Sunday: The Complete Opposite Of Saturday

Name that movie (before he became Batman)...

I know I have written about this before but it has been some time since I last approached the subject and that is because of the simple reason that I hate cleaning. However, there comes a time when you just look around and you have no other choice but to pull out the vacuum, prep the Swiffer, and knock off all the crud from the bottom of the broom. Sunday was that time for me when I could feel the dirt on the bottom of my socks and I could see the coating of dust on the coffee table.

With other things on my plate for the day, it was by no means a deep cleaning (that will have to be done at a later time) but I was at least able to clear off a couple of the tables and pile all of the miscellaneous crap into one consolidated area. Yesterday was all about reducing the coverage of the clutter rather than eliminating the mass of the mess. So now, everything has been shoved to one side or another and neatly stacked in sortable piles which I am sure will sit for at least another week before being touched.

Once these things are taken care of it will be time to vacuum the entire apartment. This is not going to be one of those quick pass type jobs, this is going to be an all-day process with multiple passes, numerous bag changes, and a follow up Swiffer to take care of all the fine dust kicked up throughout the marathon. That is the part that I am really not looking forward to. Everything else is bearably, it’s that vacuuming that is a royal PITA.

At least when you are sorting through piles on tables you have the occasional moment of “I forgot we had that” or “I was wondering where I put that”. Vacuuming does not throw in those moments of relief. You are not going to reminisce about a Dorito that you had a month ago that bounced under the sofa only to be found by the bristles and suction of your Hoover. It just doesn’t work that way, at least not for me.

So I guess you could say that round one is done with the longer, more exhausting, rounds to go. While I am not looking forward to the process, I can’t wait for the end result when we return to a state of maintenance rather than recovery. Until we get to that point it is a matter of returning to cleanliness and working on the maintenance schedule that will immediately follow. I guess we will see how that holds up.

Wrong Tense

Our Atlanta airport adventure was one that was filled with some interesting characters. It all began during my slow crawl through security where, for a change of pace, the TSA officers repeatedly instructed us to keep our jackets, shoes, and belts on; keep electronics in our carryon bags, and only remove items from our pockets that would set off the metal detector (really that meant only removing cell phones, keys, and loose change. This was much easier than the usual process so I was ready to go in no time.

However, this wasn’t good enough for the woman in front of me who stubbornly refused to walk through the metal detector. First the excuse was that it was an invasion of her privacy. When that didn’t work she moved on to the ‘it causes cancer’ argument. When both of those failed to achieve her desired result, she mumbled countless complaints under her breath as she darted through the checkpoint like a cat caught in the rain. PITA’s like that shouldn’t fly.  

A little later during our time in airport limbo, having just been notified that our departure was delayed due to bad weather in the Philadelphia area, my colleague and I readjusted our luggage and hunkered down for an extended stay at the Atlanta airport. By this time, evening was beginning to creep over the horizon and everyone was eager to get on the plane and in the air. This was only exacerbated by the fact that we just witnessed the flight to Phoenix just complete the boarding and close the doors to the terminal. At least someone was going somewhere.

Needless to say the restlessness and slight boredom was slowly taking hold of the awaiting passengers. What we needed was a distraction. Something to occupy our minds until the decision to board was finally announced over the speakers. As if on cue, a flustered and disheveled woman walked quickly to the gate on the opposite end of the waiting room. We all knew where she was going but sometimes the greatest entertainment is in the reaction.

Someone missing there flight is nothing new but the uniqueness of the response is something that I have never witnessed firsthand before. You could tell by the mumbling, pacing, and anger that this was going to be good. With the situation building and the knocks on the gate door echoing across the terminal, we all shifted in our seats to get a better view as the drama unfolded. And you know what, unlike a lot of movies that clog the theaters, this performance didn’t disappoint.

As soon as we all turned, got ourselves comfortable, and began looking for the popcorn the woman slamming he fist on the door decided to change tactics. After a quick check out the window to make sure the plane was still at the gate, she returned to the desk near the door and instead of using her fist she decided to use her voice so she picked up the microphone and made an announcement over the load speakers… “US Airways personnel needed as Gate D23. A passenger is about to miss her flight!”

