rew | ff

Hey, it's September

Wednesday, September 1, 2004

Tonight I made a quick $30 by filling out a survey for the Federal Student Loan people. I find it somewhat ironic that they're actually going to send me a check, considering I owe them almost 1000 times that. But hey, I'm not going to turn down $30.

This is a bit weird, but I got an email today on an old internet personals account I have. I was initially sort of intrigued, until I actually read the message, which was from a 39 year old MAN. Who was basically offering me a no-strings-attached blowjob. Sorry dude, apparently my definition of "no strings attached" differs from yours, me defining "blow job from a man" as one hell of a string. But anyway, apparently now I'm attracting middle-aged men... great. Just great. Must. Leave. Phoenix.

On the other hand, double phasing seems to be working out pretty well so far.

Penile tattoos and other nonsense

Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Another quick one tonight... Sean and I had to do another NASCAR-like tire swap from my car to his after we got home from school. I've had a massive headache all day long, so this was not fun. It was necessary because it turned out that my old wheels (which we put on Sean's car back in June in order to have the good tires on my car) do not fit quite right on Sean's car's hubs. So there was a terrible vibration at freeway speeds. So we had to put the wheels back on their original cars, which means for the time being Sean's brand-new tires are on my car. But anyway, it was a hassle, especially since Sean had diabolically tightened his lugs with an air wrench at work, and I broke a couple of my hand tools getting them off.

In happier news, I got an email from my old NYC roommate Glenn last night that he's getting married. This is another wedding that I can get behind (I'm against marriage in general, for those who don't know me all that well). Glenn is an awesome guy... I have many great memories of dragging him along to Dunkin' Donuts on our way to the subway each morning and inventing new names for Pfizer drugs on the train on the way to work. So congrats to Glenn and Catherine, and hopefully I'll make it back there in time for the ceremony.

That reminds me, I'm not sure if I ever reported that my friends Randy and Lisa are engaged and, even more awesomely, have asked me to preform the ceremony next August. That, my friends, will be pretty goddamn sweet. And my other roommate from my Queens days (not to mention friend going all the way back to High School), Jake, is actually already married to his one-time fiance Sok. So, in short, all my friends will soon be married off, and I'm still looking for a sequel to girlfriend no. 2. That's right, Dave, it's always got to be about you, doesn't it?

Lastly, in the "Stories from Sean's work" category, last week a 4Runner came in with 15 (15!) bullet holes in its front end. No explanation was offered. And today, some jackass who works there and also goes to our illustrious school told Sean and a bunch of other dudes (two of whom are in my evening class right now) that he, last night, got a tattoo of a piston and the words "stroke it," ON HIS DICK. There's no way this is true. How would that work? I know people have had that done, but this kid's never had a tattoo before and is like 18 years old. You don't start out that way. And furthermore, explain how that's ever going to look right. I mean, for it to look right in the state in which the words "stroke it" would have their intended double meaning, wouldn't you have to pop a couple Viagra before the procedure? And wouldn't it then hurt even more than the unimaginable level it would be at otherwise? And wouldn't it bleed like a motherfucker? Stop lying, dude. No one believes that bit about the condom full of lotion you're sporting to protect the ink, either.

I can't believe I'm assigned to a Pontiac

Monday, August 30, 2004

Today was the first day of my double-phasing stint, which I dearly hope will last for 12 more weeks. In my evening phase I've been assigned to work on performance tuning a Pontiac Gran Prix (an oxymoronic impossibility), but right now the only thing that matters is this:

They fixed the air conditioning in our apartment.

The rest is just details.

My last shot at the big leagues

Sunday, August 29, 2004

So here's a quick rundown of the last couple of days (it's hot again -- fuck! -- and our air conditioning broke down today):

On Thursday at work I ended up driving a guy home after he dropped off his car and then picking him up later. He was a really nice guy and I enjoyed talking to him. The only thing out of the ordinary was the incredible house I dropped him off at... it was an honest-to-God mansion. I actually assumed, since he was such a cool guy, that he was some kind of contractor or something who was doing some work on the mansion. I found out later, however, that he was the owner of the Anaheim Angels. And I didn't even bring up baseball in our conversation. Amazing. Probably my last shot at a tryout, and I totally blew it.

Friday was the end of the phase, which is good, but I also have new reason to doubt that my double-phasing plan will work. I was actually not on the list of double phasers, and had to bust some heads down at the scheduling department to get it worked out. In doing so, I had to re-arrange my schedule in such a way that Sean and I will not be in the rest of the "hot rod" classes together. This sucks, because I'm now at the mercy of the skills of whichever group I end up in on Monday in the morning class (if your group blows an engine, you have to re-phase). Not to mention that the prospect of having to battle every three weeks just to get on the double phase list has me exhausted just thinking of it. I'll do whatever I can to make sure it works, but this will be hanging over my head from the remainder of my time here, which sucks.

Friday night the three of us and Bobby and Aaron went to the bistro we've been frequenting at the Biltmore mall. Sean and I avoided the $12 wine, but still managed to spend a fair amount of money on their kickass hamburgers.

On Saturday Sean got new tires on his car and changed the oil. Then he came by my shop and we put it up on the lift to check the transmission fluid. There was none. This could explain the gear grinding, the bearing noise, and general malaise of his poor car's drivetrain. We continue to amaze ourselves with our ineptness to maintain the most basic things about our cars.

