**Updated:  He’s fine.  It’s not so much the headlight as the turn signal.  The guy was apparently turning left (coming from the west) into the northbound lane.  Shortman was turning right into the northbound lane.  There’s a left-turn signal there, and the guy must have come through as it turned red and Shortman had the green.  Shortman was lucky because he was stopped, so hadn’t had much time to get any speed up.

It’s probably, as some of you have said, a good thing because it was a first accident that didn’t have bad ramifications (i.e. injuries, bad damage) - and it will make Shortman more aware of his surroundings and the other idiots on the road.

Believe me,  he’s a beginning driver in all of his glory.  He doesn’t have the experience to know that people turn left after traffic is clear, even if the light is red.  He knows now.  (grin)

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Someone ran a red light this morning and hit Shortman (who was driving the tank of a 1995 pickup thank the lawd). The asshole didn’t stop. So far, all I know is what Mr. Hot told me when he called this morning, because Shortman isn’t home from school yet, but it all boils down to:

“He’s not hurt”

and

“A broken headlight”

Of course it kills me that when Shortman called his Dad, he was crying. Because, Oh Mah Holy Hell people, he’s only been driving alone since October 17th. And it’s the first time he’s been in an accident. And it wasn’t his fault and the Fuckhead who hit him took off and didn’t even stop to see if my baby boy was okay. And I wasn’t there to comfort him myself.

He couldn’t get the plate number before the Fuckhead ran.

Seeing as I got rear-ended last week by some flippin’ idiot myself, who had NO insurance, (yes, comments were heavily skewed to “Hot, you should have called the police.”) I feel quite qualified to say this:

Damn it people! Get off the phones, open your eyes and pay attention to what you’re doing or stay the hell away from me and my family while you’re behind the wheel of a 2000 pound weapon. If you don’t, I reserve the right to grab you by the hair/collar/nostrils, throw you to the fucking ground, and shove my boot up your ass so far that the pointy toes on my boot will be poking out of your nose.

—- Now while I try to calm down some more, take a look at this face and tell me you wouldn’t get your boots dirty if he was yours. And…sigh…yes, I used up my quota again. —-

How much money do you think I could make by being a helpful technical support person?

I mean, yesterday I explained to a coworker that in order to find a date formatted field in an Excel spreadsheet, you had to change the search option from “search formulas” to “search values”. See, Excel doesn’t see the field that has “Apr-2008″ as having “Apr” in it. It sees it has having “4/27/2008″ or “39565″. I learned that back in the beginning days of Lotus 1-2-3 and once a spreadsheet geek, always a spreadsheet geek.

I also had to call our helpdesk today when I finally (finally, after two fucking days) figured out why I couldn’t access our salary administration program this year. See, this program only opens once every year, during January. It closes during February. Other than that? It doesn’t exist. After two days of back-and-forth emails (because Oh mah holy hell, we can’t answer those questions over the phone) with no resolution, during the ’shaving the legs’ phase of my shower this morning, it dawned on me. I’m using IE 7.0. I bet it only works on 6 since that’s the standard. So, this morning, I got a laptop that has 6.0 installed and voila-dee-da-dah! Access. (Yes, I called the helpdesk, cancelled my trouble ticket, and told them to add that answer to their knowledgebase. Because, I’m nice that way.)

Anyway, y’all? Remember this? The video card issue? Yesterday, I got in touch with Dell Technical Support. Here is the transcript of the online chat I had. I tried to just copy part of it, but it’s too priceless not to include the whole thing (pay special attention to the bolded lines):

Now, I never got the link that he mentioned, and the resolution expert that was supposed to call me at 5 pm? Never called. Someone (who couldn’t help me) called my work cell (which was NOT one of the numbers I gave in the transcript) at 6:15 and told me that the resolution expert was not going to call me at 5.

Serious-fuckin-ly?

He’s going to call me today at 6 pm. On the correct phone number. And is going to remote access my computer so he can see what is happening on my screen. (Yea, good luck with that buddy.) And if they determine that it’s the graphics card, they’ll send one right out.

“But do not to worry ma’am. You have warranty coverage.”

—- Shit. Where have I heard that before? —-

* Honestly, y’all. Word for word transcript. The only thing I changed was the phone numbers, the names, and Dork’s i.d. number.

Argh. Y’know, how you KNOW it’s going to be one of those days? One of those days when you have grand plans that you know are destined to not work out?

Okay, that’s today.

First, the video card in my Dell (aka Shortman’s computer) apparently decided to die. We know the computer is booting up, because we can hear the dings and dongs and pretty little tunes that we hear when it boots up. But no monitor. We have a standby monitor. It doesn’t work either. We have a standby computer. The good monitor combined with the old computer. Success? But that means that I’ve spent a good portion of the afternoon swapping equipment. With my ass up in the air while I’m crawling under the desk.

Mr. Hot did give me a line to use today, though, after that little episode. “HotTechnical”. Snirk. He does come up with some good ones.

So, anyway, since Shortman is downloading his patches to WoW, my connection is butt-slow. And slow is sucky. Sorry, Veronica. I know you’re on a dial-up. That’s even suckier sucky.

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(for some reason, this template hates horizontal rules. I’m stuck with dashed lines.)

Mr. Hot is trying to find a replacement bracket for our front-load washing machine. Before we moved here, we had the washer/dryer stacked. Which entails taking the lid off of the washer, and screwing the dryer on top.When we moved here, we had to get rid of the gas dryer, because, y’know, no gas line. The sellers left us a relatively new electric dryer, so it all worked out. But somehow, in the move, we lost the bracket to attach the lid back on the washer. So, it’s been duct-taped to the washer.

