just 8 more minutes!!! and im outa here!!! woohoo!!!!! umm.. that is all. :-)

ok.. here i am at work... and i am kinda bored.. ok.. i'm REALLY bored. i am answering phones.. when they ring. and when they're not ringing i am filling out post card... what seems like millions. filling in addresses and applying labels.. its drone work. i miss my old rovng around doing random crap. but at least i get to sit here in the air conditioned office and i will get paid more since i am working all day. MWAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!! anyways. i better get back to applying labels... how exciting!!!

tuesday i yet again expanded my job description when our resceptionist tought me the finer points of the switchboard. (and my boss's anal tendencies) he insists that i return his garbage can and recycle bin the the exact location and position that i found it. and he insists that any calls for him be identified before forwarding the call to him. but then again he is the owner and that is hir prorogative (sp?). so yeah.. the whole point of this is so that i can cover for her on thursday and friday in which i will man the front desk and phone... very fun. when i'm not sitting there stairing out the window waiting for something interesting.. strange people call in by the hand full... its werid. i can have like 1/2 and hour of silence.. then aboput 7 people all call in at once. its craziness. anyways.. y am i still awake? im leaving.

lets see.. what has happened since wednesday??? umm..... yeah... not alot. yesterday we continued our search for a fountain for my mom. we decided that we could probably make one for alot cheaper than it would cost for a pre-made one. after seeing those whikey barrels at k-mart a couple of weeks ago, we decided to use those to make a fountain that some places sell pre-made. it is basicly a couple of wine barrels, both with plastic liners (one with a little spout built in) and one basicly pours into the other. as it turns out.. k-mart put those whiskey barrels on sale... so we bought a couple. then went to Yardbirds (which is like a cross between an Orchard Supply and a home Depot.) and bout a couple or wine barrel liners. problem was... there is a difference between a wine and a whiskey barrel... aparently, wine barrels are bigger.. so they didnt fit. luckilt Orchard DID have whiskey barrel liners... so we returned the wine liners and bought 2 new ones at Orchard. my dad already had a pump, so we pretty much have evrything.. almost. we just need a hose for the pump and some cinder blocks to elevate one of the barrels... and then, hopefully, we'd finally have a fountain.. one that is very representative of this area (well.. if that were so.. they would be wine barrels... but who can tell the difference ;-) and for alot less than $100... let alone the 300 or so it would cost for a fake rock one.

as for today... we had a minor catastrophe. well... the catastrphe has been ther for a while. there ahs been a puddle slowly forming in front of my livingroom window for a few months... we just assumed it was a small leak from the faucet where our sprinkler was connected. we were wrong. upon further investigation, we discovered that it was a sup teranead leak from a pipe. so this was going to require digging. my dad started us off on sunday. yeasterday my bro and i picked up where he left off and enlarged the whole... as it filled up faster and faster. we eventually came across the pipe that leads from the fixture to the sprinkler system. it is plastic.. a likely suspect.. but since the sprinklers were currently off.. it made no sense that the leak would continue. so we had to go deeper for the main line... joy. there was no way in hell we were gonna reach the damn pipe cuz it was deeper and closer the the wall.... between some bushes and under a bay window. so.. i spent alot of the moring ripping the hell out of the bush... and left it a pathetis stump of its former self. looks like we wont be decorating it with christmas lights next year. after i got the bush out of the way, i started to dig around it hoping to remove the stump itself.. to no avail. my uncle had come over to give me a hand. eventualy we got that damn thing out... it left quite a hole.. good, less digging. we continued down from where the bush once stood. my uncle had sugested shutting off the water line... in front of the dinning room. we did. yet still, somehow, the hole was still filling with water. and it seemed to be accelerating. so i sugested shutting off the main line at the meter. i did. the leaking stopped. briliant. we sucked out the remaining water after finally pin-pointing the source (or at least the direction) of the leak. we dug straight down from the forth coming water and hit copper. in the process of clearing the pipe we must have worsened the leake cuz when i flipped the water back on.. the friggin thing erupted like a goddamn geyser. which ment that a shower before heading to work was imposssible. luckily my mom had filled a bucket witrh water for just such a situiatiuon. so i was able to somewhat wash up before work. problem was.. i had just spent all moring doing hard physical work.. and now i had to go to work. GODDAMNIT! o well. at least they pay me. thankfully when i got home... the plummer had come and gone and had fixed the problem.

