And Lo, I yet live. · 6:53am Aug 30th, 2013
Well. Well, well, well.
There's not too terribly much more to say than that (but I'll do it anyways, for you).
First and foremost, I am back, safe and sound (mostly) from my 5,000 mile road trip. This was what can only be described as an adventure, and I'll do my best to recapture the glory for you.
To start with, I set out on my journey on exactly four hours of sleep, leaving at midnight. Two hundred miles later, I made the decision to take a quick powernap in a parking lot before I woke up dead on the side of the road. Crisis averted, I drove on, feeling refreshed. Let me just take a moment, right here, to put this out there: Texas is an absolutely, abominably huge state. It took an entire day's travel to traverse its massive girth (insert yo mama joke here). Once I made it out of Texas, everything seemed to be moving so much quicker. I was in and out of some states before I even knew I'd gotten there.
Fifty-three hours after I'd left, I arrived at my mom's home, whereupon I promptly took a nap. For the next two weeks, my life was a blur of friends, family, booze, and bars. I was using an entire year's worth of paid vacation, and goshdarnit, I was gonna make it count. My wife, who'd accompanied me by following in the car, was having somewhat less of a blast than I was. Family drama, enough said.
Somewhere along the lines, I bought myself a suit and was feeling dapper as hell for a while. Then I got hot, and decided I'd look better as a beach bum.
Two weeks in, I went to visit my grandmother, whom I love dearly and have missed like the dickens. Devin (the spousal unit) had just dropped me off to head out to her friend's house for the evening. A few minutes after she left, I got the call that nobody ever wants to get. There had been an accident, and Devin was involved.
Needless to say, I raced to the scene with all haste possible from the passenger seat. What I saw upon arrival will haunt me for a good while.
She was T-boned at 35 miles an hour by a guy who ran a red light as she was making a left turn. Side curtain airbags prevented a potentially very severe injury. Even will all of the built in safety features, Devin still suffered injuries from the crash, as you might expect. As soon as I saw her, I just scooped her into my arms and held her. Cars can be replaced. People cannot. Our car was totaled from the crash, but it did its job. It protected her from the worst of the crash, even though her door had been crunched in nearly a foot by the force of the impact. Our son was at home, with my mother, at the time and was entirely unscathed.
So, for the next two weeks, we were fighting with an insurance company over damages and whatnot for the car. I have nobody to blame for this but myself, because I made the decision to forgo allowing my insurance company to do what I pay them to do, electing instead to handle matters myself. For the record, that is not something I advise.
True to the adage that "When it rains, it pours", the clutch on my motorcycle (which is still sporting Rainbow Dash on the handlebars, by the way) went out. Not having the cash to get it fixed, I ended up searching for a loan and finding something better. Turns out, the bike was worth more than I thought, and I owed less than I recalled. Long story short, I refinanced it, dropped my interest rate, paid off my credit card, set up a college fund for my son, and cashed out a cool thousand to cover the repair. That went better than expected, all things considered.
A few days after the accident, the dumpster gods smiled upon me, and I scavenged a perfectly usable computer off of the curb. After some mad-scientist-like modifications and basically gutting everything but the case, I now have a computer of respectable stature. Blu-Ray burner, 8GB of RAM, 2.1TB of HDD space, an 8-core, 3.4GHz processor, a graphics card with 4GB dedicated RAM (I can play vidya games and movies in 3D!), and a nifty little card that hooks up to the TV cable that allows me to record shows and stuff. Yeah, I'd say that worked in my favor.
By the time the car issue was resolved and the motorcycle was out of the shop, it was time to depart. Upon journeying home, I discovered that the clutch issue that I'd paid someone to fix, was still there. Three days later, here I am, back in my home-away-from-home.
My biggest regret about the whole trip is that I had to shave my beard at the end of it.
If this is rambling and disjointed, it's because I'm tired. Well, I've got some ideas for another short story / animatic based on Lamb Of God - Blacken the Cursed Sun, featuring evil wizards and batponies.
And all of that happened in one month.
1317074
That and so very much more. That's only the big stuff.
That sounds like a very big and tiring trip. Hope you had a good vacation though.
Sorry about Devin though, hope everything comes out well.
I do say, the dumpster gods smiled upton thee, Where did you find such glorious piece of trash?
1317186
It was in front of one of my neighbor's homes. I ended up putting all of the hardware into it myself, sort of splicing it together with another build I was working on.
That is certainly eventful.
y..y..you abandoned us
but dont worry daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaavy 
we'll make you feel right at home daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaavy 
(if someone can tell me where this creepy davy thing comes from i'd be grateful, im thinking the evil dead or the shining but im not sure o.o)
welcome back
1317246
Typical that the people you trust with ridiculous amounts of money to fix stuff never actually "fix" it, right? I'm talking about the clutch, mind... the insurance thing... don't even want to know, except that Devin is ok.