Well, at least the car's legal now...

Not a really useful or a really happy day, but that's the way it goes.  I got a call from Tim, one of the HR people at MHMR, asking if I had the extra power cord for the laptop.  I told him that I did, and I planned to bring it in either this afternoon or tomorrow morning.  He said that was fine, but I thought, "What the hell?" and just brought it by half an hour or so later.  I didn't have anyone really say anything to me while I was there, which is kind of a good thing, I think.  No awkward conversations or anything like that.  I brought it to Tim's office, and he was interviewing someone, maybe for my old job, I don't know.  I just got his attention, put the adapter on a shelf in his office, and headed back out into the world.  I think I only saw about five people at all while I was there, and none of them were people from upstairs or anyone else I'd worked with much.

I had taken the recycling when I left the house, so after the depressing last drive back from MHMR, I stopped at the recycling center and emptied the recycling crap.  And then it was back home.  The girlfriend was home for lunch when I got back, and I think the fact that I wasn't there when she got home probably made for a less awkward lunch than it might have been otherwise.  I think she'd like it if I got out there every day first thing in the morning and came home after dark to try to find a job.  Which is probably exactly what I should be doing, but I'm really just not all that sure how things are going to go with the vacation coming up.  And I really don't want to cancel the vacation.  She needs it, I think it'll do me some good, and we've already spent something like $700 that we're not going to be able to get back.  So we might as well suck it up and just deal with it for a while.  I think the tax return will let us do fine at least until the end of April, and selling a bunch of my other stuff should probably get us up close to the end of May, I think.  At least I hope so...

After she left for lunch, I started watching a little bit of baseball and doing a little organizing of files on my laptop.  I guess I'd been at it for about half an hour or so when the girlfriend called and told me that the inspection machine was fixed at her work.  It was around four then, but I procrastinated until about a quarter to five before I headed down the road.  I probably should have gone earlier, to miss the traffic, but it wasn't really all that terribly bad.

I got there and got the car turned over to the service department, then wandered over to the office to talk to the girlfriend.  She's concerned about the cost of the trip, but I reassured her that we should be all right at least through April, and if need be, I'm going to see what needs to happen for me to get my retirement fund from my old work transferred to my checking account instead of rolling it into an IRA or something.  I know I'll have to pay penalties and such, but if I can actually collect something like $10,000 after putting aside enough for taxes and penalties, that would pretty much cover my half of bills and such through about the end of the year.  And, quite frankly, if I can't find a job by the end of the year, there's just going to be a whole hell of a lot more wrong than I can really fix.  So she might as well move back home with her mom and stepdad, and I can just go shoot myself or live under a bridge or something.

I finally got the car back at around six, and it was nice and legal and even washed, which is kind of a nice touch.  Especially since I haven't washed the thing in the two months that I've owned it.  I stopped back by the office and talked with the girlfriend and one of her co-workers for a little bit, and then headed back here.

I had leftovers for dinner, which is something I need to make sure I get used to.  I think I'll be eating a lot of cheap leftovers for the next few months, until we get back on our feet a bit.  That's if we get back on our feet, of course, but I think we might be able to.  And hey, we might even get another one of those stimulus checks I've been hearing about with the new government bailout package.

I finished working on the Colosseum page, I think.  I may go back and add some other stuff, fill in some of the more vague sections and such, but I think it's good enough for right now.  And since that's still just about the only page getting regular hits, I guess that's the one I should be worried the most about.  Currently, I'm watching the Stars getting their asses handed to them again.  I guess I should probably go find myself something useful to do...