Life After The Army » car

Warning rant ahead

Charlotte — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 16:54:40 +0000

My local chapter of the FFA (Future Felons of America), as Christine calls them, have struck again. This time it’s my car. Some little so and so scratched the hood several times. I know these aren’t “oops” scratches because they look like drawings.

I’m pissed and hubby is going to go through the roof when he sees them. These brats that live here are trash and nothing but. The other day 2 of them had 4 bicycles out back and they tore them all down, made 2 bikes out of them and threw the remains of the other 2 into the woods. I’m sure they were stolen because they were too nice and expensive looking to belong to welfare kids. Right now one of the stolen goodies is out in the hallway. It’s a Mongoose bike and those aren’t cheap… It has to be stolen. The hallway is barely wide enough to walk down as it is without a bike being there. They aren’t supposed to keep them in the hallway.

Last weekend the guy across the hall from me called the cops because of another bike being in the hallway. The cops came and took it away. I just hope these little FFA’s didn’t think I called the cops and scratched my car in retaliation.

Here is what the little so and so’s did to my car. Click for bigger.

Weekend Stuff

Charlotte — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 18:48:00 +0000

It’s been a busy weekend. I had to take my signed lease renewal papers to the real estate office. They raised my rent $25 a month this year. I guess I should consider myself lucky because they didn’t raise it last year. Hubby says this is the last year here. Next year we will either buy or rent a house. He says if we are going to pay this much we might as well go for a little more in a monthly payment and get a house.

I had to park my car in another parking lot because tomorrow they are paving the rest of the parking lot. I won’t be able to park in my own space again until Tuesday after work. This is gonna suck… but I’ll get my exercise hiking back and forth from my condo to my car. I don’t know why they didn’t just do it all at once when they did part of the parking lot a couple months ago. It makes no sense… *sigh*.

I cleaned the kitchen and the floors yesterday and did laundry today. I still have to put the clean clothes away. I also need to ask hubby to pick up a couple fire extinguishers for me. I didn’t even think about having any until today and since I’m on the second floor that might be a good idea to have 1 or 2.

Dropping

Charlotte — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 22:43:04 +0000

The gas prices are dropping like a rock around here. I saw one station today that was selling regular unleaded for $2.78 a gallon. I was sure we would never see gas below $3.00 a gallon again. I guess I won’t need to go selling Guess watches on EBay to pay for fuel.

My usual station isn’t as cheap as the one I saw today ($2.93 a gallon). That station usually has the cheapest gas around. I’m going to have to change where I go to get my gas. It’s a shame because I would go there and get gas then go in and shop in the store.

Gimme an…

Charlotte — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 02:43:08 +0000

S
Gimme a T
Gimme an R
Gimme an E
Gimme an S
Gimme an S

What’s that spell? STRESS! Which is how my day went today. It was so bad I thought all of watches in the office died. They didn’t.. the day just crawled and crawled.

What caused all the stress? Well for one thing it started with a power tripping co-worker…. Well I shouldn’t really call her that. She takes on way too much work and takes it all way too personally. Her and another co-worker had it out in her office. After the dust cleared she came out and told me that there will be a meeting tomorrow and she is no longer my supervisor. I just sat there in shock! I was so stressed that I lost my appetite and spent my lunch time sitting in my car listening to the radio and smoking.

After lunch I went back inside to start making phone calls to put in disconnect orders for the utilities (the stores start closing down in about a month, just after Halloween). I got through the electric and gas for one store then I had to call Verizon for the phones. This experience just makes me hate Verizon even more. Last year when putting in the disconnects for the phones I had no problems what so ever. This year Verizon has decided that we need to have the account numbers or the last amount paid. That’s all well and good except that Accounts Payable doesn’t do the disconnects and we don’t pay the bills in our office. I tried to get them to “secure” the account by giving them our tax ID number (which we have to give them when we set up the phones).. no dice. So I had to get the woman down in Accounts Payable to send me a list of the phones she had paid so I could have the account numbers and the last amount paid.

So this hour long meeting at 10am tomorrow should prove interesting.

Holy exploding car Batman!

Charlotte — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 02:41:57 +0000

A little while ago I was sitting here watching TV. The Phillies won the World Series and the fans are celebrating in the streets. I heard a loud bang that echoed through the quiet night outside and I thought it was someone setting off fireworks celebrating. A little later on I heard the sounds of diesel trucks so I opened my door and went down the hallway to the front of the building and the parking lot is loaded with fire trucks and cop cars!

Evidently a car caught on fire and exploded!!! Thankfully it was on the other side of the parking lot and not near my car. I went back in and grabbed my camera and snapped a couple pictures. If you look closely you can see smoke in the pictures. I didn’t want to get too close so I took the pictures from my steps. I didn’t think to use the zoom until just now! *doh!!*

Brazen or just stupid?

