Meet me in St. Louie, Louie…
Jan. 18th, 2007 09:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotech_masterAnd so I continue my whirlwind tour of "everywhere in Missouri that isn't my apartment." Haven't slept in my own bed since Saturday night. But in the end, it could all be worth it.
Yesterday morning, my folks and I headed up north to Springfield, stopping at a Chinese restaurant along the way to eat lunch, then going by my brother's house in Republic so that Mom and Dad could visit briefly with my sister-in-law and nieces and nephews, and also take showers there. I decided to wait on mine until I could get back to my apartment. We then headed over to Cole's to buy me some clothes for the job interview, and thence to the apartment.
Once at the apartment, I discovered that my cat had left a trail of piles of doo-doo from the bathroom floor all the way to the bedroom door. After cleaning it up (while my Mom insisted on doing my dishes and stuff), I proceeded to bang out a press release for the forthcoming Peter S. Beagle interview and submit it to PR.com, and also made a posting about it to some newsgroups and the Miyazaki mailing list. (I subsequently discovered that I goofed up the address slightly in the newsgroup and mailing list posts, but oh well.) I then showered and packed, leaving out half a dozen minor but not overly important things, and then headed off to the Greyhound station to get me a ticket to St. Louis on the 4:55 p.m. bus.
When we got there, the counter attendant said he would sell me a ticket on stand-by, as there were 55 seats available on the bus, but taking into account the people the computer said were already on the bus and the people shipping out of Springfield, there would be 64 people who wanted to go to St. Louis. If I couldn't get onto that bus, I would have to wait for the 11 p.m. bus. Oh, and the 4:55 bus was running 2 1/2 hours late, and would actually not leave the station until 7:30.
I elected to take my chances. With the extra time remaining until I would ship out and be in St. Louis, the folks quickly ran me over to Long John Silver's where I got a sampler platter dinner and then they dropped me at the station. It was at this point that I fully realized that the microphone on my cellphone didn't work. I think that it broke when I had accidentally dropped the phone the day before. At this point, I was feeling pretty low. But I could at least still send text messages and use AIM, so I got in communication with my brother in St. Louis that way, then settled down with Dorothy Gilman's The Tightrope Walkers to wait for 7:30.
Fortunately, things started looking up again. I finished the book around 7:15, just in time to get called to line up for the bus, and it turned out that I didn't have any problem getting on. (Thank goodness for small favors.) And then it was off to St. Louis. I ended up sitting next to a trucker named Joe, who had totalled his brand new two-week-old big rig in an accident in Arkansas in a wreck with another rig (the other party fell asleep at the wheel) and was headed back to Indianapolis to get another one on his insurance money, and in front of an ex-trucker whose career had been ended when a dumpster fell on her and partly crushed her spine. We talked about this and that for an hour or so, then we sort of retreated into silence and I listened to my iPod the rest of the way up to St. Louis.
Pulled into Lambert Field at about 11:55; my brother hadn't expected me to get in that early, so it was about 15 minutes before he was able to pick me up. We headed by the building where I would be working to take a look at it, then home to my brother's in-laws' house where he is staying until they get their housing situation in town settled. I met their big part-Chow dog Bear, then we went downstairs and watched an episode of Read or Die: The TV on the big-screen high-def TV. He also gave me an old Samsung phone that I could slot my SIM card into for now so I would at least have working cellular capability. I ended up getting to bed about 2:30 a.m.
Got up around 9 to find nobody in the house except for me, a Siamese cat, and an unhappily caged barking Bear. Came downstairs to bro's computer and sat down to bang out this journal entry and do some research for the interview later today on the side. Still don't have a solid time nailed down, but Aaron said he'd come get me at lunchtime. Dunno what we'll do after he gets off of work. Maybe watch some more animé on the TV set.
Man, I am so nervous about the job interview, and about all the little things I might manage to goof up. Fingers crossed; hopefully it will all work out.
Yesterday morning, my folks and I headed up north to Springfield, stopping at a Chinese restaurant along the way to eat lunch, then going by my brother's house in Republic so that Mom and Dad could visit briefly with my sister-in-law and nieces and nephews, and also take showers there. I decided to wait on mine until I could get back to my apartment. We then headed over to Cole's to buy me some clothes for the job interview, and thence to the apartment.
Once at the apartment, I discovered that my cat had left a trail of piles of doo-doo from the bathroom floor all the way to the bedroom door. After cleaning it up (while my Mom insisted on doing my dishes and stuff), I proceeded to bang out a press release for the forthcoming Peter S. Beagle interview and submit it to PR.com, and also made a posting about it to some newsgroups and the Miyazaki mailing list. (I subsequently discovered that I goofed up the address slightly in the newsgroup and mailing list posts, but oh well.) I then showered and packed, leaving out half a dozen minor but not overly important things, and then headed off to the Greyhound station to get me a ticket to St. Louis on the 4:55 p.m. bus.
When we got there, the counter attendant said he would sell me a ticket on stand-by, as there were 55 seats available on the bus, but taking into account the people the computer said were already on the bus and the people shipping out of Springfield, there would be 64 people who wanted to go to St. Louis. If I couldn't get onto that bus, I would have to wait for the 11 p.m. bus. Oh, and the 4:55 bus was running 2 1/2 hours late, and would actually not leave the station until 7:30.
I elected to take my chances. With the extra time remaining until I would ship out and be in St. Louis, the folks quickly ran me over to Long John Silver's where I got a sampler platter dinner and then they dropped me at the station. It was at this point that I fully realized that the microphone on my cellphone didn't work. I think that it broke when I had accidentally dropped the phone the day before. At this point, I was feeling pretty low. But I could at least still send text messages and use AIM, so I got in communication with my brother in St. Louis that way, then settled down with Dorothy Gilman's The Tightrope Walkers to wait for 7:30.
Fortunately, things started looking up again. I finished the book around 7:15, just in time to get called to line up for the bus, and it turned out that I didn't have any problem getting on. (Thank goodness for small favors.) And then it was off to St. Louis. I ended up sitting next to a trucker named Joe, who had totalled his brand new two-week-old big rig in an accident in Arkansas in a wreck with another rig (the other party fell asleep at the wheel) and was headed back to Indianapolis to get another one on his insurance money, and in front of an ex-trucker whose career had been ended when a dumpster fell on her and partly crushed her spine. We talked about this and that for an hour or so, then we sort of retreated into silence and I listened to my iPod the rest of the way up to St. Louis.
Pulled into Lambert Field at about 11:55; my brother hadn't expected me to get in that early, so it was about 15 minutes before he was able to pick me up. We headed by the building where I would be working to take a look at it, then home to my brother's in-laws' house where he is staying until they get their housing situation in town settled. I met their big part-Chow dog Bear, then we went downstairs and watched an episode of Read or Die: The TV on the big-screen high-def TV. He also gave me an old Samsung phone that I could slot my SIM card into for now so I would at least have working cellular capability. I ended up getting to bed about 2:30 a.m.
Got up around 9 to find nobody in the house except for me, a Siamese cat, and an unhappily caged barking Bear. Came downstairs to bro's computer and sat down to bang out this journal entry and do some research for the interview later today on the side. Still don't have a solid time nailed down, but Aaron said he'd come get me at lunchtime. Dunno what we'll do after he gets off of work. Maybe watch some more animé on the TV set.
Man, I am so nervous about the job interview, and about all the little things I might manage to goof up. Fingers crossed; hopefully it will all work out.
