Fear the Crab

My dad expressed an interest in a sushi bar for the wedding reception. Turns out, however, that to get the sushi bar one has to arrange for a different dinner menu. We considered both selections and decided to stick with the original buffet. Even my dad said that he doesn’t want to sacrifice the whole meal just for sushi; it’d have been neat, but not important.

Maile and I will probably get the van when it comes in. Her old car will be used by Keoni for work-related purposes, until he’s established enough to keep paying for it. I think the functionality of the van will serve its purpose now without sacrificing future use, so it ends up being a good investment. It’s too bad the value drops dramatically once Maile drives it off the lot.

It feels like I am supposed to do something this week. I installed free Rainlendar software, which is basically an electronic planner that sits on your computer desktop. It’s kinda neat as far as its functionality, but there are some things that could be improved. For example, the alarm feature which notifies you of an upcoming event or task can be easily dismissed. I’d like it more if it needed a few more involved steps to dismiss, which would increase the chances of you actually doing what it is the program is reminding you to do!

I liken it to the alarm clock you put across the bedroom, forcing you to actually get up to turn it off.

Anyway, despite Rainlendar, I still feel like I’m forgetting to do something.

I have veggie stixs. They’re supposed to be good for me. Maybe I will eat the whole bag for lunch.

Maile and I were looking at a new car. A minivan, to be specific. 2007 Toyota Sienna LE, if you want more details.

We can afford it because we’ve saved enough to pay for it in cash, options and accessories inclusive. Maile needs a new car as her current automobile is on the razor’s edge; it works.. for now. Plus, the minivan provides functionality as far as cargo room, passenger capability (we’re looking at the 7-passenger variant), and some comfort. Maile likes the space and finds it easy to get in and out of the vehicle.

The model we’re looking at has dual power sliding doors, each with its own power window. Something I had never heard of in a van, though now that it’s there I wonder why it was never offered as standard. The driver’s console is useful and allows for easy access without compromising attention to the road. Passengers don’t have much in terms of distractions (no rear dvd player or nothing), but living in Hawaii does not imply long road trips.

The question thus remains, should we get the van now or wait? The specific van Maile wants won’t arrive until sometime later this month, so we just put a deposit to secure its purchase, and we have the option of declining with full refund. Getting it now wouldn’t hurt us financially, and Maile will be comfortable in the fact that as a new car, it won’t be prone to breakdowns immediately. Or, I should say, the chances are decreased dramatically.

Even with our upcoming wedding, the cost of the van would not impact the cost of the ceremony and reception, because we’ve already allocated funds for those. Whatever shortfall there is will be covered by our work income, which Maile is already receiving.

The one big thing that would factor against getting the van now would be Maile’s statement that her old car would be given to her brother, under the condition that he is able to afford it. That is, he has enough income to pay for its insurance, registration, safety checks, and whatever maintenance is required. That was the arrangement made by the family, and as of now I do not know whether Keoni is able to do it right away. It may take him some time, beyond the date the minivan is expected to arrive.

If we get the van anyway, what will we do with Maile’s old car? If Keoni can’t afford it, will the old car just sit in the carport?

Today is the first day of the fall semester. I’ll be taking ICS 321 and 331 this year. Only two classes, but they span four days out of the week, including Saturday. This means I’ll only be able to work at The Lab two days, but hopefully they’ll let me stay longer so I can earn more money and not worry about making enough hours to qualify for medical. Best case scenario is to work 6-7 hours a day at The Lab, while pulling in 20 hours a week at The Office. I should still have enough time to get any homework done, since there will be time at the Office to take care of stuff.

Parking is going to be a problem for many people, so I will have to revert back to my original schedule. I think waking up at 0500 is worth the ease in traffic and the bounty of parking stalls at the structure, so long as I manage to leave the house by 0545.

I’ve decided to start work at The Office an hour later, at 0800, so that I can grab some breakfast at the caf when it opens at 0700. I do this because I’m not particularly enthused about tummy-rumbles during work. It’s very uncomfortable.

Bought a new game called Black & White the other day. It’s some sort of god-type game where you micromanage villages and people, flaunt your godly powers, and control some kind of magical giant creature to act as an Avatar. Seems a simple concept, one that’s been used for many years, but this time there’s a level of complication that isn’t advertised in the fine print. For one thing, each village and your creature have minds of their own, and if you leave them alone for a bit they’ll do their own thing. In terms of villages the effects of this aren’t that earth-shattering, stuff like eating too much food or breeding like rabbits and sucking the earth dry, but the creature can do things that you might not like, such as eating the villagers or pooping on the temple. Training the creature is not unlike housebreaking a pet; you give it love when it does something good, and slap it around when it does something bad. I was going over some gameplay tips online and the sheer amount of tasks one must accomplish to have a “decent” game is staggering. I don’t think I’ll be playing it with much enthusiasm, especially with school.

