Well I am LONG overdue for a little update here on this blog. I hope there is somebody out there still checking this site… cuz I really do have things to say 🙂 But really I have to make and update to make sure my family knows what the heck I am doing.

Let’s see… where do I start? I would talk about work, but there’s not much that has happened that I’m able to talk about in any detail on the internet. I’ve been doing some interesting VIP events for special guests of Disneyland. It’s been fun, and it seems it’s only been the tip of the iceberg. As soon as one event is almost planned the next one is hot on it’s heels so my to-do list is growing every day. No matter how hard I pick at it, it still seems to grow. I really am so far behind right now that I don’t know how I’m going to dig out. I just have to take a deep breathe, relax, and remember they are just parties. Granted, they are parties with guests that would be nice to impress… but just parties nonetheless.

I will say that Friday couldn’t have come soon enough this week. If one more person scheduled me for one more worthless meeting I think I could have just lost it. I don’t remember where I heard it, but every time one of those damned MS Outlook meeting invites comes my way I think of the quote: “People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything.” Anyway… the meetings came and went and now it’s FRIDAY!!

I got most of my playtime activities out of my system after work hours during the week. Janey and I saw “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, and another fantastic movie called “Crash”. Both were highly entertaining. I have no intention of reviewing those movies for you, but if you see only one movie for the rest of the year I would encourage you to choose “Crash”. It was a very powerful and touching group of stories very artfully assembled into a great film.

So since I’m not planning on a movie or anything this weekend, I’m calling it my project time. I took off work a little early today and actually got a lot of things done that I have been procrastinating for a very long time. I first rushed off to the DMV to renew my car registration. I spoke to a very large and very funny black woman at the DMV. Let me give you an idea of how things work down here at the CA DMV. You walk in to what is usually a very long line (this time I was very lucky to only have about 3 people ahead of me). When you reach the first desk you tell them what you have come to do. The give you a little ticket and you are invited to sit and wait for the number on your little DMV FastPass to pop up on one of many TV screens placed around the room. It’s the Disney in me that makes me call this my little DMV FastPass. I got a bonus since I was at the DMV for two reasons. The car registration, and to finally get a CA drivers license. Thats right, I’ve been driving on my Utah license for the two plus years I have lived in CA. But thats another story that I may tell later…. so getting back on track I had two little DMV FastPasses.

I filled out the three foot long form that I was given at the first desk while I waited for my number. I was actually surprised at how fast it came up. I was instructed (by a voice recording in the room and the tv screens) to go to window number 14. When I arrived at window number 14 I was greeted by the only smiling face in the entire building. This woman had to be one of the friendliest people on the planet. She greeted me and the first thing she told me when seeing my form was that she had never been to Utah and she asked what the DMV was like there. I laughed out loud at the question then realized she was totally sincere… she wanted to know what the Utah DMV was like. It made me smile.

So we chatted about how small the DMV was near where I grew up and we compared it to the massive lines of the CA versions and she said “well california has a lot of damn people who wanna drive”

Anyway… she made me laugh and was very fast at getting all the forms done and I was done with my registration about 8 minutes and $83 later. Since my second number had come and gone, the nice lady gave me a new little FastPass and I waited for round two.

When my number was up I was told that I needed a birth certificate to get my license. “Damn” I didn’t have it.

So I ran home… played on the computer a bit… then went back to finish the job. And only about 15 minutes after I arrived at the DMV I was in the exam room taking the written test for my CA license! WHAT!?! A TEST!?! Who knew this was going to happen? In hindsight I realize I should have been prepared, but I wasn’t really thinking about the reality of things. I just wanted to get this job out of the way that I had been letting go for more then two years. So I faked it through the test. It was sort of a mix of common sense questions, and some of those tricky ones that have everything to do with the way the question is asked. things like “Backing up a vehicle is: A) always dangerous B) only dangerous in a large vehicle C) never dangerous. My thought is “well who’s driving” Reversing for me is no problem, but I would dig myself into a little bunker if I had to stand around while any of my sisters reversed. No offense girls, but the time Geina backed into the van while Nick and I were in the back of the car just ruined it for all y’all.

Fast forward about 10 minutes and my test was being graded. Each time I saw the little red marker flick I sunk a little bit more. I hadn’t been careful at all, or even gone over the questions a second time. What if I failed!?! As it turns out a person is allowed to miss 6 out of the 40 + questions. and I missed exactly 6! WHEW. So I got a photo taken and walked out a real live California Driver.

You’d think I’d have called it a day with that eh? No way… I was out to kick ass and take names today. So it was on to the next project!

As you may already know, we are hitting our season high temperatures in SoCal right now and it is crazy hot outside.
In all this heat it just rubs in the fact that the Air Conditioner in my car has been dead for the better part of two years. It actually died when I was on a trip from UT to CA and I’ve just never been able to afford to fix it. Well I decided it was time to do something about it. I still can’t afford to take it into a shop for a what could easily be a $600 AC job, so I’m going to do it myself. I’ve been slowly deducing what the possible problems are for months now so I knew just what to do once I was ready to dig in… and DIG IN I did today.

I spend this evening ripping part after part out of the under-side of the dash in my little Camry to finally end up at the AC Evaporator. I pulled it out and found just what I thought there would be. A big ‘ol hole in the fins that was leaking coolant as fast as it could be pumped in. Now that I know what the problem is I just need parts. everybody says this part is at least 4 days out… that will be past my window of free time, so I’m determined to find this part tomorrow. I’m going to get up at 7:00 and head down to a junk yard I pass fairly often and see if they have a camry I can pull a used one off of. Hopefully this will help with the price tag on the part too… since it is quite pricey.

So thats my week in a really short nutshell.. more stuff happened as you can image, but those are the highlights from today :-)..

so till next time
R.