Saturday, August 06, 2005
America's Dairyland
So here I am, sitting in the study of my grandma's house in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Blockbuster happened to give me this weekend and this Tuesday off, and I got someone to cover my Monday shift. So with my four days off, Dad and I are finally able to make the trip home here to visit the family (in less than 24 hours' notice, no less). How exciting!
We had planned to leave San Diego on Saturday and get to Milwaukee in the evening, and then return to San Diego on Tuesday. But Dad discovered a red-eye flight that left at 11pm last night, so we decided to go for it despite it's potential for being too full to accommodate us. (My cousin Adam is a pilot for Continental; we get free tickets. The downside is that you're standby passengers, with the paying customers always getting priority (for good reason). So we were risking being turned away in San Diego...or worse, getting the first flight to Cleveland and then not being able to find an open connection to Milwaukee.) Long story short, there were a few no-shows on both flights and we were able to squeeze on to both of them. We landed at Mitchell Field just outside of downtown Milwaukee just after 9am central time. It had been a pretty miserable eight hours preceding our arrival: I had been seated in the very last row on the first (and longer) flight, and thus I could not recline my seat. I was also on the aisle, so all the people congregating around the restroom kept bumping into me. I spent the entire flight sleeping in about twenty-second intervals. Oh well...I got a good long nap in at Grandma's before heading over to Aunt Mary's in the afternoon. And who can complain about free plane tickets for a trip we had been planning for less than a day?
So our trip here should be a pleasant one. Nothing big planned...not enough time. But the weather is beautiful, with an absence of bugs and humidity. And we'll have lots of good visiting with the family I haven't seen in a couple of years, and of course all of the good food we Californians are deprived of: Cousin's cheesesteak subs, Rocky Rococo's pizza, and all the fresh frozen custard you can shake a stick at. Woot!
In other news, I received a phone call from another AAA person last week. This woman identified herself as the person who would be determining who was at fault in the accident. I told her my whole side of the story, and after telling her about the witnesses she seemed to think that we might have a case (the default, of course, being that I am wholly at fault simply because the guy on the motorcycle had the right-of-way) . The woman said that a witness's statement that the biker was speeding might be enough to place some of the blame on him, which is all that I'm looking to do here. I'm not saying that I'm not partially at fault. The guy had the right-of-way, and it was my responsibility to make sure there were no oncoming cars before pulling out into traffic. But the fact remains that the accident would have been easily avoided if the biker wasn't speeding and if he had been watching where he was going (which he admitted to the SLO PD officer that he wasn't). So yay...I'm glad my insurance company is actually going to investigate rather than simply paying all the bills and jacking up my rates accordingly.
Work at Blockbuster has been going well. I've not been getting as many hours lately, but I've also not been bored. Some more hours (and therefore more wages) would be nice. Actually, I would really like to transfer up to the SLO store and keep the job during the year, hopefully working only a short shift or two each week. I don't want to kill myself here, but some extra spending money would sure be nice. And heck, if I enjoy the job then I might as well do it, right? My manager said she'd recommend me to the store up north, and since I'm already trained I figure I have a pretty good shot at getting hired there. So we'll see what kind of schedule I can arrange for myself in a week or so when I register for classes. And if I have an evening or two off (like Tuesdays and Thursdays after band?), then I'll seriously consider keeping the job.
And that's what's new around these parts. I hope everyone reading this have been having good summers. I'll talk to you all soon.
The cheese stands alone,
Josh
mood: good
music: none
location: Grandma's house, Waukesha, WI
Quoted Randomness:
[on her experience with car accidents]
"My forte is hitting parked objects."
--Jenna Santy
We had planned to leave San Diego on Saturday and get to Milwaukee in the evening, and then return to San Diego on Tuesday. But Dad discovered a red-eye flight that left at 11pm last night, so we decided to go for it despite it's potential for being too full to accommodate us. (My cousin Adam is a pilot for Continental; we get free tickets. The downside is that you're standby passengers, with the paying customers always getting priority (for good reason). So we were risking being turned away in San Diego...or worse, getting the first flight to Cleveland and then not being able to find an open connection to Milwaukee.) Long story short, there were a few no-shows on both flights and we were able to squeeze on to both of them. We landed at Mitchell Field just outside of downtown Milwaukee just after 9am central time. It had been a pretty miserable eight hours preceding our arrival: I had been seated in the very last row on the first (and longer) flight, and thus I could not recline my seat. I was also on the aisle, so all the people congregating around the restroom kept bumping into me. I spent the entire flight sleeping in about twenty-second intervals. Oh well...I got a good long nap in at Grandma's before heading over to Aunt Mary's in the afternoon. And who can complain about free plane tickets for a trip we had been planning for less than a day?
So our trip here should be a pleasant one. Nothing big planned...not enough time. But the weather is beautiful, with an absence of bugs and humidity. And we'll have lots of good visiting with the family I haven't seen in a couple of years, and of course all of the good food we Californians are deprived of: Cousin's cheesesteak subs, Rocky Rococo's pizza, and all the fresh frozen custard you can shake a stick at. Woot!
In other news, I received a phone call from another AAA person last week. This woman identified herself as the person who would be determining who was at fault in the accident. I told her my whole side of the story, and after telling her about the witnesses she seemed to think that we might have a case (the default, of course, being that I am wholly at fault simply because the guy on the motorcycle had the right-of-way) . The woman said that a witness's statement that the biker was speeding might be enough to place some of the blame on him, which is all that I'm looking to do here. I'm not saying that I'm not partially at fault. The guy had the right-of-way, and it was my responsibility to make sure there were no oncoming cars before pulling out into traffic. But the fact remains that the accident would have been easily avoided if the biker wasn't speeding and if he had been watching where he was going (which he admitted to the SLO PD officer that he wasn't). So yay...I'm glad my insurance company is actually going to investigate rather than simply paying all the bills and jacking up my rates accordingly.
Work at Blockbuster has been going well. I've not been getting as many hours lately, but I've also not been bored. Some more hours (and therefore more wages) would be nice. Actually, I would really like to transfer up to the SLO store and keep the job during the year, hopefully working only a short shift or two each week. I don't want to kill myself here, but some extra spending money would sure be nice. And heck, if I enjoy the job then I might as well do it, right? My manager said she'd recommend me to the store up north, and since I'm already trained I figure I have a pretty good shot at getting hired there. So we'll see what kind of schedule I can arrange for myself in a week or so when I register for classes. And if I have an evening or two off (like Tuesdays and Thursdays after band?), then I'll seriously consider keeping the job.
And that's what's new around these parts. I hope everyone reading this have been having good summers. I'll talk to you all soon.
The cheese stands alone,
Josh
mood: good
music: none
location: Grandma's house, Waukesha, WI
Quoted Randomness:
[on her experience with car accidents]
"My forte is hitting parked objects."
--Jenna Santy
