Good News!

Oh, it's not mine, but while I'm at work I thought I'd read the news because that's the thing to do - keep up on current events, right?

There was this article:

Girl returns $1,000 found in Richard Simmons tape

And it reminded me that people still do the right thing and that's good news.

It also reminded me that at one point I wanted to start two new news channels. Since there is the saying that it takes 20 good deeds to cancel out the one bad deed that someone does, you don't always get to hear about all the good that people do in the world and I think that is a sad thing. I thought that it would be a good idea to start two news channels = one for the good news and one for the bad news. So if I want to get bummed out and listen to all of the theft and violence against humanity, I'd tune into the bad news. If I wanted to feel uplifted by the good in the world, I'd happily tune into the good news.

Laundry Hell

About a month ago, I went out to the laundry room on my side of the condo complex and washed clothes only to find that three of the four dryers did not work. This pissed me off. I went to my home, got blue painter's tape and a Sharpie and taped up the machines and marked them all as "out of order". Later hat day, I not only wrote a letter to the HOA bard about the broken dryers, but also asking to fix the crater in the driveway as well as the driveway gates which were malfunctioning yet again in the wind.

That Sunday, I went to the local Laundromat for the first time in over ten years. It's located in the triangle next to a ton of eatting places about an eighth of a mile away from my home. It's so close, if I go out into my front yard I can almost see it.

It's nice and clean and secure. It's $2.25 a load to wash in the front loading machines and a quarter for 10 minutes to dry. What was difficult to tollerate was all of the spanish language telvision blaring at me while I was waiting for my clothes to finish. I got a headache after listening to the weather girl in spanish. I had to take an Advil to stop my head from pounding before I went to bed.

So when I was out in the parking structure trying to fix my headlights, I noticed some yahoo broke down the front of each of the dryers. I can tell you now, the heating element burned out so I'm pretty sure that happens to be located at the back of the unit and no where near the insrument plannel. And then when I went back to my condo, it wasn't fixed. Hrmmm. I don't know whether to write another letter telling the HOA they are losing money not having the machines available and they still need to fix them or just say screw it like they have with any of the non-regular maintenance.

I plan on not watching lousy game five of the world series tonight with spicy hot dogs for dinner in order to wash clothes at the landromat and avoid the crowds on the weekend.

Ridiculous

Out of my utter frustration with the contractors position I currently have, I look for jobs online while I'm at work because there is literally no other thing to do.

I maintain a directory of websites where I can find job postings. It's dismal. All these people out of work and all these job posts and I can't seem to find a match with anything in California. This frustrates me.

I tried searching in a new category today called "office manager". I found a cool job, but they want a BA and will only pay 29k. What single person in their right mind with a mortgage and car payments can live on 29k in Southern California after they've took the time to get a BA? It's ridiculous.

I feel like I've painted myself into a corner that I can't get out of and I don't know what to do.

Ewww, That Smell Part 2

O.K., this morning I was running the fresh air through the car and I smelled this hard boiled eggs smell on the N5/N10 split at the east LA interchange before Seventh Street. Not a horrible smell, but why hard boiled eggs? Weird.

And on the seventh day

On Sunday, it was as if the clouds in heaven parted, the sun shone down onto Tustin with it's brightest beam, a choir of angels began to sing in chorus and these things occured in my little world:

1. China West Express replaces American Pizza at the triangle

2. Arby's is almost ready to open

3. Regular gas at $2.99 a gallon at Thrifty Oil

4. My boyfriend got some qualified help at work

It's Funny

Last night, out of the blue, I was asked to come to dinner at my boyfriends house. He said he was fixing hot dogs and french fries and that the hot dogs were spicy which I probably wouldn't like, but I was welcome to watch the world series there with him anyway. He knows I like baseball. I could have easily did without these games tho. Tampa and Phili? Not teams in the western states like me, so I don't care so much who's playing or wins this year. He likes sports though, so it's something we can do together.

Usually we try to plan ahead for those things because of his work schedule and my commute, but this dinner idea was O.K. All I had planned to do last night was return the headlight bulbs I couldn't install by myself the night before after I discovered that my passenger side low beam was dead while driving home on the 101 freeway. I had taken "the back way" AKA 118 W, 23 S, 101E, 5S to get around my need to travel upon the 118 E because there was two traffic accidents that the CHP stopped traffic for to clear off of the freeway at about 4PM. I got home 3+ hours later, tired, road weary and mad that I had to deal with the light. I rousted my son to go with me to Kragen to buy the bulb once I looked up the model number in my owner's manual. I then got home, gathered my tools, and tried for over an hour and a half to install the sucker. After that ordeal decided I did not have the strength in my hands nor the proper tools to get the job done. The next day (thursday morning), I drove to work in the dark using my high beams almost all the way there.

