Stress level back to normal!

This morning I went to the credit union to get info on my accounts for my loan application. I found out that I only owe $3200 on my Corvette, and I have a $1,000 surplus in my car-payment checking account (I have a direct-deposit checking account set up whose only purpose is to hold money for the bank to automatically withdraw from). This means that between my insurance check from my current sled combined with the change I've got to roll, I'll be able to pay off the Corvette right away. This means my only "vehicle" payment will be my $230/month sled payment, which will save me $35/month compared to the Corvette payment. Since I've still got $450+ funneling into that account every month, I'll build up a sizable surpless by the time I need it for a Camaro down payment.

Yay me. :)

My stress level went from 0-60 in 5.2

That's a bit of a play on a line from an Alabama song that none of you probably heard of, but I like it.

Since Saturday, a TON of shit has happened (mostly good) that has elevated my usually very low stress level up very high. I've been very jumpy, and I haven't been able to sleep. It's like my hyperactivity from childhood came back for a visit.

First of all, on Friday I discovered that the damage on my snowmobile was a lot worse than I realized. That got the stress ball rolling. Friday night we booked the Bounti Fare for our rehersal dinner. While that certainly wasn't stressful, it was certainly part of the many things we had going on. On saturday we met with 2 more floorists and went to Morningside bakery to talk about cake. While each of the two floorists had their high points, it was an easy decision for us to decide on the first guy that we met with last week. The cake was also an easy decision. Morningside can do exactly what we want, and they're only $80 more than the cake nazi we met with a couple weeks ago. We got done with all of that stuff early enough that we also went to the tux place and got a lot of that crap taken care of. After lunch, it was off to Pittsfield Lawn & Tractor to look at sleds. An hour later, I became the proud owner of a new 2006 Arctic Cat Crossfire 700 Sno Pro. After that, we swung by to check out a jeep that kristin saw in the paper. I just got back from giving him a deposit. Kristin decided to buy it. Now her and I are both in the process of getting financing. To add to that, I don't have transportation because I dropped the Camry off at Tommy's to get the shitty rear struts replaced. That is a cluster fuck in it's own right because they don't want to warranty them because I don't have the receipt. So, although almost all of this is good news, it's an awful lot to juggle at once and my head is spinning from it. The fact that kristin and I just took on another $21k in debt isn't helping matters either.

It's only monday, and I already need a weekend.

I bought a sled

Friday I was headed out on a nice day-long snowmobile excursion when I stopped to show the damage to my sled to a guy I know. With him looking at the sled with me, he noticed that the damage is quite a bit more severe than I had realized. It extends all the way up into the tunnel and is badly bent around the drive shaft bearing.

$2100-2500 in damage. So, I put my tail between my legs and went back to the house. I filed a claim with my insurance company after I found out that I have accident forgiveness, so I won't be surcharged. Since I've been wanting a sled anyway, I decided to put this money toward the new one. I went to Pittsfield Lawn and Tractor and struck up a deal with my sales guy. Now I'm in the process of filling out the loan application. Greylock's rate isn't very good, but the difference between Greylock's rate and somebody elses still only comes up to about $4/month, and for that amount of money, I'd rather have it stay with Greylock because it comes out of my account automatically and I don't have to worry about it.

The real pisser is that by the time I get the sled, there won't be any snow left to ride on. :(

some people will believe anything

Flat Earth Society FAQ

Holy. Shit. What I've apparently found is a group of people with stupidity that's run so rampant that they think the entire world's governments are working together to conspire against the populus to fool us into thinking that our world is round, when in fact it's totally flat. Nevermind the fact that no two govermnents in the world can agree on anything, but these idiots think that they've pulled the wool over our eyes for centuries. Add to that the fact that these people can't even figure out why the conspiracy exists, though they are sure that it's due to money. How a flat world makes governments rich, I couldn't begin to imagine.

I think somebody had a little too much LSD in their corn flakes the day they came up with that idea.

Thinking about snowmobiles...

Now that I'm finally able to ride my sled, I immediately started thinking about a new one again. I've gone back and forth now for a couple years trying to decide whether or not to get one, and every time I've decided not to. The specific circumstances surrounding my justification process seem to change every time, and this time is no different. There are places offering great prices on 06 leftovers right now, but this is a double-edged sword. There are so many sleds because nobody is buying them. While this would be a great opportunity to pick up a 2nd sled, it's awfully hard to sell the one I have, which is a necessity because I really don't want to pick up a 3-4 year payment on a new one. On the other side of the arguement, is our new house and its very close proximity to the trails. Because we're so close, I've had fantastic opportunities to ride since we've gotten the snow, and this will always be the case. I'm so close to the trails that I can ride any time I want (for as short a period of time that I want) as long as we have snow. The pain in the ass of trailering it up there (which often prevented me from taking short rides) is gone. So there's your plus and minus list to consider.

However, this gets a bit more complicated now because Kristin wants a sled. This complicates things a lot more than I ever expected. For starters, is she going to enjoy riding enough to justify the expense of the sled? It's a huge waste of money if she buys one and then never finds the same interest in the sport that I have. Secondly, what kind of sled best suits her? That's almost impossible to answer right now because she's so new to the sport that she hasn't developed a riding style, so we can't decide what sled would best suit her. There's also the issue of buying a used sled, which often results in you getting stuck with somebody elses junk.