Charlotte — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 22:44:33 +0000

A man tried to steal a pick-up out of the parking lot at work this morning. I think he was just stupid to try it because at that time of morning people are in and out of the building quite a bit and there are windows all over the place and the building is on a very busy road. In fact that’s how he got caught. Someone saw him through the window and called down to loss prevention and they called the police. Then he went outside and got the man out of the truck. Within a few minutes the lot was crawling with cop cars.

It turns out the car he came in was also stolen. I guess he got tired of the 1st stolen vehicle and wanted to trade it in on a different model. Right now he’s probably cooling his heels in a nice little jail cell awaiting his trial. Hopefully someone will award him the stupid criminal of the year award!

She’s on her way

Charlotte — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 20:03:04 +0000

Andi messaged me from Ireland earlier today. She’s on her way to “that place” for the 2nd time. She also had me call her cell phone company and suspend her service. They have this special thing for military people.. they suspend their service until they return and have it reactivated. With the suspension Andi won’t have any payments for her phone.. just for Tayler’s.

Andi also turned in her car so she won’t have any car or auto insurance payments while she’s gone.

The grandkids were here when Andi messaged this morning so they got to say goodbye again to their mom.

It’s peaceful and quiet now that the kids have gone back to their dads. I’ll get to see them again right after Christmas or maybe on Christmas day for a little while.

That was fun.. NOT!

Charlotte — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:16:10 +0000

I went out and cleaned off about 11 inches of snow off of my car. It took me about 45 minutes to do that. By the time I got done my hands were wet and frozen and I was wearing gloves. Luckily I backed into my parking space on Sunday and didn’t have any trouble getting out. Hubby had cleared the snow from in front of the car and by the drivers side too. By the time I was done clearing off the car the snow, at the back of the car, came up to my knees!

When I left for WaWa someone was in the parking lot plowing out the empty spaces and when I got back my space was nice and cleared off. It’s now just 16 degrees outside and a bit windy still. I wore a hooded sweatshirt under my jacket and used the hood to keep my head warm.

click for bigger

I got home and decided to do a bit of window shopping online and found something that I really need on sale at Buy.com. It’s a little light that I can attach to my desk. I don’t have a lamp or a lot of light at my desk. It’s darker now that I have my new desk & hutch top. I can attach it under the shelf that’s above my monitor and will give me light at night. It was only $7.99 for 2 lights. Fantastic deal if you ask me!

This light uses LEDs and detaches so it can be used as a flashlight. This will be very handy. I ordered it and I get free shipping and I saved $22.00. There are 2 of these lights in the package. I’m sure I’ll find a use for the 2nd one.

I just love these weekly deals that Buy.com offers. This is my 5th purchase from them and so far I haven’t had and problems with anything I’ve ordered from them.

I really don’t know what to do

Charlotte — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:04:29 +0000

I still can’t find a job. We have bills to pay this week and there is not enough money coming in this week to pay them. Hubby gets paid every two weeks and got paid last week. This week I get my unemployment which is under $500. We have to pay my car ($300), the cell phones ($150), the gas bill ($150) and hubby needs new jeans (he keeps ripping them at work). Last week hubby had to get new tires for his truck so it will pass inspection, they were bald and wouldn’t pass. They weren’t cheap. Next week the rent is due ($975). I can’t even afford to pack up my shipping boxes and move to a cheaper place right now. My prescriptions are due to be refilled and I won’t even be able to afford to get them. I take 3 different meds and the copays aren’t that expensive ($60 for all 3) but with all the other bills I can’t get them filled or get food.

I talked to someone from where I used to work as a temp and they definitely won’t be bringing me back this year. They had to cut expenses and are going to use other people in the building to do the utility setups for the new stores.

I can’t get rid of my car because if I do get luck enough to find a job I need to be able to get to work. I can’t get rid of the cell phones because they are our only phones. We don’t have a landline in the house.

I’m not having a good day and I know I’m whining. The economy really sucks and there isn’t anything we can do about it.

Please… don’t forget about my giveaway. I put it up yesterday and no one has entered yet. Praise our troops and win some jewelry.

The day after

Charlotte — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 18:45:24 +0000

Hubby is out plowing again. He came home about 8:30 or so last night and went out again about 8 am. It’s now 1:30pm and he’s still out there.

I went out and cleaned off my car but that was as far as I could get. I can’t get to the drivers side of the car because of all of the snow and I don’t have a shovel. Hubby still has to finish plowing the driveway right behind my car so I can get it out. I’m glad I have enough stuff to last another day or two.

Enjoy the day after pictures below. The 1st 3 are the neighbors from yesterday… the 2 kids and parents. They built a snow fort out of snow and in the last one they built a snow slide. Now that looked like fun!

The ones below are from today when I was out cleaning off my car. A few show the camper covered in ice and the one showing the sky and trees. If you look closely at the trees you can see the snow blowing. I thought that was a neat shot!