Bad Times

Oh my brothers and only friends. I have had a very upsetting few days.

I woke up this morning to find that somebody had gotten into my car and stole my mp3 player. I guess I had left my door unlocked, so I made it easy for them. They stole my Zen, my transmitter, all my change (excluding pennies), 3 cigarettes sitting on my seat, and a bottle of cologne. I think it was probably one of the kids that ride their skateboard outside my place. Next time I see one I'm going to offer a reward. Upsetting.

I have also become aware in the last week or so that I have apparently been the victim of identity theft. It seems as if somebody who lives in Florida has used my SSN to get themselves a cellular phone. Looks like somebody got a phone using my info and never paid the bill. Apparently T-Mobile thinks that I owe them about $600. The think that I've owed it to them since December of 2004. They have since turned the matter over to a collection agency, and have thus marred my credit rating. I have my sister on the case, so I'm sure the matter will be resolved quickly and in my favor. Still upsetting.

Oh well, I still haven't given up on my 'don't F with karma' ideology.

Gone Floating

Yes indeed folks, the time has come for the first summer float trip of the year. It's been a long time coming (since it's already the third week of June), and I can't wait to get out on the river. This is also the first big float trip in which I've had the honor of being leader/organizer. We're going down with 10 people, renting a 10 person campsite and 5 boats - which meant reservations had to be made and money had to be paid up front. Selling seats was not a problem. The first day of the official announcement I had 8 seats bought and paid for.

This is not the first float trip I've done this year. Although the historical account of my first float trip this year (ManCamp 06) has been lost. The photographic proof of the expedition is downloadable from this site (at least what has been declassified).

We're doing an 8 mile float down the Elk River that ends at the campsite. Those floats are best because you can take your sweet time getting down the river. We'll be staying at River Ranch Resort. The weather channel has been calling for a sunny 85 degrees on Saturday. Looks like it should be a good time, too bad the rest of you couldn't make it.

I now pronounce you...

Congratulations to my cousin Stephanie and her new husband Garrett. I hope you have a long and fruitful marriage.

Yes, folks, this weekend I attended the wedding of my cousin Stephanie Petry and Garrett Lehman in Hillsboro MO. They went all out for the ceremony and the reception, every little detail was taken care of. Everything went smoothly and a good time was had by all. Even though there were at least 150 people in attendance, the logistics and timliness of the schedule were kept intact - which is a tribute to the bride and her mother (my aunt Beth).

This marked my second trip to STL in as many weeks. Although I didn't have to drive my car down there, I did end up driving my granddad home. It was a relatively painless trip not counting the extensive amount of construction in between Wentzville and I-55 on US-40 and I-270. That crap added an hour to our trip down there.

So, Stephanie is the first of the grandchildren I grew up with to get married. She's almost 4 years younger than me. I know it's time for me to move on with my life. I want marriage and children, but that stuff seems like it's a million miles away right now. I am, however, accepting applications for the Wife position.

ALSO - Don't forget to check out the new 'Tagboard' I have at the bottom of the right sidebar. Always adding new features - That's AaronKCMO!

Hallelujah

I finally went and got the air conditioner in my car fixed yesterday. It works great. It's been so long since I've had a car with A/C, I just don't know what to do. It makes me want to go out and drive in the middle of the day.

I have tried to fix this problem before. I took the car to a place in riverside and they wanted to change the high-pressure line as well as the evaporator. They said it would cost $550, and that they wouldn't guarantee it would work after they did that. As you could imagine, I wasn't in the mood to spend $550 on that stuff just to find out that I'd have to spend another $1000 on a compressor. This time I took my car to a place I've never been, but was recommended by one of my bosses. They called me in the middle of the day and said that there was a hole in the line, but that they were confident with the rest of the system. They replaced the $150 hose and I got out of there spending only $350. I will go back to Northtown Alignment and Radiator for all my repair needs from now on.

Even though I'm much more happy with my car now, I'm still looking forward to getting rid of it. I should be able to buy a new car next summer after my Lasik note is paid off.

Results

I have a couple things to write about. Firstly, I'd like to announce that I have successfully disabled the passlock system on my car. When it did it to me again after I'd had the remote start system taken out, I was finally motivated to exhaust the web in search of an answer. I found the answer on a bbs somewhere on the web. The solution consisted of starting the car and unplugging a wire. No cutting of wires or connecting of wires to make the job more complicated. Thanks to Denny for researching this problem for me, his solution was right on the money.

Next I'll report on our trip to STL to play softball. We all got up early last Saturday to meet at the Price Chopper in Blue Springs at 6am. We all made it, and were on the road by 6:05. Our first game was at 11, and we arrived about 90 mins early. We spread the first team, and won the second game by 3. That's where our luck ran out. The third and fourth games were lost by 1 and 2 runs respectively - the third game going 10 innings. The fifth game was a complete embarassment. One of our guys got mad for some reason and cussed out the umpire - leaving us with only 9 guys to play. In his defense, we were getting horrible calls all day, and it's hard to play against another team AND and umpire. BUT, you have to keep control of yourself if you want to win. We ended up getting spread early in that game, and because of the jackass who couldn't control himself, the team left STL with a bad taste in it's mouth.

Lastly I need to rave about this device I've recently had the chance to use extensively. It's a Palm Treo 700. It's a phone and a PDA which has the ability to 'sync' with an Exchange server so it's owner can send and receive emails from wherever they get a cell signal. It's got a 330 mhz processor, it runs Windows Mobile OS, it's built on the sturdy PocketPC platform, it's got outstanding battery life, and it's totally expandable and customizable. I whole-heartedly recommend the Palm Treo 700 to anybody who's in the PDA market. With the new Windows OS, it's a joy to use.

Asleep at the Wheel

Hey y'all, I know it's been a while since I've posted. I wish I could say that I had been working on a really good post, but no. I've just been so busy in the last week that I haven't made any time to blog.

Speaking of being busy, my summer weekends are filling up fast. I will have played in 3 softball tournaments in June, and 3 more in July - including the State tournament. I have a lot of hope for this tournament team, we have a really good chance of winning State AND coming in first in points - which means up to $1800 - $2400 of travel money for us to go to Las Vegas for the NSA Super World Series tournament.

I'm also planning on floating once in June, and again in July. Along with the district tennis tournament in August, and the Sectional tennis tournament in September.

I've been insanely busy this week. I billed about 24 hours from Monday to Wednesday. Yesterday and today weren't as busy, but I'm still billing lots of time.

Last weekend I was able to make it out to Columbia to visit my brother PhilWax and help him celebrate his thirty-first birthday. A good old time was had by all, even though we won't mention any bowling scores. I got messed up. I blame it on playing softball immediately before and after the trip.

Anyway, let's raise our glasses in tribute to being busy and travelling around the sun one more time.

Here's to us.
Who's like us?
Damn few.
And they're ALL dead.