Back in February I received an email from General Motors. Being a Saturn Owner, they wanted me to know that they would be more than happy to sell me a new car with a nice discount.

The bold print said we are family. The fine print told me that Saturns were excluded from the special.

It was about that time that the front end went out of alignment. Nothing major. Just one more bit of character to the car. I promised myself I would get it aligned the next time I had it in the shop. Well, it didn’t need any work for the next few months and then on Easter weekend, while I was on my way down to South Jersey for Easter Dinner I hit the mother of all Jersey Potholes while getting onto the Turnpike. It threw the alignment way out of whack but the car was drivable and nothing is open on Easter so I enjoyed my meal and once everyone was back to work I made an appointment to have the front end twiddled. I took it to a tire place (which should have some experience in alignments) and was told that the sub-frame had bent and would have to be replaced. $900 if I went with a used part. They warmed me that it wasn’t really safe because it was a control issue. Having just driven it close to 200 miles, I didn’t really listen because I felt I could get it home while I mulled over my mechanical options.

I never suspected the 4 mile ride home would be the car’s last ride.

If the car was going to sit for a while it’s a bad idea to let it sit with a nearly empty gas tank so I pulled into the Wawa… well, almost. I made it most of the way in and then the wheel fell off. Well, almost. It tore free and wedged into the wheel well. The frame was apparently not just bent but nearly rusted through. It gave way and snapped the axle like a twig. With a sick grinding noise I came to an abrupt stop. I could never get a straight answer when I asked what the “L” stood for in the model name of the car. I think now it was for Luck because his could have easily happened at 70MPH on the highway! As luck would have it, I have AAA PLUS which allows me a 100 mile tow so, of course, I break down less than a mile from my house. I was only a few miles from a trusted mechanic so I had them tow the car there and Heather ferried me home. We called up the insurance folks (NJ Manufacturers) and was delighted to learn that pothole damage falls under my collision coverage. They grabbed the wheel, as it where, and set things in motion.

The damage was considerable. Besides the axle, the strut, brakes, control arm & rocker panel were needing replaced and the transmission was leaking badly. The estimate was $2525. Given the age of the car the insurance folks decided classify my car as a total loss. The next few days saw me behind the wheel of a rented Altima and scrambling to learn everything about the current car market. In retrospect, I should have been paying more attention the past few years. Also in retrospect, if I had heard “Dude! Your wheel’s gunna fall off!” instead of “It’s a control issue.” I probably would have had it repaired. Now it’s too late to save my baby!

Earlier today, the salver (A salver salvages cars, get it?) came and took away my car. The salvage value was $315. Ouch. Cleaning it out and taking off the plates was hard. Signing over the title was harder. 10 years ago I very thoroughly researched the market and made what I still believe was a good decision with Saturn. There was one unconscionable recall 5 years ago (just as my warranty ran out) but other than that the car required very little work and never let me sit. In the end it needed tires, the A/C didn’t work, the mirrors had to be adjusted by hand, the keyless entry required a key & I had dinged and scratched the car in several places. It had character! It also had a four wheels and you need every single one of those apparently.

I’m still researching cars and thinking of going a little bigger. Something that fits my more active lifestyle without giving up too much gas mileage. I wish I had a little more time to mourn but I can’t keep the rental forever. So long Saturn! You were a good company. You were a good car. Maybe that “L” stood for Love.

Anyway, they ship the things by FedEx SmartPost (aka, someone walks it across the country periodically stopping to smell the flowers) so it took 23 days to arrive at my door. The bag was actually a box and in and of itself was a crap as it had nearly torn through on the bottom. Fortunately, my promised three craps were safe inside. This is what I received:

Pocket Calculators

Red Pail & Action Figure

1) Not one, not two but *TEN* pocket calculators! Yes, believe it or not, small electronic gizmos used to come without built-in phones. These come full featured with off buttons!

2) One “Pail # 5 Bright Red” From Buquet Supply, INC. Made in Mexico. This bad-ass bucket is made of metal and the kinda red you only see on the nails of a professional manicurist.

3) One “Brothers in Arms – Hell’s Highway” video game promo action figure. Comes complete with eighteen points of articulation, two guns, two grenades, one knife, one helmet, one parachute, one backpack, one utility belt & one ammo-filled man-purse. Plus he’s got kung-fu grip!

