Frustration, Part 4

I took in the car today and got the loaner -- a Mercury Milan. Nice with a ton of options, including Sync, but no instructions on how to work it. Not to mention it only averages 22.8 MPG. I guess having a hybrid I've become a snob on MPG.

At the end of the day they called to tell me that they have to order me a radio and it should be in tomorrow. I get to keep the loaner overnight.

Fustration, Part 3

Today I drove the car to work and everything seemed fine. Until I left work! I came out to see the lovely Mercury logo. Guess what -- I was standing outside the car! UGH! I got into the car and called the dealership. I was nice, but it was very apparent that my patience was gone. My service rep is desparately trying to get me in right away and have a loaner. He says "I have Thursday." Really, because I'm pretty sure my battery will be dead by that point. Yeah. So, he tells me to come in tomorrow morning and he'll work something out so that I have a car. Guess I'm getting a new radio. Better not jack up my satellite subscription. That's all I have to say.

Wish me luck. Oh, and today is my wedding anniversary. Hard to believe 8 years. What a happy day back then. Miss you Gary!

Frustration, Part 2

Monday morning rolls around and fortunately the car did start. Although it was still rebooting. Annoying, but not nearly as nerve racking as the radio incident on Friday. I headed to the dealership after dropping off the little man at school. I have you know that they almost didn't believe what I was telling them. I invited to look into the car and see for themselves. Wow, amazing! Of course because I didn't have an appointment they didn't have a loaner for me. So, I got a ride home. Fortunately I had a laptop from work. They gave me the impression that they would look at it right away (don't want to wear out the battery after all). So, I waited until 11 a.m. to call. Guess what, they just started looking at it (wow, so much for looking at it when you pulled the car away at 8:20 a.m.). He tells me he should have an update for me in a couple of hours. I call work to let them know that I'll continue working from home. Thank goodness I have that flexibility right now. Time goes by and it gets to be 3 p.m. and I figure -- surely they know something by now. I call and I'm told that the tech just took it on a test drive. My service rep tells me he will call me back in 10 minutes. 12 minutes goes by and he calls me to tell me the service guy isn't back yet. WTF, did he go shopping? At about 3:50 p.m. my service rep calls me to tell me the car is ready. What happened? Well, evidently it was in demo mode (not buying it), and when they hooked it up for diagostic, it came up that it needed a restart or something. He went on a test drive to see if it would act up again and didn't. However, if the problem happens again, I get a new radio. Yippee.

So, a day was pretty much wasted to find out that they probably could have fixed it in a hour. I'm a happy camper, not. As I'm leaving, they tell me that I'll be getting a survey from Ford and they hope they met all my needs. I can't wait to get that survey.

Frustration

Let me start off with, I still love the car. However, I experienced an annoying malfunction on Friday. I stopped at the ATM to get some cash. While I was messing with the machine, my radio started going on/off, volume is going up/down. In the amount of time it take to request money, get money, get a receipt and get my card back, the thing did it at least 15 times. It also did it another 10 minutes. Just when I was about to pull into the first Lincoln/Mercury dealership I saw, it stopped. Everything was fine. Okay. Saturday was good, no issue. Sunday started out okay, but as I was leaving my third errand destination, the radio stopped working, but the computer part of the radio kept rebooting -- I would see the lovely Mercury log and then black screen, and then the logo, then black screen, etc. Amazingly, this continued well after the key was out of the ignition and the car was not running. How long will it do this? Would I be able to start the car in the morning? Guess it is time to take the car in.

To be continued . . .

Pub Crawl

Yesterday some of my coworkers and I were invited to one of our hotels in Dearborn to check out their new renovation. We were told that we would be going out after and we could also have a free room for night if needed. The hotel looks great by the way. After the tour, we were given t-shirts that indicated that the evening would be a pub crawl and on the back of the shirt was local evening establishments with a box for us to check off of our shirt as we visited.

On our third stop, we ran into my mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and Gary's niece. (Small world). It was funny running into them. I have Lois in our group photo (on the rooftop of Cheli's).

Here's our list:
Bailey's
Biergarten
Cheli's
Crave
Double Olive
Golden Eagle Lounge
Howell's
Miller's
Post
Silky's
Venue

We didn't make all of them -- some wanted to charge a cover (no thanks), but I have quite a few check marks on my shirt! A good time!

Still loving the car

Over the winter months I noticed that my car was not getting the gas mileage I expected. It was still good, but I was beginning to wonder. Well, now that the weather has changed, there has been a significant change for the better. The other morning I hit the button to calculate my average MPG while on my way to work. I hit a few traffic jams, but by the time I got to work it said 42 MPG. Awesome! That made me really happy especially consider the price of gas right now. Today I checked again, and although it is down to 36 MPG, that is still a great number for an SUV. I'm loving my car!

Finally Spring!

