It never fails.

Every time I have posted something about JJ being quiet or withdrawn, I press the “publish” button and suddenly within minutes he is back to his old laid back self. It’s ironic because he doesn’t have access to this blog. So it isn’t like he could be reading this and then changing.

Anyway…

It has been a VERY busy week. More busy than anticipated.

I went to visit my brother on Friday. I checked into the hotel the state was paying for at around noon. I was getting my things out of my car, turned and closed the door and paused.

Crap. Where is it… no.. it can’t be… (as I look in the car and now see my keys sitting on my shifter). UGH. What am I supposed to do? I am too far for anyone to come with a spare key, and I don’t have any other way to get anywhere. I attempted in breaking into my car. I was unsuccessful. I could have- but I think I would have broken the drivers window in doing so. I twisted a metal rod enough to reach one of the door locks, but it wouldn’t grip it enough to push it to “unlock” . This was especially bad because I was going straight back to Phoenix after I was done with my visits. After waiting a little bit, walking around to various places trying to see if they had something I could get into my car with – I gave up. I called the locksmith. He came out and had the car unlocked before I was even there to see what they were doing. Quick- indeed.

I then went to visit my brother. It kind of topped off the day. One conversation led to another- about moving places, Portland, Phoenix.. and things got into a heated argument. It was the first time we both were heated but didn’t raise our voice or get in any physical altercation. It couldn’t of happened given the circumstances, but it was still a new experience. I left the visit fuming- I couldn’t wrap my mind around what went down and how some things seemingly haven’t changed.

The next day I visited with my brother he addressed the issue. It was also a new experience for me. Things usually are left not dealt with- and on my side it wouldn’t have done any good to address the same – old – issues. It was good, I was impressed with him. He is talking to some people internally who are very much into God. I think it is doing him good, he even told me how his friend and him prayed about the situation before he came out to visit with me.

Obviously that made the last part of our visit harder to say goodbye. It was sad. It was kind of classic though- we played card games called “War” and “Goldfish” for about 3 hours. Yes, I did say Goldfish. So we changed the rules (from not remembering everything) but it was still fun.

I left late that night to my hotel. Slept wonderfully. Things were looking up, especially now that I had my keys in hand.

Next day I started on my way to Salt Lake City. I drove on – past Oregon and Idaho and into Utah. It was great driving weather. Temperatures in the 60’s and 70’s. Not long after I got into Utah I started to notice that my amp meter was reading higher than the “normal” range on the dash. Ugh, what is this? I kept an eye on it – and it seemingly kept going up. I was in the middle of nowhere, so I was going to try and make it to the next exit and pull off to see if there was something I could do (the whole time talking to my dad on the phone). As soon as I told my dad my plans my headlights popped up and down about 10 times and my gauges read all different readings. I pulled over on the side of the road. My dad said to turn her off and check under the hood.

I opened up the hood and the battery had exploded. Battery acid was all over the place. My key was useless. I might as well had left it locked in my car, because turning the key was doing nothing. Thankfully I have VZ Navigator – and was able to look up towing places in the area and call them. My view? Well.. it was like this:

Mile Marker 370 has a new profound meaning for me.

I waited for about an hour before the tow truck came. At that point the sun was already well on its way to being set.

Help finally arrived…

It was Sunday night and I didn’t have any options to getting a battery. All of the local auto places were closed. What should I do? They said they had one that might fit my car at the tow shop. It fit, so I bought it. Thankfully it worked.. After all was said and done I had about 3 to 4 hours of downtime. Now for the rest of the way I needed to drain my battery as much as possible as the alternator was charging it too much (and therefore boiling the battery). How did I do that? I ran the lights, I kept the AC on – anything that could be on… was. Even the rear defroster.

So I drove that night to a Wal-Mart where I picked up 3 quarts of oil to add into my car (some reason it was really low on oil when I checked it) and so after all of that I got back on the road and made my way to Salt Lake, where I checked into my hotel around midnight.

What a night. I was pretty much done, but I had a friend in Salt Lake who wanted to meet up while I was around. Being that I am not in the area much (haha) I went out to grab something eat. I hadn’t eaten anything the whole day – so it was something I had meant to do – just didn’t have the time to do with everything else going on.

I went to sleep around 4am. AH!! I was right back to those “late night” habits that I worked so hard to break. On the up side, I slept wonderfully…

The next day I was on my way to Vegas. A shorter trip that worked well considering I had to go a slower pace with my car acting the way it was. Plus, you can find cheap hotels in Vegas.

I got to Vegas and it was busy, as always right? I got to my hotel room and watched Intervention on A&E for a good 3 or 4 hours. I like that show..

Afterwards, it was getting late (9pm) so I decided to go grab something to eat. The hotel I was staying at was like a Maze and it was somewhat annoying getting around. I walked down the street to a line of restaurants.

Looking down I saw that I wasn’t alone.

Cockroaches. Just walking along the sidewalk with me. Wow – the only other time I experienced that was right over the California border in Mexico. I figured it was a rare thing.. I just brushed it off and went on my way.

Walking back- sure enough I wasn’t alone. There were people walking on both sides of the street and I wasn’t the only one to take note of the cockroaches. Some girls were running away after getting close to see if they were real- and others were just trying to dodge them altogether.

When I was almost back to my hotel I snapped a photo.

the Hotel.

I was up on the 22nd floor. I must say, this hotel was VERY disappointing. Las Vegas Hilton – don’t bother staying at it. The hotel attendants were rude and room was outdated and not up to par with a typical hotel.

It had a good view – and that is about all I could say for it. They didn’t even offer free internet… I came across a flyer for internet in the hotel, $13.99 for the night.

Anyway I made my way back to Phoenix the following day. I arrived without having any further problems.

My car now winks, at everybody. I’m not kidding. It has the flip up headlights and when they popped up and down those 10 or so times it shorted one of them. Now only the passenger side flips up and down like it should. The other side just stays up all the time.

I emailed LifeLock yesterday and told them that I would be back at work tomorrow. I texted JJ and he kind of assumed that I was going back to Arizona when my laptop, fan and covers off my bed were gone. He said he is still searching for work and will continue to do so in my absence.

That right, I only took the bare essentials.

Last night I had the pleasure of talking to Leah for a bit. It didn’t feel like very long, but I suppose it was a long conversation because I didn’t go to bed til almost 4:45am.

And that is it. Tomorrow I resume work…

What a trip it’s been so far.

just Pray