Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
I Am Having A REALLY Bad Day...
You know that car I got back yesterday? It's not driveable... again.
I drove myself to the studio tonight, and things went really well, I thought. I was singing only to ther rhythm guitar track, so the vocals turned out fairly awesome, I think. I guess the proof will be in the pudding, so the old cliche goes, when I get copies of the tracks so far.
Shortly after that, I went to leave, but my car wouldn't start. I could hear the solenoid running, and things try to turn on, and dome light would come on, but the starter wasn't getting any power. So, I had the engineer give me a jump start, but it was obvious there was something wrong with the alternator. So, I tried to drive home, anyway. But the lights were getting dimmer and dimmer by the second. While I am on the curvy, twisty Fertile Valley Road headed toward the 4-lanes, I meet this car. And do you know what that accident of nature did? He kept brighting his lights at me! Brightdimbrightdimbrightdim... and then... BRIGHT. I'm like, "M*****F*****!!! I already KNOW!!! DUUUUUUHHHHHHH!" I mean, seriously: what thought processes must have been at work there? "Oh, there's a car with really dim lights. I'll bright 'em and blind 'em."
Cheese and rice!
I eventually - creeping along at about 10 MPH - make it out to the 4-lanes, but, I don't get on. Instead, I stopped near the entrance to the road, and called Kenny to see what I should do. He said that I should wait there for him, and to put the car in a safe spot. I went to back up, and it died, and it would not be restarted. So, I opened the door and the dome light came on. I left it like that so people might have a chance of seeing me.
Eventually, Kenny and my cousin - the mechanic - showed up, and they got it started by jumping it again. Lights got dim really fast, and, by the time I hit Scotia Road, it was dying again. So, we pulled over, and jumped it again. This time, my cousin adjusted something in the alternator, and we all thought that it was going to work. No such luck. I got about a quarter of a mile on the Newport side of Diamond Lake, and it died for good. The battery would no longer take a charge.
By now, I had had it. I went to call a tow truck, but they didn't answer. Kenny called my other cousin who was at the house watching the kids while they were rescuing me, and had him bring my mechanic cousin's pick-up over to us to tow the freaking car home.
Have you ever driven a car with power brakes and power steering when it has no power? At night? With no headlights? On a chain? With only one very slow trip of being towed ever before under your belt?
Well, don't. It's not fun. I was so afraid that I was gonna hit that truck. I was standing on the brake with both feet the whole time, trying not to hyperventilate from the stress of chain towing the car that I had just spent $1,300 repairing... God... it was a HORRIBLE night.
While I was back on Fertile Valley Road, I prayed that God would help my car to just get it home. It died the first time just shortly thereafter as God gave me the middle finger.
I drove myself to the studio tonight, and things went really well, I thought. I was singing only to ther rhythm guitar track, so the vocals turned out fairly awesome, I think. I guess the proof will be in the pudding, so the old cliche goes, when I get copies of the tracks so far.
Shortly after that, I went to leave, but my car wouldn't start. I could hear the solenoid running, and things try to turn on, and dome light would come on, but the starter wasn't getting any power. So, I had the engineer give me a jump start, but it was obvious there was something wrong with the alternator. So, I tried to drive home, anyway. But the lights were getting dimmer and dimmer by the second. While I am on the curvy, twisty Fertile Valley Road headed toward the 4-lanes, I meet this car. And do you know what that accident of nature did? He kept brighting his lights at me! Brightdimbrightdimbrightdim... and then... BRIGHT. I'm like, "M*****F*****!!! I already KNOW!!! DUUUUUUHHHHHHH!" I mean, seriously: what thought processes must have been at work there? "Oh, there's a car with really dim lights. I'll bright 'em and blind 'em."
Cheese and rice!
I eventually - creeping along at about 10 MPH - make it out to the 4-lanes, but, I don't get on. Instead, I stopped near the entrance to the road, and called Kenny to see what I should do. He said that I should wait there for him, and to put the car in a safe spot. I went to back up, and it died, and it would not be restarted. So, I opened the door and the dome light came on. I left it like that so people might have a chance of seeing me.