Then of course there's the issue of whether or not she should buy my current sled. I'm REALLY up in the air over this. I hate my sled because it doesn't suit my fat ass and my very agressive riding style, but that type of sled would suit her nicely. I'm also familiar with the sled, which is nice. Reliability has been exceptional, which is very important. What concerns me though, is whether I've done enough damage to the sled that the reliability and ridability have been comprimised. I turned the sled over yesterday and noticed that the belly pan of the sled is pretty beat up, although that's of no concern. What did concern me is that I actually managed to tear a section of the chassis that's made out of rolled-aluminum, which is very strong. I didn't look at it enough to determine whether this is a new tear or old. Where the tear occurred is in a very strong section of the chassis, so it may not have much of an impact on on the sled's integrity, especially with somebody that weighs 1/2 what I weigh and won't ride as agressively. But, I'd still feel like I'd be selling her a junk sled.

So, what do I do? I think I need to forget about buying a new sled right now. Finish out the season using this sled, and while I do, pay attention to the damage to see if it gets worse or if it stays the same. Once summer gets here, I can pull the sled apart and make a repair to the damage or if I'm confident that it isn't getting worse, put a skid plate over it to protect it from further impact and to hide it in the event that I decide to sell. If I can ride it for the rest of the year without worsening the damage, I'll have enough confidence to have Kristin use it without worry. Since sled sales are so bad that there are a bunch of 2006 leftovers still in showrooms, chances are pretty good that next fall I'll be able to get a good deal on a 2007 leftover.

But man I just don't want this sled anymore. :(

A little shakeup at work, and mixed emotions as a result

I just got called by my unit manager (he's the one that manages the people, not the projects) to tell me that the program I'm on ran out of money and they have to pull me off. I'm not getting laid off or any of that sort of crap, so there's no sort of danger in that sense. But, after getting smoke blown up my ass about how this project is such a long-term type of project, and that even though product development has ended, that obsolescense tracking will continue indefinately, the program suddenly ran out of money and I'm getting moved onto another project. Like I said, it's bittersweet. It pisses me off that I have to change and jump into the "unknown" but on the other hand, I really haven't enjoyed this assignment very much, so how bad can it be? The guy that I'm going to work for is a great guy who spends most of his time doing hands-on type of projects, and if I get the chance to get involved in that, maybe I'll actually enjoy my job.

The more I think about this, the more I think this is a good thing. Getting around that sort of hands-on work might be a Godsend.

Gentlemen, Start Your Shovels!

NASCAR and snowfall. This winter is finally turning into something! Just as the NASCAR season starts back up, we're facing a storm that has the potential to provide the heaviest snowfall in around 4 years. Generally I've always found that channel 6 has provided the most accurate snowfall predictions for our area, but this time it seems that 10 and 13 are both showing very similar snowfall maps, with a ridge from the berkshires right through Stamford & Readsboro that's higher than the surrounding areas. Since that always seems to be how the snow actually falls around here, I'm putting my faith into 10 and 13's predictions more than channel 6. No matter what we get though, it will be significant compared to what we've gotten so far this year.

Channel 6:


Channel 10:


Channel 13:

Getting old sucks

This morning I pulled a muscle in my back. All of a sudden, I got this stabbing pain in my lower back and I almost fell over. You may be wondering, was I lifting hundreds of pounds of heavy weights? Was I saving a child from a burning building, or perhaps killing ninjas that broke into our house?

No. I was taking a piss. That's right. 5 seconds into my morning piss, while standing perfectly still, all of a sudden I got this wrenching pain in the left side of my lower back. I had to fight through the pain to avoid a disastrous misalignment in my aim. It's almost noon now and my back is still killing me.

Stay young kids. Getting old ain't pretty.

Yet another Superbowl has come and gone.

Yay. Is it February 18 yet? I'm jonesing for some roundy-round NASCAR action, although with the addition of Toyota to the mix, I'll probably be even less interested than last year. But that's another complaint... this one is about the boring football game that put an end to a boring football season. Every year I like college football more and NFL football less. This year's superbowl was the dullest that I've seen since the game in the mid 80s where San Franscisco pounded the shit out of Cincinnati. Both teams played sloppy football.

The commercials were even a letdown. Of course, I missed half the good ones because I was outside changing the battery on the Jimmy in 5 degree weather. I missed the Bud Light "Auctioneer Wedding" ad, which was quite funny. One that I didn't miss was the Bud Light "Fist Bump" commercial that featured a nice 89 IROC-Z in the commercial.


See the commercial here:

Massachusetts 0, Aqua Teen Hunger Force 1

What we have here is yet another situation that supports my theory that the United States would be a better country if Massachusetts was forced to rescind their statehood and recede from the Union (Along with California and maybe Utah). Yesterday it was all over the news that the city of Boston came to a complete stand-still, and the city somehow managed to spend a reported HALF MILLION DOLLARS in order to remove 38 Auqa Teen Hunger Force advertisements from various spots across the city. Apparently a few proud Massholes mistook this for a bomb:

Way to go, geniuses.

In the other 10 cities where these advertisements have been displayed for as long as 3 weeks, apparently people were capable of going on with their lives without fear of being blown up by a neon cartoon giving the finger.

To top it off, Massafuckits arrested the two guys who were hired to put these advertisements up, and also demanded that Turner Broacasting pay the 1/2 Millon back. Holy shit Boston! You fucked up and now you're trying to blame everybody else for it. Let the poor bastards go, and chalk up your half-million dollar bout with stupidity to a hard lesson learned.