living up to the title

randomupdate. word. sorry guys. busier than i’ve been in a long while. on road trip 2 already! ill write when i do find the time. which will probably be friday!

-e

road trip

Well, we got A and C back Sunday. Guess the parents couldn’t handle them for 2 weeks straight after all kidding. it’s good to have the family back together again. when my dad came up to bring them back, he brought L with him, who is a friend and a carpenter by trade….he installed the air conditioner out in our garage/soon-to-be-extra-bedrooom. he cut the hole and installed the thing in about 2 hours. nice. then they went home. father’s day wasn’t exactly eventful, but was nice to have my kids all home!

so i have to travel the next two weeks, and since my wife is still having anxiety about my leaving, we’re all going to travel for my work. i’m working nights for about 5 hours each night, then 2 hours in the morning in each store i work at. i have prep in the hotel, and about 3 hours in store at night. so i get a lot of hotel time when i’m doing these stores. i figure, why not bring the family? i still have to pay for their food of course, but that’s not so bad. so we’re on the road right now. the kids and my wife are holed up in the hotel while i’m working right now. i have to wait for a file rebuild, so i have 20 min or so of downtime. why not spend it blogging eh? we’re in the Fairfield/Vacaville area the next 2 days. we used to live here, so it’s kinda fun coming home. we’re going to go visit the place we used to live in in Suisun City tomorrow. wonder what it’s looking like?

crap. file’s done. i’ll write more from the next store tomorrow night!

-e

 

New Releases this week:

Wonder World Amusement Park: Wii
Blast Works: Build, Fuse & Destroy: Wii
Don King Presents: Prizefighter: XboX360
NASCAR 09:  PS3, Xbox360
Trainz: The Complete Collection: PC
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots: PS3
Roogoo: PC
Ecolis – Save the Forest: DS
Family Ski: Wii
Hannah Montana: Music Jam: DS
Hannah Montana: Spotlight World Tour: Wii
The Incredible Hulk: DS, PS3, Xbox360

boomarang

throw it out into the world, and it come right back to you.

we sent our two oldest out to visit my parents in Sparks, NV today. it’s hard to let them go emotionally. our 4 year old (C) has already been to grandma and grandpa’s 2 times for week-long stays, but our 6 year old has never been that far away from us. he’s so eager and anxious to go, but we’re nervous and doing our best to keep it in check. they left this morning after i went to work, and so far, B’s taking it ok. i thought she might be hit harder, and she was hit hard after they left, but i was able to talk her through it over the phone. good sign. means that medicines and good old love and reassurance are working in her (our) favor. we’ve got the baby…shit he’s not even a baby anymore, he’ll be 3 in a month… for 2 weeks by himself. i’m sure he’ll miss his brothers, but at the same time, i’m going to venture a guess that he’s going to get a lot of bonding and the attention that he wants while they’re gone.

i’m glad they are able to both go there, hopefully my parents know what they’ve gotten themselves into my father has had to deal with the 3 of them here in our house a couple times and knows what to expect. my mother, on the other hand, has not had much interaction with the 3 kids all at once for more than one night. she’s going to have 2, but they’re not the little angels she thinks they are! i believe they’ll behave, she’s dealt with C for those weeks, and he’s the one who’s the bigger handful, being 4 1/2. our oldest, A, is almost 7 now and is very independent and can probably function on his own if we were ever fucked up enough to leave him, which we aren’t. i know he could do it, but it’s something we could never do to our kids, hopefully later on in life they’ll appreciate that.

B seems to be doing much better since getting a med re-adjustment friday. they changed the dose of one med and dropped one, so far, so good. since it’s only 3 of us, B and E are going to travel with me wednesday night, and also next week when i have to work. it will be good for us all, and maybe she’ll get an appreciation for just how much pain in the ass it really is for me to travel!

