DanLog the ramblings of Daniel Pettit

This dream started off at a restaurant, it had the feeling of familiarity so it was supposed to be Spag but some other imaginary site was taking its place. It is getting close to opening time, probably around 4:15 on a Saturday. I had just walked outside to the parking lot, to go move my truck and I see that a group of employees is joy riding around the parking lot in it. My truck had also been transformed (by the dream not the employees) into a modular convertable. The roof, and side window panels were removable, kind of like an Chevy Avalanche but more extreme. The employees were hanging out all over the thing as someone drove erratically in the parking lot. I wasn’t too upset, but I didn’t have time for this crap. I was maddest about them taking the panels off, as I really didn’t have time to put them back on but would have to as I knew the valets would never figure out how to do it correctly and I didn’t want my truck to park exposed and unlocked. I yelled at them to stop the truck and get out.

The truck stopped and everyone got out, but there was a problem. As I approached my truck, I think the driver Alan (he was a waiter at Spag in the 1980′s) was exchanging words with our District Manager Kirk. Words led to a scuffle at this point more employees had shown up in the lot to witness this event. Then another employee (played by the actress Jennifer Grey) came running up, some what hysterical, “stop it stop it”, she yelled. Well they did and all eyes were on her as the halter-type dress she was wearing had seperated at the chest due to her running and jumping, exposing her breasts. Since the “boys” had stopped fighting she was calming down and regtistered the cues from her fellow female employee to check her dress.

I start to put my truck back together. I notice some small sticky stain along the rear passenger door above the arm rest, a little pissed I think it might be tree sap, no time to clean it now. I finish the assembly and start driving looking for a good spot. The lot had already started to fill up and my normal spot was taken. I decided to park to the rear of the building (again not a “real” location). There was a good spot very near the back entrance. I hop out and remote lock the doors, as I walk around I notice that both back windows are not rolled up completely. So I unlock and rollup the rear passenger window and then slide over to rollup the rear driver side window. Now I have a better look at that sticky stain, which is getting worse. I can see that something is actually dripping down from the roof. The sticky “lava” flow leads to section of the headliner that has partially dissolved. I can see several nail polish bottles wedged up in there and at least one of the clear coat bottles has been leaking. This is just great I think. Upset but I know that I can get it fixed by the previous owner as it is clear who (their daughter) had hidden the crap up there and who would be liable. (Note: my truck was purchased brand new, in fact I’ve never purchased a used vehicle, so I wander what significance this has?) As I continue back to the restaurant I notice two cool cars parked near mine. One was a Jaguar E type about a 1967 in prime condition, next to that was an imaginary Ferrari, a blend of a TR7 and a Daytona.

Now the scene has changed: Really a new dream.
I’m waking inside a large retail building, kind of feels like a Target Greatlands. I’m proceeding to the very rear of the building where my event is being held. I notice a woman exit one of the bathrooms she is wearing a flirty little dress that momentarily rides up above her rear, not an unpleasant sight I might add. Continuing on, the building morphs into a resort complex. I’m headed to the banquet area as I’m attending a class reunion. I don’t know if its mine or Lauren’s. As I near the dining room I notice a line of Klingons at some info desk. I say to myself “THE KLINGONS ARE HERE!” It made me excited a bit, happy, but I also have this “what a bunch of dorks” reaction too.

I enter the dining room which is fairly full. Dining is not occurring, just drinking and mingling. Some of the people seem familiar. But it really has a Star Trek feeling to it. No one is in costume here, but everyone seems to have some “character”. I also have an air of “character” I’m some “Grand Master”. Some guy comes up to me to greet/challenge me I don’t know which, but I grab his arm and flip him effortlessly over my shoulder. Another tries his luck with similar results. A third man, small in size but built like Bruce Lee, Asian as well. He challeges me, he has more gumption, but I grow tired of these displays, when are these guys going to realize they are no match for the “master”. I proceed to have my way, sort of speak, with him. Flip him, roll him, pile drive him, feign breaking his back over my knee, to teach him a lesson. All my moves were tempered at the last second to avoid crippleing injuries. Finally he graciously accepts defeat. Now I can look for my wife, I spot a friend of mine and ask him, he says “she is at the pool”. The dining room runs along an exterior pool with windows running the entire wall. I spot her laying on a concrete “beach” with a friend of hers. I proceed to go outside.

woke up

Well today really was the day. I had to go to work, so Lauren was the Foreperson.

More pictures in the gallery.

Today was supposed to be the day, but the concrete guys bigger and better job runith over – so they can’t play today. Tommorrow will be the day.

Everything is ready for that luscious grey goop.

