I’m still undecided about whether or not I made a good decision, but I have gone from a part-time position to a full-time one. I figured hey, as a PT-timer I was working every single day from early morning until afternoon anyway. Why not move up to fulltime, work a few extra hours in the week, get the weekend off, get paid holidays, sick time, vacation time, and benefits to boot?

Today was my first day as a full-timer and so far not so bad. It sucks that I don’t get home until after 6pm on account of the lengthy commute and the “rush-hour” traffic. But, otherwise it wasn’t so bad. I gotta tell you, I’m liking the fact that I got holiday pay for MLK day, otherwise, as a part-timer, I’d have been out some hours this week since it was a federal holiday and we were closed. Instead I get paid anyway. Not to mention I get more hours now. This paycheck (and future ones!) are looking to be much better now. Not that I’m gonna splurge and get me a bb playbook, iPad, iPhone, or anything like that. I’m thinking the extra money will wisely be put to use fixing up Pyro and paying off the last of my debts.

It’s time for another round of “Good News and Bad News” here. Yes, the blessings really are that mixed. First, some Good News: I don’t have to feel bad about giving my grandfather something so impersonal and “last minute” like calvin klein mens underwear or socks for Christmas! I’ve already got his gift and had it bought months ago!

Bad News: The same cannot be said about my Mother. What the hell am I supposed to get this woman that she’ll like and actually use? Not to mention, isn’t a completely impersonal gift to boot. Why must she always be so difficult?

Good News: I got extra hours this week at work due to opening one day, early morning meetings, and helping to cover at the El Paso branch.

Bad News: Since we had such a wonderful snow storm blow in and interstate and a lots highways were closed due to bad conditions, I got yesterday off. No point in me coming in to work if the one road that was still open got closed while I was at work, my boss said. So…I’m not gonna get extra hours this week after all, but I should break even.

Good News: I had my one year evaluation on Monday and I’m getting a raise! It’s only 2% mind you, so it’s probably not even noticeable, but hey, I got a raise!

Bad News: I’ve got repairs to make to Pyro now after that jerk ran me off the road so I need all the extra money I can get.

Pyro is once again running smoothly, or at least as smoothly as my pocketbook can afford. This is good, but since I know there is still much to be fixed on him, I’m beginning to seriously consider the fact that it may just soon be time to trade Pyro in. Looking at the just the newer models of Dodge Neons is enough to give me car envy, never mind the fact that there are other cars with features that make me drool to boot. Mind you, most of the features I wouldn’t get because I couldn’t afford them since they add to the final tag price of a car, but… do you really need some of these features given some of the nice apps out there (like mobile gps ones for example)?

Sad thing is, right now, trying to finish digging myself out of debt as I am, and unable to move up to a full-time position (no positions available at work) there is no way I could afford to buy a new car. Especially since I’d need a load and I sure as hell don’t want another large monthly bill. Pyro, please last a little longer.

Argh! I swear, if it’s not one thing wrong with this damn car it’s another. This morning, on a day when we had an early morning meeting before work, my car would not start. Completely dead, wouldn’t even crank. And it would not take a jump either. I got a ride to and from work, so I was only a little late to work. Missed the 8:15am meeting though, but made it to work a little after 9am, so it wasn’t too bad.

But of all the days to be absent – I was named employee of the month! Now that, right there is sheer irony.

Came home, changed, then unhooked the battery of the car and took it up to AutoZone, hoping like hell that was the problem. They tested the battery, and sure enough, it was dead as a doornail. But, after putting in the new battery the car still wouldn’t start.

One of the mechanics that lives nearby and works on the farm equipment primarily, but also does auto repairs, is going to stop by and take a look at it tomorrow morning. My grandfather lent me his truck and he promised to wait there for the guy so I could get to work.

Here’s hoping that he can find out what’s wrong with it, he can fix it, and it won’t cost too much either.

All of this on top of the fact that I have the whole mess with Discover card to worry about and I just got Pyro new tires recently too. When it rains it pours.

Well, I do believe it’s safe to say that there will be no frivolous purchases for me in the near future. Not like I was planning anything so audacious as purchasing a rim tablet or something, but the simple truth is that my future finances are complete and utter mystery.

But how can this be, when I’ve been working so hard to get all my credit cards paid off and repairing my credit? I’ve paid off Bank of America and I’m one payment away from finishing Capital One, shouldn’t I be happy? Should my financial future be, if not secure yet, at least looking up?

Well, as fate would have it, the answer is no. Let me tell you how my week turned out and you’ll see what I mean.

