Monday, October 31, 2005
My blog is worth $7,903.56.
How much is your blog worth?
I'm breaking a record here, I think, by posting a quiz result, but actually, it wasn't a quiz at all.
Happy Halloween, kids!
Posted by Rachel at 9:39 AM |
Thursday, October 27, 2005
This month seems to be a good social month for me. If I believed in horoscopes, I'd check mine and see if it said something about that. I've met cool new people, talked more to cool people that I already knew...Let's keep it up! :P
Posted by Rachel at 7:18 PM |
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
I am having a bad run of luck on so many levels. :(My car alternator has stopped charging my battery again. This morning on the way to school, in fact. It made a funny noise, then my dome light came on (until I shut the radio off) then my gas guage dropped, when I know in fact that the tank is full. I checked the guage fuse, and it's blown again. I called my dad and he said that with the fuse blown, the alternator wont charge the battery. He told me to call him when I get out of class later. He says I should be able to make it home if everything (heat, radio, wipers, headlights) is off.
With the crappy weather we're having, this may be a problem. I just don't want a repeat of last Tuesday.
At least my phone battery is full this time.
In other news, my social life seems to be picking up. I've been invited to 3 Halloween parties this weekend (two Friday plus Anna's on Saturday). Should be a fun weekend, though it looks like during the daytime I'll be at my dad's while he works on my car. :( We'll see.
UPDATE:
My dad came to campus after I was done with class and looked at my car. After some pondering, we took the cover off the dash under my steering wheel, and lo and behold, when my dad moved the wires around, they sent up a little shower of sparks. One of the wires had been hitting a piece of metal under the dash, which eventually stripped it down to the copper. It was hitting the metal while I drove, grounding and sparking, and blowing the fuse. Hence a non-working alternator and other unpleasant problems. My dad taped up one wire, cut another, then hooked my speedometer back up. From there, everything was operating properly - even my power locks. :P
Posted by Rachel at 10:01 AM |
Monday, October 24, 2005
Car is functioning again, minus a properly operating speedometer. My dad's gonna look more into that. But at least now I don't have to be like Chris anymore. :PPosted by Rachel at 6:12 PM |
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Car still doesn't work. My dad replaced the alternator but the battery still isn't charging. So he's supposed to bring his trailer out tonight and pick up my car to take back to his garage. For anyone who is mechanically inclined, or cares, he tested the alternator, and it was bad (so it wasn't a waste of money to replace it) but he thinks there's bad wires or a bad connection somewhere now.On the plus side (or not) I've gotten experience driving cars other than my own - Ryan let me use his car for work again Wednesday, and this morning I used Dan's to get to class (the first of which was cancelled - I didn't find out until I got there). I'll be using my brother's car for my afternoon classes, since Dan needs his to go to work...
Not sure how I'm going to get to work tomorrow though. Shall have to wait and see, I guess. I suppose it's possible that my dad will fix my car and be able to bring it back tonight, but that seems like a lot to ask of him. I'm just glad I didn't have to have it towed to a mechanic.
I should probably go do some homework.
Posted by Rachel at 9:06 AM |
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
I just had to ask "what's next," didn't I??When I got in my car after my plants class, it sounded funny starting. I noticed but didn't think much of it. Leaving the campus, my blinker started clicking reaaaaaalllllyy sloooooooooowly, and I was like, hm...maybe some wires are loose? (still no speedometer action, by the way). Pierce and Bay Rd - as I was turning, the blinker stopped clicking altogether. Bay to Schust - no turn signal at all (good thing they had a turn lane). Then Schust and Fashion Square red light - sputter, shudder, fade out. I had a pretty good idea then what was wrong. I put it in park, turned the ignition off and back on. Nothing. No turn over, no click. No power. Car is 100% dead.
Just my freaking luck. I get out my cell phone and open it to call someone. It says "Low Battery" and...shuts off. Shit. Clearly I can't charge it, so I get out of the car, wave the traffic behind me to go around, walk into the building there on the corner (luckily not a far walk) and call Dan. And cry because my car is dead in the middle of a busy street and I don't know what to do. He comes to get me, and as we're standing on the sidewalk deciding where to push the car to, Ryan happens to come up a side street. They push my car to the nearest parking lot while I follow them in Ryan's car, hazards on, trying to remember my dad's cell phone number (the one that keeps coming to mind is my own - fat lot of good that would do me).
So I call my dad and he comes and tinkers with it and discovers that the battery is fine, but the alternator isn't charging it. So now I need a new alternator. Good thing my credit card company just raised my limit, because I am worse than broke...
A million thanks to Ryan for letting me drop him off at work early and borrow his car to go to my last class. And treating me to lunch.
My dad is going to fix my car tomorrow, I believe, so I only have to pay for the cost of parts. Thank God I have a dad who knows how to do all that stuff.
I better go call my stepmom and tell her what's going on.
Posted by Rachel at 7:18 PM |
My car's speedometer stopped working this morning. How retarded is that? I was cruising down Schust Rd on my way to school (running late - which hasn't been such a common occurance recently, I am proud to announce) and glanced at my dashboard to verify that I was not speeding. I was rather irritated to discover that the needle on the speedometer was still resting at the bottom of the guage, below the "0" mark, even.
What the hell. My power locks already stopped working; I have to lock/unlock the car manually now. And the passenger side window only works when it wants to. What's next?
My car is slowly falling apart. :( And right when I've hit rock bottom financially. NOT COOL.
I'm hoping that the faulty speedometer was just a product of the unusual chill in the air this morning. Irrational, yes - it's never had a problem like this before - but it's my only hope.
Posted by Rachel at 10:09 AM |
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Grr. This is the second time my bank account has gone in the negative. I'm closing the account. TCF sucks.I hate money.
