I was looking through my phone at some pictures that I have taken in the past. I found a good one of my cat doing what he does best, laying down and sleeping, lol. He always manages to sleep in some real awkward positions. I have no idea how it can be comfortable. He’s normally much worse than in this picture.

Check it out! Nothing like drinking a green colored beer to celebrate St. Patrick’s day. Yum!

Wouldn’t you know it. It’s Friday the 13th and bad luck has already started today. For the third time, my driver door decided it would no longer unlock. Tried the button on the key fob, nothing. Tried using the actual key, nothing. Crawled in from the passenger side and tried to move the manual lock lever on the door, nothing. This thing was stuck!

First time it happened, I chalked it up to the cold. It was freezing outside and after driving for a few minutes and the car got warm inside and started working. The second time was two nights ago. I was late in the night and cold outside. Similar conditions. Although, being I’m from Chicago, the cold is nothing new. We’ve had plenty of cold days here over this winter, some of them far colder than two nights ago. This morning, happened again. At the time it was 6:30am and I was trying too leave for work.

So I’m sitting at work fuming, waiting for the dealership to open their phone lines so I could call them up. At 9am I checked the car, door still would not unlock. I call up the dealership and they want me to bring it in on Monday. Great. What am I supposed to do all weekend? Shuffle in from the passenger side?

I begin bitching over the phone about not being able to get in my car all weekend and that it’s less than a year old. He suddenly changes his tune and says for me to bring it in as soon as I can and he might be able to squeeze me in today. Only, it still wouldn’t guarantee that it would get fixed, especially if they need to order parts. Also, he made sure to mention that my type of problem doesn’t warrant getting a rental for the weekend. WTF! What am I supposed to do?

I go and talk to my boss to let me leave for a little so I can go over to the deater and bitch them out in person. He agreed and as I go outside, I walk toward the passenger side, preparing to climb in.  I hit the unlocker and I see the lock move on the driver side.  Walked around, and sure enough, now it opens.  I tell myself, “what’s the point?”. I know if I go over there and it’s working, they are just going to send me on my way.  I decide to talk to my boss and told him next time it happens in the morning, I’m going to go straight there and throw a fit for a rental or loaner car.  Maybe they’ll be more sympathetic when I get out of my less then 1 year old G8, Pontiac’s flagship car, via the passenger door.

Ah, feel much better now letting it out.  Sometimes I wonder why the American car manufacturers are having such a hard time selling cars and are in deep trouble with today’s economic slowdown. These dealships seems to be employed by a bunch of uncaring individuals.

Thought I would take a shot of my desk here at work.  Looks pretty messy from the picture, but that’s what happens when you’re busy trying to get work done .

Today they finally completed the project they started this week for giving us techs more light by adding some florescent lighting directly above every bench.  Otherwise it was extremely dark in here and hard to see when trying to soldering tiny electronic parts. We all had some other type of temporary desk lighting of some kind to cope with the darkness of this building they put us in. We been in this building since october last year, and it’s half as bright as the old building. I’d have to say, it’s a big difference.

So last year I went on a Caribbean cruise with friends and family.  One of our pit stops included the country of Belize. Here are two of my favorite photos that I took from there that I thought I would share.

This first one below is a shot as we were leaving Belize City and heading back to the cruise ship.  The water there is beautiful and also very shallow for a long distance.  The cruise ship has to dock in the water and we took smaller transport boats to get us to and back from Belize.

This next shot was while we were on our way to do some cave tubing (which was a lot of fun).  I snapped this shot while walking toward the area where the this cave tubing camp area was.  It was located in the middle of the jungle.  The scenary was fantastic while we were walking and while in the tubes underground.  I wish I had brought a waterproof camera with me.

Having a craving for stir fry, last night I went with friends to an all you can eat stir fry place called Flat Top Grill.  This place is a little different than your typical restaurant.  It’s a build your own dinner type of place.  Very unique and delicious food.  I mean, how could it not be? You get to decide what gets into your dish.  It’s your choice on the type of rice or noodles, vegetables, sauce and meat.  You can design your bowl of food however you choose.

This place looks like they got their act together as it was fully packed with people waiting at the door so they can sit.  Been a long time since I have been to a restaurant that has this kind of business that is not some upscale place with reservation only seating.  It took us 30 minutes to sit down and we had reservations.  Not sure whether they overbooked the place, or had unexpected customers staying too long.  The prices are reasonable, $12.99 for 1 bowl or $14.99 for unlimited.  You can’t go wrong with that!

For my first bowl I did a mix of white rice and yellow noodles. For the veggies I added some broccoli, carrots, pea pods, and a little onions. I stuck with just beef for the meat and a combination of sauces for flavor.  1 scoop of Asian Sesame Ginger, 2 scoops of Teriyaki, and 1 scoop Red Hot Chili Sauce (hot). This was a fantastic combo of sauce for myself.  A little mix of sweet with some hot to spice it up. This combo I will definitely try again.

For my second bowl, I stuck with just white rice, same vegetables and meat, and added some chicken into the mix.  I did another scoop of the Asian Sesame Ginger, a scoop of Peanut and a scoop of Teriyaki.  Not hot sauce this time.  It ended up far too sweet for my tastes, even though I did manage to eat most of it before I was full and stop stuffing myself.

If you planning on making a trip to try out the food, don’t forget to add the blue stick to get the optional pita bread they have. It’s delicious! Heck throw in 2 sticks so you can get to pieces of it . They have several different kinds of color sticks that can modify your order.

Overall, I have been there 3 times and have enjoyed it every time.  Two big thumbs up from me. For more information on locations and menu items, visit their website, www.flattopgrill.com

So this the second time this has happened to me. The right lower palm area, My MacBook started developing a stupid crack. At the top of the screen, there are stop pads that are about 1 inch long and real thin. Right where those rest on the computer is where the crack is. Only on the right side too which makes no sense. You would think that it would happen to both sides!

Last time I took it in it was fixed under warranty. I remember at the time they told me this was a problem Apple was aware of and that it was common across the entire white plastic based MacBook line of laptops. They had said to me that they were even fixing, for free, laptops that were out of warranty as well.

This time around, the computer is out of warranty so I am hoping for the best. I hope their policy on repairing out of warranty latops hasn’t changed since the last time I brought it in. I have an appointment at the local Apple store to bring in about an hour from the time of this post. I will update this post later in the day with the outcome at the store.

Maybe it’s time to dump this plastic computer and finally upgrade to the MacBook pro I always wanted. Those are all aluminum and will never suffor from this problem. At the time I purchased this computer, I didn’t have the money to pick one up at the time even though I really wanted the larger screen and dedicated graphics that it has.

UPDATE: Went to the Apple store today. It is a known manufacturing defect according to Apple and they will fix all the MacBooks automatically even if the one year warranty has expired or apple care, if you bought it, has expired. While the genuis bar tecg was looking over the computer, he spotted two cracks on the screen bezel. That will get replaced for no charge as well. Parts are on order and I’m waiting for the call to bring it in for service and have those parts swapped. Very cool.