Happy Thanksgiving Weekend

Today is the great day of stuffing one's face. Yet for some odd reason I eat less on Thanksgiving then any other day. I have never been a big turkey fan. I got overly excited when I saw that we were having ham as well. Enough about the food. This Thanksgiving was the first one at my Grandparents new house in Payson. Prior to this year, a Thanksgiving gathering meant driving 10 minutes to their house in Mesa. Now it is a fun drive up to the mountains. I actually had to bring a coat. There were a lot of people there. Every year there are more and more. Damn cousins getting married and having offspring. When there are that many people there is no other way to have Thanksgiving but buffet style. Otherwise know as "get it yourself."

After eating we went to the park by their house. The park has a couple lakes and a whole lot of ducks and geese. Just look at them all!
We were giving the ducks and geese some bird seed since they are birds. They started to get aggressive so we ran away. After the park it was back to the house for pie. The funny thing about pie was that since there was so much leftover pumpkin pie last year, no one brought any. We had cheesecake and banana cream. After all that it was time to go home and pack for tomorrow.

Tomorrow my mom and I are flying to North Carolina to see my brother Andrew. I'm taking my old laptop to give to him. I think that's enough blogging until I get back. I better go sync my iPod up for the 4 hour flight.

Prop 103: Arizona's Official Language is Now English

The people have spoken! Prop 103 has been passed and English is now Arizona's official language. What does this change? Due to this being passed the following changes will be made:

• Mesa, Arizona will now be Table, Arizona
• Casa Grande, Arizona will be now Big House, Arizona
  
• Aqua Fria Freeway will now be known as the Cold Water Freeway
• Estrella Mountain will be Star Mountain.

This is a joke by the way, but what exactly does this accomplish? I am sure the claim is that it will save the state money in that they do not have to print everything in English and Spanish and have to have translators. However, I think these laws get proposed and passed because people believe it will stop or slow down immigration.

Someone is going to read this and think "No Nick that's not what it's all about." That, however, is assuming people read this blog. Think about this: we make these laws that make it harder for them to get into this country and laws that make it harder for them to even live in this country but what about the people who came here legally and have yet to learn English? Do they think that a family down in Mexico thinking about coming north to the US is going to think "Arizona is out of the question. We won't be able to read any government documents" or "Screw that, we have to show ID to vote there." They are not going to stop coming until Mexico fixes its economy and government. This concludes my random rant.

Car all fixed!

My car is back after a week at the body shop and it looks brand new again. After $1300 in repairs, the dent is gone. Unfortunately, the insurance company could not determine liability on it. I was forced to pay the $500 deductible on the repairs. However, they did cut me a check for $250 to cover half of the liability. I guess their logic was that he was "half responsible." In the end, I am just glad my car is back.

It Has Been Awhile

I surely has been awhile since my last post. On top of that a lot has happened since my last post. The new job is fantastic. My stress level surely has dropped. I finally get to do what I love and that is work with computers. In my first month and a half at this job I have amazed myself. Before I started, I did not know if I can work with computers in a company environment. Sure I have fixed my own or a friend or family member's computer, but to do it for a company is different. For one thing, these computers do not get maintained as well as someone's personal computer would. They get beat up by the high school kids, files get deleted, all sorts of fun. An entire campus was still running Windows XP with Service Pack 1. I spent half a day just getting their computer lab up to Service Pack 2. I have also enhanced my troubleshooting skills thanks to Googling things, coworkers, or just trying stuff out. Finally the best part of it all, I work less hours, get paid more, and have weekends off. I now know what it is like to look forward to Friday. With McDonald's it was "Damnit it's Friday. I hate the weekend."

With ups, there are eventually downs. Early last month someone backed into my new car. I was at Fry's Electronics trying to pull into a parking space. I couldn't quite make the turn so I stopped to prepare to back up and adjust. I throw my car into reverse and just when I am about to start backing up, I look in my rear view mirror to see the horrifying sight of a pickup truck backing up into me. The claim has not been settled yet because of many reasons. For one thing, everyone that saw it happen kept right on walking. Two, they will not claim it to be their fault because they say I was backing up too on the basis that they saw my reverse lights on. Finally, no police report because it was in a parking lot. Right now I need to go to a body shop so they can do an estimate and send pictures to State Farm. The State Farm rep states that they can tell if I was moving from the damage. The sooner I get that done the better. However, I have found it hard to schedule appointments when I work Monday through Friday and get off work when places like that are closed. I may just have to take an extended lunch.

In other news, I am close enough to finishing at University of Phoenix (The Official University of the Arizona Cardinals...*sigh*) that I recieved a summary of what is left for me and to start planning for graduation. YAY! Soon I will be a college grad long in the making.

