serves you right for reading the "upsetting" thread! gotta be prepared for it . . .

Im feeling very sad for Wolf. I know I dont post very much(.03 posts per week or something...)but I am a pretty heavy lurker and have been for a number of years. I try to keep up on the comings and goings around here without any real emotional attachment ya know? Almost like watching a soap opera that is real yet out of arms length. Well Wolf has always been my very favorite Cellarite and Ive known her mother has ill for quite some time but when I saw the thread title last night it really came as a shock. I am very familiar with death,it always seems to hang close to me Ive lost many people very close to me and over the years ive learned to shrug it off,so its really suprising I would find myself so affected by this,someone I dont even know. I know shes a very strong person and will come through this fine,Im sure its even quite a relief for her,but still losing a parent is a very tough one to take. This is whats upsetting me today.

Well said shoot. I too find myself strangely affected by the loss of someone I've never known. I have communicated with Wolf and shared much with her. She is a wonderful woman and I am lost to find or share some comfort for her. There is nothing I can do but reach out and let her know I'm here. Sadly, I feel that is so little an offering in a time of such great need. :'(

I'm rather upset because I had to drive up to Albuquerque to have my Land Rover looked at. I have had a small gear oil leak coming from my transfer case and it is getting worse. I had it topped off in Socorro after my drive from Texas and you can see the oil just seeping out and the rear undercarriage has this nasty greasy coating on it.

I got a rental car and got checked into the hotel that I am meeting my wife at tomorrow and the dealer called and said after cleaning up the case and test driving it they determined that 2 of the 3 seals are worn out and the whole thing needs to be removed, repaired and reinstalled. It's about an 8 hour job so it will cost me around $1000. Not much of a choice as I am returning to Texas on Saturday which is 900 miles and the thought of burning up the thing is not a good option.

Oh well, even with this issue I still love my car. Life goes on and it could have been worse I guess.

Shoot and Classic, I'm the same.
I probably swear more on here than I ever do in real life. But that thread title came up in New Posts and said, "Fuck it!" out loud.

I've come back and posted happy things about today, because I have had a good day (and good days aren't always in supply). But it was in the back of my mind when I was walking to the shop, and back again, when I was cleaning Grandad's and when I stop thinking.

I felt the same when Bri got her cancer diagnosis and I thought we'd lose her. People online can be a bigger part of your life than I think some people appreciate.

Holy Crap, Chris. Not good to be stuck in the desert!

Tell that to people that run the Badwater ultra.

also sad for mommies passing

Mommies and daddies... It's hard thinking you're next on the firing line.

Went out this afternoon to find that the local scumbags left me rear tailgate glass on my Explorer smashed out with square steel tube shelf support about four feet long that was still in the back of the truck. For some reason, they chose not to actually, you know, *steal* anything.

If the price of recycled steel goes any higher, you may yet come out ahead!

More likely vandals than thieves. That sucks, man. Will your insurance cover it?

Nope. My truck is 11 years old and has nearly a quarter million miles on the clock. However, it is sturdy, reliable and not even slightly rusty. But - I only carry liability, and that doesn't cover glass. My homeowners might cover it, but my deductible is higher than the replacement cost, which was $230, done on site by Safelite on two hours notice. Now, $230 is real money in my book, and I could have done a lot of things with that money, but it certainly could have been worse. It was almost certainly vandalism for Halloween (although I don't think we rated any tricks - we gave out huge handfuls of candy to everyone because we have so few trick or treaters, and we were open for business until Midnight).

All in all, this has been one Hell of a fucked up day. I had to deal with month end closing for starters. My boss likes to make it as challenging as possible. We used to have until 5:00 local time to close. Corporate changed that to Noon a few months ago. When they did that, for some totally inexplicable reason, my boss decided that it would also be a dandy idea to have a staff meeting on closing mornings, which means 30 to 45 minutes less than the four hours we now have instead of the nine we used to have.

