I Should Be Reviewing Video...

Okay, so I knew going into this weekend (my "weekend" not the weekend) that I had hours and hours of footage to listen to/watch, and I was excited about it.

But then Monday came, and I slept most of it.

But since I worked and extra half-shift Sunday, I figured sleeping most of the day Monday was probably just my body healing itself after a little extra exertion, no big.

I still had Tuesday and today to review through the hours and hours of footage.

Then life got in the way.

Now, the irony here is that before yesterday I would have bet you real money that I didn't have a life! Who frickin' knew?!

I was able to get through a single 5-hour 13-minute recording, which yielded a single male's voice in a room filled with only women, and a single exhale that was heard at the time of recording and which no one in the room performed. (Is "performed" the right word? "Which no one in the room did" just sounds hillbilly, but "performed" sounds weird, too, right?)

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining that 5 hours of audio only yielded an EVP and a VP (there's no such term as "Voice Phenomena", but when a device records a sound that was audible at the time of recording, it's really not an EVP). I'm EXCITED that I got 2 hits out of only 5 hours worth of audio! You can record for YEARS in, say, your own house and NEVER get an inexplicable sound! It's the nature of the job to record hours worth of footage and get, if anything at all, very little "evidence" of the unexplained.

So no complaints there! :D

However...

Okay, so after sleeping all day Monday, I woke up early -- like, Normal People Hours early -- yesterday. And my car was... well... let's just say "past the its inspection date," okay? And it was badly in need of an oild change, as well.

Now, between Brian and me, Brian is the one that's good about maintaining our cars. he has no problem taking them in and getting what needs to be done to them done. And he volunteered to get my car fixed up so it could pass a badly-needed inspection. He was going to let me stay home and continue reviewing audio, bless him!

But... he felt wierd about driving it to get the oil changed.

See, his car was a month behind on its inspection and he got a ticket. He pretty much drive to work and home, and one night he was on his way to the grocery store (the one that's close enough we sometimes walk to it when the weather isn't too hot) and got a frickin' ticket!

So he didn't really want to be the one to drive my car to get the oil changed.

I don't blame him.

So I took a break -- what would it be, 45 minutes total? -- to get the oild changed.

This was actually kind of cool because I recently aquired an audiobook version of Jaws (I've owned the paperback forever but just never gotten around to reading it, and I love the chance to read the original books that inspired badass films, and usually do so before I see the film version whenever possible) that I was enjoying. So this break would allow me to swicth out my RCA VR5220-A with my iPod, and do some listening strictly for leisure! :)

I did get to listen to some 100 pages or so of Jaws, but there's more. (The story turns quite positive before I get to the annoying part...)

If some people are luckier than others, then I am blessed to report that my luck often seems to be supernaturally good! :D I feel comfortable saying that because I know so many people whose annecdotes start out "My day was going just fine, until..." My annecdotes, more times than I deserve, often start out, "My day was already going great, but then...!"

So here's what happened with my car...

Last year, when I had it inspected, the inspector told me that 3 of my tires were worn thin, almost to the point where she couldn't pass the car. Also, my parking break needed to be tightened (or something) and just barely passed, too. Since then, 2 majoy hail storms swept through North Austin, and one of them not only ding-ed up my car severely, but it also put a hole in my left-front blinker cover.

And 2 of my tired have gone flat. (Undoubtedly, 2 of the 3 that the car inspector warned me about.)

So, going in, Brian and I guessed that I would need to parking break tightened (or whatever), to replace the blinker cover and to replace at least one of the tires before it would pass. We also figured we would need to get the car inspected twice: The first time would tell us what work needed to be done so it would pass the second inspection.

Brian went online and found a blinker cover for a decent price. He feels confident replacing it himself, so that'll save us a lot of money. (Well, "a lot of money" to us. To someone else, it might be lunch money, lol.)

The place I took my car to get the oil changed also does state inspections. They offered. I wasn't prepared for this. I took them out to the car and showed them the damaged blinker cover (intentionally failing to mention the tire and the parking breaks), and they said that the blinker cover was damaged in a place that shouldn't affect the car passing.

Whoa! Was this really happening? :D

I follow my instincts. They usually let me know about some things that are going to happen before they happen. Like, for instance, Brian's extreme warriness to drive my car to get the oil changed: I suspect that that was his instincts warning him that there was a cop out there with Brian's name just waiting to be written onto another ticket. If I get that sort of nagging "Don't do it" vibe, I heed it!

And now I was getting another kind of vibe! My gut was telling me that I might have stumbled into the perfect set of circumstances for my car to finally pass inspection this year! :D

I mean, Worst-Case Scenario: They fail it and (as Brian & I had originally planned) let me know what all needed to be done so that it could pass. And this was probably exactly what would happen.

But...

That's not what my intuition was telling me! :D My intuition was saying that I was about to get a new inspection sticker!!!

But ot pay for the inspection, and to buy 2 new license plate bulbs -- the guy who worked on my car very concientiously showed me the bulbs: one was burnt out and the other had a broken filament -- I needed more money, so I called Brian and asked him to bring me some. (Bless him! I know too many people who don't get along with their siblings, but I SO LUCKED-OUT with Brian!!! Excellent brother, excellent roommate and best friend!)

Waiting for Brian and listening to Jaws, it seemed like no time had passed before he was there with the extra money, the car's oil was changed and the car was inspected.

IT PASSED!!! :D

And the whole deal cost about $50 less than I thought it was going to!!! :D

Okay, I'm gonna get all New Age-y and airy-fairy here, but looking at the scenario in retrospect, I wonder if things didn't turn out supernaturally well! I mean, Brian felt really wierd about driving my car for an oil change -- like, maybe, his intuition was telling him not to -- and then, possibly because I'm the one that took it in if you believe in that type of thing, things turned out well better than I could have hoped! :)

So, cool! Mission accomplished, break over, back to work. Right?

Now, if you were bored by the previous story, you would shoot your computer by the mundane events of the next several hours, lol. But suffice it to say that "life" kept interrupting me, keeping me from the audio recorder, until around 7:30pm. This whole adventured started around 4:30pm.

And, like I said, I would have bet real money that I didn't have a life, lol!

OH! Another positive: When I woke up, I had received and email from my Gnomey-Goddess... She's a Young Leader for the Brownies, and Monday night she took her troop out "pond dipping" (which she made sure to inform me was nothing like skinny dipping) and searching for "mini beasts"!

Okay, how cool is that?!! :D My girlfriend is teaching young girls about forraging in the wild and stuff!!! :D She had told me that before, but I had forgotten it until she mentioned it yesterday. (I asked her if she has a uniform she wears, but she hasn't responded, yet.) So when Z-Day comes and the zombie take over the world, she'll know what berries we can eat and stuff! :D

My Baby's an action hero! :D My girlfriend is Lara Croft!!!

Okay, so, I finished reviewing the audio for the one recorder sometime after midnight, and I was wiped out. I slept, woke up around 9:00am, did some grocery shopping, ate a couple of frozen pizzas, then went back to sleep.

I'm awake again. Hopefully all night long, since I have to go back to work tomorrow, lol.

And I have at least one long stretch of video that I must -- WILL -- review tonight.

But I felt a strong need to blog about my weekend... probably as a subconscious procrastination maneuver, lol.

I hope your week is productive so far, and I hope you chance upon and amazing bit of unexpected good luck!

:D