Suing the State of Maine Today

So, Billy wants to sue the state of Maine today. I don't know how he wants to go about doing that, but he has an entirely good reason as to why. Here's the story and a drawing farther down the page that I made in Microsoft Paint which you can follow along with.

***

It was Thursday night, last night. Billy came home from work early in the evening so we could go out to dinner. We took his 1999 green Toyota Corolla that he's selling. My car had too much mess in it and Billy's Mustang was in Derry getting it's striping put back on.

We started in the direction of Portsmouth, but we weren't sure where we wanted to eat yet. When we got to the Portsmouth circle I think Billy had an idea of where he wanted to go for dinner. A man in a sedan cut us off to get into the left lane which we had been getting into. Billy stayed in the right lane to avoid getting hit. He tried getting over, but couldn't, and stayed in the right lane going toward Maine.

Billy saw a sign stating "95", apparently a highway he wanted to get back to. So he kept going straight. When we got to 95, it was 95 North instead of South. We needed South. By now Billy is mad at the situation. We drive and drive, hoping for the nearest exit. A "Welcome to Maine" sign stating "The Way Life Should Be" makes Billy scoff, as he has disliked the state ever since he's been there twice with me to visit my Grandparents in Buckfield. A Rest Stop area flies by, then a Weigh Station, and finally an exit: Exit 7: The Yorks/Ogunquit, Maine.

I'd seen the exit many times on my way to my Grandparents house, but never before had I gotten off at that exit. We drove up the off ramp and came to an unlit area of road. We took a left at the fork, knowing the on ramp for 95 South would be there instead of to the right. Before we know it, we're on the wrong side of the road and a car coming from up of the hill is traveling towards us. I gasp and Billy curses as he turns and drives over the short median to get to the right side of the road. Out of the corner of my right eye I see the beginning of the median, splitting the two sides of road apart; hard to see with no light, and an unlit arrow sign pointing to the right...We're not going fast only about 20 miles per hour, as Billy didn't want to hurt the car he was currently selling as it traversed over the median. We'd only just gotten over the median and a mess of construction equipment is barring our way for the turning lane for 95 South. We turn, with only our headlights guiding us, and drive past some overturned and uselessly scattered, orange cones. I gasp again as we come to a low, gravel dip in the road, followed by an even lower metal grate. I mean they were low and though we were going slow I knew it wouldn't be good. I close my eyes and wince as the car jolted through the dips, crying out as it's underside scrapes the ground and it's tires take the brunt of the impact.

Billy curses again and says, "Wow, let's get out of this crap state," or something like that.

We turn left to get onto the on ramp and as I hear strange thudding noises I say, "But is the car okay?" with my heart still pounding and my breathing out of whack.

Billy gets silent as we listen to two of the tires, both on the passenger side of the car, thud against the ground. He stops at the bottom of the on ramp and we get out to inspect the tires. Sure enough, the passenger side front and rear tires are flat. The passenger side front rim is bent. The underside of the car is scraped, but hard to tell with only our cell phone lights.

Not wanting to spend a good amount of money on a tow, Billy calls his Mom back in Hampton. There was a donut-tire in the back of the Corolla, but that wouldn't help with two flat tires. He explains the situation to his Mom and tells her she has to go out to my car in the front lot and get my donut out of my trunk and bring it to us. I have a Chevrolet Prizm, it's the same thing as a Toyota Corolla. Billy quickly changes his mind and tells her he will just call AAA, as it would take her too long to get there. We were almost 40 minutes away from home, it would take her over 40 to get there and then 40 back, with two donut-tires!

We get back inside, Billy calls his boss and AAA, and we wait for a flatbed to arrive. As we wait we get out to inspect the Corolla one more time. Billy lets out a sound of disbelief as he looks at his side of the car.

"What?" I ask, fearing the worse.

"All four tires!" Billy states with a laugh, seeming to want to lighten up the situation. I couldn't believe all four tires were blown out! The flatbed arrives 10 minutes later as Billy gets a call back from Walter, his boss and close friend. He shares the story with him as the flatbed driver loads the Corolla onto the ramp.

After about 40 minutes, $57.00 plus a really good tip, we get back home... with no dinner. I entirely felt like it was my fault since I had been the one that wanted to go out to dinner in the first place. It was one of those things that you kept thinking about after like, "What if?" What if I hadn't taken X amount of time to get ready, if we had already known where we wanted to eat, if that guy hadn't cut us off at the circle. Small things like that, that change the outcome of everything.

