Damnit!

WTF is it w/Alabama?! I think this place is a jinx on me. Don't get me wrong--Alabama is a pretty nice place, and has a lot of good folks. If I didn't have other plans, I would be perfectly content to live here the rest of my life. But I've burned through more cars since I moved down here than I've had the rest of my life combined. My current one seems to be doing ok, so far.

Anyway, last Saturday I broke my glasses. I was showing a buddy how to cycle the bolt on my K31 (we were at the range, and he was firing it). I was leaned over the breach, cycled the bolt, and the extractor threw the case right into my right lense, cracking it. I just looked at him and said, "That's why you must always wear eye protection at the range." So, with the following Monday being Labor Day, I couldn't get an eye exam until Tuesday. Well, I was due for one anyway. I got the exam, and ordered new glasses--and found out my vision insurance is really just a discount program. Fine--it did save me about $150. I think I'd have been better off just saving the premiums in a "new glasses for Ruff" jar. Anyway, I was in a hurry to get them, so I didn't get them tinted--so the light is going to be painful and I'm going to do a lot of squinting until I get another pair that is tinted. Ok, I needed an untinted pair for night anyway, and I'd just been putting that off for a while. So no biggy. But I did walk around with a weird cross-hair effect in my vision until Thursday afternoon when I got my new ones--because the crack was a sort of "X" in the lense.

Anyway, so I take off from work at 3pm to pick up my glasses Thursday. I drop by, pick 'em up, and managed to drop by the Mises Institute and shoot the breeze with a buddy there for a bit, and pick up a Mises backpack to make onother bugout bag. Then I get home about 5:30, and open the front door. There's a small puddle of water inside the front door, so I'm thinking "Hey, that's not right. There's no pipes around the area, and it hasn't been raining, so how did that water get there?" Being the paranoid MF I am, I of course jump to the conclusion "enemy action." So I draw my pistol and ready to clear the house--and find that the whole floor is covered with water--and it's still running. Sure enough, go to the kitchen and the damn feed water line has broken and is spraying water all over the place.

So anyway, I look for a water cut off for the line. Can't find one. I grab a bucket, and as near as I can tell I'm getting a flow of about 6 gallons a minute, and no telling how long it's been going on. I grab the yellowpages, and can't get a friggin' plumber to come out--it's almost 6pm. I call the water company to shut me off at the meter, and they get here after 7. The guy did show me how to cut the water on and off, and said I'm more than welcome to do it myself in the future. Cool.

So, Friday morning I call in to my boss and tell him what happened. I can't go to work because I've got to get a plumber to come out and fix the damn thing, plus I need to do a lot of cleanup. I've got floorboards coming up in my livingroom, and the carpet in one of the empty bedrooms is soaked. Luckily, the main area flooded has a stone floor, so that's not too much trouble. I did manage to remote my computer at work and get a few things done while I waited for the plumber. So the plumber gets here, sees the mess the plumbing lines under the sink are. He fixes the problem with little trouble. Cost $65--not too bad. Problem is, I don't have but a trickle on cold water, which is a bigger problem. I could deal with no hot water better than no cold. Anyway, I'm going to have to get someone to come out later to look at that problem--and the plumber tells me that's going to be a pretty big issue to figure out. So I'm gonna have to try to contact my out-of-state landlord about that one.

I've also got a circuit breaker that has gone out, which means my lights in the bathroom, kitchen, livingroom and the two empty bedrooms are out. The outlets still work, so I've got lamps in the kitchen, bathroom, and livingroom which works well enough, but is still annoying. I'd replace the breaker myself, but I can't find a master power cutoff, and I already know the house has a ground fault, so I damn sure ain't screwing with it myself. I'm gonna have to get an electrician in on that--maybe the new electrical supervisor at work will come take a look at it for me.

Back on the 16th of August, some young woman ran her '99 Mustang off the road in front of my house and knocked down a big part of the fence around my house. She was apparently ok, and it didn't hit my landlord's non-operational Mercedes (he wishes it did--then he could have gotten insurance money for it). Of course, where she hit the fence was where I normally park--and had my car been there, it would have been totalled. Guess I got lucky on that one.

Katrina didn't hit me--which I'm beginning to think is a miracle, looking at all this other crap. Of course, all this other stuff is just annoying. I think I could deal with it all much better if it was a bonafide crisis--it's this amnnoying shit that really gets me irritated. If I was stuck in New Orleans or something, I'd be good to go--I'm always prepared for emergencies, I've got plenty of guns and ammo, lots of water purification tablets, and stocks of preserved foods and such. I'm calm and collected (if impatient) in an emergency. But this petty annoyance shit is for the birds.

Cripes! I've had trouble with vehicles and plumbing and electrical and glasses before, but never this much (well, I've had this much with glasses before, but nevertheless) and never all at the same time (although, the vehicle is pretty good right now). I'm thinking I need to begin sacrificing small animals and annoying people to some pagan gods or something to prevent further problems. Any suggestions to whom I should dedicate these sacrifices would be appreciated. :)