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Well, I'm back in my apartment, having started the day in Sacramento and traveled many hours by various means. So here's the inevitable trave(b)logue of my time at the American Association of Physics Teachers meeting. I'll be typing up my extensive notes from the meeting in a week or two, and if you're really curious, ask later this month and I can send you a copy. This is going to be mostly bitching about accomodations.
SUNDAY
Started out on the road a little before 1 PM, needing to get to the airport by about 4:30 or 5 PM in Kansas City. Stopped off in Topeka and bought a lot of Transformers toys (new Go-Bots, roleplay weapons), some other toys, and a couple non-perishable boring things I had on my shopping list. Got back underway at 3, got to the airport with plenty of time (parked in the remote economy lot, shuttled over, ate some overpriced cheesesteak). Found out that Southwest Airlines uses their own system of boarding...rather than boarding by rows like every other airline I've used (other than prop-planes with 2 seats per row), they print a big letter A, B or C on your ticket depending on when you checked in, then board by letter. Something they assume you'll pick up on your own, apparently, at least at KCI (on the return trip, it was announced pretty clearly, not that I needed to be told by that point).
Uneventful flight. And while sitting in the front row is much more comfortable than most, the lack of a tray table becomes quite apparent once drinks are served. :)
Got in late enough that no one else was arriving for my conference at the same time, and I hadn't read about the supershuttle thing, so I took a cab. $45, and the cabbie lied when he told me he was dropping me off at Desmond Hall (he actually dropped me off at the student union, a mile past Desmond Hall, which we passed on the way in). After the 15 minute walk with all my luggage at night across campus, I found out that most of the stuff I'd been told about the area in response to my emails to CalState Sacramento's info desk was...well, maybe not LIES outright. But clearly evidence that the person working the info desk has never, ever walked from campus to anywhere off-campus, and cannot estimate distances worth a damn. The Albertson's "Half a mile off campus" was in fact closer to three miles (discovered on the shuttle bus ride out today). The Safeway supposedly 1/4 mile off campus might have actually been only half a mile away in a straight line, but required crossing the American River and looping around a lot, for a total walking distance of more like 1.5 miles. On the other hand, while I had been told we would not have any access to the campus wireless network (and hence never bothered to fix/upgrade my laptop), it turned out that we did. Not that it was working very often, mind you. Apparently a few dozen users was enough to crash it.
My room was on the third floor of a building with no elevator, a type of door latch on the outside of the building I'd never seen before and was not very intuitive (this would turn out to be a theme...door handles/latches all over campus came in a bewildering variety of Just Plain Stupid Designs). And the rooms were numbered so that all the even numbers were in the west wing and the odd numbers in the east wing, with other mathematically inane numbering rules as well, so it took me longer than it should have to find my room...which was next to the ladies' room. The men's room was in the other wing.
At least the AC worked, not that I needed it, since it was unseasonably cool. The weather was really the only consistently good thing about the environment, thanks to a cool and dry snap.
I was so pissed off at all the minor annoyances piling up around me that I slept horribly. Didn't help that I got congested as soon as I arrived and it kept up all week (didn't pack the decongestant because A) I hadn't had problems for months and B) it's dry out there, which is supposed to be good for not getting congested).
MONDAY
Out of 7 hours of trying, I think I managed to sleep 2 hours. Nearly got first degree burns in the shower, as the cold water pressure dropped to zero any time someone flushed a toilet or turned on a sink anywhere in the building. I ditched the morning session I'd planned to go to, so that I could spend the time figuring out the reality of the situation, since it was becoming clear that the information I'd gotten in advance was craptacular. Breakfast was edible, standard cafeteria fare, although the management seemed deathly afraid that someone might actually get their money's worth. Dude, when you charge someone five bucks for breakfast, AFTER a group discount that forbids them from getting refunds on uneaten meals or using the funds to eat after the end of the main meeting, it's REALLY tacky to limit them to one pass through the entree line. I mean, I usually didn't want more, but being told with a deer-in-headlights look that you can't have another scoop of mushy hashbrowns the one time you ask...? Pfah. As would become abundantly clear over the whole week, the people in charge of the actual facilities clearly had no interest in keeping us happy now that they had our money (the physics department did a yeoman's job trying to fix some of the worst mistakes Housing committed, but when you're hosting a conference with rotating sites, there's little incentive to try to get repeat business).