So first off, Pyro is acting up again and is in serious need of repairs. And the truth of it is that I don’t even know what is wrong with the car anymore. There’s a short somewhere that causes the car to register a door(s) as ajar. Now, unfortunately, when a door is ajar the dome light in a Dodge Neon pops on and stays on for a long time before turning off, or until the door in question is closed properly. All of the doors can be closed properly, but Pyro still registers one of them as ajar. Why not just turn off the dome light, you ask? Because you can’t. I don’t know if the newer Neons are different, but the older ones (like mine) don’t have a switch on the dome light. You know the one where you can have the light turn on when a door opens, or set it to not turn on at all? Yeah, that’s not there at all. So if a door opens (or is ajar) the dome light will always come on.

I’ve had this problem before with Pyro, but it got fixed. Now it’s happening again. Turn the car off, get out, shut the door right, it’ll still read as “ajar” and the dome light will stay on a good ten-plus minutes before just turning off eventually. Real pain in the ass. It also pops on and off while I’m driving at random too. Not cool at night since you can get a ticket for driving with your dome light on. Not to mention the fact that the extra time it stays on has to wear on the battery. And eventually, as the problem progresses, it just may never turn off completely. That’s been going on for about a week now, and I had planned to get it fixed here soon. But, I covered the entirety of the Verizon bill that my Mom and I split because, because we have a plan together, since she’s been having a hard time getting clients to pay right now. There were overage fees (she went over the minutes, not me!) so the bill was more expensive. Completely blew my budget out of wack. Plus I had just gotten two tires replaced that badly needed it. So I’m broke right now and most of my next paycheck is going to go to the final Capital One payment.

And since we had a holiday (Labor Day) and I was out sick on one day, that’s two days of pay I lost to boot. Meaning my next paycheck is going to be a bit on the short side. Just gets better and better, right?

Then on Friday my car wouldn’t start in the morning, my Mom had to come and give Pyro a jump. I drove to work just fine, and surprise surprise, the short seemed to have sorted itself out as well. Then, after I got out of work on Friday I went to my car to discover it wouldn’t start again. I thought maybe the battery didn’t hold the charge after all and I needed a new one. Because of where my battery is placed under the hood, and where my Mom’s is, we had a hard time trying to hook Pyro up for a jump the second time. I was trying to put the car in neutral so that we could push it out of the parking space for better access, when I managed to hit ignition just right and Pyro roared to life.

Ended up driving home just fine, and on Saturday morning when I tried to start Pyro again to go to work he wouldn’t start. I messed around a bit trying to repeat what I did on Friday and he started just fine. I went to work, stopped off to buy a breakfast burrito, then went and donated plasma before coming home. And each time Pyro started just fine – so long as I repeated the little trick. Is it my starter, the ignition, safety switch, or something else that isn’t working now? I have no fucking clue. And let’s not forget the other stuff that is wrong with Pyro either.

Despite not having the money for it at all, I may just have to try and buy a new car. Even if it means taking out a loan. But wait, that might not be a good idea either because Saturday I received a summons – I’ve been served.

Discover apparently handed my account over to a collection agency and they served me. Now here’s the real kicker, the papers I was handed on Saturday don’t say when there is a hearing or when I need to make an appearance either. It does mention that there is a “form attached” that I need to respond to. But there is no form. And the paperwork is all dated back in August to boot. August 12th and the 24th to be exact. I was given this on the 17th of September. Very timely isn’t it? Oh, but it gets better. I just got a letter in the mail the other day (Wednesday I believe) from said collection agency offering a settlement deal and according to their letter I have until September 28th to respond. The letter states it was sent out on the 2nd of September too, by the way. That means that after they had already set the court proceedings in motion they were offered me this settlement. Now that, that right there is completely and utterly despicable.

So on Monday I’m going to the court house after I get out of work to try and get some answers and figure out what my next step should be. Do I even bother with this settlement offer if I’m already being taken to court?

My car seriously has the worst timing ever. It never fails, money is tight (or non-existent), that’s when Pyro (yes, my car is named Pyro) decides he needs something fixed, replaced, or what have you. And unfortunately this still holds true.

Now, I’ve rounded up all the jewelery I don’t care for or just don’t wear and I’ve been meaning to sell it. None of it is high-quality everlon stuff mind you, but a lot of it is fairly decent. There’s a lot of yellow gold in the box of jewelry to sell, which I can’t wear because I get those green marks right away. Now, even though I’ve been planning on selling the stuff, I’ve never really gotten around to it. I want to take it to one of the jewelry stores around town that is buying stuff rather than just any old “we buy gold” shop, as I figure I’d get a better deal that way. Now, with Pyro on the fritz, it looks like I’m gonna have to stop dallying around and just do it.

