I’m going to make a Jason Parx blog post now. Please set aside the next 3 hours of your life.

I’ll go in chronological order over interesting events from the last two weeks. First up is something that I’m very proud of.

Right before the 4th of July a hose on top of the water heater cracked and started spraying water. In my fear I called Mike Diamond plumber. They quoted me $321 to replace the hose, which I later learned was a $10 part and a 20 minute job to fix. Total they wanted over $2000 to replace the entire water heater. Luckily my dad has done that before. The next day we headed out to All-American and bought a new water heater and hoses all for only $462. A few hours later it was installed. That’s a quality savings of over $1500. Boo yah. Not only did we save money, but I got to spend time with my father and learn something from him. Who knew a broken water heater could be such a good thing.

A few days later I had the pleasure of hosting a bachelor party for my brother. It was a pretty mellow affair, but I think everyone had a good time. I was again blessed to spend time with my family and this time be able to do something special for them. The wedding is this Sunday and I’m looking forward to it. This is a picture from our rock-paper-scissors tournament.

This next entry is a frustrating one. The weekend of the bachelor party we purchased a new 2007 Camry.

You’re probably wondering how this could be frustrating. I’ll keep it short and post links for people that want more info, but the main idea is this: The car makes me motion sick. I get car sick very easily as a passenger, and this is due to unexpected accelerating and decellerating. I have never in my life though gotten sick while I was driving, because I can fully anticipate the motion of the car as I press the gas or brake pedals. Unfortunately the Camry has some peculiar behaviors that take away my ability to predict acceleration and decelleration. Unfortunately a 10 minute test drive didn’t make me nauseous, and I would never have thought it could be a problem. If you’d like to read more about these behaviors read here and here. I’ve driven the car 300 miles, and every time I drive it I end up nauseous. Ultimately it looks like we’ll be selling the car and finding something else. We’ll end up losing money, but that’s a better alternative than being motion sick every time I drive it for the next 10-15 years. The next challenge is finding something that doesn’t exhibit these behaviors.

On to more positive experiences, this last weekend we went to Seaworld with Stacie’s Girl Scout troop. The troop is dissolving and this was their last big trip. We got to spend the night in front of the Beluga Whale and Polar Bear exhibits. Super cool. Here’s my best picture from the trip.

And finally my last picture is the least exciting of the five, but it’s not my fault that it came last chronologically. We rented the Rug Doctor from Stater Bros. to clean our downstairs carpet. Every now and then the dog likes to pee on it, and over the last two years it’s built up a few spots. It did a super awesome job too.

That’s about it for now. I will be heading off to Taco Bell pretty soon here to eat with Luna, and I might visit a Honda dealer to test drive a Civic. I hope you’ve enjoyed my Jasso style post. I certainly have.

I’m a little behind on blog posts, so I’ll bring you one now, and I’ve got another lined up (and both with pictures!)

I mentioned in the previous post that we went camping and got horrific sunburns. Mine was so bad/hilarious that we took a picture.

The spray lotions are lame. Sure you don’t get it on your hands, but who cares if you end up with a Picasso inspired sunburn! Luckily I’ve done much improving since that picture last weekend. I’m almost back to my regular shade of white.

Pictures of the new water heater coming in the next post.

Back for another “here’s all the not quite tabloid worthy stuff that’s been going on in my life” blog entry.

Over the weekend Stacie and I went camping down San Clemente way. It was technically the “San Mateo” campground, and it was frickin hot with no shade. To make the camping experience even more miserable was our newly acquired sunburns from our day at the beach. The beach and I are now mortal enemies locked in a battle until the end of the universe. Despite the crummy camping conditions, the camping company was great. We caught up with Kurtis, Amanda, Kevin, and Christie over tacos and smores. Overall it was fun, but made me long for a real camping trip in the snow.

After that our energy has been next to nothing as we recover from 87th degree burns. Yesterday we went out to Chick Fi’la, or however the heck you spell it, in Cerritos. We stopped at the Power Toyota dealer to look at some Camrys in real-life. Looking on the internet for close to 9 hours straight is quite informative, but actually touching the car helps too. Since I haven’t given a car update since the “I’m looking” post, I’ve decided on the Camry because it’s a Toyota, it’s big enough, and it gets decent mpg. I ruled out a Civic because of the size. For an extra couple grand it should be a little easier once we have kids and they’re all killing each other in the backseat. Now it will be a bigger backseat for them to kill each other in. I also ruled out the Toyota Camry hybrid. The list price on a Hybrid is $5000 more than the Camry SE I’m looking at. At my current driving habits, it would take something like 23 years to recoup the cost of the hybrid. I’ll stop Charles Dickensing you (that’s a new verb for this being super long). I’m getting quotes from several dealers around town, and it’s already proving fruitful. One dealer has quoted me $1000 less than others for the exact same car. I’m all for saving $1000.

Today brought new and exciting annoyances. The incoming water hose on the water heater decided to develop a crack and start spraying water all over. No good. Called Mike Diamond in my haste and fear. Guy came out, but the numbers he was quoting me sounded insane for what was wrong. Almost $400 to fix a flex hose that costs maybe $10? That’s retarded. I called my dad and he agreed. I managed to get the incoming water valve to turn (it was majorly stuck) but it’s a crappy gate valve that decided not to work. Turn it and turn it but the water doesn’t stop. Now the water to the entire house is off until we can install a new ball valve, which should hopefully be done tonight.

Those are the exciting happenings around the house. We’re still working on planning vacation, so I might put up a new map soon. The book is still in forward motion, though I let Stacie read the first major “act” of the story. She provided some excellent feedback that would make the story a lot better. I’ve read some people that say never go back and “edit” anything until the whole book is done, just keep pushing forward…but I couldn’t do that. I’ve gone back and I’m fixing some things before I go farther.

Brother’s bachelor party is this weekend.

Billingsley, Kemp, Martin, Loney, Ethier, you all rule! The future of the Dodgers right there.

Transformers is out today, and seeing it on the big screen will be a must.

That about sums up life for now. Hope everyone is great!

Disaster Preparedness: Good.
Practicing turning off the gas to the house but forgetting to relight the water heater pilot: Bad.

As I hurriedly got out of the cold shower, visions of the house blowing up raced through my mind. Luckily though I was able to relight the pilot in the water heater, and hopefully we’ll have hot water sooner than later. Lighting pilots is yet another area your dad wants to show you when you’re younger that you don’t care about. I look forward to someday boring my own son with this important knowledge that he won’t care about either.