The Life of Riley is a weekly post that details my activities since I ended a thirteen year career as a corporate drone. These posts are usually long, personal, and geared more for my own memory than the reader’s entertainment.

Sunday (Day 119): Making Sauce

My parents came over for a quick visit, and #1GF! finished up making a batch of sauce.

Monday (Day 120): Free Advertising

I found out that I won a free month of advertising on Smartwealthyrich.com from a contest I entered at davidairey.com. I debated on whether to customize my ad to fit the business feel of SmartWealthyRich, but then thought about my former corporate life. If I learned anything from that time, it’s that if you act like something you’re not, you’re going to eventually find that you’re surrounded by people who you have nothing in common with. I decided that presenting an ad that painted this site as professional would be as unnatural as me pretending to like golf. I thought that it would be smarter to try to attract the off-center crowd that usually enjoys this site (like you guys).

I spent the entire morning creating the ad, and you can see it for the next month or so thanks to Jon over at Smartwealthyrich.com. Thanks, Jon!

Tuesday (Day 121): Car Into the Shop

Got up and out the door to fight my way to the North Shore of Massachusetts through the rush hour traffic because I had to have some warranty work done on my Evo. I spent over an hour in bumper to bumper traffic, and was thanking the devil that I brought along some Six Feet Under and Cannibal Corpse to calm me down. I don’t know how you commuters do it every day.

I was scheduled to wait while the car was fixed, but after a couple of hours I was told that they would need the car all day. I had to ask #1GF! to pick me up because apparently the most that Mitsubishi will do if your car has a problem while under warranty is call for a rental that you’ll have to pay for. They were supposed to call me back later in the day to let me know when the work would be finished, but they didn’t.

I used to own an Acura that cost half as much as my current car, and if it had to go into the shop for more than 4 hours, Acura would give me a free rental for the day. If I waited, they had hazelnut coffee, a bunch of newspapers, desk space, and free phone use as long as I was there. Mitsubishi had a chair, an empty coffee pot, and a day old newspaper. There is something to be said about the difference in service levels between the two companies.

Wednesday (Day 122): The Two R’s

Finished off most of my posts for the week, and caught up on my weekly reading.

Thursday (Day 123): Sphinn Extension

Spent the whole day building a Firefox extension for Sphinn because I had never built an extension before. Like every coding project, I spent more time tracking down a misplaced uppercase letter than actually writing the code. I think the hardest part was creating the link to make the install kick off automatically like it does for plugins hosted at Mozilla.

#1GF!’s mom called because of a problem with her TV, and made it sound like an emergency because #1GF! told her that I screen my calls and wouldn’t answer unless I thought it was an emergency. Sneaky women. I got the problem nailed down pretty quickly, but couldn’t seem to give her the proper instructions to fix it over the phone. I told her that a dyers.org technician would have to schedule a visit later in the week.

Got a call from the dealer who said that they had to order a very expensive part and that I should come pick up the car even though it wasn’t fixed. When I asked if they had at least fixed my suspension issue, the guy said that he didn’t know and he’d call me back. He never called back. Did I mention there is a difference in service between Mitsubishi and Acura? I think so.

Friday (Day 124): Better Blogroll 2.23

Called to see if my car was ready and had to leave a message because no one in the whole dealership heard the phone ringing. Again, no one called back. They’ve had my car since Tuesday.

I updated my Better Blogroll plugin for Wordpress to version 2.23. The widget now has a checkbox to control whether the link category is shown next to each link.

Went out to lunch with one of my former co-workers who had to come down to one of the local joints in my town because my car was still in the shop. I was amazed at how the outside world looks during the day. I find it amusing that I see less sunshine now than when I worked full time in the corporate world. During lunch I realized how awesome it is not to have to dig through the constant snow job that corporate life offers.

#1GF! had to work late, so I ended up working until 9:30 PM, which was about two to three hours after I had burned out for the day. I was having such a great time listening to some of the great Halloween playlists that people made this past Finetune Friday that I just kept working. I kept swearing under my breath because I heard so many good tracks that I wished that I had thought of. If you haven’t checked out the stations, I highly suggest it.

Saturday (Day 125): Migraines + Blog = Big Headache

Dropped #1GF!’s mom’s car off for service and fixed her TV issues. #1GF! then went to her friend’s house and I swore that a migraine was going to keep me off the computer, but it didn’t. I started writing and working on advertising and didn’t stop until after she had come home. After that, it was takeout and movies until the headache was gone.

What I Learned

• I figured out how to add a check box to a WordPress widget.
• I learned how to make a Firefox extension.
• I learned how to make a Firefox extension install automatically from a link.
• I learned the difference between service levels of Acura and Mitsubishi.
• I realized just how much I look forward to FineTune Fridays because I feel like I’m getting to know people better by listening to their musical choices. It’s weird, but it relates back to my idea of music as a language in my “Expose Yourself” post.
• I learned that my readers are either too smart to click ads or I’m serving up the wrong ones. At this rate I will never be able to afford that gold grill and fat Run DMC rope chain that I’ve been eying since 1986.
• I learned how to implement an ad rotator.
• I learned that more ads don’t necessarily mean more clicks.
• I learned that having no schedule and being able to go out to lunch on a moment’s notice is pretty kick ass.
• I learned that I need to consolidate all of my ideas and to-do lists into a single system.
• I finally learned to insert Javascript into a Wordpress post.
• I learned that some people just do not like this site.

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