Kevin's Watch

Ok so ninja skills. Andy, my co-worker tries to scare me. He has yet to do it. Today I saw him go into the area right in front of the copy center and thought he might be trying to sneak around the paper pallets so I went around the opposite end to come up behind him. Turns out he was working price labels and was sitting on the floor in front of an end cap putting labels out so I had to take the opportunity. I snuck up behind him and leaned in really close so my mouth was literally about two inches behind his left ear and said loudly, "WHATCHA DOING?" He flinched hard, threw the labels and said, "OH JESUS!" I busted out laughing. He started laughing too and told me it was a good one. He was definitely impressed that I got that close. However that is by far not by greatest ninja story.

Just after I had to lay myself off from Igor's shop I was working at this other shop job in a building that shared the shop with another repair shop called John's Jaguars. Their head mechanic was this guy Ryan. I actually forget how it all started but suffice it to say, he did something and I retaliated by sneaking up on him with a squirting water bottle with cold water and sprayed it down the top of the crack of his butt while he was bent over a car. He tried to retaliate with attempting to sneak up on me but was unsuccessful. I got him three or four times and he was getting really pissed off. He decided to up the stakes and had a glorious plan to fill a condom with cold water and throw it on me. In his first attempt it backfired and broke and soaked him. His second attempt I easily ducked and I think I got him a few more times with the annoying ass crack shocker that same day. The next day he made a big show of bringing in one of those huge cannon fill it by suction water cannons. He put it by his toolbox in an attempt to intimidate me. I stole it when he went on a test drive. He came over and asked me where it was. I played guilty dumb. He was ANGRY. I made a show of hiding it in my van to my techs. I also made a show of "forgetting" to lock the van. Ryan went on another test drive. I snuck out and got the gun and filled it and stashed it behind the counter. He came back from his test drive, was informed by one of my techs that it was in my van but the van wasn't locked. Ryan went out to look for it and could not find it so he was stomping back in. I had grabbed the gun loaded with cold cold water and had ducked down and was crouching at the end of the outside of the counter where he could not see me but was inevitably going to walk past. When I saw his knees I stood up with the gun at my shoulder and let it loose and soaked him to the bone. He screamed like a girly man and then after he declared me the winner and we called truce.

I literally begged for them from other watchers. I have made several campaigns for donations in my attempt to get the white gold ring. Now if you donated yours I would be even closer to the white gold ring....

As to the ninja stuff. I posted about Andy not believing in my ninja skills until yesterday and Ryan responded with, "If he doesn't believe you then just have him talk to me." HAHAHAHAHA! I think he might still be a little bitter about losing that battle so completely. I also forgot to mention that his final soaking with his own stolen gun was at point blank. I rose up and soaked him from about two feet away....

I think Jenn's been soaking up S.F. these last few days.

Ok, so these past few months have been awesome and wonderful. As a lot of you know I moved to Albuquerque. I put off job hunting until after efest and found a job and was living at Danlo's for almost three months. I am now employed and firmly yet somewhat haphazardly habituating my own place. I was without internet for three weeks at my new apartment but am now internet friendly again. I was not so gungho about posting prior to this because I literally needed to take some time to adjust, settle and reset my corrupted brain back to factory settings and start fresh. I now feel that I have done that. I spent a great deal of much needed time just hanging out with Danlo and Lady Tam and Grace and several new found IRL friends here and not caring about tv/internet/etc. It's been a very rejuvenating hiatus. This does not mean I don't love you guys because I do, I just had to get back to "roots" if that makes sense. Please understand that being in Omaha made me feel quite isolated from real interaction with friends and that coming to ABQ and being an actual participating member of Danlo's(mine by adoption whether Danlo likes it or not) just made me feel more alive than I have in a long time and I needed it and loved it and it has made me a better person. And when I say hanging out, it's not anything fancy, it's been just hanging out and yammering on the porch and talking about everyday life, or watching Grace while Danlo has meetings or something as stupid as, "Hey, I'm going to XYZ store today, do you need me to pick up anything and drop it by?" So simple but so important to me. Maybe it's best to put it simple... My week consisted of work, I dropped by twice to visit briefly with Danlo's familyand hung out on the porch for a bit yammering about nothing important, Danlo dealt with the cable people for me at my apartment because I couldn't leave work and then Wednesday I picked up Grace and her friend from school, Dropped the friend off and took Grace to work with me for the afternoon. Then the next day Danlo had meetings again so I had Grace and her friend and they came to my place and swam in the pool until it was time for Lady Tam to come home so I took them home and just hung out yammering about my day and Lady Tam's day and it felt so right. It's the simple everyday interactions that have made me realize how messed up and introverted I had become. I know some of you know the details of some of the messed up living situations I was in so you can appreciate what I am saying. THANK GOD FOR NORMAL! And I love my job. I had forgotten how good it feels to WANT to go to work...HOLY CRAP! I wake up before the alarm goes off and get going. It feels like HOME.

