I have never really been a fan of the automated coin dispenser. You know, the machine that has a little cup where the coin part of your change appears when you pay with cash at the grocery store. It doesn’t save much time. I’ve worked cash registers at a retail store before, and it doesn’t take very long to get change for people one coin at a time. I don’t like them because I often forget to take my change. The cashier hands me the bills and it often doesn’t occur to me that half of my change is just sitting somewhere else waiting for me to take it.

Today I bought a couple of things at the grocery store and the coin machine gave me what seemed to be a lot of coins as change. Here’s the breakdown

• 1 Quarter
• 5 Dimes
• 1 Nickel
• 5 Pennies

I don’t know about you, but that don’t make a lick o’ sense to me. I suppose that it’s possible that the machine only had one quarter and one nickel in it when I got there. That’s the only explanation I could come up with. What happens to the next person, then? Isn’t the cashier alerted when coin levels in the machine are low? It just seems like one more thing to go wrong.

Alex has a penchant for taking the faces of his coworkers and putting them on pop culture icons like Shrek, or Princess Leia. Well, he and I have turned it into a competition to see who can make the best one. This was his idea after he noticed that I seemed a little bored. I rushed out here so quickly that I gave little to no thought to entertainment or hobbies. Anyway, here is one that he “rushed.” I must admit that he has had quite a head-start at this stuff. I can do some things with the Gimp, but he really knows what he’s doing in Photoshop when it comes to blending images together.

I wish that I had had a camera on me when we were driving around the other night. We drove past a McDonalds that had a small marquee attached to their sign out front that advertised a special: 2 bags of ice for just $1.29. I wondered aloud why McDonalds would sell bags of ice let alone advertise it as a special of some sort. Alex, who was driving, said that Arizonans really like ice. I thought he was just joking. I still thought it was weird.

Tonight at dinner Alex made some green Kool Aid. When I poured some into my ice-filled plastic tumbler and tasted it I think I made a face. It was so sweet I couldn’t drink it. Cassie said that Alex’s family always made it that way and let the ice melting in your glass water it down to the right concentration. Then she said that Arizonans really love ice! I guess Alex wasn’t joking after all.

I touched down in Arizona this afternoon after a quick flight from San Diego. Tomorrow I start my new job as a Technical Writer for Apollo Group. I didn’t want to say anything about it until it was for sure, and I think now is as sure as it can get without me having arrived for my first day. I have been informed that tomorrow is the most glorious day of the week: Nacho Thursday. I have also been informed that if it is my team’s turn to make the nachos then I will be expected to clean the machine afterwards.

I leave many friends behind in California, which makes me a little sad and homesick. I think the homesickness is mostly because my wife is still back in California finishing out the year at her job and getting everything in order to move our stuff and take care of all the odds and ends that go along with a move.

We are in the process of trying to get ourselves into a townhouse since we plan to spend a good long while in Arizona. I haven’t had an employer in the last two and a half years because I’ve been going to school full time. Hopefully that won’t be a problem. I think there might be some special services we may qualify for as first-time home buyers, but I really am not sure. I don’t know anything about Arizona and the way their state government works.

According to Samuel Shu of The Tennessean, recipe flatulence forced a plane to land! This is unbelievable! Almost anything can bring an airplane trip to a screeching halt nowadays, it seems.

This test is a lot of fun. Pay close attention to the instructions and let me know how well you do.

On our way back from Las Vegas we stopped in Barstow. Many places were closed because it’s Thanksgiving Day. We pulled into a gas station that looked like it was open and there were about 15 people milling about outside the restrooms (which were located on the side of the building). We decided that there had to be something better than that, so we drove to a Circle K down the road. There were only a few people at this gas station, so we stopped. I went inside to look for a pen light and a restroom. On the wall next to the restroom doors was a sign: “Closed for cleaning for 20 minutes. Sorry.” I saw a customer come out of the restroom while I was walking toward it, so I went inside.

