Driving Ms. Daisy.

So, today I did what every other 25 year old person has been doing for oh, almost 10 years.

I, Kate, ACTUALLY drove a car.  On a road with traffic. 

Yes, the car was on and in operating mode. 

My mom got to the point where she’s sick of driving me around, so she threw me in the car and told me I couldn’t drive in a parking lot.  I had only a wee, itty bitty, panic attack at this news. 

It wasn’t that bad.  I don’t know what my hang up over driving was/is.  For the record, due to a weird eye condition, I wasn’t allowed to drive by my eye doctor.  When it looks like you have a dirt spill in your eyes, it makes for some pretty unsafe driving conditions.  But now that’s all cleared up, I am cleared for take off.

I want a sticker that says, “Student Driver: Quit Riding My Ass.”

So, hopefully, by Christmas I’ll have my license and use of a car, so I can drive myself to work and other fun places, like DC.  Even though there is NOWHERE to park in that damn city.

Getting job offers from robots. ROBOTS.

The other day, I received an email from one “Rosalind Strugnell” asking me to apply for a firm called “Elite Star Marketing.”  They “found my resume on craigslist and were inviting me to apply.”  I think I’d enjoy a marketing career, so I went and started applying…

…after I did a Google search.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zip.  Zero.  The ONLY thing I found out about Elite Star Marketing was that the domain http://www.elitestarmarketing.com was registered on November 1, 2009.  It was mentioned in a blurb in domain-daily.com, which lists what domains were recently registered.  I was able to find that listing yesterday (Saturday, Nov. 14), but I can’t find it today (ETA: found it in my history: http://domain-daily.com/new/2009-11-12/61.html). 

Just because it’s a new website doesn’t mean anything it’s a bad thing.  The website looks pretty legit.  As I was filling it out, it told me I would need to bring a copy of my credit report to the interview.  I’ve had a couple of friends do this, and they were hired by actual exisiting businesses, so that didn’t set off my bullshit radar.  They provided a link to a “free credit reporting service.”  Before we go any further, I know those are all fake.  I did click it, to see where it would take me.  It took me to I think freecreditreports247.com.  I didn’t fill anything out because I’m terrified those are identity theft mills.  I didn’t fill out the application all the way, though, something didn’t seem right.

I ran two whois reports on this “Elite Star Marketing.”  A whois search lists the name of the person who registered the domain name, the hosting company, the physical address of the registarants, etc.  I ran two searches, and I got two addresses, one in New York City, the other in the Bahamas.  Here they are:

22 W. 45th St.
Suite 212
New York, NY

N4892 Nassau
Bahamas
Tel: +852.81720004

I Googled both of the addresses.  Apparently, the NY address shares a building with many talent agencies.  The Bahamas address brought up a bunch of links concerning virus infections stemming from one of the THOUSANDS of urls this “company” owns.  I’ve just done a virus check, and nothing has come up, so I’m hoping I missed whatever virus they may be spreading. 

I’m sending a letter to someone in the Bahamian (I’m guessing that’s the correct term for a citizen of the Bahamas?  Lord I need an AP Stylebook) to see who I  might be able to contact in the Bahamas to get more information on this matter, because A) I’m bored and B) I’m really into figuring this out.

Rethinking the college degree.

Back in March of this year, and October 27, 2007, I wrote about my thoughts on being a college dropout.  Both in the 2007 and 2009 enteries, I examined the question, “do you regret dropping out of college?”  Both those times I responded with a “not really.” 

I’m going to ask myself this question, and answer it again, as of today, November 11, 2009:

I’m glad I did.

I’m watching many of my friends and other folks I know with college degrees trying desperatly to get my job at Lowe’s.  They can’t find anything.  And I feel bad for them.  While they were finishing up their degrees with expectations of finding decent jobs, I was developing ulcers at Amazon, or sneaking into the bathrooms at Little General to text friends.  I now actually have legit work experience, which kinda seems funny to me.

Anywho, they’re saying this 10% unemployment levels are going to be sticking around for awhile.  The more I think about it, the less I see the need for degrees.  We tell people that college is the ONLY way to make our lives better.  Can someone please explain to me how being $40k in student loans and a minimum wage job has IMPROVED my fucking life?  I’m not seeing it.  I was the editor of my college’s newspaper, a sorority president, had good grades, and guess what?  The only thing people seem think I’m good for is running a cash register.  All that hard work…for nothing.  And, yes, I’m VERY bitter about it. 

I do understand as a dropout (and economy aside), my job options are fewer.  However, one of my dearest friends has a degree, and a year of grad school.  She’s appling for cleaning jobs.  She’s bitter too. 

Obviously, I’ve been thinking about my future an awful lot, lately.  I’ve got some plans (even though I’ve changed them no fewer than 20 times) up my sleeve, and with a little research and a helluva lot of work, I think I can really improve what my future holds. 

