And the car’s transmission died. Again. We were on our way to Kingman to attend N and J’s wedding. About twenty miles before the ramp to I-40, there was a loud grinding, a very metallic *thump*, and lo and behold, we now had a direct-drive system to push the car.

(Casting note: TMBWitW’s Cousin will be referred to as J.P., until permission is received to use his name. His Wife will be referred to as S.P., the daughter as N, the groom as J. Cute couple, actually. Their love for each other and devotion to one another was so obvious I needed to check for diabetes anytime they were near. Love you guys!)

It wouldn’t be so aggravating except that we have had about a year’s worth of trouble with the transmission, starting last September with Lee Myles. They were unable to satisfactorily rebuild the transmission over an eight-month period, in spite of several tries. At one point, they insisted that the problem was due to overheating, and I was dinged for a new integrated radiator. That would have been plausible, except that within a week of the new radiator it broke again.

That was the last time Lee Myles was allowed near my transmission.

We paid for another rebuild (I know, it was still under warranty from Lee Myles – but really, if they can’t fix it, do you keep taking it back?) at another shop. All was well, until this trip.

Sometimes, it doesn’t pay to get up in the morning.

We nursed the car to J.P.’s house. It is sitting there right now, as I wait for U-Haul to open. I need to get a hitch put on our QX4, and rent a transporter to take J.P.’s car back to them, and retrieve the J30. Can you believe that? S and J let us use their car to drive back to Phoenix last night, so our Furkids wouldn’t have to spend the night alone.

That’s terrific, isn’t it? Thank, guys. You are wonderful.

Well, I’m off to U-Haul to get a hitch put on. I’ll update you later…

Mea Culpa.

Talk about an embarrassment.

I’m a pretty computer-savvy guy, you know? I’ve been around computers since the floppies were bigger than the dinner plates – as a user. I was a cat herder – er, network administrator for a while in the ’90s, but I never got into the uber-user, HTML spouting, raw-coding side of things.

Well, look at me now! I’m a certified moron! I managed to goof, something semi-serious.

Over there in the left column, under the counter, is a colorful little icon-thingy that looks like one of the Arizona automobile license plates. It identifies this site as a member of the Arizona Bloggers webring – or it would, if it was active. In a typical (for me) learning experience, I was being my efficient self – so I thought. When I signed up to join the AZ Bloggers, I got an e-mail from the webmaster telling me exactly what to do. Actually, I signed up both of my blogs – my normal voice blog (Yes, Cartter With Two Ts) and this Snarky voice blog that you are currently reading and wishing you hadn’t stumbled into on such a nice day.

At any rate, I received two emails from Mr. Webmaster – one for each blog. So – I clicked through on the first one (for the other blog, which in hindsight is painfully obvious), grabbed the little piece of code that puts that colorful little icon-thingy on the web page, and pasted into the code for the template for the other blog.

This is where my efficiency and knowledge of computers collide in a rather humbling display of hubris.

I opened another window into the Internet. I started another blog edit session. I logged into this blog. I copied THE SAME PIECE OF CODE into this template.

Mr. Webmaster was not amused. Well, maybe he was, but in his gruff, webmasterly tone he promptly discontinued the link to this site.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the great Cary has broken the ring! This blog was listed for less than twelve hours, and I managed to bring down the wrath of the ring leader. Apparently, the code is unique (due to an identifier) to each web site!

<smack forehead with hand>

Who knew? Well, obviously, a lot of people KNEW – I just wasn’t invited to the information pool party.

Remember a few entries back where I snarked at the anonymous commenter? Guess what, anonymous? I’m not perfect! I just learned something. Hey, guess what else? I’m going to practice what I preach and LEARN form this mistake, thereby eliminating (to a great degree) the chance of REPEATING this mistake. Hopefully, by the time you have gotten this far, the Webmaster has grudgingly allowed me back into the inner circle, with a minimum of grumbling and threats.

And that, dear lurkers, is what it’s all about.

Learn, do, make mistakes, learn from mistakes, don’t repeat the mistakes, learn even more.

My Grandfather once told me, “Making a mistake is normal. Making the same mistake over and over again is just plain asinine.” How true, and how guiding. I miss you, gramps.

Mistake.

Big mistake.

Real big mistake.

I ate at Garcia’s today, at the invitation of JS, a salesman here at The Big Cabinet Shop, in thanks for helping him get up to speed on the software we use here.

I’m not saying the food was bad, au contraire. It was good. Very good. Too good. I ate so much that here it is three hours later and I still feel like I just pushed away from the table.

Bloated, distended, uncomfortably full. OK, mostly my fault for ordering a large item when I normally eat a small lunch, but c’mon – this is the original Garcia’s on 35th Ave. south of Thomas, not one of the franchised locations. How can you NOT overeat there?

I highly recommend their food, especially the freshly made salsa and guacamole. Order anything, slap the guac on it, and go to town.
Just don’t have to go back to work afterwards, because that’s a criminal act.

Mistake.

Big mistake.

Real big mistake.

I ate at Garcia’s today, at the invitation of JS, a salesman here at The Big Cabinet Shop, in thanks for helping him get up to speed on the software we use here.

I’m not saying the food was bad, au contraire. It was good. Very good. Too good. I ate so much that here it is three hours later and I still feel like I just pushed away from the table.

Bloated, distended, uncomfortably full. OK, mostly my fault for ordering a large item when I normally eat a small lunch, but c’mon – this is the original Garcia’s on 35th Ave. south of Thomas, not one of the franchised locations. How can you NOT overeat there?

I highly recommend their food, especially the freshly made salsa and guacamole. Order anything, slap the guac on it, and go to town.
Just don’t have to go back to work afterwards, because that’s a criminal act.

I work in a Big Cabinet Shop, in the layout and design area. In other words, I create the paperwork that the shop floor uses in order to build the cabinets. Most of the cabinets are self-explanatory, since we base our cabinetry on a 3” increment – the cabinets are a width that is evenly divisible by 3.

Once in a while, there is a cabinet designed that needs extra attention – it cannot be built just by looking at the elevation print that is supplied in the paperwork. This is either a special or custom print, depending on complexity and composition. Any cabinet that does not face the viewer squarely needs a special print, because the software we use measures the width of the cabinet from a fixed point – if the cabinet is angled, it measures how wide the face is from left to right, and if the cabinet is actually wider but is set at an angle, the apparent width is less than the actual. For example, a cabinet that is 17” wide, but sitting at a 45° angle to the other cabinets on the wall, will appear to the software to be 13 15/16” wide, and will be labeled as such. The cabinet list at the bottom of the page has the correct width listed, however.

In order to facilitate the correct building of the cabinets, if a situation arises where a special or custom print is needed, a note is written on the elevation view to that effect: “SPECIAL PRINT C# 2, 3, 5” indicating that cabinets 2, 3, and 5 are different from the norm. A special print is then generated – a separate piece of paper, with the correct dimensions and a cut list for all the parts involved. If it’s really complicated, a set of orthographic drawings will be included on the print.

The quality inspector just came up to my desk and asked me if this cabinet (#5, in this case and the basis for the example above) is really 13 15/16” wide or 17” wide. I confirmed that it needed to be 17” wide. He confirmed that they had built it according to the elevation, not the special print.

I wonder what they do with the special prints that are included in the job papers? It doesn’t seem that they use them in order to build the cabinets….

Bunchamorons.