And I need to hurry up and sell my bassoon too, come to think of it.

So, what is wrong with Pyro you ask? Probably the transmission. Yeah, I know, in the long run it’ll probably be better to just finally get a new car rather then try and fix it, but I really don’t have the cash to buy a new car and I don’t want another car loan to pay, especially since I’m not really sure how stable my job is, given the people I work with. So I need get a least some minor repairs done on Pyro to keep him running for a bit longer.

It’s just, I’m only two payments away from being done paying off Capital One and these payments aren’t small – almost $400 a month. I’m on a plan too, so if I default on a payment now I’ll screw it all up. I cannot miss a payment. Naturally Pyrod decides to take a turn for the worse at this juncture.

For a while now Pyro’s been acting up, if I’m going under 40mph my car makes this sound that is a combination of a rev and someone trying to speed up without changing the necessary gears. And Pyro is an automatic. Over 40mphs you don’t hear that at all, under 40 we have the problem. Sometimes I downgrade just to get it to stop, especially when I’m in the city or in a place with a lot of traffic. It’s just easier on the car to downgrade to 2nd if I gotta go 35mph or under.

There’s also times, when I’m going slow and come to a stop at a stoplight/stop sign that the car will sputter and die. It’ll restart just fine, but still. Thankfully that doesn’t happen too often.

I’ve been hoping to get my mechanic to take a look at it for a while now, but things keep coming up and it keeps getting put off. Now, today, after I’d noticed that Pyro really is having a hard time decelerating (no, not accelerating, decelerating) the “check engine” light came on and is staying on for good.

That is so not a good sign.

Pyro, why do you do this to me? I hope, sincerely hope, Pyro can last a bit longer. Most of my pay from my next payday will go to making the second to last Capital One payment. Whatever is left has to be spread out for groceries, gas, cellphone, and hosting expenses. Yes, unfortunately my hosting plan has to be renewed right after I make the big-ass payment to Capital One. Joy.

I honestly don’t know how I’m gonna get Pyro fixed at all. Unless I sell stuff. (Anybody wanna buy a bassoon? How about some doujinshi?) Even then, more than likely my car will need to stay in the shop for a few days for them to diagnose just what the problem is and work out a solution I can afford. Considering I work six days a week, well I’m not sure how that’s gonna work out at all. =(

Ugh, really wish I could go crawl away and hide under a rock for a while and forget about all upcoming obligations and bills.

October has become the month I love to hate now; which is sad because I have always loved October. What with all the candy, horror movies, changing weather, and Halloween – what’s not to love? But alas with the onset of October comes a great deal of hassles that just all pile up at once. Bleh. What kind of hassles am I talking about? Well, let’s see:

1. domain renewal for kitty-kitty.net
2. domain renewal for nanashi-inc.net
3. car insurance is due ($260)
4. just paid the hosting for my site
5. tags for the car

All of this is on top of the regular expenses I have to take care on a limited income. And let’s not even get started on all the home-improvement projects I got lined up.

And did I mention that I just started jury duty? Yeah, it might not be so bad if I didn’t have to travel all the way to Las Cruces, wait around for a few hours, then be sent home because I wasn’t picked. Wasted gas, wasted time, and money lost to boot. Ugh.

If it’s my day to report at least pick me damnit!

Honestly, it’s enough to make me wanna run away somewhere for a vacation and just hide. (Those Branson vacation packages I’ve been seeing look very good right now!) Except, of course, for the fact that they cost money, money I don’t have.

People really are rude and inconsiderate folks sometimes.

My Mother has her own accounting business and recently she just moved into a new office space. We’ve gotten everything set up and moved in and she’s been happily working from her new office for the past week or so, but as happens with a move or whenever one redecorates, there are things you miss or decided to change.

Since Mom’s new office affords her more floor space and the new desk she has actually has drawers, where she can put stuff away instead of cluttering the top of her desk, we’ve found a lot of stuff she needed in her old office she no longer actually needs, and stuff she had in storage because there was no space for it now have a place to go as well. Like say, the bookcase she wants to put in the office that previously had no place to fit.

As we were loading the boxes of stuff that she no longer needs into my car, we came across a snag. Well, I did in any case. After packing away the last box of stackable bins and stationary holders she no longer needs in abundance, my Mother asked me to follow her to where she had the furniture she wanted to use stored because she would need help getting stuff into the truck and over the tailgate. I was at a loss at this statement. I remember when the tailgate was jammed before and wouldn’t come down, I also remembered it had gotten fixed too.

