Random Access

Thursday.
Where to begin?
Where to begin?

In a radical departure from observed norms, let’s start at the beginning. Hmm? What’s that you say? Starting at the beginning is not a departure from the usual? Oh. Well, what if you’re talking about “The End Is the Beginning Is the End” or “The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning,” both by the Smashing Pumpkins? In which case, it seems that you are dealing with something more along the lines of a Mobius strip. But that’s neither here nor there. Of course on a Mobius strip “here” and “there” are relative terms, especially since it only has one side. But enough of that…

Starting at the beginning (is the end is the beginning):

• We overslept again. Big time. Although, we had enough time to get ready without having to break any of the known laws of physics.
• Worked. Yay. We even stayed ALL DAY! Who would have thought it possible?! But we did.
• Went to the airport to see Joe (new pics). We only had about :30 to chat and catch up, but it was good to see him. He’s on a business trip and will be passing back through tomorrow night; I’m not sure if I’ll get to see him tomorrow or not, but who knows?

Quotes of the day: Today’s quotes are from Jess.

• On the way out of the airport, we saw one a Chevrolet Avalanche – the vehicle that changes from a pick-up truck to an SUV and back. Holy Transformers, Batman! She said that it was ugly, to which I responded “But, it can change!” To which she responded, “Ugly babies change, too. But they usually change into ugly adults… and there are a damn lot of them out there! But that’s not something that you can tell the proud mother.”
• We continued along the good-looking versus ugly conversation for a while. We moved on to the “ugly adults” portion of the topic, which elicited the statement: It’s the ugly ones – or the really good-looking ones – that make you stop and go,”Damn!”

Until tomorrow.

Peace.

Good day for a middle-of-the-week day.

• We overslept by almost :45 this morning. Not exactly the most auspicious start for a day, but we dealt with it. Of course, the fact that we still had plenty of prep-time didn’t hurt, either.
• Picked up a cup of double-espresso-shot-laden frozen mocha goodness on the way to….
• Work, where we only stayed for an hour-and-a-half; mail volumes were very light, so we….
• Went to lunch with Julia, Rick and Dee. We went to Chinese Gourmet, a buffet style restaurant with a Mongolian stir fry section. Lunch was good. And we even got in a couple of mixed-up song titles, in the process. After lunch, Rick and Dee headed to Rick’s place for a little bit of X-Box’ing, while…
• Jess, Julia and I headed to the nearest Trax station and…
• We rode downtown to The Gateway. It was Julia’s first time both on Trax and going to The Gateway. Again, it was cold and we had to wait for a northbound train, but we persevered! We walked the length of the shopping center Have I mentioned that it is an open-air shopping center? What about the weather? Did I mention that it was cold? I have? I did? Okay, just wanted to make sure. One of our stops was at the sporting goods store, Galyan’s. Two levels of sporting goodness… and a three-story, indoor climbing wall. We watched a couple of people – a young boy and a Gen-X’er – on the wall. Surprise, surprise: I took pictures.
  • The boy: 1, 2, 3, 4.
  • The guy: 1, 2, 3, 4.
• After a stop in Barnes & Noble, for hot chocolates (Jess and Julia), a cafe mocha (me), and a couple of magazines (also me)…
• We hopped back on Trax, headed to the car and called it a day.

I’ve mentioned and posted pictures of Jess, Dee and Rick before, but I realized on the ride home that I didn’t have one of Julia. This should rectify that situation; Julia is on the left, Jess is on the right. The rest of the day’s pictures can be seen here.

Quotes of the Day: While at lunch, When Doves Cry played on the Muzak station. Dee, ever vigilant for the opportunity to share a witticism had the following to say:

• “Animals do strike curious poses…. especially in headlights.”
• “Sheep scare me when they strike seductive poses.”

Dee. Gotta love him.

I also got a call from my friend , Joe (for the record: he’s the clean-shaven one with hair – on the left), who has a stopover here tomorrow night. We haven’t seen him since he was here last Spring for a trade show; it will be good to see him.

And that brings us to the end of another edition of “What’s Happening In Lake Saline.” Tune in tomorrow – same LJ channel, same LJ time – for more of our merry misadventures. Good night and have a pleasant tomorning!

Peace.

I have been thinking about something for the past few days… but have never remembered to post it while writing these entries. *DUHR* With another Christmas coming to a close, some may think it a little late to post, but I don’t agree so here we go…

There are a select few songs that “make” the Christmas season for me. The all-time top of the list is: Bing Crosby and David Bowie: Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth. Others on the list:

• Johnny Mathis: My Favorite Things and Do You Hear What I Hear?
• Nat King Cole: The Christmas Song (that’s pretty much a no-brainer), O, Little Town of Bethlehem and O Tannenbaum

There are quite a few other songs that I like, both sacred and secular, but I think that these are among – if not THE – the main ones that bring on the feeling “It’s Christmastime.”

