Arrived Monday afternoon for an all day meeting Tuesday.  Tuesday flew by, quite busy, and I hopped back in the rental car and drove to O’hare.   Checked in the car and got to the terminal, rushed to the Delta Kiosk, and swiped my credit card.  I half paid attention when it said it had problems finding the reservation and it asked for the city destination for help finding it.  Punched in “ATL” and waited.  Again, it said it couldn’t find it and asked if I had the flight number.  I pulled out my itinerary and then punched in the flight number.

Seconds later, it popped up with, not a valid flight number for O’Hare.  Hrmm…  Must have typoed it.  I looked back at the itinerary and suddenly the words “MIDWAY” jumped out at me…  I have never had such a sick sinking feeling in my life.  I was at the wrong airport!  At slightly over two hours, on a rainy Tuesday, and I was at the wrong airport.  I rushed to the ticket counter to see if there was anyway to get on a flight out of O’Hare.  Nope, all full the rest of the night.  They thought I had a shot at getting to Midway and sent me to a shuttle service that would supposedly get me to Midway in 20 minutes.

The shuttle driver was not so optimistic.  Rain and bad traffic, he figured it would be well over two hours…  He shared the news with me that I apparently could have taken a couple of connecting trains after we had been on the bus half an hour… hmm…  not so helpful there bud.

Sure enough, we arrived at the airport within minutes of my 7pm flight leaving the gate.  And, of course, it was the last flight of the night.  I got on a 6am flight instead and went to find a hotel room.  I ended up at a hotel a few minutes from the airport and did some work over a McD’s meal while half listening to the presidential debates.

Not a lot of sleep was had before I had to get up to go to the airport again.  I got home late morning.

I can laugh a bit about it now so I feel more open to sharing this insane story.  Still have some angst about our travel booking system, though.  I never search on cities.  I searched on the airport code, ORD, so now I know that our daft system will still deliver you flight options at other airports.  Good to know…  I’ve learned to look a little closer at the results our booking system delivers.

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Okay, first off, something I’ve been wanting to talk about but was:

A) Afraid to jinx myself

and

B) Unable to comment on until official

I got a new job! I still work for the same company, but I’m going to be out of the production side of the picture and working as a project manager in our sales vertical. Possibility of some travel if I get the customer I’m expecting. That would mean perhaps monthly or more trips to Chicago. And, I’ll work out of my home. Even though my commute is 5 miles, the traffic in my part of Alpharetta is mad ugly some days, so I’ll enjoy rolling out of bed and going to work in the next room! This was the second time I had interviewed for one of these positions, so a really great birthday present for me! I don’t start until Feb 5th, but looking forward to my new year!

Since deviant Art recently added basic print accounts for all users, I decided to put up a few of my most popular deviations as prints, and lo and behold I actually had a sale this week. That’s a first!

First Sale

Shortly off to bed. Fighting a sinus infection and on like week three. The first round of antibiotics were not enough and I started round 2 today… I think it may go back to my cold a freaking month ago… grrr!!!

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Yesterday, I was heading home from work, barely a couple of miles from the office when I saw a white blazer waiting to merge in with heavy traffic from the opposite side of the road and doing my bit of good kharma, let the driver in.

Now the funny part is that after the blazer merges in front of me, I spot the Autobot symbol on he rear window. Neat, I think, a Transformer fan. And then I think how odd that is since my cousin, Brian, drives a white blazer with an Autobot symbol, but he doesn’t live near me. He lives in… and I spot the Gwinnett county tag (Brian still had an Alabama tag the last I noticed). stranger… tag month is January… that’s Brian’s birth month… I can’t see the driver, but I decide what the heck, it’s been awhile since we talked. I pull out the cell phone and ring Brian. He answers and I say, “I know this is a weird question, but did a red blazer just let you in?” At his point even though I can’t see the driver, I did see him reach down and pick up a phone when I called, so I’m fairly sure it is him. He responds, “As a matter of fact, I was about to ask you if you just let a white blazer in!” Turns out that his new job is hop and skip from mine. Small world I guess.

