Archive for the ‘Compounding Failure’ Category

Worst Day Ever

Saturday, August 21st, 2010

It’s been a while since I’ve posted I realize, but I’ve actually had real things to do so I haven’t had the time to post every little thing I mess up on a day to day basis. However, this last Sunday was such a monumental day rife with failure I just have to tell you all about it.

The day started with moving a car-load of things to my new apartment, the one I started renting July 1st. The place still isn’t fixed up. The kitchen is a disaster, the carpets aren’t clean, and they stopped painting half-way through the place. Wow. A great start to a Sunday.

I then drove out to Mayfair Mall to replace my DVR which failed at installing an update last week. They gave me a new one and I headed home.

Or so I thought, but the traffic to the Brewers game had other plans.

45 minutes later, I arrive at home with the DVR, I plugged it in, and it read “Illegal Cable Box” or something to that effect. They gave me a number to call, but it only took me to the unpaid bills office, which was closed.

Wow, a terrible day so far, so it was time for some lunch. My roommate decided it would be awesome to make fried Limburger cheese sandwiches. What do you know, the cheese known as “stinky cheese” is capabable of making an entire apartment smell like death once heated, and frankly, the sandwich was so pungent it was barely edible. 2 days later, our house still reeks.

Due to the smell and the fact that we are moving and need to clean anyway, we went out to buy paper towel and other cleaning supplies. We somehow forgot to actually buy the paper towel though, so wow.

Ok, it was time to take a shower and just stop trying to do things and relax for the night, right? Oh right, the hot water heater broke on Saturday, so it was an ice cold shower for me.

Wow, I could at least fire up the grill and slowly roast that brisket, right? Out of gas. Literally the last day I ever planned on using that grill it ran out of gas. But wait! We had extra charcoal sitting in the basement… sopping wet due to the recent rain.

Fine, onto video games. Oh, they’ve been moved already.

Just sit and do nothing, the only way I can’t fail.

Another Terrible Commute

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

So, recall that yesterday I made it a mile into my bike commute before having to turn back because I forgot a change of clothes to wear at work. Today I made it to pretty much the same spot before a screw fell off the bike, presumably from nearly a month of hitting enormous potholes, and my bike rack and saddlebags fell into the back tire. Once again I had to turn back, this time picking up my girlfriend’s bike and then return to work, arriving 30 minutes late.

Out of it

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

I was ridiculously tired last night and this morning and it showed as I finally made it out the door for work. I biked about one mile and then realized I forgot to bring a dress shirt to wear at work so I had to turn back and pick one up. I then repeated that leg of the journey, now a full 20 minutes late and managed to cut off a fire truck with lights and sirens blaring. After the 30 minutes of biking and the near collision I am finally awake but I think I’ll be going to bed earlier tonight.

Simple Math

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

Mostly salad diet + 3 strong German beers + 1 Irish whiskey + late night chips and salsa = less than happy stomach the next day

The Week of the Bike

Saturday, April 3rd, 2010

So, this last week was the very first week of commuting to work via bicycle. Sadly, this is something I’ve always dreamed of doing because it’s completely free, it’s pretty decent exercise, and it is actually quicker than taking the bus – or it least it can be. Predictably things got off to a very rocky start though.

In order to get to work and back with all of my things I realized that I’d need some sort of bike cart so on Monday I stopped at the local bike store and dropped $120 on a rear wheel mount and two saddle bags for the bike. That pretty much negated the “free” factor of bike commuting, though this purchase will have paid for itself within two months as two month’s bus fare is $128. Despite appearing to be a simple installation process, I spend a few hours on both Tuesday and Wednesday night floundering and failing at installing the damn thing. One lost bolt and a couple of hacks later I finally got the thing on in preparation for Thursday.

Thursday started off great until I realized I was going very slow and was getting ridiculously tired. At this point I noticed that the rear brake was clamped down and not releasing at all. It appears my wonderful installation of the rack and saddle bags messed the brake up. Huzzah. I was able to release the brake and just had to avoid using the rear brakes for the rest of the day. When I got home I tried to fix the brakes with the only tool I had, a monkey wrench, but after 30 minutes of getting nowhere I walked over to the hardware store for some real wrenches. That made turning the bolts that much easier but then I was faced with the realization that I had no clue what I actually needed to do to make the brakes work better. Nearly two hours after I started the brakes were finally operating almost normally and Friday’s commute went pretty smoothly.

Well, except of course for the super loud honking that the rear brakes now make. I suck at mechanical things, I sure do.

No Luck of the Irish

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

So this post is already a week late but man, I sure didn’t have a good St. Patty’s day this year – at least not on St. Patty’s day itself.

The plan was simple – enjoy a hot breakfast at home with some coffee and Irish cream, have a good day at work, eat lunch outside and watch all of the drunk downtown bar patrons, come home for a quick dinner and then out with a friend to watch another friend play fiddle in an Irish band downtown.

Well, the very first thing that happened at work was a meeting that started “So, what exactly were you thinking when you designed this?” Ouch. Lunch was nice but I then spent the entire afternoon fixing an email template I thought I had fixed weeks ago. I left a bit late and then missed the bus so I arrived home a full 45 minutes later. It turned out not to be a problem though as my evening plans were canceled.

I ended up watching a weird sci-fi movie with a Guinness ice cream float. Yeah.

Financial Fail

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Despite getting an unused–vacation-bonus from my old job in December, earning higher wages at my new job, getting some money for freelance projects, and a bit of Christmas/birthday money, I still somehow drove my checking account down to $80 last week. Time to stay home and not spend any money!

Sorry

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

Man, I’ve been bad at adding my failures to this blog. It’s not like I’m not failing, believe me, I am, I’ve just actually been busy at work and thus skipping most of my lunch breaks, which is my prime time for adding posts. Perhaps to make up for this over the next few days I’ll add a fail that has happened to me over the last few weeks.

A great start

Monday, January 4th, 2010

I started this week by forgetting my glasses at home and missing the first bus in the morning. Go me.

Cold

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

I attempted to put the plastic wrap window insulation on some particularly drafty windows in the house today and majorily failed. Out of a thee pack I actually got one sheet of plastic up. The first one was mangled by scissors that were too dull, I managed to get the second one up, and then I ran out of tape before the third could be finished. It only took 2 hours.