I picked up my badge and stuff after breakfast, and found that apparently enough had complained that the university opened up a small computer lab a couple blocks from the Union for us to use, since the initially promised email access consisted of a single kiosk-terminal with chiclet keys running Windows 98. Hence, I was able to keep up with my spam, webcomics, etc. Ergonomics and software didn't really encourage me to do any more than that, though. I pitied the poor grad student who was trying to burn changes to her presentation on a rewritable CD, only to find none of the machines in the room could burn any sort of CDROM in any way.
After lunch, I went to the first afternoon session I wanted to see, but I was starting to zombify due to lack of sleep and starchy cafeteria food. I had to ditch right after a friend's talk (which I took almost no notes on, as I was starting to sweat and feel faint from the effort of WRITING) and go lie down for a while before the late afternoon session. Dinner was pizza at the Union, since the picnic held by the conference traditionally means you're not even allowed to buy into the cafeteria plan the night of the picnic (which bugs the hell out of me...I hate picnics).
I'd initially hoped to meet up with some people I know through a Transformers message board who are local to the area, but neither of them had gotten back to me for weeks, and though I gave them my cell number, neither called. Probably for the best, though, I was feeling so crappy I wouldn't have been good company. Woulda been nice if I could have at least gotten a ride to the Albertson's to get some stuff for the community fridge in the dorm, though.
Around 8 PM, I finally dezombified, just in time for it to be pointless. Did some reading, went to bed with the window open to enjoy the cool night air.
TUESDAY
Got a decent night's sleep, although my back hurt from the ultra-hard mattress. Generally in a better mood at this point, having figured out how to deal with most of the deficiencies of the housing situation. Still got burned in the shower, though. Complained about it to Housing repeatedly, but nothing noticeable was done the rest of the time I was in that dorm.
Had a short morning session, so did a little exploring. I crossed the suspension foot/bike bridge over the American River (demonstrating to myself that my minor bridge-related acrophobia was still in effect) and prowled around a bit. Student housing everywhere, plus a decrepit strip mall with a barbershop and an Iraqi restaurant. Oh, and there was also a Kaplan's down the road. Nothing within a reasonable walk, and I ended up walking enough that I spent Wednesday with stiff muscles.
After lunch, I decided I needed to do something about my congestion, since all the mouth-breathing was giving me drymouth. Picked up some decongestant at the convenience store in the Union. It had that ultra-crappy old sort of nozzle, and I ended up getting one dose into my nose for every three that dribbled down my throat or my face. This would turn out to have been, long run, a bad idea. Shortly after, I had a coughing fit that nearly ended in vomiting all over a stairwell, but didn't catch the clue.
Gave my talk okay. There were no questions, which is always disheartening, and about half an hour before my talk was to start I realized I needed to use the restroom. Yay, Murphy. Bad form to walk out of your own session, you see, unless you have a serious conflict (like being in two sessions at the same time, which happens to some of the more popular speakers). Got through the talk without giving any impression of my rapidly worsening condition and raced off to the restroom (I was the last speaker). Came out of that feeling even worse than before, and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening feeling gut-nauseous and weak. I was later told that I looked like death warmed over...hollow eyes, sheen of sweat, etc. My first dinner at the cafeteria was a choice between Mexican and...I forget, but it was even spicier. Dared a taco, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was almost unspiced, which my stomach was thankful for.
Later that night, I was looking at the back of the decongestant spray bottle and saw the phrase, "If ingested, seek medical attention immediately."