Living La vida Lazy

Today has been a day spent being mostly lazy. I slept late but I was also up late, so I didn’t really catch up on any sleep. I’ve had laundry running most of the day. And I’ve been busily working on going through my PC files.

You see, last week, my new laptop arrived! YAYYY!!! It’s the first laptop I’ve ever owned. I’ve always been more of a desktop person, but I finally decided that I don’t like being chained to one spot so much. For now, I’ll keep the deskop. But I’m not sure what I’ll use it for.

I had a second 200gb hard drive in the old PC. I’d figured on using the network to access it from my laptop. That worked somewhat, but if the PC went into standby, then I was shut out. Plus it seemed insane to keep the whole PC running just to access a hard drive. So, yesterday, I bought a network attached enclosure so that I could put my hard drive on the network and access it from whichever PC I’m using. The best laid plans…

You see I have a bone to pick with Netgear. Granted, this purchase didn’t have NEARLY the level of research behind it that the laptop did. However, this appeared to be exactly what I was looking for. A way to offload files from my laptop and PC and a place to back-up some stuff. Even better, I could use the hard drive I already had and there’s still a spare bay for future expansion. Okay, so the problem? There’s not much to the instructions in the way of warning you that the file system the device uses is different than windows. Not a big deal had I known that. But my first warning of this?

Was when I went through the wizard and it informed me drive formatted…. Huh, what???

And I had a couple of months of photo files that I had not yet off-loaded onto DVDs or CDs… Plus plenty of other files that I had updated since the last back-up. So, partly this was also a wake-up call to be more consistent on back-ups. But it was also a story of stupidity on the part of a company. I found one SMALL note on page 3 of the instructions, which I was reading but this note was AFTER the point of running the wizard that indicated the device uses a different file system than windows so drives couldn’t be swapped between the two…

GRRRRRR!!! How hard would it be to put that warning in large letters on page 1? Or to have the install wizard warn that there are files on the drive and “are you sure you want to format” rather than just giving the message after the fact…. Luckily last night, I found software to use to access my data. It had been formatted but nothing had been written over it yet… oh thanks… Thus I went to bed about 4am. I just couldn’t sleep until I had succeeded in retrieving everything and burning onto DVD.

The end of it is that everything worked out alright. I lost nothing (but sleep and sanity) and the network drive is working well. I can access it from the laptop over my wireless connection or from the PC which is wired directly in to the router.

Bored yet?

I was in fact awake last night when the storm came barrelling through. The wind here howled around my house. A few torrents of rain seemed to drive into the side. And then it was over. Well, I definitely pick that over destruction, loss of life and property any day, it just seemed odd.

Slept for hours and was up all of half an hour when I got a call from a friend, April, who was nearby with a blown out tire and her parents on the side of GA 400. I drove out to see if I could help, but I got there and they had TWO HERO trucks helping them out. I waited it out with them since I was there anyway. They left behind me and were heading to the garage where they had gotten tires two hours before. Needless to say, the timing of that is suspicous. I think, having been on the side of the road in today’s damp weather, April’s mother was intent on bodily harm.

While files have been whizzing about to hard drives, etc. this afternoon/evening, I’ve spent time catching up on some reading while absently listening to the TV. The dream of doing real house-cleaning today has not materialized. But I suppose there’s still tomorrow. The only real plan for tomorrow is to try to get out for part of the Dogwood fest. I went last year and they had some great art. Considering today’s weather and that tomorrow is the last day, I predict if the weather is decent, it will be crowded.

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So, the morning rush hour is it an allegory for the rest of life here, or just the morning warm-up?

And is this my typical winter doldrums or are the drums beating for me to do something different with my life? I’ve toyed with career changes, and in my mind’s eye at least, all the corp jobs sound so much like what I do now that I have to wonder why bother? Add time to my commute? Subtract time from my life each day? Just so I can go to the same job that doesn’t mean anything to me in another building?

If not that, then what?

