A Tiring Day of Ups and Downs
Jun. 16th, 2002 09:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotech_masterToday has been a day with more ups and downs than a roller coaster. Satisfying on the whole, but am I ever exhausted here at the end of it.
It began with yesterday. Yesterday was the closing shift from hell...what was supposed to be a 1:30 to 10 shift turned into 1:30 to 10:45. I was tired all day for some reason, despite having gotten about 9 hours of sleep the night before; I got home exhausted at about 11, noodled on the Internet for a couple of hours, then went to bed.
I was wakened at 6:30 by a sort of tapping or popping sound coming through the paper-thin wall from the apartment next door. The noise kept continuing, and rather than seek after confrontation, I just decided I'd play some soothing music to cover the noise and get back to sleep. After all, if the recently-moved-in neighbors were awake enough to be making those noises (which I could not help but wonder what they were...perhaps they were having a little, ahem, interesting bed activity?) I decided on Miriam Stockley. Twenty minutes into the album, it was seeming to work, I was starting to drift off...and then a loud thumping on the wall woke me right up again. Seems the neighbors objected to the noise of my music, which they were also hearing.
After that, I was so rattled that there was no chance of getting back to sleep...and I had to leave in an hour or so anyway. So I got up, dressed, and headed out--leaving a little irascible note taped to the neighbors' door suggesting they not complain about my noise next time they wake me up with theirs. I haven't seen them since I just got back, so I don't know what their reaction will be. It's moderately annoying to have these new neighbors, anyway...the former occupant, one of my college math professors, would complain if you played the radio too loud in the evening, but at least he was gone on the weekend so I could do whatever I wanted. They seem reasonably nice, but I wish I didn't have to put up with them.
I ate breakfast at Ziggie's Cafe, gassed up my car, and headed out of town, driving down to the old church-place in Monett of which my father is a deacon, the Ozark Christian Church, for the 10:45 worship service, and to spend the day visiting with the parents afterward. I brought along a couple of beers from the local brewpub, to go with the steaks we were supposedly having; the first three books of David Weber's Honor Harrington series, which I thought my Dad might enjoy; and the DVD of The Black Stallion, which my Mom would like.
As it turned out, though, we wouldn't be having steaks after all. My brother Aaron and his wife Jennifer had been supposed to be coming, too, but Jennifer is pregnant again and has morning sickness, so in the end they decided not to. In the end, it was just as well, really--because their lack of presence proved also a lack of hindrance to my fiendish Father's Day plans.
The service was pretty good; there was a fellow who was helping build a children's school and dormitory in Nigeria was there to give the sermon this week. I had expected to be bored, especially without my Clie, but I wasn't. And the caffeine pill I took before the service helped prevent me from falling asleep, too.
After church, when I told my folks what they were, to my gratification they agreed immediately that it sounded like a good idea. We left my car in the parking lot of their bank, piled into theirs (which has working air conditioning), and drove the hour or so down to Rogers, Arkansas to see Attack of the Clones at the digital projection theater there. We arrived about an hour early, so the folks did a little shopping at the nearby Pier One for a wedding gift for friends of theirs before the show started.
As for the movie, they agreed it was pretty good--though my Mom hadn't seen The Phantom Menace yet, and my Dad couldn't remember most of it. Dad also found the theater's audio presentation to be a bit loud, to the point of putting kleenex in his ears to muffle the sound. The theater wasn't quite as big or as nice as the one in which I saw it digitally in Kansas City...but on the other hand, it was a lot closer, and it was certainly nice enough. For myself, I've not noticed too much difference between digital and regular film, beyond the lack of print flaws and total absense of projector noise. Still, it's nice to have those things gone, and see a super-clear image projected on a huge screen.
After the film, we headed back up to Cassville again, stopping at a Sonic along the way for peach cream pie milkshakes. I would actually have preferred to try chocolate, but I've learned by now not to look a gift horse in the mouth--and besides, there are plenty of Sonics near me where I can try such things on my own later.
Not too much later, we got back to Cassville, I got to my car, and we again parted ways. I headed north, back toward Springfield.
Not fifteen minutes afterward, I met and passed a gray highway patrol car. I didn't think too much of it at the time...made sure to slow down enough that I wasn't speeding. But then, a few minutes later, I noticed the car in front of me was pulling over to the shoulder for some reason. I wasn't sure why...until I looked in my rearview mirror and saw a sight that put more years onto my age than that mustache and beard did onto Ewan McGregor's--that same car behind me, flashing its lights.