Yep. I poisoned myself. In my defense, WHO THE FUCK MAKES A NASAL SPRAY THAT'S POISONOUS IF INGESTED? Gah. Especially in such a cheap dispenser that guarantees that most of the spray's going down the back of the user's throat.
WEDNESDAY
Good sleep, no poison, still scalded in the shower. This was the last day of the regular conference, and went pretty well. Really, very little to complain about here. Dinner was once again Mexican or something else (in this case some very dubious-looking pasta). I'd learned the "only once through" lesson by now and loaded my plate the first time. My legs were acting up by this point, though, so I used the hiking stick I brought along just in case (I almost ALWAYS walk too much at least once at these conferences as I explore the environs, and end up limping the next day).
THURSDAY
Good sleep, no poison, and a lot of people had left the night before so I got lucky and was only scalded once. Sticking around because a special research-focused conference follows the main one (and has since 1997), so there were still some of us around. Many of us were staying Thursday night, but were not allowed to buy cafeteria card access for Friday (I suppose we could pay cash, but by this point I wasn't going to pay six bucks for a sausage patty, two pancakes and some muffins).
During the morning break between the first workshops and the invited speakers (one of whom had 12 point fonts on his overhead transparencies and was supplied with what I can only guess was a projector specially manufactured to be incapable of focusing more than a tenth of the screen at a time), one of my coworkers related a strange tale to me. He was checking out (since he's driving to see relatives in California and didn't need to stay overnight for a flight in the morning), and wondered aloud why the guy at the desk wasn't asking who he was. After all, he had a roommate (who was staying overnight), so there were two keys out there.
"Oh, that's okay. You all have to be checked out by 11 AM today anyway."
Um....
So, I still had the conference control number on my phone from the complaining I'd done about the shower heat, and I called to check out the situation. After working up the food chain, I got the head guy, who claimed we had no contract at all for Thursday night, and they needed to clean out the building for another conference coming in early Friday morning. We had paid for Thursday night, I explained. His response, while polite, amounted to "Tough noogies, not my fault, talk to the AAPT organizer about it, we have no contract and no recollection of anyone mentioning this Thursday thing."
Using my theatrically trained lungpower, I announced this situation to the room and went to seek the AAPT organizer. There was much bouncing about on the phone, and it turned out that on the paper records (CSUS Housing apparently doesn't use a computer for booking) the "X" on Thursday was misread as being "everyone moves out this day", even though there were X's on Saturday through Wednesday as well, and those were correctly read as "people staying over this night". But they'd already taken the money of the people coming in Friday morning. So those of us staying in the dorm being used for this group (myself included) were finally told we'd get to move to another dorm room during the break before dinner.
After my last workshop, I trudged back to the dorm, checked out of one and into the other. Once again on the third floor of a building with no elevators (and a disturbingly creaky wood staircase). The air conditioning was not working in the wing we were using (but it was working in the rest of the building, and talking to the Housing people got an "I have no idea and it can't be fixed before tomorrow when you leave anyway" response). Didn't really seem to be a problem, though, since it would be cool at night again.
Too bad my window overlooked a street that's busy 24/7. Still managed to sleep okay.
FRIDAY
Discovered that with the exception of the drinking fountains and the laundry room sink, all the cold water lines were full of hot water, and the hot water line had REALLY hot water. On the plus side, this meant that the surges in water temperature in the shower were almost imperceptible, because I could get by with almost no "hot" water, just enough to bring the pressure up to where I could rinse out shampoo in less than ten minutes. On the minus side, discovering that the cold water tap is actually hot because you're rinsing toothpaste out of your mouth with it is...unpleasant.