Spring finally came to Michigan! It's about time. It's so nice to open the windows and turn off the heat! Hopefully it will stay awhile!

Happy Birthday Shelly

Happy birthday to dear childhood friend, Shelly! I hope you had a great drama-free day!

Yee-Haw!

Years ago we used to have themed "closing" days. These would be days where we would run with a theme for the day and try to get as many signed contracts as we could for the day. Yesterday we had one and it was a western them. Everyone put on cowboy hats and bandannas and we were treated to "Redneck Party Mix" as our musical entertainment. The office was also treated to a lunch catered by Famous Dave's. A rip roaring good time. I won one of the hourly prizes - a gift card to Target! Today I found out I had the top sales of the day - that prize includes a day off w/pay, a free room at one of our fabulous hotels and a nice dinner gift certificate! Yahoo!

Downtown Again!

Today I ventured downtown for a meeting with our convention bureau. It was the first time in their office and a long time since I've been on Fort Street. I can say that I feel much better venturing around with my GPS! Interesting observations, memorable experience, but overall worthwhile. If only I didn't have to go back to work after . . . oh well!

Happy 16th Shelby!

Happy birthday to my best friend's daughter. The big 16 today! Wow, it seems like just the other day you were in my wedding. Time flies! I wish you all the best honey!

Happy Birthday Laurie!

Happy birthday to my sister-in-law Laurie! Wish you a year of happiness! All the best to you!

Downtown Detroit

Today I ventured out to Downtown Detroit and the wonderful Gem Theatre to see "Menopause the Musical" with my mom and some friends. I can't relate to most of it at this point in my life, but there were some definite funny parts. I also ran into someone I used to work with years ago -- small world! It was so nice outside that everyone was having fun downtown. There was a DJ on the top of Music Hall entertaining everyone. A good day!

Murphy and the Law

So, last night my dog gets me up in the middle of the night wanting to go outside. Needless to say I could not go back to bed after. As I tossed and turned it dawned on me that I forgot to renew my tabs! Yikes! In the wee hours I'm online renewing (thinking it would be easier - first mistake).

This morning I'm running late -- still tired from the lack of sleep. Elijah and I are scurrying off to school. As I turn on the side street a cop gets behind me (crap). My first instinct is to turn off and get as far away as possible, but we are running late and I don't have time to wander down the side streets. Two miles he's behind me and just when I turn on the side street to drop off my son, he puts his lights on and pulls me over! (you've got to be kidding me).

He walks up and asks if I know why he pulled me over, why yes, yesterday was my birthday, I forgot to renew, so I did online, my son is going to be late for school, my brother is a police lieutenant, blah, blah, blah. He asks how my driving record is and my license, registration, the usual. I have to tell him I'm a victim of identity fraud (who knows if someone has been living a life of crime with my ID -- that would be my luck you know). While he's in his car, I tell Elijah to get out of the car and go to school. He was a little apprehensive, but it wasn't worth him being late.

The cop came back, handed me my stuff and told me to have a nice day and make sure I take care of the tabs. Thanks! Murphy's law, if you wait to renew, you are bound to be pulled over -- even on the second freakin day of the month!

It's My Birthday

Yahoo! Overall it was a good day, so I can't complain.

A New Venture

Today I went to my second cousin's baby shower. Boy does that seem weird. Not as weird as saying that my cousin is going to be a grandpa. Although saying my best friend is a grandpa is much stranger than that!

Elijah had his first official babysitter. (the one where you pay money). He seemed to have a good time and there weren't any issues.

Other than that and a birthday party the night before, it was a pretty uneventful weekend.

Another Crazy Week

It was another crazy week and I am tired! Elijah was on break this week, so enjoyed Spring break camp. Seems like he liked it and even got to go on a couple of field trips. Next week it is back to old routine.

Work continues to be busy. It's good, but I feel like I could keep on working and still have plenty to do!

Now if only we can get this weather to break. I'm tired of seeing white! :0 I had to laugh driving through my sub. One side of the street didn't have any snow and the other side did. I guess that tells us who gets sun in the afternoon and who doesn't!

Enjoy your weekend!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone!


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Birthday Comments

A snowy Good Friday

I was supposed to take the day off today, but it was too busy. I did go in a little later and as I left, it was sunny, but cold. While at work, I heard it was snowing in Minneapolis. No big, right? Well, then I heard we were supposed to get some snow. I only worked half a day and when I left things were fine. However, as I was getting closer to home, I did start to see some snow. No accumulation, but snow.

A little while after being home, I left to run some errands and discovered accumlation! What? By the time I was coming back (not more than 45 minutes), the roads were bad. It's still snowing and that was around 5 p.m. They say an inch an hour. Unbelievable! Happy Snowy Good Friday!

Miss you, Gary

Another birthday has come and we still miss you and wish you were here. Although it is said that things happen for a reason, it's not fair. We miss you.