So, am I happy with my crap? Of course! I always remember the primary crap  rule: Thou shalt not get the crap you want, thou shall want the crap you get.

12 years ago I subscribed to a $15/year “credit protection” service paid every 3 years. The credit cards weren’t really doing much protecting yet and the service seemed like a good deal as I kept “losing” my wallet. After a few years I stopped receiving updates from the service. I’m guessing they got snapped up by one of the scammer groups. Anyway, 6 Years ago I canceled the service because the credit cards were watching their own backs. 3 years ago I got charged again despite the cancellation. It was difficult to find out who the hell these people were too. If they were still even REMOTELY legit I’d at least get an invoice. I disputed the charges and they got reversed. Bravo.

In the past 3 years I have moved, changed my phone number & my credit card number has been changed not once but twice because the stupid internet vendors are unable to keep my number private. You’d think that any subscription service would be out of luck, right? I mean month-to-month on Napster got screwed up… now could a once-every-three-years survive?

Not without help from the credit card company of course! Because Citi has facilitated these scammers (and “earned” approximately $2.10 on the transaction). And because the amount hasn’t been credited as I requested when I called them. And because I was given the run-around and spontaneously disconnected twice.  And because they didn’t send me the statements from 3 years ago like I requested last week. And because their interest rate is up to 20%. But mostly because they like to change my billing date, refuse to stop sending me balance transfer “checks”, charged fees for “forwarding” my Napster subscription to the new new number and drop charges on top of the interest for being a day late (while closing their business day whenever they feel like it).

So, see ya Citi. Hope you get a lot of happiness out of your $2.10 because you sold me out for the last time.

January: Re-arrange the living room so the TV could be on an adjacent wall. This involved installing a new wall outlet and re-wiring the cable in the basement. We got it done in one day but it required extra trips to Home Depot to buy a mammoth drill bit and matching wall plates.

February: New faucet for the bathroom sink. I can’t say this one was fun. More trips to Lowes as the new pipes didn’t fit the old pipes and the bloody thing kept leaking. We went over into March but it works.

March: Get the killer thorn bushes out of the yard. The one was a well-established (read: bignormous) bush used to keep people out of the previous owners bedroom. Some folks plant a Garden. They planted a Guardian. It never really bloomed, hurt like hell if you got near it and was an ugly brown all winter so we decided to take it out. The others were the standard “sticker bushes” that you get if you don’t weed for a few years. We’re both perforated but most of the bushes are gone. The big one still has it’s root structure but we’ll hopefully be getting rid of those soon too.

April: Not sure yet. Paint the den? Build a new bathroom in the basement? Finally have that yardsale with which we’ve been threatening the neighbors? Whatever it is I can promise this: It wont make me bleed as much as those damn bushes did!

This has been a turbulent month for me in a lot of ways. It all started when I returned to work after the New Year’s break and discovered our parent companies had filed for their country’s equivalency of bankruptcy.  The American division is ok so far but it’s not a pretty sight overseas. I hear about companies all over laying people off left and right and I can’t help but feel a bit worried, especially after my other New Year’s surprise – my property taxes went up 10%. Thanks Corzine!

Other turbulence: The other Saturday I flipped on the old boob tube (which doesn’t have a tube. Oh well.) and found nothing but infomercials for hair products & yoga mats. What the? When I was a whipper snapper I lived for Saturday Morning Cartoons and now they are nowhere to be found. I suppose they’ve moved up the dial. You can always get something animated on the Cartoon or Nick networks but Yoga and Hair curlers? Damn… kids are going to just have to go outside to find entertainment!

Two days later I was shocked to hear G-Rock, my favorite radio station, suddenly change formats. Without warning they went from a progressive alt-rock station to a soulless top 40 cookie cutter TMZ mess. The station had been the anchor of my presets and it left a giant hole where “4″ used to be. I wasn’t alone in my disgust. By that weekend 7500 people had organized on Facebook (yeah, I got drawn in) and 3500 signatures had been signed on the Bring Back G-Rock petition. As of this writing Facebook has 9500 members & the petition is up to 4600 signatures.