Breakfast was vending machine fare. Then I escaped this commuter campus from hell and headed out with the rest of my group on the airport shuttle. If you are ever organizing a conference in Sacramento, DO NOT USE CSU-SACRAMENTO. The people behind the scenes hate you, they want your money and then for you to go away. Easily the worst housing/meals administration of all the conferences I've been to (although, from what I hear, the 2002 in Boise was worse...they actually sold 75 more rooms' worth of housing than actually existed on the campus!).
Shuttle driver took us through town on a nice scenic route (no extra charge, not really that much longer in terms of time) and we hit the airport with plenty of time to wait in all the various lines (including ones that the airport was clearly doing ad hoc things to compensate for, not being built for either the volume they were getting or the increased security thing). Flight was okay, but ended up next to a 10 year old kid who kept trying to engage me in conversation without realizing that I could only hear about 1/3 of the words coming out of his mouth over the engine noise. He's also an Evercrack player, and spent several loooong minutes telling me about his party and all the "plats" he'd collected and what sort of lizard mount thing he wanted so that he wouldn't have those pesky horse ears blocking lines of fire.
Once I got into the terminal and turned my phone on, I found I had voice mail. My 97 year old grandma has come down with pneumonia. That's not a sentence that leads to positive outcomes all that often. My mom does understand, though, that the next few weeks I'd have a lot of difficulty getting away for a funeral (turns out all four of us grandkids have hard-to-break plans for the next week, so if worse comes to worst we may go with a cremation and hold a ceremony with the ashes later on when we can actually assemble the full family). Personally, I've already done my mourning for grandma DeSio...it's been years since she had any memories of the past 60 years, and when I visited her last summer she not only didn't know who I was, she couldn't remember the fact more than a minute or two after being told. I may talk about this matter more later.
The drive home was a little rough because I was drowsy. Stopped in Topeka for some light shopping (got more Transformers and other toys) and dinner, then finished the journey home. A near thing a couple times in terms of nodding off. Rolled into the apartment parking lot at 8:05, dragged everything in, still haven't unpacked. Or opened the toys. In fact, I've spent a rather large part of the past two and a half hours on this post....
Tomorrow I get all my held mail, do laundry, go get my comics and generally recover.
Started out on the road a little before 1 PM, needing to get to the airport by about 4:30 or 5 PM in Kansas City. Stopped off in Topeka and bought a lot of Transformers toys (new Go-Bots, roleplay weapons), some other toys, and a couple non-perishable boring things I had on my shopping list. Got back underway at 3, got to the airport with plenty of time (parked in the remote economy lot, shuttled over, ate some overpriced cheesesteak). Found out that Southwest Airlines uses their own system of boarding...rather than boarding by rows like every other airline I've used (other than prop-planes with 2 seats per row), they print a big letter A, B or C on your ticket depending on when you checked in, then board by letter. Something they assume you'll pick up on your own, apparently, at least at KCI (on the return trip, it was announced pretty clearly, not that I needed to be told by that point).
Uneventful flight. And while sitting in the front row is much more comfortable than most, the lack of a tray table becomes quite apparent once drinks are served. :)
Got in late enough that no one else was arriving for my conference at the same time, and I hadn't read about the supershuttle thing, so I took a cab. $45, and the cabbie lied when he told me he was dropping me off at Desmond Hall (he actually dropped me off at the student union, a mile past Desmond Hall, which we passed on the way in). After the 15 minute walk with all my luggage at night across campus, I found out that most of the stuff I'd been told about the area in response to my emails to CalState Sacramento's info desk was...well, maybe not LIES outright. But clearly evidence that the person working the info desk has never, ever walked from campus to anywhere off-campus, and cannot estimate distances worth a damn. The Albertson's "Half a mile off campus" was in fact closer to three miles (discovered on the shuttle bus ride out today). The Safeway supposedly 1/4 mile off campus might have actually been only half a mile away in a straight line, but required crossing the American River and looping around a lot, for a total walking distance of more like 1.5 miles. On the other hand, while I had been told we would not have any access to the campus wireless network (and hence never bothered to fix/upgrade my laptop), it turned out that we did. Not that it was working very often, mind you. Apparently a few dozen users was enough to crash it.