I was going to ask Robert to help install the bulb for me or at least provide a tool that I did not have and his strong hands to get the trim piece off that runs over each headlight assembly. But I figured I was tired and he more so, so I didn't mind paying to get it fixed. First, I tried Jiffy Lube because I know they provide that service, but because of the dangnabit trim piece again, they said "no". They did confirmed with me that there was a Chevy dealer in town though. So I went to the Chevy dealer in Simi Valley (William Morris Chevrolet, at First Street and the 118) at lunch break. They were great and changed out my headlight bulb in like 20 minutes flat. So, happy my headlight is now fixed, I drove home with confidence that I wouldn't get a fix-it ticket. It took 2 hours and 15 minutes to get to Robert's house.

He made me a Cape Codder with so much liquor in it I couldn't drink it. I'm a tiny person, so it doesn't take me that much alcohol before I start to feel it. He dumps the drink and makes me another. This time - it's right and I tell him so. Robert, this one is good. I can taste the sting of the liquor but it still tastes like cranberries. Yum.

And so I try to calm my nerves by sitting down on the couch and then move to curl up in the chair and sipping my drink while playing with his little white fluff of a dog named Igloo and watching the game which is now in the 6th inning, but all I want to really do is eat. It's after 7PM and I'm hungry. So I interject myself into the dining area then the kitchen to see if there is anything I can do to speed this production up. I talked to him about accouterments to the hot dog on the phone earlier. Do you have relish? No. Do you have dill pickles? Yes. O.K., so dice up some dill pickles for me and that will be perfect - that's what I do at home. Do you have onions? Yes. Cut those up, too. Do you have mustard? Yes.

But when I go to get the condiments out of the refrigerator, there is no mustard. All I find is ketchup which is not allowed on my hot dogs, a ton of hot sauce which again is not allowed on my hot dogs, honey mustard, which only belongs in salad dressing and goes with chicken strips and an institutional sized jar of mayonnaise. I'm in hell. I had to go to the store to get mustard.

So I hopped into the go mobile and on the way decide where to acquire the mustard. Can I get it at Rod's Liquor Store? No, it's not a market. Do I know of any market within walking distance from his house? No. I could have gone to Fresh & Easy, but will they have the mustard I like? I don't know. I've only shopped there once and and really is only good for quick, fresh stuff. So the next store down the road, the one I actually am familiar with is Ralph's. Good old Ralph's. I grab a hand basket and go. I end up getting toothbrushes on sale 2 for 1 because the one I has put at Robert's needed to be tossed, two things of Eclipse gum for my purse, a jar of French's mustard, and a jar of Gulden's Golden spicy brown mustard. I also looked for kosher hot dogs to save myself from having to eat the spicy ones, but my luck, the only thing sold out in the deli section is the Hebrew National hot dogs I want.

I drove back to Robert's house, put away the mustard and helped him prepare the plates. After finishing the meal, I said to Robert...

It's funny, you know. If you go to my house right now and look in the refrigerator, you'll find probably 5 different kinds of mustard and no mayonnaise and here at your house you have the institutional sized jar of mayonnaise and no mustard. I'm glad I found this out.

After baseball ended with the Tampa Rays winning game two, we watched two shows on the speed channel and fell asleep.

I'll have to make sure I've got mayonnaise on hand when he cooks at my house.

The Early Girls

I noticed just this morning that there is this gaggle of women who make their way to their cars or to the bus stop in the morning between 5:30 and 5:45 AM. I have named these women "The Early Girls". Tricked out in their high heels, business, suits and whatever they wear at the workplace, in the dark they are walking around in my neighborhood before sunrise like a swarm of ants going this way and that. We all kind of keep an eye on eachother as we get to where we need to be and then shut and lock our car doors.

No, Sarah, no!

Please don't vote for McCane - here's why...

Sarah Palin thinks the vice president is in charge of the United States Senate.

Read: Palin Claims Vice President 'In Charge of the U.S. Senate'

Dear Govenor Palin... even Wikipedia got this one right and didn't attend the University of Idaho. What did they teach you in potatohead land? Did you pass minimum requirements to graduate from high school? Do you even remember U.S. History class or was that the period where you and your future husband passed notes back and forth to kill time?

Who was the first Vice President? The right answer from you may win back an ounce of my respect, but I'm still not going to vote for you.

