Living in Loomis

We have been wanting to sell for quite some time now. Before I begin, I am going to back up a bit and start out from 2001. We were living in an apartment on Winding Way near Auburn Blvd from 1998 thru 2001 and finally it was time to get out of that apartment and into something bigger. We traveled all over the Sacramento area looking for something nice and quiet but not too far away.

Loomis is a sleepy town midway between Rocklin and Auburn off Interstate 80 and on the way to Reno. Not much happens here except the train going by and some occasional noise from the goonies next door. Who are the goonies, you might ask? The younger kids, Joey and Willy are friendly and play with the pumpkin but the family is just not our type. A pickup truck has been sitting in their backyard for about 3 years now, a pile of old used car parts is scattered around the yard and the house looks like it is ready to fall apart any moment.Except for some of Krystal’s occasional parties, the neighborhood is pretty quiet. Jack and Donna are retired and live directly across the street. They’ve been really nice about watching our house while we are away and being the source for all the latest gossip.After living the country life, it is time to move on. The 80 is getting to be a big pain in the ass to commute from here. When we first moved here, it was empty going into downtown Sac but now it backs up in both directions morning and evening, especially around Roseville. What a friggin waste. Caltrans spent all this money to build carpool lanes in both directions and it ends in Roseville where the traffic comes to a standstill in the afternoon. Go figure. And yea, I am tired of living in a sea of Republicans. At the time we purchased this house I wasn’t aware that we were living in the area of California with the highest percentage of Repubs, even higher than Orange County. Now I am not saying I don’t get along with people here. I just don’t talk politics.

Getting Rid of the Olds Cutlass

It was time. The time had come to get rid of El Palomo, alias 1988 Olds Cutlass Cierra. It was about 3 months ago and I had just barely passed the smog test and had to spend mucho dinero just to get it that way. I had pulled into the BofA on Taylor Road and after I got back in the car, it just wouldn’t start. I took it into Speedee oil change to see what the hell was wrong and turns out it needed a new fuel pump. Upon hearing the news, I decided that I had to get rid of it. I knew I couldn’t just sell it cause who would want an 88 Olds Cutlass anyways? I decided to save myself the hassle and just donate it to some charity which I did and it worked out just fine.With El Palomo gone, I needed some wheels to get to work down in Rancho Cordova so wifey and I decided to lease a new car. After a few searches online and in the newspaper, the best deal turned out to be Melody Toyota down in San Mateo. Shit that was far! Now I get the Mitsubishi and wifey gets the new Corolla that gets 34 MPG highway.

Bed Availability Beginnings

Finished 2 of 4 projects. Laura 2nd set of mockup response for Bedavailability.com done. Aging class online done. Finished fixing eldercare online database. Imported facility records - done. Need to finish rest of table imports and run parallel for a while.Now just Eric’s database to do. Should be able to get to it by next weekend. This week looks busy but feeling good about it.

Office X-mas Party

Today was the office x-mas party with gift exchange. I ended up with a personal vibrator. Mo brought food. I bought a tic-tac-toe game that you play with shot glasses. Rich ended up with it but Dino took it away. Haydee had maple syrup and kept asking me if I wanted to trade but I held on. Now that I think of it I should have traded because I really like maple syrup on pancakes, especially on Saturday morning and this was the real stuff, not the fake corn syrup.Work is getting smoother now that I have the company on ADP. Desiree came in after everyone else had left to pick up her check but someone had taken it. That pissed her off so I hung out until the missing check saga was resolved. Mike was sick with a fever and told me to keep away. Trevor and Shannon are in Costa Rica enjoying their vacation.

Rear View Mirror

The rear view mirror dislocated itself from my car’s windshield so it swings around when I drive. At first, it was a nuisance but I realized that now the cars and trucks behind me can’t bother me while I am driving. Now I drive in bliss. If I want to look back, I hold the mirror up with my right hand. Usually, there is nothing to see but headlights behind me.

Trip to Disneyland

Flew down to L.A. a couple of weeks ago and drove down to Disneyland with Eric, Teri, Rebecca, Sarah, baby Matthew and us of course. Stayed at the Crowne Plaza Resort on Harbor Blvd South, right across the street from a Target and approximately 1 mile away from Disneyland. It is a 5 star hotel, pretty expensive but we had the whole thing for $99 for 2 nights and 2 adult passes to Disneyland. The catch was that in order to receive our Disney passes, we were going to have to listen to a 90 minute timeshare presentation.

