Monday, December 22, 2008

The Onset of Winter

After work on Friday I went to Uncle Billy's and sampled a pint of their winter seasonal, called "Yule be Bock." It wasn't actually a bock, more of a wheat made with some roasted malt, but it was fairly tasty. I went from there to the Texican, where I met Jimmy for dinner. After we were done eating we were carrying on a bit and a woman from the next table came over an joined us for a while, after mistaking my saying Jimmy for her name, Jenny. After bullshitting a while, Jimmy and I went next door to Stardust. We joined his kids and bunch of their friends. We were hanging out and enjoying ourselves, but once I started talking to this really attractive woman I wasn't that interested in doing anything else. I never wound up getting her number or anything, but I enjoyed talking with her. I thought about "appropriating" her number for myself when she got up for a bit and left her phone, but I thought that would be way too creepy.
I was a bit hung over when I woke up at 9 Saturday, and lazed about until noon, then went to Alamo Ritz and saw Milk, which was really good. Uncharacteristically, although I was hungry when I got there, I had trouble finishing my lunch of pizza. Heading toward home, I went to check out the Barton Springs Greenbelt, partially because I've been near it tons of times but never actually checked out, but mainly as a possible alternative route to get to work. The part of the park I saw was pretty nice, although the creek wasn't flowing at all with the severe drought we're under. There were a ton of intersecting trails with no markers whatsoever, so I wasn't sure where to go, but I found a path down to the creek and got a Dr Pepper from the convenience store on the other side. The trail was too rough to take road bike on and the path from where I parked (where I would presumably enter) down the the creek was pretty steep and would be pretty treacherous on a bike, to me at least.
I wanted to go for a bicycle ride Sunday, but the temperature was in the 40s and it was windy, so I drove to Alamo Lamar and saw the Swedish vampire movie Let the Right One In, which was also really good. I was thinking there were a couple of things I'd like to pick up at Best Buy, not thinking that it was the Sunday before Christmas, and was overwhelmed by the number of cars trying to park in their small lot. It took me five minutes just to get through and leave. I did a little bit of picking up around the house, then went over to Jimmy's and watched football and have dinner. When I got home I happened to notice that my thermostat was blank and realized why the house had felt a bit cold all day. I checked everything I could think of, like the breakers and the thermostat itself, but didn't see anything obvious. I was thinking I would be freezing without heat on a sub-freezing night, so I went to sleep in my new down sleeping bag. I woke up sweating at 2am and just slept in my fleece sweats under the covers.
This morning I called a handyman Jimmy knows. He found a 5 amp automotive-type fuse hidden under a couple of access panels had blown. He replaced the fuse, but it blew again immediately after the power was turned back on to the unit. I tried calling a HVAC guy he knows, but couldn't get a hold of him, so my house is still without heat, and it's still in the 30s outside. I went to work just so I could warm up. So now I have to get a professional out, and I'm sure it's not going to be cheap.

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