Posts filed under 'life'
I worked at the service desk of a grocery store on summer in Michigan. Among my duties were to tend to the lottery machine and sell scratch offs. It had never occurred to me just how serious some lottery players were.
For example, I was astonished to see a woman buy a $10 scratch off, lose, and then buy 4 consecutive $10 tickets, just to lose all of them. She lost $50 right in front of me.
Then there are the people who play their numbers every week. For whatever reason, these numbers are very significant and will some day help them to win big.
Well, a woman came in and asked for her numbers to be played for a Daily 4. I punched in the wrong numbers by mistake and printed the ticket. She refused to buy it since I had messed up her ticket. So I printed out another ticket with her numbers and she was happy. However, it was policy that every ticket had to be paid for, so I spent my own $1 to buy the botched ticket.
And won $50!
So much for her numbers.
June 23rd, 2007
life
I spent a summer working for a Six Flags in Northern NY when I was 16. It was what all the 16 year olds did since the park was close-by. However, being 16 came with restrictions. I decided to do Rides, but I couldn’t do any ride that went off the ground unless I was 18.
This left me with the kiddie rides. You know, the ponys, mice, motorcycles. Ironically enough, the kids were great - it was the parents that got annoying.
Anyway, there were plenty of us at kiddie rides so they often had us sub for someone in another ride area if they were short. One day volunteers were asked for the swan boats, and I thought that sounded like a good idea. Granted I had never done this before at all.
The idea behind the ride was this: There is a long, slow, motor boat (5mph) that seats 30 people or so. There is a swan on the back that the operator sits in with a stick to move the boat right and left. The boat goes slowly down this little river that flows through the park, there is a turnaround at the end, then it comes back and the ride is over. It lasts about fifteen minutes and is a favorite of families and older people.
So the girls trained me. I took the boat down with another girl a few times and once by myself. Then they opened the ride and people boarded my boat. I gave them the spiel about not jumping out, then I took off the rope, sat in the swan, switched the motor on with my foot (like i was told to!) and took off.
We went around the turn around and I, amazingly, didnt get stuck (its more shallow) and the first ride was going really well. We come back to the dock and I throw the rope to one of the girls and turn the motor off with my foot.
The motor doesn’t turn off.
“Turn it off!” “It is off!” “Use your foot!” “It’s off!” “Well, I can’t pull you in - you have to go again!”
So, everyone gets a free ride. And the second entire ride was done while the motor was in the “off” position - although still running. The passengers were kinda confused and some of the guys tried to look inside the swan to see if they could help. I just kinda laughed and said “this is my first swan boat run.”
When we came back for the second time, a maintenance guy was on the dock and he was able to pull the boat over while it was still running. Everyone got off the boat and it was fine. The girls were all yelling at me but I just shrugged.
What happened was that even though we were trained to use our feet to switch the motor on and off, that is not the right way and the switch just wore out and broke. Great. And, of course, that was the first time it ever happened on the swan boats.
And they never asked me to do swan boats again.
June 22nd, 2007
life
My twenty year old niece, Ashley, was living in Virginia Beach with her fiance. But they were going through some trouble and she wanted to move closer to her family in NY. He was going to drive her up to NY, but she thought that would be weird. So, jokingly, I told her I would pick her up from Michigan and drive her to NY. We laughed.
Two days later she asked me to pick her up.
The next day I left Lansing, MI and started my journey to Virginia Beach. I took advice and avoided DC by going South through Ohio into West Virginia, then East all the way across Virginia.
West Virginia
To my surprise, West Virginia was absolutely stunning! The mountains were beautiful and the curves and geography and everything was beautiful I really enjoyed driving through it. The only stereotypical thing I ran into, was when I stopped at a gas station to use the bathroom.
Three farmer-type guys in their 50s were loitering around the counter and glared at me when I walked in. I asked if there were bathrooms and was handed a huge key and told “round back”. I found my way to one door with one rarely-used yet somehow filthy toilet and a little sink. I did my business, brought the key back, and made my way back to the highway. Harmless of course, just not quite a quick check!
Virginia
By the time I made it to Virginia, I had been driving for about 13 hours straight, alone. It was also 9pm and storming so hard I couldn’t see the road in front of me. The roads were still curvy and mountainous and of course I had no cell phone reception. I started to panic because the road was getting emptier and just as hard to see. And seeing lightning and fog over a mountain is not fun when you’re tired and by yourself.
So, I manage to get off at an exit and stop in at the first hotel, which is of course full. The woman gives me directions to other ones, but pointed to all these back roads. At this point it was still raining so hard I couldn’t read road signs.
I did what any other girl would do, I sat in my car and cried. I called my niece and asked her to come pick me up. Granted, I was 3 hours away from her. After an hour, the rain had finally died down and I managed to take these back roads to another hotel that did have vacancy. I rested. The next day was clear. And I finished my trip.
Now, it’s just a coincidence that my sister lives in Virginia Beach as well. A sister who I hadn’t seen since I was 9 years old. When I was in Ohio, I left her a message, “Hi! I’ll be in Virginia Beach tomorrow. We should try to get together.” She had no idea about the trip at all and was ecstatic for us to get together! It was great to see her too!
