This weekend

Man o Nam, this weekend was not relaxing. It was pretty crappy at some times.

Let's start with Saturday...
Neither of us slept well Friday night, and we were both up early (I was up at 3:30 or 4:30!, but I never sleep well before a trip :p ), so we were both vaguely tired and cranky as we drove an hour and fourty or so minutes to King's Dominion.
I'll get into a review of the actual park later. Honestly, I don't know if I have the time to do it right now. We had an OK time, though.
The bad: long ugly lines in the morning, everywhere. The seeming lack of choice in foods (literally a dippin' dots every corner or so)
The good: lots of fun rides... 3 rollercosters in about an hour, 5 4 3 2 *WHOOSH*

Then the really bad came... we left the park a few minutes early (it closes at 10:00, we left about 9:50. There was no laserlight show or anything to keep people in, so the parking lot wasn't terrible.)
First we couldn't find the car. We didn't pay close attention to where it was, but we did find it, got in and started the drive.
Now, Kristen drove there so I agreed to drive home, since we thought I might be hyper and that would help me stay awake. I wasn't and I was having problems staying awake at times (I never fell asleep, but I did suffer from night daze here and there :p)
We were doing well for an hour, putting distance between us and the park. At somewhere close to an hour into the trip, we hit traffic. Thick, ugly traffic.. at 11 PM on a Saturday? I stay silent for about half an hour, but it's more stop than go and getting ugly and I'm getting edgy. Eventually I start suffering from road rage, pounding my wheel, getting frustrated etc. and Kristen wakes up.
We got stuck in traffic for an hour and a half because the Virginia DOT decided Saturday night was the perfect time to close off the Springfield Interchange (where I-95 meet 495 and 395, all large highways), reduce traffic to one or two lanes and send them through.
An hour and a half, and we finally got out of traffic about 12:30 or so..
So we should be home soon. I know the way home.. it 95/495 over the Woodrow Wilson bridge, merge onto Maryland 295, into D.C. 295, and back to maryland 295 and then off at our exist.
Except that Maryland 295 TURNS into 395 if you miss the exit, which being REALLY tired, I somehow did.
So.. at 1:00, we were wandering around Washington D.C. trying to find our way home. We ended up in front of the Washington Monument (which spooked Kristen something fierce)
We did get home, at about 2:00, and feel into bed....
(Kristen, the news is NOW saying the intrerchange will be closed tonight. Wish they'd said something Friday.. or if they had, that I understood it :p )

We both officially woke up about 11:00, but neither of us really woke up, honestly. We spent the rest of the day exhausted.
I plugged my Ipod in and went off to Laurel to get some lunch and rent some videos because we were both overtired and wanted a nice quiet day.
Went to Laurel, got two videos, grabbed Subway, started going home.. and an accident on 197 forced me to wander around Laurel for a little bit (I followed the line of cars, but it was enough to freak me out a bit more, since Saturday night/Sunday morning is STILL fresh on my mind)
Came home and decided I needed a napped.
But the upstairs neighbors were being loud, so I decided to put on my iPod (I have an ITrip and I listen through my radio)
Turn it on, go to bed... wait for music... nothing...
*blink*
I turn up the volume.. stil nothing..
Look. The iPod has a track name, but isn't playing, I skipped..it skips once (no more than once), tried to read, fails... I hit stop.. and it turns off... I reset the iPod and it resets.. then I hit play... and now the hard drive is grinding and then clicking.
SHIT!
Long story short, the iPod seems to have died. I don't know if I accidentally stepped on it (it was in my shorts pockets when I went to bed Saturday), but then it WAS playing in the car, so I dunno...
I played with the iPod, went to the website, tried to fix it via their suggestions, but I'm pretty sure it's the hard drive.
So today I get to go to Circuit City and see what they'll do with it (I DO have a two or three year extended warranty on my iPod. Yay for me.)

By this time, I'm all upset again. Kristen comes over. We try not to crank at each other and end up watching "A Series of Unfortunate Incidents" which was a bloody fantastic movie.

Then went to bed. Well, called home to hear about mom's stressful weekend and then slept.
Still tired now. Am glad I'm taking the Metro to work.

So... I'll post about King's Dominion later.

Good News on the iPod

I contacted Circuit City by phone.
What happens is.. I get everything together, send it all to them in a box.
They check it in, make sure I sent everything and issue me a gift card for exactly the amount I spent, plus sales tax.
I go out and buy a new iPod.

And decide if I want to get another replacement plan...

No "You broke the agreement. We won't replace it." None of that.
No waiting around on UPS to deliver an iPod either. I can get it in a store.

So... it's pretty good news. It'd been best if it could have been replaced on the spot, but this isn't bad. At least they'll replace it.