And while I'm on the subject or no-no's, supposedly you made over $250,000 last year per your Public Financial Disclosure Report, so why is it that you need to have the RNC buy you and your family upwards of $150,000 of wardrobe and make-up using political donations?

Read: Sarah Palin went on some kind of RNC-financed shopping spree, Politico says

And then you're going to donate those clothes to charity? The "Everyday Working Class" people I know don't take public funds, buy clothes, wear them once, and give them away.

Read: Palin aide says candidate's clothing to be donated

That is a typical example of the wasteful spending I do not want to be associated with.

Not to mention that you billed the citizens of the great State of Alaska for your children's travel arrangements to political functions where they served no purpose but to be moral support for you and show that you're some kind of super mom but in reality you're too cheap to hire a nanny or to tell your husband he has to watch the kids?

Read: Palin Children Traveled On Alaska's Dime

I am so glad I don't declare to be a Republican. I bet Matt Gonzalez knows the role the Vice President plays in United States government.

Happy

I am so happy that my boyfriend is not sick anymore. I really missed him while he was ill. He was adamant about me not getting infected with what he had, so I stayed away. I had dinner with him for the past two nights. Pasta at his house and then sushi at our favorite place down the street. We were told the main sushi chef quit last Saturday because he moved to New York to be with his wife for breast cancer treatment. That's sad, but you do what you've got to do.

If...

For the lack of creativity I endure each day at work, I find myself seeking out creative people when I'm not there.

I was thinking about this on the way to work this morning. I know literally a ton of musicians. If I were to choose anyone of them to make a group, this is who it would be:

Sean Burgess - Drummer
Why? He's a music teacher. He not only can play well, but he's got the musical vocabulary to express what he's played and play it again and again. Very important when you're banging on drums all day.

Kenny Howes - Rhythm Guitar, backing vocals
Why? He's a players player. He's all Rickenbacker. He got chops, experience and can stand up to the competition.

Walter Ensign - Lead Guitar
Why? Not only can he cook a mean pot of Thai-anything for dinner, he can play his ass off as lead.

Pancho Francisco - Keyboards
Why? Low key, focused team player, university graduate with a degree in music. And another teacher as well as a professional musician.

Scott Halper - Bass
Why? This man can really, really, play the bass. I mean like Etwhistle-play the bass. He's amazing.

Who would be the vocalist? A tie again between Bleu or Steve Roberts.
Why? Both possess distinctive, smooth, expressive voices and have fun on stage when they sing.

More fire...

Now the fire is visable from my office as it creeps over the Santa Susana pass. The smoke is now blowing over the city of Simi Valley and is beginning to permeate the a/c system.

I was left with a quarter of a tank of gas after I arrived to work this morning, so at lunch I went and gassed up knowing that my trek home tonight is going to be probably longer than it has ever been before.

Southern California Fires in Los Angeles County

See: Fire in Porter Ranch

At 10:30 AM today, the hills above Porter Ranch at Oat Mountain, the tallest mountain in the Santa Susana mountain range, began to catch fire as the smoke and embers from the Marek fire rapidly move over the San Fernando Valley towards the ocean blown by the gusty, dry Santa Ana winds. This fire is now known as the Sesnon Fire.

Right now, the 118 freeway, the one I travel on to get to work and home is open but closed at the 210, which is north of where I travel. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to get home using my normal route tonight. I might have to take the 405 south to get back to Orange County.

My desk

October 10th @ work

While I'm bashing LA...

It seems The Los Angeles Times has a funny bone, too. Imagine that.

I'm not the only one bashing Los Angeles. It's own residents do it in photos.

See: Your Scene - Los Angeles Times

Blah Blah Ditty Bitty Blah

I'm sick of listening to all the noise about the economy. I'm going to take my complaint department and point it towards home.

When I drive to work each day, my car automatically thinks that initially I want fresh air. I turn on the ignition and *bloop*, I'm on the fresh air setting. This setting would be perfectly fine if I lived up in the mountains where the air is fresh and clean and smells like pine trees, sycamores and other assorted flora. But dear automobile, I travel through Los Angeles. And do I need to remind you that big old cities have a unique smell all their own. I remember reading somewhere that New York smells like urine. Everywhere you go, it's pee, pee and more pee. I think the person that invested money in placing pay toilets around that town would become a millionaire multiple times over, but I digress...

Well, Los Angeles smells like trash. Trash is constantly being hauled away from homes where it's initially picked up, driven to sorting facilities near freeways and all these trash trucks travel on the same roads I drive on 5 days a week to work. Large lumbering trash trucks not only move slowly upon the freeway clogging up traffic, but also leave a smell in their wake with the added 'benefit' of spreading bits of refuse along the way. You'd think LA residents were trash mongers with all of the things you see along the side of the road, but I think a good portion of it is from trash trucks.