I'm tough...I got through that with two minutes to spare. In the meantime, I had to line up the glass company, deal with the loan refinancing on the Grandview house, produce paperwork for the writeoff of over $40k worth of inventory caused by our going out of the fireplace business (three times, because the fireplace guy is a doofus and kept thinking of things he'd sold without posting them), cope with trying to get payroll done (a task made more challenging by the fact that we have a crew out of town who faxed in their completed work orders only to discover that the fax failed before completion), get funds for the staff lunch, and about fifty other things that had people standing in front of my desk every two minutes for three hours straight.

The piece' de resistance was when I stopped by the house on my way to TF's to pick up my computer, and Kaleigh ran down the stairs saying, "Oh, good, you're home! Call the gas company, they shut us off today even though we paid the bill over the automated system yesterday."

Fuck. So, twenty minutes on hold with them (while I listened to a song to which the lyrics, no shit, included the words "You're always calling me, always calling me..." set to a light R&B score. That's COLD) Well, come to find out, despite all of the technology available to corporations these days, it seems that, if you pay your bill via the automated system on one day, and your shutoff date is the next day, you have to call the company and tell them you paid it, give them your confirmation number, so that they'll call off the dude with the gas meter boot.

Now, call me cynical, but I know damn good and well that, if they didn't *want* this situation to exist, it wouldn't. Why does it exist? Because they charge you $45 to come and turn it back on, of course; a procedure that takes about ten minutes that is performed by a guy who probably does thirty of these things a day at a hard total cost of maybe $10 per house. So he costs the gas company $300, and rakes in $1350, leaving a net profit of over $1k per day.

What possible motivation would they have to fix a situation that makes them $1k a day for basically doing nothing? And what are you gonna do if you don't like it? Get a different gas company?

I plan to write a more lengthy treatise on why the Almighty Dollar is destroying society before too much longer. I'm no commie. I believe in Capitalism, but I don't believe that abandoning morality, common sense and humanity in pursuit of profit is a Capitalist tenet. In fact, they taught me that this was what the Commies did...

felt crappy. weak, lightheaded, heart racing, sore neck.

it'll probably disappear once I get home from work. I hope

Sorry you had a crappy day, Els. But hey, at least you know that if you're indispensable at work then they can never get away with laying you off, right?

My boss has actually told me flat out that he and I would be the last guys out the door in a worst case scenario. I don't really know if it is because I'm indispensable, or because he's gotten used to essentially doing nothing and making me do his work, though.

I *do* know a lot of stuff that no one else does. I didn't do it on purpose. It just happened. I have twenty years of experience in my pathetically underpaid career.

I just did something really, really stoopid.

Messing about with my new (bout a month old, but only started using it a week ago) casio digital camera, and dropped it. Wouldn't turn off, so took out battery and put it back in. It half turned off but the lens wouldn't fully retract. Now for the stoopid bit... I applied pressure to the lens and basically forced it to retract. Yeah...pretty dumb huh> Even as I was doing it I was thinking, Dani wtf do you think you're doing?

So...now it won't come out. I get 'Lens error', it comes halfway out then gives up and retracts again.

I am going to have to send it to the Casio repair place; where the engineers will no doubt instantly realise that the damage was caused by 'impact damage' or 'improper use' meaning it won't be covered by the warranty and will therefore quote me a repair bill more or less equivalent to the purchase cost of the fucking camera.

What a fucking idiot am I ?

Grrrr.

I wasn't even doing anything useful with the camera. I was attempting to work out how to use the timer setting to do a very slightly nsfw self portrait for the Cellar. Serves me right. That's karma that is, for being vain :P

Oh no!!!! We will all be very disappointed we didn't get to see that. Lets add it to what upsets me today. :neutral:

Well, in the end I couldn't figure out the timing setting...so the shot I do have is at a slightly odd angle, since I am having to hold the camera up and point it at myself :P. Makes me look a little twisted. I'm not really that happy with it. I'll post it anyway tho.

