Sunday, February 27, 2005

Return to New England

You must think I am crazy. You must think I am insane.

Seriously, I am going back to New England, tonight, leaving in a few minutes. Tim's grandmother is dying. There are no flights left to the Northeast, because of a little snowfall that is going to hit the Mid Atlantic and move up the coast. We will litterally be a few hours ahead of the snow the entire drive. I need coffee.

Oh yes, other things that developed:

I was paid $500 today to help my boss move stuff from one location to another. Lots of antiques. I'm buying a Xbox and a Nintendo Game Cube with this money.

My dad is going blind. After his doctors apointment on Tuesday, he will find out if he will be able to continue driving.

The rental property is going to gain hard wired smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.

I don't like the architect's conseptual plans for my hosue in Baltimore. I don't want a four bedroom house. I want a seven bedroom house. I don't want to move my stairs around. I don't want to remove my servants stairs.

Anyhow, it is time for me to go pack my bags.

See you later this week.

A few minutes later:

I heard the sound of brakes squeeling and then a loud crash sound outside. I go out to the street, there is construction debris all over the road. I called it into DPW&T. Dumping construction stuff all over the middle of a road, on a blind curve and hill is So Prince George's County.

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Hang up the phone while driving the bus!

This one is So Prince George's County.

Yesterday, a Prince George's County Public School bus, transporting about 30 students to Thurgood Marshall Middle School (once called Roger Taney Jr. High, but that's a whole other blog in and of itself) was involved in a single vehicle crash on Temple Hills Road. No student was seriously hurt, all were transported to Southern Maryland Hospital, about a 15 minute drive away. Police issued the driver tickets for negligent driving, which carries a $275 fine, and failing to stay on the right side of the road, punishable by a $75 fine.

The school system ordered bus drivers a few months ago to not talk on cell phones while driving their bus. I don't think cell phones and buses mix. It's too bad that social Darwinism did not take care of the bus driver. And if I were the parents of the students, I would be at SMHC with pitchforks and torches, trying to find the room where the bus diver was being hospitalized. And I hope that this driver gets fired.

We all talk on our cell phones while driving. I have a headset, though I left it at Adam's place in Baltimore recently. And if it is too difficult to plug in the headset while driving, I sometimes just answer the phone without it. Driving a school bus, in and of itself is a very distracting profession. The vehicle is extremely large, there can be up to 50 kids screaming in the back, etc. It was raining at the time of the accident. I think this woman needs something else examined, because it's obvious she does not have a brain.

Talking on the cell phone while driving a school bus is So Prince George's County.

Meanwhile, I found out that Justin got his acceptance to the Maryland State Police. He turned it down. He realized that he did not want to be a State Trooper. His dream, ever since I met him five years ago, was to be a MSP Trooper. I'm in shock, and would nearly kill to have that opportunity that he just got. However, I support him, because if he feels that it was not right to go though with it, it was not right. And he should be congratulated for even making it to that point, which is a very very high honor. He is now trying to figure out what he will do with his dual bachelors degrees in Criminal Justice and Spanish from the University of Maryland College Park.

And everyone: Have a good day. I am looking forward to tomorow's snow!

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Feeling better

Today is the first day when I am feeling reasonable.

Yeay!

Anyhow, apparently Paris Hilton's cell phone was hacked. The phone numbers and e-mail addresses of Eminem, Vin Diesel, Lindsay Lohan, Christina Aguilera, Ashlee Simpson, Andy Roddick and Anna Kournikova were some that were posted online. The FBI has opened an investigation, and T-Mobile is trying to change some security parameters in the wake of this incident. At least, as of yet, there is no reference to Britney Spears. I wish the one trick pony (Paris Hilton) would be put out to stud, but apparently, she keeps showing up more and more and more.

I am working on getting my plans drawn up for my new place. I am so excited!!!! This house is so sweet, 3100 square feet + 1150 square feet in the basement. At 25, I will be the owner of a very very large rowhome that overlooks downtown Baltimore. And that place will be nice once it is done.

I still planning on blogging about the Gannon thing. I'll try blogging about it when I get home from work tonight.

Tootles.

