Category Archive

In our paper this weekend was an article about a 22 year-old woman who is auctioning off her virginity in order to pay for student loans.  The “deed” will be done at the Moonlight Bunny Ranch here in Nevada.

I can’t tell you how much this disturbs me.  She is flaunting that she’ll be a “prostitute for a day”, and trying to get publicity through Howard Stern, and Good Morning America (good luck getting on the morning show I say). 

It’s just wrong.  Virginity is a special gift to give to someone you love, not to auction to the highest (not to mention freaky and perverted) bidder.

Here is a link to the article.

Oh, and as I was searching online for the link to this article, I found another mention of an 18 year-old who has already auctioned off her virginity.  An exerpt from that article:

“Reid revealed the highest bidder was a divorced 44-year-old BT engineer and father of two. He offered a staggering $20,500 for her ’services’.

Reid admitted the experience was “horrible” but blessedly brief. “It was horrible. . . I felt nervous and scared,” she said.”

That is just sick. You know who I feel sorry for in these situations? The girls’ parents. I can’t imagine how heart broken (not to mention disgusted) my parents would have been if I had pulled such a stunt. Haven’t these girls heard of getting jobs?! Or perhaps choosing a less expensive university instead of selling their souls?!

High heeled shoes for infants.

I’m shaking my head on this one.  I hate high heels, and feel like we need to abolish them once and for all — NOT start having babies wear them!

Along with the rest of the nation, I was shocked with McCain’s choice of a woman, a relatively unkown woman, for VP. As I research more about her, I am appalled by what the election of her and McCain would mean for women’s rights, science and democracy.  I believe that McCain chose her to capture womens’ votes, but to fellow women, I say beware…

This article excerpt sums it up:

“A significant part of Palin’s base of support lies among social and Christian conservatives. Her positions on social issues emerged slowly during the campaign: on abortion (should be banned for anything other than saving the life of the mother), stem cell research (opposed), physician-assisted suicide (opposed), creationism (should be discussed in schools), state health benefits for same-sex partners (opposed, and supports a constitutional amendment to bar them).”

And here are my thoughts on those issues:

Abortion — A highly charged topic, it is my belief that it is a woman’s right to choose what is right for her and her own body.  Although I have religious beliefs that would prevent me from choosing an abortion, it is MY RIGHT to make that choice.  This topic crosses heavily over into religion, and I firmly believe that we should maintain separation of church and state.  I also cringe at the implication to women’s rights if Roe vs. Wade is overturned.  As has happened in history, when abortions are outlawed, illegal operations crop up, which can severely compromise a woman’s health (if not kill her).  Pregnancy is a huge responsibility, in which you can really screw up a fetus/baby if you are not completely bought in to the process — via drugs, unhealthy eating, smoking, alcohol, etc.  Why do we want to force those types of people to carry out an unwanted pregnancy?!  This country was founded on religious freedom, so we should preserve the right for people with different beliefs to make their own decisions.  Especially in situations where the mother’s health or life could be compromised by a pregnancy, I say back off politicians and let the doctors make the decisions!

Stem cell research — In my opinion, this is another instance where the religious views of politicians are getting in the way of science.  I don’t understand why we cannot use the cells from embryos left over from fertility treatments that are set to be destroyed anyway.  Once you have known someone that is impacted by an infliction that could benefit from stem cell research, you see first hand how frustrating it is that politicians are impeding the progress.  I’ve had two very good friends that were paralyzed — one paraplegic and one quadriplegic.  For my friend, Heidi Van Arnem (please go read about her), that was a quadriplegic, it is too late to improve her life with stem cell research because she died at age 36 from complications due to her paralysis.  I worked with the disability community during my tenure at General Motors, and to hear first hand from these people about the great implications of stem cell research, I just don’t understand why we would choose to protect cells from embryos that would be destroyed anyway over the health improvement implications for existing people already struggling with disabilities.  At least McCain isn’t outwardly opposed to stem cell research, as he is quoted as saying, ““This is a tough issue for those of us in the pro-life community. I would remind you that these stem cells are either going to be discarded or perpetually frozen. We need to do what we can to relieve human suffering.”

Physician assisted suicide — I don’t understand why we cannot afford humans the same dignity we offer animals when the pain is just too much.  I have watched one of my grandparents suffer with emphysema, and another with dimensia, and both were fates that I just can’t imagine anyone would want to endure.  Once again, this is a religious decision that politicians are thwarting.  This is a free country.  If I don’t have the religious beliefs to stop me from engaging in physician assisted suicide, what right does Washington have to stop me?  I don’t think I’d personally do this either, but once again, I firmly believe it should be my choice.

Same sex marriage — The health benefits are tied to the same sex marriage debate.  I say if people want to get married and follow the same laws and ties of marriage, then so be it.  If they then choose to get divorced, they will then have to endure the same trials as any heterosexual couple.  Once again, this country was founded on religious tolerance, so I think politicians should stop making the religious judgement that same sex marriage is wrong, and just let people make their own choices and deal with the ramifications that those choices cause.

So, as we face Decision 2008, once again, I find myself choosing to vote for the lesser of two evils.  I’m not convinced either McCain or Obama are the candidates that this country needs.

Now that it is summer, I regularly get peeved by the cute young things that come to the gym just to sunbathe in their bikinis.  (I know, something my male readers couldn’t understand.)  I workout HARD every time I go to the gym.  I have a trainer that regularly kicks my butt.  I bust my butt in spin class, on the treadmill, and I swim really hard when I work out in the pool.

It just doesn’t seem fair that when they go to the gym, all they do is slather on tanning oil and lay in their oh so perfect bodies.  I workout hard enough to deserve a body like that, darnit!  It’s just not fair!

John Edwards has admitted to having an affair while his wife was undergoing cancer treatments.

Excuse me?!  He did that to the woman that stood by him and helped him campaign in the midst of her own personal health crisis?!  To the mother of his children, WHILE SHE WAS BATTLING CANCER?!

Is it a prerequisite now-days for politicians to be first class A-holes and idiots?!  And I actually thought he was one of the few good guys in Washington. 

I’d like to think that if I was diagnosed with cancer that my husband would take care of me and also take care of the children, and NOT go sleep with another woman and possibly have fathered a child with her!

This news angers me on so many levels.  I remember questioning his character when he decided to keep running for president despite his wife’s dire diagnosis of most likely terminal cancer.  I remember being in awe that she would continue to step up and represent him despite that diagnosis.  And for him to go off and screw another woman during that time is completely inexcusable to me.

Image courtesy of the Reno Gazette Journal.