Also, I didn’t notice something about Uber-cool Christmas gift Number 1 until after I had made my earlier post: I looked at the ornament/figure and was so jazzed on the likeness that it never even occurred to me to look at the back of it. When I did, I found what I considered a pretty cool detail, viewable here: a baseball – an acknowledgement of his favorite hobby.

Is that a bit geeky of me? Probably.
Do I care about that? Not at all… it’s the way I’m wired.

Peace.

Christmas 2001.

We had a good day.

• Slept in… kinda. Mom called at 09:30. Even though this violates “The 10:00 Rule,” it was okay for a couple of reasons: It was mom and it was a holiday. She was calling to see if her package had gotten here. It hadn’t. She told me to call back when it got there.
• Dad called… while I was talking to Mom. I called him back and also talked to Grandma and Adam (my younger brother).
• The postman rang the doorbell. Yes, I said “the postman.” Even though there is no First Class mail delivery on Sundays and holidays, we (US Postal Service) work 24-7-365 (366 on leap years); Express Mail is delivered everyday.
• I called Mom to let her know that the box was here. She asked if I liked the gifts. I told her that I didn’t know – I was just calling to let you know that it got here. Her response: “Well, call me back after you’ve opened everything and let me know what you think.” She said it so matter-of-factly. I [heart] my mother.
• We opened our gifts, including the ones in the box from Mom.
• We lazed around for a while and then headed to Sandi and Jim’s. MORE PRESENTS!!! We also watched Down to Earth, a remake/retelling of 1978’s Heaven Can Wait. It wasn’t as bad as I thought that it would be; I enjoyed it.
• We came home and Jess is now getting ready for work.

Here are some pictures of four of the coolest gifts of the day:

• From Kristen, my youngest sister, we have this.
• Sandi and Jim got me this.
• Jess got me this. (Same thing, different view.)
• And, the coolest gift of the day, also from Jess, is: this.

I hope that everyone had a pleasant Christmas, as well. Angie and I may see Ali tonight, but that’s still up in the air. Oh well.

Until later…

Peace.

From last night’s post: Tomorrow starts an abridged work week. And, while I’m not sure how things will be with the number of cities whose mail we process, this has the potential to be a more-or-less slow week. I will admit that I would not mind tomorrow being slow – that would increase the chances of getting out of there early. That comes under the heading of “good thing.”

The mail was so heavy that they were calling mandatory overtime for everyone – meaning we’d be there up to 12 hours. This call was made at 14:30… just 2-1/2 hours into my shift.

They finally amended that decision and only made the non-career employees and the career employees on the Overtime Desire List stay. Providence, Grace and Mercy smiled down upon us. Even so, they had everyone hold their lunches until six hours into their shift. This wasn’t a problem: I had scheduled my lunches this way back in N.C., so it was a return to an old (and favored) habit. After that, the last two hours were cake.

After work, I headed to Sandi and Jim’s. Everyone, but me, had Christmas Eve dinner there this evening. Had I gotten out of work earlier, I would have as well. So, I was relegated to post-everyone-else Christmas Eve dinner. Then we sat around and talked for a while. We’re heading back there for a while tomorrow before Jess goes to work.

Thus ends the “How I Spent My Day” portion of this entry.

There may be more later…
Stay tuned.

Peace.

Pre-Christmas Sunday in the Valley….

• Slept until a little after noon…. after getting to bed sometime around 05:30.
• Half-watched the Chicago-Washington and Seattle-NY Giants games. The Ravens weren’t televised in this market, but they won – keeping alive hopes of a wild card spot in the playoffs.
• Observed the hygiene rituals.
• Jess and I went out in search of the last few Christmas presents… One of the stores that I needed to go to was closed, so I have to go tomorning, before work. Yay.
• We headed to the inlaws’ for a bit.
• Came home. Jess wrapped some presents; I cooked dinner (and it was pretty tasty, too!).

Other highlights include: Talking to the parental units and my uncle.

Something that I thought about today: One of the things that people hear around the holidays is how rude and impatient people are/can be. Sure, there are people who are grimly serious in their quest for that last, perfect (or desperate, depending on the case) gift. For the most part, a majority of the people that I have seen this year are rather pleasant. Disclaimer: While this includes many drivers, it is not all-inclusive. Most shopping center/mall parking lot drivers are also excluded from this.

