November BP

Stolen Phone

We had a big Thanksgiving feast at church today and then it was followed by receiving of supplies for the Meals on Wheels event we are doing on Thanksgiving Day. 

There was lots to be done and lots of people in the building. At one point, this low life homeless guy wandered in carrying a travel mug of coffee. People attended to him pretty quickly and it turned out he was looking for a bathroom. He was directed to the bathroom downstairs and then left.

Unfortunately, I had hung my suit coat in the hallway leading to the bathroom. I had my keys, wallet, camera and phone in the jacket.

After a while, I went to find my jacket and it wasn't hanging there. I thought I must have moved it. I walked into the bathroom and it was lying on the floor. 

Panic set in as I grabbed it. I felt around and found my wallet, (money intact) my keys and my camera. My phone was missing.

The scumbag managed to take the one item that did me the least damage. Don't get me wrong, it will be a pain in the ass to replace. However, I don't live and die by my phone and I think it will be nice to be without it for a while.

I only hope I am able to roll my minutes into a new phone. I just bought a phone card last week and it would suck to lose that.

Wednesday Off

Today was a day off for me. Normally it is Monday, but I had a Dentist appointment that was set up before I went on the four-10 schedule at work. So I moved it this week to today.

I've been fighting a battle with receding gums over the last few years and it appears I am starting to lose. I have a problem on tooth 28 on the back side. Three months ago, the gum line was at a 7. Today it was at a 9. That's bad.

They have referred me to an oral surgeon to determine the best course of action to save the tooth. I have an appointment on December 12th, another Wednesday. I'll have to move my day off on that week as well.

After the appointment, I went to the store to get supplies for breakfast. I fixed myself some nice scrambled eggs with cheese and minced ham. 

Afterwards, I got myself together and drove to church to prepare the Powerpoint presentation for Sundays' service. I also delivered some supplies for the "Meals on Wheels" event coming up next week.

Wow! thanksgiving is almost here.

I ran a few more errands, getting some paint for the sky walk decorating season.

Upon returning home, I broke out the lawn mower for one last adventure around the yard. more than grass, my objective was to mow up a shit load of leaves. Mission accomplished!

I worked in the Carriage House on Sunday to get it a little bit cleaned up and I'm pretty pleased with the results. That building is packed full of crap that I cannot bring myself to toss. And yet, it is now quite easy to move around and I have again recovered my work space...for the most part.

Another project I've been wanting to tackle is my closet. It's quite unruly. I really want to make it ruly again. So I went through the bins and took out all my summer shorts and moved them down to the basement. Then I threw away a crap load of useless papers and pulled a bunch of pants that are going to the Salvation Army.

It's better but still not completely ruly.

I even fit a nap in and watched the final episode of DareDevil, Season Three.

I love working four-10s.

Observations on Driving

This mornings' drive to work was a peaceful, easy feeling. The traffic at 6AM is pretty light and the whole ride out generally goes very smoothly. In fact, today I don't think I was stopped at a single traffic light except for the first one I hit on Division.

The drive home in the evening is a stark contrast. Getting out of Liberty Lake at 3:30, 4:30 and 5:00 takes about five minutes to get to the freeway. I once tried driving the three miles to the freeway on ramp at the Washington/Idaho border and then drive back towards town. The advantage is that you are moving the whole time. The problem is it takes more gas and I do not believe it saves any time.

When I leave Liberty Lake in the evening, I immediately move to the right turn lane even though I don't have to turn right for half a mile. By doing so, I am almost always in a line that stretches the whole half mile down to the light. 

The frustrating thing is to watch people who are obviously more important than me drive all the way down the road in the left lane and then dive into the right turn traffic lane at the last moment, cutting in front of all of us. 

I find those people to be incredible assholes and that keeps me from doing it myself...even though it is very easy. People always create gaps to slide into as the line crawls forward.

I just can't bring myself to be an asshole. At least in this instance. 

Once on the freeway, the traffic is still thick. One thing I noticed last night is that there has been a developing and predictable slowdown at the Sprague curve. This is a section of the freeway where the Fancher on-ramp merges into the three lane freeway. 

For some reason, that merge slows the traffic in all three lanes. I always approach the Sprague curve in the left lane because it is usually the lane with the least slowdown.

The slowdown used to occur right at the top of the hill that is the start of the Sprague curve. I am noticing now that the slowdown has moved about a mile back to before the Broadway exit.

Once I get past the curve and have the long two mile straightaway for downtown, the traffic inexplicably speeds up. 

I have said it before in this very Blog, but it bears repeating. Everyone out there is IN MY WAY!