The veil of smoke is back in Reno, after lifting slightly for a few days.  This is the third week where we’re covered in smoke from the California fires.  The air quality is horrible, and people are recommending that we stay inside.  The sun looked red through the smoke last night.  It is very ominous.

This just plain sucks.  And I can’t help but think it’s a symptom of global warming, and a sign of things to come.  Fires this bad with smoke this bad just didn’t happen when I was growing up.  It’s becoming a trend in the summers for us to have nasty smoke hanging around, and honestly, if this keeps up, we may want to move.  Summer is my favorite time of year, and it is so tainted by this smoke, and it makes me sad to not be able to see our beautiful Sierra Nevadas.

Some people close to me say Al Gore is full of bunk (you know who you are).  I tell you, some of the predictions he has made have come true, including increased forest fires, flooding and increased severe weather, and the melting of the North Pole.  It’s just depressing.  I worry what this world will be like for the next generation.

Excerpt from ClimateCrisis.net:

We’re already seeing changes. Glaciers are melting, plants and animals are being forced from their habitat, and the number of severe storms and droughts is increasing.

If the warming continues, we can expect catastrophic consequences.

Ever since we were little girls, we are conditioned to think that if you have beauty, you have it all.  Look at all the Disney princess movies – the evil people are ugly, and the pretty people are good and always get the prince.  It’s that conditioning that makes me stop and contemplate that having beauty in the real world doesn’t always mean you get the prince.

For instance, Christie Brinkley is in the midst of a divorce battle with Peter Cook, who had an affair with an 18 year old, and racked up $3,000 per month in online p0rn.  He was married to Christie Brinkley!  She is the epitome of beautiful, even in her 50s, I would be thrilled to look like her.  You’d think any man would be completely satisfied to be with Christie Brinkley for the rest of his life.  But Peter Cook turned out to be no prince at all.

Or what about the Wonderbra model Elisabetta Gregoraci.  Not to judge a book by its cover (all be it a RICH cover), but it baffles me how someone as gorgeous as her ends up with someone like this:

(courtesy of The Superficial)

Or that Christina Aguilera could end up with someone that looks like this:

(also courtesy of The Superficial)

I know that beauty is only skin deep, and yes, we should choose a mate based on personality and not looks.  But come on!  Shouldn’t there be some sort of physical attraction there?!

It almost seems to me that in Hollywood at least, beauty seems to beg a sort of calamity in your life.  So as much as I may want to lose weight and count calories and work out like crazy, I have to remember that I have pretty much all I ever wanted out of life with a loving husband and beautiful daughter, so I need to remember that chasing after the unattainable American ideal of beauty is a rather fruitless endeavor.

Right?!

Video about a woman driving drunk that buckled up a case of beer in her car but not her one year old child.

That is so infuriating.

I’m back, but I’m in email hell.  I’ll write as soon as I get one nostril above the water line.

It snowed last night.  It only snowed a little, and it’s all melted off in the valley right now.  But at the gym today, there were people working out in their snow boots and wearing stocking hats.

And to those people, I just have to say YOU ARE NOT WORKING OUT HARD ENOUGH.  The gym is 70 degrees inside year round.  Working out in outdoor winter gear is just plain stupid.

That’s all.

Someday I’m going to learn my lesson.  For the second year in a row, I have been burned by online Christmas shopping.  Last year, I had to show up to Christmas morning with pictures of many of the gifts I had purchased online Dec. 1 that were delayed in shipping.  I placed an order this year on Dec. 3 at Amazon.com, and just found out that they don’t intend for it to arrive until the week AFTER Christmas.  Of course, there wasn’t any messaging about this before the purchase, as I wouldn’t have purchased with them if that was the case. (Note to my friend, A, it’s the shipment headed for your house, so expect a delay!)

How do online retailers get away with this?!

Edited to add:  I would be remiss not to post that Amazon has rectified the situation.  After utilizing their ‘click to call’ feature, where within a split second of me clicking on the button telling them to call me, the phone rang, and the customer service representative totally fixed the problem.  There is a reason why I’m an avid Amazon customer!

As if air travel with a toddler wasn’t miserable enough, my favorite airline, Southwest, has totally disappointed me by deciding to end pre-boarding for people traveling with children under 4.  Ugha.  It is challenge enough to get to the airport early enough to check bags and get through security, but now we have to worry about our spot in line?!  Say farewell to sitting together as a family (where it helps to have a ratio of 2:1), and say hello to sitting in a middle seat with a lap child and strangers on either side.  Oh boy, does that sound like fun.

Southwest, you have failed me.

I didn’t actually see Britney Spears’ performance at the MTV VMA awards this week, but I am just LIVID about the media saying she looked out of shape and had a stomach pooch.

You know how much I would love to look like that after having a kid?!  And she’s had two!  One of those is less than a year old!  And we wonder why women and girls in this country have body issues.  We’re telling them that this is what it looks like to be out of shape.

Granted, I know she’s probably had work done, but still, why must we be so darn critical of looks?!  I give her kudos for being able to go on national TV after having a kid so recently.  Lord knows I couldn’t do that…

Darnit. In my quest to remove people’s names from my site, I broke about half of the pictures on my site because names were in the code for the pictures.

*muttering explicatives*

Way to create work for myself… Darn search and replace feature…

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A few of my Internet pet peeves:

1. When one of my favorite bloggers quits. Argh! It’s like reading a book and finding out the ending is ripped out. There are several sites I’ve been reading for YEARS and they recently kicked the bucket. DARN YOU!!!

2. When people put songs on their MySpace profile pages. 99% of the time when I’m on the computer, I have my own music playing, and to have your song start blaring over my music is highly annoying.

3. Private profile pages on MySpace. Seriously, why bother? Just don’t post incriminating information or pictures and you’re fine.

4. Comment spam. My blog is getting over run with comment spam. I know I need to switch platforms to upgrade the comments functionality, but who has time for that?! If your comment doesn’t show up on my site, it’s probably because I accidentally deleted it while filtering out all of the spam comments.

5. Back to MySpace, what is up with the crappy layouts people use? They are mostly horribly distracting and make the pages hard to read.

I’m done ranting for now. Little Miss is still home sick with a fever, which turned out to definitely not be teething, as it peaked at 103.2. I’m fighting off the cough of the devil. Hopefully some day we will all be well again.

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Our taxes were completed at about 12:30 am. Just back from the post office, to which I’d like to submit this feedback:

• This is a great day for your self-serve kiosk to be out of service

• Weren’t you expecting a lot of business today?! Perhaps you could have staffed up
• Speaking of the staff, could they move any SLOWER? I watched them mosey from the back room back up to the front counter repeatedly as the line grew and grew
• To the people who were mailing things other than tax returns, WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?! The woman ahead of me was mailing a Land’s End return. Seriously?!