Eventually, Kenny and my cousin - the mechanic - showed up, and they got it started by jumping it again. Lights got dim really fast, and, by the time I hit Scotia Road, it was dying again. So, we pulled over, and jumped it again. This time, my cousin adjusted something in the alternator, and we all thought that it was going to work. No such luck. I got about a quarter of a mile on the Newport side of Diamond Lake, and it died for good. The battery would no longer take a charge.
By now, I had had it. I went to call a tow truck, but they didn't answer. Kenny called my other cousin who was at the house watching the kids while they were rescuing me, and had him bring my mechanic cousin's pick-up over to us to tow the freaking car home.
Have you ever driven a car with power brakes and power steering when it has no power? At night? With no headlights? On a chain? With only one very slow trip of being towed ever before under your belt?
Well, don't. It's not fun. I was so afraid that I was gonna hit that truck. I was standing on the brake with both feet the whole time, trying not to hyperventilate from the stress of chain towing the car that I had just spent $1,300 repairing... God... it was a HORRIBLE night.
While I was back on Fertile Valley Road, I prayed that God would help my car to just get it home. It died the first time just shortly thereafter as God gave me the middle finger.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
I Got My Car Back!!
Good as new!
I am going to the studio tonight. I am doing the lead vocals. I listened to the demo tracks I did at that same studio in May for a metronomed demo to build the rest of the songs around. The vocal track on the May demo was clear, and about 99.9% in tune. When I did the tracks in May, I was singing to just an acoustic guitar, so I could hear the vocals really well. So, tonight, I plan to sing to just the electric rhythm track throughout. Hopefully, we'll get an awesome result that way. It won't hurt to try.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Grrr...
I guess I shouldn't be whining too much. I bought the camera in November of 2006. Still, only three years of sporadic use out of a camera? Seems a little on the "short-lived" side. Anyway, I've been having trouble with it, and suspected the battery as it was obviously some kind of power issue. So, I bought a new battery (at the cost of $18 for the battery and $20-some odd dollars for shipping). Mom brought it to me today; it was delivered to her place sometime last week.
Anyway, I charged the new battery and put it in the camera. Guess what?!?! It wasn't the battery. So, after football got over, I went to Kodak's web site and went through their troubleshooter, which, to no surprise from me, determined that it was a much more serious problem. After spending nearly half and hour trying to find the exact date that I purchased it, it turns out that it is no longer under warranty (again, cue lack of shock from me), and the site provided me with two options: either send Kodak the camera and $200 (plus $48 shipping) for maybe getting it repaired (they might send me a remanufactured one, if they couldn't fix mine) or getting $25 off an order in their store.
So, not willing to spend another $248 on a 3-year-old camera, I looked through their prices, and compared those with the prices at Dell, and found a Fuji 12x optical zoom, 5.7x digital zoom, 10MP digital camera with a 4GB SDHC memory card for $211. What a deal. According to the e-mail, I should get it October 1st.
Other things happening: my books are being shipped from the printer, so I am about to update the web site with pre-order stuff for A Night Borrowed. I don't know what it is with people, either, but, every time I tell someone that I wrote a book, they want a copy... for free. Exactly where is this kosher? Because, if I haven't spent more than a minute with you on the phone (and I called you), then we're probably not friends, and I am not going to give you a free copy of my book. I don't care who the hell you are. It's the same thing with CDs. For some reason, people seem to get it into their heads that, if they've spoken to me for 10 minutes at a bar that I somehow owe them a copy of my CD for free. Not happening. Same thing with books.
And don't get me started on "friends" wanting web sites from me... for FREE. I mean, honestly, unless I've offered to do something for you for nothing, then it's probably not going to happen for nothing. I do this for a LIVING, not to make friends and influence people. How would these same people feel if I asked them to part with their work for free? Yeah.
Anyway, I charged the new battery and put it in the camera. Guess what?!?! It wasn't the battery. So, after football got over, I went to Kodak's web site and went through their troubleshooter, which, to no surprise from me, determined that it was a much more serious problem. After spending nearly half and hour trying to find the exact date that I purchased it, it turns out that it is no longer under warranty (again, cue lack of shock from me), and the site provided me with two options: either send Kodak the camera and $200 (plus $48 shipping) for maybe getting it repaired (they might send me a remanufactured one, if they couldn't fix mine) or getting $25 off an order in their store.
