Car troubles

I am bored at work right now, so I figured I would tell you the story of how my tranny went. No not a transexual.

Saturday I was going to go over to my Sister in laws because the man was working until midnight. I take the exit of a pretty busy highway that ends in a stop sign. I get to the stop sign, look to the left and hit the gas to continue. The engine revved and wouldn't go forward. Good thing the stop sign is on a hill because I was able to coast down the hill and pull over to the side.

So I put it in park and turn the car off and try to restart in just in case the gears were stuck. Nothing.
So I call the man to let him know. Then the sister in law texts me that they are ordering Chinese and where the hell am I. I tell her my car died and I have to call AAA. First I call my brother to see if he has any suggestions to get my car into gear. He had a few suggestions, none worked. So I called AAA and waited. the Sister in law came to sit with me for a bit. After an hour she left to go eat. Then my cell phone died. Then the hazard lights and the radio started dipping, so I had to turn the accessories and the hazard off. Tow truck showed up after about and hour and a half or so.

I had it towed to VW because I was pissed that I just had the car in for the 80k mile service that had just cost me $900. The dealership was closed because it was 8 at that point, so I had to leave it and fill out and envelope and put my keys in a lock box.

Now I have to get a ride home, but my phone is dead. Thankfully the driver let me use his and I call the sister in law to come and get me. She puts the other sister in law on the phone who starts with "ok so where are you and how do I get there". At that point I didn't want to play the direction game so I said never mind I will call my parents. I call the folks and since I was using the tow truck drivers phone they didn't answer cause they didn't recognize the number! The driver asked how far I lived from the dealer. I said about 3 minutes and he said ok then I'll drive you home. So I tipped him $20. Cause otherwise I would have been waiting in the cold or walking home and I wouldn't have been a happy camper.

So I get a call at 7:45 Monday morning from VW. They got the car and would start the diagnostic.
3 hours later he said they were leaning towards the transmission. But they had one more test. And asked if I was the original owner. I said yeah I was. He says well there is a chance that this could be a warranty on the transmission. But I have to check a few things and I will let you know. At this point it's a glimmer of hope. But I try not to get so excited because I checked on other vw's and they have a 5yr/60k on their transmissions. At any rate I wait some more.

At 3:30 I call them because it has been 3 hours and I want to know what the hell I am in store for. Because at this point I am preparing to have to go car shopping. Because my car is only worth $5k at this point and I am not putting thousands of dollars into it. So of course I get the voicemail because VW doesn't answer the damn phone. He actually calls back in 10 min or so and says that they can't say the transmission is shot until the warranty guy looks at it but it's the transmission. And the good news is that it has a 100k mile warranty. And since I only have 78k miles on it, it is totally covered! YAY JOY! So he said I should get it back by Friday!

So I have been driving the truck for most of the week. Today we needed to rent a car cause the man is working late and I am not riding my bike in the rain. And he won't ride the motorcycle in the rain. So today I have a nissan versa.

Good times

Progress Pictures

Sheet Rock, lots and lots of sheet rock. Oh and sheet rock dust. It is covering every square inch of my house. It was done in December and I am sure I will still be seeing sheet rock dust come this December as well.





Floor Patching. This was once an air vent, it now has water pipes going through it. So we thought it wise to cover it up. Yes the cleaner area is the patch, the rest of the floor is covered in...yes you guessed it sheet rock dust.





Tiling. We tiled the new laundry room and two bathrooms. One bathroom has a rather large shower stall that we tiled walls, floor and ceiling. This was the first time the man tackled tiling and I think he did a pretty damn good job. We just had the door measured for a full glass door. Not sure when that is going to be installed, but it's not a big deal since the shower water and drains aren't hook up yet.

Medicine Cabinets and vanities. Two vanities, one for each bathroom and 4 medicine cabinets, one for each sink. They were a royal pain in the ass to install. The man got frustrated with them and I had my dad come help me put them up while the man was at work. That's a fuzzy pic of my mom and I believe maybe my elbow in the mirror.



And last but not least. Toilets. The plumber installed all the valves for the water and the two toilets. No idea when he is going to actually hook the drains up. But that would probably be a good idea to do before the water gets turned on. Otherwise my basement will get really wet...and stinky.