Glad that project is over for another year. We have made our annual contribution to the black hole otherwise known as Iraq.

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I just discovered a great article (thanks to Web-Goddess) about password hacking. After reading about how the author would hack a hypothetical account, I realized why I was such a sitting duck when my Gmail account got hacked last Fall.

Many of my accounts had the same user name and password, and were all tied to that email. Once the hacker was into my email, he could easily access my financial information and other sensitive data.

I just used that author’s advice and changed all of my user names and passwords following his guidance for strong passwords.

This probably means I’ll persistantly not be able to get into accounts, but the data in those accounts will be safe!

Now go, read the article and protect yourself!

I stopped by the grocery store yesterday after work. I needed to buy the basics, but I was primarily concerned with buying some nice dark chocolate. I find that a small piece of chocolate each day can curb my sweet cravings and make me feel happy all around.

When I got home and unpacked the bags, one item was missing.

My chocolate.

Of all things to leave out, they picked my chocolate. Yes, they managed to charge me for it. They couldn’t have left out the spinach, salad, etc. They had to leave out the chocolate. I searched my car not once, not twice, but three times, and confirmed the chocolate is missing in action. And it really is just too much of a pain in my butt to march back in there to get my chocolate because one trip to the store weekly is challenge enough with a 1 year old.

I don’t know if that started a string of events, but I woke up this morning, and soon thereafter, I was just peeved. And I’ve been peeved the whole day, wanting to just go home and take a nap. In my prior life, on days like this, I might actually cave into that whim,and after a nap and some veg-out time, I’d probably be my normal chipper self. But I have plenty of real substantial reasons for which I miss work, and hence I shall just remain peeved.

I did manage to sneak away to purchase some chocolate at a nearby store, which after that and a tall cup of leaded coffee (which I save for situations when I really need the jolt), perhaps I will see myself out of this peevish hole in which my day has been residing.

For all of you NMSU Aggie Alumni out there, you need to read this article which was on the front page of the Reno Gazette Journal on Monday.

I was a amuzed, and a bit miffed at the negative portrayal the journalist gave of Las Cruces, a city that is very fond in my heart.

A few quotes:

“An early visitor, Spanish explorer Don Juan de Onate, called his trip there in 1598 the “Jornado del Muerto.”

In English, that’s “Journey of Death.” Not exactly a chamber of commerce slogan.

The city, founded in 1849, got its name after some travelers were killed by Apaches, and the survivors marked their graves with crosses, calling the area “La Placita de Las Cruces,” or “Place of the Crosses.”

Not much of a tale to attract tourists or Wolf Pack fans.”

The Las Cruces that I left almost 10 years ago was a charming college town with a lot of Spanish culture. You could find some of the best New Mexican food there, and there were REAL cowboys everywhere (as opposed to Reno, which has Rednecks and wanna be cowboys). And the bars there had the best two stepping and swing dancing joints I’ve ever been experienced.

I miss the Organ mountains, the pecan groves, the Rio Grande (especially the parties along the river banks), the mild winters and the food and the nightlife. It’s just different there. It’s a shame the journalist couldn’t appreciate different.

I didn’t appreciate the negative slant the article took, and just for that, I sure hope that my Aggies put this writer in his place when they play UNR.

I think we have a fighting chance, because our team already beat the UNR Wolf Pack once this season.

Go Aggies!

Warming ‘very likely’ due to man, report to say

Officials from 113 countries agreed Thursday that a much-awaited report will say that recent global warming was “very likely” caused by human activity

Um, DUH!

Looks like Google is at it again with their “stellar” customer service when someone’s account gets hacked.

Help me spread the word that The Happiness of Pursuit has been hacked and is getting the silent treatment from Google.

I didn’t tell all of you the end of my Google story, by the way. They finally restored my account access, because someone within Google’s realm said they were able to verify my identity, even though they didn’t ask me any more questions. I later received an email from someone on the Google security team saying that they were researching my incident, and found some emails that the hacker had deleted from my account, so they restored those emails.

The emails were the password change confirmation and account name change confirmation emails from eBay. From those emails, I was able to find the IP address of the hacker. I sent that IP address to that person at Google, and they tracked it down to an Internet Service Provider in Italy. I was told that they could try to track the person through the ISP, but that the ISP most likely wouldn’t help, and Google thought it would be a dead end anyway.

I felt a bit better about the experience to know that Google was following up on the hacking of my account, but I still think they need to improve their process for handling these hackings. The amount of time that the hacker had access to my account was totally unacceptable. They should look at eBay as an example, who has an online chat with a customer service agent for issues with security. Yes, I had to wait in queue for 45 minutes, but I was happy to do that in order to get a live person to help me solve the issue on the spot. Kudos, eBay. Shame on you, Google.

I really hate going to the mall and shopping in general. The only thing I hate more than shopping and going to the mall is doing all of this during the Christmas season.

So this year, I thought I got wise. I sat down on Dec. 2 during one of Little Miss’s naps and did a lot of my Christmas shopping online. I was rather smug with myself, planning a wrapping bonanza this weekend.

But most of my orders didn’t show up. I just logged online to the place where I did most of my shopping, Target.com, and discovered that the delivery estimates for my packages were January 23! And they didn’t even notify me of the delay! I am livid! One of the packages was released to the post office on Dec. 8 and the tracking information shows the package getting delivered on January 23!

I canceled what I could of that order and replaced the order on Amazon, who has been much more reliable for me over the years.

I then checked the status of my orders on Amazon, and realized that most of my order there hadn’t gone through because for some reason, the items had been saved in my cart “for later”.

So, now I look at a week with no time to shop, and just paid expedite shipping fees despite my planning and shopping at the beginning of December.

Damn commercialism.

So if you’re expecting a gift from me this year, be forewarned that it may be late. I swear it’s not my fault!

Halloween in my neighborhood just plain sucks. I swear we’re known as THE place to trick-or-treat, as this one night a year, people swarm our neighborhood begging for candy.

I think there are probably five kids that live on my street. There were hundreds parading up and down the street on Halloween. The doorbell rang about every two minutes. It was to the point where I just sat next to the door because it didn’t make sense to go too far.

90% of the people that come to my door are rude high schoolers, many that aren’t even in costume. Almost all of the kids had pillow cases to gather candy — many of those king sized. What happened to the little plastic pumpkins of my childhood?

The other trend in our neighborhood is people driving their kids around to trick-or-treat. Our streets are literally jam packed with cars driving about two miles per hour because the parents are too plain lazy to walk along with their kids.

Both years I’ve lived here, there was a kid that really made me mad. Last year it was the kid that kicked my door when I didn’t answer immediately. (Forgive me for trying to cook dinner and hand out candy at the same time!)