When I asked about why it was sticking again I received a surprising and infuriating response. Apparently, someone had backed into her truck in the parking lot while she was shopping at Wal-Mart one day. She wasn’t there at the time and naturally the people who hit her took off and didn’t stick around to be caught. The bumper on the truck is now pushed up in such a way that you can’t lower the tailgate. And because she has a $500 deductible and there’s no way it would cost that much to get it fixed, my Mother isn’t reporting it to her car insurance either. Not that I can blame her though, even though it’s clearly not her fault it’s still money they’d have to shell our and you just know her car insurance rates would be affected because of it.

Still, it pisses me off that her truck is mangled due to some rude, inconsiderate driver, and they didn’t even have the balls to fess up to it and now she has to pay to get it fixed out of her pocket.

Last week was a troublesome and sad affair and this week isn’t shaping up to be much better sadly. With everything that has been going on I haven’t had much time (or inclination) to blog. First of all, thank you so much to everybody who has been commenting, dropping emails, and just sending kind words and thoughts for us during this time. It has been really appreciated.

For those that don’t know, my furbaby Isis passed away last Sunday. She became sick some time late Friday, although since Isis has a habit of curling up to take naps in places that are out of sight (like under chairs and behind curtains) I didn’t realize anything was wrong until very late that evening. I took her to the vet first thing Saturday and although there was some initial improvement, Isis didn’t make it and passed away on Sunday.

I brought Isis home on Monday and she was laid to rest in the yard, beneath her favorite window to sleep on too. I’ve got a small wooden fence constructed around it right now and plan on making a headstone for her. I’m undecided about whether to leave the soil as it is or make a rock bed on top with a few flowers planted around the head stone. Whatever I end up deciding though, it’ll have to wait for a bit. I am completely broke right now.

Isis’ vet bill was pretty big and I took out most of the money I had in my checking account to pay it, what little I left in wasn’t enough to cover my discover card bill which is taken out automatically. I should have been fine because the bill wasn’t due to be paid for a few more days and I had hoped to go and donate plasma to get the rest I needed put in ASAP. But Discover card took out the payment early and I was $11 dollars short. Lovely. My bank covered the difference thankfully, but now I have an overdraft fee and a negative balance to fix. Joy.

To top it off, one of my tires is messing up. Won’t hold air for shit and my spare tire picked developed a slow air leak to boot. I had to go up to town today and get it taken care of. Thankfully my tires were under warranty so they got fixed for free. Well, the spare wasn’t as it’s the spare that came with the car, but the guys there were willing to fix it for me for free despite not having what’s called a 5th wheel warranty. I’ve been a loyal customer and my other tires were under warranty so they fixed it for free.

Which was so wonderful because I really didn’t know what I was going to do about the spare. The other tire was covered, I knew that. But the fifth? Uh yeah, that one I expected to just have to leave alone for now. Thankfully that wasn’t the case though!

Of course the downside is that I am still pretty much flat-broke and waiting for money to come in and cover that negative balance. Ugh.

Ah, remember how I mentioned my grandfather got into another fender bender? Well, it turns out his truck was considered totaled and he was forced to get a new one.

Frankly, I think he should have gone with a smaller truck since he clearly seems to have trouble driving large pick-up trucks anymore. But hey, what do I, a female, know? The end result was a brand new 2010 Chevy Silverado in a grayish blue that totally goes with the Dallas Cowboys vanity plate on the front bumper. I keep meaning to take a picture of the truck every time I see it…but my grandfather has actually taken enough to make a slideshow of them for himself. Not to mention, every time I mean to take out my camera and take a picture, he mentions how beautiful his baby is and I can’t help but put the camera away. You see, every time you mention the truck you get to hear all about it’s features for hours on end. So yeah, taking a picture actually just encourages him. One day I’ll get around to taking a picture and posting it though.

Honestly though, it is a pretty cool truck. Even if I think he should have gone with something smaller or at least used. And of course, that thing gets washed and hand dried regularly. And heaven forbid you touch the truck and leave a smudge or dirty fingerprint. They’ll never find your corpse.

Ugh. You know how there a bunch of sites out there that offer you “quick weight loss tips“? Here’s my tip and it’s not on any of those lists. Drive around in 100+ weather with the sun shinning down on you in a car with no air conditioning. Woo boy, you’ll be sweating them pounds away in no time!

Yeah, I did that today.

My grandfather got in a car accident (again) yesterday evening. He’s fine, thankfully, but the truck isn’t. The front is pretty badly mashed up, and it had to be towed. Since it was towed all the way from here to Las Cruces there was a nice towing charge he had to pay. His insurance will reimburse him, but in the mean time, he has to pay it. So he asked me to drive him into town today so he could pay it. No biggie right?

