My 4th

After a LONG day at work we decided to just stay at the mall and watch the fireworks from the roof of the parking garage.  We were sitting in the back of my truck when this family stood directly in our line of vision.  I thought it was nice.

After fireworks Nori drove us to a bar for a drink and curly fries.

She was supposed to be practicing driving stick shift in preparation for getting her new car today.  As of me writing this at 7:45 she still hasn't replied to my texts, which leads me to believe she's still asleep.  It's possible.

I actually plan on going to sleep shortly.   I am so tired from this week and I am off tomorrow.  I am excited for a good nights sleep tonight.

I'm also excited to see the blog post that Mike is going to do about our 4th of July.  I'm anticipating that he's working on it today and will post it tonight or tomorrow.  Link to follow.

I enjoyed work this evening

After all of the heartache the past few weeks it was nice to have a peaceful day at work for a change.  Props to Noriko, in all the ways my name has been misspelled (Banjamin, Benajmin, Benhamin, etc.) I don't recall anybody ever doing Beanjamin.  I like it.  My family called me Bean for a while in my childhood, and sometimes still even to this day.  Yet nobody thought to go for the full Beanjamin until this evening.

After work Noriko and I practiced driving stick shift in preparation of her getting her first car this coming Saturday.  I'm super envious that she's getting a super cute cabriolet, so I'm giving her stick shift lessons in hopes that she will let me ride shotgun in her cool new ride.  I'm going with her next saturday to pick it up because she thinks she needs me to bail her out if she can't end up driving it home.  She'll be fine though, there is no way I am letting her go in her mom's car so she can give up and make me drive her new car home.  For security I'm bringing Mike so we can take my truck and then I plan on riding with Nori in her new car and making Mike drive my truck back to her apt.  Muahahahaha.

All in all she did pretty good with her lesson this evening.  She's definitely better than she was last year:

07/02/13

We drove around the parking lot for a while, which was hilariously busy on a Sunday night.  Seriously, it was an empty parking lot at the mall but for some reason there was some angry woman in a BMW around every corner, raging at Nori for her experimentation with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd gears.  Once she got the hang of it we moved on to the traffic circle around the mall.  That lasted us a couple of laps before she was getting a little too cocky.  It was time for the starting on a incline challenge.  

"But why do I need to learn how to do that?  We live in Miami, there aren't any hills!" she said.
"So what are you going to do when you get stopped by a drawbridge and the person behind you pulls up right to your bumper?  Call me? "
"Yes.  Or I'll call a tow truck."

She figured it out though.  There was only a few moments where I worried we were going to roll backwards through the cement and over the edge of the parking garage.  Only a few.  But she got the hang of it eventually, and then when we drove home she was a regular Mario Andretti.  We only got one horn honk and one car passing us on a double yellow.  All in all, I think she's going to be A-Ok.

It was fun to have fun at work today and after.  My life at work lately has been best described by the scene I walked in to when I went to the bathroom tonight:

There was a moment when we were driving Nori home that she was asking me about the mini cooper.  We both had a good laugh about how our job security is so uncertain.  : /

At least I have the day off tomorrow.  They can't fire me over the phone.  Can they?

indeed

I have no clue what it means.

Mike and I were sent on a fools errand to check stockrooms for merchandise which obviously meant snooping around and laughing at strange discoveries like goo Justin.  Other highlights included finding baskets of tennis balls, and the mysterious non-working walk in freezer.

I took Mike to the corner of one of the stockrooms and made him figure out what was beyond the pants.

After much scrutiny he finally exclaimed, "It's the top of the weird freezer!"

I still don't understand how the ladder got there.  The short wall behind the pants is very permanent, and the only opening is that space mike is poking his head through.  It's like the building was built around the ladder, or the ladder was assembled in this space.  Like a ship in a bottle, so intriguing.

