Car Update:

My car had a bad battery cables and corrosion of the battery. The nice Saturn doctors...er...mechanics have made her better and she's staying with my parents for a few weeks. I have Mom's car, which is nice because it has magical door-opening buttons. Still, no offence to the Century, but it's a boat (that has a better turning radius than the Super Saturn).

Thanksgiving was great. I went home Wednesday morning and then up to DC wed. evening. We (mom, dad and I) spent Wed/Thursday at the condo w/ my Aunt and did turkey dinner there. We played in the pool and hot tub, went down the water slide, and even all played volleyball in the water. Mom and Dad played too, and dad stubbed his toe and probably broke it :(

Friday Mom and I braved the malls to get a few deals, and then made cookies all afternoon. That will probably become tradition (the cookies, not the shopping -eep!)

Saturday we had my mom's family over for dinner - ham and cheesy potatoes because we were all tired of turkey. Saturday evening I went over to visit Jenni and Chad and tried my hand at that guitar game they like to play. I wasn't overly bad for one try and I see how it could be addicting and tiring.

Sunday I went to church and had dinner with my parents and then drove back in the rain and fog in a different car. By the time I was back to MN the Century and I had figured eachother out.

Hm, now my tummy is crying for leftovers, I had better answer it's call.

VROOOOM....putt putter....click hiss...cough arrrggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg

Just when I thought my problems had ceased, it being Thanksgiving Holiday and all, I get a nasty wake up. My lovely Super Saturn is at it again. She loves a good practical joke, but this one is going to cost me. Last year about the middle of winter, she started playing the ‘lets turn off all the gages and then turn them back on while Tricia is driving’ game.** Not so amusing, but as she only did it occasionally I learned to live with it. At the beginning of this winter she decided to begin the game again, but like a two year old with a new toy (or the box from said toy) she will not give it up. It’s exasperating I tell you! Yesterday she played the game 10 times in the time it took me to get from my house to the highway (roughly 5 minutes) and then a few times on the highway just for good measure. During one of the highway times, she actually shut off the radio along with the gages. It only shut off for a moment, coming back on with the rest of the stuff, and the time was short enough that I didn’t lose my programming. Still, we are getting progressively more extensive in the game.

**Explanation of game: Super Saturn takes the gas gage, the odometer, speedometer, and tachometer and turns them off, they all go to zero as though the car was not on (we are usually driving while she does this, but she will do it in the parking lot while warming up just to practice). Then the brake like comes on and a second or so later (after they have slowly floated from wherever they are to zero) they will go back to normal. The car clicks and all is normal until the next instance of the game. Occasionally if she is feeling really fiesty, she will turn off the cruise control when you turn on your blinker. She's only tried that version of the game twice though, and we hope it doesn't catch on. It would be damned pesky trying to change lanes if you constantly had to adjust the cruise...

I called Saturn today to find out just what the game might be called. After all, I have to drive to Green Bay tomorrow for the Holiday and don’t want the game to progress to “sitting on the side of the road waiting for the tow truck”. The nice mechanic told me it’s probably not a fuse or short (like I thought) but rather loose or corroded battery wires. Hmm, now this I can probably deal with, yes? I didn’t get a chance tonight to go look at the cables, and it’s dark now. I will take the car into the Saturn Mechanic in GB to have them fix it permanently, but tomorrow before I leave on my journey I will check the oil and the cables. I just hope if they are lose they don’t require a metric socket to fix. I have English ones, but the Super Saturn is eclectic and cannot decide if she prefers the English or metric system of measure. Consequently, as I recall there are both types of bolts under her hood.

Oh, and before you yell at me for looking under her hood, I had her permission, and she had her Serpentine Belt on!

A girl sits at a desk, sneezes, and looks around. “Where has the last hour gone? Have I really been checking email, writing email and going though various paperwork for that long?” she asks herself? The clock doesn’t lie, and neither does her empty tea cup. Sighing, she gets up to go start more water in the cheap coffee maker that serves as her quickie version of a tea kettle. It’s fast and easy, but it doesn’t whistle when it’s done. Disappointing, that. So is drinking tea out of a cup that isn’t the normal ‘tea mug’. That’s what happens when one leaves one’s mug in an inaccessible location. Resourcefulness, that’s the ticket. Back at the computer, the girl looks over those things in front of her. A stack of CD’s recently ripped to her computer for her listening pleasure sits in one corner while a pile of scrap paper for taking notes on, including one full of notes from this afternoon’s environmental chemistry exam, has exploded over the writing surfaces. “It was good of me to leave them on the desk this morning, where they’d really help me study.” She thinks sarcastically at herself. “Not that they would have done any good. They were wrong material all together. Good thing most people in the class thought the same thing. Not that the professor curves or anything, but maybe she’ll realize it wasn’t the best of tests and take that into consideration while assigning final grades.”

