tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

If you have an aversion to swears, or ‘cussin’, as they call it down south, turn away now. Go find a nice post about kittens with which to amuse yourself. If I wasn’t so pissed, I would provide you a link.

Oh fine, here.

Alright, all the weak hearted ones are gone? Good.

I fucking hate Dell. They fucking broke my fucking expensive fucking laptop.

There was NOTHING wrong with it, other than a crack in the case. Now, I know, I should have taken better care of it and it shouldn’t have gotten cracked in the first place. Granted. I’m not even going to get into how I think it could have been cracked, but suffice to say ours is not the cleanest house.

Anyway. The fact is there was a small crack in the laptop body, and the thing is under an extended warranty which I paid for, so I figured I could get my money’s worth out of the warranty and get the case replaced. Seems simple, right? Not really much to do other than 1) unscrew cracked case, and 2) screw in new case. I didn’t think the case was connected to the motherboard in any significant way that would cause this to be a tenuous procedure. However when I got the invoice back, in addition to replacing the case they also replaced the power button. WTF? Ok, I know IBM Thinkpads pretty well, but I’ve never taken apart a Dell so maybe that is a perfectly normal thing to do.

So I’m pleased, the laptop came back quickly and the case was shiny and new, not a crack in site. I power the thing on and sit back, smiling, very happy that I chose to buy a Dell as I had heard so many rave reviews of their customer service and it seemed like those reviews were justified.

Up until the point where Windows booted up…and my screen went pitch black. The lights are out, nobody’s home. So I get pissed and start to freak out, because it was late at night, I had just come home from a stressful week in Tampa off of a delayed flight, blah blah blah, and Aaron came to my rescue to help me see straight. Bless him, I can’t wait to marry him.

Anyway we boot up in safe mode (he boots up since I’m still hysterical at this point, completely overtired and bleary eyed) and he chooses VGA mode. Lo and behold, the screen is lit up and operating fine. Which tells me, the screen is not the problem, and it seems that something happened to the video driver. Or at least, since I know the driver didn’t change, something in the hardware changed to render the driver incompatible. Of course we can barely do anything since the resolution is now so freaking large that my lazy-eyed brother can see it from Phoenix.

So, what the hell did they do? What hardware did they change to cause my driver to fail? I tried reinstalling the driver with the latest and greatest version (8/05, how freaking recent). No dice. I tried doing a system restore. No dice. I tried RE-INSTALLING FUCKING WINDOWS, and no dice. Not only no dice, but when the reinstall was ‘complete’ and it booted up, the screen was black. So I did a hard shut down and then powered it back on. And it asked for the fucking install cd AGAIN!

All the while I’m doing this, I’m chatting to Dell customer support through their online system, so I have logs of my rants. I certainly didn’t trust myself not to make Abdul in New Delhi cry from yelling at him on the phone.

Every ‘tech’ I spoke to online swore up and down that reinstalling Windows would fix it. Not that that EVER made any sense to me, since, what the fuck happened to my windows install when the fucking hard drive was sitting on my bookshelf the whole time they had my system???

Conveniently, their system is ‘down’ every time they try to look up what they did to my machine when it was in for service.

Everyone’s ‘very sorry’ that my machine is not working, of course they are not accepting any responsibility for it (the warranty is for hardware, not software failures!). Of course, the only variable that changed between the working and non-working laptop was THE FUCKING HARDWARE, WHEN THEY SERVICED IT!!!

I think the real problem is the processor fan. When I ran diagnostics on it it said the fan was not working at all. Which could explain why my system is now running slower than molasses and possibly explain why the video driver is disabled. The fan was, however, working before I sent my machine to those idiots.

I strongly urge you all to seriously, SERIOUSLY consider not buying a Dell Piece Of Shit in the future. Mine is a D810, for reference.

I guess the machine itself was good, but don’t ever send it in to their black hole service center, you never know what condition it will be in when it comes back.

[/rant]

the times you think you’ve made a terrible mistake.

the times you think this is not your town, and it will never be.

the times you think this is all your fault. you need it to be equal, but really, it’s all your fault.

the times you know you will never be good enough.

the times you know you will never measure up.

the times you can’t take being criticized.

the times you wouldn’t be yourself if you weren’t telling a lie.

the times i couldn’t even read your mind.

the times i couldn’t say sorry fast enough to please you.

the times you had to fake it just to get me to admit it.

the times i knew i would never be good enough. she was good enough.

i will never be good enough.

this time i know.