Ah, that’s the question. And I have this disturbing feeling the answer is 42…

Seriously, a lot of thoughts have rambled through my mind on this topic. I have considered writing (still an idea) or maybe owning my own business or some combo there-of. I guess I really want anything that involves me more, that involves my having to think, to put forth some creativity. I don’t know what the path is yet for this journey. I took the first step by taking a class and trying something different, but I still need to figure out where those next foot-steps should land. Hopefully not in a murky swamp somewhere.

Yesterday was my six year anniversary at work… I have been here pretty much eight times longer than anywhere else I’ve worked. I technically worked for Auburn as a teaching assitant for two years, but when you consider the vague amount of work that required, it wasn’t really work at all.

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• 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.

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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…

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Over lunch, I worked on a piece on my trip that I hope, if nowhere else, will see the light of day at Boots-n-All. I got a good deal of it done, but haven’t entirely figured out how I’ll close it. Didn’t e-mail it home, so will have to either work on it at lunch tomorrow or remember to send it home.

As the day was drawing to a close, I had one of my former managers drop by to find out if I would consider moving over to a lead spot on one of his teams. While I would have previously jumped at the chance to work with him again, the timing was not good. As much as I think possible, I’m enjoying what I’m doing now. It’s new and different enough to keep my interest up. I had to say thanks but no, of course. But I truly appreciate knowing that I’m at least in demand where I work.

Watched Lost tonight with friends. Didn’t really see the appeal. I’m slowly thinking that I should drop yet another layer of my cable. I really don’t get a lot out of it anymore. I barely sit down in front of TV anymore. If you had told me I’d say that 20 years ago, I’d have laughed in your face. But after work, I tend to surf the net awhile, listen to the radio, read some, etc. If I do turn the TV on, it’s often background noise on HGTV or TLC. I won’t do anything rash, but it’s seductive to think how much money I would save.

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My Mom has a little tribe of outdoor kittens. Their momma had them here last Spring and left after awhile. Most of the kittens remained behind plus we had a couple of others show up (perhaps helped by someone over the fence into our back yard). A few of them will come in if the weather is bad, but by and large, they have remained outside cats.

This morning, one of them, Tiger, was missing. My Mom was the first to find him… He had been run over sometime between Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. Before we exchanged gifts this morning, my Dad was outside doing the burial thing. Mom was distraught, having been the one who retrieved him from the road. She wrapped him in a couple of her good towels which he was buried with.

Tonight, it’s alternating between rain and sleet. There’s a chance of freezing rain later tonight. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that it doesn’t get cold enough. While I like snow since it’s so rare, there’s no place in my heart for freezing rain which typically brings nothing but downed power lines and falling pines. Two of the kittens, Philbin and Dickens, came in to get out of the mess.

In the evening, my folks and I sat down together to watch the first movie on a set of Ma & Pa Kettle DVD’s that I got them. The first movie in the series is really not about Ma & Pa Kettle, but it was their first appearance as supporting characters. My folks remembered the series from later. None of us had seen the original movie, The Egg & I, starring Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert. It was actually pretty good, kind of an early Green Acres, but with a lot of the typical plot lines I’ve seen in 1940′s era movies, newlywed couple faces adversity, splits, and then comes back together at the last minute realizing that they are meant for each other. The adversity in this film was that the husband, MacMurray, wanted to be a Chicken farmer. Apparently, even though one barely sees the Kettle family in this movie, they were interesting enough to warrant an additional seven movies to follow.

Despite everything it was a nice Christmas with the family. I’ve got a pile of DVD’s to watch and more reading material (some of which will go on my trip with me). I also got a few odds and ends for the trip and, of course not a surprise, Britrail tickets for use during my time in the UK. And I think the folks liked the gifts we all exchanged. My dad is still playing with the combo fax/copier/scanner/printer we got for him, and my Mom spent hours looking through her little Lulu trade paperback and wishing that she had some veggies, etc. to use to test her new mandoline.

One more day here with the folks, and then it’s back to Atlanta to drop off my car and stuff. Kelly is coming by to pick me up and drop me at the airport. I would have totally taken a drop at a MARTA station, but she indicated she’d rather drop me at the airport. When I get back, I’ll be calling April to pick me up at the Northsprings MARTA. I get back close to the end of the work day. Just in time for rush hour traffic probably – not much I can do but apologize for that one!