Tomorrow starts an abridged work week. And, while I’m not sure how things will be with the number of cities whose mail we process, this has the potential to be a more-or-less slow week. I will admit that I would not mind tomorrow being slow – that would increase the chances of getting out of there early. That comes under the heading of “good thing.”

Here are a few pictures from the day.

Peace.

Hmm, I seem to have forgotten that these don’t post themselves. Nor do they work telepathically. That’s a pity.

Saturday…

• Attempted to sleep in, which would have been a good thing, since I waited for Jess to get off work… at 5 am.
• We braved the surging tide of shoppers and picked up some of our last-minute gifts.
• We met Angie and Scott for dinner. Our latest trend is seemingly to be attended by wait staff members from abroad. So far, we’ve had waitresses from Poland, Yugoslavia, and, last night, Russia. The whole wide world, an endless universe…
• Jess went to work; Angie, Scott and I went to see Lord of the Rings again. It was as interesting – and fun – to watch this time as it was on Wednesday.
• Came home…. and must have been bored beyond all realms of belief: I started cleaning around 1:30 am.
• Rana, my sister who joined the Peace Corps, was online around 2:30, so I talked to her for a bit. She was spending part of the day having a pre-Christmas party with other people in her group. She said that things there are going well… it’s just cold. Below zero cold. Double-digit below zero cold. Hmm. There are three things that I’m allergic to: bee stings, pain, and cold. It gets “cold” here, but the low relative humidity keeps it from being the piercing cold that I was used to on the East Coast. Cold in the double-digit negatives…? As Billy Preston sang:
  I’m not tryin’ to be your hero
  ‘Cause that zero is too cold for me,
  I’m not tryin’ to be your highness
  ‘Cause that minus is too low for me.

And that’s all the news from Lake Saline.

Peace.

I’m sure that if I put my mind to it, I could come up with a great entry for tonight.
But, I’m tired and I am going to bed.

In a nutshell:

• Went to work.
• Did some last minute Christmas shopping.
• Had dinner with Angie.
• Came home.

Oh yeah, it snowed a little today.
THE END.

Peace.

The weekend is only 8 work-hours away…

Not much to say about the day, so I shall just say that “it was a pretty good day” and leave it at that.

Peace.

Julia, Rick, Jess and I saw Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring before work this morning. In a word: Wow. I was duly impressed. Why can’t EverQuest look like THAT?!? I have never read the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but I have gleaned bits and pieces of the story from friends and what I remember from the 1978 animated movie. I think that I will either get the book on tape/CD/mp3/something and listen to it. According to Rick, the changes that they did make in adapting the story from the book did not hurt the telling of the story. Or, I may just go Old School and… ::: deep breath ::: … get the books and read it. Peter Jackson and the cast and crew did an excellent job of making a work that didn’t drag laboriously for three hours. Of course, seeing the new Spider-Man, Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, and The Time Machine trailers didn’t hurt, either. One of the funniest movie previews that I have seen in a long time was the one for Austin Powers in Goldmember.

Work was “work.” It was a typical day. And, on the “plus” side, three days done means only two more in the work week. That elicits happy thoughts.

Sleep. That, too, brings happy thoughts.

Peace.

Not much happened out of the ordinary today.

• Woke up.
• Observed the hygiene rituals.
• Stopped, on the way to work, for frozen mocha goodness.
• Worked.
• Worked out… for which I am now sore. Yay me.
• Watched Deep Space Nine while eating tasty popped corns.

Actually, one thing out of the ordinary did happen: While selecting CDs to take to work, I chose Indigo Swing’s Red Light. When I opened the case, to verify that the CD was in it, I found my long-lost copy of Arlington to Boston, by emmet swimming. The Indigo Swing CD was in there, too.

Anywho… sleep beckons and I must obey.

Peace.

Tonight, Mother Nature reared back her head and laughed until tears streamed down her face. The tears fell slowly, quietly, and abundantly.

As Jess said, by the time she left work tonight (midnight), we had processed 4 million – yes, that’s a “4” followed by six (6) zeroes – mailpieces. By the time I left @ 20:30, we had cleared just over 2 million. Work wasn’t too bad today. I spent most of the day listening to classical music. The top musical selections of the day were:

• Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565 – J.S. Bach (Fantasia soundtrack)
• Ave Maria, Op. 52 No. 6 – F. Schubert (Fantasia soundtrack)
• Ave Maria – C. Gounod/J.S. Bach (Hush – Yo-yo Ma and Bobby McFerrin)
• Stabat Mater, Op. 58 – Antonin Dvorak (Vienna Master Series – Antonin Dvorak)

  Otherwise, it’s been a fairly quiet and uneventful day.

