Sun Moon Stars Girl

Stupidity with EZ-Pass

I was reading a car forum the other day, specifically a thread talking about stolen cars, in an effort to help find them. Well, one person noted that their car was "still out there" and listed several times when the *clever* thief had used the owner's EZ-Pass module on the Garden State Parkway. I wasn't able to read the rest of the thread, but I do hope they were able to use this information to help relocate their stolen car.

This whole thing left me wondering two things:
1) The Big Brother issue of EZ-Pass - well, the police *could* use the records to give speeding tickets out, but the logistics and legalities of this are questionable. On the other hand, can authorities use this information for crime reduction? To help place a vehicle somewhere at a certain time, and to help locate stolen cars?

And, more importantly -
2) How stupid are you if you steal someone's car and still use their EZ-Pass??? Maybe they didn't realize it was in the car, but by my observations the module usually needs to be placed in a pretty prominant location for daily use, as I'm sure the owner of the car had done. Maybe they didn't want to pay the tolls, and figured, hell, it's someone else's bill. Or maybe they did it to taunt the person they'd stolen the car from.

In any case, all I have to say in conclusion is this: If the EZ-Pass info can be used to locate a stolen car, what kind of stupid person would actually continue to use the module? It's much like the fairly obvious drug deals made by Kris's apartment, where the people aren't so much "sneaky" as "trying to be sneaky." They must not have gone to their "looking like you are supposed to be there" classes in criminal school, but that whole thing is a discussion for another day. )-(

No more fishy...

Sad news: My fish, Lucky, died last night. It was a female round-tailed Betta, or Siamese Fighting Fish, very similar in shape and color to the one in this photo (red and blue). I realize I've never taken a picture of any of my fish. I kinda wish I had, but this picture was at least pretty close.

She lived a pretty long life - a year and a half, which is longer than any of my other Bettas lived. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that I cleaned her bowl less than the others, and didn't have to move her around a lot - back and forth from school to NJ and the like.

But I also knew that she wasn't well - she didn't seem like she was in full control of her swimming ability, and she couldn't get to her food easily - more recently. And although I'm sad that my little fishy has passed on, it happened at a good time. I don't have to worry about moving her to CA, or trying to give her away, or even flushing her down the toilet before her time was up. One less thing to have to worry about before we move. I'm sure we'll get another fish, or another group of fish, or perhaps even another pet, when we get to California. And I'm excited about that.

New Apartment!

I'm so excited! I got a call and an email today from the housing department at UC Irvine.

One of the reasons I accepted my offer from UCI was the guaranteed on-campus graduate housing slot that was included. After a lot of confusion on my part, I finally got all the necessary paperwork and fees taken care of. I was still really scared we wouldn't get the place we wanted, so I spoke with a housing coordinator last week. I didn't expect to hear back from her so quickly!

So here it is - a representative floor plan of our apartment...or should I say, townhouse! Yeah, it's small, but it's a great deal, and it's still a lot bigger than the apartment I have now. I think it will be perfect for me and Kris. : )

I'm excited, but now I'm also a *bit* more stressed about packing and moving. At least I'm relieved knowing what our new address will be (yes, already!), and the size of the space we will have. This helps with other things I was stressed about - giving the moving company our address, making decisions on pieces of furniture to bring or not bring, just knowing that we will have a place to live once we get to California - ya know, all the little stuff. ; )

Well, I've got to get packing.

Office Visit

Let me just preface - while I did indeed go to the doctor's office today, this entry is not, in fact, about my ills or my actual visit with my doctor. It is instead about the interesting people I have come to encounter in various waiting rooms over the years...

Classics:
The lady on her cell phone at the ob/gyn...telling her husband/boyfriend/parents/siblings/friends that she's pregnant. Loudly.
The screaming baby - or screaming/running around/out of control small child.
The people who stare at you - because they don't want to read any of the magazines, are bored, or who are just generally rude. Extra points if it's the guy with the lazy eye.

The two that I ran across today - both of the "older" generation. I'm gonna say it - geriatric. The first was a man, into the office with his wife. He was altogether too chatty with the receptionist - who had to go along with the conversation so she wouldn't seem rude. He seemed to not know what was going on, but he did. There's notes everywhere clearly stating upon check-in you need to present your insurance card and pay your co-payment. The man joked, "Ha, ha, you don't need to see my card (because I don't want to get it out of my pocket for you)." He finally got it out, the girl goes to charge him the $10, and his wife pipes up, "Oh, it's $15, that's an old card." Why are you still carrying an the old card with you? And why pay more if you didn't have to? I'm sure the insurance company sent a new card already too, or you wouldn't have known it was old!