I’m disappointed but I’m afraid the station wont go back to what it was. Nor will the institution of Saturday Morning Cartoons draw children together on weekends. Times they are a changing and terrestrial radio will be the first to go. Network Television may eventually follow. The Internet is largely to blame and though I love some of the changes, I’m sorry to see my options diminished. I could go with Satellite Radio but then I’ll have to get subscribed. I could get a plan on my phone… but once again, they make you subscribe. Not for me, man! Information & Entertainment was meant to be free. I’ll reconsider when “data” isn’t a “plan” and “commercial free” really is free from commercialism. One day in the hopefully distant future I’ll look back at the early 00′s and remember them as the golden age of entertainment & information – when it was still free and available in multiple ways.

On one hand it will be excellent to turn on The Fiosion to check your email, pull up the latest pictures of your nephew and instantly begin watching the latest episode of The Simpsons (Now in it’s 33rd year!) but the flip side of that coin is that you’ll be locked into a 5 year deal with T-Mobile/Verizon (Officially branded as T.V.) and subject to personal commercials directed right into your psychy based on the things they know about from your Gmail account. Don’t think it’s possible? Get a glimpse of the future on Facebook. Change your birth-date to something in the 50s and watch the ads change to wrinkle cream & arthritis pills. Mark yourself as “Single” and the dating ads will fill your sidebar. Just wait until they know your car just went over 100,000 miles, that you’re addicted to Chap-Stick, and that you never returned that overdue library book (ya know, from back when Libraries still existed).

Ok, that’s enough grousing for one month. I’ll be back next month with less insight and more hindsight.

Midnight Stalkers: I got crushed. 2nd place isn’t bad though. Stupid DeAngelo Williams.
WW GNU League: Victory! The title stays with our department and I win the cashito!
Multi-State Showdown: I actually hoped to lose, but I seem to have won. Oh well.
Open Sports Test League: Victory! Because I played with the site in beta testing they say I’ll get free use for life. Hopefully they’ll get the bugs worked out by then.

Ok, so 6 leagues, 4 championship games, 3 championships. Not too shabby!

I’m planning on joining less leagues next year but of course I said that last year too. . .

Midnight Stalkers: 2nd seed. Playing for the Golden Meatball.  9-4-1
WW GNU League: 5th seed. Playing for cold hard cash & to keep the championship in our department.  8-5
Multi-State Showdown: 2nd seed. Playing for the Trophy and a 4-peat. Crazy! 9-5
Geocachers League: 2nd seed, but only because the 1 seed played me without my RB & WR. Bounced in the first round by a terrific game by the 3rd seed.  11-2
Yahoo Champions League: Formed of previous Yahoo league champs, I had a tough season and finished 5-9 though I was 5th in total points. Sometimes it’s more about luck than a good draft.
Open Sports Test League: 1st seed and playing for the championship. This league was just a beta-test of the new site. 10-4.  I didn’t pay too much attention in this league.

Ok, so 6 leagues, 4 championship games. I’m hoping to pull off upsets in the first two.

So wish me luck… I’ll post an update tomorrow or Tuesday with the results!

It’s true, it’s clue!

The other day I was driving home from work and the car hit 100,000 miles just as I was passing Holmdel Park so I pulled in to marvel at the milestone. I took the opportunity to explore Historic Longstreet Farm and scout out some cache locations. I found three good spots and used one almost immediately.

My most recent Geocaching hide is an addition to Team EKitt10′s excellent “Psychic Friends Network” series. I’m using the “Out of Body Experience” angle and forcing cachers to think outside the box (or outside the physical realm) to find the coordinates. I spent some time this evening making the puzzle more fun and adding Easter Eggs to the cache page. If you’re reading this and you came from the cache page then you obviously found one of the easter eggs!

Good luck, happy hunting and enjoy your OOBE!

The reason I haven’t written here is because I’ve been writing elsewhere, moonlighting if you will, albeit in the daylight mostly (Thanks, Daylight Savings Time!). I’m proud to report as of this month that CentralJerseyGeocaching.net is up and running. To date we have 59 users and lots of cool features that I consider cool even if you don’t because cool is subjective and all features are cooler when you identify/install/configure & manually tweak them all by yourself. Yeah, it’s been a lot of work but I’ve learned a more about PHP coding & a lot more about Joomla as a Content Management System. We’re not nearly done so I probably wont be writing here very much. Honesty == Refreshing.

