Cave Cuniculum...

Latin. Means "beware the rabbit."

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

What's that rumbling sound?!?

Yesterday, I spent the better part of the day cursing Vulcan and his damned rubber.

On Sunday, I had a tire go out on me on the freeway as I drove home from running an errand. Rather exciting, having to contend with a flat while driving ~60mph on a potentially icy road. Thankfully I managed to get the car stopped on the shoulder, and went about putting on the spare. I did have two people stop and offer to help, but by the time they stopped I already had the job half done. There wasn't any point in having them freeze along with me, so I thanked them for their time and sent them on their way. With the spare on, I limped the car home.

Yesterday, I went out to take care of the tire. On the way, the car started handling very strangely. I pulled off the road to discover that the spare tire had gone flat. After saying a few choice words, I limped the car to the nearest gas station to try to re-inflate the sucker. In the end, I had to pull it off and re-seat it by banging it on a metal post to get it to hold air. After putting the tire back on the car, I managed to get to Discount Tire without any further problems.

Once there, I filled out the paperwork and waited. And waited. Then, for a change, I waited. Apparently early afternoon on a Monday is the time to get your tires taken care of. After a bit, an employee came out to tell me that the tire couldn't be patched; it had run flat too long and shredded the interior of the tire. This meant that I had to pony up for a new tire - after all, most cars don't work too well with only three tires.

He checked for used tires. Nothing. He checked other stores. Nothing. In the end, I ended up paying $56 for a tire. The upside is that the car is now mostly functional; the downside is that I am completely and utterly broke for the next two weeks.

See, this is why I prefer cycling. A busted tire would put me out $10, tops, and would be much easier and less time consuming to repair. But I live in Michigan. Cycling in three feet of snow isn't feasible, even if you're a penguin.

Friday, February 23, 2007

Another one?

Indeed.

Wife received an email from University of Miami (in Oxford, Ohio) this morning. She's been accepted into their program as well. So, for those of you keeping score at home:
Accepted:
Miami University
University of Michigan
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Denied:
Indiana University

Unknown:
Virginia Commonwealth
Ohio State University
Temple University
(one other one that I can't remember) EDIT: it's University of Cincinnati.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

The (partial) results are in...

Results are starting to come back from all the graduate schools my wife applied to. She applied to eight of them; she's heard back from two of them:
Indiana University
Received the F.O.D. letter. This didn't surprise me, considering they blew her off when she tried to arrange a campus visit. Hell, I don't think they even really looked over her application/slides. Still, she took it a little hard - rejection is never easy to stomach. Things didn't seem too positive until...

University of Wisconsin-Madison
Letter came from them on Tuesday. She's been accepted, and they sent an application for a teaching assistantship. This is indeed a good thing, considering this is the university she really wanted to get into. Now it's just a matter of figuring out how to afford everything - something that will come up no matter where she ends up going.

UPDATE: University of Michigan called this afternoon. She's been accepted into their program. We may be staying in Michigan after all...

Monday, February 12, 2007

Icy Relationships - the finale...

We returned from Ann Arbor to find a message from our landlord, asking if we wanted to "wait it out" regarding the lost rent check. How about....

NO!


A check for a couple of dollars, maybe. A check for several hundred dollars? Hell no. They may not think it's a big deal, but then again it's not their money. The sad thing is that this had been going on for nine days, and we were forced to finally resolve it as they (our landlords) seemed unwilling to offer anything more than "wait it out." From now on, I'll either be hand-delivering the rent or mailing it via certified mail to them. That way we know they got it, and if they lose the check then they're out the money - not us.

The really sad thing here is that we've watched their landlording qualities decline over the four years we've been their tenants. At first, anything we needed done was taken care of nearly immediately. We never had to worry about icy sidewalks, or things breaking down in the apartment. Now we're left with holes in the walls, and issues with other tenants and requests for repairs are handled with a super-effective "meh." I'm not sure what's going on, but I wouldn't recommend these guys to my worst enemy.

Suffice to say, I will be effin' ecstatic when we finally move.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

You know you're a designer when...

I needed a bit of a laugh today, and found the list below. Pass it along to those geeks in your life.

You know you're a designer if...
  • 1. You giggle whenever you use the colors F0CCED, EFF0FF and 44DDDD

  • 2. You’re in the sun and you look around for a Drop Shadow to sit under.

  • 3. You give your relatives a lecture about color spaces and profiles when you email them your vacation photos.

  • 4. Seing someone use Lens Flare or Comic Sans adversely affects your blood-pressure.

  • 5. You maintain a grid system for your refrigerator magnets.

  • 6. You organise your CD collection according to the Pantone chart.

  • 7. You sit at work for eight hours straight just looking at your monitor, waiting for a spark of inspiration that doesn't come.

  • 8. You're up 'til 5am because you came up with the best idea ever while brushing your teeth.

  • 9. The hottest dream you ever had was "Trace contour... Find Edges... Pinch... Extrude... Smudge Stick... Motion Blur.... Sprayed Strokes..."

  • 10. You know Lorem Ipsum by heart.

  • 11. Your kid knows Lorem Ipsum by heart.

  • 12. The preschool teacher complains your child won't color inside or outside the lines – only indicate colors on a separate sheet.

  • 13. Activating your entire font collection makes your computer crash – and you're running OSX.

  • 14. You deliberately butcher your perfectly cross browser compatible site in IE by placing a “Too Cool for IE” banner on it.

  • 15. You prefer a Layer Style of 50% Opacity (or less) on your wife’s Satin.