No college degree needed.

In Memorium and Naked Chefs

Back in….2005? 2006? I bought my first MP3 player on a whim while out one of my and and my DZ chapter sister Jenny’s shopping sprees on Southridge.  Jenny had an iPod and loved it, and I thought I’d like one too.  At a weak moment in Target, I came home with Derek.  Derek was the name of a small, business card-size mp3 player, made by Memorex.  It was I think a 2 gig, and only carried about 200 songs on it.  I would have gotten an iPod at the time, but it was $50 more than Derek, and I wasn’t–and still not–fond of iTunes. 

Derek lasted me through Tech, DC trips, Cincinatti trips, various Amtrak trips home, and was a constant friend while riding the KRT while in East Bank.  Sadly, Derek died soon after I moved home in August.  I’ve been pretty distraught without him to block out all the slightly strange people who like to mutter under their breaths at me while riding the TTA. 

I’m very impressed with Derek.  He was originally $100 (you can now get a similar model for like $30ish), and lasted me 3-4 years.  I’ve been eyeing several players (including an iPod, despite my iTunes hate) for about two months, but as a late birthday present from my parents, I got Satine.

Satine is a 4 gig (4gig? what’s the grammar on that?) Sony Walkman.  She’s red and very shiny.  She’s currently holding around 500 songs with a gig left to go, so I’m happy.  It supposedly plays video, but seriously, her screen is so damn tiny I’d permananetly damage my eyesight trying to watch something.  My biggest beef with mp3 players is that they all come with earsbuds, none of which fit my ears and are rather painful.  I had to shell out a criminal $20 at Wal-Mart to replace them.

Next item on the agenda: Jamie Oliver, Naked Chef.  While I do enjoy food and nudity (just not together…), I really don’t want him in Huntington.  If you haven’t heard, Huntington about a year ago was proclaimed the “fattest city in America.”  It no longer has that title, but Mr. Nakey Nakey apparently doesn’t care about that anymore.  He has since opened a kitchen on 4th Ave., right across from Pullman Square, and has been filming and holding cooking classes.  I really do appreciate his concern for the well-being of Huntington, but I don’t think he really understands the socioeconomics behind the obesity in Appalachia.  Mostly, when people buy a majority of their of foodstamps, they’re going to buy what they can in larger quanities and that’s going to last the month, not buy a handful of items that are going to go bad in about a week.  Since his studio is located near Pullman, where I like to hang out, if I see cameras pointed in my general direction I flip them off.

 

I might as well be productive…

This morning around 7:30ish, I got a phone call from work.  “They probably want me to come in early, ain’t happening, I’ll call them back later, ZZZZZZ…” and promptly rolled over and back to sleep.  Then, around 9 AM when I actually woke up and checked my voicemail, and my jaw drop.

“Hi Kate, this is [name withheld] from Lowe’s.  Ummm…I was just calling to let you know we are cutting back hours, and we’re asking you to take Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off.  If you work Saturday, I’ll see you then.  Bye.”

Wow…just, wow.  So, there pretty much goes my paycheck. 

To be honest, I was going to have to work seven days in a row, which I’m not fond of at all, but have done in the past.  As I look at it, I can get hours or not.  I do have quite a bit to do around the house, so I guess this is my excuse to get it done.

I’m still hardly unpacked from when I moved back home.  My dad got my shelves up over the weekend, I’ll probably spend today sorting and putting up books (nerd alert: I use the Dewy Decimal System to sort my books).  Maybe do some other organizational stuff.  Who knows.  I have a bookshelf I have to out somewhere.  I was thinking of turning it into a shoe rack…

Protected: So here’s what I was bitching about…

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No, you’re really not fucking welcome to the neighborhood.

In a two-post-double-whammy, I’d like to not welcome my new neighbors to my neighborhood.  I am a nice person, but when you start to damage my property (ok, well, my parent’s property), we’re going to have issues. 

See my previous post about the tree.  However, there’s going to be bigger problems than the tree.

The new neighbors (I’ll call ‘em the Fucker family) are building on what used to be a flood plain.  My street has a slight decline, which is conveinently in front of my house, so when it rains or whatever, the water flows down the street towards the river.  On the eastern side of my property is where the bottom of the decline meets a flat part, hence the flood plain.  The Fuckers have since filled in the entire flood plain that was on this field.  Guess where that water is going to go?  That’s right, MY HOUSE.  I AM NOT HAPPY.  My parents and I are are discussing to approach them now about it, or wait until they’re done building and then approach them. 

Yes, my family can be assholes when we want to be, which isn’t very often. 

Sigh.  I don’t know what to do.  We gave our contact information to the guys building the house and asked them to pass it along as we “needed to discuss some issues,” but there hasn’t been any call back.  Oh well.