My room was on the third floor of a building with no elevator, a type of door latch on the outside of the building I'd never seen before and was not very intuitive (this would turn out to be a theme...door handles/latches all over campus came in a bewildering variety of Just Plain Stupid Designs). And the rooms were numbered so that all the even numbers were in the west wing and the odd numbers in the east wing, with other mathematically inane numbering rules as well, so it took me longer than it should have to find my room...which was next to the ladies' room. The men's room was in the other wing.
At least the AC worked, not that I needed it, since it was unseasonably cool. The weather was really the only consistently good thing about the environment, thanks to a cool and dry snap.
I was so pissed off at all the minor annoyances piling up around me that I slept horribly. Didn't help that I got congested as soon as I arrived and it kept up all week (didn't pack the decongestant because A) I hadn't had problems for months and B) it's dry out there, which is supposed to be good for not getting congested).
Out of 7 hours of trying, I think I managed to sleep 2 hours. Nearly got first degree burns in the shower, as the cold water pressure dropped to zero any time someone flushed a toilet or turned on a sink anywhere in the building. I ditched the morning session I'd planned to go to, so that I could spend the time figuring out the reality of the situation, since it was becoming clear that the information I'd gotten in advance was craptacular. Breakfast was edible, standard cafeteria fare, although the management seemed deathly afraid that someone might actually get their money's worth. Dude, when you charge someone five bucks for breakfast, AFTER a group discount that forbids them from getting refunds on uneaten meals or using the funds to eat after the end of the main meeting, it's REALLY tacky to limit them to one pass through the entree line. I mean, I usually didn't want more, but being told with a deer-in-headlights look that you can't have another scoop of mushy hashbrowns the one time you ask...? Pfah. As would become abundantly clear over the whole week, the people in charge of the actual facilities clearly had no interest in keeping us happy now that they had our money (the physics department did a yeoman's job trying to fix some of the worst mistakes Housing committed, but when you're hosting a conference with rotating sites, there's little incentive to try to get repeat business).
I picked up my badge and stuff after breakfast, and found that apparently enough had complained that the university opened up a small computer lab a couple blocks from the Union for us to use, since the initially promised email access consisted of a single kiosk-terminal with chiclet keys running Windows 98. Hence, I was able to keep up with my spam, webcomics, etc. Ergonomics and software didn't really encourage me to do any more than that, though. I pitied the poor grad student who was trying to burn changes to her presentation on a rewritable CD, only to find none of the machines in the room could burn any sort of CDROM in any way.
After lunch, I went to the first afternoon session I wanted to see, but I was starting to zombify due to lack of sleep and starchy cafeteria food. I had to ditch right after a friend's talk (which I took almost no notes on, as I was starting to sweat and feel faint from the effort of WRITING) and go lie down for a while before the late afternoon session. Dinner was pizza at the Union, since the picnic held by the conference traditionally means you're not even allowed to buy into the cafeteria plan the night of the picnic (which bugs the hell out of me...I hate picnics).
I'd initially hoped to meet up with some people I know through a Transformers message board who are local to the area, but neither of them had gotten back to me for weeks, and though I gave them my cell number, neither called. Probably for the best, though, I was feeling so crappy I wouldn't have been good company. Woulda been nice if I could have at least gotten a ride to the Albertson's to get some stuff for the community fridge in the dorm, though.
Around 8 PM, I finally dezombified, just in time for it to be pointless. Did some reading, went to bed with the window open to enjoy the cool night air.
Got a decent night's sleep, although my back hurt from the ultra-hard mattress. Generally in a better mood at this point, having figured out how to deal with most of the deficiencies of the housing situation. Still got burned in the shower, though. Complained about it to Housing repeatedly, but nothing noticeable was done the rest of the time I was in that dorm.