We saw The Departed yesterday. Wow. I thought it was an amazing film. Sure you could nit-pick a few things, but I go to the movies for entertainment, not to get worked up over tiny details. I thought Leo’s performance was outstanding, and I could totally see why Ugly Shrink Chick went for him. I loved loved loved Alec Baldwin. I would watch him in anything. (And yes, I DO watch 30 Rock, and enjoy it!). I also loved Mark Wahlberg, but hated his haircut. I loved the movie so much I am tempted to go back and watch it again today. It’s definitely going on my Amazon wishlist, as well.

We also went to Marrakesh for MaD’s going away dinner, a 3 1/2 hour dinner no less. The belly dancer was Asian, which was kind of strange, and she wasn’t nearly as good as other belly dancers I’ve seen there, but Aaron seemed to enjoy her at least. She was entertaining, especially when she brought Older Drunk Man on ’stage’ to dance with her and he brought forth some dance moves we all would have been better off not seeing.

I still can’t believe MaD are leaving. It will be so weird not to have them here. The group is slowly shrinking. Makes Colorado even more appealing!

Tomorrow I go to Tampa for the last time, and I am so excited for Friday to get here so I can give my exit interview and be done with that place! Well the company itself wasn’t so bad, but I am ecstatic to never have to go to Tampa again. The sushi and the tomato salad were great, amazing even, but don’t come close to making up for the rest of it.

Now I just have to figure out how I want to commute to DC.

I just realized I might have made, or am in the process of making, 2 new friends in the area, one through snowboarding, one accidentally through craigslist.

Two go out, two come in.

The circle.

I love Le Creuset cookware so much, but it’s so heavy and I move so much, I never bought any. Plus it costs a fortune. But since we will be in the area for a while and hopefully not move too often, I thought I would register for some pieces.

Well, we’ve already started receiving wedding presents, and one of the first things we got was some Le Creuset pots (blue of course) and I cannot WAIT to use them. Yay!! I’m SO excited.

I saw some baby blue Le Creuset at the Leesburg Outlet store, but none of the places we registered at carry that color, so we just registered for the regular blue. But I think when all is said and done I may have to go pick up a baby blue piece or two.

If you ever receive gibberish from me in an IM, this might be why… 

When I was in recovery, the nurse was going over the discharge instructions with Aaron, since I probably wouldn’t remember them, and he would be the one taking care of me.

She went over this sheet, and then she said, ‘There are a few important points that are not on the sheet. She’s not allowed to vacuum or do the dishes for 6 months, and she absolutely must be in control of the tv remote at all times.’ Then she winked at me and said, ‘Us girls gotta stick together!’

The staff at the hospital were all very nice and friendly, which made it a pleasant experience, really. I was super anxious the day before but once we got there I was very relaxed. Aaron is good at calming me, too. He thought the anesthesiologist didn’t have a great bedside manner, but she was a lot nicer once she was wheeling me away and giving me drugs. Everyone else was fantastic.

I got some flowers today from my company, which I thought was really nice. Although poor Aaron has to water them now He’s been so great at taking care of me, even blew my hair dry after my shower. I’m a lucky girl

Well, I’m still alive.

I didn’t even throw up after the anesthesia, which I was worried about. Man, that would have hurt.

It was a little freaky when they roll you into the OR and you see all the scalpels and everything. But then they gave me really good happy drugs and that’s all I remember. Next thing I knew I was waking up with a breathing mask on. Half an hour later they let Aaron in to see me, and half an hour after that we went home.

The pain is pretty unbearable though. I couldn’t sleep at all, even with the drugs, and had to get out of bed at 6am just to move around. Since it was laparoscopic, they pump carbon dioxide into you to give the surgeon room to move around, and the leftover gas in your body is incredibly painful. Every time I shift positions, the gas shifts, crushing a different organ or nerve (so it feels like) and it’s agonizing. Stupid pain pills don’t do anything for that either. At least that pain is mostly outweighing the actual surgery pain.

And my belly button ring hole closed up It just bums me out because it will leave a scar and I don’t want to get it pierced a third time. But, I guess I have 4 other scars on my abdomen now so it’s not that big of a deal!

Anyway, thanks to everyone for their love and support, prayers and kind wishes. It really meant a lot!

I saw a picture of this tattoo on some guy’s forearm that said, ‘most things i worry about never happen anyway’ – I assume from the Tom Petty song.

Sometimes I think I should get that tattoo, too. Maybe it will help me, if I read that every day, to remember that it’s true. Who needs therapy when you’ve got tattoos? And you know how I like lettering tattoos of song lyrics.

I am trying not to think too much about my surgery tomorrow because every time I do, I start to freak out that the surgeon will nick a vital organ somehow, or something else will go terribly wrong. I’ve never had a real panic attack before, but I feel like it’s not so far from me.

Excuse me while I try to find some rational thoughts to hang on to.

My best friend from kindergarten.