“This tree is under surveillance. Touch it and we’ll sue your ass.”

(Note: I actually wrote this 3 weeks ago, just never posted it for some reason.)

A few weeks ago, I noticed with dismay that the lot that has been empty for the 20+ years I’ve lived on this street was being built on.  My family isn’t that happy about it, either.  However, we can’t say anything as it’s not our property.  But whatever.

In a “welcome to the neighborhood” gesture, we may have delayed some of their construction.  It all centers over our maple tree:

I took this with my camera on a foggy morning…not the best picture

 You can kinda sorta make out the power lines.  This saga deals with those lines and an electric pole.  

About two weeks ago while getting the mail I was approached by a man working for AEP.  He asked me if it would be alright if they could trim our tree, as they needed to get to the lines to set up an electric pole for the soon-to-be neighbors.  I told him it was my parent’s house and I couldn’t authorize anything.  He gave me his card, which I gave my dad.  I didn’t think too much of it, since the tree usually gets trimmed every so often by AEP.  However, he told them he wasn’t going to let them cut the tree this time.  Apparently sometime while I was in college, they had not only trimmed the tree, but cut it back by 20 feet.  The kicker was that it was a poorly-executed job.  So this time around my dad put his foot down. 

The phone tag game lasted around two weeks.  My dad tried to call the AEP only to get his voicemail, and the AEP guy couldn’t get it that he needed to call my dad, despite giving him my dad’s work number. 

Early one morning this past week, my sister Amy answered a knock on the door.  It was the guys from tree cutting place, asking her to move her car so they could cut the tree.  She called Dad at work, and he told us not to let them cut it.  So we told them what he said, wouldn’t let them go near the tree.  The foreman called his boss, talked to him for about 15 minutes, then the trucks left.

Monday, my dad had a meeting with one of the AEP guys.  They looked at the tree, made some notes and drawings, and came to an agreement.  The next day, a workcrew came by and trimmed part of the tree.  There was a nice, huge, hole in our previously lovely maple tree.  This was October 5.  My dad said it was fine, because the wires they cut around are high voltage and needed to be cut with special equipment that the regular tree-trimming people didn’t have.   I understand…but three weeks later, we still have a big hole in our tree. 

There's a hole in my tree!

My dad says he’s going to call AEP about it.

WVU Tech Homecoming 2009

In a move pretty similar to last year, I attended the homecoming parties at Tech Friday night.

The night was supposed to start off with a Delta Zeta reunion, which ended up being a reunion between me and my former East Bank roommates, with another sister making a 30 second stop in.  Since this was kind of a bummer, we ended up drinking early, and well, you can guess where the night went from there.

Visited the usual places, saw the usual friends and fellow alumni…it was a good time. 

I ended up on a couch somewhere, and somewhere around 6 AM decided it would be a GREAT time for some Shoney’s (yes,I was still drunk).  In a moment that will win me the Genius Award for the day, I wonder down to the KRT stop with a Dew and Pringles can in tow.  I sit out in under 50 degree weather, raining, wearing a tank top.  I step on the bus and the driver takes one look me and booms, “What on EARTH are you doing dressed like that in this weather!?”  I give some excuse, and find a seat.  I don’t really remember the conversation, but I somehow ended up talking with the driver about wanting to go to Shoney’s.  She convinced me to head back to my friend’s (I was supposed to crash at her place in Marmet, but she left the parties super early, like at 11 and I sure as hell wasn’t turning in that early).  After hitting the transit mall, I caught the 2 (route number for Kanawha City-Cabin Creek/East Bank), to my friends apartment and crashed for maybe 2 hours.

I got to my friend’s apartment around 9.  My parents picked me up around 11ish.  We had a quick lunch in Quincy (Shoney’s was still serving breakfast, so I did get my wish after all) and went to the game.  We lost, 17-7.  I went home and slept. 

The end.  I love homecoming.

So Huntington clubs only want business from Marshall students

While enjoying a walk through downtown Huntington this past week, I not only witnessed two accidents that stopped traffic, but also all the utterly amusing club rules that are posted on all the exteriors of said clubs. 

Usually, most were you couldn’t wear certain types of clothes, sunglasses, known gang colors, or you couldn’t behave in such a way.  I don’t recall seeing those at the Charleston bars, but since Huntington has a much larger bar/club scene that deals with a usually younger crowd, I get it.  The one that really boggles my mind is that most of these clubs said in writing, that you MUST have a Marshall student ID, and a government-issued ID.  In fact, I can’t think of a single one that didn’t say that. 

So now I’m confused.  Do I really have to trek back to Charleston (God, I want to move back SO BADLY) to hit up Sound Factory and the Capitol St. #8, because Babylon and the Thirsty Whale don’t want my business because I’m not a Marshall student?  I just don’t get it.