Oh dear god. That could destroy the Reef!

A Chinese ship, en route to China from Queensland, hit the reef at full speed, nine miles (15 kilometers) outside the shipping lane. WTF were they doing outside shipping lanes?

Here is the story: [link]

WTF were they doing outside shipping lanes?

Saving money, avoiding pesky inspectors ie saving money, taking a shortcut ie saving money, ignoring inconvenient demands put upon them by people who aren't them ie saving money . . .

Peter Garrett, the nation's environment protection minister, told reporters that the federal government is concerned about the impact an oil spill could have on the environmentally sensitive reef, which was selected as a World Heritage site in 1981. >[link]

Midnight Oil Peter Garrett?

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Yeah. He got big into politics and environmental issues.

I have the Scola. He is being a trooper and playing video games with mac.

I knew he was vocal about political and environmental issues but I didn't realize that he was in government. Good on him.

Hooray for Scola.

So, after staying up until all hours to finish Emmett's report, I got 3.5 hours of sleep and drove from SF to LA on Friday.

Uneventful drive. I listened to LA Confidential on audiobook, as read by David Straitharn. (He was fantastic and did an excellent Lynn Bracken).

Got in, stayed at a nice place Friday night paid for by my hosts. Did the tour on Saturday. Full bus, good crowd, went to dinner with my hosts (also delicious, in fact, the best pizza I've had in LA. As good as any pizza I've ever had really: Bollini's in Monterey Park (I think that's it).

Nice sleep, breakfast, hit the road by 8am in hopes of making it back for family Easter stuff.

And then...and then....just North of Bakersfield my car makes bad bad noises. I pull off. White smoke coming out of tailpipe.

So, I'm broken down in Bakersfield and my car gets looked at by the garage tomorrow morning.

I'm staying at the rather swanky (yet affordable, cuz, you know, Bakersfield) The Padre Hotel.

So, I made $500 on my bus tour and even sold about $65 of my Tom Waits books which would've covered most of my gas expenses for the round trip.

But instead of being up $500, I'm hearing some of the most dreaded words a car owner can hear -- "It might be a blown head gasket" -- which would be somewhere like $1,300 to fix.

More than the car's worth.

Plus, you know, smashed window fix and car got booted this month too. So, it's really been a purely shitty adventure in car ownership lately.

However, tonight I expect to take full advantage of The Padre Hotel's amenities because I don't have to deal with Planet FUBAR until tomorrow.

It's all too much bad news to even waste expletives on it. I am going to go have a drink and ponder what I did to offend the automobile gods.

But I am definitely on one of those streaks where I can't catch a fucking break. Even my positives turn to negatives.

go drink, choose drink.

also look at pics of the work we did this week at my new place: [link]

also look at pics of the work we did this week at my new place: [link]

Monkeys keys and pretty tiles!

Whole new life.

I think you'd like this hotel, msbelle. I half expect Dwight Yoakum to drive up.