sunday i was planning on goin over rash's house. so.. i did. we worked on his car, and 83 (i think) porsche 944. it needs a new clutch. so we had to remove the tranny. no easy feet. nefore getting to the tranny we had to disconnect the drive axles.. something he's been trying to do for a while. i sugested taking a rubber malet to the allen wrench at hammering it into the screws so that it wont slip out.. this proved to be the best course of action as he imediatly started removing screws. once we had the drive axles disconnected we removed the bolts holding the tranny to the housing enclosing the junction between it and the driveshaft. lastly we disconnected it from the body... after supporting it with a jack of course. unfortunately it didnt have the desired effect. somehow the tranny was still attached to the car and didnt drop when we lowered the jack. so.. that is whjere we stand...errr.... he stands. the tranny is almost nearly semi quasi just about disconnected... but its still barely kinda sorta in a way not reall but still attached. got it? so anyway, while we were doing all this crap which took alot longer than it sounds... my bro and his bro were in the house transfering files over to my comp. well.. his bro was transfering files. my bro was playing ace combat 4. the whole time. o well. later that day we ate dinner at my grandma's house, then drove home. good times. i guess.

thank you nathan. anyways.. on with the post!

last weekend was awsome. got to go into the city, again, with the new truck, again, but this time.... no mom breathing down my neck. just me and my bro and sis. we were cruisin down at a, shall we say, swift speed? so anyways, we made good time. when we got there (my grandma and granpa's house) we said hi to my grandpa who was in the garage doin.. stuff. we couldnt however find my granma... turns out she was getting her hair done or some crap. so we picked her up and went to serramonte... a mall in Daly City. there we ate and met with my aunt for lunch. afer eating we basicly went our seperate ways. my brother and i went off to look at posters, books and crap like that, everyone else went to macy's for various reasons. my grandpa showed up at the bookstore we were at so the ladies were still at macy's some 1 1/2 later.. no surprise there. after getting a hold of rene we decided that i would go over and visit her at around 5 or so. so after the ladies finiched their shopping we set off from the mall. i went straight to jamba juice.. they were gonna see what movies were playing. little did i know they would practicly follow me as they went to the theatre not 50 feet from jamba juice to look at showtimes.

so i walk into jamba juice, the first thing i see is pyro walk from behind the counter with a few boxes in hand. as i walk in she notices me, says hi and proceeds to walk straight into the bathroom. im somewhat dumfounded. she then bursts out and charges at me with a huge grin on her face and she leaps into my arms. i assume that she is happy to see me by her reaction to my presence. so then she goes behind the counter and continues to talk to me. seconds later a large black mass emerges from the nether regions of the building... "ah!" its KGB. aparently he is on his brek.. and hes about face deep in a huge cup of piña colada. we talk for a while and i talk with pyro for a while, then i finally decide to order a drink. Mango a go-go or something like that. i go with a protein booster.. i dunno why, that was just the first thing that i read. so i start slirpin down my drink and then KGB lets pyro go on her break so that i can give her some anime and give her some books for her bro. as i do so i get a call from the rest of my party that we have decided to see pirates of the caribean and that i am to meet them there in a lil while. so we walk back to jamba juice and chat a lil while.. then we part ways as i go off to the theater.

the movie was surprisingly good. i think that johnny depp's portrayal of the care free captain jack sparrow was excelent. orlando bloom did a descent job with his character.. but it was the mix of captain jack sparrows physical and verbal comedy/performance that really impressed me. other than that the rest of the movie was pretty good, with some pretty impressive visuals (the transitions between to live and un-dead as the pirates stepped in and out of the moonlight. after the movie i took my sis to go meet pyro, as was her request, we had a breif conversation.. then parted ways... forever. or at least til i visit next time :-)

my mom: you better have your hair cut by tommorow!!!
my brother: AAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
(30 minutes later)
my mom: where is everyone??? why isn't anything put awy?!?!
me: you told chris to cut his hair... so dad is cutting it.
my mom: no... i said tomorow!
me: no.... you said BY tomorow
my mom: thats not what i meant!!!
me: but thats what you said....
my mom: GO WALK THE DOG!!!!
(i win :-P)