Anyway, I should probably shut up now but thanks to everyone for being so supportive and I love you guys!!!

Jenn, hi! I've been wondering how you have been getting on. Excellent news. Even more so as now I can see that porch and those wonderful people you are talking about.

Hi Jenn, great to hear from you and great to hear that things are working out so well! We missed you and your shennanigans! Hope to see you around a lot more.

u.

Jenn!

JENN!! *So* glad you're in a better place now.

So...um...not to kill the mood, but how's the E-fest Q&A video coming along?

aliantha wrote:So...um...not to kill the mood, but how's the E-fest Q&A video coming along?

Ha ha, I was going to ask her that, but now I get to say: aliantha geez! Jenn has never failed us.

But I hope your "back" for a while, Jenn, because you gotz dis utter family.

Hey, don't look at me. dlb asked me if I knew, and I said I'd ask Jenn the next time I saw her. So it's all *his* fault!

I was just thinking about you (Jenn) the other day, wondering when you'd be back.

hi jenn.

Hi Jenn!

I quoted you in my final project for school.

I'm ready to be back. I've missed you guys. Sorus, I've thought about you a lot recently and I wish you could be here too. Guys, I'll get on the video. When I say my place is still a bit in chaos well.... the camera, tapes and so forth are still down at Danlo's house. Like I said, I just got internet this week at my place and it's still not even right. The guy didn't hook up my tv to the internet so I can't get my HBOGO...

Seriously though, I've found a happy balance. Today I ran some errands and then Tom, Leslie and Grace came over to swim and I got to surprise them with the pool stuff I found on super clearance markdown. I got these really nice high tech floating pool chairs marked down to $12.88 from 49.99 and a water dragon inflatable toy for Grace that was marked down to $1.97 from $12.99. We swam and lounged and then dried off and went back to their place and had dinner. Life is good.

Nice to see you around again Jenn, and sounding so cheerful too.

--A

A major piece of the watch puzzle just fell back into place. Congrats on your good fortune, Jenn, it's nice to see you back again.

Thank you all for all the warm welcome back messages!
RDHopeca, was the quote, "Hawt! Hawt! HAWT!!!" Just kidding, but seriously though I am curious as to what you quoted...

Had a guy come in today and his SUV had no brakes. Someone put some sort of oil in the brake fluid. For those of you who don't know the consequences of that I'll explain as I explained to the guy when he showed up to pick up the car. (Roland talked to him about the estimate etc.) I showed the guy how the diaphragm and reservoir cap seal had swollen and disintegrated and how the fluid was dark with black chunks of oil floating in it. I explained to him that when you put baking soda in water, nothing happens but when you put baking soda in vinegar, BAM. That's what putting oil on the rubber parts of a brake system is like, they swell up and then start to disintegrate. Roland had told the guy that he could put a temporary fix by flushing the fluid and replacing the master cylinder. I explained that yeah, but it won't solve the problem. It's like saying a blood transfusion and a bandaid will cure your leukemia, the damage to the body parts is already done. I also explained to him that he needed to fix or park the truck because his safety is essentially my real concern and that I didn't care when or where he fixed it but only cared about him fixing it or parking it until it could be fixed right otherwise it is like playing brake pedal Russian roulette because there is no way to tell which time he steps on the brake pedal is going to be the time he blows out the next damaged component. He got the message. I get so frustrated with customers who don't want to fix safety issues correctly because quite honestly I just don't want to be the unlucky person stopping in front of them when the brakes do give out and believe me, with as bad as his was, IT WILL.

It was apparently a day for stupid mistakes auto repair today. He was my worst but I had two other customers in that needed stuff because of stupidity. One girl had "loaned her car to a friend" and it had started smoking and the check engine light came on. It was three quarts of engine oil OVERFILLED. And I had a customer come in with a complaint of the vehicle riding hard and the front end bouncing after going over bumps and not just that but bouncing so badly that he was almost losing control at higher speeds. He had 50 freaking pounds of air pressure in each tire. He should have had 32 pounds of air pressure, no wonder the thing was all over the place... duh... The side of the tire says, rec 32psi max 50psi which doesn't mean you should put 50psi in it. It means that any more than 50psi will damage the tire... yeesh...

Ok, rant over... (Seriously?? You guys missed this type of obnoxious posting??? You guys are all officially labelled INSANE!!!!) Welcome back to my world...

Cameraman Jenn wrote: (Seriously?? You guys missed this type of obnoxious posting???

YES!

Of course we missed you!