If anyone wonders where I’m at for at least the next 24 hours, here’s your answer. I know that my stepfather over in Alien-land is doing the same thing as I am. I’ve usually been waiting until the books come in a set and getting them off of Zooba.com, but I really couldn’t wait until this one came out to be that cheap.

And, yes, I’m just enough of a super-geek to be working on a Dresden filk, as well.

Blah, blah, blah… whine, whine, whine… bitch, bitch, bitch.

Ok, I’ve got that out of my system now. I just actually read through my front page, and realized that I completely suck. Outside of the whole Moleskine thing, which I’m doing everything in my power not to purchase 12 of them at once.

Let’s sum up, shall we?

1. BabyDaddy is still out of work. And that’s a post in and of itself for another time.
2. I’ve started writing again. Well, I’ve started opening up my doc files and writing a couple paragraphs.
3. I’m trying to get off my ass and actually plan (I know, fucking scary) out things for my contributions to the Apocalypse Rising track at Dragoncon.
4. I’m also planning on going to TimeGate, since it is just up the road from me, literally. Google Maps says it’s about 7 miles away, so I’m having a hard time justifying the cost of a hotel room. But it’s a con… I feel the need to have a hotel room.
5. The PTA ladies really scare me. Again, another full post for another time that I can think outside of an ordered list.
6. My birthday back on the 18th was good but completely un-blog-worthy. I’m officially old now.
7. Work is trying to kill me, by handing me way too much to do and I’m still a damned contractor.
8. I’m working on another design for this blog, but #7 is keeping me from finishing it.

I’m trying to get up the funds and time to be able to head down to the Island sometime at the end of April or beginning of May, but we’ll see.

Remind me again why the hell I moved to Atlanta?

Cabbagetown, originally uploaded by Lance McCord.

Nope, that’s not some war-torn third world country, that’s Cabbagetown in Downtown Atlanta, taken last night after a tornado tore through there. Cabbagetown seems to be hit the worse, partially because it was the main residential area to be hit (The Dome/CNN Center got hit hard as well - during a basketball game at the Dome).

Up here in Buckhead got some tree debris thrown around, but nothing other than that, thankfully. I feel for the people in Cabbagetown, especially from the old Cotton Mill lofts down there who had entire floors collapsing on them. My thoughts are with them.

This is the first year that I have to get an emissions test on the Equinox, and man, the day I’ve had…

Yes, I’m the slacker that waited until the week prior to my birthday to remember that I needed an emissions test, but I didn’t know that it would take me going to four different emissions stations to be able to finally have the certificate saying that I passed. See, there’s this software update for particular cars (while that article only talks about the Prius problems, this effects my ‘05 Equinox and some new Explorers as well) that won’t be issued by the state to all of the emissions testing facilities until June or July of this year. I went to three places before breaking down and calling the Clean Air Force Commission and asking if they had any facility in my general area that would be able to take my car, and found a place off of Cheshire Bridge Road (Precision Tune Autocare, if you’re interested) that they said could handle it. I call them up and they said that they could give it a try, though they didn’t think that they had this software update yet. I get there, and the place is great to me. The woman behind the counter wouldn’t enter me into the system until the tech hooked up my car, and the tech himself was wonderful, explaining the software update, and letting me know before he began the test that if his system couldn’t handle it, the other Precision Tune up on Buford Hwy usually could handle the cars that they couldn’t.

Thank Gawd, it worked… though it wasn’t because of the computer, it’s because he did the Two Speed Idle Emission Test instead, which got me a certificate and got me out the door without wanting to kill someone.

So, my tags should be good to go, not for the State of Georgia in their infinite wisdom  not making sure that their software be readily available for these 2005 vehicles which are screwed until that update comes out.

I seem to only be able to post here when Elizabeth’s sick lately, and I’m not sure why.

The Flu has invaded Elizabeth’s Kindergarten class, and she’s been out of school since Monday afternoon when we were asked to come and get her. When I spoke to the lady in the office, she said that there were already 6 other kids out in just Elizabeth’s class that day.