She sighs again. The stapler, stack of post-it notes, random pens, and various receipts taking up the back of the desk don’t respond. The phone to her right remains silent as well. “There’s nothing for it, I guess. I’ll have to do my biostats homework. Though what’s the world coming to when you have nothing left to procrastinate with and have to do your homework?” The biostatistics texts, wisely, remain silent as well. The rest of the room beckons. A stack of papers in the corner practically screams for organization and the state of the dresser surface doesn’t even bear mentioning. A random pile of clothes on the bed needs to be sorted into the ‘laundry’, ‘clean’ and ‘wearable around the house’ categories, and then sent on to their appropriate destinations. The floor could use vacuuming and the surfaces dusting. All this she sees and dismisses with a quick glance around the room. She gets up again to see if the coffee maker has finished producing hot water for her third? cup of tea. Is it really three when it was one cup, half drank, reheated, sipped, forgotten, reheated with more water and another teabag for reconstitution, forgotten again, and reheated a last time before consumption? Who knows? All that is a travesty to the marvel that is hot tea with honey. Ah. The faithful little coffee maker has done its job and a green tea has been selected and left seeping in the kitchen. The biostats books are looking faintly miffed about their continued state of neglect. How can one student be so cruel? They were created for that single purpose, to educate and inform, and they sit dejected on the corner of the desk. They hold down the stack of scrap paper (should it be in the mind to wander), and gather dust.

Hoping to procrastinate just a little more before tackling her homework, the girl goes onto the internet to check the weather. Her favorite weather site states that tomorrow will be warmer than today was. Enough that the miniscule amount of snow that fell on Tuesday night will turn to slush, melt, puddle, churn with mud, and eventually just become a sloppy quagmire of filth. No surprise there. Fall has not yet given over completely to winter. The warm breezes vie with the icy wind and one is as likely to be hit in the nose with a snowflake as a raindrop. One dresses in layers, Alaska for the morning and Florida for the afternoon. Ok, maybe not Florida, but at least a balmy mid-to-lower Illinois. “Sheesh” The girl is now exasperated. She has plenty of good books to read, just on the shelf behind her. But her conscience states that she just finished a book and if she wants to start another, she must first at least review her biostats lesson online. She tells her conscience to get stuffed and leaves the computer yet again to go get her green tea, add honey, stir until ‘just right’ and then return to the computer.

Nothing seems right to her. She’s been doing various levels of procrastination – all useful things – for the last hour and a half, but she’s just too restless to sit down and begin work. That she is already sitting down, at the very same computer she will need to use for her homework, is irrelavant. No, it’s not so much the sitting on her back pockets that is important as the state of mental being required to begin such a dry topic as this set of biostatistics homework problems. If she didn’t want to do that, she reasons with herself, there is always the economics paper, the other biostats homework (rather un-doable until the first is completed, but it's really the thought that counts), or even more research for her Master’s project. There are many avenues open to her; she has but to choose one, set her feet upon the path, and begin. If it were that easy, noone would procrastinate, there would be no world hunger, war, or disease, and the question needed that results in an answer of 42 to the life, the world, and everything would have been determined. Another gargantuan sigh is the result of this current line of thinking, and the tea begins to be consumed; it’s a bit heavy on the honey side, but still good.

Finally, she makes up her mind. Biostats just isn’t worth doing at this juncture. The tea is hot, her mind is fairly aware and alert – though not in the mood for scholarly thought, and the bookshelf beckons. She gets up, walks over to the bookshelf to find a suitable title for her mood, and goes back to the futon, overstuffed pillows, and blanket that were her companions earlier in the evening. Sometimes, one just needs a night off.

Goin Skiing!

My bro called the other day to ask if I want to go skiing w/ him and his girlfriend and his girlfriend's sister this winter. Sure. Why not? Send me the info. Aparently my bro got the hookup for a trip through LifeStylez who hosts winter and spring break college trips. So, for a total of 348 (including all applicable taxes and fees, but not including food or transportation) I will be headed to Aspen to spend 6 nights/ 5 days at the Aspen Hotel and skiing for 4 days at Aspen/Ajax, Snowmass, Highlands, and Buttermilk. Dude, usually 4 days skiing at Aspen would be close to that. Sounds like fun to me. With driving our own car, and splitting gas 4 ways, that shouldn't be more than 50-60 bucks a person for gas, plus food for 6 days and I can pack lots of snacks and PBJ. Sweetness. Loads of fun and some QT w/ the bro and such.

Now, I just have to lose 20 to 30 pounds, get into better shape, go skiing a few times before then so I remember what to do with said long sticks attached to my legs, and find the money to pay for said trip. No worries, right?!?

I would have extended the deal out to my other skier buddies, but as it is, I have to mail this by Friday to make mine count. Next year, we'll do it again, and get all the peeps involved.

Note to self: Learn how to ski moguls.