Romey’s Ramblings

Well I made it to work, and my day so far is pretty much half-over.

I thought I’d make a quick entry to catalog my vehicular endeavers, for the sake of your comic relief, and perhaps some day mine (upon reflection).  But I’m really starting to get the hang of driving the stick.  First some numbers:

Places driven to: Sam’s apartment, the doctor’s office, back to her place, then to Silvermine Subs for lunch, then over to HP (basically going from the west end of Fort Collins to north, then all the way East of FC)

# of Stalls: 1 - it happened when I picked up Sam, then was backing the car out of the parking spot.  Put the car in reverse, let up on the clutch, not enough gas.

Strange/Funny Incidents: When we were coming back from the doctor’s office, turning form Lemay onto Prospect, I tried to shift from 2nd to 3rd, but could not find the third gear.

Also after I got Silvermine to go, I got a drink and put it into the cup holder  in the front.  When I turned onto Harmony and shifted from 2nd to 3rd my hand went forward and jolted the cup as well, got pop partially all over the dashboard..  NIIIIICCE! Note to self: no more "to-go" drinks for 2 weeks.

Ugh, today turned out to be a pretty long and frustrating day, especially in the evening. First off, tonight will be the last night in my apartment for quite some time, as I will be spending the next two weeks in Loveland house sitting for my family once again.  Just when I finally started getting used to sleeping in my own bed - to my sister’s old room I go!

But for the next two weeks I am no longer the proud owner for a Ford Explorer, but rather that is going to New Mexico with my family.  Now the escapade that is me driving a stick begins.  My last practice session with my family tonight did not go well at all..  I ended up stalling out, and while it was on this back-road I still felt really stupid.  I did however take a quick lap around Loveland and reclaimed my confidence, and my first time solo (driving back to my apartment) went well.  We’ll see how things go tomorrow though - with traffic (ugh)…

Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.  I’m taking Sam to the doctor’s in the morning, then I’m supposed to have lunch plans (which I’m not sure if they’re still on or not - a lot going on).  Then I’m working the rest of the day.  Then the fun part comes…  I’m going over to Bethany’s for dinner (she’s cooking for me - too sweet!) and then we’re going to go see Batman Begins!  I’m really excited to go see the movie.  I’ve heard a lot of great things about it.  We’ll see how Christian Beale stacks up.  Personally my favorite is still Michael Keaton - we’ll see if that changes tomorrow!

Hahahaha

So it’s official. PHILLIP is coming back to coach the Lakers.  That’s freakin’ hilarious.  I guess Kobe can’t coach, general manage and play all at the same time!  What a freakin’ circus the Lakers have become!

It’ll be really interesting to see how this saga plays out.  I really don’t think that Phillip and Kobe are going to be able to co-exist in any way.  Not when Kobe ran him and Shaq out of town to begin with.  Not when Phillip goes to write this tell-all book and mentions that he could never reach Kobe, and that Kobe is pretty much un-coachable.  Not when Kobe also ran  Rudy Tomjanovich out of town!  I mean FREAKIN’ Tomjanovich!  It’s not like this was some scrub JV coach would return to obscurity - this was Rudy Tomjanovich, and he just up & quit!

Now I’m not saying that the blame is all on Kobe - but the blame is all on Kobe…  It might have been Jerry Bus that signed the executive order, but they did it all in the name to try to draw Kobe back to the Lakers for a long-term deal.  Vicariously through his actions he turned it into a "Shaq or me" deal and forced the Laker’s hand.  When Phillip was on the rocks last year, Kobe had the opportunity to offer support for the Zen-master, but through Kobe’s posturing (and the troubles between these two being publicized) Bus had no choice but to put Phillip on the horse and ride him out of town.

So here we are a year later - the Lakers go from being the Western Conference Champs to becoming a lottery team within the year!  Kobe got his wish - the Lakers were his and on his shoulders alone, but in the end of the day that didn’t make any difference.  The rest of the players hated playing with him, Kobe became a ball-hog and now has a crappy reputation throughout the NBA.

Flash-forward a few weeks after their season ended - what’s really changed now that Phillip is coming back?  Nothing!  He’s walking into a situation that is now worse than from when he left it (a big part of it his fault - due to his book).  The Lakers will be implementing the triangle offense that Kobe hates, and best of all NO SHAQ!!  And to make things even worse is that there are really not big free agents this off-season which could or would go play with the Lakers. Ming won’t touch LA, Stoudemire is going to get locked up by Phoenix, and Peja will be out of LA’s price range.  So the Lakers are still minus one big man and with it a chance to be truly competitive.

Good luck Phillip - but for now I still say - Hahahahahaha….

Ah!  What a great feeling to sleep in your own bed!  It’s been over a week since I had that experience, so I was grateful to be back at home.  It’s funny how when you go back to your parent’s house it feels more like "home" than any place you’re currently living in at this point - yet you still don’t feel as comfortable there as you do at your own place.  That’s how I’ve felt.  I get to sleep in my own bed, mess up my own bathroom, watch my own TV - the whole works.