Monday, February 21, 2005

Feeling marginally better

I'm feeling marginally better. I still have the headache, but the dizzyness is gone.

In the episode of Smurfs, All Creatures Great and Smurf, there is a mistake. Papa Smurf's pants are white instead of red.

I'll have more to say later.

Sunday, February 20, 2005

2246 is officially going to be mine

The LLC decided on how the properties would be distributed. Achu and Ngi got 11, Rem got 13, Beth and Brian got 15. Eric and Mike got 30, Kate got 44, I got 46, Alex got 52, Carter + wife + kids got 54. Each even side member will pay aprox $5900 more for their house, and each person on the odd side will get a $8900 price break on their house, for a grand total of $15,000 in added price difference. My proposal was accepted by the LLC, to bid on the actual difference, not a percentage of construction costs. After the meeting, Rem, Beth, Brian, Achu, Eric, Mike, Tim and I all went out to lunch, to celebrate this milestone.

I planed on commenting on the Jeff Gannon / James Guckert gay hooker + white house press corps patsy. However, I think I was exposed to some mold in one of the houses today, I have a spitting headache and I am extremely nausious and dizzy.

Good night.

Thursday, February 17, 2005

New look

Well, I gave the blog a new look.

Wal Mart is eyeing up two new locations for stores in Prince George's County. One is at the very blighted Capitol Plaza in Landover Hills. Great location for a Wal Mart. The shopping mall has been dead since Montgomery Wards and Hechingers closed. A Wal Mart, coupled with another larger retailer would do wonders for that center. The 450 cordior is Prince George's County's version of Rockville Pike. However, 450 is very very blighted. A Wal Mart may be the spark to make things better. The second location would be in Upper Marlboro. On the other end of 20772, at the intersection of the Beltway and Ritchie-Marlboro Road. I think Wal Mart is trying to split the difference between the Target in Largo and Forestville. However, by choosing this location, they are ignoring the other end of 20772, which has absolutely no retail at all. The best we have been able to do is a large Giant Food store and the new Home Depot. Target has eyed up a parcel of land across from the new Home Depot. Honestly, is this the best that Upper Marlboro can do? We have a per capita income that rivals most of the high end parts of Montgomery County. Yet, we have no shopping, and we must drive many miles for the same retail that other parts of the area take for granted.

Anyhow, time for me to go to work.

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Frodo fails, Carol visits.

Saturday night, I got to watch some bad movies with Guy, Carol, Tim, Trish, Justin and two other people I can't recall their names right now. I missed most of Baby genius, however, I got to see all of White Chicks and Catwoman. I liked White Chicks enough that I could have got away with buying it. Catwoman was very boring to watch. Tim and I ended up going to IHOP afterwards, because we were both hungry for a snack.

André had his 30th Birthday Party on Sunday night. Tara, Tim and I all attended. Before hand, the three of us went to Target in Greenbelt and bought him some presents. We got him a Latisha barbie doll and a ceramic fish. I ran into Rachel, I had not seen her since Grad Night for high school. She's living in Springhill Lake with her BF, until he finds a better job so they can move somewhere nicer. We exchanged phone numbers, hopefully we will get to hangout sometime. André's party went pretty well and the food was excellent. I highly recommend Brazilian barbecue.

As a side note: I had to IM Canine John to figure out the name and location of this restaurant. André promised he would e-mail me the info, and never did that. I looked up Brazilian restaurants in the phone book. None listed in Rockville. Since I knew it was on Rockville Pike, I had enough info to ask Canine John where it was. Of course, he knew where it was, thank god. And shortly after I was done chatting with John, André calls me with directions. Dolt.

On Monday, I worked on Capitol Hill. Only could bill for four hours, but that was OK. I saw an interesting bumper sticker on a early 1990s Chrysler minivan. "Frodo failed. Bush has the rings." Huh? I asked Tim what it meant, it is a reference to Lord of the Rings. He explained the saga and that bumper sticker does completely explain how things are right now. Bush does have the rings.

