Archive for January, 2005

Two Day’s Worth

29 January 2005 at 5:20 pm
by Jonah

I’ve got the house to myself for the weekend. Berck and his dad spent Thursday night here on their way back from California. They got to Nashville last night.

The rain on my way to work Friday morning turned to sleet when I pulled into the parking lot. By 9:30 a.m. there was two and a half inches of snow everywhere, and it was still coming down in thick, wet flakes. But the temperature never got below freezing, so by the time I went home it had all pretty much melted.

They let us go at 2:30. That’s because with inventory and trying to catch up from inventory the next week, we had 15.5 hours of overtime for the last pay period.

Actual Fact:

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (also known as F. Scott Fitzgerald) was named after his father’s distant relative, who authored the Star Spangled Banner.

My baby’s gone again.

24 January 2005 at 8:02 pm
by Jonah

Berck’s dad arrived last night. We had Berck’s pot roast and my bread and pie. I tried a new recipe that turned out really well. Berck complains whenever I make a dessert that isn’t chocolate, and he loves meringue, so I found a chocolate meringue pie recipe. It’s a keeper.

Berck and his dad left this morning. They’re driving to Phoenix to pick up a U-Haul trailer, then picking up Jim’s stuff in California, and then driving it to Nashville. It was $200 to trailer from Phoenix to Nashville, as opposed to $800 from California to Nashville. I guess everyone is leaving California. Berck will fly back on Monday next week.

I got to bed rather late last night with all the festivities. We finished inventory last week with a perfect audit, which made my boss extremely happy. But it was a long week. I had eight and a half hours of overtime. Since we were too busy counting to send out any product last week, this week our orders are doubled. I worked today until 5:30 (I’m supposed to get off at 3:30). I was beat. But I came home and took a nice warm bath, and all was right with the world again.

I’m still very tired, though. So I’m going to go to sleep.

Stuffed Pizza Night

21 January 2005 at 9:52 pm
by Jonah

Berck was practicing flying in the dark tonight, so I made pizza. I tried something new… Chicago style stuffed pizza. And it was really good! Even if I did forget to put the salt and the garlic and the pizza spices in. I made it in our cast iron frying pan.

Actual Fact: Reg Presley, the lead singer for The Troggs on their five million selling, 1966 hit “Wild Thing”, went on to become one of Britain’s premier UFO experts.

Chicago Pictures

19 January 2005 at 8:30 pm
by Berck

I’m still writing about my Chicago visit. But you can look at the photographs now. (Link up there.)

The Returning of Sydney’s Car, Part I

16 January 2005 at 2:01 pm
by Berck

This is a rather old draft which I always meant to finish, but now I can’t remember the rest. So rather than deleting it, or letting it float in the wasteland of “draft” status forever, I might as well just post it.

January 16, 2005 @ 14:01

I got to Chicago on Friday night at about 9pm. Sydney had me park her car on the street outside of a friend’s house. There’s actually relatively “cheap” parking in the parking garage attached to Noell’s apartment where Sydney’s been living. Residents can buy a book of 10 parking tickets, each good for one day, for a total of $100. Without this resident discount, parking in the Garage is $25/day. Which is why Sydney had me park quite a ways away, for free, on the street.

After parking the car, I loaded my backpack and set off for the apartment. The nearest L stop was about 3 blocks away. This isn’t very far, but the late warming trend in Chicago had only pushed temperature up to a nice 12F. I called Sydney, and she’d already eaten, so I stopped at a Taqueria just outside the L station and ate a Torta de Milenesa de Res.

After buying a fare pass, I started toward the train, then realized I wasn’t sure about which direction to go. I started walking back to look at the map on the wall. As I did so, a guy who walked in at the same time I did, noticed my indecision and my backpack and asked where I was going. “Chicago,” I said.

“Huh? Uh… The airport?” I laughed as I realized how silly my answer must have sounded. But Chicago is a weird place, and Chicago was indeed my destination.

“No, the Chicago Avenue station.”

“Oh! This way!” and he indicated the Forest Park direction.

I took the train to the Chicago station where it’s actually a subway rather than an elevated train. So I had to stop and figure out which side of Chicago avenue I wanted to be on. I finally decided that I needed to exit on the south side of Chicago Ave in order to catch a bus headed East.

The bus took nearly half an hour to show up, which was entirely too long. I called Sydney and complained, who assured me that I have the worst “bus luck” of anyone she knows.

When the bus finally arrived, I first tried to insert my fare card into the change slot. I did the same thing last time I was in Chicago, and you’d think I’d learn. This time I managed to figure it out without a snide comment from the bus driver.

That may have something to do with the fact that the bus driver was exceedingly nice. He greeted everyone, and offered assistance to three different people who were even more clueless than I was. Things were not assisted by the fact that the little text screen that lights up to tell you which stop is next wasn’t working. At least the audio was functional.

One young woman got on, paid her fare, and then chatted with the driver for awhile before sitting down. A few minutes later she returned to the front of the bus and asked the bus driver which stop to get off at, reading an address in her wallet. He sighed and informed her she’d gotten on the bus going the wrong way. Right at this moment another bus was stopped across the street going in the direction she wanted to go. The bus driver stopped to let the girl out and started honking in an unsuccessful effort to attract the attention of the driver of the other bus. The girl did that hesitating stumbling walk indicative of someone not used to crossing a street in an urban environment and convinced that she could be flattened by a wayward taxi at any moment. After some time in the city, people no longer seem concerned about this rather likely possibility. As a result, she failed to cross the street in time to catch the bus going the other direction. Our bus driver, being exceedingly kind, convinced the girl to get back on his bus, and told her that we were nearing the end of the line and this was likely the next bus to be heading the other direction, so she might as well get back on board and stay warm.