well... ive really started to get used to the truck.. its soo cool. i wanna buy stuff for it. (i guess the old ford is gonna have to wait in line.. lol) anyways, yah... i heard that camper shell's actually reduce mileage and cause more drag (cuz it interupts the vaccuum that normally forms behind the cab.. somethig like that) so i wanna get a cover for it... like a fiber glass lid to go over the bed. also, i wanna get the bed lined.. with either a line-x or rhino liner (spray on.. not that plastic crap) also.. i wanna get a flowmaster exhaust system and K&N intake system. any other sugestions.. if not, just send money. :-) anyways, i went up to santa rosa today and yesterday to pick up some extra keys and remotes. actaully i went up tuesday to get 2 new keys cut and a remote programmed.. then about an hour after i left the dealer4ship, the former owner of the truck dropped off another set of keys and a remote. so thats why i went back today. and while i was there.. i had a free quiznos sub (for buying a drink and chips. mmm..... toasty)

Just in case you guys forgot.... you can respond to my entries... so feel free to do so..... please.

moving on...
today we went to the city, and i got a real chance to drive the new car. though it didnt take long for my mom to start complaining about not being able to drive it. we switched off in mill valley, just north ofn the G.G.Bridge. so she drove it through the city to my grandmas house. now.. my mom, my sister, my brother and i all went down to the city. so along with my grandma and grandpa and aunt, that made 7 of us. and the truck can only fit 5 people comforatbly.. six if someone sits up front in the middle. but, as you know, a vehicle that seats 6 people can probably seat 8 mexicans. yes, that was a racist comment, but its ok.. since we're all mexican, and we all piled in. we drove around ab bit, eventually ending up at the cliff house. there we ate at Louis' diner. (i'm gonna make this short cuz for some reason all this typing is making my back hurt) so we ate, then drove up to the top of the hill on which it stands where we got an amayzing view of ocean beach and much of the city. anyways, i finaly got to drive the truck on our way home. it was fun, i was hittin 80 no prob, and the engine was barely clearing its throat. i think im gonna by a K&N filter and some flowmaster's for it. weee!!!! im happy.

o happy day. lets start at the top. this morning, i got up EXTRA early to go to this special used car show thing up in santa rosa to see if we can find a car we wanna buy. they advertized over 300 cars.. there maybe 100 at most. my dad really wanted to see and maybe drive a neissan altima. we got to the show at around 8:30.. it started at 8:00. by the time we got there both altimas that they had were gone. one was already sold, the other was being test driven. we walked around for a while, seeing nothing astonishing. my dad looked through a few cars.. such as a couple of mazda 626s and a pontiac bonneville. i showed my mom a dakota, another vehicle we were strongly considering, only this one was a, extended cab model, we needed the four door quad cab. but at least this way she could get a look at the interior and the sive of the truck and such. we also considered a PT cruiser for a while. its definetly useful and i think its cool looking. but, as i said, nothing astonishing.

on our way home we stopped at this place where they sell all kinds of outdoor yard type stuff. and i dont mean plastic flamingoes. this guys has about 20 hand made water fountains , all made artisticly out of cememnt (for the bowl) and scrap mettal. alot of the stuff this guy had was really cool looking. he also sold fish, plants and ponds. my mom saw all kinds of stuff she liked.. but nothing that she really had to have (she really wants a fountain for the backyard). anyways, we then went back up to Santa Rosa (where the cars were) to a Big KMart where my dad said they had some fountains. again, several fountains.. but nothing wonderful. see a trend here?

