Give it away...

Have you ever noticed how hard it is to give away money? How many times have you gone to a store to buy something and NO ONE will help you? Why is this? I know every other time I go to a store or the mall and I am no planning on buying anything, I am hounded continuously by sales people trying to sell me this or that. However, If I do have the money and I am on a spending spree where the hell do these sales people go. I have seen this happen over and over. From the time I went to a dealership specifically to waste money on a new car, to yesterday when I tried finding someone to take my money in exchange for a garage door. What’s with these people? How much easier does it get? If someone called me and said, "I have $x.xx and I want to give it to you right now for a garage door." I would say ok, give me your money. This isn’t the case. I now have multiple correspondences between me and "Cory" the door guy. He has gone so far as to tell me that it will be about 2 weeks before the door can be installed. But he has yet to tell me a number to call or even ask for my address so he knows where do go. I guess in the new day and age with all the technology he probably has one of those Cretrolaminatiorizer which not only doubles as a handy guide book and pizza shelf, but you can use it as a mind reading tool as well. So I guess I will just sit with money in hand and wait for "Cory" to show up in about two weeks. I can't wait to see what door I have decided to buy since I don't even know what he has to offer. Don’t worry, I do have an estimate, so that’s all that really matters.

Oh by the way, I HATE Starlings.

Love the 80's

38 ways to tell if you grew up in the 80's:

1. You've ever ended a sentence with the word SIKE.





2. You can sing the rap to the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and can do the Carlton



3. You know that "WOAH" comes from Joey on Blossom



4. If you ever watched "Fraggle Rock"



5. It was actually worth getting up early on a Saturday to watch cartoons.



6. You wore a ponytail on the side of your head.



7. You got super-excited when it was Oregon Trail-day in computer class at school.



8. You made your mom buy one of those clips that would hold your shirt in a knot on the side.

9. You played the game "MASH"(Mansion, Apartment, Shelter, House)




10. You wore stonewashed Jordache jean jackets and were proud of it.



11. You know the profound meaning of " WAXON, WAX OFF"



12. You wanted to be a Goonie.



13. You ever wore fluorescent clothing. (some of us...head-to-toe)



14. You can remember what Michael Jackson looked like before his nose fell off and his cheeks shifted.



15. You have ever pondered why Smurfette was the only female smurf.



16. You took lunch boxes to school...and traded Garbage Pailkids in the schoolyard.

17. You remember the CRAZE, then the BANNING of slap bracelets.



18. You still get the urge to say "NOT" after every sentence.


19. You thought your childhood friends would never leave because you exchanged handmade friendship bracelets.



20. You ever owned a pair of Jelly-Shoes.



21. After you saw Pee-Wee's Big Adventure you kept saying "I know you are, but what am I?"



22. You remember "I've fallen and I can't get up"



23. You remember going to the skating rink before there were inline skates.



24. You have ever played with a Skip-It.



25. You remember boom boxes and walking around with one on your shoulder like you were all that.



26. You remember watching both Gremlins movies.



27. You thought Doogie Howser/Samantha Micelli was hot.



28. You remember Alf, the lil furry brown alien from Melmac.



29. You remember New Kids on the Block when they were cool...and don't even flinch when people refer to them as "NKOTB"



30. You knew all the characters names and their life stories on "Saved By The Bell," The ORIGINAL class.



31. You know all the words to Bon Jovi - SHOT THROUGH THE HEART.



32. You just sang those words to yourself. (I know you did).


33. You still sing "We are the World"




34. You tight rolled your jeans.



35. You owned a bannana clip.



36. You remember "Where's the Beef?"



37. You used to (and probably still do)
say "What you talkin' 'bout Willis?"



38. You're still singing Shot Through the Heart in your head, aren't you!

Beggars can't be choosers…

Is it not possible to enjoy my meal without having the homeless looking for a handout?

Good Home Wanted.....

Remember.....

I would like to remind everyone who reads my blog that I am not the one who graduated as an English major. Therefore, any spelling, grammar, or punctuation mistakes are to be overlooked.

Thanks,

The Management.

Is Holloween over?