So, not willing to spend another $248 on a 3-year-old camera, I looked through their prices, and compared those with the prices at Dell, and found a Fuji 12x optical zoom, 5.7x digital zoom, 10MP digital camera with a 4GB SDHC memory card for $211. What a deal. According to the e-mail, I should get it October 1st.
Other things happening: my books are being shipped from the printer, so I am about to update the web site with pre-order stuff for A Night Borrowed. I don't know what it is with people, either, but, every time I tell someone that I wrote a book, they want a copy... for free. Exactly where is this kosher? Because, if I haven't spent more than a minute with you on the phone (and I called you), then we're probably not friends, and I am not going to give you a free copy of my book. I don't care who the hell you are. It's the same thing with CDs. For some reason, people seem to get it into their heads that, if they've spoken to me for 10 minutes at a bar that I somehow owe them a copy of my CD for free. Not happening. Same thing with books.
And don't get me started on "friends" wanting web sites from me... for FREE. I mean, honestly, unless I've offered to do something for you for nothing, then it's probably not going to happen for nothing. I do this for a LIVING, not to make friends and influence people. How would these same people feel if I asked them to part with their work for free? Yeah.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Been Busy
I had a kinda bad day on Thursday. I had gone to bed at about 4:30-ish Thursday morning, and then got up at 10:30 AM. I made coffee, watered the lawn, got cleaned up and dressed, and then went to check e-mail. While I was doing that, Kenny returned from Cusick, where he had gone to get an application from the Tribe for a deputy position with the Kalispel Tribe. He only had Thursday to get it in, so he was going to do it online, but he had to have a resume in order to complete it. I had one on my external hard drive, so I went to get it onto my thumb drive so he could use the laptop to put in his app because I had things to do on the desktop computer.
Well, when I went to access my external hard drive, I got this error that said: "A file is corrupted. Drive is inaccessible."
So, I FREAKED OUT. I had just spent two months writing a book, and the ONLY copy is on that hard drive. Not to mention that ALL of my files for the sites I have built are on that drive. ALL of my billing files and Kenny's billing files are on that drive. All of my photographs, graphic work, and the pictures Hometown Digitals had taken for the band are on that drive. All of my school work and papers dating back to when I was getting my Associate's degree in 1999 are on that drive.
So, I try a few times to get into it and nothing works. I Google the error message and find a forum where a guy says to unplug this and that and re-plug everything in in a certain order. That didn't work. Found another forum where someone said to run a chkdsk on the drive. I did that, and the error went away, and all my files were accessible again.
But that made me paranoid, so I made back-ups to CD of everything that was on the drive, got Kenny his resume on the thumb drive, and got everything together to go to Spokane. While there for business-related stuff (collections... le sigh) and a class, I went and bought a new external hard drive, so, no fears, everyone! The book - A Night Borrowed - is still coming out October 1!!
Well, when I went to access my external hard drive, I got this error that said: "A file is corrupted. Drive is inaccessible."
So, I FREAKED OUT. I had just spent two months writing a book, and the ONLY copy is on that hard drive. Not to mention that ALL of my files for the sites I have built are on that drive. ALL of my billing files and Kenny's billing files are on that drive. All of my photographs, graphic work, and the pictures Hometown Digitals had taken for the band are on that drive. All of my school work and papers dating back to when I was getting my Associate's degree in 1999 are on that drive.
So, I try a few times to get into it and nothing works. I Google the error message and find a forum where a guy says to unplug this and that and re-plug everything in in a certain order. That didn't work. Found another forum where someone said to run a chkdsk on the drive. I did that, and the error went away, and all my files were accessible again.
But that made me paranoid, so I made back-ups to CD of everything that was on the drive, got Kenny his resume on the thumb drive, and got everything together to go to Spokane. While there for business-related stuff (collections... le sigh) and a class, I went and bought a new external hard drive, so, no fears, everyone! The book - A Night Borrowed - is still coming out October 1!!
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