This year, it was the kid that I gave candy to, and then he stood there with a pout on his face, asking for more. There were about ten kids lined up behind him, so I told him, “no, you already got two pieces.” And he had the gall to keep standing there pouting. I shut the door in his face. I didn’t slam it, but I just told him to move on.

Another shocker this year was the mother that was trick-or-treating. When I questioned her what she was doing, she said her son was in the car. Here’s my policy — if your kid is too tired or uninterested in trick-or-treating, GO HOME. Don’t go trick-or-treating for your kid. It’s just plain tacky.

I gave out six pounds of candy — $20 worth — and I ran out after about an hour (at 7:30). I shut off our lights and put a sign on the door saying we ran out of candy, and people were STILL ringing our doorbell.

When did trick-or-treaters get so darn rude? In my day, it was just common courtesy to be polite, thank people for candy, and not bother them if their lights are off. Period.

I vowed this year that I will never drive to take Little Miss trick-or-treating. I will also never trick-or-treat for her. She’s going to have to earn her candy the old fashioned way, gosh darnit.

Cripes, I’m getting old.

The fire department was in front of our house at about 8:30 that night. I kind of freaked out when I saw the red lights, thinking that someone had set fire to something in our front yard. But no, it was the fire department on their loud speakers telling people to stop walking in the middle of the street. Does that show how bad it is?!

Next year, I’m contemplating going out of town for Halloween. Grrrr….

Is it just me, or is the formatting on my site all screwed up?!

Now what have I done?!

I couldn’t believe my shock on Sunday when I opened my Hotmail account (thank you, Microsoft) to find this message from Google:

“We have completed an extenaive investigation of your account and are re-enabling your access to this account. The account settings have been restored to the first name, last name, and secondary email address that you provided.”

Low and behold, I followed their directions, and was back in my infamous account within minutes.

Now was that so hard, Google?!

But what cracks me up is that after well over a week of silence on their end, they say they did “an extenaive investigation”, which I assume is really an extensive investigation. I think perhaps someone was investigating this site, as their investigation didn’t involve me providing any further information, as I had offered them.

So to conclude my thoughts on Google, they need to have a process in place (ala eBay) to deal with account hackers in a more timely fashion. I know many people think that I wasn’t giving them a fair shake, but really, I don’t think I’m asking too much. And honestly, even if they charged for an upgraded account that came with support that actually responded to you in a timely fashion, I would have been all over that.

But, I’m over Google. I’m clearing out the data on my account and giving it a proper burial. I’m moving on to bigger and better accounts with actual customer service.

I just have to decided where that will be.

But one thing I’ve learned is that blogs are a great medium for customers to get their voice heard. The traffic to my site has sky-rocketed this month. I think as long as bloggers save their rants for valid customer service levels, this will remain one way that us Davids out there can shoot stones at the Golliaths of the world.

Thanks to my brother, who pointed out this link to the Freakonomics site.

My favorite quotes are as follows:

“On a recent Monday morning, nearly 20 police officers gathered in Clarkstown, N.Y., for a four-day seminar. They had assembled to fight one of modernity’s great scourges: child deaths in motor-vehicle crashes. Each officer was given a 345-page training manual issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). At seminar’s end, each would be certified as a ”child passenger safety technician,” which primarily means that they would be experts in the installation and use of child car seats.

Why does it take four days to learn about car seats? Because any given seat is a tangle of straps, tethers and harnesses built by one of dozens of manufacturers whose products must be secured by the diverse seat-belt configurations of any passenger vehicle sold in the United States. According to the NHTSA manual, more than 80 percent of car seats are improperly installed.”

“So if car seats and booster seats aren’t the safety miracle that parents have been taught to believe, what should they do? The most important thing, certainly, is to make sure that children always ride with some kind of restraint — and, depending on your state, a car seat or booster seat may be the only legal option. On a broader level, though, it might be worth asking this question: Considering that Americans spend a few hundred million dollars annually on complicated contraptions that may not add much lifesaving value, how much better off might we be if that money was spent to make existing seat belts fit children?

My thoughts exactly!

I enlisted JB to help me install the car seat yesterday. It took us about an hour an a half to get the darn thing installed as we referenced both the vehicle owner’s manual and the seat owner’s manual.

The LATCH system just didn’t work, which seems stupid, but we couldn’t get the seat secure in the rear facing position. We also ended up having to use a seat belt clip, which we weren’t supposed to need with it being a new vehicle and all, but whatever works, right?

My point is this — it took two well educated adults over an hour and a half to get it installed correctly. Do you know how many people out there wouldn’t put that kind of time and energy into installing a car seat?! It’s no wonder most car seats are installed incorrectly, and I found myself muttering yesterday that the people that designed these things should be shot.

Or, at least they should have been forced to watch us try and figure it out. Grrrr…..

OK, people… I know I have a lot of techies frequenting my site as of the past week, and I have a confession to make. I’m just a wannabe. For instance, I tried to remove Google Adwords from my site, in an effort to protest against Google, and I totally screwed up the formatting of my right navigation.

I also had Matt point out that I’m leaking email addresses in my comments. I had thought about that. The problem? I have no time to research how to remedy the situation. I figured out how to make email an optional field in my comments, but that’s as far as I got.

Here’s the gist. I work full time, and have an 8 month old daughter, who is sick and crying for my attention right now. If you’re a techie reading this, your tips would be greatly appreciated!

**Update: I figured out the formatting problem with the navigation… And I did it with an upset baby in my lap. Perhaps I’m not as much as a wannabe as I thought!

As I try to force Google to give me access to the data in my account, I am researching where I should set up my next primary email account. Anyone have recommendations for me? I’m looking for an account that will be SECURE and have reliable customer service!

Wow! I had intended to spread the word on how Google treats security breaches, and I have succeeded! I’ve received a ton of comments, many of which I’d like to address in this message.

But first, an update on the situation… I received a very short email from Google support today saying that they were unable to confirm my identity (because I can’t remember what the secret question was I set up on my account TWO YEARS AGO — not the answer, but the QUESTION!). However, they did say that they disabled the account (thankyaJesus for that). In essence, the account is now dead as a doornail, and Google does not intend to let me have access to the data in that account ever again.

It is progress. I am pleased that the hacker no longer has access to my account, but come on — that person had access to my account for 4 days before Google reacted. Four days is plenty of time to peruse the account and get any bit of information they wanted.

I’ve been wracking my brain trying to remember what kind of data is in there. I’ve also been worried that the hacker would tap into my address book and pull the same voodoo magic on my family and friends. Seriously, Google, giving someone access to my account for four days is completely unacceptable.