The other person was a different lady sitting next to me. She's got one of those hardcover special edition Life magazine things, and staring at the cover. While she looks at these little pictures, and jabs them loudly with her finger, as if reconizing old friends in a yearbook. I glanced over, and it looked like the same picture of JFK a bunch of times, but in different colors. But she just kept jabbin' at them, totally distracting me from my reading.

I guess I should also point out that my visit was not to a general office where you would expect a wide variety of people, nor was it to the speciality of psychiatry, where one might expect to see this type of behavior, ie the crazies. Obviously I pick up on what other people are doing, but it's only because they are so loud or rude about it. In general I try to mind my own business by keeping my nose buried in a book or magazine. All I can hope (for myself) is that I fade into the background of other people's waiting room experiences. :p

Parents : )

Happy - Kris and I figured since we're moving together across the country that our parents should probably meet before we leave. I must admit I was a little apprehensive about it - you have to admit that lots of times the "other side of the family" becomes not the in-laws, but instead "out-laws." I was calmed by logically thinking about how much my parents like Kris and how much his parents like me, but still nervous because of the "three friends" thing. The thing where you get along great with two different friends, but they don't get along at all. Yeah, they'll pretend to get along around you, but don't truly like one another. But, again, Kris himself reassured me that he thought they would get along great. And I really didn't have anything to be afraid of.

We took the opprotunity of my parents coming up for the weekend for them to meet. My parents were coming up anyway to do a "furniture swap" of things I needed from NJ, and things I wanted them to take back with them that I can't bring to California. Anyway, we figured with it being more than half-way, hopefully Kris's parents wouldn't mind coming down from Maine. It worked out for Kris's moving plans too - he was able to give them some things to store also.

Anyway, we all met for dinner at Carrabba's Italian Grill. My family and Kris had been there before, so I knew they had great food. I think it worked out really well - everyone had a good time, and I'm so happy they all got to meet. I really hope his parents (and brothers) will be able to make it down to NJ for the going-away party my family is throwing for us. That way we'll be able to say goodbye to them all at the same time.

Last Bunco!

So it was my last night of Bunco. I'm sure the ladies are both sad and happy to see me go. Happy because maybe other people will be able to win now. As I said previously, I win every time I play. I'm lucky, I'm confident, it doesn't matter how it happens, but it does.

I did not fail to go out with a bang. I won "most Buncos," but I also got most wins, and most five-pointers. It was a great night, and I've had a great time with these ladies. I thank them, anyone who knew my story, for the support they might not have known they gave me during a really crusty time in my life - and for companionship during that lonely period as well. Even though I may have been the youngest member of the group, not married, or with children, I still enjoyed attending and participating in the functions they held. I really will miss the Newcomers of Westborough, so if any of you read this, thanks ladies!!!

Got my Trip-tik!

Yes, that about says it all. Sorry, Kris, I had to steal the cool graphic.

Anyway, I got my trip-tiks in the mail today! Woot! I had to do a little extra highlighting and re-arranging of the inserted maps since I realized the order of places we would be visiting was out of order. But all three, yes, three, of them are here. And as cool as ever!

They've got the same old stuff - with some added extras. All the state info now includes cell phone useage laws - something that we didn't even think about or have in 1996, or whenever it was the last time I got a trip-tik was. They include these huge region maps of about 10-12 states each, with the overall trip highlighted in green. I can't wait to piece them together on a wall in California.

By and large the route we plan to take is the ever classic "Mother Road" - Route 66. We plan on making a few stops at theme parks across the great US - wherever our trusty Six Flags Season Passes let us in, and a few other places. We're going to hit a few big cities (Las Vegas anyone?), US landmarks along Rt. 66 (Cadallac Ranch, Midpoint Cafe), as well as National Parks (Grand Canyon), and just a few places the two of us would like to see. Mine is Lake Havasu - a big spring break party area. And there's Palmdale, CA - the location of The Rim of the World Rally - a well-known rally Kris is likely to participate in one day.

I'm very excited about our trip, and I'm trusting Kris to have everything hooked up so that we can blog right from the road! : )
Keep your eyes peeled for updates as the summer rolls along!

Get out your stick and coffee can!

I keep forgetting to ask my mom is she's done this yet. For the last few weekends, I've been up in NH, and I noticed an abundance of gypsy moth caterpillars roaming around. I have unpleasent childhood memories of these gross fuzzy things all over everything.

I remember the gypsy moth outbreak causing a lot of the vegetation in our area to die, and it being so bad that they had to spray to control the population.