Yeah!!! :) Thanks for making it all better!

Dana yer Howtness is what busted the camera !!

It fainted !!!

You are far too kind Zipp :P But I love you for it lol.

We had that happen to ours a few weeks ago dana. Beest fiddled with it some more and it got better again. try blowing some air to dislodge any muck that's trapped. shake it a bit. Call it bad names. Smack it like you would and empty fuel gauge....

mmmm. I'll try that. Though I suspect having forced it back into place I broke it fairly fundamentally :P

Well we did that too...... it was a little crunchy for a while once we got it working again, but recovered slowly.

Hmmm. I;ve tried blowing it. I've fiddled with it (yes I am still talking about the camera). It still gets halfway out then goes back in and gives me the lens error message :(

leave it 'til tomorrow. It'll probably feel better then. and if not, try grabbing it when halfway out and encouragin it to go further? i mean, can you make it worse?

and fuck it, d, it's 4am -go to bed!

lol you;re right. I really should go to sleep now

read a little tw, that should do it.....

Sounds like one of those multi-level self-portraits that express your personality as well as showing your appearance, then. :)

Send the camera back. Act Innocent. Insist there was no improper use. Require warranty repairs.

If it makes you feel better, there is a standard "one meter drop test" that everything is expected to pass - it should be able to survive a one meter drop onto hard surface (like concrete). If their camera couldn't take that, they owe you the repairs.
Mind you, I am not sure that applies to digital cameras. When in Thailand, my camera failed when I was holding it and slipped a bit - the camera never left my hand, never hit the ground, but got a good hard shake ... enough to destroy the lens mechanism. Damn. Mind you, the camera has a special 7.1x optical zoom squeezed into a slimline flat camera, so it is a bit exceptional.

It was way less than one meter onto a carpeted floor...

I rather suspect much of the damage has come from my attempts to force the mechanism back into plave rather than the original drop! I panicked when it wouldn't go back in. What I should have done is put it down somewhere, go have a cup of tea, and come back to it calm, then removed the battery and messed around with the on/off switch a bit to try and get it to go back in. But hey, ya live and learn :P

I am going to send it to the casio repair centre with absolutely no mention of any improper use and see what comes back from them.

I actually dreamt I fixed it last night lol.

send it back for repair. Don't mention your forcing the mechanism. Deny! Obfuscate! Demand!

Update: Ohmigod I love PCWorld!

According to the casio website the only way to deal with broken camera is to send it to the casio repair centre. According to the teeny tiny printed words on the little folded up warranty sheet in the camera box the second option is to take it to the place of purchase: PCWorld in my case.

Took it down there. Told half the story (it went dark with lens stuck out, took out battery and put back in and it retracted, now won't come out again). Didn't mention any dropping or forcing. In fact when I was telling the guy how little use it had had, I told him I'd bought it slightly less than a month ago (true) but only actually used from last week (true) and that it had seemed fine (true) and I was at home taking a photo of my dog (slight fib) when it had stopped working, I also said, that it hadn;t been anywhere exciting and hadn't had anything exciting happen to it.

He looked at it, told me this was a very common thing to happen. Then checked stock and said they had no more left. There was the possibility of taking a black one instead (£20 more than the green, which I'd have been happy to pay) or getting a different camera. I thought about it and said I'd really liked the camera before it stopped workng and would very much like the same model and whilst i was totally in love with the green colour, I'd rather takle a black one than a different camera... unless this was a particular problem with this model, in which case maybe I had better get a different one....he said it was a common problem with all of these kinds of cameras not just the casio exilim. He said if I really wanted the green one I could maybe pick up from a different branch. Since the other branches were all miles away I was going to just get the black one, but then asked if there was any chance of the other branch sending a green one to this store. He made a couple of phone calls and arranged for a new exilim green to be sent out to him. Should be there within a week. He's going to phone me when he has it. No additional charge to me :)

Quibble-free replacement. I really wasn't sure I'd get that. I was talked into trialling the 'anything goes' service for my PC when I bougth it, but I didn't take the option on the camera (extra 1.99 per month) so I figured they'd just say they had to send it away and I'd end up with a bill.

