Seriously, since when is putting an entire apartment's worth of furniture in the parking lot blocking garages that cost extra to use a good idea? What a bunch of inconsiderate assholes. Yes, my garage is blocked by the furniture. They managed to not block anything with the UHaul, but then they spread their furniture in front of five garages.

Moron count of the day is definitely four as that's the number of people I've seen moving around the crap in the parking lot.

I invested in some at-home exercise equipment. I bought some dumbbells, a Bosu, an ab ball with a stretchy band, and a medicine ball. I didn't realize how girly it all looked until I got it all together.

The dumbbells are decidedly girly. Even the manufacturer thinks so. As I was opening each of the boxes I noticed that the two pound and three pound dumbbells had photos of a woman on both sides. However the five pound and eight pound dumbbells had a picture of a guy on one side and a woman on the other.

Is this not the girliest set of equipment you've ever seen?

I was really glad that the Bosu came with a foot pump and the ab ball came with a hand pump.

The weights and the medicine ball also came with suggestions for lifts. I have four hand weight posters because one came in every box. I also have a poster for medicine ball exercises.

Oh well. Even if it is girly, I've got plenty of exercises I can do. It should help since I spend most of my day sitting now. At least it's something to laugh at.

So I've been ignoring the blog a bit...oops. But it's for a good reason, really. I repaired my laptop and built a new computer. I'd been trying to decide what to do about my laptop. The nub mouse was in bad shape, the battery was dead and the CD drive didn't work anymore. I'd actually priced a new laptop, but I wasn't sure I really wanted to do that. I ended up calling HP and found out it was still under warranty and they sent me a new CD drive. I ordered a new battery and a new mouse and decided that a desktop would be a good investment. I also needed to reload Windows on the laptop and it's good to have a back-up computer if things don't go well. So, I built a desktop. It's been years since I've had one. I've had a laptop with a docking station since before college. John helped me research parts and they finally came on the day of the big storm in Omaha. I was so excited. I had everything and then the storm hit and I didn't have power for a little over a day.

For the less technical people reading this (yes, this was a learning experience for me too), here's what I bought and how I put it together:

From the top left, is the case. Under that to the right is the box with my new laptop battery and the envelope with my new mouse nub. Up and to the left of the case is my new keyboard and mouse (that was my splurge in the whole deal). Under the keyboard is the processor and the video card to the right of the processor followed by the motherboard. Under the motherboard is is two boxes each containing two GB of RAM. The final row is a power supply, a DVD/CD burner, a DVD drive, and three hard drives.

When you put together a computer you have to start by assembling the pieces that attach to the motherboard. The box comes with lots of stuff in it. The motherboard comes with a faceplate you install in the back of your computer that labels all the connections. It also comes with cables to connect your hard drives, floppy drives (who uses those anymore? ;-) , and your optical drives (CD/DVD drives). They also give you cute little stickers you can put on the outside of your computer so everyone knows how awesome it is. There is also a book that comes with it as a reference and an installation guide (that's the big one on the bottom left).

My motherboard supports either a Duo Core or Quad Core processor. It has built in energy efficiency (in case you couldn't tell by the stickers on it). I took it out of the box and took some pictures.

I think it looks like a little town. Yes, I know that's silly, but it entertains me. So, here are some "artsy" pictures.

Along one side of the motherboard is the connections. That's all your input devices (mouse, keyboard), USB ports, printer, monitor connection (but I have a separate video card), audio inputs and outputs, etc.

The first thing I installed was the processor. That little square is the processor and the big round thing is a heat sync with a fan. You do not want your processor to overheat!

To install the processor, you have to take that wonderful plastic piece out of the processor's home.

Yeah, that's right, Core 2 Duo. Isn't it shiny?

Here it is before I shut the door. There's a hinged door that keeps the processor in place so it can't move.

After the processor is installed, you install the heat sync on top of it. Here is my nerdy self worrying about how I'm going to get the pins to snap into place on the motherboard without cracking something. The motherboard certainly didn't seem very stable, but it's tougher than it looks.

I did get it installed and the fan plugged in.

Then, I installed my memory (RAM). It was much easier than I was expecting. They sort of make it idiot proof. It only goes in one direction because there's a little notch in the bottom that matches up with the holes. Then you just push down till the clips snap into place.

After the processor and the memory was installed, I put the motherboard in the case. You have to lay the case down flat and use screws to attach it to the case.

Once the motherboard was fastened to the case, I installed the video card. That is one shiny video card. Wiring everything proved to be a challenge because the video card was 9" long. But, the card is really quiet.

I put the rest of the pieces in their places inside the case. The cables at the top-right of the photo are my optical drives. My Hard drives are in the bottom right. Once everything was put into its place I connected all the cables. There are a lot of them. You've got a cable between each hard drive and the motherboard. A cable between the power supply and basically everything in the computer (fans, hard drive, motherboard, optical drives, video card, etc.). Then you have cables from the motherboard to the video card, optical drives, hard drives, processor, etc. It's a little difficult to see in the photo, but the cable that came with the motherboard was a little tight going to the optical drives because it had to go around the video card (it's the big blue one). The motherboard also only came with two hard drive cables but I bought three hard drives.

