I was up until about 2:30AM this morning, trying to get some stuff done for work so I could sleep in until 11:00AM and go to the office at noon. This plan went well, until about 9:00AM.

For some reason or another, the city decided to send out a large, articulated payloader with forks instead of a bucket, to push back the k-rails at the end of 18th street. There are 5 or 6 of these rails, and they happen to be right outside my bedroom window.

Now, this wouldn't be such a bad thing, because I do live in a bit of a loud neighborhood - what with the Arni's distribution center and the freight rail - but this had an incredibly irritating twist to it: The payloader's back-up siren sounded just like an alarm clock, and it would sound for 3 "beeps" about every 2 minutes.

Why can I never get more than 8 hours of sleep, even when I try?!

Before I go to bed, I feel the need to rant about something else: Gas prices.

I don't get what's driving the price of a gallon of gas up so much. I went to see my parents for the weekend, but had to put gas in my car before I left town. What used to be a $20 tank of gas just a few months ago is now a $40 tank of gas. Why? Can anyone explain it?

I've heard the following used as excuses:

• Hurricanes: Okay, so a hurricane hit the middle of the Saudi desert...
• Domestic Wildfires: ...but don't we get our oil from other countries?
• Increased Transportation Expenses: o_O Okay, so we're applying recursion to life. Great.
• Political Turmoil: Yeah, so President Bush had a bowl movement and we're not speaking with {Insert oil producing country here}. Let's turn to the reserves.

In short, someone needs to figure out how to fix this problem and actually do something about it. I'm inches from using public transit and my bicycle in place of my car.

At this point you're probably wondering how much gas costs now: About $4.00 per gallon.

I have lived in this apartment for almost exactly one year. During this time, I have had little to no problems with the other tenents. However, since the start of 2008, this building has been driving me insane.

It started with the neighbor downstairs. I'm not sure what the situation is with her husband, but he is only ever around once in a great while. It makes me think that he is incarcerated but on the work release program, and is allowed to go home once in a while.

At any rate, he was home one Sunday evening, and decided that he was going to play some loud music in the garage. It just so happened that my bedroom was over the west half of the garage, and I was trying to sleep since I had to be to work at 8:00AM the next morning. I ended up burying my head in the pillows enough that I didn't have to hear the noise from downstairs, and I fell asleep.


Not too long after that, the couple who lived in the apartment directly next door, my current apartment, started having marital issues. My guess was that they worked the night shift somewhere, and lived their "daytime" late at night. Well, they decided that even though it was 2:00AM, they would fight about the stupidest things, and would do so with a very raised voice and lots of profanity. It was bad enough one night (that I was staying up late anyhow), I had my music turned up somewhat loud and could still hear them. Luckily they moved out, and I haven't had any problems with them since.


More recently, the older gentleman across the hall at the other end of the building was having problems with his daughter. They came home one afternoon when I was working from home, and were yelling and cussing at each other from the moment they entered the building. A little while after they both went into their apartment, someone left and slammed the door so hard that the dishes in my kitchen cabinets rattled.


Yesterday when I was cleaning my kitchen, my doorbell rang. I dried my hands and went to see who it was, when I found nobody but two young males sitting in their grandparents' car with a nervous look on each of their faces. I looked around and found nobody else, and asked if they rang my doorbell. When they said no, I asked if they saw anyone else. After they told me that they were the only ones out there, I came back up and went back to my cleaning. After a few minutes had lapsed, the doorbell rang again. I went to see who it was and found nobody but the kids outside. It continued for about 15 minutes, then stopped for a while. When it rang again, I went downstairs to see if someone was indeed outside. When I got down there though, I saw the grandmother walking from her car to the apartment. I informed her that the kids were playing with the doorbell and I was getting annoyed by it, and she said she would take care of it. Not 5 minutes later, it rang again. I ended up just unplugging the indoor unit of the doorbell, and all has been well since.


Just a little bit ago, someone was in the hallway yelling. I couldn't tell who it was, but it was shortly followed by slamming doors and more yelling. My hope is that it doesn't continue tonight since I have to work in the (late) morning.


I'm just getting really frustrated with the inconsiderateness of other people. Why can't they respect the quiet people and live by their lease? When I go to pay my rent this week, I will say something about the doorbell and the slamming of doors. I'm not expecting much to be done about it though.

I just got back from my normal Wednesday night outings, and I found out what 87 octane fuel is priced right now:

$3.49/gallon

I'm not going to be traveling for a very long time because of this. :(

Before I go into this rant very much, I should probably let you know what's been going on over the last 4 days.

Friday evening, I spoke with the landlord about moving into the larger apartment next door. It wasn't a huge move, and they were more than happy to modify my lease accordingly. I spoke with the utility companies (Duke Energy and Comcast (Comcast just bought the previous provider, Insight)) about transferring the service. Neither company seemed like it would be an issue. I spoke with my sales representative at Comcast on the phone last night, and he took down all the information and said the transfer would all be done today.

This morning I went to the Duke Energy office and took care of that transfer. It was quick and painless. Shortly after I got back to the office, my cell phone rang. It was the technician from Comcast, who just wanted to make sure he was going to the right place to do the right thing. He said it would all be done by the time I got home, unless there was a wiring issue inside.

Sometime around 4:00PM, I looked in one of the chat rooms I'm always signed into, and I was still signed in from home. I thought "WTF? Do they really suck THAT bad?", but I went about my day. When I just got home a little bit ago, I fired up the TV in my bedroom: Nada. I then tried the TV in the living room: Same deal. This brought me to where I am now; leeching off my own wireless that's still connected in apartment #5 (the old apartment), and wondering what the heck (didn't) happen today, and why.

Ugh. I e-mailed the sales rep and explained my frustration to him, and that I need to be completely out of the other apartment by Wednesday morning, including my network equipment. Let's hope I get some sort of productive response and/or compensation.

Ugh, I hate tax time. I have paid over 15% of my gross income in state, federal, and local income taxes this year (which may not seem like a whole lot), and yet they want another $200 out of me! What good is that extra $200? I mean, when you think about it, for what they pay the IRS staff, the cost to process this payment, and all other associated expenses, they will only receive maybe $20 from it. Why not just mark it off as paid, and move on?

I just really hate this part of being employed in the USA. It's so stressful. :(

Ugh... Now they're not showing any tracking detail other than "Billing Information Received". Please tell me I don't need to contact the BBB...

So I contacted UPS about this, and here's the response I received:

Dear Tim,

Thank you for your email. Unfortunately, our tracking system does not indicate the reason for the delay. Our records show your shipment is currently in transit to its destination, and has been rescheduled for delivery on 1/7/08 by the end of the day.

For the latest tracking information, please continue to track your shipment at the following link:

http://www.ups.com/tracking/tracking.html

If you do not receive a delivery attempt by the rescheduled delivery date and your tracking number does not contain any further updates, please contact your shipper to initiate a shipment investigation. I am sorry that your shipment has been delayed, and I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience associated with this delay.

Please contact us if you need any additional assistance.

William Miller
UPS Customer Service

I'm appalled at the quality of customer service here. No offer to correct the situation was made, and I was essentially told to go check the tracking for the package myself. GRR!

What's wrong with the following picture?

So I just had the pleasure of seeing that my upper wisdom teeth are rotting and falling apart. This means I have to go see a dentist and get 'em yanked.

I've not seen a dentist in over 15 years, which is stupid, but I've not been able to afford it until now. Luckily, my health insurance will cover most, if not all of it. I have a serious disgust for doctors though, no matter what the area of practice.

RAWR!