I also remember my mom "doing her part," and enlisting anyone she could to help her out. The deal was to get a stick and a coffee can. For the moths, if you saw them, squash them. If you saw an egg sac, or a cocooned caterpillar, squash it and scrap into coffee can. The grossest part was the caterpillar elimination. Once again you'd get a stick, then find yourself a caterpillar, and poke it through with the stick. Make sure you see the bright yellow-green guts squeeze out! I'm nauseous just thinking about it.

At the end of the summer said coffee can would be thrown away. We haven't had a big outbreak recently, so I haven't come home to the fuzzy black bodies oozing green, or the dreaded coffee can. I can only hope they haven't started swarming, or I know the next time I visit the coffee can and stick will be around. Ew!

The lady upstairs

When Kris spent some extra time at my place during the week he complained a great deal about the woman who lives upstairs from me. Apparently she was making a great deal of noise that bothered him. Since it wasn't happening until around 10 AM, I told him there wasn't anything I could do about it interrupting his sleep.

But this morning it happened to me. As I had to get up early myself anyway, it didn't matter TOO much. But it was still really irritating. Here's her deal: She gets up, immediately puts high heels on, and proceeds to do nothing but walk around her apartment for hours on end. We have hardwood floors, so as you can imagine, this makes an extensive amount of noise. It rudely woke me up, and I still have a headache from the "stomping."

The most important question I have for this woman is not "Don't you have anything better to do (than walk around your apartment in heels?" or even "Could you please finish what you need in one room before you go in another?" Instead, my friends, it is "Did you have to start this at 5:30 AM???" I banged loudly on my ceiling. Hopefully this is not a proceedure I will have to repeat.

People!

Yup, had another night of kickboxing. It's good and bad at the same time because only five people are signed up for the class now (probably because it's summer, and for some reason the program wasn't listed in the recreation brochure like it usually is), and only two of us come on Thursday nights. Usually.

Tonight's class held a suprise visit by these teenage girls who come once in a blue moon. Maybe once in a moon. Anyway, it would be cool if they were serious about the class. But they're not. They are normal teenagers, and instead of paying attention to what the instructor is doing, they're talking and doing their own thing.

I don't mind the extra people, but I would just prefer if they wouldn't talk as much, and occasionally "counted along" like we are supposed to. At least they're not causing me to have seizures.

Hot and...

Ugh...

I had grandiose plans for getting a ton of stuff sorted through and packed this afternoon. Usually I get home from work with similar grandiose-style plans, and end up getting *most* of what I wanted to accomplished. No such trying today. I got home, and I swear it is hotter inside my apartment than it is outside. My first action was to wrangle the air conditioner inside my bedroom window, trying a different fit than last year.

So far it seems to be working. I've got the AC on high, the fan blowing the opposite of gently in the opposite direction, and I'm feeling...well, to be honest, I'm still feeling like if I took a shower right now, I'd instantly have to take another one when I got out.

We'll give the AC a little while. After all, it was hotter than Hades in here. In the meantime, I'm going to surf the web, maybe send out some emails. I wanted to watch the telly at 6, but that might be superceeded by an attempt to nap in the "cool."

Ugh....

AAA and the Trip-tik

We went to AAA over the weekend to pick up some maps and tried to get a trip-tik. The office in Manchester was the most convinient one to go to, although it is not *technically* my "local" office. (Note: for reasons of "family membership," my actual local office is in NJ - not convinient at ALL. My more "local" office is either Worcester or Framingham, MA, depending on if I'm at work or home.) First, I knew there would be a huge line because it was Saturday. Second, I thought it would take forever. Well, yes, there was a big line, but no, it didn't take long at all.

The reason it didn't take forever was the female employee we spoke with. Let me just say it: the woman was a total bitch. We are trying to plan a cross-country move and trip. I appologize if this means we need an atlas and maps, books, and whatever else you may have for practically every one of the continental states. This, however, is part of the benefits of my membership. As is requesting a trip-tik.

The trip-tik. Ah. I remember a time when my parents needed a rather simple trip-tik just from NJ to Virginia. It didn't take much time at all; we sat down with the representative, she went over to the "trip-tik map wall," got it all assembled, highlighted our route with construction zones, and possible detours, and handed it to us. As I remember another time when I'd started college, I went in, got my trip-tik for a friend traveling from MA to visit me, and left about 15 minutes later. The trip-tiks are one of AAA's most useful benefits, and one of my favorite. The information they include isn't just "map stuff," but as I mentioned, route delays, and state information, like which states let you take a U-turn, or a right on red. They gave seatbelt laws, and let you know if you needed to pay a toll on any given highway. They also included a handy sheet for recording your trip expenditures, gas mileage, and a folder for your reciepts. Since I hadn't needed one in a few years, I wasn't aware things had changed.