So Close to Leaving McDonald's...

I can almost taste it. The sweet, sweet taste of finally getting a new job. Not just any new job, an IT job. Today, I spent part of my day off from McDonald's to go be orientated with my new job. It was the fun paper work type stuff that just makes you finally realize that it is really happening. One might think "So what? What's the big deal of changing jobs?" Well it is a big deal to one that felt that he was stuck going no where and felt he was wasting his money on getting a degree. Today just finally kissed that feeling goodbye. As of today I have 13 more shifts at McDonald's, a little over two weeks. Not only will I be making more but I will also be working less and for the first time in my life, a regular schedule with weekends off! I only have two more weeks of hating weekends. Two more weeks of 50 hours per week, 10 hours per day. Two more weeks of "Hi, can I help you?" Two more weeks of "Excuse me are you the manager?!" Two more weeks of being over worked and underpaid. I can't wait.

Paid Time Off, Time With Girlfriend, and New Job

Well, I'm a little more than halfway through the time off I took from work. It has been a nice productive time off. I haven't yet gone anywhere during this time off. I believe I might try to go up north this weekend. I have yet to decide. I would really like to get out of this 110 degree heat and I think this is the last chance I have this summer.

My time off started out nice. My girlfriend, Kim, spent the weekend at my house. She volunteered to help me organize my room. Just to make a point on how unorganized my room was, I had boxes that were still unpacked since I moved in here over 4 years ago. Organizing my room took quite some time. Kim also introduced me to Ikea. I didn't get much there but there are some neat things I could use. Now I can find things in my room. My room also now reminds me of how fantastic my girlfriend is.

While I've been off from work, Geoff, my roommate, landed me an interview at his job. It went really well. It was the most relaxed interview I've ever had. Mainly because it was with my roommate but the neat part of it was it was also with a teleconference with the head of IT in Michigan. I guess that made it easier because she was not in the room with me. I'm excited. I'm excited to finally get out of working for McDonald's but also this job will help me learn more then what school could ever do in terms of computers and IT. I have yet to start my new job let alone put in my notice at McDonald's but I am very excited.

Las Vegas Trip

Well, I'm going to attempt to blog about my trip again. I made a previous attempt while in Vegas and I lost it. No, I didn't lose my mind or the shirt off my back. I lost the blog entry and it was a long one too. Oh well, here we go again.

This was a trip paid for by my work. Just when I think my job sucks, I get crazy benefits like trips to Vegas and no working involved during the trip. The trip was for store managers, assistant managers, supervisors, and their spouses. Unfortunately that meant my girlfriend Kim couldn't go which was a bummer. Well, I toughed it out but it made it so now I want to go on a trip with her to Vegas. Now more about my trip.

Day 1
The first day was an interesting day. To start out with, I only got a couple hours of sleep. On top of that, I was traveling on June 6, 2006, 06/06/06. That alone made it an interesting day. While waiting for my flight, I was watching CNN in the airport. It wasn't my choice, that was what was on. Anyway, all CNN talked about was that it was 06/06/06 and how people think the world is going to end, blah blah blah. I didn't think the world was going to end but it sure delayed my flight. We get told the plane was broken and they needed to get one from the hanger. Best of all, they already loaded the luggage, so off with the luggage before switching the plane. Fifty minutes to an hour later, we are in the air.

After getting to Vegas and then to the hotel, I met up with other people from McDonald's. We decided to walk around and check out this Las Vegas Hilton we were staying in. In walking around we came across an iPod vending machine.
Quite odd but my friends say they have seen those before. My roommate Geoff said he has seen them in an airport. What better but the buy an empty iPod before your flight. I guess you can play solitaire on your new iPod. I think it would be better if you can get the iPod Shuffle in a little plastic ball.

After walking around the hotel, I went up to my room and crashed. I slept for a good couple hours before having dinner. What kind of dinner was it? But a buffet of course! You can't do Vegas without eating at a buffet. That would just be wrong. After eating we walked 800 miles or so to check out the Wynn Hotel. Okay, it wasn't 800 miles but it was a long walk in the heat. The Wynn Hotel was neat but we felt a little underdressed just to stand there. So back the "800 miles" to the Hilton and to bed.

Day 2
The second day in Vegas started out with some expensive breakfast and some free wi-fi surfing. Since the Hilton charges $11 a day to use internet in the room, I was forced to find some free wi-fi at a cafe by the lobby. The breakfast was expensive. I spent $8 on a cinnamon roll and an orange juice. I didn't realize that little bottle of OJ was going to be $4. Oh well, it's internet time. That was my first attempt at blogging about my day. Since Blogger seemed to have gone down while I was in a middle of posting, that first attempt failed. Since that didn't work out I decided to do some homework. That's right, I did homework in Vegas. However, while I was in the cafe I found another manager and we got an all day monorail pass and hopped around to different hotels.