In the meantime I drink coffee to stay awake and ponder how much notes I will have to take with just binder paper. I seem to have forgotten my new notebook at home.

Today I’ll be taking Maile and Malia (sp?) home today. Since parking is an issue, they’ll be dropped off and I’ll drive them home. This won’t happen every day, of course, since schedules are so different. It’s too bad they can’t reserve a parking permit right now, since they’re not that high up on the registration scale, but I believe after a couple of semesters they’ll be able to. Otherwise they’ll get the hang of finding free parking around the Manoa area. I found some numbers for alternate parking that they can try to take advantage of.

This morning I found some… thing, on my truck. It was on the hood, and it looked like some kind of raw hamburger, but not quite raw hamburger. It looked like it was chewed-up raw hamburger. It was a very startling sight to see first thing in the morning, but unfortunately I had no time to contemplate its universal significance because I was late for work.

So I simply shot it off my truck with the water hose. It came off easily enough, and broke apart into tiny little pieces, much like how raw hamburger would, I guess. Yet there was something else strange, for in addition to the little pieces that fell to the ground after I sprayed off my truck, was this dark, bumpy thing that looked like a link sausage. Or was it shit? I have no fuckin’ clue, and that made me stand there and stare at it.

I wasn’t about to touch it, no way. If it were a link sausage, it certainly looked strange, like it was a burnt, mutated link sausage. And what was it doing mixed in with the rest of the pink stuff? If it were a sewer log, what the fuck? And what the hell is the pink stuff?

Then I got to thinking, when and where did my truck mysteriously acquire the new hood ornament? I tried to think if it happened while I was at Maile’s house last night, but I don’t quite remember because I can’t recall if I looked at the hood of the truck when I left. The amount of.. matter.. that was on the hood seemed big enough that if I were driving I’d notice it, but I don’t remember that, either. It was dark, though, so perhaps I just couldn’t see it. So if it wasn’t last night, it must have been at my house, while I was sleeping.

How? The question of how it got there eludes me, though I have some hypotheses. One could be that it was a cat. A cat that.. maybe.. took a dump on my truck, then puked. Or puked then dumped. Or maybe the pink stuff was in the dump. Or some cat that was eating raw hamburger and a link sausage on my truck. Another hypothesis is that there’s a weirdo wandering around the neighborhood eating raw hamburger and link sausage on people’s automobiles. I don’t want to consider the hypothesis of a weirdo puking and dumping. If it happened at my house, that’s scary. If it happened at Maile’s house, that’s scary, although it’s Waipahu, so it’s not that strange. Scary, but not strange.

What disturbs me is not the question of when, where or how, but why. What possible reason could there be for some pink crap with some thing that looks like crap be on my truck? If I didn’t have to work today, I’d investigate further. But I won’t get home until later, and by then I think it will be gone. If it was food, at least.

I was playing left field for some baseball team, and I think I was back in little league. But it was a strange little league because we were using a ball that was about half the size of a regular softball, yet still larger than a regular baseball. I was wearing a white uniform with blue trim, and after our warm-ups on the field we had some kind of pre-game ceremony where they play the national anthem. They unfurled this huge fan-shaped flag and all of us on the field were required to hold our portion of it. So since the flag was shaped like a baseball field, I had to hold the left corner. I kept thinking this was probably the stupidest thing I had ever done on a baseball field.

When it (the pre-game show) was over, we all retired to the dugout, which was some kind of wooden shack, almost like a tool shed. Only now we weren’t in our uniforms, and everyone sat around in regular clothes. It was almost like we were done playing, the way we hung out, drank soda and juice (as is the wont of little leaguers).

I got bored, so I left the shed and walked around, and I saw my co-workers from The Lab. I was very surprised to see them, because they were probably the last people I expected to see at my baseball game. Then I figured that if they were there, Maile was there, too. So I started looking for her.

I ended up at an extravagant mansion that was actually right next door to the tool shed. And my extravagant I mean it was posh, with wide open spaces and impeccable taste. And it was clean. There were a lot of people there, and I felt that they were all involved in the baseball game somehow, but I couldn’t figure out what their involvement was. Perhaps the parents of one of the players owned the house. Perhaps it was the league. I don’t know.

I began to feel very uncomfortable at that house, so I left and tried to find my way back to the tool shed, to be with people of my own tax bracket. I heard someone call my name, and it was Maile. She was very happy, to the point of tears, and when I asked her why she gave me this small device that looked like a miniature shoe horn, but it was some kind of recording device. She played the message on there, and while I couldn’t make out all the words, she had apparently received a gift in the form of a brand new car. We had to drive out to the place to pick it up, so we hopped into her car and she drove.

The area was very unfamiliar to us, and we kept getting lost. At some point we both realized that we needed to bring along one of those rubbery fishing lures and.. something else. So we had to find a place that sold them. We kept driving, looking around for either the place we had to get to, or a store that sold bait.

