Tech

We’re Always With You®

There’s nothing like losing a nice, long entry to really make you RAGE. That’s what happened a few days ago. I was so angry! All because I was trying to insert images just I had a bunch of times before and somehow it all just… went away. Thanks bunches, WP, for not saving THAT draft where I needed it… Now to try and remember what all I had tried posting about.

We're Always With You®

Since the husband and I moved to a new apartment, my dad had asked on a couple of occasions if I had gotten my birthday thing in the mail. I told him I’d let him know if & when I got it. I assumed it would the normal birthday card with a check or cash in it. At one point, when getting the mail, I noticed a AAA mailer. I’d received them before, offering a membership with a temporary card and decal in case one decided to go ahead and sign up. I almost just tossed it to the side, however, I felt that there was more than just one card in the envelope. I opened it up and lo-behold there were two membership cards, one with my name on it and another with the husband’s name. I knew I hadn’t paid for a membership so I was kind of baffled as to how I now had one. Then I remembered the conversation(s) with my dad. He never mentioned exactly what they had sent me so it was a very pleasant birthday surprise!

My parents have been members forever, it seems. On top of the road-side assistance they provide, I know they also provide for some good discounts for lodging, transportation (Amtrak, for instance), and random things here and there. We’ve already used a perk of our membership! Apparently, they provide DMV-like services, and on the now! We’ve been over-due with our vehicle registration and they were able to give us tags after paying and giving them the information that the DMV needed and it didn’t take the God-knows how long it would have if we’d finally mailed in the check and proof of insurance.

Now I’m looking forward to my LA friends (Marinara) coming down and spending a weekend with us! I still have quite a bit of cleaning up to do in the living room, along with laundry1. I really wish we had our living room furniture out of storage… Bah.

Now for another edition of…






  1. We still haven’t rid ourselves of enough clothes yet!! Ugh. ↩
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Fin!

Yesterday, the husband and I turned in the keys to our old apartment. No more obnoxious upstairs kids & piano! No more crappy all-in-one washer-dryer POS! To be honest, those were really the only complaints I had about the place. Oh, and it was kind of pricey. We have all of our shit from that apartment in the new one. Of course, I’ve only made progress as far as the kitchen and bathrooms are concerned since those are the only rooms that have a definite place to put things. We still don’t have any furniture out of storage. *sigh* Although, if we did have all of our stuff out of storage, I’m afraid there might be too much of it since we’ve gradually downgraded our living quarters in regards to square footage.

That’s not a bad thing. For two people and a cat, we honestly don’t need a lot of space. We shouldn’t need a lot of space. We managed to go through some clothes in order to throw away/donate and shrink our impossibly large collection of clothes. I did 5 loads of laundry last night! That would’ve been impossible at our old apartment, especially since all 5 loads are completely DRY! HALLELUJAH! That’s not counting the 2 loads I did the previous night when I washed our bedding and some towels.

I now leave you with a way for you to enjoy some new and free fonts that I’ve stumbled across and love. It’s also a way for me to document when I download new fonts :)





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Paid Blogging

I know feelings are split on paid & sponsored blogging. Some people make a living off it (or try), some people just don’t care (like myself), and others absolutely despise when people “sell out” and give into the trend of selling space on their personal blogs and the entries they write. To be honest, while I don’t care all that much, I have run into the times where I become agitated that most entries made by someone on their blog are because they’re trying to earn that money. I know a lot of entries have personal opinions and stories in them, but those stories seem tainted when that link rears its head somewhere down the paragraph.

I’ve gotten into product reviews a little over a month again, and you’ve seen the result of that. Now, I’m also trying to edge my way into some paid blogging. Why? Because I’m trying to get all of my bills caught up and to have some extra spending money for myself is needed. I think it’ll also get me blogging a little more often, helping me write entries inspired by whatever assignment I might have.

Also, again to be honest, I don’t think I have that dedicated enough of a following that I’ll upset too many people with this change. *hmm*

Even with as big as it is now, I still would like to know: What are your thoughts on paid & sponsored blogging?

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Mechanics & Technology – How Conveniently Inconvenient

I’m back home in SD. The husband was out all day before our drive home with friends at a pub watching the damn World Cup. That’s cool, whatever floats his boat, but I thought we’d be headed back down earlier than 2pm! I mean, having to be at work by 4:30pm is kind of crunch and the later it got, the more likely it was we’d hit some sort of traffic. We hit patches of it and there were idiots in the fast & carpool lanes going slower than 60MPH which was ridiculous. Slow traffic stay RIGHT, assholes! Luckily I got home with enough time to hit the toilet, change quickly and head the 5 minutes down the freeway to work with a few minutes to spare.

We’ll be needing some maintenance to the car SOON. The brakes sound AWFUL and while we haven’t hit the average mileage for the first brake job, we’ve driven this car through a lot of LA traffic, cross-country and through all sorts of up & down terrain coming up & down between LA & SD. Not to mention some of the belts need to be replaced since they’re looking aged and cracked. We definitely don’t want something more expensive to occur because we neglected to change that shit out.

I’ve had my new laptop since, I think, March? Somehow the power adapter cord has melted itself through (or maybe it got under some other hot running electronic) and tonight the laptop wouldn’t acknowledge that fact that it was plugged in. Lo-behold, it’s melted enough through that it’s fricken smoking through the melted rubber/plastic on the cord. *sigh* Looks like I’ll be making a trip to Fry’s tomorrow morning since I’ll be wanting to use my laptop while I’m on vacation (hello movies!). Though it’ll only be half useful without Internet access, having a dead battery with no way to charge it would render it useless. It’d make for a great weight for when it gets windy, though!

