What is a MOPAR worth now?

This is not my Durango, but it looks just like it. We have a 2001 Dodge Durango that we use to cart the kids around. It is nice to have a decent sized SUV for this. However, since acquiring this vehicle it has been a drain on my wallet and vehicle repair knowledge. I thought that I was a super expert after replacing the transmission in my '89 Mustang, this Durango is trying my patience. Within a week of getting it we had a tire blow out. A week later the alternator died and killed the battery with it. About a month after that I tried turning left and had something physically blocking the wheel from turning, I took it to Big O Tires at 51st Ave and Peoria (they have been taking care of my dad's cars for a long time so I trust them) I was told that the entire front suspension was destroyed and needed to be rebuilt. So $1500 later I had a new front suspension. We intended to use the Durango on our honeymoon to go to Las Vegas. A day before the wedding all the idiot lights suddenly came on and the steering became very stiff. This usually means the belt came off. Well it did, because one of the pulleys had torqued itself off track and would need to be replaced, along with the spacer plate it uses and the bolt that holds it in. We took my truck to Vegas and I fixed it after we got back. A couple months later it was time for emissions, should have been easy but the check engine light came on. I took it to Pepboys because they do free scanning to tell you what your trouble code is. Wouldn't you know it, the code came back as "undefined". How can I fix something if the car itself doesn't know what to fix? I gave it a tune up and hoped for the best. One morning the check engine light went off and I rushed over to the emissions check station, right when it was my turn to go in the light came back on. At this point I didn't know what to do. We began praying that the light would go off and we would be able to go through emissions. Two temporary tags later we were able to do just that. The code given was a 1710. When I researched it online I learned that usually it means something is up with the transmission, particularly with the torque converter. I checked the fluid in the tranny and it was low, so I filled it back up but this was to no effect, the light was still on. And now the transmission has been acting up, nothing serious though.


The new bane of my existence is drum brakes. The secondary return spring broke in the passenger side drum causing a couple of parts to spin around the wheel and be ground to dust, as well as destroy the usability of the brakes. I have had to order parts from Dodge, and when they got here I started to put the brakes back together and had another part break. Now I am waiting until Thursday for the new part to get here. What I need now is the adjuster lever for any of you who know what that is. At least the front brakes were done when the front suspension was done. When this part gets here I will have almost a completely new car. Except that the transmission is going to need work in the near future. And while doing the brakes I noticed an exhaust leak in the muffler (maybe this is an excuse to get an aftermarket muffler?). But this car is almost brand new now. Dad had just rebuilt the engine before selling it to us.

Drum brakes really are a bad design, even 60 years ago when they were first thought up. Bicycles had been using the theory behind disc brakes for years and yet cars needed to have this drum system? I think not. I believe they were more of a play to get people to bring their cars into the dealer shop for service instead of doing it themselves. I hate drums. From now on I will only do rear disc conversion when I need to do rear brakes.

I have an announcement to make....

Well everyone who reads this already knows, but we're pregnant! Korina is pregnant and our little spawn is due on or around July 28, 2011. Now she will have to give birth through C-section because she has already done it that way twice. So the docter usually does those a week before the due date. I'm slightly perturbed because I will now have to share my birthday month... but I'll get over it. In a couple months we will get good ultrasound pics. Then I will post those.

Just a quick post....

Yeah, I haven't been on here in a while. I thought I would drop in just to say hi. I've been working full-time at KNXV now so I don't find myself with too much extra time to blog.

Some quick blurbs though... This past Halloween Korina and I went as Bonnie & Clyde. It was a last minute costume change from Q-tips, but we had fun with it. We even took our costumes out to the desert a week beforehand and shot them up to have authentic bullet holes. I used up all my 30-06 ammo and most of my .357 ammo. It still wasn't enough so I sprayed them a couple times with the 12 gauge to make it look worse than it was.

The kids went as Fred & Wilma Flintstone. Shyanne got poop on her dress because she suddenly decided to have bad diarhea that night. Unfortunately we didn't think to take any pictures or I would post them here (of our costumes, not the poop). Everything went well, and the take was glorious! We had a good time and Mark's maze was really well done for the space they had to work in.

This past Tuesday we paid our rent. Not something to blog about? What about when your rent is doing yard work? We swept up the leaves in the orchard behind the house and bagged them up for the dump. I also took some time to trim that stupid Date tree by the front door that always slashes my face when I get home at night.

