Mark’s Notes On The Go

Wow, I don’t feel so well. Sore throat, slight cough. Woke up at like 4:30am and couldn’t get back to sleep… I felt like I had enough, but I knew it wasn’t true. I felt practically asleep all after noon - i.e. trouble focusing on anything. At least I went to work early (since I was up), so I was out earlier…

Then ran by Staples to get a new shredder. Mine died Sunday. I’m on one of my clean the house sprees. I’ve put a few things on e-bay and half.com (part of e-bay anyway) that I don’t want but hate to toss. I’ll have some comics to put on there too - probably in lots so that hopefully some one will buy a handful to get one that they want. Anyway, they had a good deal on a shredder that was nearly half off between in-store discount and rebate.

Spent the evening alternating between shredding and reading my assignments for creative writing. I don’t think I can wait until the last minute like I did in college. That was a time when I had so few responsibilties, no “real” job, etc. I’ve finished the reading. Now, I still need to do the writing part… hopefully at lunch tomorrow and tomorrow night. There’s still lunch Wednesday, but that’s pushing it further out that I want to. I also haven’t written anything in my class journal in a couple of days. I have some things I thought about writing that I can still put in there post-fact at least. This coming weekend, I’ll have to devote some time to class work instead of putting off like I did this weekend.

Saturday, I just sat here and listened to the sleet and freezing rain and read (personal enjoyment reading). Sunday was the cleaning-out-the-house bug. I also got out just a little after feeling trapped in by the ice the day before.

Before I forget, another article up at Boots-n-all! Go here to read it!

Better get some sleep now!

Had my first creative writing class tonight. Was quite enjoyable. We have several assignments to work on for the next class - some reading, some writing exercises, as well as an ongoing assignment to keep a journal of observances, thoughts, etc. I guess to a degree some of what I put in here fits the category, but an awful lot of it is also just a recording of what I’ve done which doesn’t quite fit the assignment. So, I need to run grab a notebook or something to try to jot this down. Since I lack one tonight, and I had a couple of observations that are still fresh from the evening, I thought I’d give it a whirl.

• Before class I was looking for some place to eat - feeling more conscious of time and traffic being heavy I gave up early and settled for McD’s. The person behind the counter when I came in was the stereotypical, unhappy with his job sort, or at least he appeared as such. He was running both the drive-through and the counter, which seemed a bit much at going on 6pm. He was very much ignoring the counter, which to that point had a couple and me. The couple had already placed an order and were making small talk. I didn’t really take it in as I was busy feeling ignored. A minute or two passed before a three-some of obvious college-guys came in. They all had the preppy haircuts, white t-shirts, and shorts - almost a uniform. They were pretty vocal, so I did hear some of their discussions as they argued about who had enough to help one of the threesome pay for his meal as he had no money. They finally settled on who would pay, what they were both having, etc. About this time, a somewhat disheveled cashier appeared to be returning from a break and took my order just as the couple ahead of me were getting their food from the guy who had been manning both stations. I placed my order and stood to the side while the threesome ordered their food to go. Shortly after I sat down, I saw them leave the parking lot - in a BMW SUV. Yep, I’m near Emory alright.
• I live in the suburbs because my job is here. I always remember how much I liked intown life when I go back down there. That may be the reason I don’t go back more. For the first two years in Atlanta, I lived more or less between Emory and Buckhead in a dumpy little apartment that I’ll always remember with a touch of fondness. While driving around looking for food, I finally determined that I didn’ t want to go further down Briarcliff searching as it was putting me further and further from the school. It had been so long since I’d been around Emory that I really had no idea where to go, but I decided to turn around and go back to North Decatur. I spotted an apartment complex parking lot to turn around. As soon as I turned in, I spotted it, the rental sign - Connie Rose - the same group who owned my first and only apartment in Atlanta. I felt like I was at home in a strange way. Every so often, the idea of selling my suburban townhouse has flitted across my brain. I’ve thought of paring my life down and moving into a condo in the city. And in a few days, the thought of not even having my little patch of dirt to plant in floats through, and soon I remember the agony of a bad day in traffic getting to and from work. And I resign myself to more time in the burbs.

I am so tired today. I sat down after getting home from dinner last night and proceeded to go through the pictures from my trip. I selected out about 100 pictures that I felt like others would enjoy and gave a good flavor for what I saw while I was there. Believe it or not, there were probably about another 50 or so that I progressively weeded out as I TRIED to keep the amount of space this took up down.

It was getting late, so I logged on to check how much space I was using on my site… I remembered getting close when I put up Mexico… dang… not enough space to post Scotland yet… So, I first tried lowering the resolution on my photos of London more (batch adjust)… Depressingly little gained from that… And I’m not 100% sure I’m happy with the results… got to think on that one… So, I went on and started going through each picture of London 2004 and deleting out some of the fluff - particularly if I had multiple pictures of the same subject. It still didn’t make a huge difference. I’m down to around 10 meg for London alone. That’s close to half of my alloted space. I looked at Mexico and realized that several of those pictures are at a higher resolution than necessary for web viewing, so the next cuts will come there, but I still really need to winnow down London a bit more, I think. It’s hard, though. I did so much in those four days that too much weeding through will eliminate so many fond memories…

C’mon Comcast - up the amount of space you give!

This is from the “Yes, I am insane - thanks for asking” department:

Sitting at work during lunch today I was checking out airfare to various places. There was an awesome fare to Australia listed at Clark Howard’s site - with tax $1,070 - which I’ve never seen from Atlanta. I’ve seen under $1k only from LA. If I hadn’t just put in the new transmission, I would have been sorely tempted.