So now I’m currently using a little battery power as possible (dim screen, no fancy desktop effects, as few open programs as needed). After I take care of some online business, I’ll be off to take a shower, get some clothes put together for my vacation and head to bed to wake up early for a doctor’s appointment. I have no hope of doing laundry efficiently here since our all-in-one machine takes forever with ONE small load! I’ll have to lug a bunch of dirty (though some clean!) to my parents’ house when my brother comes to pick me up. Thankfully they’ve got the family-sized efficient machines that are only a few years old (at least, the washer’s pretty damn new) ;)

PS: I have a new theme up. I’ve made some personalized adjustments to it but I’m still working on it as a whole! I need to make changes to have it reflect a personal blog and not a “magazine” style website, since that’s what the theme was meant for. I can do this! It’s not like I’m making a theme from scratch and no experience *lol*

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Pretend This is Sunday

Stolen from Hillary who stole it from Sunday Stealing.

1. You’re building your dream house. What’s the one thing that this house absolutely, positively MUST HAVE? (other than the obvious basics of course)
Built-in shelves everywhere.

2. What is your dream car?
A Rolls Royce. That’s my beautiful-but-(totally)-unlikely dream car.

3. What is your favorite website that isn’t a blog?
EcstasyMB.org.

4. iPhone 4 or Droid, which do you want?
Droid. I know the husband wants it badly enough that we’d actually consider switching phone companies.

5. When you’re feeling down or lonely or just generally out of sorts, what do you do to cheer yourself up?
Retail therapy works, but only if I have the money to spend. Otherwise I may just suffer through it, sleep through it or watch something on Netflix.

6. Tell me about something or someone that you love that most people seem to hate.
The husband lol. Uhm… I love pickles/mushrooms – a lot of people seem to hate those.

7. What do you want to be when you grow up?
I’m still trying to figure that out. Happy, ultimately.

8. Would you go on a reality show if given the chance?
It depends on the premise of the reality show. I mean, if it’s purely to make a fool out of me, than no because I’ll do that enough on my own.

9. Who was your favorite teacher when you were growing up. (Grade school, Middle School, Jr. High or High School only.)
Elementary School: Either Mrs. Erickson or Ms. Weiss. They were my 5th and 4th grade teachers, respectively. Mrs. Erickson taught drama and that’s how I managed to participate every year (but one) in the plays during my elementary school career. Mrs. Weiss had an awesome money system with school work and extra credit, she also introduced me to art and line dancing :)
Middle School: Dr. Krubsack. He was the choir teacher – I was placed in his Advanced Choir 6th period class when I wanted to do something other than drama in 7th grade. He looks like a gruff man, but he’s so amazingly kind-hearted and fun. He loves all things relating to Spam. He was encouraging and if he had to be, stern and authoritative if anyone actually was out of line in his presence.
High School: Mr. McGee. He was a favorite of my friends’ when I transferred to the 2nd high school and I ended up taking his earth science class my senior year. He’s like a 2nd father. He’s so supportive, encouraging and, like a father, will yell, scream, and punish if the need be. He’s so in love with learning – it’s amazing and inspiring.

10. You get one pass to do something illegal or immoral. What are you gonna do?
I steal me a LOT of money.

11. What were you doing 10 years ago?
I was 13 years old, getting ready to culminate junior high! That was a crazy year.

12. By this time next year, I …
Have finished a semester of college (at least a couple of classes!) and if not still working where I am, I’ll have stuck myself out there and gotten an office job of sorts.

13. Do you think the United States will elect a female President in your lifetime? Do you think this would be a good thing?
I’m sure it can and will happen. I don’t know when, but we’re getting there. It should be a good thing. Can’t be any worse than what the men have done ;)

14. Which fictional, TV show character you would shag anytime?
Mr. Schuester from Glee ;) He’s cute with a hot body AND can sing? Where the frick do I sign up??

15. What is your greatest pet peeve?
Either feet (socked or bare) near/touching me, or improper grammar/spelling – even online.

16. Tell me about your most recent trip of more than 100 miles?
I drove from San Diego to L.A. this past Sunday for my BFF’s baby shower.

17. Which do you use more often, the dictionary or the thesaurus?
Thesaurus.

18. Do you have a nickname? What is it?
I’ve been going by nothing but nicknames since at least middle school. Mika, Mike, Mickey, Mikachu, Meeks, Meeker, Michelob, Jello… I may have even missed a few lol.

19. What are you dreading at the moment?
Trying to pay shit off. ALWAYS.

20. Do you worry that others will judge you from reading some of your answers?
No. Anyone I care enough about already know the worst parts of me so if somebody judges me off these answers? Pfft, whatever. Go jump off a cliff ;)

21. In two words, explain what ended your last relationship.
Lost interest.

22. What were you doing this morning at 8am?
Sleeping (finally).

23. Do you have any famous relatives?
Nah, not that I can think of. However, anyone with the last name Shaw or MacPherson could be of some distant relation (Scottish clans can get pretty big).

24. How many different beverages have you drank today?
Water. So, one.

25. What is something you are excited about?
My BFF having her baby next month, the husband’s birthday, company picnic, not being a certain something anymore, getting my furniture out of storage at some point… A few things lol.

26. When was the last time you spoke in front of a large group?
I may have said something before or after I sang karaoke at our bar the last time we went.

27. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought?
Dang, I need to brush my hair.

28. What were you doing at midnight last night?
Just getting home from L.A.

29. What’s a word that you say a lot?
It’s more of a phrase – “Right on” is not only the common response at work, but it’s infiltrated my daily normal life as well and I don’t even realize when I say it!

30. Who is your worst enemy?
Time and money :P

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