Anyway, more blog posts to come! I'm trying to get back on the social media horse! It's hard since I had to give up my iPhone.

The end of Bachelordom ----- Is that even a word?

Well, if you follow either of my sisters and probably my mother as well, then you know I am getting married in less than a month. To be honest I am kind of freaked out about it, but really that's just nerves and I'm sure it will go away once we are married and settled. I mean I'm 28 years old, I think it's time I got married. I was so lucky to find the girl I did though. She is truly the best girl around. Let me tell you a bit about.....(drum roll)...... Korina.

This is her:


This pic is from one of our first dates, we went for sushi. She had never been and it turned out she liked it a lot.

So anyway, on to all the juicy details you all want to know. We met at FHE in the singles ward of all places to meet someone. Truth be told, if she hadn't talked to me then I probably wouldn't have talked to her. I was to absorbed in my iPhone to notice anyone. Plus, she was hanging with a bunch of weirdos anyway; that's just the kind of sweet, loving, all inclusive person she is. She told me later that she didn't even know who half those people were, she was just was talking to them. Then she reached forward and talked to me, she invited me to sit with her and the weirdos. I didn't really want to, but I thought that she must not want to sit with them either and so I went and sat with her. The strange girl next to her wouldn't move so we had a weird girl sitting between us. But we managed to make conversation anyway. One interesting tidbit about our meeting: neither of us wanted to go to FHE that night. I don't know why I went and she went because her mother booted her out the door. She had sworn that if she didn't meet anyone that night then she wasn't going to go anymore.

She will deny this probably to her dying day, but it came time to leave so we exchanged phone numbers and left for home. Then she started to text me and basically told me to ask her out. She said, "You seem really fun, we should hang out sometime." I responded with, "That would be great! I would like that." Then she said, "Yeah, we definitely should hang out sometime, I would like that a lot." So I asked her out for that night. We met up again and I followed her to her house and we went on our first date. All we did was drive around on the 101 until we got to the 202. Then we took that to the 10 and back to the 101 and on around to her house again. It was a good fun car ride and we really enjoyed each others company. After I dropped her off we texted until I got home and went to bed. Bright and early the next morning we were texting again. I love her so much now because she is so sweet and honest (sometimes honest to a fault, but can I really say that is a bad thing?). Because she is so honest she decided to tell me right up front the very next day that she had been married before and she has two kids from that previous marriage (I could say a lot about her previous marriage and her ex, but I won't because we need not taint this post with him). She has two kids, a boy and a girl named Kyle and Shyanne respectively. They really are wonderful kids, very smart and SOOOO much fun! She was afraid that I wouldn't want to have anything to do with her after she told me that, but what can I say? I love kids! And here I had just met this wonderful girl whose company was most pleasant and calming to my mostly rough demeanor, I couldn't let a couple of little gifts from God disrupt the possibilities here!

At first yes, they were quite standoffish from me, Shyanne I might even go so far as to say that she hated me at first. The first time she saw me she threw a fit, gave me the evil eye and knocked her little bike over. But like the cute little almost two year old that she is she quickly warmed up to me and now we are best buds! Sometimes she even gets into arguments with Korina over who I belong to! Usually she looks at Korina and says, "No, mine!" Then leans over and gives her a kiss, like it's some kind of consolation prize! And Kyle I think still doesn't know what to think of me. He's older, almost three, so maybe to him I seem more like an intruder than anything else. But he has warmed up to me enough that when I have to discipline him he will give me a hug and a kiss; yeah, we gotta work on that whole boys kissing boys thing, but for now I'll take it as a sign that he acknowledges me as some kind of father figure even if he doesn't want to call me dad due to bad association with that name. They are great. And Korina really is a good mommy, she loves her kids a lot and I couldn't ask for a better mother for anyone's children.

We got engaged back in April. I took her on a picnic to Saguaro Ranch Park, she had never even heard of the Peacock Park! We had some sandwiches that I had made us for lunch. And I brought cupcakes for desert. My mom had helped me make the cupcake for her. We stuck the ring inside the cupcake after it was baked. We tied a ribbon around it so that she would have to pull it out, to prevent her from accidentally eating it. At first when she pulled it out it kind of surprised her and she pushed it back in, but I started eating mine so she asked me why my ribbon was so easy to take off. I told her to take her ribbon off and she did. I took the ring and asked her to marry me and she was so happy she cried.