The man had to pick the one towing agency that is the farthest away! It all the way on the other side of town. So there I am in the sweltering heat, sitting in traffic, no A/C, windows rolled up, and listening to my grandfather lecture me on how to drive and nitpicking my car. Lovely.

It was windy today, so there was dust in the air, and my grandfather insisted on windows up. Crazy man. I kept them cracked open a bit, but boy oh boy, was it hot! I keep meaning to get the A/C fixed, but it’s low on my priority list. Today though, you can bet I was wishing I had fixed it after all.

I wonder if my grandfather will keep his truck or finally get a smaller one now? It’s a 2000 Chevy Silverado with an extended cab and extended bed. Considering this is like his …um… 9th, 10th wreck in that truck (that I know of, who knows how many others I don’t know about) I think it’s time he admit he’s too old to be driving a vehicle like that and just get him a small little pickup truck instead.

For Christmas I bought a ham, cooked half of it and put the rest up in the freezer. I went ahead and took it out today and made a potato ham bake with it. It’s been so cold here lately and something warm and filling (not to mention easy) seemed the way to go.

While it was cooking the whole house smelled so good. When it was ready (for dinner) I absolutely couldn’t wait and dug in – absolutely delicious! So when it was ready I served myself up a bowl of it and sat down in front of the t.v. to watch the Cowboys whoop the Eagles. Then I got a phone call.

Turns out it was a good thing I had a nice warm dinner because I had to get out in the cold and drive up to Las Cruces because my mother locked her keys in her truck. Apparently she went out to get something from her truck while at the laundromat and left the keys in the seat after shutting (and locking) the door. Her office keys were in the truck and her spare key was at the office so she was officially S.O.L. So, since I have a spare key to her truck, she gave me a ring.

Missed the last part of the game as a result sadly but I did get to play with my new ipod. See, I don’t have cd player in my car but it has a cassette player, so I have one of those devices that plugs into the cassette and you plug it into a cd via the earphone section and it’ll play through the car’s speakers. I was so happy to find out that it works with my ipod too! Especially since for the first ten minutes of the drive I was subjected to back to back commercials of medical assistant training school, DUI warning messages, and attorney advertisements (Call Jeff Lohan!) before I got the ipod plugged in.

There has been a string of vandalism in the area lately. Mostly these vandals have limited themselves to tagging innocent trees and ditches for their fun but they have been escalating. The other morning they tagged the garage of one of our neighbors. We heard all about it since they did it in the early hours of the morning and our neighbor happens to be an early riser. Even though he lives about a mile away from us we heard his discovery clear as a bell.

Hard to miss a 40-plus year old man screaming “You damn punk kids, I’ll shove those cans so far up your asses you’ll be singing spray paint for weeks!” into the still air at around 5am. And if, by some miracle we didn’t hear him hollering that, then we would have had to be deaf to miss the sounds of dogs howling, kids screaming in terror, and gun blasts.

Apparently he let loose his hunting dogs after the kids and took a few shots at them to give them incentive to run. Why anyone would mess with a guy with a kennel full of big dogs that attack on command and who is trigger happy with a shotgun I have no idea.

Our neighbor wasn’t the only victim of the vandals sadly. My grandfather is now missing some truck accessories off of his old Chevy truck. Missing items circled in red where they used to be:

First we noticed that the hitch on his truck had been swiped, which was sad because he’s had thing truck for decades, it’s a ’73 Chevrolet, and that hitch has been on there for just as long. Then, about a week later, we noticed that someone had jacked one of the covers on his propane tank on the truck and tried to start carving something onto the top of the tank. It looks kind of like a “3″.

So now everything of value is chained and bolted down. We’ve been especially getting onto mom who used to be very bad about locking her truck.

People suck.

Today was my third court appearance for the car accident back in February and at long last it’s all finally over; the ticket was dismissed. It’s such a relief, really, and the whole process was dragged out far longer than it should have been. While waiting in the court room I spoke to some people there and while appearing before the judge three times before actually getting to contest the ticket isn’t the norm, it wasn’t exactly unheard of either. What the hell Texas?

But I can’t complain, the officer said he wanted to move to dismiss the ticket, and no witness appeared to contest the motion, so my ticket has been thrown out. That was some really good news, especially since I didn’t have $200-plus dollars to spare for this. My stomach was all in knots this morning though. Since it was drizzling I took that as a good luck sign, because I love the rain, but I was still nervous as heck. I mean, come on, here I am having to contest a citation that I really should never have been cited for considering the fact that the only reason I hit a car was in my attempt to get out of the way of a truck that almost plowed into me on the driver’s side door to boot! I suppose the third time truly is the charm because it was an in-out thing and I was soon on my way home.

