Thunder of Wade

In the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy, there’s a scene where the characters are confronted with a buruacratic line and the hero says, “Leave this to me. I’m British. I know how to queue,”

Well, yesterday I was confronted with an American that didn’t know how to queue. A line was forming at the snack area and both the non-queue person and I were moving into position. I followed the previous pattern of people and the pathway approaching the checkout. He was ahead of me coming from the side and stood at a right angle to the rest of the line. Everyone else in the store formed up behind me – making it clear that he was doing it wrong. I left him enough room to step over in front of me into the line, but he simply stood there, oblivious. Holding his pack of gum.

Now, some would argue that he was looking at things from a different perspective and marching to the beat of his own drum. People that argue that are wrong, sorry.

Once I got nearer the front of the checkout line, I noticed that things were not moving as efficiently as they could be. There were two areas open, but both had issues. The guy at the far checkout was in a massive neck-brace – the kind of thing a Klingon would wear if they had an injured neck. He could barely move in that thing and was becoming dangerous with his quick turn-arounds to see things. The woman that ended up helping me had apparently forgotten her glasses that day since she could barely see and had to bring all the items up to her nose to see them. I noticed one customer use a coupon and then pay with cash and needed change. Might has well have tossed a wooden shoe into the machinery.

I finally escaped after making my purchase – but it was really a summary of how my day went. People in my way, actively opposed to letting me get on with my life. And me trying to stay out of everyone else’s way.

In other news… I filled up my gas tank this morning – almost thirty bucks. And this was with a 1/4 tank left and after the price had “gone down” – whatever that means.

Also this morning, I took a different route to work. It went better and more smoothly than the way I usually go – so, that went well.

Finally, I took my room-mate’s computer to the repair shop here at work. They created a work over for me and said they would take a look. Felt a little funny that I didn’t get a receipt or something, but they did send me an email – so, we’ll see how it goes.

Guess that’s it for now… back to work…

Had a good weekend – a visit from my sister and brother in law. They were in town to meet up with some friends from Cleveland for dinner and stayed with us for the weekend. Had a nice time and played a lot of UNO. They are OSU fans and my room-mate is a Michigan fan – so the game was fairly intense on Saturday. I played my PSP and just kinda hung out since I’m only marginally an Akron Zips fan if that.

It was good to see them and I’m glad they could stay with us.

My room-mate’s computer bought the farm on Friday evening. We took it over to the Best Buy Geek squad and they couldn’t even get it to stay turned on. So, based on previous issues, I suspect it’s the motherboard that is toast. I’m going to see if the crew here can take a look – but I think a new computer is in the future.

Work this morning, on what could only be a Monday morning – has sucked. Glad we’ve got a short week – I suspect there will be at least two more Mondays this week.

This morning, as I was pulling out of my driveway, I realized it was snowing. Just a little snow in the air, but it was kinda pretty. I know that as the winter goes on I’ll be dreading the snow – but today I kinda liked it. And though I was running late, the traffic wasn’t too bad – must have had good timing today.

Went to Rudy Tuesday’s recently and got my usual excellent tasting turkey burger. I also got fries with that, but to balance things out, I also got the salad bar. And then the problems began. I’m 6 foot tall – a reasonable height for a guy – and the “sneeze shield” on the salad bar was clearly designed for someone around 4 foot tall with unnaturally long arms. It hovered over the food items like an over-protective mother and to get to anything I had to bend at the knees and waist, move my arms below the shield, then up and over to reach the tongs. Getting the food to end up my plate was another matter and the impatient 4 foot tall woman behind me used her unnaturally long arms to try and reach in front of me – a clear breach of etiquette.

I got most of what I wanted for my salad, but totally gave up on the mushrooms – no way I would be able to reach those in the back row. The salad was good and I’m sure good for me, but I didn’t go back for seconds since it didn’t seem worth the hassle. While I appreciate the value of un-sneezed-upon food, it didn’t seem like the barrier was well thought out.

In the news of the silly, I subscribed to my own blog with Google Reader. Now the RSS feed will show up along with all the other blogs I read. Pointless, yes, but not a bad exercise.

Played Final Fantasy 12 again last night – getting close to the end. In fact, I could just board the final ship and finish the game, but I’m working on some side quests before it ends.

One of those quests involves gathering a bunch of items from all over the planet in order to acquire three medallions – which in turn open three doors. The first of these doors – the Door Of Loathing – put me face to face with a gigantic monster with a huge freaking ax. I mentally braced myself and got ready when he suddenly fell over and died. His attacker revealed itself and hopped up to confront me. Literally hopped, it was a bunny. With feathers on its ears for some reason. The bunny cast a spell on itself and went totally berserk and started smacking my characters around. I rallied the troops and eventually took it down. The second door had another big monster that went down without too much trouble – no bunny this time. The third door had a monster that set up a field making it impossible to use the attack command. No swords this time – only magic. Well, I like games where you get to hit things – so, I may skip that battle.

Guess that’s about it for now – time to get back to work…

I gave blood on Monday of this week – slightly notable experience. The process was mostly efficient, though there was a bit of a slow down in getting started with the actual donation. While I was waiting, I folded a crane one handed – to the amazement of the people around me. The women taking the donation was singing with the guy that was processing the blood donations – a diana ross / lional richie duet, My First Love – so, that was kinda weird. And she left the blood pressure cuff pumped up the entire time. I was uncomfortable at first and then I got used to it. I just figured it was a new procedure but it didn’t really seem to have an impact on the speed. She was quite embarrassed when she realized, but I really didn’t think it was a big deal.