We arrived at the hotel around 6:30 PM on Friday evening. The traffic was horrible! Ever drive down the 5 from downtown L.A. to Anaheim on a Friday night? It’s not pleasant. We had Rebecca in our car which gave us a lot of time to talk and chat while moving around 5 miles an hour. Anyways, we got to the hotel a little worn out but ate dinner at a Thai restaurant down the street and then came back to rest for next morning. We had room 248 and Eric and Teri had room 247 across the way. Turns out that our room was right on top of one of the ballrooms used for a Christmas party. The music was vibrating and booming loud enough that pooch had me go down to complain. This was around 10:30 PM. I got down there and checked out the party. It was going strong with some Mexican Nortena band playing. The hotel staff was very accommodating. The woman at the front desk immediately assigned us to 813, far up and far away from any noise. That turned out to be a good move cause the view from 813 was better than looking at a Target sign from 247.

Next day bright and early, we all trooped downstairs to the lobby to wait for the timeshare presentation. This was nothing new to me. I knew these type of salespeople never take no for an answer and pile on the pressure to buy something that I have no interest in acquiring. After a breakfast of sour milk and a bagel, I was psyched up and ready for the session. We checked in and were led in by a woman who said we had to put the kids in a childcare during the presentation for obvious reasons. After checking in the pumpkin and Sarah and Rebecca, we asked the woman about Matthew who was only 10 months. This turned out to be our lucky ticket cause the childcare was only licensed to handle age 2 - 9 and that meant someone would have to take care of the little tyke while we were occupied. We all sat down and after reviewing the situation and speaking to her supervisor, the woman gifted all of us and we didn’t have to sit thru the sales pitch at all! This gave us a 1.5 hour headstart so of course we went straight to Disneyland via bus. Disneyland was as crowded as the 5 freeway was the previous day before. There were long lines to get in. Somehow we ended up in the line where all the strollers were going thru which was moving like a snail so we switched to another line that moved a lot faster. Finally inside it was a zoo everywhere. Every ride had long lines. We waited nearly an hour to ride the Peter Pan ride in fantasyland and then everyone was hungry so we walked around looking for a place to eat that wasn’t too packed. We walked into Frontierland and settled on a place that was called something like Southern Belle something or other. Another 45 minute wait to order a plate of BBQ chicken while the girls waited for an open table. After lunch strolled around and sat down in main street for the 3 PM main street parade. That was fun and pumpkin really liked seeing all the characters.By this time, all the kids were sleepy, including the pumpkin, despite me baobaoing her most of the time. It’s either daddy baobao or daddy, I want to be on top of you. We decided to head back to the hotel for a rest and then return to the park in the evening when we expected it would be less crowded. I insisted on walking back since that is the only real way to get to know South Harbor Blvd. Everyone else took the bus back.For some reason I had a ton of energy. I walked at high speed and in a short amount of time had visited a t-shirt place and made it back to the hotel within 1/2 hour. Opened up the room and pooch and pumpkin were both snoring loudly. Decided to do some exercise and went down to the weight room. The weight room had a few old treadmills and a couple of weight machines. I started on the treadmill to get a good sweat and noticed the air was stale as an armpit. Went outside and notified the front desk. The clerk said not to worry. Would call engineering. Engineering? All I need is someone to work the thermostat to get some air circulating. Went back to continue on the treadmill and after around 20 minutes still no one showed up. Again went out to the front desk and complained. Same answer. "Don’t worry, we will call engineering."  Went back in and lifted some weights. Around that time, Rebecca came in and started running on another treadmill. Right after that, a woman that looked like a housekeeper, not an engineer, opened up the door, looked at me, looked at Rebecca, looked at me again, looked up at the ceiling and then closed the door. That was enough for me. I left and changed into a bathing suit and took a dip in the pool and sat in the jacuzzi. That was a lot more pleasant, except for the lady with the tree trunk legs with her boyfriend or husband smoking only 10 feet away. Finally, they left and I was alone in bliss in the hot tub.Went back upstairs and pumpkin and pooch were up and ready to eat. We all decided to eat at Cocos across the street.