On the way back I stopped at the truck stop and ordered a fajita plate to go as a celebratory breakfast since I didn’t eat anything for breakfast. I had to wake up at 5am and was out the door by 5:30am in order to make it to court at 7am in El Paso, TX. For those that don’t know, the court I had to go to was the Municipal court in downtown – it’s about an hour drive away and I had to be sure to hit El Paso before the morning rush hit it otherwise I’d never make it on time.

Now I’m going to go finish my beef fajitas, drink some jasmine tea, and relax knowing that I no longer have an impending court day and possible fine hanging over my head.

When I checked the mailbox a little while ago I honestly didn’t expect to see anything. Over the past couple of days the mailbox has been empty, and when it’s not, there’s fliers for everything under the sun, such as some revolutionary phentermine diet pill, an upcoming fiesta, car sales, real estate agencies, and whole host of other stuff I could care less about. In other words, junk mail.

Well, that stuff was in there today too, along with a court notice.

You may recall I was in a car accident back in February. Now, considering I hit a car while trying to avoid some jerk who swerved into me, I felt that I had every right to contest this ticket. In every circumstance that I’ve heard of it only takes a month or so to contest a ticket. You go to court on the date assigned, you contest it, and the ruling is either for or against you. That’s it. Texas, apparently, loves to drag the process out and milk it for all it’s worth.

Now, the police officer who responded to the scene advised me to contest the ticket and he mentioned that when I contested it they would set a new court date so that the other party involved could attend if they wanted to. That’s different from how New Mexico does things, but still, it didn’t seem too odd. I expected the first court date to be an in and out affair and that it would all be finished when I went to court on the second date set. The first court date was in March so when my May court date rolled around I thought that was it. Instead it was a repeat of the previous court date and I found out that I would not plead my case until my next court date. This was back in May, it’s now August, and only now have I received a noticed of my next court date, which is set for the 24th of this month. Confused? Here’s a basic Timeline of Events:

• February 20, 2009: Date the accident occurred.
• March 20, 2009: First appearance in court. Waited two hours to see the judge for 1 minute to enter a plea of “not guilty” informed that I would be notified of new court date.
• May 13, 2009: Second appearance in court. Waited roughly two hours to appear before judge, once again asked to enter my plea and (this time) whether I would prefer a bench trial or trial by jury. Informed I would be notified of new court date.
• August 24, 2009: New court date set.

Is it just me or is this being completely drug out more than necessary?

It feels good to have my own set of wheels once again. I abhor having someone else chauffeuring me around. It took an incredibly long time to get Pyro fixed after that fender-bender back in February mainly because I didn’t have a steady and reliable flow of income anymore after getting laid off. Pyro still needs a paint job, but is otherwise repaired and running smoothly.

It really is lucky that some of my mom’s friends were able to work on Pyro for me. Otherwise I’d have never been able to afford getting him fixed this time around. The power steering was messed up, I needed a new hood, front bumper, passenger-side fender, headlight, and a few other parts as well. In the end, there is still technically one part that isn’t “fixed”. The air compressor was smashed to bits, however, a brand new one alone cost over $600 dollars. A used, but working one, cost about $400. The guys tried their damnedest to get that fixed. In the end they had to opt to put in a used one that wasn’t working anymore. I’m not that familiar with cars, but from what I understood, the arm of the air compressor connects with the power steering. Without the arm there is no power steering. I did not want a car without power steering, it’ a bitch to drive. So they found an air compressor with the arm intact. I don’t have an air conditioner in the car now, but I can deal with that.

I’ve been seriously considering getting the car painted black, and after seeing the car with it’s primer-black hood, fender, and bumper, I’m even more tempted. The whole “red cars are involved in more accidents” stereotype seems to be true, for me at least. Unfortunately I can’t even afford to purchase some of the Amazon books I’ve been oogling lately, much less a paint job.

My grandfather had some bodywork done to his truck not long ago by a friend of his. The guy cant do a lot of stuff since he operates his “body shop” out of his farm’s garage. He’s mostly set up to work on folks’ vehicles and equipment that gets banged up. But, if I should choose to paint my car black he could probably do it. I’m not sure he could match my car’s current paint color though. It’s called Burnt Orange and is this funny mix between orange, red, and rust. Since he’s set up for very basic stuff I figure matching the paint job might be a bit hard for him. But a primary color? That should be a piece of cake.

