Zel-kun’s Words

I spent all last week travelling.  I drove my car to work monday, and didn’t see it again until Friday night.  There’s nothing wrong with saving a whole week’s worth of gas by driving a company vehicle, especially with today’s prices.

I went to Indiana, working around my old home.  It was there that everything that COULD go wrong, did.  I’d write about it, but it would be a page of techno-babble, so I’ll summarise by saying Murphy was my best friend that day.

I went to Springfield the next day, which went fairly smoothly.  My GPS (my cell phone) died as I reached the city, making me guess where I had to go.  I had the address, so I used my good ol’ trusty sense of direction.  I took the second Springfield exit I saw, and drove down the street, keeping an eye out for a gas station to stop and ask for directions.  On my left I saw it, a Circuit City, housing a Verizon kiosk, one of the sites I had to visit.

Must be karma trying to make up for all the crap I went through the previous day.

I had to stop by a cellular site, which was the first time I’ve been to one since doing work for U.S. Cellular some three years ago.  It was just as secure as the ones I’ve been to in the past:  Short, hidden, unmarked.

I had to pull a piece of retired equipment out of the rack there, the last piece of equipment that my group had there.  To get an idea of what I was looking at, picture a wall of expensive and important equipment, much of it visually indistinguishable.  I had to pull one of them, and no one there knew for sure where it was.

I got on the phone with the co-worker who had sent me to pull the equipment, who then walked me through to finding the equipment.  For several minutes, we went back and forth making sure I was looking at the same thing he thought I was looking at, then we took a deep breath…

I shut the thing down and pulled it from the rack, sweating a little despite the air-conditioner blowing on me from directly overhead.  I didn’t hear any alarms going off, so I figured I was in the clear.  I confirmed with the control techs that I did not cause the site to blow up, and high-tailed it out of there.

As I was returning to Chicago, I heard a commercial for a local butcher…

“Bloomington Meats: So good, even vegetarians can’t resist!”

That amused me to no end.

On Friday, we went to see Get Smart, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  I’m normally not a huge fan of Steve Correll, but he played Smart surprisingly well.  Along with that, The Rock played a good part as well, tough and amusing.

Sunday we went to my dad’s for a celebratory barbecue for our wedding.  We brought Zai’s parents along, so they had a chance to meet some of my family.  Sadly there was the language barrier for her father, but at least the food was good.

I saw Nick, my stepbrother, for the first time in two years.  The first thing he said was, “Your hair is long… I’m not sure I like that.  I don’t know that you’re really you.”  He then proceeds to poke me to verify that I’m really there.

He bought a PS3, and subsequently broke it.  He wants me to take a look at it.  I warned him that I’ve never even been in the same room as a PS3, but he decided he trusts me enough to haul it home with me to fix it.

Guess the coming week will tell whether or not that’s a wise decision…

Zel-kun out.