Posted by Rachel at 12:57 PM |
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Gr. Myspace is gay.I'm feeling a little melancholy, if that's the right word. And sometimes love sucks.
So does not having any money.
Posted by Rachel at 12:57 AM |
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Wow, Jeff. Your Rachel totally ripped off my MySpace "about me" blurb.Mine (I've since changed it):
My room is always a mess. There is a mini Christmas tree in my car. I own way too many clothes but keep buying more. I hate being bored and am usually doing 23 things at once. I love painting/drawing/writing but have yet to find the inspiration to create my masterpiece (it's okay, I got time). I love black and white photography and want to take a class (I just can't afford a good camera). I am an expert procrastinator when it comes to homework/schoolwork - I once wrote an entire college grade A paper - 5 pages - the morning before it was due, with no preparation beforehand. I never stick to (or even remember) my New Year's resolutions but I have a lot of goals for myself. I have no idea where my life is going but I'm excited to get there. I usually have a new hobby every couple months - from sewing to scrapbooking to learning html to playing the piano to teaching myself guitar to rollerskating to shopping... I tend to lose interest quickly. My ultimate dream is do move to a big city and make a name for myself in some unconventional way.
I always love meeting new people, so come be my friend.
Hers:
My room and my car are always messy...I clean them, but it does no good, but I find it easier to find things that way. I have too many clothes...and I buy more everytime I'm out...even though I know I'll never wear them. I have 103 pairs of shoes...but I usually only wear flip flops. I hate sitting at home and being by myself. I love to write, read, paint, draw...even though I suck at it. Some day I will be a great poet and everyone will read my stuff and it will be amazing. I have the worst memory in the world, I don't remember...well, I don't remember what I was going to say even. I tend to lose interested quickly in things that I am doing, such as hobbies...I never finish a picture when I am coloring...My dream is to make a name for myself..become someone that everyone knows, and make a difference in someones life....oh yeah, and to meet Johnny Depp!
Eh, well, you know what they say. "Imitation is the highest form of flattery." Or something.
Posted by Rachel at 8:08 PM |
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
So all you nerds that went to bed early at Jeff's bonfire (seriously, who goes to bed at 1am during a PARTY!?) missed out on the REAL party. Which started, of course, after I got there. Allow me to demonstrate:
Jeff and I battled it out via catfight, for lack of anything better to do (see that awesome White Stripes shirt I'm wearing? Yeah, I made that).
Chris got really drunk off of, like, 1/3 of a plastic cup of rum - more of it ended up in the fire than in his stomach (the fire handled it just fine [after a big whoosh of blue flames]) but Chris couldn't manage to stay on his feet for very long;
Ryan proclaimed himself "Bob Hope" after finding a golf club in the woods (which doubled as a fire poker and branch breaker-offer from one of Jeff's pine trees);
and we wanted a bigger fire, so we burned a chair.
The "real" party didn't end til 4am, when we ran out of fuel for the fire and got too tired to hunt up more.
And if you all hadn't gone to bed so early, you could've been in our group shot too.
Losers. :P
Posted by Rachel at 10:57 PM |
Saturday, October 01, 2005
Best Concert Ever: The White Stripes"
The opening band was actually rather good (though they didn't tell us what their name was - we almost started to believe that they were called "From Portland, Oregon" because that's about all they said, besides the names of the group members). They were called M.Ward(?). I bought the CD, it's very good, very mellow.
Between M.Ward and the White Stripes, Anna and I sought a bathroom, then looked to see if they were selling t-shirts at all. Of course they were, so we joined the very long (and growing) line to see what we could find. Just as we were getting up to the window, some girl came into the lobby area shouted, "It's starting!" Since we were so close to ordering, I refused to get out of line, but in my haste I bought a medium t-shirt instead of a small (without holding up to realize that it'd be too big).
Turns out the girl was lying though, which was cool. Anna and I were safely back to our seats before Jack and Meg even entered the stage.
They opened with a hyperspeed version of "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" (then later went back to it with Jack on piano). They did sort of a medley, then Meg did "Passive Manipulation." I don't remember the order of the rest of it, but here are the songs I remember them playing:
"Blue Orchid"
"Instinct Blues"
"Hotel Yorba"
part of "Cannon"
"Astro"
"Death Letter"
"The Big 3 Killed My Baby" (Jack did this one on piano, it was better than the original CD version)
"I Think I Smell a Rat"
"Red Rain" (encore)
"Seven Nation Army" (in the encore - the second to last song they played)
"Boll Weevil" (I didn't recognize this until Kurtis told me what it was)
"My Doorbell"
"Little Ghost"
"I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself"
"As Ugly as I Seem"
"In the Cold Cold Night" (I think Meg sounds a lot better live than on the CD, for both songs she did)
"The Nurse" (I loved this one live, it made me like the song even better - well, that was the case for most of the songs they played, but it's especially true for this one).
"Ball and Biscuit"
"Forever for Her (Is Over for Me)"
"I'm Lonely (But I Ain't That Lonely Yet)"
"Apple Blossom" (encore)
"Hardest Button to Button"
"One More Cup of Coffee"
"Fell in Love with A Girl"
They ended with a song I don't know the name of - if I had to guess, it'd be "He's Lookin' for a Home."
I think I got them all. I was a little disappointed that they didn't play "Take Take Take" or "Hypnotize," but they made up for it by playing songs I'd forgotten about that I'd have wanted to hear ("One More Cup of Coffee," for example).
I've decided that I have to go again. Unfortunately it probably won't be til they come around again next year, but still.
Oh yeah, another thing - in "Seven Nation Army" Jack changed "Wichita" to "Saginaw" - how cool is that? :P