  • 16. You spend $200 on a font for your personal website because "it's the only one where the lower-case g is just right..."

  • 17. Looking at a menu make you go "hmmm, ITC Baskerville italic" rather than "mmmm, lunch!"

  • 18. And when you finally order, you go for Layer Based Slices with Grain Texture...

  • 19. You use words about fonts you dislike that other normal people reserve for fascist dictators and serial killers.

  • 20. Apple+Z is the first thing that goes through your mind if you drop and break something.

  • 21. You refer to colleagues as Strict, Transitional, Loose and the Future Unemployed.

  • 22. You refer to your privates as "the Magic Wand".

  • 23. You actually understand this post and pass it on to your friends.


  • I'll admit I'm guilty of several of these...

    Icy relationships [update, part II]

    Water is still not working. As an added bonus, the landlords appear to have not gotten our rent check despite my jamming it in their mailbox six days ago. Nice to know they're observant enough to know that they haven't received a several hundred dollar check.

    [expletive deleted] punk-ass [obscene plural gerund].

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    Icy relationships [update]

    The cold water in the bathroom is now at a trickle, which is an improvement. However, the colour of what's coming out of the faucet is a sickly pale yellowish-brown. Probably not a good idea to drink that.

    The water in the kitchen is now down to a trickle as well, which is worse than it was. Also, it is coming out the same colour as the bathroom.

    We'll be in Ann Arbor for a bit; when we come back hopefully this will have been taken care of. If not, I'm calling a fucking plumber.

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    Tuesday, February 06, 2007

    Icy relationships

    On Monday, my wife called me at work to tell me that the pipes had frozen. While she went in search of the cell number to call the landlord that fixes things, I called the landlord that has people skills. About an hour later, I got a call back and was told - in a rather gruff manner - that the landlord that fixes things had been contacted and would be working on it. My wife, however, gives a different account: "He told me that he'd get around to it later."

    Lovely. Apparently "his time is money," which explains why he spent all of a half-hour trying to correct the problem. Half an hour. In that time, he set up a (lukewarm) space heater by one pipe, and put a work-light under another. There was a blow-torch nearby; I can't say with any degree of certainty if he used it or not. In any case, the pipes are still frozen - we have no cold water in the bathroom, and (oddly enough) no hot water in the kitchen.

    I guess this annoys me because we're spending a rather large chunk of change on this apartment, and we've had nothing but hassles from them for the past few months. This is just another twist of the knife - we let them know that there was an issue; one that could potentially cost them hundreds of dollars, and the response we got was "we'll get around to it."

    In addition to the frozen pipes, we have a hole in the wall from the thermostat that they moved several months ago. They pulled it off of one wall, and moved it to the wall shared with the back apartment's kitchen. Obviously, this will make it warmer and affect the reading. Result? Our apartment is constantly five to ten degrees colder than what the thermostat says. Meanwhile, at the house next door (which our landlords also own), people are opening their windows to try to cool the apartments down. After a couple of weeks of me doing it, they've finally started to shovel the sidewalk and steps. I also recently found out that they jury-rigged a power cord to the outside by wiring it into the main circuit breaker in the basement. I found this out after they took down the Christmas lights and tripped the breaker for our kitchen.

    What annoys me the most is their lack of attention. This is a business; people are paying you rent to make sure that they have a safe, warm, and functional place to live. If you can't provide that or don't have the time to provide that, then don't. Sell the place to someone who does, and who can properly maintain the property. Someone who can keep the place together without creatively using duct-tape.

    Rest assured, I will be grilling the landlord(s) of the next place we live before I sign any lease. I'll also be thoroughly inspecting the property, and hopefully be able to talk to the other residents.

    This is not a mistake I plan on making again.

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    Monday, February 05, 2007

    An early spring? O RLY?!?


    This is the forecast for my area for the next few days. Note that this is after a blizzard which shut down a fair portion of the city for two days.

    Early spring, indeed.

    Friday, February 02, 2007

    Marmot meteorologists?


    Well, it's official. The furry little rodent has spoken...or grunted. Or did whatever the hell he does.

    We're apparently having an early spring.

    That should bring some comfort to the folks in Colorado, who are digging out from a metric ton of snow. My folks down in Berrien Springs should appreciate it, too, considering they've been snowed in for a while. This will not please the wife, as she's been wanting to ski and snowshoe for as long as possible.

    As for me, I'm all for an early spring. I'm not a big fan of snow, nor do I much care for the cold. Ironically enough, however, I live in Michigan. Spring coming early appeals to me - more chances to get out of the house without freezing bits of myself; more chances to be active. Much less chance of sliding off the road, or avoiding some window-licker in an SUV that thinks they're invincible because they have four-wheel drive and don't realize that that means that you have four wheels to spin.

    However, I doubt that a varmit that spends most of his days hiding from the 24-hour webcam can accurately predict when spring is coming. Seems like we're going to be cold for a while, most likely until May.

    Time to break out the roaring fires and hot beverages.

    Thursday, February 01, 2007

    I need a vacation...

    There's a bit of snow on the ground. It's cold. Work sucks. Yep. Definately time to get away from it all for a couple of days. Relax; do nothing. Sip on a drink, enjoy the sunset. Maybe go for a swim.

    One small snag with all of this: affording the bloody thing.

    While the idea of a vacation sounds nice in theory, in actuality it's nigh impossible. The warm sandy beaches are just too pricey. As such, it looks like I'll have to curl up on the couch, grab something exotic-sounding and alcohol-laden to drink and hope for a travel documentary to show up on the television.