Apple is moving to Intel CPUs. Scary, scary stuff.

Read more of about it here...

The owner at my work is out of town playing with race cars for the week, so I've got his dog, Buddy, at my house. Buddy is Alex's brother so I offered to keep him. Except for the humping incident and the fact Alex is a vicious little girl, it hasn't been too bad. They get along ok, and it's cute watching them play. It's made me realize thought, that three dogs is too many.

But I've got some good pictures that I've uploaded to the gallery, along with some pictures of Rachel & other things.

My dad replaced the water pump yesterday. Today we got the car back together. It runs and everything.

My Dad got the thermostat housing and installed it today. We've determined it's the water pump and not the radiator that's the issue, because it won't circulate water through the heater core or the radiator. That's $100 in parts or $450 to have someone else do it. Not fun either way.

Got to work today and got notified of what appeared to be a small problem with the servers. Everytime I tried to fix something, it triggered a bigger failure somewhere else. Three servers with issues today, and all of them crucial. I've got it hobbling along now, but it's still got issues.

I just dread finding out what tomorrow is going to be like.

I was sick this morning. I called in to work and went back to sleep. At 2, I took Rachel to work. By the time we got there, the car was overheating. I let it cool down, look at some stuff, and I'm thinking it's the thermostat. So I replaced the thermostat and drove it a little. Nope, it's still overheating. When I pop the hood, it's leaking from the thermostat housing. I blame the gasket for the thermostat and not me, because I tightened it to the torque it said to. So I went to try and tighten it down to fix that little leak from the pressure and WHOOPS!. The thermostat housing broke. Solid metal and it broke.

I went back to the parts store and bought the upper radiotor hose (that needed to be replaced anyway) and a new thermostat gasket that wasn't funky like the one that came with the thermostat, but they don't have the housing. Neither does anyone else that's open at 7:00 PM. So, I have to wait till tomorrow and get one from the dealership or a salvage yard. Then I still have to figure out if it's the water pump (not too likely because it's not leaking there) or the radiator (the more likely cause). Cars are stupid.

Picked up Rachel's car on Saturday. It's a 1997 Dodge Intrepid. I'd say it was maroon, but Rachel would disagree with me. Had to get insurance and a tag for it first though. The tires were flat (her Dad fixed those) and the battery was dead. The battery is holding a charge just fine now, but it took it a little while to get there. Had a Check Engine Light come on Sunday. I think it had something to do with the old oil that was in it. It was fresh, except that it just sat there for about a year.

Went yesterday and had the oil changed. It's running better now and the Check Engine light went away. I also found out that the car is supposed to use 89 Octance gas, but no one had ever done it. It seems to be making a difference too.

Last night we went to Best Buy and picked up a CD player for it. Nice little Pioneer unit that'll play MP3s. They wanted like $60 for the parts for their "free install" and we would have had to schedule an appointment for it. If ound the parts for $20 at Autozone and did it myself, almost without incident. The only problem I had was that it was a "Universal" Dodge bracket that had to be slightly modified to worik. I removed one too many tabs from it so it only has one bolt holding it in place. With the front of the console on though, it doesn't really make much difference. One day, I'll probably fix that, but it's just not a high priority because it works. It needs new speakers too, but those can wait.

I'm working on the GeekTao.net site this week. My goal is to get a Geek community going there. For now, if you're interested, I'm giving out FREE geektao.net email accounts. I'm still working on an automated sign up for it, but for now, you can use the Feedback page on the module to request one. Just tell me what username you want and I'll email you a password. You can then change it when you sign in.

My day has gone from mildly annoying to extremely angering. Today at work, the two regular warehouse guys were both gone. One of them was off today and the other has been out "sick" all week. So it was just me and the warehouse manager taking Internet Sales, Wholesale Sales, and doing the normal warehouse work. It was nearly impossible to get anything accomplished from my regular work. Every time I tried to focus on it, I would get interrupted. That was the mildly annoying part of my day.

After I got home, Rachel and I went to Taco Bell/KFC around the corner (the one on SW 29th & May). During the ten minutes we were inside, some asshole broke into my car (thankfully not breaking the windows again) and ripped the stereo out of the car. Ironically, the CD player portion of it is broken and the backlight on the LED has been broken for over a year. I must have been in denial about it for awhile because it took about an hour for me to start gettng mad about it.

I'm really tired of my car. It has way too many problems. Most of them are not my fault. That's the really irritating part about it. Here in the next couple weeks I need to make a decision. Do I put new tires on it, or just buy a new car? The problem there is I'm not sure if I can afford a car payment and the full coverage I'd have to have on it. I've never had either of those things before. My first car was given to me by my Dad and this car was paid for when I bought it.

I told my Dad he should buy a new car and use my as a trade-in so that I can have his Blazer. He said he actually liked the idea, but unfortunately, he's getting laid off from his job this summer indefinately.

He works for GM as an electrician. He's been doing that there for about eight years. Before that, he worked there in Materials. They're laying off the whole second shift because they don't have enough demand for the extra production. The last time they did that was in 1980. He has the option of going back to Material or Production on first shift because he's been there forever (over 20 years), but if he does that he might not get back into being an electrician immediately when they bring back second shift (whenever that happens). On the brighter side, he will be able to collect unemployment plus a supplemental check from the Union for a year.

This weekend I think I'm going to go look at used cars and Kias. I'm not sure I'd really want a Kia, but they're cheap and carry a long warranty (plus there's a place I know of that will finance me even with my crappy credit). We'll see what happens.

I just made a payment on my Glock 19 in layaway. I still owe $119.42. I'm getting a little antsy. Of course after that, I still need ammo and a holster. And then money to go to the range. And so on, and so on...