rew | ff

Friday, March 19, 2004

More of the same at school today. Before that, I applied for a job at a local Honda dealership, which is actually directly across the street from the Toyota dealership where Sean works. That would be nice; any potential carpooling could save us some serious money on gas. But anyway, class was boring again. Once again, near the end of the class, things devolved into misogynistic ranting, with full participation by the instructor. Never get married, they'll steal all your money and cheat on you and they get all the breaks during the divorce, etc etc etc. This would be annoying enough if there weren't a GIRL IN THE CLASS who has to sit through all of this. These are some serious lowlifes here. It put me in a bad mood that continues to this point.

After class we all went to Bobby McGee's again, which is where we went on Monday with Ciara. Somehow we managed to piss off our waitress, and I ordered a bunch of stuff I didn't want in order to get a chance to make peace with her. Things got smoothed out a bit, but it was kind of a meat market-ish atmosphere, and eventually we just headed back to the apartment. Tomorrow it's supposed to be in the mid 90's again, which should give me another good chance to push the sunburn envelope while frisbee golfing.

Thursday, March 18, 2004

It's early, we took Sean to work and now Dane and I are watching "Snatch" on DVD. Soon I will be heading out to look for a job and, because of some clever timing by Sean, put some gas in the car. It looks like Dane is going to get that job with Infiniti, but it's going to mean he has to flip-flop his schedule to go to class in the mornings and work in the afternoon. Sort of a mixed blessing as far as Dane is concerned. I got offered a job today that I couldn't take because it was in the afternoons... I may have to pull a Dane eventually myself.

OK, now it's nighttime, and I'm about to go to bed. Not much to report today. Class was pretty boring, and I had trouble staying awake, which the instructor noticed but didn't seem to hold against me. It is truly insane when class gets out... they warned us about it at orientation, and it really is like the Indy 500 as soon as the class is out. Sean and I have decided it's safer and more relaxing to just hang out at the car for about 20 minutes, tossing a football around, and wait for the crazies to race each other out on to the freeway. Apparently Sean's class used his car as a guinea pig today, and his instructor was impressed with the engine. This is nice to hear from my point of view, because I built it. This may also explain why I'm wicked bored in the "basic engines" class, where such facinating questions such as "What does the camshaft do again?" are asked.

After class we went to the gym to play basketball again, where I continued the lifelong humiliation that is my participation in that sport. The annoying guy who works at the gym cornered me and tried to convince me that I should pay to join the gym in spite of getting it for free. I talked to Vicky and Anna on the phone, which was a nice reminder that there are still smart, pretty girls in the world to balance out all the disgusting, brainless guys.

 Wednesday, March 17, 2004 

Happy St. Patrick's day! May the road rise to meet you, and the wind be always at your back.

This morning on our way to Sean's work we noticed that the local Albertson's was completely cordoned off with police tape. When I got back from dropping him off, I turned on the news and found out that there had been a big shootout the night before. Apparently the cops were doing a sting operation on some forgers and the arrested one of them after he tried to pass a bad check in the store. That went fine, but when they tried to get his partner in their car in the parking lot, he whipped out an assault rifle. There was a big shootout and lots of gunfire on both sides, but in the end no one got hurt except the bad guy, and even he just got shot in the shoulder and will be fine. This is all relevant to us because A) we need that Albertson's to buy food, and B) the Starbucks I applied at is in the same building. Maybe this is why so many people take advantage of the law that allows you to carry a gun on your hip.

School was uneventful for the most part. Sean did well on a tough test, and I survived several hours on how to use a micrometer, which I already knew and is pretty goddamn easy. A kid in my class was asked what 5 plus 7 is and said 11. A guy in Dane's class told a story about his dad driving a truck from Virginia to California with a cracked cylinder head and no coolant, and the truck ran perfectly the entire time. This is unlikely to say the least. Dane called "bullshit" on him in front of the class. Everyone laughed, Dane the hardest, but the guy stuck to his story.

We decided not to risk venturing out into traffic on St. Patrick's day, and instead went over to the gym and played basketball. Sean had green shorts, Dane's were orange and mine were white, so chances are that at some point we were in correct alignment to form the Irish flag. In lieu of Guinness in Ireland, it'll have to do.

Tuesday, March 16, 2004

Sean had the day off today so we could all stay up late last night and hang out with Ciara, so this morning we all slept in. Dane made more good food for breakfast, although I'm guessing on 50% of it, because I won't eat eggs. But anyway, not a lot happened. Dane talked to the guy at Infiniti who may have a job for him, but that's still up in the air. Weirdly enough, I got a call on the Lincoln today from someone who had a month-old issue of the Oregonian, and he actually went by the house in Portland and checked it out. Dad was there and I guess he was pretty interested, so maybe the car will go to a good home after all. Dad also said my bimmer would be on its way down later tonight, so it's probably en rouute as I write this. Anyway, then it was off to class, and Ciara was off in her rental car and out of Phoenix. Lucky her.