On Tuesday, I worked on Capitol Hill again. I called 311 to get the #2 in command at Friendship House ticketed or towed for parking in the alley. He does it every day with his powder blue 1997-2004 F-150. Never mind the tags expired in August 2004, and he peeled the year sticker off the plates. This is the same guy I had a run in with back in August. At that time, he cursed at me when I asked him to move his truck back a few feet. Ever since then, when I see his truck parked in the alley, I call it into 311. I can imagine the ad for Mastercard:

"Cell phone - $95 a month.
Truck payment to go to work - $310 a month.
Seeing the #2 in command's vehicle get towed for illegally parking - priceless"

Later in the day, I got to see Carol Schwartz (at large Republican in the DC city council) in person. She was coming out of the house where Former President Bush was sited last year. What amazed me is she has a rear end of a black woman. Something I never saw on TV before. My god, she had a plump butt.

Also, apparently, Ben Stein is on some Faux news program every couple of nights or so. That probably eliminates him as being Deep Throat.

Later today, I get to do more mindless repairs at the Rental Property. :-)

Good night.

Thursday, February 10, 2005

You can't park there.

Today I went to Panda Express (yet again).

Today, two women, I will give them names of Shanaynay (driver) and Laquita park their 1989-1999 Chevy Suburban in the fire lane in front of the Panda Express. Laquita gets a young boy out of his child safety seat, and all three go into Panda Express. While they are getting their order filled, a Prince George's County police car pulls up. Since there is no front licence plate, he has to go to the rear of the vehicle to run the plates. He procedes to write two tickets, one for no front plate, and one for being parked in a fire zone. Shanaynay and Laquita come out of the restaurant, and start pitching a fit. He hands Shanaynay her two tickets (I watched [and heard] this all from my seat in the restaurant), and Laquita calls him a "dumb f*$ker." All the mean time, Laquita has her young son in his child safety seat.

Wait a second. What's wrong with the description of what happened here? They become disorderly, because they got a parking ticket for being illegally parked.

Thank god the officer was black. Because these two women would have played the race card if he had been a white officer. There was plenty of available parking, if they would have just walked another 20 feet. But that's too difficult. Their $12 meal at Panda Express just cost them roughly $260. Oh well. I'm not paying their fine. And they completely deserved what they got.

What gets me even more is another #1 female, we will call her Swazette, pulls up, does the same thing with her 1998-2002 Corolla. Again, kid in tow, and walks into Panda Express. And I saw the county officer walking out of Quiznos. I can only imagine what happened to Swazette.

I'm sorry, but cursing out the cop because he ticketed you for parking in a fire zone is So Prince George's County!

At least the rental property is coming a long nicely.

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Happy Chinese New Year

Too bad Deep Throat is dying.

Prediction: Ben Stein.

Academia has researched this, and most people have come to the conclusion that it is Pat Buchanan. However, considering he's in pretty good health, and we have not seen much of Ben Stein lately, that may boost my theory.

Today Dan helped me out with fishing wires for cable TV, internet and phone. Tomorrow (later today) I'll finish up the job by installing the boxes in the walls and making patches in the sheetrock. I can also get some painting done, get the sheetrock down in the bathroom, and a few other random things.

I went to Lowe's today. Got a few things there. I went up to the cashier. He was talking on his personal cell phone as he was ringing up my order. That is So Prince George's County.

Anyhow, I wish everyone a good night sleep.

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

examine cherub cannibal

And that was the subject of an e-mail I received in my inbox this morning. Of course, it was attempting to get me to cheaply buy via the internet, drugs to enhance erections and make you sleep.

The electrician definitely needs to come out to the rental property. I found out yesterday that the new cooktop requires an electric line for the pilot ignition. The current cooktop did not have electronic ignition. Ooops. Well, he can fix my boo-boo in the basement too, where I accidently wired the fixture together and when I turn off the light switch, it trips the breaker. Plus the pendant light was not wired to the switch. Ooops. I do understand electric wiring though, I just can't fix these two problems or run the new line.

I am watching that "unaired" "Wish Upon a Weinstein" episode of Family Guy. It was unaired, because Fox thought it was offensive. However, every one of my Jewish friends that has ever seen it thought it was funny. It seems acceptable to me, I don't see why Fox did not air it. Fox reguarly airs more offensive things all the time. And who can forget Married With Children?