I guess I should pay more attention to those warning dialog boxes from my Norton Anti-virus. If I’d paid more attention I would have noticed that it was telling me I was infected and it couldn’t do anything about it. Turns out to be a Trojan horse. I think I successfully removed it, but you never know. I checked Lauren’s machine as well with a full scan and it showed she had a variant of the Netsky worm. I ran the removal program but it didn’t find anything. So I’m rerunning the full scan. One other note: I checked my Virus Quarantine folder and it contains over 1000 infected files – that’s a whole lotta pain that didn’t happen.

Well this week I’m redoing the upstairs dining room. After I “paint” the managers into the office, I’m kind enough to build them a bridge. It’s not every day that you have to walk the plank.

Well the Nortriptyline continues to work its wonders. Lauren and I first delivered some cabinet doors I made to Anaheim and then prceeded to stop at furniture stores on our way home. 8 stops with me driving and she only had a minor headache which went away shortly. Not bad at all.
1. Door Delivery
2. Some Discount Furniture shop on Euclid – Anaheim
3. Mega Daniels Home Center – Anaheim, They had a mini-circus in the parking lot – dancing poodles. They had alot of nice looking affordable furniture.

4. Designer Furniture Outlet on Edinger – Santa Ana
5. Steven-Thomas Antiques – Santa Ana Fantastic unique antiques, too bad we don’t have 14 foot ceilings.
6. Arte International Furnishings- Irvine This place is the bomb for unusual furniture and especially if you’re looking for just the right new front door for your castle.
7. French Antiques – Irvine – Nice selection of beautiful, delicate furniture.
8. Got gasoline. Here is my Furniture CoPilot

Well apparently Rebecca didn’t let that inflatable mattress go to waste:

Well I got a PM from Rebecca saying that she was going to be leaving the area the next day. Lauren was dissappointed she didn’t get to meet with her, so I invited her for a visit if she pleased. We meet for dinner at Coco’s and had an enjoyable evening hearing about the formative years in the creation of what would become the Queen of the Street Mattresses.

Here is what Rebecca looks like.

Today is the day for the plumber. I finally got to see the damage I did. Not too bad just a small squirter.

Here is the new water pipe.
It was ONLY $340 bucks. The plumber had it fixed in probably an hour, but it takes forever to shut off and drain the system here, most of his time was spent waiting for the pressure to go down.

The plumber installed a new ball valve on the new section so I decided to build an access box around it in case it ever is necessary to work on my main shut-off valve. He had to install the valve, so we didn’t have to drain the entire complex’s pipes into my yard.

Well my bigger hole doesn’t seem to want to get any fuller than 3/4. I vacuumed out about twenty gallons today. Everything seems to be holding together for the big day tommorrow.

I also got a call from a concrete guy. He is supposed to come out Tommorrow and take a look.

Well Rebecca surprised me at work today. I was cleaning the center ice machine and this woman walked up ( I’d seen her walk in early and head for the office I figured she had an interview) she was just looking at me, so I asked if I could help her. She continued to just look at me for what seemed like forever and then said “Yes, If you are Dan”. I replied Rebecca??? So the reigning Masters of Mattresses finally meet in the flesh. The only reason I thought it was her was because I knew she was in the area on a business trip, otherwise I would have been clueless about this unknown woman. We had a nice, albeit somewhat ackward chat (considering the circumstances and our natural personalities).

She confessed that she had a prank in mind but decided against it. She had bought a cheap air mattress at K-mart and was going to prop it against my truck and take a photo. However she felt a bit exposed in the restaurants parking lot with the big window in front of my truck. Of course after deciding to just come in and meet me and seeing the layout of the restaurant, she realized that no one would have seen her prank in progress. I’m glad she decided on the pop-in, but the photo would have been a funny surprise.

Well all the water has drained into the hole I dug, in the afternoon I dusted off the old shop vac and sucked out the water. The hole partially refilled itself fairly quickly.

6:30am Eureka, I struck water! Well actually I’d struck moist.
The ground surrounding my stake was damp. So after 12 hours I still had no actual water, so I figured I wouldn’t have to worry about the garage floating away anytime soon, which is a good thing consider the hair pulling day I was about to have.

The timing of my blunder couldn’t really have been worse. I had to go to Spag in the morning to do the floors,

this is something that required scheduleling a helper and closing off a section of the restaurant for the week. This will go on for the next 4 weeks and can’t be postponed due to our busy summer season fastly approaching.

