Office is closed for the YEAR! Whoohoo!! I've never had this before - an incentive for everyone to finish their work early so we can have an extended break. I love this office - the days before holidays we work 8 am to 2 pm... when I was at my old job, I always had to be there until 6 and when I left at 6pm, Stan would get mad at me. I love being at a place where people actually have lives. We got off at 5pm today and we went drinking as usual at the bar downstairs - before we went down, Marilu, Jon and I went to say bye to George, the main partner. He couldn't join us downstairs because his wife was sick but he told Marilu to send him the bill for all of our drinks.

I just can't get over how awesome these partners are. Everyone who knows George loves him. There's even a character named after him on a CBS sitcom - the executive producer is our client. Shane (the computer guy, Don's old boss) joined us tonight and he was just telling us how he goes over to George's house sometimes to do computer stuff for him and he and his wife are soooo in love still and they're the coolest people ever. Last week, someone called for a reference on Lisa (she worked for us for 7 years but then her family moved to New Mexico, so she moved with them) and George gets on the phone... "Lisa? She's out of jail? I'm soooo happy for her because I thought she'd be in there for a month at least!" The person knew he was joking and that just made a better impression because instead of the usual boring reference, now the person will remember Lisa.

I'm going to Vegas for New Years with some co-workers... Marilu's brother got us 2 rooms (for free!) at the MGM Grand. This is the first time I've done anything big for New Years... just wish I had a guy to share all of it with :). I really do hang out with my co-workers too much but we have so much fun!

Other news - I got into a car accident last week... it was soooo stupid, I should have been more careful. I am never taking the 10 West to work again!! 2 accidents in 6 months! The first one wasn't my fault - some girl rear ended me and pushed me into the car in front of me and that car into the car in front of them. Stupid girl was uninsured too. This time, I was looking to switch lanes and the car in front of me suddenly stopped so I swerved and I think I swerved too much (cause I didn't expect the car to suddenly stop and I guess I panicked) because I lost control of my car (yeah, my 4 wheel drive car, but I'll explain later) and a car hit me. It was totally my fault though cause I was sideways on the freeway... The guy in the car that hit me was an illegal alien, didn't have a license, didn't have tags on his car and didn't have insurance, so I feel soooooo bad. I don't know if my insurance will take care of him. The damage looked terrible on the body of my car but inside the car, you can't tell I was in an accident as bad as that. Audi's are freakin sturdy!! I damaged the rear wheel axle so my car is undriveable and I haven't had a car in a week... so tough to live in LA without a car. Missed all the after-Christmas shopping but I shouldn't do that anyway. I started thinking too much this week and I realized maybe it was meant for me to not have a car and not drive this week because of all the rain. I might have gotten into a worse car accident.

I shouldn't have lost control on a 4 wheel drive car but when Dante took my car in for new front brakes 2 years ago, he didn't get the Audi factory brakes so there was nothing to connect the anti-lock brake sensors and because of that, my anti-lock brake system was out. I had Audi brakes for the back tires but Don told me (too late!) that if any of the sensors are out, the whole system is out. I should have replaced the front brakes as soon as the anti-lock brake lights came on in my car but I figured as long as my brakes worked, I didn't have to replace them until the brakes needed to be replaced. I took my car in for a brake inspection after the light came on and they told me my brakes were new but they just didn't have that extra thing to connect to the sensors.