She really is the perfect girl for me. And I am so happy I found her. Had it not been for both of us going to a church activity against our wishes, we might never had met. I don't know what I would do if that were the case. She means so much to me and makes me so happy. Everyday I look forward to seeing her bright smiling, loving face and she looks forward to seeing my ugly one (I don't know why). I can't give her enough kisses and she can't seem to get enough of them! There is no one else in this world that I would rather be with and I can't say enough about her. She is my favorite and on August 7th of this year we will be married. I look forward to that day with the greatest of anticipation. I can't wait to begin our life together. I love you baby!

The Bahamas!

I know this is beyond late, but I've been very occupied with other things! Anyway, I won a trip to the Bahamas last August and scheduled it for the beginning of April. We (Tyler and I) went from April 11 - 16. And we stayed at the Wyndham Nassau Resort. It's a very nice place and I highly reccomend it. While there we spent a lot of time sitting on the beach. Especially our first night, my luggage got lost and I was extremely ticked off about it. It wasn't brought up to our room until after midnight. I was so excited to take a shower and have clean clothes to put on! But we went down to Cable Beach while we waited for my bag. It was really a nice night, and I enjoyed getting my feet wet. It was kinda funny that we were hungry but the only place we could find that was open to eat at was a Dominos Pizza. So we had American food our first night in the Bahamas. Oh well.

The flight to the Island was a trip in itself. From Miami to Nassau we took a Propellor driven plane! It felt kinda rickety and was sorta scary, but we made it ok! The next day we went down to the beach and went swimming. The tropical water was really warm. And it wasn't because I peed in it. I picked up some coral for Korina's fish tank. We also went into town and made our way around the souvenir shops. Didn't feel much like paying $50 for a T-Shirt, but I did buy some knick-knacks.

Before we went Tyler had been researching places to visit in the Bahamas and one of the places he really wanted to see was The Queens Staircase. We made our way to it while we were in town and it was there that we learned about "volunteer tour guides". This guy named John came out of nowhere and started telling us all about the stairs. It was really interesting information, so we didn't stop him, but after he was done thats when he started telling us about how he made his living off of tips. Fortunately we had $5 to give him, but after that we were wary of anyone that just started volunteering information. We didn't let it happen. We also learned that if we had been paying our way then it would be cheapest to stay at the hospital. For $30 you can stay 3 nights and get three square meals served to you. Sounds good to me! They said that people sometimes hurt themselves just so they can stay in the hospital.

Our third day in we went to the beach again and Tyler didn't use any sunscreen, he was glowing red by the time we got back into the hotel room! Fortunately the hotel provided us with lotion as part of our complimentary toiletries. But still, after this burn he didn't want to leave the hotel room ever. So I would go down to the beach, walk around town, play in the casino, eat the buffet, and he would lay on his bed watching TV. He described how much it hurt by saying that whenever he took a step the impact would make it feel burned in his bones. He could barely stand to have blankets on his bed. Those four days he spent inside were good healing time and by the time we had to leave he was able to walk again.

One of the great things we discovered was a place called The Fish Fry. It's a whole bunch of restaurants all gathered into one place so we as tourists could just pick what we wanted to eat. We had been reccomended to eat at the Twin Brothers by a local we had asked so that's where we went. We both had a Snapper plate, his was fried and mine was steamed. It was amazingly good. Neither of us had eaten fish like that since we were in Brasil. You eat it by just picking it off the bones. Your fingers get really greasy so you need a ton of napkins, but holy cow it's so good that way. We also tried a dish called Conch Fritters. They were so good that I have been meaning to go to cooks.com and find the recipe there (first thing's first though, gotta make Peixe de Coco).

It was a really good trip and we had a ton of fun. I'm sorry this was so late, and I know I have veered from my online trading themed blog. I will do better with my posting. I will be taking more pictures and posting them on here and on facebook. As soon as I figure out what I'm doing with online trading then I will get that going on here as well.

I really need to post something.

But I don't have much to say! I did go on a vacation a couple of weeks ago and I've been trying to find the time to post about that, no worries -- it's coming (complete with pictures)!!