We then came back to the Hilton and relaxed before setting out again for the "O" show at the Belagio, another part of the trip paid for by work. That was an interesting show. Acrobatics and water, what more can you ask? After the show, we went back to the Hotel. After a little conversation with my girlfriend, I went to sleep, concluding day 2.

Day 3
Day 3 was a simple day. I got up, had breakfast and went to the airport to fly home. One interesting part of the flight home was Las Vegas Airport security. They had one of those bomb sniffing machines. It blows air on you and smells you. Good thing I showered.

That basically concludes my trip. You can fine more pictures on my website. http://www.nickgailfus.com

Nick vs The Tow Company 2

The following is a complaint I made to the Phoenix Better Business Bureau about Absolute Impound.

This is mainly a complaint on how they handle customers. On May 11th my car was towed stating that it was in a fire lane. The fire lane was on the other side of the road. When trying to contest this with the tow company they told me to go to the Homeowners' Association (HOA) which is Brown Property Management. The HOA stated that the tow company is required to take a picture of the violation. When I contacted Absolute Impound the second time the person who answered the phone took my name and number and said someone would call me back. This occured within less than a week of the tow. I never recieved that call. I called 2 days later due to the weekend and I was told the person I needed to speak to was on vacation until Monday the 29th (today). That put it off for another week. I called and got a hold of the person to complain to and I was told it was too late to dispute it. It would not have been too late if I was taken care of when I called originally. This is inapproriate and I feel my complaints were ignored until it was too late. I was also told when contacting them today that the picture is disposed of after the car was picked up. No where was I told that my ability to dispute the claim was waved when I picked up my vechicle.

I made this complaint after I finally got a hold of someone there to complain about the tow. I then left an angry message with the Property Manager for Homestead 1 at Brown Property Management. I told him that the tow company refused to let me dispute my claim and that if I was in a fire lane, their storage bin is in violation (see previous post).

Nick vs The Tow Company

Last week I came home from my weekly night of education to find very little parking on my street. Now let me give some background to this. I live in a "subdivision," I guess it can be called, with narrow roads. Now this subdivision is maintained by Brown Property Management as the homeowners' association (HOA). The neighborhood has narrow roads and because of this, one side of each road is designated the fire lane.

Now since there was very little parking due to a neighbor having company, I was forced to park down the street and around the corner in this dead end. The left side of the dead end was marked "No Parking." The right side was not and I was not the first person to ever park here. Here's a picture of the dead end street for reference. The white barricade says not parking and is clearly on the left side of the road.

I got up for work the next morning and walked out to find my car gone. Angry beyond belief I called the police to see what was going on. They said that the car had been towed for being in a "Fire Lane." Still pissed off, I had my roommate Debbie take me to the tow place to pick up my car. Being already late for work, I payed the $190 to get my car out.

When getting my car out, I asked who I would complain about this to and they said the homeowners' association. The HOA told us that the tow company, which I should mention now is Absolute Impound, is required to take a picture of the violation. When calling the tow company on this the guy on the phone changed from "you need to take this up with the HOA" to "what was your name, phone number, ect." I have still yet to hear back from them and being that I have Monday off, they will hear from me some more. I should also mention that they scratched my door when breaking into my car in order to tow it.

Last but not least, if my car was in violation of a fire lane, surely this storage bin that is there now is.

Bloggin' it Up For Once

Holy Smokes! Nick is writing a blog entry! That's right...a blog entry. It's been a while (8 months or so) but I've never really thought about what I would want to write on something like this. So I'll try to sum up the last 8 months in one quick blog.

For the 8 months that I haven't been blogging I've been dating Kim :). It's the best relationship I've been in and I have so much fun with her.

I got into a car wreck the week before Christmas. A mechanic from Bill Heard Chevy rear ended me in a customer's car. That resulted in the first car I ever bought new to be totaled. I ended up getting a good chunk of change in insureance money and used it to get the car I've wanted for a while, a Vue. If it wasn't for gas prices I'd be driving everywhere in that thing....planning road trips whenever I can...mmmmm.

Another major event would be my brother randomly deciding to join the army. His basic training ends this week and then he's off to the Airborne and learning how to jump out of planes. I wish I could have taken the time off to see his graduation it's happening the same day as I have to be at school. That's what sucks about year round school...no break until graduation.

Which comes to another point...I am officially less than one year away from finishing school. I am set to finish in April 2007. I can't wait!

I think this is enough for my first blog in 8 months.