Weekend Walk

I got a lot of things done on Saturday.



Fixed the starter on one car, fixed the window and sunroof on Janis, fixed a vacuum cleaner, and washed two cars.



But before I got to doing that, we went for a walk around the neighborhood!!!











That looks like a Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy logo to me. Got a cool self-portrait of myself in there, too!!!

Crack Heads

I play piano and I sing like a Humming bird

And oh I forgot

That humming birds don't sing,

It doesn't matter really

You know what I mean.

Re Plan

The vacation plans I had for this year were pretty simple. I was going to use most of the money we got back from taxes to buy plane tickets and hotel lodging in Hawaii for the whole family. Take the boys to the Volcano National Park, go skin diving in Hunama bay, bake on the beaches. For a change I was thinking of going to Maui. Every time I've gone (OK, both times) I've gone to Oahu and The Big Island. Makes for a great vacation, with lots of things there that need their picture taken.

A few days after the refund checks came in the mail, my wife tells me, "Lets not go to Hawaii this year, save some of that money." Fine with me, I've still got that week scheduled off, we could do almost anything in that time for considerably less money.

During the next few days, my mind had all kinds of things we could do. Fly out to Vegas (every time I've gone there, I've driven, and that's my least favorite part), or up to the Frisco area, or over to Catalina island, or go camping, or any combination.

However, one thing I'd seen a few ads for came to mind. There have been some spots about how cheaply a family of four could vacation in the Disney resorts in Florida.



I made mention to the wife, and she immediately fixated on that idea. I checked it out, and even with airfare it looked to come out more than a thousand dollars cheaper than the Hawaii trip.

Of course, this would be staying at one of Disney's "budget" resorts. $82.00 per night, I guess there are a lot of places that cost more, but that didn't seem like a real great price to me. Of course, it is Disney, so you know it'll be done up right. I looked at all kinds of options, travel times, dates, etc. The budget resort I liked the sound of best is Disney's Pop Century, which has icons of the 1950s, -60s, -70s, -80s and -90s made into exhibits, statuary and activity themes. Giant Foosball players, the big wheel, and a swimming pool shaped like a bowling pin. How cool is that???

An interesting (OK, not that interesting) side note: while I was getting all this straight, I was preparing an order at Amazon. They had an offer to get their Amazon Visa card and get a rebate of $30.00, almost the whole amount of the order. In addition, earn credit towards future purchases for every dollar you spend on that card. Cool, I was already going to be buying it with a card and paying it right off, if I can get a few thousand racked up as credit towards future purchases at Amazon, cool!!! I applied, but it took a REALLY long time before they got back to me. Meanwhile, its getting closer and closer to the travel time. Finally I gave up the wait and used another card. Trying to get the hotel I wanted on the Disney site, it kept telling me that there were no rooms available on the dates I was travelling. I had gone through Expedia for the flight, and since I couldn't get a room at Disney's Pop Century, I'd look through Expedia for whatever other place I could get near the parks. Well, they had rooms available at Disney's Pop Century, and it was $13 less a night!!! Guess that worked out better for me anyway, then!!!



As far as Disney park passes go, I had been thinking we didn't need to be at a park EVERY SINGLE DAY we're there, but it turns out with their package tickets if you're only going six of the eight days you'll be there, it only comes out to be something like $13 less for the whole family. A clever ploy for them to get you to spend more time (and money) in their parks.

Last time I was to the Florida Disney parks was in the impossibly antiquated year of 1983, can you stand it??? I was 14 at the time, and EPCOT center was a new park. Now they have a wild animal park, two water parks, and Disney MGM studios. The latter has an Aerosmith roller coaster that I'll be reporting back on. They also have the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror ride that is also at California Adventure. One of the water parks has a slide that actually has water jets that launch you up slopes in the flue. I'm interested in seeing that, too. The wave pool at the other of the water parks is one of the largest in the world, and they have surfing lessons before the park opens (for an additional cost, of course). The surfing lesson (nor the additional cost) isn't especially appealing to me, as I already know the basics, but a couple of hours in an uncrowded wave pool that makes perfectly formed waves every time could be well worth the price!!! The older boy and I may very well take them up on this offer. The parks have days when they open early or are open later for Disney resort guests, for extra, less crowded time. Cool. When we were at California Adventure last time, the younger and I went on the Sun Wheel. He was a little freaked out by it when we went on it, but since then he talks about it a lot!!! When we last went to Disneyland, he wanted to ride it, but, of course, it was in the other park. Hopefully there is something like that in one of the Florida parks for him. The older boy wants to eat gumbo every day. They have a plan where you can pay in advance and have meals paid for at the Disney parks. Seems like a great idea, since you'd likely spend more than the cost if you ate there most days, but I don't know if we'd use all the vouchers you get. Also, since I bought it through Expedia it wasn't offered through them. Probably could still get the deal. Maybe, maybe not...

Something of interest we'll probably pick up is the little stuffed Pal Mickey. Click the link if you want to read all about that (I recommend the read). Wonder if he'll work at the West side parks in the future???