After reading a blog about an individual that has experienced seeing ghosts and having ghosts in their home as a child, I decided to write this blog. This will probably be another long winded blog, so prepare yourself. Also from reading this, most people will decide that I am a little crazy but that is ok. From a very young age, I have had the ability (or curse) to see very strange things, some people might call them ghosts or spirits, I call them distracting. In the house I spent the majority of my life in, there were always strange things taking place. One of my very first experiences occurred when I was probably 5-6. I was lying in my bed sleeping when I felt a presence by me. When I opened my eyes, I was started to see a young boy’s face directly above mine. He was leaning over the side of the bed as if you get a good look at me. He had blond hair which was in a bowl cute and he had blue eyes. As the boy saw that I was awake, the stood up. Terrified, I sat up in bed as I continued to look at the boy and he was looking at me. He smiled as if he was happy to see I was awake and could really see him. I was scared and I called out for my mother. When I did this, the boy appeared frightened. He then turned and ran towards the closet in my bedroom, where he disappeared. I forced myself out of bed and went to my mom’s room to have her investigate the situation and look for this boy that I had just seen. She basically told me to go back to bed and because there was nothing to worry about. This experience was only the beginning of the many different people that would come and visit me at night. Back then I was completely terrified of these visitors and didn’t know what to think of them or what to do. Because of this, I actually use to stay up all night to “protect” my family from these visitors. There was many times, I would see a strange figure standing above the bed of either of my brothers at night. They never did anything other than just stand there and every in a while my brothers would wake up and be scared of what they saw. For instance, my brother would always talk about an old man dressed in white that would come and visit him during the night. He would always scream and wake up most everyone in the house. Little did he know this old man had visited him many times throughout the years and he never realized it.
As I grew older, I continued to see these types of things throughout my life. This always seemed to scare me no matter how many times it happened. Usually when I saw something, I would hide under my blankets and pray that they would go away. Sometimes this worked and sometimes it didn’t. Later in life, I decided one day to force myself to make contact with the next visitor I saw. One night, I was at my home, lying in bed sleeping. I again felt this strange presence in the room, I woke up and saw this woman standing on the far end of the room. I forced myself to keep my eyes open and not to hide under my blankets. As I looked at this unknown figure, I noticed she was wearing a summer type dress and had brown shoulder length hair. I never heard her speak a word, but I got this positive feeling that she wasn’t there to hurt anyone and she was just going about her business. (which just so happened to include scaring me to death) Even though I was terrified of the situation, when she finally left I realized there was nothing to be scared of. Since that time, I have had many interactions with these visitors at work, at home, or on the road…literally. An example of this would be the time of a terrible head on collision that ended up killing a lady in her twenties. After the wreck was cleaned up, I was driving past the area since it was in my beat and I saw this younger lady sitting on the side of the road. Obviously this was strange since it was a cold night and no one should have been out in that weather. As I drove closer, I called out on my radio that I would be out of my vehicle on a pedestrian stop. As I did this, she disappeared. Not thinking much of it, because I have seen A LOT stranger things happen I cleared and continued on my way. The next day I was on patrol in the same area and the family of the lady that had passed away had posted a pictured in a makeshift memorial for the lady. This is when I realized the person I had seen the night before, was the person in the picture. These types of things happened more and more during my time as a police officer, I think I saw more dead people then I did people who were alive. The last visitor I saw was my cousin when he died, I was told to give a message to his mother. Since that experience I have chosen to not “see” this type of thing anymore. It hit a little too close to home. From that experience, his parents looked to me as to if I had some answers to the “why” which obviously I don’t.
Along with seeing these visitors, I have had very strange things happen to me, like little practical jokes. Keys ending up in the dishwasher, Light bulbs being taken out of lights and placed in strange places, items being misplaced and then when they show up weeks later they are not only in plain sight, but they are in a spot there is no way they could have been over looked. This might not seem like much but it really gets annoying. A bout a year ago, I decided to put an end to this. I just got sick of dealing with it. Have you ever been pushed down the stairs when you’re the only one there? I could go on for YEARS with strange stories, but this has been long enough now the world knows I am crazy. This is fine because my family already knows I am. I choose to ignore all the signs I use to see, I don’t know why I have had these visitors and I don’t feel the need to find out. Ignorance is bliss.

Its Gone!!!! (longest post ever)

Since my previous blog mentioned the gray civic, I decided to relate the story to everyone in the blogging world. It’s probably a story that should be told in person with a group of people to allow for the teller to be very boisterous and obnoxious.
I had negotiated a price of what I thought was a great deal for a little civic hatchback which I intended to fix up as a project to give me something to do in what little free time I had. The civic was located in Sacramento, Ca.
Well after making arrangements, I had planned on leaving right after my shift at work, which just so happened to be a grave yard shift. In this trip, I was lucky enough to have my co-pilot available to join me for the road trip. So right after work, we loaded up the Bronco (which I like to call big red} with some snacks, some tools, and a jack. Then we headed to U-haul to pick up a car trailer which was reserved the previous day. By time all this fun had taken place we hit the road heading for Cali at approximately 9:30. I kept telling my co-pilot that I felt something bad about the trip and I didn’t know way it was, so we just continued on. The drive was fairly uneventful except for the occasional run in with truck drivers that should have showered more than the required once per life time limit. As I was driving through the various mountain passes, I started to feel the previous 18 hours of being awake. My co-pilot offered to take the wheel for a while so I could nap. This didn’t work out to well because they had never pulled a trailer and they had never driven the bronco before this day. My rest only lasted a few minutes before I found myself back behind the wheel for the remainder of the drive to Cali.
Everything was going fairly problem free, had the brake light come on a few times, but nothing major.