I pulled over to the side of the road, and sat there, hands in plain view on the wheel, fearfully watching the rearview as the female officer in the car got out and walked toward me. All sorts of thoughts went through my head. Had I been speeding when she saw me? Would I be able to talk my way out of it? I've never gotten a speeding ticket yet, and I don't want to start now--especially with money tight as it is. Could I talk my way out of it?
And then the first thing she asked me was almost entirely unexpected. "Where's your front license plate?"
"Uh, in my trunk, ma'am," I said...and suddenly realized what the problem was. A few months ago, I had a little accident that tore off the front license plate holder on my car. I'd assumed that the state law would allow me just to have a rear one...it did in Arkansas...and since I couldn't find anyone who'd sell me another holder, I didn't worry too much about it. I ever-so-meekly explained this to her, and she explained to me that no, that wasn't the way it was in this state.
She took my license, went back to her car, radioed, then came back to ask me why the address on my license said Cassville when my car was registered out of Springfield. I explained that I was a recent college grad, and that was my permanent address, and she accepted that. She told me that she was going to let me off with a warning, but to get that plate on as soon as possible. I promised I would, and carefully pulled back out onto the road as she watched me from behind.
As I drove back into town today, I happened to notice the Boys and Girls Town of Missouri campus--a big place that looks sort of like a cross between a church and a college complex, with a big tall fence around it--had a couple of bent and warped fence panels, including a couple of gaps in the fencing. It looked like a car had hit it. I found myself wondering if any of the Boys and Girls in the Town had taken advantage of the opportunity to stage a jailbreak.
About ten minutes after I got back, after I'd just stripped out of my clothes and settled tiredly in front of the computer, there was a knock on my door. I threw on some shorts, thinking it might be the neighbor come to apologize or at least discuss the note I left, but it turned out to be the landlord's brother come to pour some drain stuff in my toilet, which I'd noted had taken to clogging up lately. And so he did, and so here I am.
I'm probably going to shower and collapse into bed before too long, so I can maybe get a decent night of sleep at last. For now, I think I'm just going to enjoy being back in front of my computer for a while.
It began with yesterday. Yesterday was the closing shift from hell...what was supposed to be a 1:30 to 10 shift turned into 1:30 to 10:45. I was tired all day for some reason, despite having gotten about 9 hours of sleep the night before; I got home exhausted at about 11, noodled on the Internet for a couple of hours, then went to bed.
I was wakened at 6:30 by a sort of tapping or popping sound coming through the paper-thin wall from the apartment next door. The noise kept continuing, and rather than seek after confrontation, I just decided I'd play some soothing music to cover the noise and get back to sleep. After all, if the recently-moved-in neighbors were awake enough to be making those noises (which I could not help but wonder what they were...perhaps they were having a little, ahem, interesting bed activity?) I decided on Miriam Stockley. Twenty minutes into the album, it was seeming to work, I was starting to drift off...and then a loud thumping on the wall woke me right up again. Seems the neighbors objected to the noise of my music, which they were also hearing.
After that, I was so rattled that there was no chance of getting back to sleep...and I had to leave in an hour or so anyway. So I got up, dressed, and headed out--leaving a little irascible note taped to the neighbors' door suggesting they not complain about my noise next time they wake me up with theirs. I haven't seen them since I just got back, so I don't know what their reaction will be. It's moderately annoying to have these new neighbors, anyway...the former occupant, one of my college math professors, would complain if you played the radio too loud in the evening, but at least he was gone on the weekend so I could do whatever I wanted. They seem reasonably nice, but I wish I didn't have to put up with them.
I ate breakfast at Ziggie's Cafe, gassed up my car, and headed out of town, driving down to the old church-place in Monett of which my father is a deacon, the Ozark Christian Church, for the 10:45 worship service, and to spend the day visiting with the parents afterward. I brought along a couple of beers from the local brewpub, to go with the steaks we were supposedly having; the first three books of David Weber's Honor Harrington series, which I thought my Dad might enjoy; and the DVD of The Black Stallion, which my Mom would like.
