August 2005

First, a little background information: My husband words for the housing department at a nearby university. He’s in charge of a lot of IT stuff, as well as being something of a manager as well. Plainly put? He’s a busy guy. The school’s food service operations are “outsourced” too a food service company. They hire their own workers, etc and so forth. But K has always helped them get things up and running correctly. Mostly, all he has to do is manage the IT side of the student’s meal plans but sometimes he has to go the individual operations and fix their registers or whatnot. Oftentimes, this would mean phone calls in the evenings after he was home from work or on the weekends as well. And a lot of times, he’d go down there and help them out. Even though such support is in no way in his job description.

Now, this food service company provides special meal plans for the people who work in K’s office, so they can use the operations, get food, see how things are running. Since, being the housing and food service department, they have a vested interest. There’s no limits on using these meal plans, meaning not only can K use his to purchase his own lunches, but he can purchase lunches for others. There is also a convenience store that has recently opened up that offers food and some grocery items. The meal plans work there as well and he has used them to purchase anything from pain relievers on a particularly stressful day at work, to picking up a loaf of bread to bring home when we’ve run out. Now, remember, there has been NO restrictions on using the meal plans in this fashion, either stated or written.

You can just see the drama coming here, can’t you?

And, as always, here are the lyrics in case you are interested in reading what those subversive lyrics are.

Say, Hey!

Cha!

Hear the sound of the falling rain,
Coming down like and Armageddon flame,
The shame,
The ones who died without a name,
Hear the dogs howling out of key,
To a hymn called “Faith and Misery”,
And bleed the company lost the war today

I beg to dream and differ,
From the hollow lies,
This is the dawning of the rest of our lives
On Holiday

Hear the drum pounding out of time,
Another protester has crossed the line,
To find the money’s on the other side,
Can I get another Amen?
There’s a flag wrapped around the score of men,
A gag,
A plastic bag on a monument

The representative from California has the floor

Zieg Heil to the president gas man,
Bombs away is your punishment,
Pulverize the Eiffel towers,
Who criticize your government,
Bang, Bang goes the broken glass,
Kill all the fags that don’t agree,
Trials by fire setting fire,
Is not a way that’s meant for me,
Just cause,
Just cause because we’re outlaws, yeah!

I beg to dream and differ,
From the hollow lies,
This is the dawning of the rest of our lives,
I beg to dream and differ,
From the hollow lies,
This is the dawning of the rest of our lives

This is our lives on holiday

I may bitch and moan about K sometimes, but he truly is a fantastic guy. He’s sensitive but strong, manly but not overly so. Funny but he has his serious side too. He ogles over Kiera Knightly but he’s loyal to me to the end. He enjoys high culture but yet, when it comes to the more mechanical side of life, he’s no slouch.

Case in point: My minivan. I love my van. Most anyone who knows me knows how much I love my van. It is the perfect van. The right size, the right color, very comfortable…my only complaint could ever be that it doesn’t have a cd player, but hopefully someday I’ll be able to remedy that. And in the light of things, its a minor detail. Because everything else about that car? I *love*.

So it was with great distress that last week I started to notice some troubles with the brakes. First it was shuddering. Then it was a scraping noise. Not being very mechanically inclined, I had no idea, only that I didn’t like it. But I had to keep taking my son to kindergarten, and that required the van. And each day the grinding noise got worse and worse. And then I could hear it not only when stopping but when going as well.

Seeing as how we’re planning on a car trip to Elko next weekend, I wanted to get this looked at asap. Easier said than done, as I know K would be reluctant to take the van in anywhere. Because we know most mechanics have no qualms about charging extra for other problems they find on the vehicle. So I told K and, predictably, he didn’t want to take it in. He was fairly sure it was the brake pads, though it could be the disc as well. Then, today, when he took it for a spin around the block, he knew one thing: something had to be done asap, before we drove it again.

So what does he do? He slips off the wheel to have a look. Indeed, it is the brake pads. In fact, there is no “pad” left. And the disc has many grooves in it from the scraping. But the good news is the disc is intact for the most part. Plenty of wear space left. So of to Kragen for new brake pads and an hour later…BOOM! My van is working good as new once again. We took a test drive around the block and not a peep was to be heard when we hit the brakes (which K did often and liberally).

So my husband rocks my socks. Instead of having to take the van into the dealer or someplace else to get this fixed he was able to do this (with no small amount of grease on his hands, arms and legs) in one day…when he already had to go into work for four hours! And at minimal cost, to boot. I love this man. I may just keep him around yet.

Yeah, haven’t had a random Friday in a while. I thought it was past time. And I had several things I wanted to blab about but nothing enough to warrant an entire post. So aren’t you lucky! Everything condensed for your reading ease into one :fab post.

There is (or was, I haven’t caught any news since yesterday morning :blush) a big fire north and west of here. I’ve been watching the smoke clouds the last day or two and last night, thought it looked downright awesome as the sun was setting into those smoke clouds. Nothing makes a more stunning sunset than some air pollution. But you’ll have to agree, those are some pretty snifty pics. And I couldn’t decide which pic to put up so I put them all up, using the wonder of animated gifs! Go me! Smoke cloud seems to be gone today so they must have put it out. I’m so informed. :dry

So on the Today Show this morning (no, it doesn’t qualify as news as things that happen in Nevada rarely get reported from New York), they had their weekly “Best Week Ever” segment with some of the guy’s from VH1’s show of the same name. K and I about split our sides laughing, they were on fire this morning. My favorite part of the segment was when Matt asked them if they had been invited to Britney Spears’ baby shower, what gift would they have brought? Several answers? A better role modle, a crocheted beer cozy… and my favorite, birth control. :lol It got me to wondering. What sort of snarky gift would *I* bring to Britney Spears’ baby shower? Since I hear this is a boy she’s having, I’d have to go with a greasy trucker hat (worn backwards, of course) so he can match his papa. Anyone else have any ideas?

I just want to reaffirm the fact that I hate Big Brother 6. Yes, I know I said I would stop watching it. But I’ve sneaked a peek or two since then (Mad Howie is *hysterical*). :blush I know, I know, I deserve to be annoyed at this point. But I just want to say, that BOO to voting out Rachel (even though I didn’t love her, she was one of the good guys) and an even BIGGER BOO to April winning HOH. This is a bad omen folks. I think I may have reinforce that boycott from here own out. I can’t stand to see Ivette moralize a moment longer.

And can I just say??

TGIfrickenF!!!