Since my last writing I’ve had a few notable experiences. The first was the big trip to North Carolina to visit my Mom & check out (and volunteer for) the Storytelling Festival of the Carolinas. The festival is only in it’s 2nd year but they brought in 4 featured tellers of national acclaim and pulled off a wonder of festivality. To make things more interesting, a very large tree decided to topple (on Arbor Day no less) right onto the main tent. Now this was a Circus Quality Super Tent so the tree didn’t wreck it, but there wasn’t any way we could let people sit inside with a few tons of tree looming overhead. Some emergency management found a few guys with chainsaws & a bucket truck and the tree was gone within a few hours. The tellers put on an amazing show and I got to chat them up in between sets & after the performances. My only regret is that the festival took up large hunks of the days & I didn’t get a chance to just hang out with mi madre as much as I would have liked.

On the Geocaching front, the extra travel has netted me 3 more states & lots of finds. I’m at 560 finds as of this writing. I have 15 caches hidden (in 3 states) and 3 more caches right around the corner. My favorite is a cache honoring Capt. William Kidd. Disgraced & hanged as a Pirate, he was a actually a misunderstood privateer who simply ran afoul of his financiers. The geocache itself will be near Treasure Lake & is of the multi/puzzle variety. It will require you to piece together the clues that Capt. Kidd’s loyal crew left allowing Captain Kidd to reclaim his buried treasure one day. Gold coins were actually discovered in two spots less than a quarter mile from my home so I couldn’t resist putting a cache there. The contents of the cache are completely unique as well but I wont reveal the secret here! Kidd was hanged on May 23rd 1701 so this past weekend, exactly 307 years later, under the light of the moon, I buried Kidd’s Cache while Heather stood guard.

The most recent happening was the passing of my annual Continually Reoccurring Affirmation Period. This means I’m now 33 years old. For my birthday the most interesting gift I received was the food poisoning I mentioned earlier. Happy Barfday to meeee! Fortunately, we had done some celebrating earlier in the weekend. On Saturday night we went up to a comedy club in New Brunswick & saw comedy legend Gallagher. He’s the guy who is famous for smashing watermelons (among other things) to end his sets. Compared to other comedians his routine is very organic (no pun intended). He plays off of the audience &, in this small venue, interacted directly on several occasions. Not the least of which was allowing all of the folks who had a birthday to kneel before the smashing platform and receive some birthday cake at high velocity! Good times (and small bits of my birthday cake) were had by all.

That’s enough for today. Rest assured that other interesting things have happened and many random thoughts were thunk but until I decide that I’d rather be typing instead of jogging, caching, movie-watching, book-reading or web-community-developing… well, the postings will be less than frequent. Until next time!

We arrived after an uneventful $80 flight via JetBlue (During which I watched the NY Giants victory parade). We took a walk in downtown Orlando, grabbed some grub, played in the hotel’s jacuzzi & pool & turned in kinda early (for a vacation anyway). Wednesday we met up a few cousins at Blue Springs state park. They normally have manatees a-plenty in the winter but with the near record-breaking heat, the hot-spring river didn’t draw them the way it normally would and we saw only two sea cows. Well, we really only saw a nose. Every 5-10 minutes they expose a nose, take a breath and dive back under the water. Exciting! Sometimes they blow bubbles too! The highlight of the trip was meeting Margot – the most recent addition to the family. She’s a very tranquil soul who only gets fussy when startled by flash photography & sudden rides in a rented minivan. From Blue Springs we drove East to New Smyrna Beach where we’d be staying at a B&B on the intracoastal waterway. We were promised pelicans & dolphins & saw both frolicking (aka fighting for food) in the waters. We took a nighttime walk on the beach, found a few local geocaches & had a very enjoyable evening.