As it turned out, though, we wouldn't be having steaks after all. My brother Aaron and his wife Jennifer had been supposed to be coming, too, but Jennifer is pregnant again and has morning sickness, so in the end they decided not to. In the end, it was just as well, really--because their lack of presence proved also a lack of hindrance to my fiendish Father's Day plans.
The service was pretty good; there was a fellow who was helping build a children's school and dormitory in Nigeria was there to give the sermon this week. I had expected to be bored, especially without my Clie, but I wasn't. And the caffeine pill I took before the service helped prevent me from falling asleep, too.
After church, when I told my folks what they were, to my gratification they agreed immediately that it sounded like a good idea. We left my car in the parking lot of their bank, piled into theirs (which has working air conditioning), and drove the hour or so down to Rogers, Arkansas to see Attack of the Clones at the digital projection theater there. We arrived about an hour early, so the folks did a little shopping at the nearby Pier One for a wedding gift for friends of theirs before the show started.
As for the movie, they agreed it was pretty good--though my Mom hadn't seen The Phantom Menace yet, and my Dad couldn't remember most of it. Dad also found the theater's audio presentation to be a bit loud, to the point of putting kleenex in his ears to muffle the sound. The theater wasn't quite as big or as nice as the one in which I saw it digitally in Kansas City...but on the other hand, it was a lot closer, and it was certainly nice enough. For myself, I've not noticed too much difference between digital and regular film, beyond the lack of print flaws and total absense of projector noise. Still, it's nice to have those things gone, and see a super-clear image projected on a huge screen.
After the film, we headed back up to Cassville again, stopping at a Sonic along the way for peach cream pie milkshakes. I would actually have preferred to try chocolate, but I've learned by now not to look a gift horse in the mouth--and besides, there are plenty of Sonics near me where I can try such things on my own later.
Not too much later, we got back to Cassville, I got to my car, and we again parted ways. I headed north, back toward Springfield.
Not fifteen minutes afterward, I met and passed a gray highway patrol car. I didn't think too much of it at the time...made sure to slow down enough that I wasn't speeding. But then, a few minutes later, I noticed the car in front of me was pulling over to the shoulder for some reason. I wasn't sure why...until I looked in my rearview mirror and saw a sight that put more years onto my age than that mustache and beard did onto Ewan McGregor's--that same car behind me, flashing its lights.
I pulled over to the side of the road, and sat there, hands in plain view on the wheel, fearfully watching the rearview as the female officer in the car got out and walked toward me. All sorts of thoughts went through my head. Had I been speeding when she saw me? Would I be able to talk my way out of it? I've never gotten a speeding ticket yet, and I don't want to start now--especially with money tight as it is. Could I talk my way out of it?
And then the first thing she asked me was almost entirely unexpected. "Where's your front license plate?"
"Uh, in my trunk, ma'am," I said...and suddenly realized what the problem was. A few months ago, I had a little accident that tore off the front license plate holder on my car. I'd assumed that the state law would allow me just to have a rear one...it did in Arkansas...and since I couldn't find anyone who'd sell me another holder, I didn't worry too much about it. I ever-so-meekly explained this to her, and she explained to me that no, that wasn't the way it was in this state.
She took my license, went back to her car, radioed, then came back to ask me why the address on my license said Cassville when my car was registered out of Springfield. I explained that I was a recent college grad, and that was my permanent address, and she accepted that. She told me that she was going to let me off with a warning, but to get that plate on as soon as possible. I promised I would, and carefully pulled back out onto the road as she watched me from behind.
As I drove back into town today, I happened to notice the Boys and Girls Town of Missouri campus--a big place that looks sort of like a cross between a church and a college complex, with a big tall fence around it--had a couple of bent and warped fence panels, including a couple of gaps in the fencing. It looked like a car had hit it. I found myself wondering if any of the Boys and Girls in the Town had taken advantage of the opportunity to stage a jailbreak.
About ten minutes after I got back, after I'd just stripped out of my clothes and settled tiredly in front of the computer, there was a knock on my door. I threw on some shorts, thinking it might be the neighbor come to apologize or at least discuss the note I left, but it turned out to be the landlord's brother come to pour some drain stuff in my toilet, which I'd noted had taken to clogging up lately. And so he did, and so here I am.
I'm probably going to shower and collapse into bed before too long, so I can maybe get a decent night of sleep at last. For now, I think I'm just going to enjoy being back in front of my computer for a while.
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Date: 2002-06-18 06:34 pm (UTC)