Had a short morning session, so did a little exploring. I crossed the suspension foot/bike bridge over the American River (demonstrating to myself that my minor bridge-related acrophobia was still in effect) and prowled around a bit. Student housing everywhere, plus a decrepit strip mall with a barbershop and an Iraqi restaurant. Oh, and there was also a Kaplan's down the road. Nothing within a reasonable walk, and I ended up walking enough that I spent Wednesday with stiff muscles.
After lunch, I decided I needed to do something about my congestion, since all the mouth-breathing was giving me drymouth. Picked up some decongestant at the convenience store in the Union. It had that ultra-crappy old sort of nozzle, and I ended up getting one dose into my nose for every three that dribbled down my throat or my face. This would turn out to have been, long run, a bad idea. Shortly after, I had a coughing fit that nearly ended in vomiting all over a stairwell, but didn't catch the clue.
Gave my talk okay. There were no questions, which is always disheartening, and about half an hour before my talk was to start I realized I needed to use the restroom. Yay, Murphy. Bad form to walk out of your own session, you see, unless you have a serious conflict (like being in two sessions at the same time, which happens to some of the more popular speakers). Got through the talk without giving any impression of my rapidly worsening condition and raced off to the restroom (I was the last speaker). Came out of that feeling even worse than before, and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening feeling gut-nauseous and weak. I was later told that I looked like death warmed over...hollow eyes, sheen of sweat, etc. My first dinner at the cafeteria was a choice between Mexican and...I forget, but it was even spicier. Dared a taco, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was almost unspiced, which my stomach was thankful for.
Later that night, I was looking at the back of the decongestant spray bottle and saw the phrase, "If ingested, seek medical attention immediately."
Yep. I poisoned myself. In my defense, WHO THE FUCK MAKES A NASAL SPRAY THAT'S POISONOUS IF INGESTED? Gah. Especially in such a cheap dispenser that guarantees that most of the spray's going down the back of the user's throat.
Good sleep, no poison, still scalded in the shower. This was the last day of the regular conference, and went pretty well. Really, very little to complain about here. Dinner was once again Mexican or something else (in this case some very dubious-looking pasta). I'd learned the "only once through" lesson by now and loaded my plate the first time. My legs were acting up by this point, though, so I used the hiking stick I brought along just in case (I almost ALWAYS walk too much at least once at these conferences as I explore the environs, and end up limping the next day).
Good sleep, no poison, and a lot of people had left the night before so I got lucky and was only scalded once. Sticking around because a special research-focused conference follows the main one (and has since 1997), so there were still some of us around. Many of us were staying Thursday night, but were not allowed to buy cafeteria card access for Friday (I suppose we could pay cash, but by this point I wasn't going to pay six bucks for a sausage patty, two pancakes and some muffins).
During the morning break between the first workshops and the invited speakers (one of whom had 12 point fonts on his overhead transparencies and was supplied with what I can only guess was a projector specially manufactured to be incapable of focusing more than a tenth of the screen at a time), one of my coworkers related a strange tale to me. He was checking out (since he's driving to see relatives in California and didn't need to stay overnight for a flight in the morning), and wondered aloud why the guy at the desk wasn't asking who he was. After all, he had a roommate (who was staying overnight), so there were two keys out there.
"Oh, that's okay. You all have to be checked out by 11 AM today anyway."
Um....
So, I still had the conference control number on my phone from the complaining I'd done about the shower heat, and I called to check out the situation. After working up the food chain, I got the head guy, who claimed we had no contract at all for Thursday night, and they needed to clean out the building for another conference coming in early Friday morning. We had paid for Thursday night, I explained. His response, while polite, amounted to "Tough noogies, not my fault, talk to the AAPT organizer about it, we have no contract and no recollection of anyone mentioning this Thursday thing."