I also got a sweatshirt out of the deal that I’m giving to my Mom.

Yesterday, I lost a bit of blood as well, though this was my own damn fault. Went to Chipotle for lunch and as I was hurrying to get in my car and close the door before the car next to met took off, my door swung shut on the side of my head and hit my ear. Hard. I rubbed it a bit, swore quietly, and went about my day. Last evening, I reached up to scratch my ear and I must have broken up a scab – blood started pouring out of the side of my ear. Once I got it cleaned up I realized it was a small cut, but it must have been deep. I kept pressure on it for a while and covered it with a band-aid when I went to sleep. Seems to be okay, but it was pretty intense for a bit.

Gotta stay late tonight for another training session.

Guess that’s it for now… later

Had to give a presentation this morning on some work stuff for the division. It went okay, but it was not the most fun thing I’ve done today. I don’t normally mind that sort of thing, but the topic was a little boring even to me, so I’m not sure how well I “sold it”. A few people said I did well, so i guess that’s something.

I swam again today – back down to 3o laps from last Friday’s personal record of 45. Felt pretty good, just ran out of time.

I’m headed out to give blood in a few minutes. I was going to decline the sweatshirt since I’ve already got a red cross jacket – but Mom wants the sweatshirt, so, I guess I’ll go ahead and get that.

I visited my folks over the weekend. We took the dog hiking and played a bunch of UNO when my sister and brother in law came over. Pretty nice time – quiet and peaceful.

Guess I should head out – I’ll need to eat something before I donate.

later…

So, I finally got around to getting a picture of the 17.28 mb origami piece I did way back in May. I also got some shots of more recent projects.

http://gozips.uakron.edu/~aws/evenMoreOrigami.html

The washer and dryer got delivered yesterday – though it was a near thing. We set up the time for “after 5:00” – but they called my room-mate at 7:44 yesterday morning to confirm the delivery of the washer in the morning and the dryer in the evening. He got them corrected and both were delivered at around 5:30 in the evening. We got them hooked up, but since the crew tested them on-site, we didn’t bother with any laundry last evening. I’ll report on the first run when we get around to it.

I’m still a little sore from my walk around on campus – but it was worth it. I’m hoping the swim today will loosen me up.

Well, I’m hoping for a quiet day today, but I’d better get back to it.

later…

The day off yesterday for my annual campus walk around has put me behind schedule – so, this will have to be quick.

http://gozips.uakron.edu/~aws/costume.html

This year I was Sobek, one of the gods of the dead from ancient Egypt. People really enjoyed it and I had a lot of fun with the building of the costume and getting to share it with people.

Gotta get back to work – enjoy the photos…

Went to a halloween party on Friday – had a lot of fun. My costume was more “party friendly” than last year, but it was still a bit awkward to move around in. There were some really great costumes there and a few store bought ones as well. My room-mate won a prize for his “mrs. doubtfire” costume and I won one as well for mine. I also scared the crap out of one of the kids that was there – which I felt bad about publicly, but was secretly pleased about.

Tried to play Portal over the weekend, but the servers were always down. Took me two days to download the content of the game, but you can’t play it unless you are connected. It bites. I’m going to try again today if it fails, I’m going to fire off an angry email.

Got a new swim suit over the weekend as well – ordered it from SwimOutlet. It’s a speedo variant – square cut with extra material for more drag in the water. Feels “more official” – if I’m serious about swimming, I should have the gear for it. The goggles I got are called “vanquisher” – so, I’ve got that going for me as well.

Talked to my grandmother yesterday – she’s recovering from back surgery. She seemed to be in pretty good spirits and we had a good conversation. She’s still hurting, but on the slow mend.

I’m going to visit my folks and my sister and brother-in-law this coming weekend for my mom’s birthday – then not long after that my sister and brother-in-law will coming up my way and will stay overnight at my place. So, should be fun. I can show them all the sites of Akron – and then after we’ve spent 10 minutes with that, we can find something fun to do.

Well, that’s it for now. I’ll have photos after Wednesday when I do my walk-around.

later…

The bathrooms here at work are right off of the kitchen area. I would like to take this opportunity to describe the smells.

1. Imagine that someone made macaroni and cheese with one of those stinky cheeses, then mixed in cooked and rotted onions. Next, they heated this up with not a microwave, but a flaming bag of cow-poo. This was the smell in the kitchen.

2. Pine scented urinal cake. This would be the smell in the men’s restroom.

Is it time to go home yet? Please?

Okay, how about now? Maybe?

(sigh) – fine, be that way. But if those smells contain some kind of mutagen and I grow an extra eye in the middle of my forehead – you’re paying for the custom glasses.

later…

Went for my swim today and noted a few things they have done as improvements to the pool area.

1. Retiled/painted one of the walls near the locker room. The chemical stench was astonishing.
2. Replaced the main entrance doors – the new ones have bigger windows that let someone see the current pool lane configuration, which is handy.

3. They installed a big screen tv (like one panel of a jumbotron).

I’m guessing this is for swim meets – but I can’t figure why they would have it on during a regular day. There are two groups of people in the pool area when I swim.

a) those in the pool – generally preoccupied with swimming and/or not drowning
b) Lifeguards, who generally should be watching group A

Seems like a waste to me and potentially dangerous, but I don’t recall getting a survey about this so I suspect my opinion on things is not exactly welcome.

later…