anyways, after returning home my mom and sis went to have their hair "done" and my dad and i went over to the local dealerships car hunting. my lazyass bro stayed home. anyways, the first stop, of course, was the Nissan dealership. my dad mentioned (to the salesperson) that we were looking at altimas and frontiers (the four door crew cab version). the salesperson went on to convince my dad that the altima was better for us. better power and mileage plus it handles and rides smoother. and it has a bigger interior. whatever. we test drove an altima 2.5 se (the four cylinder) it was ok. smooth? yes. handling? ok acceleration? blah. its a midsize with a 4!!! it was nothing impressive. my dad liked it.. but he was somewhat biased. we then moved on to the honda dealership to look at the civic hybrid (btw.. the car we're looking for would be for the family to use.. mainly my mom and i.. my dad does WAY TOO MUCH driving for him to get a new car) however, the civic hybrid WOULD be the car for him. with its hybrid gas/electric powerplant it get 45-50 mpg!!!! on regular gas!!!! impressive. so we test drove 1. he said it didnt accelerate as well as the nissan. i didnt notice much of a difference. and you cant argue with 50 mpg... thats from here to LA on 9 gallons of gas!!!!!! thats a performance number you cant argue with and few can match. but my dad wasnt impressed with its performance and it was a bit small. and it was as much as the altima... and the altima was a bigger nicer car. it was a toss up. so we went home to share our experiences. after about an hour of talking, we decided to head back out and check out other cars. this time we went to the dodge dealership. we told the guy we wanted a dakota.. specificly a quad cab. he then said he didnt have any used ones.. and only a few new ones. he had 2. a 4x4 and a 4x2. both white. not a huge selection. he recomended us to his friend at the santa rosa dealership. they had a slightly larger slection. 3-4 used dakota quads alone. plus about 8 new ones. and thats not counting the extended cabs and regular cabs... they had a lot. (no pun intended)

anyways, they had 2 we were looking at, a 2002 and a 2001. the 2002 had less miles on it.. but more per year (more than half the 2001 if that makes sense to you) plus it was silver, an SLT, a crappy bed liner, and it was a 4x4. we really didnt need the 4x4 but whatever. the 2001 was black, a sport, 4x2 with a camper shell. i didnt like how the camper shell looked (it made it look like a retarded durango.. but whatever) my mom liked the silver one.. cuz it was silver (as opposed to black.. she didnt want a black vehicle) but the 2002 was $4,000 more than the 2001. so we debated that long and hard. then we found out the 4x2 gets better mileage and that the 4x4 would cost more to insure. this was the end of the debate. it was the black one. so we test drove it. well.. my dad did. it was smooth, for a truck, and it handled reasonobly well. the best part was that the saleperson didnt ride along with us.. so, since there was no dealer babysitter looking over his shoulder, my dad was able to put it through a proper shake down. it held up. it accelerated very well... and with its hier ride hight and looser suspension than the nissan or honda, you really felt it surge forward... that and that it has just about twice the engine as the nissan. plus the back windows roll all the way down (a big issue for me, since i rode in my uncles new ('99) chevy tahoe and found out the wiondow only rolls down about 4 inches... crap, thats just crap. anyways, we returned all smiles and basiclyt went through all the formalities. to make a long story short (ok, ok.... to make a long story not quite as long) we drove it home.. ell my dad did... i followed in the ford POS. though i did test drive it after we got home. the accelerator peddal is very gas-happy... if you just tap it, it surges, and is you let off it kinda bogs down.. i guess i just gitta get used to it. other than that... it was a blast to drive. i felt big, powerful, and all around cool. (if you have an 88 ford taurus that you drive daily... then you understand my bliss).