Of course, if I paint the car black then the information on my registration and title is no longer accurate. I suspect that would result in a trip to the DMV.

There is indeed such a thing as internet addiction. I should know, I’ve been going through withdrawal. First my internet service provider was acting screwy and now I’m just flat out without internet at home. The computer at my mom’s office said “I Quit” and did not bother to give her two weeks written notice either. As a result, my mother has taken my desktop to her office since it still had some of the programs she uses on it. It was actually a shared computer until I inherited it. In the mean time Joana has no internet access at home. You see, where we live it’s dial-up, satellite, or nothing. She has AOL and since I have a screen name already I just use that. Well, I don’t really like AOL but it’s a step up from People PC. Either way, I refuse to put their software on my laptop though so I have to go without internet for a while. Sucks to be me.

So when I want to use the internet I’ve been forced to drive into town and use various free hotspots. Pain in the butt I tell you. I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be dealing with this sporadic internet usage, but in the mean time my posts will be lengthy and sort of random. There have been some interesting things happening in my life and rather than make a new entry for each one I’ve condensed them all into one post. So here we go:

May 11, 2009

I mentioned in the previous post that a relative of mine had passed away recently and that the Rosary was being held on Sunday evening. Turned out that was incorrect. We were given the wrong day and the Rosary was actually held Monday evening. My great aunt and uncle were, apparently, incredibly put out that they drove all the way to Anthony, TX for the service on the wrong day. Mind you, they got the information for the service from someone else and not from the immediate family of the deceased. So, upon finding out that the Rosary (Rosario, Wake, whatever) was actually on Monday evening they were miffed and refused to attend. Their excuse was that they were prepared to attend on Sunday and it was too much of an inconvenience to drive out again. Never mind the fact that the incorrect information was their fault since they didn’t bother to actually call someone in the immediate family or look it up in the paper. They just heard by word of mouth and ran with it.

But then hey, this is the same woman who is still trying to sell my great-grandmother’s house and the farmland surrounding it. I mean really, what can you expect from someone who has no regard for family history and only worries about remodeling their home to keep up with the Jones?

May 13, 2009

Texas has the most inefficient court system I have ever seen or heard of! If Texas officials are complaining about heavy case loads in the lower courts that primarily handle vehicular offenses, well they only have themselves to blame! In New Mexico, it has been my experience that, should you decide to contest a ticket, you appear in court on the date stated on the citation. If the officer doesn’t appear, it’s dismissed. If they appear, then you plead your case before the judge. It can get thrown out, changed to a warning, or you loose – whatever. But the fact remains, it’s all taken care of that same day.

Not in Texas.

In case you’re wondering, the ticket I’m contesting is the one that was issued to me back in February when I had that accident. Yeah, I’m still going through the process of contesting it. My first court date was set back on March 20th which was about a month after the incident. When I appeared in court I was given three options:

1. Plead guilty or nolo contendo and pay the ticket at the cashier.
2. Go before a judge, plead nolo contendo and take a driving class. Upon completion, the ticket will be removed from my record. Got to pay $110 for the class though.
3. Plead not guilty and be given a new court date.

You can guess which option I chose. Now, I had an idea that this wasn’t going to be a one-step process. When I was issued the citation the officer advised me to contest the ticket and informed me that when I went to court, I would need to say that I plead not guilty and they would give me a new court date. Considering the reason I had the accident was because I was trying to avoid a jerk that swerved into me, yeah I was going to contest it. The officer stated that the majority of the time citations for vehicular accidents get dismissed because the other party involved doesn’t have to appear and generally doesn’t since their vehicle is usually fixed by the time the court date comes around. In my case, she didn’t see anything, they moved our vehicles so the officer couldn’t “witness” anything either. In my situation it would be stupid not to contest this ticket, right?

I’m not so sure anymore. I went into court on the 13th of May thinking this was going to all be over now. It’s my second court date, we’ll get this done and I can get on with my life. Boy was I mistaken. It was a “pretrial” and so all the judge did was give us three options:

1. Plead guilty or nolo contendo and pay the ticket at the cashier.
2. Go before a judge, plead nolo contendo and take a driving class. Upon completion, the ticket will be removed from my record. Got to pay $110 for the class though.
3. Plead not guilty and be given a new court date.

Hmm, sound familiar? If you chose option three, as I did, you could choose to have a bench trial or a trial by jury. I went with bench trial and so they’ll contact me with a new court date.

As I said, Texas has the most inefficient system I have ever seen. What could be taken care in one go is instead just dragged out beyond belief. It’s a no wonder there’s a heavy backlog in the courts.