So, first time since November of 2003 that I haven’t had plans to go somewhere sometime. Nothing, nada, zilch… it’s a weird feeling… So, where maybe? Rome? I keep getting the Italy suggestion a lot lately. I’ve also thought a lot about Peru. I really want to take the Incan trail to Macchu Picchu. But I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet. I would sort of like to know some spanish first. Is that just an excuse? I went to Mexico once already and know no spanish. Certainly anywhere that Gringos come to spend money, the locals have learned enough of our language to communicate. But in the back of my mind, the trip is somehow less if I haven’t gone to that extent… I dunno… I’ll think about it.

So, you’re wondering where the insanity part plays in by now? I’m considering, get this, driving to Mexico in May! The next RCPM show is in mid-May. Granted, I could fly again, and it probably wouldn’t be anymore expensive. If I found airfare in the same range as last time, it would certainly probably equal out to hotels and gas and all that. I figured out it’s basically a 24+ hour drive. Now, I could make it in two days, but I figured on about 4 days out and 3 days back (sight-seeing less on the return). This isn’t including time in MX itself… The idea is tempting… I haven’t had a long road trip in years and nothing ever that would compare to this… tempting…

Long few days…

Friday started out with such promise. It felt like a good day. Got up on time, no traffic to speak of… Hit the last stop sign before work (well, not literally, but it felt like I did…). Immediately after that stop sign, the Blazer had an odd feeling of slipping on ice… which would be unlikely at around 40 degrees fahrenheit… It was gone as quickly as it came… okay… Last turn into the parking lot, the feeling is back, this time accompanied by a most ominous noise… I can tell the car isn’t getting into the gears it should be in, even at this low speed. I pull into the first available parking space and put it in park. Noise is still there… sounds like something isn’t engaging properly. I do a couple of tests back and forth in the parking space. The car is moving under its own power still, but how long?

I go inside and instead of work, I spend the next 40 minutes or so on the phone. I don’t really have a garage as such here that I like. I checked AAA and their nearest recommendation is actually where I once took the Grand Am for an alternator replacement. Okay, at least I have experience with the shop, and I didn’t feel like they treated me al that badly (the expense that time was an alternator for a car that was a brand new model year - $$$). I gave them a call, described my problem. They concurred that it was probably transmission. They said I could bring it by, but they really didn’t do that work, they could only diagnose it. Not being sure how far it was going to take me before I had to surrender to a tow truck, I asked who they recommended and if it didn’t sound better just to go ahead and go straight there. They agreed that it was best just to go on and recommended Mr. Transmission slightly south of Holcomb Bridge. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t sound so bad, but that’s 10 miles on a wonky transmission…

Went over to ask April if she’d mind following me down to bring me back. She agreed and we left about an hour before lunch. I got out to the parking lot and this time noticed when I shifted into reverse that there was no power at all going to the wheels… oh joy… I had coasted back a couple of feet… Changed back into drive and was astonished to find I still had forward power, just not much. I tried this a few times, never got rear power but found that I could get up some speed in 3rd gear… We went on. I figured at this rate that I’d done as much damage as I could (who knows) and didn’t feel like waiting for AAA and making the return of my car even longer.

Surprisingly, we did make it there. Every traffic signal was a royal pain, though as I had to get up to around 4,000 RPM afterwards to get back into 3rd gear. Dropped it off and had lunch and felt quite sorry for myself.

The call came shortly after lunch. I’d been hoping for a screwed up clutch or something like that… nope… transmission was shot… I’m not the most mechanical person. I’m no slouch, I do understand some from helping my Dad over the years, but once you get into the inner workings of the transmission, I’m out of my depth. He explained fairly carefully that there’s some piece inside there that, in his opinion, GM should recall because when it goes, which he sees a lot, it takes the transmission out with it. I gave the go ahead to replace my transmission with a rebuilt unit (which has an after-market whatchamacallit on it that shouldn’t break so easily).

Felt exceedingly bad for myself Friday night. Still, it’s not the end of the world, and I feel quite lucky that I have “rainy day” money in savings that will cover this. Tax refund is not far off, and I know now that will go to put my savings back where it was. I guess this year’s refund will continue the non-frivolous approach from the past couple of years (when the economy was so bad and I had such a dim outlook on the future).

Yesterday, April came by and took me to get my car. We had lunch at California Pizza Kitchen afterwards (my repayment for the taxi service). And after that, I drove around for awhile. It’s weird, I was really only without the car for 24 hours, but it felt like days.

Went over to Fry’s in Duluth and got some memory for the old PC. I tripled what was in there (very reasonable cost), so I can tell the difference. I’m also trying out Mozilla’s Firefox and Thunderbird (browser and e-mail clients). They seem quiet a bit better than the old MS stuff I’ve been using. Still haven’t committed to them quite yet, but I’m close. I like the open framework which lets others code up little add-ons, etc. I have a nifty weather updater in the status bar now. Sweet!

I spent six hours this evening going through TWO YEARS of comics that were piled in the closet. I can’t believe I let this go on so long. I also went through the boxes that I already have and pulled out more than a short box of comics that I no longer want. Mostly odd lots, only a few complete series in the bunch. I figure on sitting down in the next couple of days and listing what’s there. I’ll send it Chris’ way and let him tell me how incredibly worthless it all is except for fuel for a homelss person’s fire. I’m thinking that I may just put up chunks of it on e-bay and see if I can’t sell it in lots to get it off my hands. What I can’t get rid of, I’ll see if I can give to charity. I can’t stand throwing reading material away, but I really am at a point now where the space is more important to me than the books. When I see what I’ve amassed in two years (I really do need to get a picture of my hall before the boxes I ordered get here), I shudder to think what I’ll have if this continues. Got to rein this in somehow…