And I’m not ready to walk away from that account. I want to regain access so that I can grab out the email addresses that I had only stored in that account. I want to grab out the account details for things like when I need to renew my web hosting and domain name. So I’m not done with Google. I think they owe it to me to give me a chance to prove I am the rightful owner of the account so that I can gain access to it one final time.

I’m also a bit curious to check the Sent messages to see if the hacker sent any emails under my alias.

Many people that commented seemed to think I had set my expectations too high for Google. I don’t think so. They say on their site that my security is very important to them. They told me I never had to delete an email because of unlimited storage. They make a ton of money on other products, so no, I do not think it is too much to ask to have them respond to my security breach in a timely manner.

And with that, I’ll address some comments individually. Thank you all for your feedback and support. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.
*******************************************************************

• My favorite comment came from John, who said, “All I can say is: I sympathise. Having a hacker in your mail account is like living with a burglar.”

  Amen, to that, John. That is exactly how I have felt. I have felt completely violated. I have felt like I discovered a burgler in my house, but the police wouldn’t even bother to pick up the phone.

• I was just wondering: has the hacker tried to write to you? Have you tried to contact him? Because it seems several users experience some access issues. They are being advised some standard procedures, and most don’t complain any more—so it might be that. As you don’t give much detail to what happens when you try to log on, I can only be guessing.

  No, the hacker hasn’t tried to write to me. And yes, I did contact him. I emailed my own account saying GET OUT OF MY ACCOUNT, YOU BASTARD! I then informed him that the breach had been reported and I had taken steps to make sure he couldn’t steal my identity. As I mentioned before, I knew it was a hacker when the person changed the password and then the user name on my eBay account, and within minutes they had shut me out of my Gmail account.

• When they ask for your email address, did they mean your compromised or another one?

  Why have you aimed so high? If anyone is busy at Google, it must be the top executives—and “Search and User Experience” must be all up with YouTube right now. Your case doesn’t need any exec-boost: everyone at Google know what is an ID theft, and that what they should do—it just takes time to deal with it.

  They had asked for my compromised email account, the very address I had put in every communication to Google. It proved they didn’t even bother to read my emails.

  And as for why I aimed so high in the organization? Well, that was the only level of employee for which I could find published names and email addresses. Besides, I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a VP or the VP’s secretary to forward my email and ask for it to be taken care of.

  As for it “taking time” to deal with it, I’m sorry, eBay was able to solve my security breach within an hour. The more time a hacker has access to your account, the more damage that person can do. Security should be dealt with promptly. Period.

• Why have you filled it [the security breach form} ten times? You expect them to restore your account that many times? Or you wanted it to be safer?

  I’m not familiar with the internal red tape, but I beleive each time your filled it, someone will have to check if anything has been going fine—and this will only delay them coming back to you, right?

  I initially filled it out once. Then there was no response. I then tried other avenues, and everyone kept pointing me back to the same friggen form. I was freaking out — my identity was being stolen. I wanted 11 different people to be aware of this. If they had answered my first form, I wouldn’t have had to fill it out eleven times.

• Do you know how your accounts became compromised? No, I don’t, but the person at eBay suggested that perhaps someone used a virus or a phishing email. I doubt the phishing email, because I’ve worked online for the past 8 years, and I know better than to click on phishing emails. The biggest mistake I made was having the same password on multiple accounts. Once the hacker figured out the password to one account, he had an open door to the other.
• And what if someone at Google did see this? It’s not like you included any details of your account, like, say, your email address. How would they know what to look for?

  Well, gee, I would have given them my Gmail address, BUT I COULDN’T ACCESS THE ACCOUNT. I’m a bit afraid now to post email addresses on my site, so I figured they could contact me via comments, just like you did.

• Be nice, Google, you shall not be evil .. it is thy commandment

  Google is not nice. They are evil. And I’m out to spread the word!

• You get what you pay for.

  Evidently. But I still think they shouldn’t offer email accounts if they can’t deal with security breaches in a timely manner.

• I don’t know about you, but I got my gmail account for free. If this is the case for you, I suggest loosening up on your expectations of google. Don’t forget that they provide this (otherwise excellent) service, free of charge, to millions of customers/consumers, and its bound that sometimes there will be problems (whether it’s google or not).

  So give the google people a chance - I’m sure they are working on the problem as we speak.

  See my above response. I don’t believe in “giving someone a chance” for four days when it means someone with bad intentions has access to my account.

• Atleast you are getting some kind of response :), my yahoo mail account (which also happened to be my first mail id on net) was hacked (phishing) and nobody has bothered to reply to my mail till now

  I’m sorry to hear this is a more widespread problem than I thought. I think we should all rise up and demand attention to our data integrity!

Today marked the end of Day 3 where a hacker has had access to my personal Gmail account, and Google has done absolutely nothing to rectify the problem. I received two emails from Google support today.

The first email responded to a message where I gave them my gmail address, and their response asked me for my gmail address - proving they didn’t even bother to read my message. The second email I received told me to fill out the form to report that your account had been compromised — the same form I have filled out 11 times with no response.

What really urks me is that yesterday, I looked up Google’s VP of Search and User Experience, Sheryl Sandberg. I have left her a voice mail and three emails, and do you think she has managed to respond or forward on my emails?! NO!!!

You know, every company I’ve worked for responded when a consumer had a problem that they escalated up to the executives. In fact, for a while at General Motors, I had the responsibility of solving customer problems that had been directed towards the top executives. Evidently, Google doesn’t have that. Evidently, the woman in charge of the user experience doesn’t care that my identity is at risk because my account has been compromised and no one has bothered to help me with the problem that I reported mere minutes after the security breach.

I don’t want this site to be a Google rant. I’d love to tell you how they finally reacted and stopped the hacker in his tracks. In fact, I’d love to tell you about the positive stuff happening in my life right now, like my 2 year wedding anniversary and my daughter turning 8 months this week. But I’m too consumed with this crap to even think about those positive things.

Thanks, Google.

Some criminal still has access to my personal gmail account, and what is Google doing about it?

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

I have done the following:

• reported my account as compromised 10 times

• emailed the abuse address
• emailed the security address
• emailed the general support line
• called and asked to talk to someone in the abuse department (denied!)
• looked up executive names and left voice mails for three executives

And the response thus far?!

One automated response.

That’s it.

We are heading into Day 3 of my account being compromised by some cretin with bad intentions. Google’s site says that my security is their top priority, but I’m afraid their actions (or lack there of) speak louder than words.

I will be documenting Google’s response to this urgent matter on this site, and perhaps those of you without a Gmail account should think twice about establishing one….