This ‘announcement’ was repeated, as if in an OCD loop, for about ten minutes. The one thing that kept running through my mind is that she might want to consider changing the tense in that statement because your butt isn’t getting on that plane. Her voice was a mix of both panic and pissed. You could tell that she desperately wanted to get on that plane but you could also sense that this wasn’t the first time she has found herself in this situation. Just when we thought the vain throbbing below her neck tattoo was about to burst, a woman opened the gate door and stepped behind the desk making sure that the door was closed securely behind her.

I give the US Airways employee credit because she managed to hold her ground while calming the incessant passenger. In what was an anticlimactic conclusion, the woman hovered above the computer screen while alternate arrangements were made. Before long, the matted haired woman stormed off and made her way to some other part of the terminal (either the new gate or the bar). And in a moment of perfect choreography, the announcement was made for passengers to begin boarding our flight home.

 

WTF = Winter’s Tenacious February

I woke up this morning to the sound of a heavy rain slamming into the ground. The kind of rain that has a purpose. We knew it was coming from watching the news the night before but we didn’t expect the echoes that the weighted water would cause just outside our bedroom window. I don’t know if it was the expectation of what I would inevitably find on the other side of our apartment door or the rhythm of the rain, but I had a hard time getting out of bed.

After a quick shower, I poured a cold cup of coffee from the day before and cracked open the door. The giant drops were a change from the frozen flakes that have plagued us for the past month but as soon as my shoe splashed onto the sidewalk, I was wishing that it was snow. Carefully I placed my other foot on the concrete and before long my feet began to slide as I walked toward my car.

I have always found that the best way to determine the condition of the road is to walk on it. With this thought in mind, I walked across the parking lot and found that while there were slick spots, the asphalt wasn’t too bad. The trees however looked like they decided to take up yoga during the night. With branches bent in an unnatural fashion, it was inevitable that there was going to be limbs, if not entire trees, along, on, and across the roads this morning.

It was with this thought that I began my journey to the office and it wasn’t long before the traction control began flashing on the dashboard and the brakes were pumping at the end of the driveway. Within a quarter mile of the apartment building the slalom began as I joined a line of cars weaving back and forth around trees on our way to the highway. The important thing is that the tires retained their grip and people kept their distance so we all managed to make it through the inoperable traffic lights, down the road, and onto the Schuylkill Expressway.

With few cars on the road, the ride to the office was pretty quick. While there was nothing eventful across the three lanes heading eastbound, my peripheral vision was overloaded with the constant motion of bending, breaking, and falling branches all along the highway. Nothing impacted the commute and I pulled into the office in about the same amount of time that it usually takes in the morning. The only difference in my arrival was second guessing my usual parking spot under one of the trees. I wasn’t about to take the risk when there were plenty of spots out in the open.

And this is how the long day of power outages and failed internet connections started. What seemed uneventful in the beginning of the day and was pretty safe, has been a bigger PITA than a foot of snow on the ground. And this is, by no means, an end to the winter weather for the week.

Holiday PITA

Not that kind of pita!

The holidays this year have made my work schedule a bit of a mess. Beginning last week I have been in one day, off two, in one, off three, in one, and will be off two more days before resuming a normal work schedule. With days off in the middle of the this week and last, many people have also simply been out for a week and a half straight making it difficult to really get a lot of things done and through the entire revision process. So while there is plenty of work that has gotten done lately, much of it at this point is simply fueling a backlog that is going to have to be addressed as soon as our schedules return to sanity.

But some schedules never change, some habits remain, and routines are pretty self-explanatory. While things were both busy and slow at the office, blog posts still had to be written, and lodge work seems to never end. Actually, since things have been turned over to me, the work is now in the exponential stage. Don’t worry, it should plateau sometime this coming year or next.

OF course, this is why I take work home with me. What started simply with blogging from home has how become a pretty substantial office where I can handle just about everything from the office and a number of things from the lodge. The lodge home work is something relatively new, at least to its current extent, as I brought home a couple of binders with me to finish a few things up before our meeting on Thursday.

That’s another thing that has to be done. Both my home office and the lodge office are both a bit disheveled, disorganized, and a downright mess. Much of this work will definitely be more streamline once these two spaces are given a pretty substantial overhaul. Looks like a few exciting weekends are in my future trying to get both of these spaces up to speed. Put it this way, they’re both in such a state that they’d be good spaces for one of those foofy television design shows.  