There were only two solid dates on the calendar: The Party & The Launch. Thursday at 2:45 we planned to be somewhere near Cape Canaveral watching the Space Shuttle Atlantis take off. It was just a happy coincidence that there was a launch this week but we couldn’t have planned it better. The weather was dicey early on but it cleared up and the NASA declared everything was Go for liftoff. We took our time driving down Route 1 (yeah, the same one we drive on in NJ) and marveled at the lack of traffic we were supposed to be hitting. We did hit some congestion but after driving in Joisey this Florida stuff was non-traffic. We decided to view the fireworks from Space View Park in Titusville just across the water from Cape Canaveral. You can get closer if you don’t mind waiting a few hours to leave on the 2-lane bridge that serves as the only way on/off the island. As it was we did just fine. As we overcompensated for the traffic we were 2 hours early so we busied ourselves with finding local geocaches & shopping. I’m happy to report that we were able to discretely find a cache in the very park where everyone was waiting around to see the launch. Behold my stealth! The shuttle lifted off on time & without incident. It wasn’t as impressive as I hoped and the high humidity dampened the sound but it’s still quite a sight to see and I’m glad to have seen it.

That evening we headed a bit further South and met up with the only cousin we hadn’t yet seen and her impressive family. Amy & Greg have 6 kids. They range from a few months old to 9 years. I’m still reeling from the energy of that many kids in one place! Fortunately they’re all well behaved and you can use your grill all year in Florida so the “meet & meat” was a complete success. On the way home Heather couldn’t resist stopping off to find a geocache named “Bovine Royalty” which advertised itself to be a magnetic key-holder stuck on a dumpster behind a Burger King. Hey, they can’t all be out in nature, right? We found it easily and had a snack afterwards so it’s all good.

The next day we returned to Orlando by the scenic route. VERY Scenic! We took the backwoods routes to make sure we went past some swamps so we could take an air boat ride. They zip along the swamps propelled by a huge fan in the back. We had an 90 minute tour with Airboat Bill & saw quite a number of gators. At one point our boat was surrounded by about 2 dozen! They were just babies, but it pays to remember that The Mammagator is nearby and watching VERY closely. If you ever find yourself where there be swamps I recommend a tour. Besides seeing lots of cool critters we also learned a good deal about the local Seminole tribes, their shell mounds and the local animal & plant life. While out in the boonies we discovered a roadside stand selling a local delicacy – Goober Peas AKA Boiled Peanuts! They’re easy to make – just soak the peanuts for half a day then boil them in a tasty broth (salty, savory or cajun). They turn out more bean than nut but very tasty. Later, we met the folks for a nice Italian dinner. Yeah, the days were full!

By this point we were just about worn out and ended up sleeping late. We spent a few hours in the morning in one of the city’s more famous parks (Lake Eola) and a lesser known one (Fern Creek). Getting to explore a part of the city where tourists don’t normally go was an exciting proposition. While taking a walk to snag a geocache I spotted a guy spray-painting the side of a shoe store. He was being paid by the store to add urban chic to the area. For lunch we ate in a famous local eatery without knowing it was historic until after we got home. “Beefy King” predates all other fast food in Orlando and makes a sweet hot ham & cheese. Yum! Because the majority of the family was going to be in town this weekend Sherry organized a huge party (hosted by her beau Hutch). The shindig featured a nice place, tons of food and lots of interesting people to meet. If Heather & I didn’t have to get up early for our flight we could have stayed a lot longer.

We enjoyed a complimentary buffet for breakfast and hit the airport early. Then the flight was delayed for wind & snow in Newark. A few phone calls later we learned that it wasn’t snowing in Newark so this proves that even the airlines have no idea why their flights are delayed. Turns out there was a good deal of wind over New Jersey and our flight had to make an extended approach which caused lots and lots of turbulence. This created a definite need for the fancy blue bags they stash in the seat pockets. I wont elaborate but to say that there was a shortage of those bags and it was not a pretty scene. Back on the ground the weather was also pretty nasty – 30s, wind-chill in the 20s & snow flying sideways. Welcome back to Jersey! We got home at a reasonable hour and I spent a few hours unpacking, unwinding & logging cache finds. Oh, and of course looking through the pictures that we had taken. This here is a link to the full photo gallery. Enjoy!

Back in May when I bought the tickets it looked like a good match-up. The Dolphins had made great strides last year and sported one of the better defenses in the NFL. The Eagles returned most of their starters & are a perennial powerhouse. Yeah, on paper it looked great! Then the regular season started. Players dropped like files and both teams disappointed their fans. Oh well, at least they were pretty evenly matched and it would be a good game!

