Booyah! *fist pump*

I'm officially allowed to drive again, without someone who has a full license in the car with me... Yep that's right I passed my California drivers test *proud grin*, look out California!!!

There was only one minor burlap sack moment when the receptionist asked for my 84 digit appointment confirmation number and said that she could not look it up... and that they did not have a list of appointments for the day... and that I couldn't do my driven test without it. Wait, what?!?!

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!

Luckily the automated system sent me an automated confirmation along with the number, it isn't actually 84 digits, but it's all numbers and pretty long, and is hard to write down when you book it over the phone. I know from experience. 

In retrospect it was probably because most of their computer systems were down, and have been for the last day and a half... but just *say* that, and in that case you might as well just take people that say they have an appointment and sort it out later *sigh*

So how did I do?

I got three points off (out of a max of 15)

1 for not over-exaggerating looking behind me when I backed up while he was writing stuff down...

1 for stopping too close to/over the stop line, I don't think I was too far over but he suggested stopping back a little bit.  I disparage this one a little because it seems to be a habit of people around here to stop with more than a car length of space while they check their phones, which doesn't trip the traffic light sensors properly *sigh*

The last one was something to do with driving in my own lane... which I'm pretty sure I know exactly when that happened as we were driving through a small windy back road and I gave the car on the corner a wide berth because I couldn't see if there was someone getting out of it and not paying attention or not... and because that's how we drive in a small town... and because we're just polite like that in Canada ;)

You can take the girl out of the small town, but there are some small town things you can't take outta the girl ;)

Having waited on edge in anticipation for over half an hour despite having an appointment, and experiencing the full gamut of emotions this morning on not quite enough sleep I. am. exhausted. and thankful this is over, and relieved, and a little proud that it wasn't anywhere near as awful as I had feared it might be... almost anti-climactic even, which I am totally okay with *deep exhale*

Also, I'm pretty sure my lucky Superman underpants helped ;)

I've had better mornings... I've also had worse

*stormcloud scowl*

The dog just puked on the carpet.

I haven't even finished my coffee yet.

I don't know why it always has to be on the carpet, or why she's a double puker... puke, move a little bit and puke again... or why I don't notice that she's puking soon enough to get something under it.

All I know is that it's not a good way to start the day... it probably isn't for her either though, poor puppy dog

Delta Airlines, into the burlap sack with you.

Last weekend, I was leaving somewhere it gets harder to leave every time I go...

We were out for dinner, and I got an automated voicemail and email informing me that my flight had been delayed by half an hour. I figured at very least it would make getting stuck in traffic on the way to the airport less stressful. However upon arrival at the airport I was unable to print off my boarding pass... not awesome, so I talked to some guy at customer service who informed me that my flight had only been delayed 4 minutes and unless I had my own printout, or the mobile boarding pass I couldn't go through security - even though I had checked in the previous evening.

He then waved me in the direction of "Special Services" however I ended up at the automated check in kiosk, waiting for an attendant and scrolling through the flight options while calling my friend to say "You might not be rid of me yet..."

The first option I was looking at was an hour later that evening and had the ambiguous option of "No standby available" and then a "Standby only" button. WTF does that mean?!?!  ...and when the attendant was able to assist me, she looked at me like *I* was the crazy one, as if somehow I had magically gone to some screen she'd never seen in her life.

*raises eyebrows* are you kidding me? What do you mean you don't know?!?

In any case she pointed me in the exact direction of "Special Services" where I got a very helpful lady, who listened carefully, pulled up my details and reacted.  She called the gate, explained that she needed to print me a boarding pass, got off the phone and said "They aren't going to hold the plane for you, but if you can make it through security in time, they'll let you board." as she handed me my boarding pass she said tell them that you need to be expedited at security.

And with that I was running to security.

Somehow, there was a gap in the flow of people... magically they opened a second security line as I was standing there and almost everyone moved into that line, as I was waiting to go through the body scanner the security guard pulled me around through the metal detector effectively bypassing that line... and my things were just coming out the other end of the x-ray vision machine.

All I could think of while I was trying to jam things into my backpack was that I never would have survived the fire in the first story of the hunger games.  My movements were awkward and it took way too long to get my laptop back into my bag...

I ran out of security frantically searching for 51A, and saw 51B... 52... 53? Where the hell did they put 51A?!?! Over the loudspeaker I hear "...this is the final boarding call for passengers VINCENT and SOMEOTHERGUY with service to San Jose" *grrrrr* I spun around back towards security, and there tucked around the corner, nestled in there far enough to be easily overlooked is gate 51A.

I hustle over, hand the lady my boarding pass which she scans disregarding my id completely... and I board the plane.

I don't even mind that I'm sitting next to a slightly inebriated 21 year old.  I'm on the flight I'm supposed to be on. I'm not going to have to call and change my shuttle again.