When it was all said and done, it ran! I was so excited! I did decide to get a couple cables though. I bought a thinner cable to the optical drives which worked out well. I also bought a third hard drive cable and a monitor cable. John and I ended up going to DIT because there aren't many places in town who carry that type of stuff. Their prices weren't awesome, but by the time I would have paid shipping on new cables it would have come out the same. I think part of their mark-up is to cover the cute little bags they give you to put your stuff in.

I made an enormous mess. Got pretty nervous and frustrated a few times, but it was all worth it. I priced a computer on Dell's web site with the same specifications as the one I built and I saved over $1,200 by building my own computer, which is more than I spent on everything together including the laptop fixes. I sent in quite a few mail-in rebates and should be getting about $150 back as well. Plus, my new desktop has been in the living room since I built it. I can't seem to convince myself to unplug it from my new TV. It's just so shiny!

I have since cleaned up the mess in my apartment. I kept all the boxes for the internal parts and the case. Oh, I also got my laptop completely fixed. The new nubbins are an enormous improvement over the previous one.

The old one:

And the new one:

Money well spent. Oh, the amount I spent to fix one computer and build a new one was also about $700 less than a new laptop I was considering. :-)

Well, this time I acquired my rental through Hertz. I have to say, the experience, and the car is much better than my experience with Enterprise. Not only did the guy stay after closing time by 15 minutes because I was caught in traffic, he didn't try to push their crappy insurance on me.

So, the car is: a VW Jetta. So, first and foremost, the things I like about the car (besides the fact that it definitely doesn't look like a shoe, as you can see).

I like that I can adjust the seat height. This works just like my Civic. Pull up to lift the seat and push down to lower the seat.

I'm happy I have power windows and locks (another thing that was annoying about the shoe). Plus, there's plenty of room to stuff things in the door.

I'm also a fan of the extra blinkers on the mirror. It took a little time to get used to the blinking in my peripheral vision, but it's pretty cool.

And my favorite feature: the key! I have been playing with this thing since I got the car.

I do have some features of the car, I'm not so sure about. They're okay, but I'm not sure that I'm just totally enamored with them.

First would be the trunk. I haven't decided if I like that the trunk completely opens or not. My trunk key on my Honda pops the trunk open, but you have to lift the lid. I think I lean more towards my Honda because then the trunk is open when I get to it, but you'd only know if you were standing next to the car. With the Jetta, it's going to be completely open for anyone to steal something out of it. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that unless I'm very close by.

The radio would be another thing I'm not so sure about. It's not bad. It has an mp3 CD player (another huge step up from the last rental). I'm not sure I like the buttons. They almost scream "We didn't want you to get lost so the buttons and the text is huge!"

The shifter is okay. It's not as stupid as the shoe. It's a little odd because you have both Drive and a "Sport" option. I looked up the difference between the two in the manual. Basically, the Drive gear is more fuel efficient than the Sport gear. They claim Sport is supposed to be more "fun" to drive but suggest you leave it in drive. Yeah...no idea on that one. Plus, it's sort of like a weird half-ass manual. It doesn't even have a clutch. You can move the shifter to the right when you're in drive and then you push up to go up a gear and down to go down a gear. It just makes me miss my manual.

The control for the wipers is okay. Nothing really special to note. You can pick the frequency they clear the windshield like most cars.

The Jetta has cup holders. But I'd definitely say my Civic's cup holders are better. They limit the size and I miss my cute little sliding door.

Finally, things I'm not so crazy about. First would be the dashboard. It's not bad, but it's certainly a step down from the design inside my Civic. I've been spoiled by the digital speedometer and the digital face on the Jetta's dashboard looks cheesy in comparison to my car.

I'm not so much a fan of the crank on the side of my seat. The one that helps with back support makes sense. The one that cranks your seat angle forward and back is annoying.

Yet another dumb feature is the light above the visor. My thought was that the goal is to have the light shine on your face. This light isn't all that helpful. Plus, it's just one more thing that can break. Are you really going to take your car in because the sliding door on the mirror doesn't turn the light on anymore?

Another thing that has gotten in the way and also confused me when I first got the car is the center console. I'm sure it's supposed to be clever, but it's just generally annoying. If you don't pull the lid up high enough, it won't go back down.

I also hate the turny-button for the lights. Yes, that's right a turny-button. But it doesn't lie. However, it's below the dashboard, between the driver's side door and the steering wheel. I am so used to turning the end of the blinker stick towards the front of the car, that this is annoying, plus what is on the blinker stick is probably what makes this worse.