I love PCWorld. Of course I won't completely relax until i have it in my hand *grins* just in case he was mistakenly looking at the part of my receipt that said 'anything goes club' and thought it referred to camera rather than laptop. But I don't think that was it.

*sighs* lesson learned and apparently at no actual cost!

Yay! That worked out great!

And we got a damn good pic of you, deboot.

...but now we want more. And you'll have a new camera. <wink>

So Z and I stopped by the local bar to grab a beer after work yesterday - when we pull up there are like 50 Harley's in the parking lot - very odd for a Monday night in the 30s in October....Turns out it was the end of a memorial ride for a guy we've ridden with on several occasions - friend of a friend. Only 43 years old, amazing father of three, loving husband - He had left the same bar alst Saturday at 11:00 - left early to make sure he wasn't too drunk to ride - hit a patch of ice, lost it, went over a curb into a traffic sign. My buddy was with him - asid a helmet wouldn't have saved him, it was his body not his head, he was definitely not drunk, or speeding.

BUT OF COURSE the local papers just HAVE to write the story as "crazy biker with NO HELMET died in a crash. Police are investigating whether speed or alcohol were factors."

Never mind the part about Pat was a nice guy, a great friend, who will be missed by his family......

Sorry to hear that Queen.

The headlines gotta grab attention & sell papers - Nice guys and fathers don't do that.

Sorry, Queen. Us bikers always get a bad rap.

Thanks guys - and you are both right. Never mind that we do some of the most amazing charity work, or that we're always there for each other. Nope. We just pillage and plunder, right?

The only bikers I have actually met in my life have been middle-aged (or older) family men who've been riding their bikes for several decades. One of them was a grandfather to a young toddler. His youngest daughter was studying to become a doctor. *shrugs* Ya look a little different and you listen to 'scary' music. Nonsense, but then that's what newspapers lap up with a spoon.

During the week I work in a very white collar industry, and am the perfect "soccer mom." You would never know I went anywhere near a Harley, until those particualr days or nights.......

I can believe it. The guy I mentioned whose daughter was studying to be a doctor, was himself a geography teacher :P

Dana, you shouldn't do that to a metaphor.

lol. Thanks. That one crept in. Not sure how. I think maybe I have been reading too many of said newspapers.

Not so much today, but yesterday.
And not so much upsetting, but best for this thread.

Breda was cremated yesterday (Mum's friend who died of cancer in case you don't read the cancer threads).
At first I found it very upsetting. I fought my way out of it - she was Mum's friend, not mine and if Mum wasn't crying I'd be damned if I would (this passes for good behaviour in Mum's mind). It was seeing the coffin brought in, knowing the lads carrying it and their relationship to her - son, son in law, surrogate sons (she was such a generous woman) and knowing what they carried. And then seeing her daughter. Mum counts her as pretty hysterical as a person, but although she was sobbing she did have great dignity.

The formality of the Mass soothed me though. As it seemed to do to everyone. The people crying at the beginning were mostly just sniffling by Communion.

She had a wonderful turn-out. The church can take 200 at a squeeze - and does at Christmas and Easter, with both galleries open and even then you get people standing in the vestry - I'd estimate at least 100 yesterday. About the same as for a usual Mass. That's a lot.

I didn't go to the Crem. I don't like them. If I had a closer connection with her, of course I would have gone. My sister and family went - she was my niece's Godmother. But I felt I'd paid my respects and Mum had enough family support.

