Yeah...yeah....yeah. I'm finally posting. Are ya' happy now?

Today is the start of year 45 for yours truly and it certainly finds me in a familiar position.

I am without a car. The cost of repair finally got too much to consider and I junked her instead of throwing good money after bad. The Eaton Bad Car Mojo continues.

There is a possibility for a replacement on the horizon but the price is a painful one. A good friend of mine has offered to give me a car of his. The only down side of this is that when he does this it will mean that he and his family will be moving away. His generosity is Elvis level but I'd much rather have him and his family in the same zip code. If you've been reading this blog long enough you know how I just love those kinds of changes.

In a ying and yang kind of thing, another good friend is moving back into the area after an almost two year absence. Gary and his family moved away to Tennessee to get away from hurricane central. Now, a divorce brings him back. While I feel for him and what he's going through I am glad to have him back.

You have missed little moments over the past three weeks and I always meant to sit down but at this point even doing post dated entries would be a pain in the butt. So, we'll just move on from here.

The best present I got today was inadvertent, but one that I treasure. Over the past few months "The Other Person" and I have been talking and joking like it was old times. (Look back over entries from August to October of 2006) She was even nice enough to give me some gag gifts for my birthday. A fart noise making toy and an "Old Fart" ribbon to wear for the day. I had to laugh at the irony of her giving me that ribbon. I decided to take a chance and joke with her about it. Up until now I had decided just to be happy we had apparently salvaged our friendship that I didn't even want to look for any "closure" but could not resist making a joke about it.

I went to her and said, "You know, I could just enjoy the humor of this gift or look at it as a quiet form of retaliation for last October."

She look at me blankly, "What do you mean?" She had no idea what I was talking about.

I finally said, "Think of my blog from back then." The fog lifted and she started laughing. Seeing that she had taken it so well I said, "You mean all this time I was so happy you had forgiven me when all along you had only forgotten."

Then she looked at me and with a smile in her eyes said, "Well, maybe I had done BOTH!"

I couldn't have asked for a better present on my birthday.

It has been proved to me that no matter how much something change they always stay the same. I found out today that I had been turned down for the transfer I had requested at work. To say words like disappointed and pissed off would be an understatement.

I had four members of management putting in recommendations for me in this position. The department to which I was hoping to move was putting emphasis on people with pharmacy division experience. Silly me; I had thought that being one of the very first sales people in the pharmacy division when it was only a test project might count as experience.

I talked with Human Resources and found out that when the department head reviewed my personnel file she found my history of "incidents" with management. She felt that these would not make me a good fit for her department. And she did this without even the courtesy of an interview. If she had interviewed me she would have found out that one incident was somewhat politically motivated and the other was ridiculous.

I do not want to blow my own horn or make it would as if I felt entitled to the job but how much more perfect could I have been for the position? Add to that the FOUR recommendations. What the FRAK does this woman need?!

I am taking the night to cool off but will be talking to her privately to find out the real basis for her decision. I don't know if there's a chance of changing her mind but I feel that I deserve an explanation.

The Jack Car Curse continues.

Today my friend Jason offered to let me borrow his car for the weekend. The one hitch was that I had to get to his house to do it which is in the opposite direction my usual ride home heads. My co-worker pal, Clark, drives right by Jason's so he offered to drop me off on his way home. I would get the car and return to work to make up the time I missed being out of the office.

That was....until I got near his car.

Actually, this was his wife's car, which he is not all too familiar with all the bells and whistles on her BWM. We got out to the car and noticed a flat tire. Keep in mind that it was a bright, sunny and humid Florida afternoon in the low 90's. The idea of changing a tire in this lovely weather seems sooooo appealing.

Since Clark knew little about his wife's can and I knew even less we spent five minuets stumbling around in the trunk locating the tire and jack. I had grabbed the car's manual to help us clueless mechanics.

The jack was held on with a wing nut which was apparently tightened in the BMW factory with a pneumatic drill. Clark tried. I tried. Both of us grunted, groaned and slammed our knuckles into the immovable jack trying to get it loosened.We both realized that a tool of some kind would have made this much easier. Finally, Clark was able to get it loosened and was lifting the car off the ground.

"OK," Said Clark kneeling at the tire "Where the lug wrench?"

I searched the trunk. No sign of it. Clark got up and looked through the trunk. No luck. As CLark began cursing the Dutch auto designers I read the manual. It was something of a "V-8 Moment".

"Clark, look up." I pointed to an innocuous plastic lid embedded in the underside of the turnk lid. I unsnapped the catches and opened the TOOL BOX. Inside, we not only found the lug wrench but a shiny, unused wrench which might have come in useful 15 minuets earlier.

I began cursing the Dutch auto designers.

The tire was mounted and secured quickly and Clark began lowering the car. As it put its weight on the spare tire it continued lower and lower. Not completely flat but close enough to make a ride to the other side of town impossible. We threw everything in the trunk and limped across the street to the nearest gas station. However, as Clark held the air hose to the tire for two....three....four minuets there was no perceptible increase in its size. It was not holding the air; apparently, the flat was also bad.

30 minuets later, now almost 90 minuets since we first walked out the door of our office, a AAA tow truck arrived to bring the car to a tire shop and Clark's wife to bring me to Jason's.

During Clark's tirade against BMW he talked about how he had his eye on trading up from the BMW to a Range Rover. He stopped for a moment. Looked at the flat tire....looked at me and said,

"YOU get NOWHERE near the Range Rover!"

I have officially been moved down the list of my son's "Important Priorities".I've been blown off because of a girl.

He missed the last weekend here because of my being sick. So, I was emailing him trying to make plans for this weekend. In particular, I pointed out to him that "Spiderman 3" was opening. I was hoping to use a major shared event like that as enticement.

To my offer, I got this response:

"Saturday is our 2 month anniversary and I kinda wanted to be here."

I immediately flashed back to being 15 and how important each of those month "anniversaries" were. At that age, you are Romeo and Juliet and there is no stronger love that what you are feeling. No one else on the planet has ever felt what you are feeling and no one else could possibly understand.

I also flashed back to June 1, 1983. This was the day that the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was released for the first time on CD. This was when CD's were first starting to break thorough into the market. they weren't as common place and you were still considered an audio buff if you were getting CD's. The record stores only had a CD section and they came in these over-sized cardboard boxes which tried to reproduce as much of the original LP cover art as possible. (This is all for my readers under 30 who don't know of the great time of vinyl and record needles.)

The release of "Sgt. Pepper" was big news; this was lending credence to the format. The greatest rock album ever was being released so that we could hear every nuance to every note and sound. Finally, the world could hear the intricate genius of the album without any snap and crackle. The CD format was being given the royal nod of approval from the Beatles. If they thought it was worthwhile then CD's would have to be the way to go. There were TV news stories, pictures of them piled up in the stores and every DJ was talking about it on the radio. This was a major event.

I rushed to my local Ann & Hope store (a local department store retailer in the days before Wal Mart) to got my copy. I felt like Indiana Jones as he beheld the Ark of the Covenant for the first time. This was right before I had to pick up my girlfriend after school. I was so excited to show her what I had, that I was able to secure my piece of rock and roll history.

Did I mention that June 1, 1983 was also our first year anniversary of when we started dating?

As I ready my son's plea to spend their two month anniversary together I could see the look in my girlfriend's eyes as she looked around for something other than the CD I held in my hand like a biblical relic. Flowers.....a card......something. I also heard, clearly and loudly through time the yelling and screaming that followed for the next half hour and the two days worth of cold shoulder I received.

So....we're making alternative plans to see "Spiderman 3".