He’s googling the part from Sears to order. He needs a bracket and the screws. The bracket (which is a piece of metal, with a little ledge on it, and three screw holes) is $9. Reasonable, I guess. I mean, it’s a machined part.

The screws? Are $2.91. EACH. Got that? EACH. Those screws better give me multiple orgasms for Sears to charge two-dollars-and-ninety-one-cents apiece.

I guess we’ll just stay with the duct tape.

———————————-

I did manage to get a workout in today. I’ve really slacked off the past few months. I go good for a couple of weeks, and then, I just get bored. So, I’ve re-committed to making sure I work out at least 5 days a week.

So, yay. Score one for me.

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I’m going to spend a bunch of time today going through the sites I got for the first Hotlight - Hot Crossed Crafts. I’ve been poking around on a couple of the sites - and you all are in for a treat. Guard the credit cards.

———————————-

And the contest? My cohorts in crime and I are working on ironing out some of the details. So pay attention to this space, as they say. We’re getting there.

———————————-

I also have to thank you all for the comments on yesterday’s post. If I had only known how much this community of bloggers would reach out with shared experiences and understanding - I would have joined you way earlier than last May.

Like maybe when Child Protective Services showed up at my door because 20 fell on a rug and split her lip? And the Ex-Mrs. Hot decided that we needed to be investigated because she was sure that 20 had been pushed rather than tripped.

(True story. Shortman was 3 months old and I was petrified they would take him away from me.) Oh, I could have used you all then.

So thank you. I have no idea what the next few months will bring, but I’m trying so hard to stay positive while preparing myself for the possibility that something will go wrong.

—- And now, I’m going to cheer for Cupcake’s boyfriend and look at craft sites for you all. Oh, and drink vodka. Because I have tomorrow off work. —-

Hi! Are you all hangover free this morning? Amazingly enough, I am. Probably because the champagne from the night before did my ass in. So I behaved myself - and it’s a damned good thing because this is what we woke up to this morning:

The Front Yard

The Back Yard

And Shortman woke up in one of those wonderful teenage boy moods - sulky and pissy and I’m just trying not to march up the stairs and slap the immortal crap outta him.

And my mother just called to wish Mr. Hot a Happy Birthday - and he hates people making a big deal out of his birthday - in fact, we try not to talk about it too much (or at fuckin-all) - and I had to lie and tell her he was in the shower and that she shouldn’t call back to sing to him - that I’d have him call her, and blah blah blah.

And OMG y’all, did I just start out 2008 on the most negative note possible????

—- Okay, we’ll try this again after I get back from shoveling the suck-ass snow off the driveway. Later taters. —-

…and there I sat, ready to hit publish when [plop] - all the lights went out.  No lights, no internet.   Also?  No wind.  No snow.  No rain.  WTF?  Whose idea of a joke is this?

Have I mentioned that when our lights go out, we have no water either?  Because the well pump runs on electricity.  And the heat?  also electric.  All appliances?  you got it.

We got out the candles, lit everything up, and gathered blankets.  We called the power company, and were told (by an electronic voice) that they were so busy, they would need to call us back.  The Voice recited the phone number, and asked for an alternate phone number.  I gave her/him my cell.

Then, after staring at each other for about 3 minutes, Mr. Hot, Shortman and I decided to give up and head up to bed.  I slept with both phones on the table next to the bed.  No phone calls.

My toes were freakin’ cold in the morning.  Even with socks on and between flannel sheets and two blankets.  When I got downstairs, Mr. Hot said “Eleven o’clock.”  It was 7:30.   Eleven o’clock came.  And went.  Another phone call to DTE.  “Between now and 2 o’clock.” 

Shortman woke up about 11:30.  Mr. Hot yelled up at him,“Get dressed, we’re going someplace.”  And so we did.  Brunch (ahhhhh, coffee, finally!).  Met a neighbor eating in the same diner (She had been told 4 o’clock.  Sigh.).  Then to see “I Am Legend” with Will Smith.  Once again, I walked how of a theatre with swollen eyes.  Why does the dog have to die?  

We got home about 2:30 and lo - there was light.  And heat.  And it was good.

And yet?  No internet.  No cable television.   More phone calls - this time to Comcant.  (No, that was soooo not a typo.)   Yes, the outage was reported.  No, they didn’t know how long it would take to get it back on.

Five hours later, I called them back.  “About an hour or so.  They’re working in your neighborhood even as we speak.”  My neighborhood?  Have I mentioned we live in nowhere-land?  I didn’t know I had a neighborhood.

Once again, I called it a night and went up to bed, with my book.

Finally, this morning, we’re back up and running.  Everything electric.  Everything cable-y.  And we’re leaving in about an hour to head up to our local dump-turned-ski-hill so that Shortman can snowboard and Mr. Hot and I can curl up in chairs in the lounge and drink coffee and read.

I just wanted to check in and tell y’all that I miss you and will be getting to your sweet emails soon - later this evening when we get back.   I did pull a bunch of old pictures to get scanned in for your amusement (I swear, even Shortman said “Mom, what’s with the glasses that cover your whole face?”).  Oh, and Santa brought me this.  I love it.  It’s much easier to use than I ever dreamed.

—- Okay, now I must go get dressed.  We’re on a tight timeline.  Out of here by 10:30, back by 5.  There must be a football game on.  Later babes! —-