One thing that changed for sure - no prompt service. You have to "place an order" for your trip-tik. This is more convinient because you can do it online, but I could just go to mapquest, mapsonus, or yahoo maps and get maps and written directions instantly. Instead you have to wait like 2 weeks for the trip-tik to come in the mail. Even actually at AAA you have to wait to get it in the mail after you place your order with them. And there is no place to note on the website that "we would like to drive Route 66, and stop at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon." Hopefully I was able to "trick" the website into planning our route by giving them specific cities along Route 66. We'll see what happens when I actually get it in the mail. I hope it still comes with all the extra handy bits I'm expecting.

To finish off my story, driving around later we realized we didn't have a map of Texas, an intergral state in our journey. "Did I not specifically say 'Texas'?" I asked Kris. I knew I had, and we needed the map, so we returned to AAA. Luckily it was still open at 12:30 (I thought they were only open to 12), and there weren't any customers inside. I spoke with the same bitchy lady, tried to be nice, and she *seemed* nice back. I mentioned I was glad they were still there, and open to 1, not 12. She said back that she tells people on the phone they're only open to 12:30 so they can close up early. That, in my book, even if she hadn't had a 'tude with us earlier, made her an instant bitch. I was still polite, but left. I hope we have everything we need so we don't have to go back there again.

Shrek 2

Well, we got in no problem, although I thought the crazy Harry Potter fans were going to trample us on the way in. I also don't know what the deal was with the HUGE line they wouldn't let in to the theater and the one random guy they actually let in early (who coincidentally was dressed up like the fictional HP), but whatever.

The movie itself was SO funny. Kris and I didn't really know what to expect - we hadn't seen any previews. I did learn the basic premise of the movie as I was looking up showtimes. We laughed our asses off. I hope I don't ruin anything for anyone who happens to wander in here, but I want a poster of Sir Justin! (and don't read the next section!)

I think Kris almost choked on his sour Skittles when Shrek and Fiona were in Fiona's childhood bedroom - because it was just like when I first brought him to NJ and my own saran-wrapped bedroom was opened for him to see. That whole scene was so reminiscent of my own life, I think most young girls's lives. That's something I think is hard to do in an animated film.

I really liked how everything was spoofed once again, especially "Ye Olde Navy" and "Farbucks." The new characters were great too - Puss in Boots, with his cute kitty eyes, the Fairy Godmother, the characters at "The Poisoned Apple." Especially great were the Disney things included in the film, although most of the actual stories are originally by the Brothers Grimm.

Once again we had a great time. I hope we can get out to the movies more often, since I believe the last time we went was for "The Matrix Revelations."

Moving plans and full weekends

When I started looking at what day would be my last at work, it was only about a week and a half ago. It seemed like I had ages to decide that actual date. Today it seems like I barely have any time to pack my stuff up. I know that's not true. I realize that it's because I have plans for practically every weekend from now until we leave for California. This is the last weekend we get to just hang out, but we'll be working on getting the van mobile, and going to AAA tomorrow morning to get some maps and trip planning stuff. I'm looking forward to going to the movies tonight, although I hope we get in - as it's opening night for the third Harry Potter movie, and only the second weekend for "Shrek 2."

WAY off topic. So I started packing, which feels good. The only bad part is I don't have much "extra" room in my apartment, like I did in the old one (the whole living room I didn't use), and I can only fit so much stuff in my car at once to bring up to Kris's. I also realize the sooner I get stuff packed, the sooner I can get rid of excess stuff, and the sooner I won't have to worry about getting it all packed.

So to empty my brain again, here's the plans for upcoming weekends:
Maine - Kalan's graduation
Parents up form NJ/down from ME, exchange stuff, and meeting - ah!
Jenn and Lauri's party/Big Lap TSD and Rallycross
4th of July weekend - extra day off - fireworks and tanning : )
Six Flags New England (though I'd rather have a "Great Adventure")
move my larger crap to NH
Moving Weekend!
MFPR - Maine Forest Pro (and Club) Rally
Bring large crap to NJ/doctor's appointments/Six Flags Great Adventure
Going away party with the lab - at Cheryl's
Going away party with Kris's friends
Leave for NJ - Great Adventure reprise? Going away party with my family etc.

That's every weekend...you can see we've got a lot to do besides just pack...