That brings me to the stupid blinker stick. Which also has the cruise control on it. Yes, the cruise control. This is where you turn it off and on and you set the cruise speed or resume your speed. Putting the cruise control in this stupid location means you have to tap the breaks to cancel your cruise or you risk accidentally turning your cruise control on. Oh, plus, if you nudge the blinker, it blinks like 4 times after it's already been returned to the "neutral" position. Yeah, this thing drives me crazy.

Last, but certainly not least, the Jetta doesn't get nearly the gas mileage my Honda does. So, while I would definitely agree that I was given a "comparable" car for a rental, I am glad I didn't buy one. I had considered it for a bit when I was looking at cars, but I'm not so sure I'm the type for "German engineering in 'da house." However, I hope you enjoyed your tour of the Jetta. It's a nice replacement, but I miss my baby.

I'm looking forward to getting my car back. However, it sounds like they were just able to start work on it this week and the stupid deer caused about $4,500 worth of damage. The body shop cited me about 9 days of work.

So, for those of you who don't live in Nebraska, you may not know that there has been a ton of storms in the last few weeks. Monday night, John took some cool pictures of the weather (and the Mutual condo work site).

Surprisingly, nothing really happened Monday night. The worst night was definitely Wednesday.

In case you didn't know, Mutual of Omaha sponsors the U.S.A. Swim Team. How could you miss the billboards, city buses, news reports, and commercials about it? Oh, and of course, Mutual itself. Yes, that's right, the Mutual of Omaha building has a swimmer on the front of it. This photo was taken by a guy in the Mutual media department. I was too lazy to find someplace to park with all the construction so I could get a good photo.

Mutual hosted an invitational swim meet over the weekend. As an employee, I received two free tickets. John and I went on Saturday night. They built an Olympic regulation swimming pool inside the quest center. Pretty impressive:

It was my first swim meet. Things ran similar to a track meet and I definitely enjoyed the experience. I'd definitely go to another one given the chance. I even had the opportunity to see Michael Phelps swim and speak after his race was over. So, all in all, a cool experience.

John bought a wet/dry vacuum recently. His air conditioner had started to leak and he wanted a quick and easy way to clean it up if needed. We actually tried to get a vacuum twice before he finally bought what he was looking for. We went out to Home Depot on our first try. As we were parking in their parking lot, the weather sirens started going off. We walked into the store to be greeted by an announcement over the loud speaker saying that everyone was supposed to report to the break room. So, our options were to cower in the break room (above ground) with everyone else or we could leave. We left. The break room wasn't going to be any safer than the rest of the building. On our second try, we stopped at Wal-Mart, but their selection was lacking some. We went back the next day to Home Depot and bought what he had attempted to buy the first time.

Anyway, after he opened the box and started using it, John came to the conclusion that it reminded him a little of a baby elephant he could drag around by the trunk. He brought it over this weekend and used my garage to clean out his car (given that mine is at the body shop...poor car). While he was over, I made some eyes, which we stuck on the vacuum. I think it does look surprisingly like an elephant. Perhaps we need to move the "tusks" to the front though.

We decided to name it Walt. It sounded like a good name for an elephant-vacuum. So, here is Walt, John's baby-elephant-vacuum:

Now we can be like Michael (in the show Lost) and run around frantically yelling Waaalt! Waaalt!

Tonight, or rather last night as it's obviously this morning, Jim hosted a party for my friend Brad who is leaving for Canada next week. We arrived rather late and left later than anticipated. We had almost made it back to my apartment in Omaha. We were almost to Exit 402 (by Cabella's). The next exit was the "L" Street exit. I was in the far left hand lane.

All of a sudden, I see something move in the middle of the road by the concrete barrier separating eastbound and westbound traffic. Then I hear John yell "Deer!" "Deer!!" In a split second I thought "What is that? That can't possibly be a deer. What the hell is a deer doing in the middle of the interstate?! Oh, shit!" I tried to dodge the deer by braking and steering to the left. The point of impact was my left headlight. I think I knocked the deer around and I'm guessing it died on impact.

I pulled over to the side of the road, directly in front of the Exit 402 sign and I looked at John and said "What is that smell?!" John handed me his phone and I called the police. Then, he got out of the car to look at the damage. He came back and said it didn't look too bad, mostly cosmetic. I got out of the car to look and I couldn't really say anything. As I was getting back in the car, I noticed something on my mirror. It looked like dirt or tar under the light on the interstate.

I had the car towed because the seat belts had locked up and there was no way we could breathe and have them on. Plus, the front bumper was rubbing against the front tire. The tow guy was nice enough to drop us off at my apartment complex and then we followed him to the dealership. As he was unloading the car, he noticed me looking at the mess on my car and he looked at me and said "Yup, that's deer poop."

So, not only did I hit the deer and kill it, I actually did scare the shit out of it. All the way down the driver's side of my car.

Without further ado, here are the photos:

The white thing you can see is the container for my windshield wiper fluid. Directly behind that was my battery from what I could see.

The beginning of the poo:

And, most of the poo...yeah, that's gross:

I swear I have some of the worst luck with cars. My poor baby...