Sadly, I think my days of fun and games at work are over.  I'm nervous about going in to work today.  I just hope I can count on the spirit of goo Justin to protect me.

finally, a fun way to save

Joe and I went out to use up some random drink tickets I had laying around yesterday and in our after drink wandering he took me to some weird candy shop I had never even noticed before.  Among the random junk for sale was the Fanny Bank.  If it weren't so counterintuitive to my actual savings goals to waste my money on it, I really wanted to get it.

Speaking of my savings goals, I am laying low waiting for my paycheck on friday, and then also possibly waiting for my next paycheck at the end of the month, but based on those two I am looking forward to making a large purchase in the near future.

I've been pretty focused on that, which is why I haven't posted much.  If you want some idea you can watch the vlog that Mike did:

you and me both

Why didn't I think to get this in the back window of my truck?

Of course I was with Mike when I saw this and he immediately reminded me of the Assman:

Obviously this is my future.

magical dream date

For some reason it came up in conversation that Mike and I both liked trying different beers and we decided we should hang at one of the various places around town that specialize in beers on tap.  When he texted me on Friday I wasn't really thinking about the fact that we were making plans to hang out for our friday night.  It ended up being a really good time and reminded me of the last time I went on a magical dream date, 4 YEARS AGO.

Maybe it also reminded me of my last magical dream date because Amy is the last blogger I have had the pleasure of spending an evening with.  Mike does a video blog which I'm a little envious of.  I really like the way he puts his together, but hearing and seeing myself on video reminds me why I was never able to make the video blog thing happen:




Still it was fun to be a part of his blog, and to have him make a guest appearance on mine.  And it inspires me to plan more magical dream dates with people.

Elliot, I'm coming for ya!

how to break into a 2004 Ford Ranger at Aventura Mall

I blame my pants for locking my keys in the car. See the problem is that they are too tight so I can't put much in the pockets, thus I left my keys on the seat and didn't realize until after I'd locked and shut the door.

Thankfully Elliot and Mike were there to save the day.

They worked tirelessly until their mission was accomplished.

The video they made was as a response to the available "how to break in to a ford ranger" videos, which mostly sucked.  I like theirs a lot better.  And it's already come in handy!

After Elliot showed me the video he said, "Oh and we left you a surprise in your truck".

Thanks guys.

the hits keep coming

Yesterday when it was time to take Jon to the airport I said, "I'm going to run the trash to the dumpster and then we should get going".  When I returned Jon was standing outside of the apt with his bags in hand looking at me expectantly.  It was then that we realized we both thought the other one had the keys, and Jon definitely closed the door behind him.  The locked door.

My upstairs neighbor Mike tried to break in for me but to no avail.  I guess I feel slightly reassured about the security of my apt, but still I was hoping he would be able to get in.  Instead I had to pay A RIDICULOUS AMOUNT OF MONEY for a locksmith to let me in to my own apartment.  At least we were able to get inside and Jon made it on to the last flight home for the day.

Since I now have zero dollars to my name until whenever I get my first paycheck for my new job I decided to go for a nice cost free bike ride yesterday afternoon.  You can imagine how I felt when I was about 5 miles from home and realized that I had a flat tire.

This being the 2nd time I had taken my bike out I was a little discouraged.  Thankfully the bike store was still open when I got back to it yesterday afternoon and although they weren't particularly compassionate they did fix my flat at an extreme discount.  They said they couldn't help it that I got a flat tire and that it was just an unfortunate accident.  I had to push down all my emotions in to that dark place deep in the pit of my stomach and accept that things are just not going my way.

But of course, when you bottle up all your feelings they inevitably come back to bite you in the ass.  Cut to this morning when I get my bike out to go get coffee and I discover IT HAS A FLAT TIRE AGAIN!

At least this time I got a, "I've never seen this happen before" from the bike shop guys and they did fix it completely for free.  They also gave me a new super thick tire tube that they said should prevent it from happening again.  We'll see.

I'm going to ride it to the beach now, hopefully without incident.  Of course, knowing my luck both wheels will just go flying off once I'm as far away from home as possible.

WISH ME LUCK PLEASE THANK YOU.