While there is a lot of work to be done it is all fun for me most of the time. Sometimes work can be a PITA but everything has PITA potential including the things we enjoying doing most like blogging. And don’t forget that we can each be a PITA too... I know I am on several daily occasions. Sometimes at work, sometimes at home, you never know when the PITA mod will strike.

Easy There Gus Gus!

My post for the day is a simple dedication to my wife. While there are countless ways I could embarrass her with the words I chose to write below I am not going to do that. Contrary to the content of many of my previous blogs I am going to be very simple with my words and just write what I am feeling without blathering on and on and on like I just did. So here we go…

My wife, who better be reading this the day it gets posted, is having another birthday today. Seems like there are one of these days every year… we could get old really fast if we keep up this pace. So far we are sticking to the plan of growing older together and that is just fine with me.

I know that I can frequently be a major PITA but, for some reason, she sticks with me year after year. Maybe that just makes me interesting or eccentric. I doubt it. But there are times when I am completely serious, a time such as this when I say with all my heart, I love you!

While the last couple of birthdays have not been very good I am glad that I am able to make this year a little better. Not quite where I would like it to be but there is definitely progress being made. I hope that all subsequent birthdays continue to be sweeter or at least until we hit that tipping point when neither one of us knows how old we are or who we are for that matter.

I am incredibly proud of my wife who has pushed through many obstacles, beyond the ones that I have previously discussed, and has been determined to pursue the career that makes her happy (think of it as staying on the yellow brick road). The job that she looks forward to going to every day and that she is darn good at. I am immensely happy that has become a reality.

I am glad that we have spent the time together this year creating memories and seeing the world around up is a different way. There have been many changes this year but ones that needed to happen to bring us to this day and to bring us closer together. Our life seems to finally be getting back on track and that, I think, is the best gift that I could possibly give my wife on her birthday (I still tried using a coupon for it but it didn’t work).  

 

Happy Birthday Samantha! I love you!

Being A Cheap PITA Can Keep You Sane

Right now money is tight and I try and watch what we spend. Most of the time its easy while other times it can be hard. There are a couple of things that make it very easy to keep a firm grasp on every penny.

The schedule that I keep has me sleeping for much of the normal waking hours so it is a time that I don’t have to think about what needs to be picked up or purchased. All I think about is sleeping. It also delays the purchase of items to make sure they are really needed rather than a simple want or desire.

The other thing that makes it easy are the people that either call me (despite the fact that I know for certain that I am on the National Do Not Call Registry) or send me generic letters. Especially when they can’t even get my name right… if you want me to even listen to your request get my name right first. Also, when I answer the phone you better be ready to go because if you stutter you leave yourself open to me venting all my frustration and anger on you.

You may not even have done anything wrong, you may be a damn fine individual, but I’m going to let you have it. To me, telemarketers offer a great service to society… free therapy. If I have to deal with the BS system that your industry employs you are most certainly going to deal with mine.

This is not something that works for everyone but it works for me and I feel much better afterward and, in fact, I actually saved some money rather than having it cost me anything. Please also note that this works particularly well when you call them back (after they fail to leave a message of course), let them tell you why it was so important for them not to leave a message, and let it rip. Again, I am willing to put in a couple minutes of effort for a free stress release.

Now, on the other end of the spectrum, you can try to sell them something. I don’t care what it is or even if it’s real, just keep talking and don’t let them get in a word and sell, sell, sell. It’s a great feeling when you get a telemarketer to hang up on you and an even better one when you get them interested and let them know that “unfortunately, we just sold out. Can I call you back at a later time?”

In both my own experience and the tales told by many others I know that make these types of calls in a diverse cross section of industries, this is an old fashion sales method that is going to provoke these types of responses and those who do this for a living expect it and understand it. In fact, about 3/4 of the people with whom I spoke, prefer these types of calls because it keeps the person on the phone so that once they stumble in their retort it opens them up to be sold again. "It is all part of the game" is the common justification of the process and this is why they requested I write this post.

Personally, this process is it has kept my wallet close and my sanity closer. And I don’t even have to mention a do not call list to make the solicitations stop. Maybe this is why I was never a fit for the sales field… I enjoyed these types of calls and the back and forth fun that you can have with them. But, in the end, I enjoy being on the other side of the phone too much. Of course, it could simply be that I have a tendency to be a PITA.