Dinner with friends

Dec 28, 2004 by Lyanna

Yesterday evening was good.

We had L. and Jo-Jo over, and Vincent, for a dinner at our place. When I got home L. and Jo-Jo were already there and Jo-Jo and The Man had climbed on the roof to see what the current situation was. When we were at The Man’s sister during Christmas, Brian had given us a big roll of bitumen he still had left from when his roof was done, and that was more than enough to cover the parts of my roof that hadn’t been fixed yet. We’d wanted a friend of Brian’s to come and do the repairs, but yesterday we hadn’t had word yet that he would be able to, and Jo-Jo and The Man thought they could go up and see if they could fix things themselves.

So they progressed quite far in making the roof dirt and ice free and at least were able to roll out the bitumen all over the damaged parts. In places old bitumen was sticking up and moss was growing freely everywhere, so Jo-Jo didn’t think it strange we had some leaking in places.

They would proceed to weld the bitumen onto the roof today, but today of all days it is snowing! Argh. We so rarely have snow … the weathergods must be playing a cruel trick on us or something. At least they are up there now to make it more secure temporarily, cause this afternoon we have a viewing again and it just won’t do to have water dripping down the ceiling right?

In any case, the rest of the evening was spent in mutual munching and watching Pirates of the Caribbean on DVD. As always, Johnny Depp was hilarious. That guy always brings a smile on my face …

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Screech

Dec 27, 2004 by Lyanna

So this morning I get in my car while it was still dark (after having spent like 10 minutes trying to pry both cardoors open cause they were frozen shut against the convertible top which is made from canvas argh), drive over to work, then realize that since I’ve forgotten my purse at The Man’s sister on Christmas day – well duh isn’t that typically me – I don’t have an entrance pass to the car park below the building where I work.

No sweat really, there is a carpark outside as well which doesn’t need a pass.

So, I wait at the stoplight, take a left turn, take a right turn, and then proceed to drive up the entrance way to said carpark.

It’s dark, remember? And, I don’t park there regularly. Last time I parked there, it was during the extra hours I put in to pull off an extensive upgrade. And then everything was fine.

So, I proceed to drive up the entrance way, and before I know it I feel the car bump up on something, then roll over something – I have time to think: WTF, did I miscalculate the curve or something? – and then the car comes to a screeching halt. Really, that screeching sound made my hair stand on end. What the hell?

I get out of the car, and see that my car is suspended on a ridge the county apparently installed in between the time I left last week cause I was sick and now. They freaking rearranged the parking lot without bothering to put up a sign that the entrance to the parking lot is no longer an entrance, but three new parking spaces separated from the main parkinglot with this concrete ridge. Wel fuck of all fucks! I was lucky I didn’t bust my two front tires, nor that I apparently didn’t damage anything beyond control to the underside of my car.

I had no choice but to very carefully accelerate again and nudge the car over the ridge. More screeching ensued, and then I was finally free of the ridge. I didn’t see any oil leaking, nor do I think I ripped the underside to shreds but then again, jeez doodly fuck, I could have completely ruined my car cause the county was stupid enough to think that pple who are used to parking there will see a newly built concrete ridge in the dark without a sign telling them it is there. ~rolls eyes~

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N00b Irritations

Dec 27, 2004 by Lyanna

There’s this guy on DM that is annoying the crap out of me.

I’ve got MSN on “Away” and still he pokes me every time I am on. I don’t know the guy … so I don’t know what he wants with me but gggg … that “Away” notification is not there for nothing. I don’t mind talking to people, don’t get me wrong, but when I am working on something I want to be the one in control over whom I am talking to. It’s a common sense of (n)etiquette.

I wouldn’t probably be so bothered if he didn’t ask me all kinds of newbie questions on webdesign. Gah, I sound like a snob. Let me explain. I don’t mind teaching newbies things, at all. I do it all the time at school. But those newbies often know not to get involved in things that are way out of their league. I mean, this guy has a rudimentary knowledge of HTML and then proceeds to want to learn how to install the Xoops CMS I’ve installed for the Green Ajah site. I think: way over your head pal, but I give him the location of the tarball anyway which he can download. He then comes back to me asking me what a tarball is. And why he can’t unzip it with WinZip. Ehh. Yeah.

So I explain he needs something else to open it with. Then he comes back to me asking me with what program he can open .tpl and .php files. So I am like: why would you want to? All you have to do is upload the files to your domain, make them writeable and run the install script. He then proceeds to tell me he doesn’t have his own domain nor his own MySQL database! I sit there, staring at the screen incredulously. RTFM anyone?

This morning, I take a random peek at the DMPSW boards and see a question by one of the members on the bugboard. Which was answered by this same guy. He’s not the techadmin for the site. He doesn’t know jack shit about phpBB or how we’ve set up the boards. And yet he answers her as if he knows everything. If the answer he gave her was right, I wouldn’t have minded as much, but what he told her was utter bullcrap. So I told him – gently – that it would be best if he left the bugboard to the techadmins cause taking wild guesses generally doesn’t help and will only confuse things. I hope he takes the hint, cause frankly my patience is running out fast and I might be inclined to give him a public earful next time. Grr.

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Dripping X-mas

Dec 25, 2004 by Lyanna

Well, this certainly is the weirdest way to wake up on a Christmas morning: on two mattresses under the Christmas tree in the downstair’s livingroom!

We had a great night yesterday, for a change the entire Christmas meal had worked out, nothing was burned, and everything was perfect. We’d lit candles everywhere, afterwards we watched Shrek and Le Cirque du Soleil on tv, and then The Man went upstairs and found …

That the roof had started to leak again! This time in a different place. On three places water was dripping down the ceiling (and unto the bed of course). We didn’t have any bitumen left so The Man climbed up on the roof to secure it as best as he could with plastic and fastened it with rooftiles. It didn’t work completely though. The leaking slowed, but didn’t stop, so in the end we had to haul the mattresses downstairs and slept there. I cried my eyes out, really … I mean, I had hoped that with The Man fixing the roof I’d not have to hire professional services. But now it seems we really will have no choice. There goes the money I’d saved up again *sigh*. Somehow it never seems to end …

We’ll ask The Man’s brother in law though, maybe he’ll know of a cheaper way to go about this. He’s got connections

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*Hums a Christmas tune*

Dec 24, 2004 by Lyanna

~jinglebells jinglebells …~ I just sent 30-odd virtual christmas cards

I’m not really the person to send christmas cards. Real ones that is. I always tell myself that I will, but in the end I’ve got two days before christmas left and then I give up on the notion. Maybe it is because I (and with me almost my entire generation and every generation below that) lives in the virtual world? I never send out snail mail, I do everything through email.

It always makes me feel terribly guilty for not sending cards the “oldfashioned” way though. My entire family does it. And somehow I feel frowned upon for doing it differently. But hey, to hell with it! Virtual is the way to go

The Man and I faced the Christmas shopping throng today and went out to get our christmas dinner. Steak for him and me, baby pees and carrots, and broccoli, a nice pepper-sauce for on the steak and we’ve got melon and ham as a starter. Yay! There are candles everywhere, and I feel a little better than this morning when I suffered dizzy spells and such. I am still a little under the weather.

In any case, the next days I’ll probably be absent, since we are visiting family during both Christmas days. So here goes ~raises toast~

A Merry Christmas to you all!

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