I got invited to André's birthday party on Sunday. However, the waiter at the Silver Dinner wants Tara and I to come back on Sunday. Should I call him and say we will be back on Monday instead?

I'll probably have more tales tonight.

Monday, February 07, 2005

Roxie Ann.

No, she's not a hooker.

$90, $159, $245 per credit hour.

The $90 is for in county residents, $159 is for residents of Maryland that don't live in Prince George's County and $245 for people that are residents of somewhere else. As you can see, there is a financial benefit to finding an address in Prince George's County and saying you live there.

Well, our last tennant in the rental property let a Roxie Ann Robertson use her address to register. I'm on hold with the Community College to find out how to get this woman to pay back tuition.

I know this sounds vendictive, and it is. However, Prince George's Community College in county students pay some of the highest rates for CC's in the state. Every time a person "uses" an address and does this, it increases rates for real county residents such as myself. As an alumni of Prince George's Community College, I benefited from my Criminal Justice coursework, and enjoyed my time there. However, I think it is wrong for students to do this. Some of my friends used county addresses, and had moved to other places. I thought it was wrong then, and I think it is wrong now. But at the same time, it had never been on my watch and they were not using an address that I was in charge of. This woman was using our address, and that is just plain wrong.

Have a good day.

I can do it. And Home Depot sells it.

That rental property will be almost all new when I am done with it.

The latest is, the entire hall bathroom will be remodeled. First, I started to remove the tile from around the tub, for a repair. Well, a lot of the wallboard behind the tile was rotted. Where it was not rotted, the tiles started falling off randomly. Well, then I uncovered rust on the tub. The turquoise green tub will be replaced. The vanity was rotted. All and all, I dropped another $650 at Home Depot on new fixtures, and that does not include the tile.

I finally got the wall paper down off the stairway to the basement. I patched the walls, and started priming them. Well, it would not be Matt's luck, without a problem. The primer started to peel away some of the paper from the gypsum. So I am going to have to do some more wall patches and reprime those spots.

The new appliances arrived. The fridge is neato, though it did not come with a digital temperature readout/adjuster. The floor sample had one, the fridge we got had just some LED lights coresponding to warmer and colder. The ice maker has an adjuster for the size of ice it spits out. I went ahead and flipped the pannel over on the dishwasher from almond to white. Again, it would not be a Matt thing without a problem. Under the pannel, the dishwasher was rusting out. There are rust stains on the white side of the pannel. We may have to replace the dishwasher. I saw some decent ones for around $350.

I got the interior doors. My dad needs to hang them this week. It is absolutely amazing all the stuff that this house needed. I don't seem to be getting everything done. I may need until the end of the month. But that place will be super nicely rehabed for a rental. It just sucks that everything was bascially trashed up at the same time, making for an expensive process for my parents. But the house is a cash cow for my parents, so I don't feel so bad.

Today Brian, Rem and I did some work on the Linden Tree houses. We did a little bit of clean up, and I made a trip to Home Depot for boards, hinges, locks and other things. That trip was nearly $700, out of the LLC's account. But we hit a snafu. We still only had starter checks from the Bank. Rem had to put it on his charge card, and he's going to have to write a check to himself for the materials we bought today. I just hope none of the LLC members throw a fit. Paul is moved into his house, finally. It has turned out nice, I would do somethings differently than he did, but overall it will be a great house for many years to come for them.

Tonight was the Super Bowl. I only half heartedly watched it, because none of the teams I really follow or like were in it. The commericals were not as ingenious as in years past. The Simpsons afterwards was very creative, even injecting the Super Bowl halftime show where Pac Man and Ms. Pac Man got married. The new show American Dad was definitely So Northern Virginia. The attitude of the dad. The affluenza. So on and so forth. I don't see it being a huge hit for Fox though. Futurama lived up to it's hype. And then Fox killed it after only four seasons (that lasted five seasons). American Dad will last two tops.

My next purchase with my big paycheck coming my way will be an XBox with some games. And I will make three truck payments. I just want to get back to my daily routine at Capitol Hill though. That income is provable, since I get a 1099 every year. I won't get one from my parents since I am just a GC.

Well, I wish everyone a good night.