Timewaster's Guide Archive

Hey all,

My wedding is going to be March 25th in Salt Lake. (Invitations haven't been sent yet...and I don't know anyone's addresses yet either...) So anyway, I was thinking it would be nice if we could get together for lunch the day before. I hope a lot of you can come to the reception, but I'm sure not going to be interested in catching up with anyone then, so the day before would be great.

Some kind of restaurant somewhere in the middle between the southern Salt Lake area and the Provo area seems like it would be most convenient, but I don't know where that would be (don't know enough about Utah). Last time I was out I went to that meetup we had at P.F.Chang's in Orem and that was nice; something casual in a setting like that is what I'm thinking.

Hey!

Does anyone know anyone who has stayed at this hotel? Looking around online this place seems to have what I want at quite decent rates. If I were there in Utah I'd go look at it myself, but maybe someone here can help me out...

Not looking for super-classiness or anything like that. Just looking for a nice 3-starish place...with some specific amenities they have......... This seems to have what I'm looking for, but if anyone has any horror stories or bad reviews I'd like to hear. I found one tiny (positive) review online (at travelweb) but it's got no specifics at all.

...Don't laugh at me... >_>

This qualifies as a rant because of how I feel about it...or not, whatever mods think.

Anyway, I need a car. I am completely lost and just thinking about it frustrates me.

I have bought one car in my life, summer before my senior year in college. I heard there were Columbus Mission cars, so I went to the place and looked at their cars. They had two different kinds, Ford and Chevy. All around 40,000 miles, all the same year (3 years old or so) I sat down in one of the Chevies and drove it around the block. I liked it. I got into one of the Fords. I didn't like the way I felt sitting down in it, so I didn't even want to drive it. I bought the Chevy. Paid cash (from Grandma dying and selling the farm; since I had a scholarship and job at school there was money for the car and for fixing my teeth)--6500 or so.

That car served me very well until someone ran a red light and smashed up the left side of it a bit over a week ago. So I need to get a new one. What do I do?

I don't have the cash I had before, though I expect at least 3000 from insurance.

New cars are expensive; I always hear about how they lose a bunch of value as soon as you drive them off the lot. My only car so far was something like 60% of retail new price and I thought it was a great car. So I don't really want to get a new car.

I liked everything about my old car (Chevy Cavalier). It got up to 484 miles on a 15-gallon tank of gas. (Well, with the horrible traffic around here it only got around 340 miles, but that is still better than the rental car (Dodge Stratus) I'm driving right now which is getting like 310.) It gave me engine trouble once, about 9 months ago when it had a throttle body problem, but even with that it still drove manageably until I got it fixed.

Ugh. I just want my old car back!!!

I'm afraid of how random used cars are treated. I don't want something that will have to be fixed. Um...ever. I had my car 4.5 years and only had that one problem.

San Fernando mission has some cars coming available around the first of the month: Toyota Corollas and Chevy Malibus. The Corolla looks like it has good gas mileage. But I don't like the shape of the car judging by the pictures. I really liked the Cavalier's shape. Internal space is also smaller.

I'm going to call up other local missions to see if they have or are going to have anything.

This whole thing just makes me ill...

I got the driver's side of my car smashed in today, while I was driving it, by a lady who ran a red light.

Traffic wasn't busy...when my light turned green, I went, and she just plain didn't stop. *I* slammed on my brakes when I saw her (and my roommate yelped when he noticed her) and was pretty much stopped when she plowed into me, but she was going probably 10-15 still...eh, I dunno, it was enough to knock my door in so I can't open it and have a nice 2-inch gap the air and rain gets through quite well.

My hubcap has a small dent in it but it seems the wheel escaped most of the damage; the body panel around it though is smushed in to meet the door where the door's smooshed in. It's like the car just folded along the seam between the door and that panel. I can still drive okay, but have to get out one of the other doors, and I've got a funny vmmming sound that makes me think the wheel might be rubbing slightly on something or be knocked out of alignment or something like that.