Then as we made it to Fresno, we stopped off to find some food, re-fuel and to use the bathroom. I even managed to win $50 off of one quarter in the slot machine at gas station we had stopped at. After a brief stop, we went out to continue on our journey. This is when the real problems started. As I attempted to drive big red, it would not move. At first I thought it might have been a problem with the trailer brakes so I unhooked the trailer and tried again. Nothing…….It was now a little after 4pm and we were stuck in Fresno.
I hooked the trailer back up and forced the truck to move. I was able to move the truck to a location in back of the gas station and contemplated my options. I called the guy I was planning to meet to inform him of the situation just in case I needed him to send out some help. Luckily for our sake, I decided to load up my tool box and my big jack because after a few checks I realized the rear brakes had seized. With little sleep and daylight began to dwindle, I tore apart the rear drum brake and somehow managed to temporarily unseized it.
Now that the truck moved again we hopped in the truck to continue our journey to Sacramento. Once again, we had a fairly uneventful trip, I was getting tired and it was getting late. As we hit Sacramento, it was now about 8:30pm and the directions the guy gave us only got us lost. When we pulled off the highway to find the guys number, once again the brakes began to cause problems. Since I was so close to the destination and because I didn’t want to be stranded on the side of the road in some strange place in Sacramento, I forced the truck to keep going.
When we reached the destination, there was smoke coming out from underneath the rear wheel wells of the truck. I again pulled the tires off to see what I could do to resolve the problem and when I did, the brake rotors were literally glowing red. I think if we would have pushed it anymore, the truck would have caught on fire.
Anyways, so with this problem and the lack of sleep I attempted to complete a transaction on the civic we had driven so far to find. I asked all the important questions, do you have a title? Has it been in any accidents? Does it have a catalytic converter? Does it have a complete interior? Does everything work in the car? To all these questions I got the answer, yes. He even proceeded to tell me that the car was 95% finished and only needed 3 plugs connected in order to get the car to run correctly. With this, and with my brain not working to the best of its ability, I closed the deal. I should have figured something was up when we had to push the car onto the trailer and he made the comment that he had to lock the car up and then for some reason he climbed out the back hatch. For my defense, it was very dark outside and I was really more concerned about making it back to Utah without dying. After leaving his house, we stopped off at a gas station to get some mountain dew and a flashlight. We also used that car cover we had to cover up the car for the trip.




Anyway we loaded up the car and headed toward Reno where we had made a reservation prior to the trip. It was a long trip through the winding canyons pulling a car, on some of the crappiest roads I have ever seen in my life. We did eventually end up in Reno around 1:30am. We pulled the truck into the parking garage; made sure everything was locked up and headed to the room. When I reached the room, I had been awake over 36hours strait. I fell asleep the second my head hit the pillow, and then 2 seconds later the alarm went off for us to get ready to leave. It had been in actuality 7 hours, but I have never slept so sound in my life and had it seem like I had never slept in the first place.
However since we were up, we decided to wander around the hotel for a little bit before we headed for home. When we go to the truck and car I noticed my key wouldn’t unlock the door and it appeared that someone had tampered with the truck. I do not know if someone did try to break in to the truck but it sure seemed like it. Once we were able to open the truck, we began our trip home. We also made a trip to the local auto parts store to find replacement brake parts, but I decided to just save them in case we had problems further down the road.
The remainder of the trip again was pretty uneventful, and we finally made it to my house at about 11:00pm. This is when we started to realized there were more things wrong with the car then we were told. However due to the time, we unloaded the car, took the trailer back to U-haul and dropped it off. The car then sat for 3 days due to my need to sleep and work. When I was finally able to find the time to look over the car, that is when I realized the car had almost no interior and had more problems then I want to list. The engine didn’t start, the clutch didn’t work, that was bad enough until I called to find out about getting a new Utah title and them letting me know I couldn’t get a new title without a California title. So I called California DMV only to find out that they would not issue a title because the car had been identified as a “gross polluter” and I would need to take the car to California to get an inspection on emissions and safety. No matter how many times I told them the car was not in California, they just didn’t care. Every time I called the DMV, they gave me another story on what I needed to do to get the vehicle’s title. What a hassle. To cut a long story a little short, I was able to finally get a title through the state of UT by claiming the vehicle as an abandoned vehicle. It was a long process but it was still easier then dealing with the guy that sold me the car and the state of California.
From that time, I have spent way too much time trying to get the car in a condition to sell. Three engines, multiple hours of striping and replacing the complete interior later the car was to a state that I was able to sell it. This sale took place on Friday and I am more than happy to see that thing gone. I was able to sell it for more then I paid for it, but I don’t think I would have ever been able to recover the amount of time I wasted on that car. This was a very long story, but I actually left out a ton of the details to keep it this long. The moral of the story, if you’re going to buy a car, make sure you don’t do it without sleeping first.
Here are a few pics of the rebuild process. I could have put them in order but I didn’t want to.
























Finally finished (well as finished as I am doing)