-e

slowdown

wow. less posts here, that’s for sure. i’ve been just working and dealing lately. b’s been having seperation anxiety, which i never really knew could manifest in a way that it has. yesterday was good, but she was still having a hard time. all this week, however i had to actually take 2 days off work, and leave early the other 2.  while this is another issue, it wasn’t as difficult to understand or work around, just tough on my work. they were good about it though, and i think we were able to find the medicines that were making her have a problem. she went to a different psychologist, and that one was able to re-evaluate her, and the medicine and was good enough to make a change, eliminating one altogether, which is cool with us! we’ll see how it goes this weekend.

garage sale day. finally. we’re going to have it. it’s nice out, we have her mom’s crap all here, her mom is on the way, and we have our stuff and our friend’s stuff to sell, so it should be a busy day.

that’s it for now. no emo eric today, nothing real interesting just yet

-e

floater

customer.service

Man. this is gonna be a bitch post.  so, our washer is dying about a year ahead of plans. we want to buy one of those badass Whirpool Calypso washer/dryer (or something similar) sets next year. we know it’s gonna be like $2K for those, and so when this died, we decided to go low-budget. so we went to Sears. we have a Kenmore washer/dryer set we bought in 2000. it’s done damn well considering we bought pretty much bottom-rung sets. i think their second-from-bottom at the time washer and dryer both. like 800.00 for both, maybe even less than that. so we looked, and for 319.00 on sale, they have the bottom-rung washer, which, in actuality has a better feature set than the one we bought 8 years ago. we checked out the others, but, since we want to just turn around and get rid of it next year, we want cheap, but usable. we asked for someone to help, but it seems that the 20 or so people standing around the major appliances don’t actually sell washers, there’s only two people who do, and they were otherwise engaged with customers. the others, even when i said “i know what i want and just want to buy it” wouldn’t help. that’s shitty customer service. didn’t even offer to find another associate that could do so. just stood there. like they’re gonna make any more fucking money if they stand around with their thumb up their asses. i’m sure they’re just not helping because they don’t get a cut of the sale, but fuck that. anyway, we get the female associate to help, and we tell her the one we want. “oh no. that will only last 6 months”. so? and what the fuck is that? that’s the worst fucking salesmanship i’ve ever witnessed. she’s saying that Sears’ brand Kenomore washer is only going to last 6 months? why the fuck are they selling that? i doubt it. our same washer lasted 8 years, and that’s with a family of 5, and last year, we had our father-in-law here doing about 30 loads a fucking day. so we tell her we want it anyway. so she begrudgingly walks away saying “i’ll see if we have any in stock”. about 15 seconds later, she’s back saying they don’t have any in stock. what is she? psychic? it should have taken 2 min or more to walk to her kiosk, look up the item etc. so we just said fuck it and left.

off to lowes, after the most expenisve lunch in a while, getting Panda Express for the kids, and Chipotle for the us. lowes. we find the washer we want immediately. it’s much nicer, and 348.00. Whirlpool. it’s got more wash options, and while they have a lower-end model, we liked this one for the money. and i know i could probably get 150.00 back for it used. again. one person there is talking to the Couple From Hell, who wanted to know each feature of every machine in the area. so we wait. and about 3 min later a girl comes along asking if i’ve been helped. excellent! but no…she doesn’t work in major appliances. but she did go look it up to make sure we could get one. they have 6 in stock. again. awesome. on the right track. so we have to wait for Jeremy to get done with Couple From Hell. 10 min later, his co-worker in the department finally shows up and she takes the number, again looks up to verify that there’s some in stock (we told her they were), and said she would go get it. she leaves, and it’s fucking instant ghost town. jeremy and Couple From Hell are gone, as are any other employees. so we wait. and wait. 20 min, we see a bunch of employees exodus. and still we wait. 5 min later, someone asks if we have been helped. we say we think so, and that she left like 20 min ago to get the washing machine. they said she should be back any min then, and would check for us. 20 min later, we’re STILL waiting, no jeremy and no one else for that matter.

needless to say, we walked out thoroughly pissed and unsatisfied. what the fuck is up with these places? i mean, all the sears lady had to do was go fucking tell the merchandise pick-up people to get that thing out, and take my money. the goddamn unit went on sale TODAY. could they have had someone come in and buy that many all at one time?? and lowes. shame. come on. take my order, print the slip, make me go to checkout and pull out to the pickup area. make me wait after you take my money, i’d probably have been happy to do it. goddamn i’m pissed.

so we still have no new washer. we’ll get one next weekend i guess. i doubt i’ll give my money to lowes for deserting us, and i’m damn well going to a different sears to look. maybe they’ll have a different sale, and i’ll get a better deal. who knows. maybe some force was telling us not to buy one this weekend?

-e