There is a single point along the freeway that's between Franklin Heights and Los Feliz that distinctly smells like dog shit. I had the displeasure to find this out one day when it wasn't neither so hot that I had to engage my a/c unit on my car immediately nor so cold that I needed to have the heater on. Oh my God, what is that stench??? You're thinking to yourself if not yelling out loud in the car out of sheer disgust and maybe even checking the bottom of your shoes to make sure you didn't step in something. As I grew up, my parent ran a kennel, so I know the smell of dog dookie. I'm not happy about it, but I do.

Cats poo has never stank like a steaming pile of dog shit. I don't care if you are a card carrying member of a dog owners association and even if your AKC with papers blue blood K-9 has got trophy's and ribbons... dog shit is dog shit and dog shit smells. I wish Los Angeles had a smell patrol to get rid of that hellish stench that wafts into my car every time I pass by that area. PHEW!

Read: 3357+ Yelp! Reviews say Los Angeles smells

A change in the tide?

Read: Administration ponders ownership stakes in banks

I read the news today, oh boy. It said the government was thinking about taking stakes in banking institutions instead of buying bad loans out of securitizations with that $700 billion rescue package approved by the house and senate last week. I'm getting sick feeling in my stomach just writing that sentence. It's enough to get the bad debt out of the system, but you do not throw good money after bad money.

It's like going to Las Vegas and sitting at the Craps table and you still are losing but now you own a leg of the table you're sitting by. It doesn't make much sense to me at all.

If you give banks money to lend do you think they are going to lend it immediately? Or are they going to sit on it for awhile to gain some free interest courtesy of the US government and "figure out" what to do next.

Now I'm just shaking my head in sorrow for this country. Someone please give President Bush a kick in the nads or the flu, something for him to stop this insanity. Give him another bag of pretzels, please! It's not going to get better overnight. It's not going to get any better in a week. And it's not going to get better by the time you leave office, fool. It's going to be about two years in to the next president's tenure before people really stop hurting and, yes, it's sad, but you've just gotta sit and wait it out, Bush. You cannot fix your screw-ups now. Just sit tight and say goodbye in February.

Me? I'm creating a plan for myself to get out of my interest only loan and change industries if it's the last thing I do.

Socialized banking?

Associated Press again hit a nerve with me today when it announced the following:

"The Fed said it is creating a new entity to buy three-month unsecured and asset-backed commercial paper directly from eligible companies. It hopes to have the program up and running soon, Fed officials said.

Fed officials said they'll buy as much of the [short term] debt as necessary to get the market functioning again. They refused to say how much that might be, but they noted that around $1.3 trillion worth of commercial paper would qualify."

See: Fed to buy massive amounts of short-term debt

This makes me mad. The federal government can float businesses buy buying their short-term debt, but they cannot seem to figure out a way to keep the American work force healthy by providing universal health care?

The federal government can complain in hind sight about the mortgage company's that went under because they did not maintain enough capital to cover their outstanding debt, but yet they will cater to the other businesses like manufacturing? Grrr.

Oh, the agony of defeat

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim lost to the Boston Red Sox last night. I'm sad, but not crushed. There were some real stupid calls and little league antics on the field during the playoffs this year.

Joke: How many Angels does it take to catch a pop fly to center field? More than three because neither of them called it and the ball dropped to the ground. During a playoff game. Ouch.

I can honestly say kudos to the fellas of the Angels that were able to take advantage of the weak third baseman of the Red Soxs team that were hitting grounders between shortstop and third. I loved that. The third base man ate more dirt trying to get to the ball than the guys who were attempting to steal bases.

I love to watch Guerrero hit. It's like poetry in motion. And I loved watching Weaver close out the game. They need more pitchers like him on that team.

Better luck next year.

Hell on Earth? Almost.

It took me three and a half hours to get home from work on a Friday night. And it wasn't even a three day holiday weekend either. That is obscene. It was as if every stupid slow driving mofo was on the freeway infront of me.

It also didn't help that I started drinking a Welch's Strawberry soda at the time I left work so that by the time I went through the east LA interchange, I had to take a piss. And when you gotta pee, you gotta pee, so I had to then get off of the freeway to do so.