Now here's something I didn't get a chance to do last time I was in Florida. Orlando isn't too terribly far from the Kennedy Space Center. I would love to just tour the place, but as it turns out, there is going to be a shuttle launch the week we're there!!! Of course we'll have to go to that!!!

I'm so looking forward to this trip. It would be cool, since we're in Orlando, to visit with a dear friend who has gone ghost on me. It's OK. I understand that everyone goes disappearing,
into the greatest grey...

15 Days

Fifteen days before the hearing is when I needed to have the defendants in my case served by. They were served on the 29th. Let's count together:

29-30-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13.

Yep. That's fifteen days to me. Apparently, the legal system has a different way of counting it, though. I received a notice from the court saying that service was not completed at least 15 days before the hearing date.

The good news is that, on the court's own motion, he trial has been continued to a later date. Bad news is it has been continued to a date where I will be on vacation out of state. I'll have to get a request to postpone form, get it to the court (all the fuckway to San Pedro again!!!) along with a $10 filing fee, mail copies to the defendants, and take yet another day off work. Sheesh, what a pain in the ass. Focus on the good part, it could easily have been dismissed. Hopefully the results are the same the second time, with the defendants not bothering to show up.

One of these days, I'll have to post about the vacation plans...

Lucky 13

Friday the 13th. What a day to have a court date!!! This stems back to the wreck of the Scirocco. I just re-read the post from that day, and boy was I wrong about their being no troubles being as they were insured. I have yet to see dime one from the insurance company (trust me, if you have Infinity Insurance, be prepared to be served, they SUCK ASS!!!).

Anyway, being as the statute of limitations for bodily injury runs out two years after the incident, I ended up having to take the driver at fault and the owner to court. Neither of them could be bothered to appear, but apparently the commissioner hearing the case will listen to the one side, and based on the merit of the case, make a judgement. The commissioner was quite liberal in her allowances, so I'll be getting a favorable judgement I'm sure. The only part I'm not sure how it will play out is how much she will actually allow for pain and suffering. She said she will consider that portion and I will be mailed the judgement, so I will find out.

Bad part was I had to file in the San Pedro court, because of where the accident occurred. As I drove down there this morning and back this afternoon, I was thankful that I don't work down there anymore. Good part is that it's a really nice courthouse compared to the downtown L.A. one. Small, and there is plenty of on-street parking. They were doing demolition on the lot diagonal from the courthouse, and it felt like 5-point earthquakes occasionally. I enjoy observing the legal process, and got to see a few cases before mine was up. Afterwards, I stayed and watched the remaining three.

Since I was in the area, I took a camera. Not my good camera, this week the rest of the family is at camp, and my camera is there, too. I would have gone, but last year it was in August, and I asked for the two most likely weeks off, and got one. As you can see, it's not in August this year. Anyway, I still had my previous camera, a Vivitar 3500 1.3 mega pixel. I dusted it off, and took a few shots of San Pedro.

Then, after all that, I drove from one end to the other of the 110 freeway,

took care of getting Janice transferred, went to a doctor's appointment,

picked up my prescriptions, and came home and took a nap.

And THAT'S why I'm up at 3:30 putting together a post!!!

A Day Without My Camera

I had meant to bring my camera.

Saturday morning my wife and I had our first dentist appointment in years. Naturally, like most people I know, we don't care much for going to the dentist. The past few years, my former fly by night job had unannounced pulled my dental insurance, so we had an easy excuse not to go. For the last nine months, however, we have had no excuse. Right at the bottom of the hill there is a dental office. I had meant to bring my camera for an outside shot of the building, it is housed in a former auto dealership showroom (old school) that in its last incarnation was a nice little overpriced restaurant called The Packard Grill. On the roof, they had the grille, headlights, and front sheet metal of a 30's Packard. It's still up there, only now they have a mouth with perfect teeth mounted below it. Pretty amusing, one of those things I see nearly every day to the point I nearly don't see it anymore.

Always the same story when you go to the dentist, seems like they find SOMETHING that needs done. If it's been a while, it's always the "deep cleaning", a euphemism for scraping your teeth and jabbing your gums with nasty little hooks. And they wonder why people don't like them. I had two cavities in addition, so I told them I'd get those taken care of right then, then come back for the deep cleaning. Half at a time, to help mitigate the costs. It seemed to take quite a while to do that, and then when I got out, my wife was waiting for approval for two fillings and two crowns. One they are waiting on the custom,, the other they put a temp on until the custom one is ready in two weeks.

We had gone there at 9:00. It was around 11:00 when they finished with me. I stayed with the boys for around 20 minutes in the waiting room, then decided to go for a walk with them. Right where I exit the freeway for the last week there have been a fleet of movie trailers and trucks and equipment parked. Another thing I would have liked to take some shots of. I figured they were doing a shoot nearby, and we'd see if there were any stars or anything else of interest. We got up there, and there was no one except a guard. Talked to him a bit, turns out they took the week of the 4th off, and parked their wagons there. Shooting had been going on in Vernon. He was reading through the script, its for a movie titled "Por Vida".