So at 8am I called the association’s property management company to see how I go about getting the water shut off. An actual human answered the phone. He said that my manager should be in any minute now and that he would deliver my message as soon as she walked in. Well I get a call at 8:35 from some managers assistant, she said my property manager was off site doing a walk through. I explained my situation to her, but she didn’t know any of the proceedures for my complex so she would find out for me. I was about to run off to Spag so I told her I would call in a couple hours. I had 30 min of down time while the floor dried so I called her but got her voice mail (VM) so I left my message and my number at Spag and went back to my floor. An hour later I was done with the floor and no phone call. I called her again and got her VM, I hung up and called the two other contacts, I got both of their VMs. I then called the main line and asked to speak to an actual human being. He said that the assistant manager was in the office and would transfer me. This was one of the people I had just tried. I got his VM of course, so I took a chance that he really was “helping someone on another line” and left a message. I finished cleaning up and still hadn’t heard from anyone, it was now 12:45 so I went home.

Now I actually have a small puddle.

About 1:30 I called all those numbers again and of course got 3 different VMs, so I called the main line again and again asked for a real person. Now the guy says the main property manager was in the office (the only one that was) so he transferred me, and of course I get her VM, this time I left her a message as now suppossedly she was now in the office. Another hour goes by and I’m ready to pull my hair out, well actually someone else’s hair. Just for kicks I called the 3 direct lines and shit howdy the assistant actually answered his phone. Of course he had no idea of me or my problem let alone any VM I’d left him, I gave him the story and he gave me the plumbers number and said I could arrange all the details myself and I didn’t need any permission to shut off the water. Wow six and half hours to get a phone number out of these people.

I called the plumber and they can’t get out until Wednesday, 2 days from now. I can’t do Wednesday, I cross my fingers and schedule it for Thursday at 9am.

Now being the considerate neighbor that I am (not to mention the whole thing is my fault) I printed and fold 330+ flyers telling of the upcoming water shut off. I then delivered them to each residents’ mail box. Now I’m not sure how many of you folks know this but it is illegal for anyone to put anything in a mailbox other than the mailman. I knew this but wanted to maximize the odds that everyone would read the notice. I was breaking the “letter” of the law but not the “spirit” of the law, as I was not soliciting anything. Well I got scolded by two older women. The first said something like ” You know its illegal to put something into someones mailbox” I replied that I did know this but that it wasn’t a solicitation but a notice. She then turned her attention to the flyer and started to moan about the water being shut off (that’s another story) She asked is this for you guys? I said yes and that I was sorry, but there was nothing I could do about it as the break was before my shut off valve. The second woman said about the same thing, however my “excuse” carried no weight with “Judge Judy” — Well it’s still ILLEGAL! I said I’m sorry and continued violating her neighbors boxes, eew that didn’t sound right. Finished the task in just under 3 hours.

When I got home I decided to dig a hole for the water to collect into being I have until Thursday.

5:45pm Now time to go to Chipotle and get dinner!

Lauren and I munch and watch Mission Impossible the movie, and some more Farscape Season 2.

It’s driving me crazy staring at the dirt patio while I wait for the concrete contractors to submit their bids. I decided today to install the one form needed for the concrete. I was worried that they would damage the water line that runs under ground in that area. I cut down the 2×10 and start to pound in the 24″ metal stakes I got. The first one went in way too easy. This area has been dug out before for the footings and isn’t very compacted, which means the stake isn’t really firm. The second one is going in a bit firmer got about 6″ to go and I hit something hard. I figure it’s a rock, so I pound away. Man it is not moving. Paranoia sets in, I start to think that I’m hitting the sewer line, but it really shouldn’t be that shallow. I KNOW ITS NOT THE WATER BECAUSE I KNOW THE DIRECTION IT SHOULD BE HEADED IN from the nearby valve I had earlier exposed. A couple more swacks with the mallet. Nothing, but I’m really starting to feel uneasy about pounding any harder. I put in another stake toward the end and this one goes in too easy to do any good. I now notice that I can hear a kind of high pitched whistle it seems to be coming from my stake that wouldn’t go down. I put my ear against it and yes it is the source of the noise. So I say to myself, “Congratulations dumb ass you just pounded a steel spike into your water main”, and to make things worse it is before the main shut off valve. So to repair it the water has to be turned off to the entire community of 330 odd homes.

I keep waiting for the water to come bubbling, spurting, gushing up, but nothing but that damn whistle. In fact hours go by and I don’t see any water. Despite wanting dearly to dig up the area and survey my screwup I leave it alone. I figured that like a stab wound, its better to leave the knife in until ready to repair it.

Well before heading off to Moms house for lunch, I had to find a box to package the chairs in. I’m going to sent them to Aspen, Colorado via a Greyhound bus. While I was driving around behind industrial buildings I came across a view from the bluffs in the Industrial area of Costa Mesa.