Monday, June 25, 2012

Stressed Out

The wife had a stress test about three weeks ago and hadn't heard from the doctor on the results yet, so she gave his office a call. He was on vacation and nobody in the office could read his writing on her chart. Finally she got a call back a couple of days ago. They think it says something about a heart cath, so they've scheduled her to see the doctor on Wednesday. Hopefully it won't be serious. She also has an appointment in Columbus on Tuesday (tomorrow) for the second followup on her vitrectomy. Hoping that the doctor will say it's okay to proceed with the cataract surgery.

The "new" car is doing great. I ran a check on the gas mileage and it looks like it's getting about seven or eight miles per gallon more than the truck did. Certainly a big savings. Now that I'm out of work, I'm driving less also, so it all amounts to a lot of money.

Speaking of vehicles, my oldest son's van broke down yesterday. Looks like Walmart may have messed up when they changed his oil and he ran it dry. He put more oil in it and nursed it home this evening, hoping it won't be serious. He's talking about trading it in.

My fan fiction is doing somewhat better, I've written seven chapters and have gained a small readership. I'm sort of suffering writer's block at the moment, not sure where to take the tale next and trying not to write myself into a corner. My wife finished her first tale and has started on a second, but is also stymied for where to go next after publishing only one chapter.

Saturday, June 09, 2012

Rollin, rollin, rollin...

Well, it took two weeks, but we finally got the truck back from the shop. We're $500 poorer, but it doesn't squeek anymore.  We also traded in the Oldsmobile for a slightly newer Chevy Impala with only 78,000 miles on it. Drives like a dream compared to the truck.  We'll probably be using it as our main transportation.  The wife wants to call it "The Silver Pearl," but I'm more partial to "Vlad The Impala."

Had some problems with our bank account, went to pay the garage with a debit card and it was refused.  Had to use a different account.  We had paid for the new car on the same account and I assumed that the big check had flagged the account. Tried to buy some gas the next day, same thing, card refused.  Tried using an ATM, transaction cannot be processed.  Called the bank's customer service...computer required me to enter the card number and then hung up on me, saying the account was inactive and to contact my local branch.  Great...I was out of town. Had to wait until the next afternoon and make a special trip to the bank to get things straightened out.  It seems that I made an online purchase from Oklahoma a few days ago and the bank thought that looked suspicious, so they closed down my account. Everything seems to be back online now.

The wife has been writing some "fan fiction" over the last month or so and I've been doing her proofreading plus offering suggestions on livening up her dialogue a little bit.  She's been getting quite a few glowing reviews.  At her urging, I decided to try my own hand at some fan fiction and posted chapter one of a murder mystery (serious stuff, no fluff) this afternoon.  I was excited when I got an e-mail within about fifteen minutes of posting...until I realized it was from a sexual pervert. She's rolling on the floor laughing at me.  Sigh....