Vegas, my Beetle, etc.

so i've got a few minutes to kill while robin tries on all of her potential outfits for our trip to vegas this weekend (robin is a bride's maid for a friend of ours). mind you, i need to try a few things n and then pack, but i guess i can wait. i had to run over to bestbuy to pick up a new compactflash card for our camera. seriously, a wedding in vegas is probably the highest concentration of photo oppotunities i will ever have... like, ever. bought a new 1 GB card as a result. scott kelby and everyone else says shoot in raw, but my camera won't do raw, and honestly, 4x6 jpgs are just fine by me. plus, i get a perverse joy out of seeing 980 available images on my card now. ;-)

i'm really mad at vw now. let's call it seething. i've taken in my beetle several times for a problem with the odometer lcd to be fixed, and it keeps coming back broken. add to that they actually DAMAGED the vehicle while it was there, crushing the underside of the side runners by putting it on the rack incorrectly. i actually caught them long ago when they first did it in one spot, but i didn't follow up because it was one spot, and i couldn't be 100% positive it was them. but now i have two MORE damaged places that were DEFINITELY their fault, which really sucks at a time when i want to sell the little guy if possible. and the side runners are PART of the side panels. that means removing the entire front AND sides to replace them. i like the beetle and all, but they could've made the panels a little easier to get apart. this means huge labor costs, which means they will be less likely to have it repaired. i mean, i might expect this from a small shop (which is why i never GO to a small shop), but it's VW for crying out loud! you'd think THEY would at least know how to service this vehicle. well, i'll call and yell at them tomorrow, but nothing it going to happen until we get back at the earliest (if ever).

we had a landscpae guy come by today and do what he could to "repair" our back yard from the katrina damage (basically weed the heck out of it). he also pressure washed our house and back deck. nothing he did was so complicated that i couldn't do it myself, but without the time to actually make good on that threat, i just had to rely on him. i don't have time right now, but i do have a little bit of money, so i gotta use that to hopefully make some time with services like this.

our roofer is now avoiding us, though he may be avoiding everyone. it's gettign prety distractng though. oh yeah, and out air conditioning decided to die... AGAIN... today. now the fan won't kick in. the compressor whirs away, but the fan just sits there. of course this happnes when we're trying to get ready to leave AND we have family coming into town next week after we get back.

my cyst on my neck still aggravates me. i was supposed to have it removed on wednesday, but it was inflamed, so the doctor prescribed more antibiotics and come back in a week. nice -- she gets, what, a couple hundred dollars pay to look at my neck and say "here's a prescription for more antibiotics, coe back in a week." meanwhile, i am out a few more hours sick leave and $30 co-pay for essentially nothing. nice.

man, i need a nap.