All in all, everything's okay. Billy is a mechanic and that's why he had the car in the first place. He buys and sells cars alongside being a mechanic. He can easily get 4 new tires, rims, and hubcaps, which were also lost, for the Corolla. At least we weren't in my car, as I have work today. And at least we were NOT in the Mustang, that would have been devastating! I mean it would have looked cooler for an action movie being a 2007 Mustang flying over a median and going air born after hitting two dips in the road instead of a dark green Toyota Corolla crawling over a median and wrecking itself in two dips would have. But really, the Mustang's low profile tires, 20-inch chrome American Racing rims, and chin spoiler wouldn't have made it through that all that well. But, as Billy said to his Mom when we got home:

"So, I'm suing the state of Maine tomorrow,".

The construction site was not lit, the road was not lit, there was no work area ahead signs; visible for someone coming off the exit, there was no dip, bump, or detour signs anywhere, there was construction site equipment in the road, and there were cones, but they were overturned and scattered around. That's why Billy wants to sue the state of Maine. I'd go up there and take pictures, but it's kind of a ways away. At least we're okay. :-]

I remember the first three things I was thinking after we bashed through the dips.

1) Wow, for anyone who saw that it must've looked really cool

and 2) Seriously, how do the GTA guys do it? I mean we just went through two low construction dips and blew out four tires and it was alarming. How do Nico or CJ fly over sidewalks, run people over, and slam into buildings with out like, flipping out? Haha.

and 3) Okay, "Welcome to Maine: The Way Life Should Be? Complete with dangerous construction sites that murder out-of-staters, four flat tires, and death-defying stunts held in 4-cylinder, family sedan, metal deathtraps!??!

Sincerely,

Jenn (musclecarlover)

P.S.: We live in Hampton, N.H. so both Massachusetts and Maine are within minutes of us in some areas.

Hampton Beach 19th Annual Seafood Festival

So, living in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire definitely does have it's perks. The beach is literally a less-than-one-minute walk away, there's fireworks every Wednesday night during beach-season and Holidays, free concerts, the boardwalk; which has lots of beach food, clothing stores, gift shops, and arcades, there's the Casino Ballroom where concerts are held, sand sculpting, sail boat races, sea fishing, state parks, and of course... the Hampton Beach Seafood Festival.

For those who aren't seafood lovers or haven't dared to try any of the ocean's delicacies, there will also be chicken, ribs, beef, and other land-lovers meals for you!

Here is information for the seafood lovers about the Hampton Beach 19th Annual Seafood Festival.

***

Times & Dates:

Friday, September 5th, 2008: 4 PM to 9PM
Saturday, September 6th, 2008: 8AM to 9PM
Sunday, September 7th, 2008: 10AM to 6PM

Admissions:
Friday night is free (local appreciation night)
Saturday is $5 per adult
Sunday is $5 per adult
Children under 12 are free of charge

Schedule:
Friday, September 5th
4PM: Grand opening- All booths open
4PM-8PM: Live entertainment
9PM: Festival closes

Saturday, September 6th
8AM: Hampton Rotary 5K Road Race
10AM: Festival opens
11AM-3PM: Culinary Chef demonstrations
11:30AM-6PM: Kiddieland, featuring magicians, jugglers, clowns, musicals, and story telling
12PM-8:15PM: U.S. Air Force Band of Liberty medley
8:15PM: Fireworks, which are the last ones for this season
9PM: Festival closes

Sunday, September 7th
10AM: Festival opens- all booths open
11AM-3PM: Culinary chef demonstrations
11:30AM-5PM: Kiddieland, featuring magicians, jugglers, clowns, musicals, and story telling
12PM-6PM: Live entertainment
5PM: Sky diving demonstration
6PM: Festival closes















So, for you people in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, or other nearby states visit Hampton for it's 19th annual Seafood Festival. Lobster, clams, shrimp, scallops, chowders, calamari, crab, and different types of fish will be available in all forms, fried, grilled, sauteed etc. Also for the land-lovers, there will be non-seafood meals for them! For more information on festival please visit http://www.hamptonbeachseafoodfestival.com/index.cfm
I'll see you there!

-Jenn (musclecarlover)

Chevy- Not like a rock at all

That little tannish-brown guy with the wrinkly face is Chevy. The happy one holding him is Billy, my boyfriend. This is how Chevy came into our lives.

***

I'd been wanting a puppy for some time since I'd been with Billy. I showed him cute, small faces with lolling tongues and big eyes on websites like Petfinder and CraigsList. The pictures won him over every time, but no small furry bundle had joined us yet.

That is until one of our friends alerted us that she had a friend who's Rottweiler was having mixed breed puppies, apparently with a Chocolate Labrador Retriever. After hearing this Billy and I immediately wanted to go see them as soon as we could. Our friend told us about one unique puppy in the litter. Out of all eleven (after two were stillborn), and out of all the boy puppies, there was only one tan one, all the rest were black...