It was immediately obvious that the sign outside the door had been there for a long time. I tried to hold my breath as I walked past the filthy sinks on the right and the two stalls in use on the left. As I rounded the turn I expected to find at least one urinal, but there was only a trash can where porcelain should have been mounted to the wall. I turned around as a man in a black leather jacket exited one of the stalls. I was not excited to be there.

Inside the stall I twisted the locking mechanism. As my fingers met the cold metal handle I had to remind myself that I would be able to wash my hands on my way out. There was used toilet paper on the floor surrounding the toilet. I’ve never been able to understand this. The toilet is right there, for the love of Pete! If anything it takes more effort to see the toilet and then make a decision not to throw the used toilet paper into it. Someone had also managed to miss slightly when they were sitting down and the remainder of this mistake was still on the back of the rim. The toilet seat was up, and I was glad that I didn’t have anything substantial I wanted to get rid of. When I was done, all I could think of was washing my hands and getting out of there.

At the sink I turned on the water and wet my hands as I looked around for the soap dispenser. It was on the wall between the two sinks. It was covered with dried streaks like someone had brushed their teeth and spit on the top of it and let the foamy toothpaste and spit run down the sides. I pulled the handle below the soap dispenser toward me. Nothing happened. I pulled again, and still nothing. So I started wiggling it back and forth more violently hoping to get a drop of the last bit of soap out. I resigned myself to pretending I was washing my hands, rubbing them together under the water for a while. I figured that was better than nothing. Then I looked for the paper towels. All I could find was a heated-air hand drier. I raised my foot above waist-level and lightly kicked the start button with the front of the sole of my shoe. It took two cycles to completely dry my hands. Then I waited for about 15 seconds for someone to come in the the restroom so I didn’t have to touch the door with my hand.

I decided to skip the hot dogs behind the cash register.

Krissy was going to take the car to work today so she could run some errands. I was planning on sleeping in a little bit so I could drive at least the last leg of the trip and be awake at one o’clock in the morning. She wakes me up just before she leaves and tells me that there is a flat tire. We’ve had a slow leak for about three months, so I’ve been refilling the tire with air every couple of days. Luckily we have a small air compressor that plugs into the cigarette lighter jack. The tires cost about the same amount of money that I had set aside to purchase the Wii. Once again, the money set aside for the Wii has been taken for something more important.

I could get upset that the Wii has been yanked out from under me twice, but as I see it, at least I had the extra money we needed when a sudden need arose. The Wii can wait. I’m just glad that the tire failed now before we drove to Las Vegas. We are leaving tonight.

Maybe I can make some extra money writing articles for News Forge.

I went to two Target stores, three Costco stores, two Toys R Us stores, one Circuit City, and one Walmart location and all I got was a Wii Remote. Only one of the places I went said they even had any left today. So much for Nintendo’s claims that they would be able to meet the demand. I demand that my demand be met!

It looks like it will be a while before I get to exhaust the Wii Fund.

I thought I might be able to get a Wii on Monday morning, but it is looking less and less likely the more I read online about the popularity of the Wii and the numerous Costco locations that have already sold out. I was banking on the fact that Costco has been overlooked in previous console releases. The Xbox 360 was still easy to get at most Costco locations the day after its official launch. The only way that I might still be able to get one tomorrow is if one of the local Costco stores didn’t receive a shipment on Sunday and get them in on Monday.

If I can’t get the bundle from Costco it’s not the end of the world. I won’t really have much time to play it anyway. I was still excited for it though. The bundle comes with Zelda: Twilight Princess and Excite Truck. It is looking to be difficult to get Zelda anywhere else; everyone is sold out. Message boards online are also saying that the only way to buy a Wii Remote is from Nintendo.com, so it looks like no two-player games for a while. I will post again when I have more information. Here’s hoping that I can find the Wii somewhere tomorrow.