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Had hoped a couple of Starman TPBs I had asked for would come in this week, but no luck. So, I stopped at BAM on the way home and got a Loeb/Sale TPB that I’d been meaning to get for awhile. This will be reading material for the long plane ride that’s coming.

Today involved a LOT of sleep. I woke up late and after the days events, I fell asleep and took a LONG nap this evening (waking up near midnight).

During the day, went with my Mom to Americus to get a few things we needed. Drove up to Fort Valley afterwards to drive around the area that I’ve determined my great, great, great, great grandfather, Richard Blalock, lived around the mid 1800′s. There’s not much to see unless the “home place” is well off the paved road somewhere. Based on the stands of new pines and peach orchards, I’d be the area has been planted over in the time since. The future Fall Line Freeway is a very short distance away, so if the road brings in the growth such ventures typically do, the area will eventually be covered in shopping centers and subdivisions. Have had hope we’d find a family burial ground where Richard’s family was buried. My Uncle long ago was searching for the graves of Cornelius Wilson and his wife, Elizabeth Blalock (daughter of Richard). I’m beginning to think we’ll have no luck on this one. Unless there is a family graveyard in those piney woods, I’d have to suspect the family was buried in graves that are not currently (if ever) marked in the cemetery at Fort Valley. Reviewing the family tree of Elizabeth’s brother, I noticed that he had a grand-daughter, who only appeared in the 1870 census and was an infant at that time “L”. The interesting part is I noticed that there is a 1 year old buried in Fort Valley Cemetery, Lora Blalock, who died in 1871. Henry’s granddaughter? She died around the same time as our Richard, so maybe the family was being buried in town by this point. And there are unmarked graves near her, so this may be as close as I ever get to an idea of where these ancestors ended up. I’ll have to share these thoughts with family at some point and see what they think.

Tomorrow is Christmas eve. Well, technically, we’re already there according to the clock, but I haven’t gone to bed since my nap. I’m looking forward to it more for seeing how the folks like their gifts than anything. Since my parents give me the money to get my gifts, there won’t be any big surprises under the tree. I’m not complaining, however!

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Had my doctor’s appointment on Thursday. It is a pulled muscle that’s causing the pain in my side. They’re muscle spasms and can be brought on by something as minor as breathing. Yay!! I’m glad it’s nothing more serious, but I’ll be glad for it getting better. He prescribed an anti-inflammatory to reduce swelling and gave me a muscle relaxer to take at bed time. I took half of one last night. Combined with that and being out late, I can’t lay back on the couch to watch TV without nodding off.

Thursday was one of those hell days at work that we all love so much. I ended up being there from 7:30am until 11pm minus the two hours that I spent with the doctor, getting my prescription filled, and grabbing lunch to take back with me. On the plus side, no loss to my sick time for the year thanks to that long day. On the down side, I still had so much to do that I needed to be at work on time Friday. And Friday, although not as heinous, was a long day.

And Friday night was a late night. Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers – my favorite band – were in town Friday night for a show. Since I didn’t have to be at work the next morning, I stayed and talked to some other fans and got to see Roger for a few minutes. This band certainly attracts some really awesome people to their shows and their message boards. I’ve never intentionally seen a musical act more than once except for RCPM. I got home about 3am. And despite closing the drapes in my room to seal out light and taking the muscle relaxer, I still woke up a little after 10am this morning.

Talked to Brian (my cousin) last evening while sitting in horrible traffic (Atlanta traffic on a normal Friday is bad enough, but this is the Friday before Spring break). We’re going to try to see Hellboy this weekend. I only got turned on to Mike Mignola’s character and stories in the last year. I kept hearing about it for years and finally got tempted by Chris at the shop to give it a whirl. Now I own most of the trades and am anxious to see the movie. We didn’t set a time yet, but I’m hoping for a Sunday matinee so that I have time to catch up on some rest today.

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