Gut check time folks. Or as I like to think of it, the longest 24 hours that I’ve had to live through in quite a while.

Moving. I’m working through a townhouse buying process that has been eventful on its own… multiple offers, sped up and unexpected deadlines, banks holding money hostage, and I’m really not even at the halfway mark… were it not for a great Realtor, I would have lost my mind already. My last two Realtors were… well. Lackluster hardly does it justice.

As part of that I’ve continuously kicked myself for giving up all of the moving boxes I had after moving last summer. The moving company picks them up as a “service” and at the time it sounded like a good one. I had more boxes than I did storage space so yay, no boxes to store. Now it’s moving time again and I’m thinking ack, no boxes. Last weekend I tapped some local resources for boxes and my den/library is now packed; it just looks like it’s being sponsored by Absolut Vodka. Just some more stress to work through, having to get moving supplies without going broke doing it.

Family members being sick and/or needing medical attention is never fun, but it’s some what more painful when watching it from so far away. More not so much fun stuff.

A former employer has yet to send me a 1099 form for my work with them last year. That’s illegal – all W2 and 1099 forms must be postmarked by Jan 31 according to the IRS – and what’s worse is that it’s screwing up my universe. I have no idea what my rebate or payment will be and I need to know soon, so that I can plan my renovation budget. Do I call the IRS on these people? Soon I’ll have to. I can’t file without the 1099 so I’ll have to tell the IRS ‘Hey… they never sent it to me’ but that will only slow the process down further… I’m hoping they put up soon.

Bad Geek Karma has attacked every lab machine, test suite and test case that I’m associated with, causing for a whole lot of work related craziness. I spent most of Wednesday putting the world back together and it held for about six hours… it needed a booster shot this morning and will need another tomorrow, I’m sure. Par for course in software, but another Fire Drill just the same.

Went to Crossroads today for lunch. A car backed into me in the parking lot; the driver told me that “I saw ya coming but I didn’t have a chance to beep” – beep?! how about stopping?! – “it was your fault, you hit me” even though she was backing out of a parking space, into the main lane of traffic. Riiiight. Pft! I left the mall without lunch – just a large Bubble Tea – and called the insurance company. They’ll send out an agent to make an assessment. More time will be eaten there, not to mention more cash.

The estimate on the car – to fix the scratched quarter panel, bumper and rim – comes to about $1500. And then I found out that if there’s more than $700 damage done to a car, you have to fill out a WA State Accident Report. I called the cops from the parking lot and the 911 dispatcher told me that they can’t send an officer over because it was on private property. There were no witnesses. Hell, the driver didn’t even want to exchange information, until I dialed 911; “doesn’t look too bad, I have to go – why are you callin’ the police?” I lease this car, so I have no choice in the matter, but whatever. I still had to fill out my own accident report, it seems. That was a 7pm trip to the Redmond Office of Public Safety – yeah, honest, that’s what it’s called.

And so. After all of that, I decided to pack up some of the electronics that I won’t be using between now and when I move. Like my VCR (unused in a year), my tape deck (hasn’t been plugged in since leaving CT), and my PS2 (untouched since Halo 2 was released). While moving things around I accidentally unplugged my [Comcast Motorola 6208 with HD PVR] cable box. Ah, shit. No worries though… I knew it would recover once I plugged it back in. True it was recording The Apprentice at that moment and I would lose the guide info for a couple of hours, but I’d get over that.

Um. Oops? SVideo output works. So does Audio. DVI/HD does not. I called Comcast and performed their advice: unplug the cable and plug it back in. No picture. I see the HD label and the volume bar on screen, which usually means that there’s no signal coming through. Simply put, it’s the port on the $3K TV, the $100 cable, or the $0 cable box. Comcast told me that I could swap out the box at the local office, so I’ll go down that road first, ASAP. The better news is that when I plugged in my PC to the TV with the same DVI cable, the picture came through without issue, so at least I know the TV is OK… that was the biggest worry of that particular Drill. And sure… a new box means that I get to set up all the Series recordings again, but, erm… yay!

A long day? Yes, but not a very bad one. There are a lot of ways that it could have been worse and I’m thankful that it wasn’t that.

Damn, that Kool-Aid is more powerful than I thought…