The boys spent some time tossing rocks into the stream (concrete lined, as is the custom of many an L.A. river), then we passed by the Lumis home, a historical landmark, on the way back. I've lived here more than 12 years, and have been coming up here my whole life, and had never actually seen the place up close. It was still 45 minutes or so until they were open. We walked back and perused the magazines for a while, until my oldest noted the time again and saw that the home was now open. I had all but forgotten about that. We walked back, and toured the place. Very interesting, and yet another thing I wish I'd brought my camera for. One of these days, I'll go back and get pictures.

My wife called when we were almost back. I was hungry by then, and the Novocaine had finally worn completely off, too. Good timing.

I was going to drive Janis to work on Friday, but she didn't crank for me when I got in. A couple tries later, and I abandoned that idea. My thought was that it hadn't really been a starter problem at all, but the wiring between the key and the starter, or possibly a bad ignition switch. My perception is that European cars have flaky wiring. I had bought a push button to bypass the key with from work on Friday. The battery is new, and the starter is new. Of course, the starter had been replaced by the former owner's Cuban mobile mechanic. It looked fine, shiney and new, but when I messed with it a bit, it seemed like it wasn't doing anything. I removed it (a reasonable pain in the ass, damned Germans used allen wrench bolts of all things) and verified that it wasn't doing a thing. Of course, by now it was nearly dark out. Today I picked up a new one with a lifetime warranty and put it in. Went back in much easier than it came out. Problem solved.

Speaking of problems, the wondrous Blogger isn't letting me put a cursor in the title box tonight. Huh??? This post will not be titled until Blogger cooperates at a later date.

Diesel or No Diesel

Oh lord, wont you buy me a Mercedes Benz ?
My friends all drive Porsche's, I must make amends.
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends,
So lord, wont you buy me a Mercedes Benz?


It actually makes sense. Janis Joplin was probably an early environmentalist, and wanted to get a diesel Mercedes Benz and use recycled vegetable oil to run it!!!

Well, I did it. The price was pretty good, and it is really in incredible shape. Full of options. Of course, for the price, there are a few things that shall require attention, but for the most part, turn the key and go!!! It has a power sunroof, but something isn't quite right with it. The motor spins, and it moves just a bit, but won't open. Except one time. It has air conditioning, but it seems to need a charge. Typical for this age. The main switches for the power windows are coming apart, but only the driver's side one doesn't work at all. I'm thinking of replacing them with a panel from a 60's or 70's GM car, they're pretty heavy duty. Ummm, what else, it needs new tires soon, and I'd like a passenger side mirror. Oh yea, one of the headlights is burned out. The paint is pretty decent, but it is 27 years old. Just a tiny bit of rust on the trunk. Most Mercedes seem to rust along the bottom edges, but not this one. I think that has to do with being down by the ocean. The guy I bought it from said the radio didn't work because the antenna was broken, but today my wife figured out how to turn it on while I was driving, and it works just fine. Even the power antenna works with it. The radio is an old one with a cassette tape deck, but it does have an auxiliary input that I can probably plug my MP3 player into!!! Thing seems kind of underpowered, though, may have dirty injectors.


The story of how I ended up getting it is something altogether again!!! We looked at it on Sunday, then I had to head over to Sammy's to get him some paperwork. Kind of interrupted the test drive, and I told the guy I'd think about it and call him, one way or the other. The seller had bought it for a friend who was new in the country (I think they were both from Poland, their names have a LOT of strangely placed Y's and Z's in it) around 6 months ago, and now was selling it for him. The guy buys older Mercedes and ships them back to Germany, where they command a much better price than they do here. Of course, the Euro is strong compared to the dollar these days, so that helps, too. He has a lot of nice specimens.

When we got into the car for the test drive, he pulled back the floor mat and pulled out the key. Joked that I could steal it now that I know where the key is. After the drive, he slipped the key into his pocket. I called him from Sammy's and asked him if he would take a lesser amount. He agreed, along with agreeing to fill up the tank (I don't know where many diesel stations are, yet) so we drove back. We got there, and he tells us that he can't find the key. He's going crazy looking for it, but can't find it anywhere. He says that he'll keep looking for it, and, if I leave a deposit, he'll drive it up Monday evening with his wife following him for his ride home. When I got home, I called him to see what his story is. He hadn't found the key, and had to have a locksmith come out and make a new one. Getting ready to come up, and the key doesn't crank the car. Turns it on, but it doesn't crank it. He says he'll have his mechanic check it out the next morning. When I get home Tuesday, he calls and says his mechanic determined that it was a bad starter. Replaced the starter, and drove it up that evening. He gets here, and his wife's Mercedes (much newer and nicer) is blowing white smoke like crazy!!! He's a little agitated over that, I asked him if he was sure he wanted to sell this one to me, so he'd have a way to get home. He didn't, just wanted to wrap it up and get going. We did, and off he went, trailing white smoke. Seemed like a head gasket to me. Bad luck for him, I felt bad for him.