What sucks about this whole thing was that yesterday was her class’s field trip to go and see Seussical that Musical, which Elizabeth’s been so excited about. Instead of going to see that, though, she got to sit in the waiting room for the doctor. And today is their Smart Start program finale, which she’s missing as well.

She is getting better, though if you ask her, she’s not and will never feel better again. Of course, she’s my child, so Drama Queen is a little easy to fall into. She’ll probably be going to school tomorrow, and then have Friday off for a teacher workday, a birthday party for a friend’s 5-year-old on Saturday, and lastly a party for BabyDaddy and I on Sunday at my grandmother’s house for our upcoming birthdays.

At least she got sick at the beginning of the week than the end of the week.

The Bad - Elizabeth is home from school today because she woke up in the middle of the night with some stomach bug, which is currently wreaking havoc on her system.

The Good - BabyDaddy gets to stay home with her and I get to go to work, missing out on all the puke-tastic fun.

The Good - I got my delicious Green LG enV yesterday.

The Bad - I went to call Elizabeth’s school to let them know that she wasn’t going to be in today, and had to deal with Verizon tech support because it wouldn’t let me call out this morning.

The Mildly Irritating - The enV doesn’t have a place for a phone charm to hang, which means I can’t have my Tardis charm on my phone any longer.

The Bad - I opened up my ticket queue this morning after getting to work to see in excess of 20+ tickets assigned to myself, and under 10 assigned to the other webmaster.

The Good - With the overtime moratorium, they’ll get their fixes when they get their fixes, and I really can’t care.

The Bad - The rental house that I fell in love with (again) is off the market, again.

The Good - We’re going to sign a new lease on Monday for Current House, which while mildly irritating in some respects, means at least we’ll have a roof over our heads.

The Bad - I didn’t win the Mega Millions Lottery

The Good - I did win $7 from my ticket, and it rolled, so maybe next time.

How’s this week been treating y’all?

I was off of work on Friday because they’ve laid a moratorium on overtime at Big Ol’ Company, so while I was doing the dishes that have been glaring at me over the week, I saw that BabyDaddy got dropped off from being in NC all week.

Him getting dropped off from the work truck isn’t the best news, I’ve come to realize, because he got laid off.

All of their field guys got laid off, as the company that bankrolled his fledgling company hasn’t paid them in months, and owes the company somewhere in the vicinity of $600,000. BabyDaddy’s boss decided that until they get that money, or they get more money in some other way, the best thing to do would be to lay all the field guys off so they can at least receive unemployment until they either get back on their feet or get another gig somewhere else.

To say that I’m slipping just a little more into a depressive state would be an understatement. The last week hasn’t been the easiest for me, watching the two places that I wanted to rent to get out of this house go off the market, the whole toilet tank cracking a couple weeks back, and my own exhaustion with my Contract-That-Never-Ends at Big Ol’ Company have already slipped me down to my original “Atlanta Sucks” frame of mind, not to mention the fact that it’s so horribly cold up here I question the idea of moving up here two years ago as something that actually improved my life.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all bad up here. I love Elizabeth’s school with a passion bordering on obsessive, which I know from seeing and experiencing school down in Camden County as something I would have never felt down there, and there is always another gig for either BabyDaddy or I to pick up up here, where it would be questionable down there, but I’m tired. I’m tired of things starting to look up, and all of a sudden something smacks me back down to remind me that I will probably never truly feel stable again. We live right at the edge of Buckhead, which makes me always a little hyper-aware of the Haves and the Have-Nots, and I’m sick of being on the Have-Nots side more often than not.

The lottery rolled last night, which makes me happy though, as I forgot to buy tickets. Who knows, maybe I can end up directly on the Haves side of the fence.

I futzed around yesterday, trying to recover my archives, and while I think I might still have my old MT entries somewhere on the old laptop, I think everything since I made the switch to Wordpress (whenever that was, because I can’t really look it up right now, can I?) is gone. Or at least, not bloody well accessible to me. I keep getting a 500 error every time I try and access any of my old WP files.

Any of y’all WP gurus want to lend a hand to a poor, unfortunate soul?

So yeah… there’s been a problem the last few days with the blog, which has so far made me completely re-load Wordpress.

Let’s see if I can get any of my archives back.