my new car - major jake

My new car was finally ready today. My neighbor gave me a ride to pick it up and I think she was more excited than I was when she saw it.

The car is about the same length and width as Jake, but it's a lot taller.

my new car at the dealership

inside interior - smells like leather!

my new car next to Jakey

this pic does not do the size difference justice...

Pretty excited about my new car!!! Can't wait to take it to the mountains to see how it does in the snow!

Area 51

I've been reading this cool book that my dad recommended called Area 51 (here's the interesting back story about the book). I'm only 80 pages in but have found out some crazy stuff...for example...

The crash in Roswell was real. But it wasn't an extraterrestrial space ship. It was a Russian craft and that's why it was covered up. The craft was flying in that area because there were a lot of sensitive military installations there.

Something else interesting...Russia was paying attention in the late 40s and early 50s when UFO mania was sweeping the US. Of course it was partly because they crashed their "UFO" (at Roswell) but they also were interested when the hysteria happened over the radio broadcastof war of the worlds (when people thought the US was really under UFO attack). 

In any case they started a campaign to encourage the UFO mania in the hopes that they could some day launch a real attack and get away with it because they thought the US gov was not taking UFO sightings seriously. The US, however, was taking them very seriously though they dismissed them in public. 

The reason the gov started secret programs like Project Blue Book to investigate UFOs was not because they thought they were extraterrestrial but because they thought they were Russian incursions in our air space. That was especially true after the Russians found out about the U2 flying over their airspace (US was worried about a retaliation). And the US was worried about public backlash if people found out the Russians were flying over the US and the US was doing nothing in response.

So how weird is that? Ufologists thought the US gov was covering up real UFOs and it turns out they were just worried about a Russian attack...haha!

It is noted in the book that there were some UFOish phenomena that could not be explained... 

luckily unlucky

I was supposed to go pick up my new car today. The side panels to protect the doors finally came in. But then...

...my sales guy called me around 2 PM today and said that while the side panels were being installed one of my doors got scratched. So my new car is now at a body shop getting the scratch fixed. I'm said that I'm not getting my new car today but for my inconvenience I'm now getting the side panels for free which just saved me $400.

All's well that ends well. Though my dad has me paranoid that the paint repair will be noticeable.

my 2015 new year's resolutions

1. I will quit being paranoid that every time I buy AA or AAA batteries at the store the check out person thinks the batteries are for a vibrator. For the record I do not own a single sex toy or any pornography.
2. I will stop picking up produce at the grocery store and pretending I'm trying to see if it's ripe or not because I honestly have no idea and no one in the produce department is watching me thinking "wow she must be a great cook because she's really checking out the produce to make sure it's ripe, I'm so impressed."
3. I will use my new rower at least 4 days a week to build up my arm muscles in the hopes that some day I may be able to carry it upstairs.
4. I will stop obsessing about my fitbit (caveat: I'm getting the one with the HR monitor as soon as it comes out so I might obsess about the new one for a week or two) and having my feelings hurt when it chides me to get in 500 (or how ever many) more steps. My fitbit is just a little computer and it actually doesn't care how much I work out. So stop taking it personally. And being obsessed with getting badges. It's stupid. No one cares if I got the India badge. Australia badge, though, that will be impressive. Did I just say that? Stop. With. The badges.
5. I will only order sushi delivery once a week. Or less. Did I mention a restaurant opened near me that delivers sushi? Have I died and gone to heaven? No. And if I really want to eat sushi three times a week I should walk to the restaurant except for once a week, or less, when they can bring it to me. Once a week sushi delivery isn't excessive is it?
6. I will learn to meditate without my mind immediately filling with that 1970s United Dairy Farmers radio commercial playing in my head. UDF. United Dairy Farmers. Your neighborhood food store. Fucking stop it already.
7. I will learn to harness the powers of my droid maxx because my brother Steve said my phone should be able to do almost anything for me (if my phone orders sushi delivery without my knowledge that's not my fault...is there an app for that? I hope not because I might install it by accident not knowing what it does).
8. I will complete my cooking class and my astronomy class by February.
9. I will eat 2 carrots a day and will eat asparagus at least 4 times per week instead of just eating arugula all the time. Anyway, the arugula sucks lately.
10. I will stick with my disgusting herb treatment until the end of March and will complete 3 more acupuncture treatments and will take it seriously and stop thinking "and after this I get to drink some toenail tea" when I'm supposed to be embracing positive energy and universal light and all that shit. For the record, the tea tastes awful.

So here goes 2015!

finally closer to 2015

This past week I've been very busy updating my stuff.

I finally got a "smart" phone (droid maxx) because 1) it was free and 2) my brother Steve got me addicted to freakonomics and other podcasts that I couldn't listen to on my blackberry. When I went into the Verizon store the guy who helped me said "we've been waiting since July of 2013 for you to come in." I asked why and he said I was their only customer that still had a blackberry. He insisted on checking to see if I could get any money for my blackberry (answer: $0).

Also, since I sold a bunch of stuff on craigslist and because they were on huge sale I bought a rowing machine. It was pretty easy to put together, but I'm not entirely sure where in my house it will end up. Right now it's in the kitchen. I can just hear my architect saying "why are you trying to turn your kitchen into a gym?" I just used it for 15 minutes (got to build up my arms for surf camp!!!!) and have a feeling I will not be able to lift them tomorrow.

On new years day my friend Cam and I went to see the movie Wild in a theater. I realized it has been about 10 years since I went to a movie theater. The movie was good. Maybe I should go to the movies more often. She also took me to dinner on Saturday and lunch (columbian place that just opened near her house) on Sunday. In exchange I helped her organize her garage which also involved cutting a bunch of carpeting up into pieces that we could put in her trash cans. And I got 8 really nice ceramic pots as a result of the garage cleaning (Cam didn't want them anymore). I'm going to use them for my herb garden this summer.

Finally, and this is the real shocker, I bought a new car. It's a xv cross trek. I had some extra things installed so I'm hoping I can pick the car up tomorrow or Wednesday. I bought the car on Friday, which ended up being a good thing because I was the only customer at the dealership. It's sapphire blue with a leather interior.

When I walked into the dealership I was immediately approached by a sales guy and I said "I haven't been in a car dealership since 1999 and my brothers were scaring me about how horrible it might be to buy a new car." Luckily the sales guy was nice and walked me through everything. He did seem a little terrified on our test drive because I kept driving through the slushiest, snowiest, iciest patches I could find on the road (survey is out on the stock tires for my new car, may just sell them and get Michelins which I have on Jake and love). Anyway, the car only has 3 miles on it (from my test drive).

I would also mention as I was leaving the dealership they said "see you in 14 years!" since I kept Jakey for 14 years...