I went to the wake, although I hadn't intended to - I felt that perhaps I hadn't earned it, not going to the Crem. But Mum pushed and I'm so glad I did. They had a pseudo-marquee in the garden and it was decorated with blown up photos of her, and photo boards. I was so pleased to see Mum in four of them - she really was close and I know towards the end she felt a little left out. Fresh flowers, Irish music, shedloads of food and drink and hired tables and chairs. Many of her friends came together to provide either at cost (through contacts) or FOC, like Mum who made some buffet dishes.

In the end it was a celebration of her life.
I talked to her daughter, who was a lovely, tearless, totally unhysterical hostess.

I know Mum misses all the things they shared. I know it's not just a death, but a hole in her own life. But as her passing is a fact, I also know Mum's glad she was sent off in a way which would have delighted her. RIP.

Terrible as it is to lose a friend or family member, there is great comfort to be had from the right sort of send off. Hugs to you and your mum, SG.

Not nearly as bummer as SG's (so sorry, Sundae - it's been a helluva year, eh?) but my effing computer is not OK! I've got to buy a new one - and a paper is due on Monday so will have to write paper on an unfamiliar computer! :mad:

Neck, head and right shoulder ache. Work is slow and booooring!

Sorry for your mum's loss SG.



Oh and FUCK CANCER

Pretty much everything is pissing me off today. that is all. :mad:

Hangover?

nah. seasoned drinkers like me don't get em!

One of the cats had shat or puked on the landing

Car doors were frozen shut this morning -I had tried to clear out the garage to get the car(s) in yesterday, but had such a busy day was just too tired to stand up any longer, so cars stayed outside in first heavy frost ...as did my hibiscus plants because we forgot to drag them in despite saying "oh we must do that everyday this week.... and now they're dead....

I found an error in one of the swim clubs acoounting (made by me) which means we didn't make as much profit as we thought we did and currently lots of happy people are planning how to spend that $$$ same error caused the bank a/c alomost to go into the red, although hopefully I caught that in time, but it meant a special trip to the bank....

I had misplaced a check for a different organization (scrip for the school) and did find that -but after two hours so i didn't get the work done I waned to so now I have to do that tonight

I spilled coke everywhere -me cat, desk, keyboard, paperwork....

I couldn't order the new cellphone i wanted online so had to go through the torturous phone system

The online bank is still not sending transaction confirmations and they can't work out why and kept hanging up on me so I kept having to go through the security rigmarole

I only managed to spend 45 minutes working in the thrift store and had no time to shop

i was late for the scrip store at school so didn't get my sign out on the curb -which increases business.....

and the afternoon is yet young.....

wow I'd be cranky too.

So maybe you've got all of your bad luck over with and you can have a fabulous weekend.

Algebra.

Angles L and M are complementary. L= 14x+7 M= 20x+15

Srsly, I have no idea goddamnit. I need to get my kid a tutor or sit in on a couple 6th grade math classes. Fuck.

Complementary angles add up to 90 degrees. So L + M = 90.

(14x+7) + (20x+15) = 90

simplify. solve for x.

Yeah thats where Im stuck - I don't know how to solve for x. I know it's 2 I just don't know why.

Look in the kids book or online for simplifying algebraic expressions. You should find everything you need. Here's this one:

(14x+7) + (20x+15) = 90
14x + 7 + 20x + 15 = 90
34x + 22 = 90
34x = 68
x = 68/34
x = 2

(14x+7) + (20x+15) = 90

first of all put like terms together i.e. Xs together and numbers together:

14x + 20x + 7 + 15 = 90
>> 34x + 22 = 90

then get the Xs on one side and the numbers on the other. So this by subtracting 22 from each side

34x = 90= 22
>> 34x = 68

then divide both sides by 34 to get the value for 1x

x = 2

lemme lemme

(14x + 7) + (20x + 15) = 90

because of associative property of addition,
14x + 7 + 20x + 15 = 90

reduces to
34x + 22 = 90

subtract 22 from both sides
34x = 68

divide both sides by 34
x = 2