Using my theatrically trained lungpower, I announced this situation to the room and went to seek the AAPT organizer. There was much bouncing about on the phone, and it turned out that on the paper records (CSUS Housing apparently doesn't use a computer for booking) the "X" on Thursday was misread as being "everyone moves out this day", even though there were X's on Saturday through Wednesday as well, and those were correctly read as "people staying over this night". But they'd already taken the money of the people coming in Friday morning. So those of us staying in the dorm being used for this group (myself included) were finally told we'd get to move to another dorm room during the break before dinner.
After my last workshop, I trudged back to the dorm, checked out of one and into the other. Once again on the third floor of a building with no elevators (and a disturbingly creaky wood staircase). The air conditioning was not working in the wing we were using (but it was working in the rest of the building, and talking to the Housing people got an "I have no idea and it can't be fixed before tomorrow when you leave anyway" response). Didn't really seem to be a problem, though, since it would be cool at night again.
Too bad my window overlooked a street that's busy 24/7. Still managed to sleep okay.
Discovered that with the exception of the drinking fountains and the laundry room sink, all the cold water lines were full of hot water, and the hot water line had REALLY hot water. On the plus side, this meant that the surges in water temperature in the shower were almost imperceptible, because I could get by with almost no "hot" water, just enough to bring the pressure up to where I could rinse out shampoo in less than ten minutes. On the minus side, discovering that the cold water tap is actually hot because you're rinsing toothpaste out of your mouth with it is...unpleasant.
Breakfast was vending machine fare. Then I escaped this commuter campus from hell and headed out with the rest of my group on the airport shuttle. If you are ever organizing a conference in Sacramento, DO NOT USE CSU-SACRAMENTO. The people behind the scenes hate you, they want your money and then for you to go away. Easily the worst housing/meals administration of all the conferences I've been to (although, from what I hear, the 2002 in Boise was worse...they actually sold 75 more rooms' worth of housing than actually existed on the campus!).
Shuttle driver took us through town on a nice scenic route (no extra charge, not really that much longer in terms of time) and we hit the airport with plenty of time to wait in all the various lines (including ones that the airport was clearly doing ad hoc things to compensate for, not being built for either the volume they were getting or the increased security thing). Flight was okay, but ended up next to a 10 year old kid who kept trying to engage me in conversation without realizing that I could only hear about 1/3 of the words coming out of his mouth over the engine noise. He's also an Evercrack player, and spent several loooong minutes telling me about his party and all the "plats" he'd collected and what sort of lizard mount thing he wanted so that he wouldn't have those pesky horse ears blocking lines of fire.
Once I got into the terminal and turned my phone on, I found I had voice mail. My 97 year old grandma has come down with pneumonia. That's not a sentence that leads to positive outcomes all that often. My mom does understand, though, that the next few weeks I'd have a lot of difficulty getting away for a funeral (turns out all four of us grandkids have hard-to-break plans for the next week, so if worse comes to worst we may go with a cremation and hold a ceremony with the ashes later on when we can actually assemble the full family). Personally, I've already done my mourning for grandma DeSio...it's been years since she had any memories of the past 60 years, and when I visited her last summer she not only didn't know who I was, she couldn't remember the fact more than a minute or two after being told. I may talk about this matter more later.
The drive home was a little rough because I was drowsy. Stopped in Topeka for some light shopping (got more Transformers and other toys) and dinner, then finished the journey home. A near thing a couple times in terms of nodding off. Rolled into the apartment parking lot at 8:05, dragged everything in, still haven't unpacked. Or opened the toys. In fact, I've spent a rather large part of the past two and a half hours on this post....
Tomorrow I get all my held mail, do laundry, go get my comics and generally recover.
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From:
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I hope your weekend is completely uneventful and relaxing, at least!
(no subject)
From:From:
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Other than that, I'm utterly unsurprised at the lack of customer services.
Since Ronnie Raygun gutted the schools things have been horrible in that respect all over California, and it has only been 'improved' by the anti-tax crusaders in the direction of underfunding.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From: