Sunday, August 24, 2008

Way # 35628930285 that Disney World Rocks

Clicky the linky, you know you want to...

My wonderful husband surprised me with booking this for one of our days at Epcot!

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Meet the new Xvart!




So, to explain, no we don't own two new cars. We're not that rich. :( Brian might be able to work legally at last, but he's not making that much. :)

I sold my bumblebee.

I know, I loved the car. I truly did. But I had a lot of problems with the dealership. Including one that could conceivably have lead to me suing the dealership. And the "service manager" getting pissy with me and hanging up on me because I wasn't happy with his "service" and called and made a complaint. Lets just say it was pretty ugly and to the point I didn't want to deal with them. And since smart is so new in the US, there are only 50 dealerships total to cover all of the US. But the car itself was great. And I had a friend who also loved them. And his local dealership was adding several thousands in dealer add ons... But his dealership is great. Wonderful even. So we made a deal.

He's happy and I'm happy. I'd have loved to have a smart. But I WON'T deal with the dealership.

So say hello to my new blue Elantra! To be rechristened Xvart the Second once I find out how to transfer the plates from the black Elantra. It's pretty, if anonymous, and it gets good gas mileage and will get me to and from work safely. AND it worked out to be significantly cheaper than my smart with the end of model year deals. I'm pleased with it!

Monday, August 18, 2008

More things learned from my Conference

Southwest rocks when they lose one of your bags. Unsurprisingly,
Delta sucks when they lose your husband.

It is possible to go for a conference for a week and only end up
paying for 3 dinners and 4 lunches. This will confuse your admin no
end when submitting your expense report.

When the admin in charge of booking your travel "forgets" to do so,
you can't always get reservations for the cheap conference hotel. Nor
can you always get the 'cheap' flight option. This is not your fault.
You should not have to pay the difference from what was originally
projected. You will likely have to fight accounting over it though.
But when the difference is almost $800, it's worth the fight!

No matter how many times you tell people you'll be out of work for a
week, reset your voicemail and send an email reminder, someone *will*
be ticked off they didn't know you wouldn't be here to do their
emergency samples.

If you ask nicely and smile a lot, sometimes, *sometimes* the SEM
vendors will let you play with their toys. WOHOO! Geekgasm! Or, as
Brian put it when I got back to the hotel after "Is my little geek
thrilled with getting to play with expensive new geek toys?"... If I
have the chance, I'll post a couple of the SEM's I took.

Monday, August 04, 2008

Things I've learned at my Microscopy conference so far:

Delta bites bigtime. They'll keep insisting you'll make your
connecting flight, even though that connecting flight has already left
where you were supposed to get on it...

Peacocks meow!