I was sitting at my computer this afternoon when I got an e-mail saying that my eBay password had been changed. Then, immediately after, I got an email saying my “secret question” had been changed.

As I was contacting eBay telling them I suspected someone was hacking my account, I was prompted to log into my email account.

And the password didn’t work. The bastards hacked both of my accounts.

After about three hours, I was able to get my eBay account back, but Google… Dear Google… They are unreachable. THAT IS COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE WHEN MY IDENTITY IS IN THE PROCESS OF BEING STOLEN!

I called Google, and got a recording saying they don’t handle customer service over the phone. Some customer service. What about emergencies?!

Google Mail’s main selling point is that you “never have to delete an email” because of their unlimited storage. I took advantage of that storage. And now those bastards have access to two years of my personal emails.

I have submitted at least five contact forms to Google through the form where you report fraud. I haven’t even received an email saying that they received my report. Totally unacceptable customer service! (Maybe if I say GOOGLE enough in this entry, someone at GOOGLE will read this and help me out instead of getting more and more bad press as they don’t help me.)

I can’t believe this is happening.

So don’t email me right now. Contact me through this site until I claim my identity back.

And if this is the hacker reading, know that all of my credit cards, bank accounts and credit reports have been alerted.

Just back from 4 lovely hours of car shopping. I hate car salesmen so much right now I cannot even see straight.

You see, it seems that the real price of new cars in this town is a closely guarded secret. We called Reno Toyota asking for a price on a RAV4, and they said they don’t give prices over the phone. So we had to come into the dealership. We did so today, and asked for a price. They then told us to go on a test drive.

Which we did, and then we asked for a price. The salesman disappeared for like 20 minutes, then came back asking for our drivers licenses so that he could run our credit report and start the paperwork. He seemed shocked that we needed a price BEFORE we’d agree to buy the vehicle.

We repeatedly asked for a price, and were finally told that only one person could give us a price, and he was with another customer. By this time we had been at the dealership for two hours. We then asked if they could call us with the price, and were told TWICE that they would call us today with a price.

And they didn’t.

At the Reno Honda store, we didn’t have much better luck. We test drove a car, and then asked for a price. This time, we were told the MSRP, and then told a price that we totally thought we could live with. The man then disappeared for a good 30 minutes under the guise of checking available inventory for what we wanted. At this point, I had Baby On The Edge. I was doing everything in my power to keep her from having a melt down.

When the man came back, I thought we were going to start drafting the paperwork, but instead another man approaches and asks, “where did you get that price?”

At this point, I unleashed my wrath on them. “We have been waiting almost an hour with a cranky baby for your price, and you still haven’t given it to us. Do you know how hard it is to keep her from having a meltdown while you’re just wasting our time?!”

That interaction left with us storming out with a screaming baby and two salesmen following us out trying to win us back.

And now it’s plainly obvious to us that we must go outside the city limits in order to buy a Honda or a Toyota, as the dealers here have such a trapped market that they treat you like crap.

Tomorrow we’re driving to Carson City to meet with a guy who promised he could “come close” to the price we want to pay. If he starts doing this price dance with me tomorrow, I’m afraid I just might go postal.

I used to work for an auto manufacturer. I have spent a lot of time in GM dealerships, and NEVER saw customers being treated this poorly, and never saw them treating the actual price of a vehicle like a closely guarded secret. Granted the demand on GM vehicles may not be as high, but still, this is absolutely insane.

I hate politics, and most politics don’t interest me. But this week, after Bush vetoed the bill that would have expanded federally funded medical research using embryonic stem cells, I was ready to scream at the TV.

My immediate reaction was, “you idiot.”

I am in shock that he vetoed federal funding for stem cell research on grounds of a moral issue. I don’t understand how it makes us morally superior to not use frozen embryos that are slated for destruction anyways. It’s not like we’re growing clones here, Bushy, they are CELLS. Cells that will not become humans anyway because they are unwanted and unused embryos that will be destroyed anyway.

So in Bush’s eyes, it’s unacceptable to destroy embryos for medical studies, but it IS acceptable to destroy them for the hell of it.

Stem cell research has the potential to save so many lives, and to improve the lives of many Americans, or humans in general. The fact that Bush favors protecting cells that will be destroyed anyways over protecting actual human life is beyond me.

And he’s not morally against sending our troops to Iraq to be blown up by roadside bombs. Isn’t that the taking of “innocent human life”, Bushy?!

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

My favorite quote of the week was by Senator Tom Harkin, when he said, “You listen to the president’s speech and you wonder who was his science teacher.”

Amen to that. That teacher should be ashamed. Very ashamed.

Harkin went on to say, “I think what the president did is really to condemn million of Americans to suffering, needless suffering.”

I totally agree. When is the next presidential election?!

Jon Stewart from the Daily Show couldn’t have said it better.

Today, I was driving down the highway with a mug of tea between my legs. I remember thinking, be careful not to spill this tea, because it could burn you. I decided to adjust the tea to help stabilize it, and next thing I know the top came off and scalding tea had spilled all over my crotch.

Yeah, it’s lovely. I pulled off the highway to assess the damage… Luckily, I had a dermatologist appointment in less than an hour, so I had the doctor look at it, and I have 2nd degree burns on my stomach, thighs and my nether regions. That’s right, my nether regions.

This was a classic smooth move. The dermatologist put some pain killing ointment on it which really helped ease the pain, which I was actually comparing to labor in my mind, to give you an idea of how much it hurt.

I did manage to make it skiing yesterday, and have pictures to post once I bother bringing the camera in from the truck. Now, I’m off to put aloe vera on my scortched skin.

Yesterday was windy here in Northern Nevada.

We don’t screw around when it comes to wind. We get really strong winds. It was blowing ALL day long, and it had been forecasted to be extremely windy.

In fact, JB got some stuff out of our storage unit yesterday, and the wind blew a wardrobe box of my clothes out of the pickup truck. A wardrobe box, people — the thing is like 5 feet tall, and packed with winter clothes. Not a light box. (Side note, the man valiantly rescued my box for me.)

Anyway, I couldn’t help but shake my head when I heard this story on the news last night. Moral of the story below: DON’T GO OUT IN YOUR GLIDER PLANE WHEN IT IS FORECASTED TO BE WINDY!!!

Pilot bails out moments before Sparks plane crash

A glider pilot is in the hospital after he was forced to bail-out of his plane before it broke apart in mid-air.

Sparks police say Eric Larsen took off in a motorized glider from Inyo County, California sometime Tuesday morning.

Authorities believe he was forced to deploy his parachute and make a crash landing due to high winds.

The glider crashed near the intersection of Satellite and Laser Drives. The winds carried the pilot about two miles and he landed in the Wingfield area. One part of glider’s wings were found a mile north of the crash site.

