It's definitely been a while since I've posted an update on what's going on.  First off, at work I got transferred to a closer location.   This is really fantastic because instead of a daily commute of 130 miles and about 2 hours and 40 minutes of drive-time, I now only have to deal with 50 miles and 80 minutes.   Here's the best part: It's the same IBM site that my father works at. 

This brings me to my next part.  My car was an '88 and was used to only driving about 2,500 miles a year – and here I was driving over 3,000 miles a month and pushing it harder and faster than it had ever seen in its life.   So the automatic transmission went.  That's actually another story in itself – I was extremely lucky when it happened. I had just turned off of the Interstate and onto the Parkway (this is during rush hour traffic on a Friday!).  And with the RPM at about 4500, I was able to turn off on the first exit which was Rt. 52.   The transmission wouldn't shift any higher than second gear and would sometimes slip to 1^st while driving it.  So this limited me to about 35 mph, but still with very high revs.   But luckily I had a friend's house only a few miles away and was able to make it to their driveway.  When I tried to move it the next day, the transmission was completely gone and wouldn't move.   So someone was definitely looking out for me!  And it was recently picked up as a donation to one of the many cancer affiliations.

Even though I took great care of that car and even put in a lot of new parts recently, it simply wasn't worth it to drop in a new tranny.   So as I was looking for a new car, I was able to carpool with my father.  Then after work we'd stop by various car dealers to go for test drives.   I learned some things with this experience: shopping for cars can be incredibly fun, purchasing a car is extremely easy, and when you have any new toy (in this case a big toy), it can be infectious – everyone wants to talk about it and see it, and then they start to think about how nice it would be if they replaced their existing one as well.

So let's see some pics!

Old and Busted...

New Hotness:

Editor's Note: customers always blame the waiters when they can't find their shoes/coat/purse.  Because we have nothing better to do than to crawl underneath tables and steal shoes.

 

Anyway, the guy-friend found the shoes and tried to calm him down.  About 20 minutes later, I was busing a tray in the kitchen when the fire alarms went off.  This was very concerning because our grills were off (and I knew it wasn't from the cooks).  All of the cooks and kitchen staff (they're all Hispanic and don't speak much English) start looking very confused.  So I went out onto the dance floor where the DJ assured people that it was a false alarm and to continue dancing (he kept his music nice and loud).  Then I smelled smoke.

 

The retarded guy set one of our nice chairs on fire that was downstairs next to the restrooms.  So our Maitre D and bartender (both large guys) picked up the flaming chair and took it upstairs and out the back door, then threw it off of the deck.  Meanwhile the alarms are still going off, and our manager was on the phone contacting the fire department to tell them not to come. 

 

So that was pretty much the end of the party.  While we were cleaning up in the ballroom, someone looked out the window overlooking the parking lot and said, "oh man, check that out!"  The retarded guy and his partner were laying on top of each other on the hood of their car... doing what lovers do.  So yeah.  That night was fun.  If anything I'll definitely keep that job just for the excitement (because I sure as hell don't see that stuff at IBM!)