The weather report the day before said “Cloudy” but they decided that “Cold and raining” would be more fun for us so that’s what we got. The four of us arrived via car-pool (parking is $20) at about 11 AM. We setup the grill, fought the lighter, the wind & the drizzle and eventually managed to cook up some tasty burgers & dogs. We eventually made our way into the stadium and found our seats. I managed to get section 104 – Row 3! It’s a nice experience to walk down… way down… to your seat past all of the season ticket holders & people that got lucky (but not THAT lucky) the day tickets went on sale. Its even nicer to realize that you are seated right in front of the cheerleader station. Sweet!

The rain came and went throughout the afternoon. Corey had the foresight to grab all of the rain-ponchos he had – 3 – which left one of us wearing a trash bag begged from one of the Linc’s Sanitation Supervisors. Necessity… mother of invention… yada yada. If Dry is the bottom line it’s all good. The rain came and went throughout the game but it never rained hard enough to really mess up the game or turn the cheerleader’s outfits transparent so it was basically a wash. I was even able to take the poncho off towards the end of the game.

Speaking of the game… it wasn’t a great contest. McNabb got knocked out in the 2nd quarter and the rain already slowed down the offenses. The Dolphins rookie QB had a typical “First NFL Start” kinda game – it was horrible. They usually are so I’ll withhold judgment on his future in the league. The only big play excitement came on a kickoff return by the other Dolphins rookie of merit Ted Ginn. His TD was the only score the ‘Phins could muster. Brian Westbrook for the Eagles did most of the damage for his team and had a huge day running the ball despite the less then optimal conditions. There was plenty of near misses & action to go around and one thing can be said of a low scoring affair – it keeps the game clock moving. Before I knew it the final whistle had blown and the game was over. The final score was the Philadelphia Eagles 17, the Miami Dolphins 7.

We hung out while the crowds dispersed and watched the final game interviews being conducted by the Eagle’s locker room tunnel. When the crowds died down we shuffled out of the stadium. I said goodbye to the Linc. I’ll most likely never be back considering the price of admission. The other thing that bothered me was all of the empty seats. I couldn’t believe that people would have the ultimate honor of just being here and still desert their seats before half time. I cursed them for not being real fans but what I was really thinking was that they just didn’t pay as much as I did. I though the same thing when I heard all of the bickering and complaining (“What happened to McNabb?” “He hurt his #$%&* vagina again.”). I know that for the past 75 years of Eagles football history the “fans” have measured themselves by the level of their own self-hatred but it just didn’t sit right with me this time. It was as if nobody was even having a good time. Know how many “Fly Eagles Fly” chants I heard? Only one. I must have heard it a dozen times the last time I caught a game here. No, I saw more spirit from the smattering of Dolphins fans and it’s sad really. So I said goodbye to the Live NFL experience. Even if I could get tickets for $90 I don’t think I’d be back. Maybe after a few losing seasons the “fans” will be humbled but by then the cost of admission will be too high for me to even give a shit. The NFL is no longer an option for the average man.

After fighting to get out of the parking lot (Tip: Park RIGHT by the exit. Worked very well for us) we made our way down the road to [local eatery] where we partook of some heavenly Philly Cheese Steaks. We sat in the impromptu Dolphins section and I got to commiserate with my fellow Phins Phans. Good grub too though I think I still prefer Pats. So the day ended on an up note. We drove back to Reading with minimal difficulty. That night a blanket of snow fell across the town. Snow is pretty rare in mid November but it was somehow fitting. I had schlepped two cameras to the game and eventually had the film developed. The result of said development is seen throughout this entry. Click on any of the pictures to see the full version or click HERE to jump to the full gallery. Check back here in 3 years when the Eagles play the Dolphins again – but in Miami this time. Maybe I’ll try to get tickets to that game. . .

Here’s a few more random pictures. Click HERE to jump to the full gallery.

This accomplishes several things:
1) They get to charge me $78 in fees.
2) They get to call and bug my wife.
3) We pay the missing month & next month up-front.
4) Profit.

So they manage to fast-talk us out of paying the extra not just this month but NEXT month as well. Bastards! Well, they messed up… they also sent me a “late” notice and now I have their damn address. Let’s just see them “lose” my next check with the extra several hundred dollars.  I’m sending it Certified.