Also, do you recall me mentioning how mailing addresses of those who are issued citations are sold to local lawyers so that they can solicit you to death? It’s true! Your name goes into the system and then the lawyers all send you mailings advertising their services. After that, they just keep bombarding you with adverts for all of their services. To the point, I have never seen so many people opt to have a lawyer handle their citations before. Before that day, I think I might have seen one maybe two people take that route. There were about six or seven lawyers there that day representing folks and all of them had more than one client who was on the docket. Crazy!

Of course, considering how Texas operates, I’m not surprised folks go that route. Then again, maybe that’s why they drag the procedure out so much. More money for the lawyers who pay to receive the lists of those who have received a citation. Win, win, win.

May 14, 2009

Speaking of that car accident, I finally get to get Pyro fixed! One of my mom’s friends picked the car up and was going to start working on it. He has to look for parts and he wouldn’t actually be able to start until this week, but Pyro is finally going to get fixed and I’ll be able to drive it on the street without sweating a ticket for having a popped up hood and smashed front light. It took a while to save up enough money for this sadly. But hey, as soon as Pyro is fixed I’ll have my own mode of transportation back. More frequent internet usage that way, assuming the computer trouble isn’t solved by then. It’s just a good thing I’m not the type to splurge on things like travel insurance or even just frequent flier miles, or hotel points. There is no way I’d put any of it to use this summer.

There’s more that’s been going on that I could blog about, but right now, I think that’s the most important bits. That and this post is getting a wee-bit long. Back with more at a later date!

And there still hasn’t been any word back yet from DialAmerica. I am intensely glad that I went ahead and filed for unemployment benefits because, let’s face, I don’t think they’re calling me back any time soon. I have two small checks coming from the still; one for two days of work and another for only one since we’re paid weekly. I’ll pick them up next week on Wednesday (second payday means the second check is in), since I am borrowing vehicles for the time being, I’d rather make as little trips up there as possible.

Got my car insurance paid today, that wiped out a good chunk of funds. Here’s the bright side to being twenty-five, my car insurance is a heck of a lot cheaper now. Although, I think I will be shopping around for low cost auto insurance soon anyway. State Farm was cheaper, in the past, because my mother and grandfather are with them and the office is here in town. This is a small local town where everyone knows everyone. That just about says it all. Now though, I just might be able to find insurance cheaper elsewhere so I’ll do some price comparison.

Money is going to be tight for a while, no doubt about it. It looks like it’ll be in my best interest to take my grandfather up on his offer and borrow money from him to get the car fixed up ASAP. This way I have reliable transportation again and can really start hunting for a job properly.

Truly, sometimes the only person you can trust is yourself. Since my car is not exactly drivable right now I’ve been using my grandfather’s truck to get to work. Yesterday he showed up late, so late I had to call in and tell them I wouldn’t be coming in. Of course, after I had called in, he shows up. I ended up not going though because, as I said, I had already called out and didn’t feel like going in for about an hour or so of work, especially given the distance I have to drive; 85 miles round trip.

He asked me multiple times yesterday if I had work today as well, to which I replied the affirmative. Saturdays I go in during the morning, sometimes I get a call time of 10am, but I usually end up going in at 9am. Which means, of course, I leave the house at 8am. Guess what? I woke up this morning to find out that he had already left and he’s still not back. I called some of the places I know he frequents, I can’t find him and it’s now going to be 9am – the time I’m supposed to be at work!

What gets me is that he technically doesn’t even have a driver’s license right now so he shouldn’t be out driving around. You see, he went to the DMV to get the mess about never receiving his new driver’s license (they’re mailing them out now) straitened out the other day. He was told he has to call a specific number and speak with them. The man is not the greatest with automated systems so naturally he wasn’t able to get anywhere with it. As a result he still doesn’t have a valid license in his possession. So honestly, I don’t get why he’s driving around all over the place and risking getting himself into a bunch of trouble over this.

Yesterday he was late because he went with a friend to buy the bathroom fixtures for the new bathroom that a neighbor of ours, relatively speaking, is building. Apparently they were special ordered and the two of them decided to go get the rest of the supplies needed for another project while they were in town. Okay fine, that didn’t take all morning, afternoon, and evening to do! But apparently he “lost track of time” and just plain forgot about me.

Although, he did remember to go pick up another friend of his who needed a ride to town to pick up his newly repaired jeep.

So I guess I have to call out again, and I’m just going to have to go rent a car. Nobody wanted me to rent a car because it was an “unnecessary expense”. Hence why my grandfather offered to let me use his truck. Apparently it was very much a necessary expense.