Larsen was taken by Careflight to Washoe Medical Center with major injuries to his legs and lower back. He will be in the hospital for a few days. His family is from San Diego and are on the way to Reno.

Source: KRNV-TV via msn.com

I’m sorry, I really am. But this Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes baby story just keeps getting juicier and jucier.

According to this site, “Scientology couple JOHN TRAVOLTA and KELLY PRESTON are urging KATIE HOLMES to have a ’silent birth’ when she delivers fiance TOM CRUISE’s baby next year (06) and follow the church’s strict doctrines.

Preston explains, “It’s just because everything in moments of pain is really recorded and you want to have that (the birth) peaceful and clear of sort of suggestions or different words that can then affect them (babies) in their future.”"

Scientology also mandates no drugs for the mother.

I’m sure that a man invented this birthing process doctrine.

I absolutely guarantee you that I’ll have drugs, and will state EXACTLY WHAT IS ON MY MIND when I’m pushing the equivalent of a watermelon out of a hole the size of a lemon. And I have NO DOUBT IN MY MIND that my baby will not remember any explicatives I utter or anything about the entire experience.

Where can I get my hands on the Scientology doctrine? Sounds like it’d be a hoot to read.

By the way, I’m coming to the conclusion that MoveableType sucks. Just recently, the functionality that permits me to upload photos broke.

And now, for some reason, my right navigation is mysteriously gone. I haven’t changed a thing.

I tried the fix that worked last time — rebuilding all pages. Well, that never quite fixed my right navigation bar.

It has now been two weeks since I’ve been trying to contact MovableType support, and I keep getting generic replies from the support desk that shows that they ARE NOT EVEN READING MY EMAILS.

I may have to switch platforms, but Lord knows I don’t have time to be dinking around with that right now.

So, hang tight, and I’ll try to get everything fixed sooner or later.

Oh, geesh. They are desecrating the NMSU mascot, Pistol Pete. Evidently, in an effort to remake the brand of NMSU on a national level, officials think Pete shouldn’t have a pistol. Read the whole story (link courtesy of Jane).

Back when I was in school, I briefly dated a guy that was the Pistol Pete mascott. He got fired from the job when he punched the El Paso Miner in the nose. I personally think that is a really cool way to get fired if you’re a mascott!

All morning, my Google alert at the bottom of my monitor has proudly been proclaiming each time I receive new messages. Right now, there are ten unread messages in my gmail account. However, gmail has been down all day, so I know I have new messages, but cannot access them. I’m finding this extremely irritaing! Don’t taunt me if I can’t read them!!!

Our department finally got its very own copy machine. We were all so excited about it, becuase we always had to go into another department to make copies before.

The problem is that the brand new copier was placed directly outside my office door, and it is CONTSTANTLY in use. Now, the quiet peace that I used to know during the day has been replaced by copier noise. Constant copier noise. It is driving me nutso. All I hear is copy, copy, copy, staple, staple, sort, copy, copy (repeat for 9 hours).

This is just lovely. Absolutely lovely.

Dear George,

I am so disappointed in you. Was it too much to ask to for you to replace one of only two women Supreme Court Justices with another woman? Or was the Good Old Boy Club just too much to resist? Now there is only one woman on the Supreme Court. One! In a country as large as ours with so many well educated women, you just couldn’t find a single woman that was fit for the job, could you?

And, as another slap in the face to all of women-kind, you chose a man that will not fight for women’s rights. Instead, he is likely to fight to overturn Roe vs. Wade, which would give the government control over personal decisions that women make regarding their own bodies.

Shame, shame on you, George. How do you face your wife and daughters after making such a poor decision?

Sincerely,

One Angry US Woman

The other day, after signing a house offer that stood to make our real estate agent a lot of money, he shook my hand with an ever so soft shake and called me Sweetie.

I’m still cringing from that.

Never call a woman sweetie in a business situation. Never.

I’ll have to come up with a good response if he does that again. “My pleasure, babycakes.”

And by the way, our offer was rejected, so we’re back to the drawing boards.

I have lost complete faith in our legal system. I thought the whole OJ innocent verdict was a fluke, but now with Jacko getting off scott free, it proves to me that our legal system is pretty screwed up.

This morning on my drive to work, I had a guy cut me off while driving through Carson City. It was one of those lane changes where he jerked the steering wheel and didn’t signal. Thankfully, I had a few feet to spare, but I honked to let him know my displeasure.

Then, as I’m cresting the hill going into Washoe Valley, I notice that I’m going a bit fast, and considering this is where I got nabbed by an airplane before, I put on my turn signal to get out of the fast lane and slow down.

I looked in my rear view mirror, and saw the same guy completely on my butt, despite the fact that I was signaling to get over into the slow lane. He then sped past me blatently flipping me off, and then proceeded to make several illegal lane changes to pass other drivers.

And guess who was out doing another airplane sting today? That’s right, the Nevada Highway Patrol. I cannot tell you how happy I was to see this guy get pulled over (at the same spot I had been pulled over before, mind you). Finally, the cops got one of the bad guys in these stupid speed traps. I looked up through my glass t-tops, and saw the airplane circling above. I smugly smiled, glad that I escaped and he did not.

Serves you right, jerk.

Seriously, how many times do relatively innocent people get pulled over for stupid stuff, when the guys that exhibit blatent road rage get off scott free?!

My stitches are slowly coming loose. Last night, while eating a soft taco, I completely dislodged one, and had to have JB cut the entire stitch out.

This morning, while eating watermelon, I dislodged another one… But I have to live with it for the entire day because I won’t see JB until after work, and really, I don’t think I could ask any of my co-workers to cut my stitches, could I?

I’m getting all the stitches out tomorrow morning, and I’m looking forward to that appointment like it is Christmas. Imagine the feeling of having dental floss hanging down from the roof of your mouth — IT IS DRIVING ME NUTS!

While driving to work this morning, I was confronted with a very annoying jerk face driver. He cut me off multiple times just to slow down and wait for me to try to pass him, when he’d speed up, and he’d cross three lanes of traffic without even signaling. He was a middle aged man with a pony tail and a goat-tee. Blek.

And you know what? He has his website plastered ALL OVER HIS VEHICLE. It baffles me how someone would advertise their business on their car and then drive around like a complete a-hole, cutting people off and blatently being a jerk.

I have a theory that anyone that puts their website on their car is an idiot. That theory was proved today.

And it was confirmed by his stupid website, where the navigation is actually hidden in this flashy ‘menu’ section, but actually prevented me from looking at the contents.

So, if you came across my website while searching for NDC Digital Media, take my advice — stay FAR FAR away from this person, both professionally and on the road.

