disco balls and other random stuff

i commented that the light in my bedroom sucked (stupid contractors being so cheap) and how i wanted to install a ceiling fan with a light. not that i know how to do such things, and apparently that requires some electrical wiring as well - hrmm. but i think it would be a nice alternative to running the a/c, and i actually find ceiling fans to be more comfortable. anyways. so alan's response to that was ... "or we should just get a disco ball".

funny statement from the man who doesn't dance. though it reminds me of mastercho at cornell who was like, 40 and had a discoball in his living room. he would turn it on for parties and i'd be so confused ... "you're old ... why do you have a disco ball?"

anyways. that was weird.

in other random news, i almost severed my toe off today on a costco shopping cart. seriously, someone needs to redesign those wheels, they're lethal!

speaking of severing, mike had a huge dodgeball injury that almost looked like it severed his thumb - not sure how he got hit with the ball, but he needed stitches adn it was gross looking. i played against his team in softball this week and looked at his thumb - it's totally fine now! what the heck. i seriously envy people who don't scar poorly. =(

it's been one dramatic week or two. from the credit crisis (which, thank God, has been almost resolved by now) to the tickets for the tinted windows to the current dj issue of people defecting, creating their own dj, and stealing our students - it's been one drama after another. i'm not sure what possesses someone to ever think it's ok to test for a black belt at another school without permission, but ... logic and loyalty are i suppose not universal. sigh.

high drama indeed. in other news, graceshih finished the flower girl basket and ring bearer's pillow for the wedding. dang she's talented. that's my lil sis!

squeaky wheel

After 2 days of being on the phone nonstop trying to clear my credit score from the mud it's become after a miscommunication over an old medical bill (sigh, insurance!) - i've started to realize that useless people abound. they may as well have had automated services that tell you "we cannot and will not lift a finger to help you. sit around agitated and wait for someone to care". i've started phone calls by demanding to speak to a supervisor ... or their supervisor. double sigh.

in any event, it's amazing how you can think things are rolling, but you still have to call everyone and their mother to verify every little piece. if ever i distrusted people or thought people were incompetant - this whole process has unfortunately made me more paranoid. every step of the way that the ball could have been dropped - it was. today i spent about 3 hours getting someone to confirm that a letter had gotten from point A to point B - such that B could process it and send confirmation to C and freaking CLEAR MY NAME. B turned out to be a mess of incompetancy.

after many many phone calls and faxes, i finally got someone who gave two hoots to pull up my file and do something. though at this point i don't trust that anything will actually get done, so i demanded a timeframe by which i could call back to check if things were moving. please, interest rates, please stay low....

alan commented that i reminded him of a passage ... seen below. i read it, and asked if this gave me license to go and attack the people at company B if they didn't get moving...



Luke 18
The Parable of the Persistent Widow
1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’
4 “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”

6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

it's not worth having a car

so i got pulled over today on my way to work by an undercover cop - you would think that if he's special enough to get an unmarked car that he'd be higher up or something. no, he was no better than a meter maid. apparently he pulled me over because my windows were tinted beyond the transmittance threshold of NY. a law i had absolutely no idea about and uh, was pretty pissed that he was pulling me over and not the cabs and limos that are completely dark. i was praying that he'd have mercy on me and let me off with a warning to go get the tints reduced or removed (which btw i'm not sure came like that from the factory or not since i bought the car used) - but no. heartless bastard gave me a ticket and zoomed away to catch his next victim.

if it was within my power, i would cut off all the electricity to his house. unfortunately, i only work in generation, not transmittance. seriously, i hate cops who just patrol to catch people on random technicalities and give tickets rather than actually fighting crime and protecting the peace.

and not to racial profile but - seriously? asian girl in glasses driving at like 20 mph? seriously. do i need to start carrying my calculator around with me or something?

bah. not sure what to do now, this ticket is $130, and taking my car into the shop is going to cost a whole lot more. what is this nonsense about??