This weekend the trim is supposed to be delivered so the finishing work will be on it's way. I am hoping to be done with everything by the end of the month. However, I am not sure that is actually going to happen. But I have my fingers crossed.

Slacking Blogger

It's been insanely long since my last post. The construction is still ongoing, so I sort of bagged out on the blogging because I just didn't have the time or the desire.

In the past few months we have had major progress though. We have insulated, sheet rocked, installed windows, tiled, painted, installed lights and bathroom fixtures. The things left to do are refinishing the hardwood floors, trim work and final touch ups. I have a bunch of crappy cell phone pics to upload, I just have to get them off my phone. So that is something I will do in the next day or two.

More to follow. We'll see if I can get into the blogging swing again.

In Memoriam

Remember the mice? Well we found out where one of them ended up today.
While the man was working upstairs building another wall something fell from the ceiling.

Yes that is a dead mouse...pretty gross.
I am sure we will find more. There is one that we heard set off a trap followed by a dragging sound in the ceiling of the dining room. So I have a feeling that when the plumber starts taking up the floor in the upstairs bathroom, where the dragging sound was coming from, we will find a mouse and a trap.

Oh joy of joys.

Payback's a bitch

We found out something hilarious last week. Remember the assholes who called the township on us? Well it turns out they messed with the wrong person and they are getting their comeuppance.

The assholes live next door to a nice family. Their driveways are right next to each other with a strip of grass between them. Well apparently the assholes have been a royal pain to them for years, starting years ago when the nice family's sons were shoveling the driveway one snowy morning and they decided to be neighborly and shovel the assholes driveway as well. Well the assholes called the cops on them. More incidents followed and they basically don't speak to each other any more.

Turns out that while we were on our honeymoon the assholes decided to remove a stump between the two driveways. There had been a tree there years ago that died and the nice family had cut it down and didn't bother grinding out the stump. So they had potted plants on it to more or less cover it up. The nice family came home one day to the stump missing. This confused them because they didn't pay to get it removed and it was on their property. They even went so far as to have their property resurveyed to prove that the stump was on their property, which is was. So now the nice family are going to sue the assholes! I am not exactly sure what they are suing them for and I don't really care. They are nosey and obnoxious and they should just mind their own fucking business.

YAY Karma!

More Progress

Well the man got most of the first wall up. Took him a while because he had never done it before and he kept getting interrupted and well the aforementioned ADD. So that's a good thing.

The guy who is putting our windows in came on Friday to look at the mess, he will be over Wednesday to close off the windows we don't need. Then he will come back to put in the 4 windows that we bough on Thursday.

The HVAC guys were back on Friday putting the heater in the attic.

Did I mention we don't have permits yet?

Let me explain...We did apply for them. However, we found out that the inspector decided to retire, giving the township 3 weeks notice. He was the inspector for everything (electric, HVAC, plumbing and construction). So the township is having a hard time replacing him because they basically need to hire 4 guys with a budget for 1.

So basically we need someone to sign the permits to make it all legal, but they don't have anyone to do it. So we are trying to do as much work as we can without the permits. This means we can put the walls up but can't sheet rock because the walls need to be inspected first. We also can't put the windows in because that needs a permit just to do it. We also shouldn't do the electric before the walls are inspected either. So in about a week we are going to be at a standstill.

We asked the woman in the office what would happen if someone called to complain about us. She said "I'll tell them you have permits, cause I have them right here." So that's a good thing for us. It helps to make nice with the office people. :)

So today my dad came over and we built the wall that goes between the two bathrooms. It was a little difficult because our ceilings angle inward on either side, so building that part went a little slower than the rest. It's such a lovely wall, eh? The plumber is coming next week to start taking out the old plumbing and start laying out the new stuff.

So that wall is done and now we have to finish the main wall in the hall and then the wall for the walk-in closet and the wall splitting one room into do. So in other words, still a lot of work to do.

*sigh*

Progress Bullety Points

• Working without permits so far. Apparently the inspector quit and they don't have a replacement yet to get all the permits signed and out. Who knows how long that will take.
  
• The dumpster is gone.
• The entire upstairs is gutted.
• The HVAC guys started running the vents to the 5 formerly 3 rooms. They also put in a much needed attic fan.
• The man may go and order winders.
• Guy installing winders is coming tomorrow to assess.
• Some electric will be done tomorrow.
  