A display at a local auto dealer. They clearly know their market segment.

Class went by a little quicker today. I got to hear more shit and arguing that basically boiled down to "what I have is better than what everyone else has," and discovered that an amazing amount of my classmates have DUIs on their driving records. As you might expect, everyone's really into going fast, running from the cops, etc. Right now we're learning the very most basic stuff about engines (what the pistons do, etc.), which I learned more than ten years ago in high school, so it's basically all review for me right now. Someone came in today to talk to us about the advanced programs, and I think that as long as I can keep my driving record clean while I'm down here I should have a pretty good shot at getting into the BMW one.

Monday, March 15, 2004

Today was my first day of class. Before that, though, I had my interview at Starbucks. I think it went pretty well, but it was a group interview (?), and I think I was probably one slot out of first place behind a girl who had just come back from doing a bunch of volunteer work in Bancock teaching underprivelaged children to love coffee or something like that. Actually, she really did seem pretty cool. I'd probably hire her over me. However, my film degree seemed to work in my favor which, if I get the job, would mean it would finally be justifying its existence.

The first day of class wasn't too bad, but there was lots of goofy shit. First of all, some guy other than the regular teacher came in to lecture us on being good students, keeping focused, etc. He asked us why we were all here, and then told us that the reason was "success," which he wrote on the board. Unfortunately, he spelled it "sucess." It was very hard for me to not point this out. Then we had to sit through a powerpoint in which "it's" was repeatedly used when "its" was what they meant, and the phrase "in a professional manor" was used more than once. Is that a big fancy house that gets paid or something? Also, a good 'ol Ford V. Chevy battle broke out across the classroom, just like high school. A guy mentioned his desire to kill his ex-wife, the fact that he has a Ford tattoo on his bicep, and that "Chevys wear bow ties because queers wear bow ties" all in the same sentence (for those who don't know, or give a fuck, the Chevy symbol is called a bow tie). This is gonna be fun!

To cap it off, our friend Ciara came to visit for a couple days and we all went to a Bobby McGee's for drinks and stuff. Basically it's a souped-up Applebees, or something like that. We had a really cute waitress named Nicole who I gave a 100% tip to (on a $5 check) and am now in love with.

Sunday, March 14, 2004

Something pretty cool about Arizona: spring training. Sean and I went to Scottsdale today and saw the Cubs and Giants. The Giants ended up kicking ass 11 - 3, but who cares? It's spring training. It was really a lot of fun. Jason Schmidt, who looks like he's lost about 30 pounds, not only pitched 4 pretty good innings, but hit a grand slam and had 6 total RBI. Sean had a foul ball graze off his glove and was pretty embarassed about it. Next Sunday we've got tickets to see the Mariners and the White Sox in Peoria, and we're sitting on the lawn behind the outfield fence, so hopefully we can get there early and catch some BP home runs. Unfortunately for me, the Red Sox train in Florida and don't play the D-backs this year, so I'll have to settle for former Sox like Todd Walker and Shea Hillenbrand.

After we got home from the game, we did a little shopping and fixed the gas leak in Sean's car. Dane, who has a slight cold but seems to be getting better, cooked a really good dinner. ESPN was dominated by "bracketology," so there wasn't much on TV. We flipped between a couple of movies and then went to sleep.

test photo

Saturday, March 13, 2004

We all got up pretty late today, thanks to a long night with too many people in the apartment. I tried to sleep in the car, but in an ironic twist, it was too cold outside. Once we were all up and awake, we went folfing. Sean and I decided to get a leg up on our sunburns and play without shirts on. I wussed out after about 12 holes, wanting to keep my sunburnless streak alive. Probably unecessary, because Sean went for the gusto and didn't get burned, and he's a lot fairer skinned than I am.

After we got home, we went over to LA Fitness (Dane and I for free, Sean for some increment of $30) and played some basketball. It didn't take long for me to roll my ankle (Mormons!), but we kept playing and got a pretty decent 3 on 3 game going with some other people who were there. The gym should be pretty cool, even if all we do is play basketball. After that we went to see Starsky & Hutch, which was pretty funny, but we had to sit in the 2nd row of the theater. There was a preview for a movie called The Day After Tomorrow with Jake Glynneennnhealllleygilai, and I thought it looked like it might be pretty good, but later on I looked it up on the internet and found out it was directed by the guy who did the remake of Godzilla.

© Long Shot Films 2004