time with anyone here for it to actually be fun anyway. So, when the Fun Committee plans a giving away cash party, I guess I'll attend. Otherwise, spending more time with you people is not fun.

Why would you let your kid get so fat?

The people at the end of the row of townhouses perpendicular to our row are idiots. The husband is the size of Jabba the Hut and this wouldn't really bother me as much if he was just fat and not also annoying. Then they have a child who is probably about 7 or 8 and I'd say he weighs in around 140. He is morbidly obese just like daddy. So Jabba comes home for work every day and instead of parking and then walking across the street to the mailboxes, he drives to them. It is literally a total of maybe 12 steps from the end of his driveway to the mailboxes. So he drives up, blocking the entire entryway to the parking area for our row of townhouses. Then he turns around to pull into his own driveway. All while you are waiting to pull in. Then he looks at you like you are in his way.

So Jabba-in-training is now getting "exercise" every day. This consists of Jabba greasing his sides and smashing his fat ass into a lawn chair at the end of their driveway with a big gulp while Jabba Jr. whizzes back and forth on a mini motorcycle. He goes back and forth between their driveway and our driveway. There is no possible way to see this child on the motorbike when you are driving your car. So when you are backing out of the driveway or pulling in, he could be easily hit. So, you would think that Jabba would teach Jabba Jr. that cars can't see you so if you see a car, you need to stand up or get out of the way. But, this would make too much sense. So now, Jabba sits a giant orange sign at the end of their driveway that says "children at play." Since it is a blind turn to get into the road, there is absolutely no way to see the sign until you have already turned into the road and see lard ass perched there.

The thing that the worst is that if I were to hit this little brat, it would be my fault. My fault. Even though they are killing the kid with food and not forcing the porker to ride an actual real bike to burn calories. I would be sued for killing the kid. What is wrong with society?