My First Taxi Ride

I have never used a taxi in the US before and certainly never by myself. I was pretty terrified just thinking about it because it involved being alone with a stranger, having to tip, and doing it with a strict deadline (of having to get to the airport to catch my flight). My plan for that night was to drive to YouTube and take a taxi to the airport by 4AM to meet my family. This is what happened:

2:30 AM - I start driving to YouTube.

3:10 AM - I arrive and park in the parking garage. My taxi reservation is at 3:45 so I decide to call the taxi service to see if they can bump up my pick-up time. No answer.

3:30 AM - 8 attempts later with multiple numbers (thank goodness for having my laptop with me to look up the info), and still no answer.

3:45 AM - I am sitting at the curb in the dark and the street is absolutely dead.

3:55 AM - The taxi is still a no-show. Luckily, I looked up a different taxi service while I was searching for alternate numbers for the original evil taxi place. I call them, and a mean dispatcher tells me that they Youtube address I gave doesn't exist and yells at me for not knowing where I am. He will not allow me to just give him the intersection -- he needs a freakin address. It is dark and I don't see another building address in view. I start to panic because I'm already late so I look up at the street sign and see Bayhill 1200s ->. (Ya know, the arrow indicating that the buildings in the 1200s are "that way".) So I tell him "1200 Bayhill". He says ok, and I have absolutely no idea if there is actually a place with that address.

4:00 AM - I am wandering the streets with my luggage, hoping I find a building with an address that's at least somewhat close to 1200 Bayhill.

4:05 AM - Horray, it exists! I get there just in time to see a taxi circling the parking lot.

4:15 AM - I arrive at SFO and give the taxi driver a pretty hefty tip because I'm glad to be alive and somewhat on time.

...

I originally planned to give a detailed schedule of the rest of my travel day, but I'm too exhausted, so my taxi experience will have to do. The rest of the day was very annoying, but not quite as pathetic so you're not missing much. Let's just say I finally arrived at my destination at 8:30PM and I'm pooped.

On a positive note, the friendly, trusting Canadians like to leave their wireless networks unlocked, allowing me to post this blog entry. Yay Canada!

The Gift That Keeps Giving

Mother's Day present 2008:

17 Bags of Manure -- purchased, hauled, and carried at 8AM.



Happy Mother's Day!

Follow Directions: Part 2

I know I'm really late with this post, but the time difference between this and the last post is no indication of how long it took me to finish the cabinet. REALLY! In fact, I finished it the day after.

So I woke up the next morning with new-found strength to finish the cabinet. There was nothing I could do about my dowel issues (at that point I had not yet realized the 5/16th problem), but I figured I could just pop out the camlock since I just popped it in to begin with, then hopefully reset it. Obviously it wasn't going to be easy since it was lodged in the tiny hole. My solution? -- use a needle to get in there and pop it out. Needless to say I was left with a broken needle and had to go sulking to work.

I came home with a new idea. I could try separating the 2 pieces by pulling on them while using a screwdriver to try to turn the camlock back to its right position. Miraculously, I was able to do that by myself and it worked! The rest of the assembly went relatively smoothly, but since I STILL didn't realize the 5/16th problem until after I finished and started blogging, I was left with 2 more similar...mishaps. I didn't take pictures of them, but you can look at my first post for a good idea of what it looks like.

So here it is...BEFORE:and AFTER:

It's not perfect, but I think this answers the question on the Wysz's post! HAH!

Follow Directions: Part 1

In my latest attempt to be an independent woman, I decided to check another item off the infamous task list: organize my closet. There's one particular corner that's piled with junk so I went off to find something to put my stuff in. I brought home a box that had the words "Floor Cabinet" and "Assembly Required" on it. I've put together several shelves in my day (I won't comment on their quality) so I figured this couldn't be too different...what's a door and a couple more panels?

I opened the box and took out four pages of confusion aka the instructions. One of the first things I noticed:
...maybe for amateurs.

I proceeded to whip out my tools and began construction. I made my way past the first couple of pages which consisted of checking for the right pieces and attaching all of the appropriate screws and dowels to each piece. The first thing that pissed me off was the glue/dowel application. It said, "Apply some glue and lightly tapping the dowel until 5/16" visible." Never mind the bad grammar...what I read was "Apply some glue and lightly tapping the dowel until 5/16 visible." If you missed the difference, I didn't see that it was suppose to be 5/16th of an inch. Instead, I spent 5 minutes pulling my hair out trying to figure out why someone would use that kind of fraction for this tiny piece of wood -- how am I suppose to know what 5/16th of this thing is?! I started pounding in the dowels, stopping just past halfway, thinking it's not really a big deal if I'm a little off. Well, since I misread it, I was off and it was a big deal. This is what happens when you don't pound the dowels in deep enough and you try to connect it with another piece:

Even after this mishap, I didn't realize I misread the instructions. I thought maybe something freaky happened with this dowel or perhaps I left this particular dowel slightly higher than I should have. I did a quick check on the other dowels -- it looks like 5/16 of it is sticking out to me! I moved on.

Next came the Camlock. I had no idea what that was, and all they provided was a diagram and a couple of arrows as it if meant anything to me. However, I did figure out that I was suppose to stick another screw through it, then turn the Camlock to lock it in place. What I failed to deduce was the fact that the Camlock had to be oriented a certain way to get the other screw through. So, I spent 30 minutes trying to get the screw to go in the hole by pounding my little heart out on the poor piece of wood. Obviously, that didn't work and I was left with something crooked that looked like this:

It was 2 AM. I was tired. So, gave up in despair, quite certain this was $30 and 3 hrs down the drain. End of day 1 and this is what I had:

To be continued...