it's crazy

i think i'm officially drowning. poor alan isn't going to know what hit him when thsi meltdown actually hits. sad is the day when even i'm sick of multitasking.

insurance companies can bite me. (i never understood that phrase because why on earth would you ever want someone to bite you? don't we spend most of preschool teaching kids NOT to do that?) but seriously - what's the deal with finding ways to not pay for doctors so that hospitals come hunting the patient down all the time? my stacks of bills that people keep harassing me about just keeps piling up, and it's getting mighty tiring calling so many people to tell them to stop bothering me and balance billing me. not that i really understand what's going on with our healthcare system, and whether the new changes will make it any better (forgive the pessimism, it probably won't) - but it's definitely broken as of now.

fundraising for worlds has commenced, and i must say i'm thrilled with the way our staff has rallied and donated their time. that being said, i have to get the troops together and put this demo together - while under the naysaying of a certain sab who thought my demo was too long and i should nix the self-defense skit (ie. the funniest part of the whole demo) and the weapons (ie. the one thing most people haven't seen live). whatever, he's not going to be there anyways. as paula said, "i much prefer paul's way of doing things - 'do whatever you want' " whatever i want, i shall...

wedding planning is, as always, on the forefront, the back burner, and everywhere else. there's potential drama on the horizon involving a crotchety old uncle apparently refusing to come, and my parents getting offended. wonderful. i thought everyone had gotten all that out of their system by now, and that everyone was too old to be so cranky. seriously, i'm 30 and i'm too tired to induce unnecessary grief on people i would have picked apart 5 years ago ... how can someone who's like, 75, have so much energy to be so difficult? eesh. and what's up with my parents' friends having so many comments about our invitations? um, we didn't include rsvp cards for you to mail back because we're trying to be environmentally conscious, and because YOU PROBABLY WOULDN'T BOTHER MAILING THEM BACK TO US ANYWAYS. seriously, someone needs to give them the memo that this wedding isn't about them. can't wait for the seating arrangements dilemmas to come - though at least at that point we'll theoretically know who's coming!

i love when doctors state the obvious. it's kind of like when someone says (on this 97 degree day) "boy it's hot today". today my hand surgeon said "wow, so you really keloid poorly" ... and then later my orthopedist said "wow, you're left hip is really inflexible". thanks everyone - now that we're all on the same page, can we come up with a solution?

i think i need a secretary. and a billing dept.

statistical significance

weddings are an interesting thing. guestlists in particular - you spend so much time agonizing over who you can and can't invite based on the constraints - but when the responses start coming in, you have a lot of data.

i have to say, it's been really interesting to see who says yes and who says no. or more specifically, if you compare people of similar life circumstances, who says yes and who says no.

for example, pregnancies. if i took all the couples i've invited so far who are pregnant and due +/- 3 months of our wedding and lumped them into the category of having a legitimate excuse to bail - it's surprising that some people say "i wouldn't miss it for the world, i'm definitely there!" and others, "i definitely can't".

i think it's hard not to take responses personally. i mean, honestly i've gone to probably only half the weddings i've been invited to, and the ones i haven't gone to, barring a "legitimate" conflict, have been due to an evaluation of closeness to that friend mixed with the cost/effort to attend. and i think most people decide somewhere along that persuasion.

i suppose it's inevitable that relationships are not always even. you may feel closer to someone than they feel to you, or vice versa. i think weddings are a pretty good litmus test of that ... of course it's not foolproof, but i was pleasantly surprised by some people who had no qualms about taking a day off of work or going out of their way to come - and others who i thought would never have missed it reply no without even giving a reason.

but perhaps that's just life, and there's a constant shifting and re-evaluating of relationships - and i'm not exempt from it either, i'm sure i've disappointed people along the way.

wedding conversation of the day:

friend: did you invite any of my close friends to your wedding?

me: um, are any of your close friends MY close friends?