Holy Crap am i tired. i pretty much worked a full day today. i went in at 2... and didnt leave til 9:30. so thats what? 7 1/2 hours. sweet. my first week on the job and already i've put in all kinds of extra hours. (its not over time cause i don't have any concrete workig hours). the first thing i did was get my voice mail, on which was a message that i was to go put a "sale pending" sign on one of our houses. next i walked a across the street to buy some crazy glue. hell yea! i'm doin the real important stuff! after that i went up to santa rosa (anout a 1/2 hour drive) to go pick up a package. when i got there, i learned that there was a $50 fee for it. nice. and me withought my master card. so i ca;ed the office and aperently there was a check already made out.. nice of them to let ME know. luckily we were able to send it via mail. after returning from Santa Rosa i picked up my mom and sister and took them to my sister's Gymnastics class thingy. upon returning to work, i found that our parking lot had been turned into the patio outside most restaurants and hotels where a party is being held that you werent invited to. only this time, i HAD to be there. in fact, i was getting paid to be there. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! dont worry, its not as great as it sounds. my job was basicly to walk around in circles to see if anyone needed anything. this was customer appreciation day and all the agents invited past clients to come and have a good time with the people who sold them their house. so i was making runs for mroe plates and sour crout (which we couldnt find for like 1/2 an hour). my main job, however, was to make sure none of the four garbage cans was over-flowing. and to then empty the cans when they were full. fun. it wasnt TOO bad. i had to empty about 10 or so cans in all. i did manage to sneak in some actual partaking of the feast at some point. i had a really big (and tasty) hot dog and later i had a hamburger. oh... i also walked around a couple of times and snapped some digital pictures of the crowd (a few from the roof.. that was cool). and if having hundreds of people stuffing their faces (and our garbage cans) wasnt crazy enough.... after everyone left, the agents and I all dimantled the tables and such. (actually i didnt touch the tables) i took down a bunch of umbrellas and slipped them into covers (i found myself with a huge umbrella between my legs, slipping a gigantic tube chaperd cover over it.... can you sat awkward looking??? use your imagination..... it didnt take long for one of the agents to make a comment "this is called having safe... umbrellas" "look, i found one big enough" "this one is STILL too small" you get the idea) after that we packed up all the ice chests and bottles and cans a stuff. this was the pint that i noticed that the 2 kegs of beer and several cases of whine had completely set in. these people started getting pretty loud and.. well... goofy. my boss, after telling me that he would back this huge truck up (to where i did not know) decided to pull OUT of the parking lot (i thought ghe was gonna pull further in) so kevin (hes the guy who used to do what i am doing now) and I run over to wher we realized he was parking and noticed that he was gonna brush against a tree that was planted on the sidewalk area by a telephone poll. despite kevin and i yelling and hitting the truck, he took out about 1/3 of the tree by breaking off a huge branch. the real hilarity ensied when i returned to the parking lot of somewhat drunk realtors with a huge branch in hand. "it needed to be trimmed anyway" "maybe he should back up around the rest of the parking lot and trim the rest of the trees." after realizing that his attempt to park the truck on the street was futile he just parked across the street in the European Car Repair shop driveway. i finally left at around 9:30 with some leftover lettuce and red onion. what a day. i guess you could say i just got paid to be at a party.. but it was far more tiring and difficult and downright gross than that. (as i said my job was to clear the garbage... well someone took it upon themselves to empty a can and take it over to the dumpster area. well.. by this time the dumpster had been filled up, so they basicly just threw the bag atop the neat pile i started... without tying it up. so it fell over and spilled all over the place. wonderful.) something to do tomorow. speaking of which... i have to go in EXTRA early tomorow... right after i drop off my mom (7:30) to spray down the parking lot and then i have to go over to my boss's house to unoad the ise chests and what not. more to look forward too. i guess i better go off to bed now.... since i gotta get up early tomorow. this is thomas signing off... or something (i dunno i got nuthin!)

yesterday was a great day. for starters, i started my new job. i work for the local Century 21 real estate office. its the largest in the north bay. anyways, im the official multitasker. the best way to describe my job is that i do everyth9ing but sell real estate. so.... yeah.... thats just about everything. and potentially, i can do just that, and may have to. yesterday wasn't to bad, i just ran some errands with Paul the computer guy and Kevin the former gopher guy. i went with paul to do a virtual tour and some picture taking (possibly the coolest part of my job) virtual tours involve a digital camera on a tripod looking straight up into one of those dome shaped wide agled mirrors to take a snap shot of the whole room. from there we send the pictiure to another company that prcesses it and turns it into one of those virtual 360 degree things. very cool.

today i was introduced to the employees at the weekly meeting, after that i went out and trimmed the hedges in preperation for the party we are having thursday. (i will usually work afternoons.. but i went in extremely early today so i can go ot the meeting) anyways, after i finished the hedges, i went to yard birds to get some plants. after checking there and then at orchard supply, i went back to yardbirds and bought what they had. i then went back to the office, ripped out the existing plants and planted the new ones. nice huh? it was like 90 degrees outside!!!! then i had some lunch. apon returning i proceeded to walk through the ENTIRE OFFICE (did i mention it was the largest in the north bay... yeah, it is... quite... big) and i dumped every recycle bin and garbage can i came across. big fun. after that i read the company handbook, filled out a form, cleaned the 3 signs outside and went home. bloody fun.