• Walls will start going up tomorrow. Hopefully the man will work slowly to ensure straightness and plumb. He tends to rush through things sometimes and is a little ADD.
  
• Shopping for bathroom fixtures is Saturday.
• Plumber is coming sometime next week to start.

All in all things have been going nicely. It would be so cool to have everything done by Christmas. But there is still a lot of work ahead. Even after the drywall is done there is, trim, painting trim, painting walls and moving everything back to where is belongs.

Gutted

So Saturday we amped up the deconstruction process.
The man and I started at around 9:30, thinking people would be around to help us around 11 or so. Turns out all the people who said they were going to come didn't show up until after 1. And one called and said they weren't coming at all.

It was pretty odd how this place was put together. We thought that since it is an 80 yr old house that the whole thing would be lath and plaster. Turns out it is some sort of pre sheet rock stuff call rock lath, that was mailed to the studs and then they plastered over it. So the stuff was ridiculously heavy.

Around 1 my parents showed up and started pulling nails from the studs, which was a total huge help. That would have taken hours after we finished pulling everything down. My dad was pulling nails for probably 3-4 hours. It was nuts.

One thing that sucked was that is was nice and cool all week but on Saturday it was humid as hell, making the room disgusting. I sweat through 3 shirts in the process of pulling everything down. Throwing everything out the window into the dumpster was fun though.

So we got the entire back room gutted by the end of the day. We even got the carpet out and vacuumed most of the loose crap that was left on the floor.

The man started on our bedroom yesterday and got a good 80% of the stuff down and into the dumpster. I believe he is going to be working on it tomorrow as well, and then move onto the bathroom.

Hopefully we get the plans from the architect soon so that we can start the permit process and get moving on this thing. I am hoping this will only last 3 months. But one never knows what is going to happen when it comes to building stuff.

It's starting again

Yes this means yet another construction project has begun.

This time we are moving downstairs into our office. Why you may ask? Well because gutting and redoing the entire second floor of the house.

So the dumpster in the driveway is to collect all the drywall and carpet and insulation we rip off the walls.

Then we will be making one room into two, adding a bathroom to the master bedroom and renovating the main bathroom.

Hopefully this will all get done in a few months. Fingers crossed.

On the road

Ok so the man had a discussion with the guys about them screwing around and wasting time. They seemed to understand. Considering one guy is insistent on being back by Monday or Tuesday.

So they left Junction City, Colorado and ended up in Canon, Colorado by the end of the day.

From there they headed into Kansas. According to the man it wasn't that fun of a ride. Very flat, not much to look at and smelled of pig and cow shit. Which I can imagine can be pretty foul when you are on a bike and don't have the interior of a car to sort of buffer it a tad.

By the end of the day they stopped in Dodge City. They were told by many people to stay out of bars with Spanish names because they would definitely end up in a bar fight and in the middle of a lot of gang activity. So they pretty much stayed out of any bar at all just to avoid any possible fighting, since one of the guys on the trip is known to be a moron and could possible cause a fight. Instead they went to the Steak House attached to their hotel.

Today, they continued on through Kansas. By around 2 they had hit Wichita and I believe they will be trying to making it to Joplin, Missouri by the end of the day. They are getting closer. Wondering how the ride through Missouri is going to go. I believe they are going to go through there and head a little south so that they can hit Nashville, which probably won't happen until Saturday. That should be interesting...

Biker status

I finally heard from the man last night right before I went to bed. They ended up in Grand Junction, Colorado. They didn't leave Park City until probably 1 in the afternoon, which is stupid late when you are traveling on a bike. I mean lets travel starting at the hottest time of the day...der. But it wasn't his decision, he was ready to leave at 9 am.

He is getting a little annoyed with his partners in travel, who seem to have the most retarded concept of where things are in this country. I mean they wanted to go from San Diego to San Francisco, which is fine. But when you also want to go see the Grand Canyon, it doesn't make much sense. OH and they also wanted to see Mt Rushmore, which is in South Dakota. So basically the route that they would need to take would have been a north to south zig zag that slowly headed east.