Saturday night there was a big shootout in the apartments around the block from ours. Two cops and the shooter were killed, and the entire area between our house and Albertson's was blocked off all night long. We ran into it on our way to Four Peaks and didn't know what was going on, but found out today on the news. Lots of people have been dying in our neighborhood recently.... hopefully we can avoid this trend. At least long enough to see Heather, our waitress last night, one more time.

Tomorrow I start my double classload, which means getting up 45 minutes earlier... hence, I better get to bed.

A red-letter day in the history of science

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Banner day for Sean... he got an interview at the BMW dealership in Portland where he wants to work for the Friday before Labor day. So not only is this pretty damn sweet on its own, but it means he gets to spend a long weekend in Portland. See the dog, frisbee golf with trees, etc, etc. And then Dane hooked him up with a great deal on some new tires for his car. So not too shabby.

Meanwhile, this phase is almost over. It looks like double-phasing is a go for me... tomorrow and Friday are my last weekdays at work. I'm not sure if it'll be more exhausting or less, but I guess I'll find out soon.

Fun stuff

Tuesday, August 24, 2004

Sean and I saw a fatal accident this morning. We didn't see it happen, but drove by what must have been fairly recently afterwards. A big pickup truck, a Dodge Ram or something, had hit what I think was a Geo Metro. It looked bad, and I found out later on that someone had in fact died.

It's sad to think that someone got up this morning probably around the same time I did, got in their car, and got killed on the way to work. I don't know how the accident happened or whose fault it was, but either way, they obviously didn't see it coming. Stuff like that seems to be move common, or at least more visible, down here. So many car wrecks that are announced on the radio casually as "a fatal," mainly because that means a longer delay to traffic. It's creepy. This is a place to be survived, rather than lived in. OK, that's overdramatic, but I will be very glad when Sean, Dane and I have all left Phoenix safely behind.

That's an upper, huh? Aren't you glad I'm writing regularly again?

And on and on

Monday, August 23, 2004

This just keeps dragging out... I still don't know for sure if I'll be double-phasing. But tomorrow, certainly, things will be solidified. I think they have to be. There's some sort of medium-sized problem with my financial aid and how it'll be affected by me graduating at an earlier date, but I think if I just sign another small fortune of my future earnings over to an unnamed financial institution, it should all work out OK. I have nightmares about money... it's hard to imagine that I will ever not have problems like this. But I suppose anything's possible.

Dane was telling us that his teacher this phase makes balloon animals. Apparently he'll do it at any moment, with any sort of provocation from one of the students. He carries that balloons in his pockets at all times. I guess Dane tried to blow one up and couldn't even get it started. Now there's a useful skill.

It does actually appear to be cooling down, but I don't want to jinx it. Maybe soon I won't have to seek out movies that take place in snowy climates to put my mind at ease. But I'll believe it when I see it.

This whole monsoon thing is total horseshit, by the way

Sunday, August 22, 2004

I thought it was going to pour rain like crazy, but instead we just get dust storms and distant lightning. Fuck off, Arizona.

OK, I'm a couple days late in reporting this, but on last Thursday I got a phone call early in the morning from BMW of Manhattan. I was beginning to think that I wasn't going to hear from them, as all of our communication had been through email and I hadn't gotten one back after forwarding them the link to my portfolio and faxing my resume. Happily enough, I've been granted an interview on Sept. 20th. So that's definitely a good thing. It'd be fantastic if I could just get hired on there right after I graduate from "school," and learn on the job rather than spending 6 months in the BMW school. I'm sure their school would actually be pretty fun, and worlds better than where I am now, but the sooner I can start making actual money and get settled in the city, the better.

I still am not quite out of the woods with every curveball that has been thrown my way lately -- tomorrow I'll finally know if I really will be double-phasing from now on. It looks like it won't be a problem, but I'll know for sure some time tomorrow, and if that works maybe I can finally relax a little. Here's hoping.

As far as school goes, Sean and Dane really are getting close to being done. They each have only 3 phases left after this one (which has one more week to go). I'll be here three weeks longer than them if all goes well. Three months from today, with a little luck, we'll all be outta here. Sean had his first interview with the BMW people on Thursday, and both he and Dane have their second interviews in early October. It sounds like Sean's went well, so we're still on track for the trifecta, hopefully. Sean and I are in the "hot rod" classes right now, and we are in class together, so it's actually kind of fun. We have a cool teacher, whom Sean had before for another phase, and he has been using the old BMW cylinder head from Sean's car for all sorts of demonstrations in class. Apparently it's really impressive; a far better design than the Chevy V-8s we're building in class. Those Germans really might be on to something.

Today we saw Garden State again, this time bringing Dane along, continuing our pattern of seeing good movies twice. As usual we barely made it to the theater on time, and then barely got seats, but it was definitely worth seeing again. I really, really hope there's someone like Natalie Portman's character in my future. The near future, preferably.

Other than that, not too much else is going on. We drove Sean's car several times this weekend, including to the movie, so it's good to get it some exercise, but it still really, really needs new tires. Sean was going to do that this Saturday, but was too tired from staying up really late Friday night. Tomorrow the last week of my job begins, and although I'll still be working there on Saturdays, it'll be nice to know I'll be cutting back on 6 days a week of Freakshow to one. He locked the keys in another car on Saturday, and then ate my lunch while I was out picking up a part... the guy's a fucking mess.

Seinfeld is on soon. I'll make my customary promise to write more during the week... it's cooling off a bit, only reaching the low hundreds each day (I'm serious; that really does feel cool), so I have a bit more energy in the evenings now. We'll see if that translates in to prolific writing.

© Long Shot Films 2004