Anyway, things are turning around and I just wanted to say that. My life will change drastically very soon.

I'm gonna post!!!

April fools.

The Federal Healthcare Bill: Steaming Pile of Dog Crap

Read my mom's blog on this thing. The voters of this country are mostly idiots.

Working the Streets!

Well it's been a long time... And so much has changed! I'm still working at ABC15, and it is becoming more and more apparent that they will not make me full-time as long as they can get away with it. This is obviously not going to work. And I am dating a new girl now. Her name is Korina, and she makes me happy!We met at an FHE activity that it turns out neither of us really wanted to go to, but we both did anyway. It MUST have been meant to be! Anyway, we've been going for more than a month now and things look really good.

I need a new job though, and I've been seriously considering joining the Air Force. I talked to a recruiter and he told me that I can go in straight as an officer, which would be fantastic! But I have to pass a test and get picked by a commission to be hired on as an officer, then I would spend 13 weeks in Alabama getting officer-basic-training and come out as a Second Lieutenant. He said that my base pay would be $2800 per month and I would be in upper management in whatever the Air Force decided to put me in. I think this is a good endeavor to pursue. I stay in 20 years and I can retire and pull in half my salary in retirement for the rest of my life. And I would still be young enough to have a career in something else. Also, once I am in it will be easier to transfer over to what I want to do. So I could already have 20 years in my career before I do it civilian style. The test is on April 2nd at 8 am over at Luke. I have looked at some samples of it online and I think that I will ace this thing. So all I need is for the commission to decide that they want me! And not a moment to soon. The commission is in June and I need to start paying my loans back in June. This will work.

Blowing off Steam

I don't have anything new to report, but I haven't posted in a while and I really need to vent a little bit.

Let's start with last night. I was working the audio booth for both shows yesterday, something that I enjoy more than anything. Because ABC was showing Harry Potter we were going to have two headline segments before the ten. Headlines are live cutins where we only tell you what will be in the show when it starts, like a live commercial. One was to be :15 sec at 9:47 the other would be :30 sec at 9:57. I had all the mic checks and everything set to go by 9:45, the first headline went without a hitch. Then I sat there and didn't touch anything until it was about time for the second. I got a nagging feeling about a minute from the second headline to do some quick mic checks again. So I did, and there was no audio. The cutin was coming and I had NO IDEA what was wrong. Unfortunately the entire 30 secs was spent with picture but no sound. I was trying to fix it but to no avail. And the Director just repeatedly screaming at me across headset to get the audio up was not helping AT ALL! Turns out the board had decided to arbitrarily activate the broken automated faders, which were down. And since they were down none of the audio would sound, regardless of where those faders were set. Of course everyone who knows nothing about audio suddenly has a couple cents to put in. And my explanation of what happened was not good enough to pass through the director's scrutiny. He held me late trying to get a better explanation, but the thing is I just don't know how it could have happened. It's a gremlin in the board. I didn't touch anything in between cutins.

Earlier this week, on Thursday I was out on the floor for the duration of the night. Our "crack" promo producer decided that he was going to change his promo around and not tell us about it. As production we look and see video-camera shot-video, and after he changed it it still went video-camera shot-video. But he had moved the camera shot further up in the script. So after two takes, of us looking at Katie reading from her script while on camera I was asked to tell her to read off the prompter, the explanation to give her was that the script had been changed. So she read through it real fast and pointed out that no, it was all the same script she had in her hand and she liked to read from her paper script if possible because she could read faster that way. So we tried again and again took her reading from paper on camera. Now she was getting ticked off at me. So I had the director yelling at me, Katie yelling at me, and I didn't know what to tell anyone because I had relayed everything that had been told to me! Then I heard the producer come across the directors microphone asking, "What's going on out there?" And he said it with a hint of annoyance in his voice. This was it. That straw broke this camel's back. I shot back across my microphone with, "What's going on in there?" That set everyone off... But we finally got the information that had not been told to us. And one take later we recorded the promo that was used on the air. Funny how things just work when all the information has been given. The annoying thing is that this promo-producer even works here, he unbelievably has no clue what he is doing, and he is getting a nicer paycheck than I am. Piece of crap.