The Indiana Avenue exit off of the 5 freeway traveling south doesn't dump you into the nicest part of town, let me tell you. Before I even got to turn right, there was a cop car sitting on the corner. At the corner of Indiana and Olympic, I found paramedics and firemen were eatting at a mexican restaurant. I thought if I have to take a piss anywhere in East Los Angeles, atleast I'd be safe there. I pulled into the parking lot at the back of the restaurant and there was barely no one parked there, but when I went inside looking for the restrooms, most people were either at the counter or eatting already. LA's finest were seated waiting for their food. One got up and tip his forehead toward me. Thanks, guy, but I needed to take a piss---bad. Now where are those restrooms??

I went back to my car and found a steel security door with an 'add a quarter' access lock and recognized that this must be the toilet. I put my coin into the slot and turned the handle and this idiot woman yelled at me - she did not even lock the door behind her after she went into the can, Jesus lady, I'm sorry, I'm sorry - hurry up, I gotta pee.

About 2 minutes later she emerges with the roll of brown generic one-ply toilet paper in her right hand waving it around in the air and said, "I gotta return this to the front counter because I don't want to be held responsible for loosing it by giving it to you." I don't care, get out of my way. I had paper in my purse which I took into that graffitied shrine of a toilet, I didn't care.

Two minutes later for me and I was back on my way home.

Thumbs up!

Thumbs up to "My Name is Earl" for using two ELO songs and one Heart song in the two episodes that aired last night.

Evil Woman
I'm Alive
Barracuda

The highly infectious big toe scenario was hilarious.

Oh the horror!

On the America's Got Talent finale show which was on Wednesday, I witnessed a throughly mutilated version of Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now". Sung by the people who were previously voted off of the show.

Oh the horror.

The Three Legs

The Three Legs...

...of underwriting
1)Credit
2)Character
3)Collateral

...of fraud
1)Incentive or pressure
2)Rationalization or attitude
3)Opportunity

...financial oversight
1)Audit Committee
2)Management
3)External audit firm

...retirement income
1)Savings
2)Pensions
3)Social Security

...of my daily commute to Simi Valley
1)Traveling north on the 5, my home to the 605
2)605 to 134
3)134 onto the 118 to Simi Valley

What does this mean?

I knew by about 9:00 AM that Friday was going to be one of those stinky poo kinda days. I had a snide comment said to me in Spanish by one of my charges and it pissed me off. I emailed the client and my boss to let them know I was upset about it. Then I emailed my boyfriend.

He has to deal with management issues just like I do, but is able to handle them differently because he actually *is* the boss of the worksite, while I am an oversite manager employed by a third party contractor. He said I'm sorry you're having a bad day. Later, he emailed me a photo of a vet with his head stuck up the ass end of an elephant. I looked at the photo and related to it. Me working with someone elses crap that no one else wants to or knows how to deal with.

He called me later in the day to remind me he had to go to some function for work (that he did not invite me to, but I did get invited to go to the one in San Diego in February, so that is cool.) but made it a point to tell me specifically where he'd be. What does that mean? Doe he want me to dress up and meet him there, in essence crash his party? Or is he just telling me this because he wants me to be able to pick him up later if he needs a way to escape? I don't know. I do know, however, that he's already tired from the long ass hours he's put in this week. He said he would call me when he got home from the party, but I wasn't counting on it because when we are tired, we sleep and we ain't thinking about calling or talking to anyone. Sleep, baby sleep.

Smelly... dog

I think the groomer that Robert uses for his dog sucks ass. She makes his Maltese look like a small fluffy bathroom rug instead of a well groomed animal. After a week or more, the fur around his eyes turns brownish because it's too long and all going into his eyes. I hate that. It's a wonder why he's freaking out all the time. He probably can't see shit. New groomer, please...

Happy Snoopy Dance

I got an email from my friend in England today about how it's time to order the box set from The Move. WOOHOO!

Picture me doing the happy snoopy dance in my office cubicle!

A Gruesome Reminder

I read in the Orange County Register today a blog that was posted yesterday which listed many of the subprime mortgage companies that no longer exist or are barely hanging on by a thread.

See: Subprime's Dearly Departed

...and these are just the most recent casualities.

It's a gruesome reminder to me of over 30 companies where opportunities for employment in Orange County no longer exist and that's why I drive to Simi Valley every single day now.

Blogging

Blogging is a beautiful thing. It helps me get things off my mind quicker than trying to find someone that can carry on an intelligent conversation without having to impede on their valuable working hours.

Blogging also can be a burden when you are commuting for a minimum of three hours a day and you get a brilliant idea for a blog and can't remember it when you get to your destination. Now, I think I have solved that issue by putting a notepad and pen back into my car so that I can jot these ideas down and blog with them later.