It had been raining today (and is again) but at the time of the accident it wasn't coming down.

So the lady is literally 75 years old (saw her driver's license) and she begged me to just call her and have her pay out of her pocket to fix my car, since her husband will get mad at her when he finds out. I'm not having any of that, as I called my insurance company and gave them all the info not 10 minutes later.

I'm supposed to drive down to Torrance tomorrow to look at a couple apartments; it's at least a 30-minute drive and it's supposed to be as rainy as it was today. The insurance guy gave me the name of a nearby repair place so I'll get in touch with them tomorrow and see if they can start working on it so I can get a rental car; my insurance will cover the rental on days when my car is actively being repaired, but maybe not other days like Sunday. If they can't start on it maybe I'll just ask them to tape up the door or something so water doesn't get through and make sure nothing's rubbing on the wheel so at least I can drive it until they're ready for me.

Mehh...I really like my car. It suits my needs well. This better not be a big problem.

All right so today Karen was up north for work and thus was near my place. However my roommate works late on Tuesdays because of a teleconference with Japan, so I had her come to my work and pick me up, and then we went to the temple visitor's center where they had a little musical presentation thing for Christmas. Of course traffic was terrible and we got there right after it started and they didn't let us in the main room so we were relegated to a side theater where they were piping it into but the speakers were making a huge humming noise and someone came onscreen and said some stuff and then it was followed by silence (and humming) as the video for Luke II played (yes, the camera was piping us the image of the projection on the wall). So I said "is there supposed to be sound"? And one of the volunteer/missionaries eventually came back and said "there's no sound in the main theater either so you're just supposed to watch the picture." Which was pretty ridiculous since what really was happenning was that they were playing their own soundtrack with a bunch of musical instruments in the main room, but there was no microphone so we got nothing. Then after the video finished finally, there was a black screen for a while, and then some lights came on and some people marched on the screen, singing. Or rather, their mouths were moving, and all we heard was the loud hum. So I said "they're singing! Anyone know how to read lips?" Eventually they got some kind of microphone working so we could hear some of the main people in the play but it was just painful eventually so we just left and walked around looking at the lights, and then went to Yoshinoya.

Anyway when we got to my apartment, my roommate was mad at me because when he drove my car home and got to the apartment, he couldn't unlock the doors because he doesn't carry keys with him.

Who doesn't carry keys with them? Do you know anyone who doesn't carry keys around? I guess there must be some, but I don't know any other than him. When I picked him up from the airport on Sunday I remembered to bring his keys along so he could use them after I dropped myself off at Karen's, but I just plain forgot about it today. Yes I bear a good deal of the blame because I forgot to talk it out clearly with him ahead of time that I'd be getting picked up from work and he'd need to take care of stuff for himself, but there are any number of things he could have done instead of standing outside the apartment for two hours before finally getting fed up and going to the manager and getting charged $25 for getting let in. He could have...called me? Sat and talked with the neighbor for a while? Gone shopping? I got back probably 40 minutes after he apparently got into the apartment, and I feel bad that he was inconvenienced so, but it's a lot of inconvenience for me too, having to drive him home from work (except the past 3 weeks while he was in Tokyo), specifically now that I have somewhere else to go and someone else to see that I didn't have before (I didn't care at all before which of us drove; don't mind driving personally, and when his car gave up the ghost it wasn't a big deal, but now it makes things decidedly inconvenient at many times).

Anyway there would have been no problem if he had just carried his keys around himself like a normal person.

Soooo anyway...life is fabulous, and I've got no complaints. So I take back all my old rants. God's hand is extremely obvious in my life right now, and all my old complaints are cleared up. What God had planned for me wasn't what I had in mind, but it turns out what he had for me was much better than I could imagine.

I'm curious to see what Skar or anyone's opinion on the Michael New case, where a US soldier was courtmartialed for refusing to wear UN insignia.

Summary on the Jeff Lindsay site.

http://www.jefflindsay.com/MichaelNew.shtml