As the flow of information... sights and sounds slowly returns to normal no longer tightly focused to getting on this plane, I realize that I'm not the last person on this flight, and that we aren't quite leaving yet.

*sigh*

We did finally end up leaving somewhere after the time I had been automatically informed my flight had been delayed to, but I am still less than impressed.

First of all, don't bother informing me of a delay unless it is actually delayed... Secondly as your customer I should not have a "delay time of half an hour" when everyone else who looked at it on their terminal has a delay time of four minutes. Thirdly, for how cool I thought it was that you were keeping me in the loop... I have now lost all confidence that your notifications are correct, making them completely useless. Also, being next to a guy at Special Services who actually missed his flight due to your faulty notifications makes me even less impressed.

To mitigate this, you should have sent another update when the flight was changed to back on schedule.  Thanks for trying, but you have a long way to go before I'll put any stock in your notifications again.

Into the burlap sack with you!

Dear Plastic Milk Jug Engineers,

Please go fraternize with the plastic pop bottle engineers, they figured out years ago how to make a container that holds its liquid contents... even when it falls over!! Like for instance in the front seat, foot area of my car... where I sometimes put my milk when it's just a quick dash-in grab milk and dash-out kind of trip.

You should try it sometime. You might be amazed.

Also, just a note, but if it's the wider mouth of the jug that is inhibiting your ability to make it water-tight? I really don't need that extra diameter. I'm not sure if you know this or not yet, buuuuut it's a liquid, it'll fit and come out as long as you don't let it curdle, and if it curdles you might as well leave it in there anyways.

Now I realize that this shape may be left over from the glass jar bottles, but glass and plastic (especially the way you're making it these days) do not have the same properties.

If the history of plastic milk jug shapes is any indication, I'm afraid you will probably be in the burlap sack for awhile. Think on that while you *ahem* I clean my floor mat.

Slowly. Going. Crazy. Am. I.

I recently had an unfortunate encounter with a website, actually it was with the phone system... but it started with the website. As far as I'm concerned, this should be valid grounds for taking the person responsible out back and beating them to death with a wet noodle, or possibly a dry sock... the sock would take longer.

1) First I read through most of the website
2) Enough of it to get thoroughly confused and admit that I was lost
3) I then admitted defeat, and located the contact phone number... being careful to select the "General Information" line rather than the "Emergency" I also wrote down the office hours.
4) I then woke up early to call during said office hours... Painstakingly listening carefully and following the prompts that best suited my particular situation... only to end up with an automated message that said "for more information, please go to http://..."

I understand where the rage of a thousand suns is born

My first question, is why bother listing a phone number... and secondly why the #$%^! did you bother posting office hours if the entire @$&*% thing is automated?!?!?!

Seriously.

I just ate sh...*ahem* dirt...

... and after all these years nothing has changed. I reached the same conclusion I did when I was 5. It *still* doesn't taste good.

I just had the worst bike ride ever.

I drove up Silverstar to go for a ride starting at the cross country ski area, and there were mosquitos but they were alright... I made it through riding the majority of the uphill bits, and then not too long after starting on the downhill I totally did a faceplant over the handlebars, I think I caught my pedal on the edge of the trail or something and then I just didn't let go in time, it wasn't really that big of a deal I wasn't going very fast, just scraped my knee a little.

It irritated me more than a little though.

I was having trouble finding my groove, so I decided to take the shorter trail down and skip the other uphill bits... and not too far down *that* trail there was a tree that was down. I think my wild angels must have been frolicking around with the butterflies, or they took a day off and forgot to mention it... because I tried to ride over that tree and totally did the hugest endo *and* scorpioned. (My bike landed on top of me facing backwards) and it wasn't just a little bit on top of me, it spread its weight out like a champion wrestler!

I scraped and bruised the same knee a little more, pouted, ignored the mosquitoes, regrouped over some powerade, then dusted myself off and carried on down. 

Hot, sweaty, dirty... bruised, bleeding and sore I couldn't even just walk away and lick my wounded pride... The mosquitoes were so bad I had to keep moving fast enough just so that I could see where I was going, and every time I slowed down the dark cloud of biothermo carbon dioxide nano-syringe's proximity alarms went off, and they threatened to consume me... literally. Or at very least turn me into a non-suitable blood host, leaving a mere husk of Sam... Just add the necessary pints of blood and other plasmids for your very own life size model.

I have never been so glad to see my car at the end of a ride, even that time we went camping and it rained for like 10 days... and everything that wasn't wet got wet when I fell in the creek. That was just a tired peaceful relief compared to this.

Even being at work after a long weekend was better *storm cloud frown*

Oh well, at least I had peas in the freezer... scientistically or not, they still make the best ice pack for the funny shaped bendy parts of your appendages.