And then today he was ready around 9 again, but the other three guys were farting around. They wanted to go to the Harley dealer. So they did and were there for 2 hours, then he texts me that after that the guys wanted to go to the post office to mail stuff home and then to target before they left. Needless to say the man was livid. By the time he texted me it was already 11 and they HAD to go to the post office and target, for what...I have no idea.

Then he tells me that the guys were talking about going to North Dakota and to Nashville. It was bad enough one of the guys insisted they go to Salt Lake City from Arizona, which turned out to put an extra 800 on their travels cause it is so far north and they could have just cut across the southern part of Utah through to Colorado. So now they wanted to go through three states to get to North Dakota and then go south east through another 3 or so states to get to Tennesee. They could have been more than half way home by now, but they aren't going on any sensible course to get back east, they just keep going north and south out of their way.

So the man is pissed, he hasn't been home since the 16th and he just wants to be done. He is tired of the guys fucking around all morning when they could be riding and actually seeing and visiting stuff. Because by the time they leave they can only get maybe 5-6 hours of riding in for the day.

So that's the status of where the man is. Me, I am just sitting here doing my regular every day shit. I kind of want his trip to be over now. He is having fun, so I don't fault him for it and it's a once in a lifetime kind of thing, so I have the patience to wait for him to get back. I'm just getting bored now.

Update n'stuff

The man has been gone since the 16th. He had to work in San Diego on a show for 5 days.

He shipped his motorcycle there and he and three other guys are currently riding back east.
They left on Thursday afternoon, going south to Yuma Arizona. Then from Yuma to the Grand Canyon. Then Grand Canyon to Park City Utah. They left Park City sometime late morning and that's the last I have heard from him. They were heading to Colorado, not sure what town. I am assuming the lack of text messages is either there is very little to no signal out in the mountains or his phone died.

I usually get a phone call or message when they finally hit a hotel. So hopefully they had a good day of riding and I will hear from them soon.

I think I should see him sometime on Monday or Tuesday depending on how many miles they do a day. The last three days they were doing around 400 miles a day, so who knows.

Trip to the loo my darlin'

My parents gave me a bunch of pictures to scan. These are pics of my dad when he was very little.
I was going through them when I found one that just makes me laugh my ass off. It's a picture of my dad, at about 3 yrs old, sitting on the toilet with his legs crossed.

Is it wrong for me to scan that, frame it and put it in my bathroom? Cause I am so doing it.

Cute

This is just too cute

It's Wii-derful

The man got me a Wii for my birthday yesterday! That was the highlight of my day. I usually take the day off for my birthday to just do nothing and chill out. However, since I took off two weeks for the honeymoon, they kind of frowned on it. So I had to work, for the first time, on my birthday and it sucked. There was nothing to do, so I just sat here goofing off on the internet.

I went home for lunch and the man was running around, on the phone doing stuff. Very uneventful.
Back at work he tells me that he has failed. I said failed what? He said he had been trying all day to get me a Wii and couldn't find one. He called 80 Game Stops trying to find one that had them. No no avail. So I was a little bummed but what can you do.

So I got home from work and my parents were at my house making dinner. Yes in my family we get what we want for dinner home made by mom. So I wanted filet mignon, corn on the cob and mashed taters, followed by German Chocolate Cake.

The man tried to give me my presents before dinner, but I wanted to wait. So after dinner he gave me games and controllers for the Wii, telling me that he would try and get a wii as soon as possible but at least we had the controllers and some games to start when we do get it. But then he pulled out another box, which I had already seen on the floor, and that had the wii in it. YAY! He got me the Wii!!

I can seriously understand why so many people want it, it is so much fun to play. I played for a good 3 hours yesterday and I am itching to get home to play again.

The man wants to get the Wii Fit so that he can work out to it. He was at home today playing the boxing game working up a sweat, so maybe it could work for him. Who knows.

Now I have to go out and get him something for his birthday, which is on Saturday. Probably going to buy him another DS because he left his last one on the plane coming home from our honeymoon. He is seriously like a kid sometimes when it comes to losing things.

And so continues our summer of birthdays. The new nephew is on the July 1, I am the 7th, my g-mom is the 9th, the man is the 12th, my brothers fiancé is the 17th, my sisters is the 23rd and my sister-in-law's is the 31st.