Thornton, N.H. took us a while to get to; and all the while I just kept thinking about that tan boy puppy. We just kept going North, North, and North. It was a cold day, February 8th, 2008, not freezing but cold. Northern, New Hampshire looked creepy at night, especially with all the snow. Everything was just white as we drove by. White ground, white rocks, white trees, white road. Snow was everywhere. The trees were bent down toward us, heavy with snow. We were the only people around it seemed. The Ranger handled it well though, and soon enough we were in a large driveway petting a friendly Rottweiler named Babygirl.

Billy and I followed our friend up some stairs with the Rotti following close behind, and finally came into a small, but quaint and warm, house. Introductions were given, but not without staring and smiling at all eleven puppies. I tried finding ours. After searching for a while, our friend handed us a small, wrinkly faced pup .

The puppies were young. We knew we couldn't bring him home until sometime around March; just to be safe. But before we left, being the girl who went to Veterinary Science classes, I tested the tan puppys' behavior.

"He's one of the 'mellower' ones," our friend said. "We like him because he's not much of a trouble maker."

He seemed like a good puppy. He played with the others, didn't appear to be sick, and when given a certain test he came out as somewhere in between too aggressive and too submissive. I held him down on his back, with my hand lightly on his small chest. He sat still for a few moments, but then squirmed and fought back. It was what a puppy should do. Not fight back right away, or not just lay there and continue to lay there. He was in the middle which was good. He came to us when we bent down, appearing to feel comfortable with us. It was hard to leave.

But finally that day came. Our friend told us she'd bring the puppy down to us. We met at another friends house, where a woman and her two kids were also waiting for one of Babygirl's puppies. Our friend Junior had already picked his puppy up in Thornton a few days before. I was jealous of him and his black pup, Scrappy, I couldn't wait to get our own. We waited in anticipation for the small Sunfire to arrive. It finally did. And out of a tall cardboard box, Chevy was handed to us, tiny docked tail wiggling back and forth.

Papers were signed, $120.00 was handed over, and we left with a new friend. We climbed into Billy's 1994 V8 Chevy S10 Blazer, appropriate for the situation, and waved to our friends as they watched their dogs' baby go. We promised them pictures and updates by e-mail. After we left I specifically remember Chevy looking at me as I held him in my lap in the passenger seat. He didn't cry, pee, bark, or squirm. He just looked at me with those big blue eyes.

***

Chevy is now nine months old. He looks much different from the photos above. He's no longer short and stubby, but long, lean, and very tall. His eyes are no longer puppy-blue, but brown. He actually is somewhat of a troublemaker. And his face is still wrinkly, just not as much. I bring him to visit his real brother and sister every once in a while. Junior has his all-black brother Tank, no longer called Scrappy, who's really friendly and kind of dopey in a way. Junior's parents have Chevy's tan sister, Sable, who has a girly bark and a need to please everyone.

Chevy's got a great personality.

"He's a clown," as Billy says.

He is though. He's funny and makes everyone laugh with his strange antics, too-long-legs, and face which is full of human-like expressions. He must have gotten the goofiness from his Labrador father, if he really was even a Labrador. I think his legs are too long for that to be possible and his head is too hound-like. Chevy is a little shy and aloof around strangers, but that's only the Rotti that comes out in him. If he knows you or has met you a few times he's fine.

He loves his playmate, Rose, my parents' Golden Retriever. She's on the older side; she'll be eight on December 1st. She didn't tolerate him at all at first. When Chevy first met her on the first day at home he peed a large puddle of yellow on the floor. She moved away when he came up to her or growled if he tried to tug at her ear playfully. But they love each other now and that's all that matters. He's much taller and bigger than her now, so Rose had her chance for bullying. Chevy can now leap over her back and fight back in a play-fight. They're never apart and do everything together.

We love him.

I'll leave you with more photos of Chevy. I will update and post newer pictures of him soon!

Sincerely,

Jenn (musclecarlover)

Introduction to my Life

Hello World,
my name is Jenn and I have recently decided to start publishing a blog. I am new to this "blogging" and am experimenting with how I want to approach this new found hobby. So, not to bore you right away, I will list information I will probably end up writing about in my future blogs:
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My life; including but not limited to, relatives who live in the Philippines, Germany, Iowa, Florida, Tennessee, Maine, and of course, New Hampshire, my boyfriend, friends, life living at the beach, my job-searching to escape my currently torturous one, things about my writing and drawing, my two dogs, muscle cars, car shows, shopping, tailgaters and road rage, and things that basic every day life throws at me.

A personal, online journal, for myself, and for you to read.
Sincerely,
Jenn (musclecarlover)