  Eve/Gwen Stefani, Billy Joel & Sting: Let Me Blow the Windmills of Your New York State Of Mind

  Peace.

Sunday.

No snow today, but there’s a chance for some tomorrow.

I slept in a little and then watched some football. I watched some of the 49ers/Dolphins game. That hurt to watch. That pain was compounded when I saw the final score: San Francisco won 21 – 0. I taped the Ravens/Steelers game because we were going to a friend’s house for dinner and general hanging out. That hurt even more. It was a good all-around game, but Pitt won 26 – 21. This also clinched an AFC Playoff berth for them; Baltimore is in the Wild Card race, so there is still some hope for them to make it to the post-season.

Other than some minor cleaning, going to dinner and a quick Christmas shopping trip, it was a pretty uneventful day. After dinner, we watched Chocolat; it was a good – but odd – movie. I may speak more about it tomorrow.

Marilyn Manson/Sneaker Pimps, Van Morrison and Catatonia: Bright Side of the Long Hard Road Rage Out of Hell

Peace.

It snowed for a little while today, but there was no major accumulation here.

After two nights of not sleeping well, I slept like the proverbial log last night… umm, this morning. I woke up a couple of times, at what most people would consider “decent hours,” but succumbed to the whims of Morpheus and went back to sleep. It was early afternoon before I managed to summon the willpower to get out of bed. Oh glorious sleep, how I reveled in thy grasp…

I didn’t do much today. The extent of my boredom was evident when I started doing some light cleaning. I knew that I had plumbed new depths of boredom when I caught myself in the middle of a mindless mental exercise/game that I came up with a few months ago: I would take two or more artists/bands and combine their songs into something combining the titles of both or all of the component songs. It seems to work “best” when the artists’ styles and genres are radically different.

• Bananarama & Bryan Adams: Cruel, Cruel Summer of ’69
• Kim Carnes & Billy Idol: Bette Davis Eyes Without a Face
• Fred Rogers & David Bowie: Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood Threat
• Nine Inch Nails & The Indigo Girls: Closer and Closer to Fine
• Janet Jackson & Rush: Mystic Rhythms Nation
• The Eurythmics & Elton John: Burn Down the Missionary Man
• Tony Bennet & Rick Springfield: Don’t Talk to Strangers in the Night

You get the idea. It’s an amusing diversion. It’s also interesting when you get a group of people doing it – you get some rather interestin (and a little scary) combinations.

As promised, here is the latest snow pic, taken just outside the apartment around 17:00 MST. This was post-flurry, so there’s not a lot of unplowed/unscraped snow on the ground.

And some more crossovers:

• Afroman & John Denver: Because I Was Rocky Mountain High
• Jimmy Buffet, Kermit the Frog & Billy Ocean: Caribbean Amphibian Queen
• Sammy Davis, Jr. & Samantha Fox: Naughty Girls from Ipanema Need Love Too
• The Lemon Sisters & Bad Religion: 21st Century Boogie Woogie Digital Bugle Boy
• Bobby Darin & Geddy Lee: Bill Bailey Won’t You Please Come Home on the Strange
• Heavy D & Aerosmith: Now That We’ve Found Love in an Elevator
• Gorillaz and Jerry Reed: Clint Eastwood-bound and Down
• Rufus and Chaka Khan & NIN: Tell Me Something Good I Can Never Have

Peace.

Let’s get this out of the way, first. It snowed tonight. We got somewhere between 3 and 6 inches, I believe. It started somewhere around 19:00 MDT and didn’t stop (at least for the time being) until after 03:00. How far away is April and the end of the snow season?!?

Work wasn’t bad. Of course, any workday that starts with “Fri-” and ends with “I’m clocking out and starting my weekend now” can’t be bad. Even if it snows. A lot.

After work, I went to see Angie’s band Groove Dilemma play at Getty’s, a club in South Salt Lake; they opened for Son of Nothing, another local band. Here are a few pics of the band.

Angie, Jess and I went out for a late/early breakfast… and watched as more of Mother Nature’s silent mocking laughter blanketed the world outside. And since I forgot to do so a couple of days ago, I added two pics to the decsnow gallery. I’ll probably take (and post) a few pics of tonight’s snow after the sun comes up.

Quote of the Day: Today’s quote is actually from yesterday and comes, once again, from Dee. After telling me about the lawsuit against Cracker Barrel (see last night’s post), he said: “I’m going to file a suit against Cracker Barrel. I’m going to suggest that they change their name to “Caucasian Barrel.” This is Dee. (That’s Rick behind him.) Hearing him say that, along with the deadpan manner in which he said it, gave me a good laugh.

And now… sleep.

Peace.