Erin's Blog

Link/Tip of the day:

"You know what the Easter Bunny is doing the other 364 days of the year? Kicking ass!" I know it's nowhere near Easter, but I thought this was funny.

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More boring stuff about my life....

Wow, I am really getting into shooting these days. It's a fun hobby and it is certainly a stress reliever! I just (read: earlier this evening) took a concealed carry class. I learned quite a bit and thoroughly enjoyed the class. I went with my friend from work, T. We both decided that it would be a wise thing to be able to carry.

I also bought a rifle. I picked it up on the 29th. It's an LMT M4. Basically, a shorter version of the M16. Here are some pics of the M4 along with my handgun, a Springfield Armory XD9:









More gun porn here.

In other news, I got my PowerBook back from the repair shop and the screen is beautiful! It's great to have it back, and I am impressed that the screen doesn't have a single stuck or bad pixel. I would highly recommend the people that repaired my PowerBook's screen to anyone.

OK, it's getting late and T and I are going shooting early tomorrow.

'Night!

_erin

Link/Tip of the day:

Ever wonder what the whole "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..." filler text means? Check it out here. The generator will even let you create certain length fillers and even fillers in other languages like Russian!

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More boring stuff about my life....

Yikes, it's been a while, hasn't it?

On the way home from Flagstaff, I got a speeding ticket. I was coming down this huge hill on US 89. The trooper was at the bottom of the hill. He got me on radar doing "approx. 90" according to the ticket. The limit was 65. Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck, even! The trooper was nice enough about it. I asked how much the fine would be. He didn't know. I asked how many points it would be. He didn't know. He didn't even have an envelope for me to send in my payment. He had used them all up earlier that day (apparently he was busy at the bottom of that big hill).

I've been hanging out with my friend T from work quite a bit recently. She has found a new boy toy, B, so we've all been doing stuff together. Nice enough guy. He certainly treats her the way that all women deserve to be treated. Yay, T! :D

Work has been going OK. I'm still looking for a tech job. Just sent out about 20 resumes last week. Haven't heard anything back yet. My friend (and ex-girlfriend) C in Philly offered me a place to stay until I can find work out there. She really wants me to come back to the east coast, and I am seriously tempted to just pack up and go. You'd think I would have learned my lesson from doing that the last time, when I moved to Portland without a job. Let's just say that it wasn't exactly a rosy situation. I ended up taking a $9/hr job and working my ass off (120+ hour paychecks were common) just to make ends meet.

I've been to the shooting range a few times recently. I put 400 rounds through the gun at one range visit and I cleaned it the first time the next day. I bought my gun (a Springfield Armory XD 9, or "XD9") in April of 2005. I picked up a few extra magazines, a range bag, some safety glasses and some ear protection at a surplus store. I am going for my concealed weapon permit. Luckily, Colorado is a "shall issue" state, so all I need to do is pass the background check and take a safety course. Total cost, about $250 including the course. T owns a gun, too -- a little Beretta .25 auto. We are planning on taking the course together. Should be fun!

My car is starting to piss me off. I had a tire blow on me. There is a crack in the sidewall, which means I need to buy a new tire. $210 worth of tire. I've been riding on my full-size spare for a few weeks now. My driver's door lock isn't working with the power locks anymore, either. I have to manually push the knob down to lock the car, and actually use my key (gasp!) to unlock the door from the outside. Hopefully that is something easy to fix. Sounds like something is slipping inside the door panel.

I broke the screen on my PowerBook. I have a super-nice PowerBook that I got last year and I broke the screen on it. Fuck. I sent it off for repair. Should be at the repair shop tomorrow. Luckily the screen is a lot cheaper to replace than the laptop is. And the price of the LCD panels have dropped quite a bit, making this repair affordable, too.

Recently I've been suffering from heartburn. Don't know what is causing the burning sensation, but I've been chewing on Tums tablets to alleviate it. They seem to help, but I don't want to live on them forever.

My legs and arm are all healed up from the sunburn. I ended up seeing the dermatologist twice. And I just got a bill from her office. Fuck, why do I pay so much for insurance if they only covered $20 of each visit?! That's right, the insurance company only paid $20 of the total for each visit. I also had to pay for one medication entirely out of my pocket because the insurance didn't cover it. Aetna fucking sucks, kids. Work offers better insurance (they offer several "levels" of Aetna coverage), but it is literally more than twice the price of what I have now. Just not worth it, IMO.

I had a pretty nasty cold/flu thing going on for a while there. I actually called in sick for the first time at this job. I usually only call in sick if I want to go do something other than work -- it is very rare that I call in when I am actually sick! This time I needed it; I was feeling pretty crummy. Luckily, it only lasted 2 weeks. I still cough occasionally, but for the most part, I'm all better.

OK, I should probably get to bed now.

_erin