finally at home, i was able to reep the fruits of my laibor. yesterday, in the mail i reciened my DSL modem and stuff. sweet!!!!! i have dsl!! i have DSL!!!!! I HAVE DSL!!!!!!!!!!!! hoooray for me. i tested my new pipe by downloading painted black by the stones. (though i didnt realize that in order to plug in my DSL, i unplugged my speakers. o well. i fixed it today and listened to it.) so yeah, it was extremely easy to set up..... literally just plugging it into the wall. i made things more complicated by having my desk on the oposite side of the room as the phone jack.. plus i had to worry about getting it through my network switch. but to my astonishment, it worked without any problem whatsoever. i didnt have to do any configuring, it just.... was online. weird. my next project is to get a new desk so that i can move my computer to a better spot in my room.... and i have to hook up my bros computer to the DSL, since for some reason the nework cable must be broken or something. thats all for now.

Lets try this again... the first timne i tried updating, my internet cut off and i lost everything. that DSL cant come soon enough!!!! (oh yeah, i got DSL... hooray for me!!!) anyways, on with the post. when i did this this morning i ranted for a while about privacy and how i loath when people look over my shoulder. its customery for me to hit windows+D when sopmeone walks into my room just because i dont like people looking over my shoulder (especially when i'm updating one of my blogs or chatting with other people) its not that i have somehting to hide it just boters me.

moving on...

so... where was I.. ah yes, the forth of July. wooptie damn doo. sure we bought some fireworks to blow off.. but they just arent very impressive. i wanted to see a REAL fireworks show. as i said before, our local fireworks show was pushed forward a day. so anyways, yesterday we had company over. the usual. grandparents and aunt from the city. staying for the weekend. the surprise guests were my uncles and aunt (neither is married.. and they aren't related... nor are wither of them related to me... they are just good friends of eachother and of the family. i just grew up always reffering to them as uncle and aunt.. i dunno.) anyways, my uncle buddy is really into show business (actually they all are) but he actually makes movies.. well documentaries about various places he's visited. anyways, he just got back form bancok.. again, and again he's brought a bunch of, shall we say, pre released and duplicated computer applications. he hooked me up with Roxio Easy CD and DVD creator 6 Platinum, as well as Photohop 7.01... which isnt even out yet. and another disc which contains the latest software from Macromedia and Adobe. good stuff.

after a nice all american barbeque, they departed and we had plans to go and see the fireworks show which they were putting on at sonoma state university which is about a 10 minute drive north. last year we tried to make the show in sann rafael, which is about a 20 minute drive south, and arrived just intime to see the end of the finale. this time i did my bext to RUSH everyone out the door. on our drive up, we see the first fireworks go off in the distance. it had begun. by the time we actually got to the college, there was nothing left but a huge cloud of smoke and a whole lot of on coming headlights. we've created an anual tradition of completely missing the fireworks shows!!!! and ijm pissed!

what a holiday weekend. its thursday July 3 and my town is doing its anual fireworks show. tomorow is friday. why can't it be done on a friday. the one time in several years that the 4th of July is on a day in which people normally have celebrations of sorts... and they have the fireworks on a thursday!!!! why? do u ask?? because the stupid friggin city rented out the fair grounds (where the fireworks are being launched from) to another party for the 4th... briliant. the city is fully aware of its own anual fireworks show for the forth.. and yet they still rent it out. (ahh.. the finale!!... sweet silence) my uncle who lives here in town was aware of the show being puished forward to today and prepared to set up camp on his roof which has a fare view of the festivities. despite being told about the situation, my mom STILL didnt decide to ask if anyone wanted to go over his house until partway through the show... they prolly just got to the roof in time to watch the end.. sucks for them. serves them right. they left me here with a disgrunteled dog who was going nucking futts over the explosions outside. my dad went to go return a game that i rented... red faction 2 descent shooter.... whch my mom was suposed to do before the place closed... she didnt.

i saw T3 today. it was ok. the fight scenes were pretty awsome and the chase scene was quite destructive. but they got nuthin on the Matrix. the story was kinda confusing.. mostly because its been ages since ive seen T2 and ive never seen T1 (do they call it T1??? i dunno, i dont know terminators.) anyways... <2 minute pause>

i dunno i got nuthin.