What stood out to me was that I was getting very frustrated, because Maile was not following the rules of the road. Not staying in the lane, speeding around corners, stuff like that. We finally decided to park, and walk around. Except now I had to sit in a wheelchair, apparently I had some kind of injury. So Maile would push me around, and I’d try to help by wheeling myself at times, while we looked for fishing lures.

What was odd was that at several points I found myself standing next to her, and thinking that I probably shouldn’t leave my wheelchair out where someone could steal it. We had just been given directions to a store that sold what we needed, but when we left, Maile decided to stop searching and go home. It looked late, nighttime, and it would be a while before we got to the store and to wherever we were supposed to receive the car.

We never did find the car.

I had to wake up early today to take my brother to his dentist appointment. After that was done, we went to Ala Moana so he could do some shopping, but he ended up getting nothing except exercise. We tried to go to Costco and Pearlridge, but by then traffic was simply disgusting, so we canceled that. An interesting occurrence befell us as we were leaving downtown; some bloke rear-ended my new truck. It was less than a love tap, and at first we didn’t even realize we were hit. I had just described a scene of a giant robot stepping on something and right when I said “stomp” and dropped my hands down, we felt the car shake like we had run over a pothole. Except, we weren’t moving at the time. I think we were quiet for over a minute as we tried to figure out what happened. My brother asked “Were we just hit?” and when I looked in my rear view mirror there was a car very close behind us. We pulled over to check, and that car followed us. When we got out, there was no damage, not even a scuff, so I suppose in the end one could say nothing happened. In fact, when I went to check I was looking in the wrong area. The driver of the other car had to point out where he tapped us.

Ate dinner with some of the family from my mom’s side, which was weird to me because tomorrow there’s a big family dinner that includes the people we ate with. Had pot roast.

I spoke to Maile for a bit, but she wasn’t feeling very well. It left me not feeling very well, too, but that was because of the my uneasiness in her discomfort and my apparent inability to help. One of the few times I wish I were psychic, I think. Anywho, I can’t sleep now, and while I don’t have anything planned for the coming day (except for the dinner, which I’m still not sure I will attend), I wanted to sleep early so I could run an errand. I will probably still have time enough to do it, since the dinner is at 1700 hours, but one can never tell what the day will bring. Again, that psychic question is ever so pertinent.

I got stopped at a police roadblock, on my way home from work. The reason I got stopped, according to the officer I spoke to, was “that I looked intoxicated.” I actually looked tired, because I had just gotten off work. But, I have no complaints, because this was their job, and I’m glad they’re doing it. And, I wasn’t drunk, so I had nothing to fear. The whole thing took less than two minutes.

Maile and I went to Ala Moana to do some more shopping. We didn’t get much, and none of it was for gifts, but we’re happy with what we got.

On the way to Ala Moana, as we were driving down the freeway, this lady in a black car came flying up alongside and gestured that she wanted us to roll down the window. I didn’t roll down the window, mainly because we were traveling on the freeway and were just about to come into traffic, and I wasn’t about to allow either car to get into an accident because we were trying to talk. Because of traffic, we never saw that lady again, and Maile and I got to wondering what it is she wanted to say. We first thought it was something about Maile’s car, but there was nothing visibly wrong with it when we checked. Weird.

People will likely ask why I didn’t roll down the window. Actually, people already have. I stick by my answer, though, and am content to leave what that woman would have said as a mystery.

Changed the oil in my truck today. What normally would have taken less than half an hour turned into a four hour ordeal. First, what I thought was the oil drain plug turned out to be the drain plug for the automatic transmission fluid. I had to go to Toyota to get some more atf, because none of the nearby auto parts stores carried my particular type. While there, I also got an oil filter wrench because the one we had at home was too big.

When I returned home, I refilled the atf to an acceptable level, and drained the correct engine oil. Then I tried to take off the filter. Unfortunately, the filter was on so tightly that no matter what wrench or how much force we used, it wouldn’t come off. Each time I tried to apply some force, I would see my truck move and not the filter. At first I was thinking that perhaps the screw was reversed, but that way didn’t help either. So I figured that perhaps if I didn’t get this filter off, I’d just go in to work and try again later. However, as luck would have it, all that force eventually broke the filter so that now I HAD to replace it.

We finally had to drive a screwdriver into the filter with a hammer and remove it that way. We got to this approach practically 3 hours after pulling and twisting and much cursing. So that came off, I was able to replace the filter and the oil, and now I’m all set.

Some of my co-workers say that the filter was on so tightly because it was factory-installed by some machine instead of a sane person. I just hope the next time I change my oil it won’t be as bad.

Put the car cover over the truck to see how good of a fit it was. It’s pretty decent, snug enough at the ends so that the cover doesn’t fly off when someone sneezes. I do have to keep the front a bit loose, though, because of the hood protector that’s installed.

Must remember to bring my shopping list for the employee sale tomorrow.

Updated the quiz page for myself and Maile.

Sleepy.

EDIT: Quiz page no longer available.