Life's Little Surprises

Life has a tendency to spring a few surprises along the way. Too bad they aren't always good ones.

If you know me then you most likely know that my marriage is not a happy one. My wife and I have developed opposing viewpoints regarding several issues, some of which I consider core issues key to any relationship especially a marriage. We've drifted apart and I'm now at the point where the only reason I stay is because I can not yet afford to leave, but that day is coming.

Over the past few years I have become emotionally involved with someone else. We are separated by many miles but talked nearly every day, sometimes for hours but because of the distance we got to share only the occasional visit with each other. We have much in common, both in personality traits and involvement in unhappy marriages. Judge all you want but she made me happy and made me feel loved, appreciated and wanted and I feel no guilt or shame for allowing myself that feeling. Nor do I feel any guilt or shame for loving her. Talking with her always brought a smile to my face and was always the brightest part of my day. When the day came that I could leave my marriage and cut all ties, she was who I wanted to be with.

That's over now, courtesy of surprise number one. She felt it was in her best interest to walk away so that she could get on with her life. I never saw it coming and that's made it even harder to deal with. I understand and don't hold it against her but it still sucks. There's a huge hole in my life and I feel very empty right now. C'est la vie.

Two weeks later along comes surprise number two. My boss shows up at work Saturday right around closing time, she tells me she can't afford to pay me anymore and asks for my keys and parking permit. No notice, no discussion, no alternatives, just an instant statistic. I'm not really all that marketable, have no higher education or degrees and in this shit economy finding another job is going to be really tough.

I'd managed to scrape together a little nest egg for when I was able to leave, but after replacing my dead laptop a little while back and taking a vacation I'd put a pretty big dent in it and this will probably finish it off. I guess I'll just have to start all over again.

That's two shitty surprises in a row neither of which I saw coming. I'm really hoping there's not a third. Looking back, I see there were clues along the way but I either missed them all at the time or just completely underestimated their relevance. Maybe I'm just not as smart as I thought I was... So there's my current happy place.

Third and Final "F You!!" To HP

I should have known better, but I went ahead and did it anyway. Duh me. Notice how that sounds just like dummy? There's a reason for that. Despite my previous experience with an HP PC I went and bought an HP laptop, specifically a dv6000. They really do have good prices and I hoped my previous experience with their product was the exception rather than the rule. No such luck.

I hadn't had it long when it just shut down and wouldn't restart. So I call HP and they send a box in which I am to pack the brand new paperweight and send it back to them for repair. They had shipped a whole shitload of them out with a bad BIOS and rather then recall them all, fix them and put them back out they chose to let people buy them and use them until they crashed then force them to have to deal with the whole "wait for a box, wait for shipping, wait for repair, wait for shipping again" ordeal while being left with no computer. Assholes.

So after about a week with no computer I get it back, all "fixed" and ready to go. I'll give them credit for their warranty repair service. It's quick and painless. As it turns out it's also incompetent. When I got it back I found that I could no longer connect it to my television to view photos, videos, etc... They had managed to break it while fixing it, and we certainly can't expect them to actually test something before they send it out because that's just unreasonable! They wanted me to send it back again but I needed it for work and given how little I used the ability to connect it to a television or monitor I decided to just do without it.

Now here it is, about 16 months after I got the laptop and it's completely dead, again. So I take it to a computer tech to see what's going on with the paperweight now. This time it's the motherboard, and replacing it would cost almost as much as I paid for the laptop. The tech tells me that particular model is notorious for that problem, they used defective motherboards which couldn't handle the heat from the processor they used, one better suited to a PC than  a laptop because it runs so hot. He then pointed to a stack of them on the floor, all with the same issue, and recommends calling HP to see if they will repair it since it is a known defect with their product.

I go home and call them to no avail, they refuse to fix it because it's just out of warranty, regardless of the fact that it's a known defect. I am done with HP, from my personal experience they offer only inferior quality products, clueless customer service, incompetent repair service which breaks one thing when fixing another and they will not stand behind their product. The price point may be good but in this case you really do get what you pay for.

Now I've got a widescreen Sony VAIO with Blu-ray and I'm loving it.

It's Spring

It's now officially Spring. Not just because of the calendar date but because I've seen my own official harbingers of Spring. Robins are everywhere, there's a bunch of them hopping around in my yard right now eating whatever it is they're finding to eat.

The other sure sign is the red haze everywhere I look, it's the Red Maples (Acer rubrum) flowering. They're everywhere here, all along the sides of the road and a prominent species in woodlands. Did you just learn something new? Most people don't realize that maple trees flower, but they do. Professor Jeff is in the house!

So that's it, I've really nothing else to say. It's been a while since I put anything here so I felt obligated in some strange way to type something.

Finally, Some Snow!

For the first time this winter the weather reports were right and we got snow! We got ice on top of it of course but we got snow, enough to be too heavy to shovel so I finally got to break out the snow blower. I've had it for 3 winters now and it's barely snowed since I got it.

I was so happy to be able to use it that I didn't just clear the sidewalk in front of the house, I cleared the walk brick walkway from the street out front all the way to the alley behind my property. Then I kept going past the end of my sidewalk and cleared the walk in front of the house next to me and the house next to it, then the house on the other side of me too! I''m such a nice neighbor. Yeah yeah yeah.. I know... boys and their toys. I can almost hear the women now, just hush!   :P

Speaking of women, I received an e-mail containing a quote about them. I thought it was pretty funny myself, it was "No woman will ever be truly satisfied, because no man will ever have a chocolate penis which ejaculates money."

Nothing Exciting To Report

Our new President is now in office, all the hooplah is over so maybe now he/we can concentrate on getting some necessary work done. There's a lot to be accomplished, I sure hope he lives up to the hype. Enough said there.

Remember that whole "get off my lazy ass and get motivated" thing I mentioned last time? It hasn't happened yet, lol. Surprise!! I'm just not feeling it.

I haven't been a total useless lump though. I have managed to get down to the basement to clean off the weights and exercise equipment. I've even used them a few times. In fact, I'm going to do it again tonight as soon as I finish typing this, watching some tv, drinking a beer and eating some popcorn. Priorities dammit! We'll see how long I can keep it up (the exercise you pervs). I'm also trying to modify my diet so it's a little better for me, even stooping to eating rabbit food a couple times a week. Somewhere out there better be some very grateful cows and pigs.

Aside from the above I've not a damned thing except go to a birthday party for a 2 year old at Dave and Buster's and a 50th birthday surprise party. Two trips to Philly in the same month, yay me. That's it for the latest installment of My Uneventful Life.

Another Year Here And Gone

2008 is out of here and I don't think too many people are going to miss it. The general consensus among most of the people I know is "Good riddance".

My New Year's Eve was a quiet one. We had dinner with a couple friends at their house, played some Phase 10 (a very annoying card game), snacked on junk food and dessert then had a glass of champagne as we watched the ball drop. Things sure do get different as you get older. I used to never remember New Year's Eve because an entire night of various overindulgences made it impossible to remember, now they're forgotten for lack of anything worth remembering. I guess I can always blame it on old age.

So now it's another year, back to the same old same old. I'm skipping the whole resolution thing. I was never good for doing things on a schedule anyway, I have better luck doing them when I feel the time or circumstances are right for whatever it is I'm trying to accomplish. There are a few things I'd like to get done this year but we'll just have to see how things go. Some of them just need me to get off my lazy ass and get motivated, others are a bit more dependent on other factors. I didn't get much of anything accomplished last year, I suppose I should try to make up for that this year and do something constructive with my free time. I'll let you know how that goes

'Tis The Season....