Raising $1000

Well, things haven't gone so well for my new endeavor. The guitar I listed on e-bay didn't sell. I have it re-listed, but I don't know if I expect it to do any better. I finally was able to activate my Paypal account though. I had trouble logging into my bank account so I couldn't get the info that Paypal wanted. I fixed it. Maybe that will make things work better?

I also received a notice from Chase. If I open a new checking account they will give me $100. It isn't a new offer from them, but I think I'm going to do it. A free $100 just to have a checking account that gets direct deposit and costs nothing. Maybe it even draws interest, I dunno. I'm gonna go later today and check on it. I intend to start an account with them and get a free $100.

As for my becoming an investor, I purchased a book to help me with this. Investing Online for Dummies. The Dummies books have recently helped me to get through some simple things that I'm not ashamed to say I was a complete Dummy about (One of which being caring for a rabbit). I will read this book and continue trying to raise my $1000 of start-up money required by most online investment firms. No doubt the $100 from Chase will help toward this!

Paying off debts...

Yech, I know, that title makes your heart fold up and cower in your chest cavity. But we all have them and we all have to get rid of them. I'm going to take this blog in a new direction. I'm going to cover how I make extra money to pay off my student loans and a little bit of Credit Card debt that I have lately. :(

My first point of attack is to work a good job. I have one now, albeit only part-time. And it pays pretty well. Next week I am being tested for a sort of promotion. Not really as I would be going from the bottom of one barrel to the bottom of another barrel, but at least as an AP I will be full-time, so it's technically a step up. This will be plenty to cover my credit card bill, but my loan payments are going to be over a thousand dollars when they kick in come June. So I need to find more income. If I could get a job making 30k then I would be able to survive, not put anything away for later, but survive.

My second point is supplemental income. I have learned skills from my journalism school that make me kind of valuable in the private market. I can edit video, photos, and audio. And I do a pretty good job if I may toot my own horn. An album I produced just went live on iTunes today. Already we have seen the sale of two songs in a digital format. It ain't much but it's something! I also plan to rent out my PA system for whomever needs one...

I have stuff to sell, anyone want to buy a guitar? But after my things are gone, then what? I could win big in Las Vegas (I hate it when people just say "Vegas", it's like, "hey man! You really aren't that cool!")! But gambling makes more people poor than it makes them rich.

I'm going to *gasp* become an investor. I can get together about a thousand dollars selling my stuff on ebay, then I can take that money and use it to start my investment account. I am going to research some investing firms and choose which one I want to go with. I will make this the new focus of my blog. Follow along, and practice with me!

Almost at my Whits End!

So, I'm at work right now and I am realizing how much I DON'T want to be in TV anymore! But, it was rather disheartening to find only 21 radio jobs that are for certain hiring across the nation. My sister Lindsey has a friend that basically gave me her tvjobs.com account. With it I get access to amfmjobs.com. My feelings were kind of hurt by the lack of jobs availability.

I have spent a couple of days thinking about what I have been doing with my life. It is an unfortunate fact of reality that sometimes we are forced to change from whatever course we happen to be on and think is right. I might be at one of those moments right now. My current income is not enough to stay with and the job I had hoped to make a career out of simply doesn't seem to be there right now. It might come back, when the idiots are not running things and the economy turns back around (like that will ever happen). But in the meantime I need a better job, because this one is not going to fill all my needs.

I still have hope. I spent 80,000 dollars to get this degree and these qualifications and dagnabit! I want to do this for my life! I had sent a request to a station in Fresno requesting an application, it arrived today. It had a post-it note stuck to it asking me to send a resume as well. Does this mean they might be hiring? Might they be looking to fill a full-time position? I mean, if you're not then why take the time to write out a sticky note? I wouldn't. If I weren't hiring but had to send an application to someone I would just send the application. But if I really needed someone then I might take it more seriously. So yeah, maybe a job can come out of this. I didn't have time to fill it out or anything before work, I'll just do it tomorrow. I know, I'll be back in Fresno. Which would only mean that I would be spending all my time trying to get back to Phoenix. I already did this dance once, but hey, maybe I'm supposed to be in Fresno or something. L.A. didn't work out, neither did Pocatello. Lindsey got me looking for a job in Vermont then she started talking to University of Minnesota. So, not really taking Vermont seriously anymore...

Anyway, I'm not sure what to do with myself right now. These TV people are starting to scare me.