Here is a recent phone conversation with someone that had limited English speaking capabilities.

Caller: I’m calling to get my information changed on [website that I don't manage].
Me: I’m sorry, I don’t manage that site. I manage [website that I manage].
Caller: I want to change my information on [another website I don't manage].
Me: I don’t manage that site, either.
Caller: You don’t? Well, I want to change my information on [first website that he mentioned].
Me: I don’t manage that site. I manage [website that I manage].
Caller: Is that all that you manage?
Me: Yes.
Caller: You don’t manage [name of two other websites that I don't manage]?
Me: No.
Caller: Well, I want to change my information on [website that I manage].

That was literally the start of a 45 minute very painful discussion. I should totally get extra compensation for the amount of patience that I demonstrated.

As I was driving my friends home from the airport last week, one of them asked, “So how many tickets have you gotten now that you have this long commute?”

I hate it when people ask me that. I always feel like it’s tempting fate. My answer has always been, “don’t jinx me, but none so far.”

Well, I was jinxed.

Today, on my drive to work, I got caught by an airplane with radar.

A friggen airplane.

Three cops then pulled over four of us drivers, and next thing I know, I have a lovely $92 ticket in my sweaty little hands.

Can I just go home and crawl back into bed? That’s a hell of a way to start off the day.

Edited to add later:

Here is a description of EXACTLY what happened to me today. Definitely recommend speedtrap.org.

On Hwy 395 going through Washoe Valley (directly north of Carson City), it is extremely common on sunny, clear mornings to see the NHP’s aircraft patrol pacing automobiles that are traveling northbound (from Carson City to Reno). The NHP aircraft typically paces these northbound travelers at the south end of the valley, and the ground-based pursuit NHP vehicles generally are congregated underneath the Bellevue Road (Exit 44) overpass. Sometimes there are 4 or more NHP patrol cars under the Bellevue Road bridge, just waiting to pull people over. The vast majority of the time, this trap appears to focus upon northbound traffic, but I have seen them occasionally use it for southbound traffic as well. The speed limit on this stretch of road is 70 mph, but since Hwy 395 going through Washoe Valley is essentially a 9 mile long straightaway, people commonly go over 70 mph.

Breaking news… Too many diets can hurt your health.

Consider my health hurt. I started dieting at 11. Even though I exercise six days a week and eat healthy, I find that I gain weight, so I end up dieting again. I know it has wreaked havoc on my metabolism.

In my next life, I want to come back with my husband’s metabolism, K? Like last night, when he consumed an entire pizza and two beers while I ate my measly diet meal — IT’S JUST NOT FAIR!

Recent phone conversation…

Caller: “Lynnette, I’m calling regarding the creative you were supposed to send me by this past Wednesday.”

Lynnette: “Yes, I sent you that creative on Tuesday. Did you not receive it?”

Caller: “No, could you please resend it?”

Lynnette: “Are you sure? Let me check the e-mail address…” (I read him back the address to which it was sent).

Caller: “Yes, that is correct.”

Lynnette: “Well, maybe it went into your junk mail filter.”

Caller: “No, I receive every message that goes to that address. I don’t have a filter. I haven’t seen that message.”

Lynnette: “OK, I’ll resend it.”

Now what the caller didn’t know was that I had sent the creative through our HTML e-mail system, meaning I could see that not only had he viewed that creative that I had sent him, but he then UNSUBSCRIBED from my HTML e-mail list.

So if you’re going to have the gall to do that, please don’t call harrassing me about deadlines.

To The Woman That Chastised me In the Pool Locker Room Last Night:

If you don’t want your young son to see a naked woman, don’t bring him into the locker room of a swimming pool. You see, after people swim, they usually shower, and somewhere in there, the swimsuit has to be removed before the clothes are put back on. I can’t help that your son was gaping at me, but you could help but bring him in there if you don’t want him to see naked ladies. The next time you tell me to ‘cover up’ even though I’m ‘not embarrassed’, I will have some choice words for you.

Lynnette

Dear Mr. Purple Minivan Driver:

Why must you park right next to my precious Trans Am? Did you not notice that I parked WAY WAY in the back of the parking lot so that it would be in the shade and it was almost guaranteed to not have anyone park next to it? Why must you park so friggin close to me that you’re actually IN my parking space? There are a gazillion empty spaces from which you can choose, AND, they are plenty big enough to contain the girth of your minivan. I’d appreciate you showing more consideration tomorrow morning when you choose your next parking space.

Lynnette

To my Jerkface Landlord that Deserves All Explicatives that I know:

I really hate people that lie to me. When we did the walk through on my house, you said the place was clean to your standards. You then called me three weeks later to say that I had left it filthy and hired a cleaning company to the tune of close to $500, eating up my entire deposit. Be very afraid of the bad karma that will surely be coming your way. God doesn’t like liars either.

Lynnette

I put an ad in the paper to try and sell some of my belongings. I’m trying to get rid of the things I won’t be needing once I move in with JB.

I can already tell that these people are going to drive me nuts. Let’s start with the treadmill, which is listed for a whopping $50.

I talked with one man THREE TIMES about the treadmill. We arranged a pick up time yesterday afternoon, and yesterday morning, I get a call from him saying that he had some unexpected expenses come up and he’s not going to be able to afford it. IT IS FIFTY DOLLARS!

So then I returned the call of a woman that was interested in the treadmill. I had to go into depth explaining what it was like, and she debated with herself, because she wasn’t sure if she wanted a treadmill that was approximately 8 years old. Then, she said that she’d have to bring her husband with her to look at it, because she can’t spend the money on something to put in their house without him approving it. And, by the way, she won’t be able to pay me until the 15th of the month. IT’S FIFTY DOLLARS, PEOPLE! Where else on earth are you going to find a treadmill that works FINE, and is priced at FIFTY DOLLARS?!

Then I got a call on my lawnmower, which I purchased brand new one year ago. It’s a Craftsman, and I’m offering it up for $100. That’s a pretty stinking good deal for a hardly used lawnmower. I had a guy who barely spoke English call up and offer me $50 for it. He was looking for a cheap lawnmower for his son. NO, I’M NOT CUTTING THE PRICE IN HALF ON THE FIRST DAY THAT MY AD RUNS!

And then there is the man that had told me he wanted my $15 drill, but now can’t buy it because there has been a death in the family.

Are you people kidding me?! JB, who has been laughing at my stories, has warned me that it will only get worse at the garage sale we have planned for the 19th. Then, I’ll have people haggling me over cheap stuff, and at that point, I’m probably going to be so fed up that I’ll shove the item in their face and tell them to take if for free if they’ll just LEAVE ME ALONE!

Rea