But I only get this freedom for four days, and then I’m back in Loveland for the next 10 days, sleeping in my sister’s old room, living out of my suitcase, trying to find ways not to keep the dog from getting out of the gate.  What makes this time more fun is that I’m going to be driving my sister’s Mazda, which is my debut on the stick shift!  Yeah buddy!  I don’t think it’ll be as bad as I’m making it sound, but we’ll see

So after being out of my apartment lask week my Tivo was here to greet me with a whole week’s worth of shows that I’ve missed.  Normally I love my Tivo, it’s one of the coolest inventions of the last years (and I’ll eventually post a little rant about how cool Tivo is), but in this case it kinda sucks.  I’ve now come home to over 20 hours of TV shows that I "love" and need to watch.  It’s funny because I can’t bring myself to delete the hours of Law & Order, Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Family Guy that exist on my Tivo, or the episodes of shows I am trying to get into (Lost, Medium, Numb3rs).  At the same time, I don’t want to sit in front of the TV and watch all of those shows, as I’d end up killing something like 10 hours in front of the TV!  How crappy is that!  So the moral of the story here: Tivo is normally awesome - but if you leave it alone for too long it’ll eventually come back to bite you in the butt!

And of course, yesterday was the verdict of Wacko Jacko, who moonwalked himself right out of the court-room getting off on all ten charges!  I can’t help but say that I was disappointed.  I think in the end, the jury probably did the right thing - they could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he did it.  The witnesses were too sketchy, and it’s hard to send someone to the hole for 8 years based on the testimony of grifters.  At the same time, couldn’t the DA and investigators put Jackson away for SOMETHING!?!  The guy is 44 years old and admits sleeping in the same bed as young boys.  He has "parent alarms" in his house to alert him in his bed room.  The guy has an amusement park in his backyard that attracts young kids like flypaper.  You’re telling me you couldn’t find ANYTHING suspicious to deal with that guy?

In all seriousness I do think that Jackson is a serial pedophile and I believe that he is likely to do this again.  I was actually predicting that he would be convicted.  This wasn’t due for my disdain for Jackson, but rather that in a court-case where you have the victim testifying that abuse occured, and you have another victim to corroberate the abuse story (the child of a housekeeper that is now 20-something), and then when you have the accused refusing to take the stand to deny the allegations of the abuse- chances are that the accused would be convicted.

I get frustrated because the message that gets sent out is "If you’re rich, famous (and especially both), you can do pretty much whatever you want".  I don’t think there’s a remedy for this in our justice system - the rich and famous will always be able to drive better cars, eat better food, get the better health care, and have access to better resources  when it comes to the legal system.  I think that’s a necessary consequence of our capitalist society.  I still have faith in justice and believe those who perpetrate justice temporarily will ultimately not be able to escape the consequences of their actions.  Wacko Jacko will be back in the courthouse before we know it, I’m just disappointed that more kids may be have been harmed in the process.

One other thing - how about those losers that were camped outside the courthouse? Now I can understand the family cheering and crying - but why the heck do you have an emotional investment in this case, especially enough of an emotional investment to take any of your time and go stand outside the courthouse?  What kind of relationship do you have with this guy?  You liked his music at one time, so now you have some kind of deep connection with him where you can justify crying about a verdict that in no way impacts you.  At what point in your thought process do you go "Man, MJ - they did that guy wrong.  You know what, we liked his music at one point, and now he needs us!  Honey, pack up the kids and let’s go to Santa Maria to support Jacko!"

It’s been a few days since I’ve written here, but I wanted to update on a few random thoughts going on in my head (I’ve had a lot of them lately):

First off, this is the last night I’m spending in my parent’s house, and starting tomorrow I get to sleep in my own bed again… FOR FOUR DAYS?!?  Yes, I’ve ended my one-week house-sitting/babysitting stint (rather successfully I might add), only to be back here on Thursday to be staying here for another 10 days.  Ugh!!  I’m really missing my own place.  I enjoy being back at home and spending more time with my youngest sister, but at the same time I miss having MY own space, MY bed and all that other jazz.  Plus everything I’ve done this week is in Fort Collins, so it really sucks to have to drive an extra 20 minutes to be able to get to bed and sleep.

I got to go to the drive in last night with Bethany.  We had a really good time, but ended up seeing one really crappy movie.  Mr. & Mrs Smith - just skip it.  You don’t want to waste two hours of your life.  There were some pretty decent action scenes, but there was ABSOLUTELY NO PLOT, and furthermore the dialog sucked.  I’m not really an Angelina Jolie fan to begin with, and Brad Pitt - he’s just not what he used to be.  It seems like every Brad Pitt movie I’ve seen lately he’s played the role of Brad Pitt more than the character he’s supposed to be playing (if that makes sense).  I just really can’t see past his personality into the story.  The movie was pretty cliché too, so yeah go ahead and save your money.

Overall this weekend has been good so far - pretty restful (which also means pretty lazy).  I had a drumset accident this morning.  I was pulling the cart out of my apartment door (and it goes down a VERY small step) when the cart lost balance and fell forward.  I had two plastic tubs with my drum hardware, and one of them was so heavy that the fall forward split the container right open!  I was pretty surprised, but also pretty pissed.  I guess it’s easy to forget just how heavy drum hardware can be!

Well Sunday’s going to be a fun day, my sister and I need to clean up the house and find somewhere to hide the keg before we go pick my mom up from the airport!  Then begins my four days of domestic and vehicular freedom before I give up my apartment and my car for ten days!