Cameraman Jenn wrote:I feel underappreciated in the Pantheon Rules and Comments thread.

...awww Jenn...
I've been AFK most of the morning, but I'm back now. I'm sure I'll appreciate whatever is new since I last looked.
Anyway...the reason I was afk. Maybe my biorhythms are shifting for the better. Then...maybe not.
When my sister and I visited my uncle in the hospital on Saturday, the only thing he asked me is if I was interested in buying his van. It is a 1995 Voyager and he mumbled something about $4K for it. We have two minivans already, although with Beorn being eligible for his learners permit come the end of August, having a third vehicle would be nice. But...$4K for a 13 year old van? I told him we were OK.
This morning my aunt called, and offered the van to us as an "inheritance." She showed us the receipt for work they just had done; in fact she picked up the car from the shop on Monday. New transmission and a bunch of other stuff, to the tune of $3500. No wonder my uncle wanted $4K for it. It has 120K miles on it, but our other two vans are each over 300K miles, and with nursing are still going strong. So, for free (other than registration), Hyperception and I figure why not?
We got there, and although the van had just been driven on Monday, the battery was dead. We jumped it, and on the 45 mile drive home it died. Most likely an alternator. Hopefully not anything else more major electrically. We'll see what our mechanic says.
AAA came within 45 minutes, and since I had driven us down in one of our other vans, the wait wasn't too bad.
Then, I found a decent fare to Seafest in Denver. Regular roundtrip fares have been running about $230 each way. I really didn't want to spend more than $99 each way, but when I say a fare of $119 each way, Hypercepeption gave the go ahead to grab it. Too bad there was an additional $42 in fees tacked on, so it cost me $80 more than I wanted to spend rather than $38 more, but at least my flight out to Denver is now booked.
So...things are looking up, with a few hiccups along the way. If y'all could send some good thoughts in the general direction of Pittsburgh tomorrow for my sister's kidney biopsy, then everything will be covered.
Thanks all.