The next day my niece and I head out to finish the journey to NY. Once we crossed the chesapeake bay bridge/tunnel, she took over driving.
NY
Somehow we mistakenly believed that the NJ turnpike would take you right to 87N. Well, it does, but you have to cross the George Washington Bridge first.
At this point in time I am driving. And ended up in the express lane. I peer over 12 lanes of traffic and see the sign “I-87 Keep Right”. In bumper-to-bumper traffic, before I was used to driving in that, I go into panic mode and keep my blinker on as I cross two lanes in the express lane, illegally cross over into the local lane, then cross 5 lanes there. I didn’t breathe at all until we were over the Tapanzee.
From 87 on it was a breeze.
And to sum up the rest of the time: five days later I drove down to NJ to visit some friends, then took one friend and we drove back to MI, stayed there a night, then drove back to NJ where I had planned to move to. Two weeks later, another friend and I flew out to MI, packed up a moving truck and drove back to NJ.
And I haven’t driven more than 3 hours for a road trip since.
All the pics: http://lintacious.com/gallery/v/places/roadtrip
June 21st, 2007
life, travel
Using excel, I came up with an easy and efficient monthly budget:
SimpleBudget.xls - The actual monthly budget sheet
Expenses.xls - A separate worksheet where I keep track of my monthly variable expenses, which are then linked to the simple budget sheet.
March 28th, 2007
life
When I first moved to New Jersey, I told myself that I had to see Conan O’Brien live as soon as possible. Well, after calling. And calling. And calling. I finally found available tickets, which just happened to be for a Thanksgiving show. Not having any other thanksgiving plans, I excitedly talked to an operator and, after holding for 10 minutes, had two tickets (all tickets are free)! The confirmation was emailed to me. Then, it was all a matter of waiting for a month until the show.
doot doot doot.
Finally, it’s thanksgiving! I print out the email thing, drive to new brunswick, take the train to penn, and find my way to the nbc studios. It was said to arrive no later than 12:45 for the 2p taping. We were at the studios at noon. We went up the escalator and showed someone the email; then they gave us each a ticket and a wristband and told us to come back at 12:45p. So, we checked out the building a little bit, I bought some Godiva ((there are two godiva stores in the building!)) then we wandered back to the spot at 12:45p.
There, lots of people were waiting for our numbers/letters to be called. After about five minutes they call our number and we are led to another area where we stand in line while they line everyone up and get all the numbers situated. We waited in this line about twenty minutes, then went through metal detectors and then finally was led into the studio.
It was sooooooooo neat! Neat and also illusion-crushing at the same time. But just seeing how a show like that runs is a great thing to observe. The show was live and filmed in real-time; there were commercial breaks, which the band played during. I think we left the studio around 3:15p.
Conan is the only show I would actually want to see taped live, but the experience alone was great. And since the tickets are free I see little reason for anyone to not go see a taping!
November 24th, 2006
life
A neat Dove commercial.
link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=L_aDpmfAzxI
November 6th, 2006
life
I doubled the amount of ribs, thus doubling the sauce. I mixed honey bbq and normal bbq sauce and kept adding in different amounts of the ingredients until it tasted sweet enough and not so ketchupy. There was a lot of sauce left and I would love to try it on other meats sometime since it was really easy to make. The ribs were definitely tender and still delicious as leftovers. I like this recipe because it is very simple as it does not require marination and most of the sauce ingredients are things that I already had in the fridge.
Recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Sylvias-Ribs/Detail.aspx
November 6th, 2006
food, life
What You Buy:
already made pizza dough in a tube, pepperoni, ricotta cheese, spaghetti sauce, parmesan cheese, mozzerella cheese; basil, black pepper, and garlic powder optional
What You Do:
1. Flour a work surface or flat square baking sheet
2. Lay out dough and stretch it out to make a big rectangle; do not make the dough too thin
3. Length-wise, pour a bit of sauce on one half of the dough
4. Layer with pepperoni, cheeses and seasonings
5. Flip the empty side over the toppings side
6. Pinch close
7. Brush olive oil on top
8. Bake in the oven for 20mins at 400 degrees
Enjoy!
September 14th, 2006
food, life
GetHuman has compiled a database of various company’s customer service methods. If you’ve been frustrated when 0 brought you to a customer representative for Company A but not for Company B., then this site will ease your stressful phone calls. As a site that thrives on user input, you can submit a rating for a company’s customer service.
link: http://gethuman.com/us
August 1st, 2006
life
The rasterbator is a nifty web-based photo modification tool. It takes a picture and rasterizes it ((like a dot matrix)), then allows you to print the modified picture out on several pieces of paper to make a collage type poster. Very easy, personal and cheap wall art.
Like most web apps, it is very easy to use. Simply upload a photo through the easy-to-use application, it will then allow you to resize and crop your photo so you know just how many pieces of paper it will print out then. Click through the prompts and adjust to your liking, then simply print.
Link: http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator
July 27th, 2006
crafty, diy, internet, life
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