Sounds of laughter shades of life are ringing through my open ears, exciting and inviting me

I spent a good part of the weekend working for the man. And the man's name is JoHnathan Lewis. Yes, he and Grace lured me to town to "hang out" which apparently translates to "move our stuff to storage" in Vietnamese. Not only did they make me do all the heavy lifting, but they withheld food ("We only have microwave popcorn and not enough to share") and, in what is surely recognized by the Geneva Convention as torture, only provided Miller Lite. It was hellish treatment.

Then again, I may exaggerate a bit.

I tend to be really negative on my job, but there is the one huge benefit that keeps me from searching for employment outside the airline industry. The ability to decide at 4 PM that I want to fly to Atlanta on the 6:05 flight. In all fairness, it doesn't always work out. I've planned ahead to make flights only to be left with 6 hours or airport appreciation time trying to get a seat. But, more often then not tit works out pretty well, and the idea of planning a trip and making a ticket purchase 21 days out to get a good price is totally foreign.

And riding the jumpseat can be pretty neat. Or frightening depending on the crew.

But I digress. Grace invited me down this past weekend. And I had a prior commitment here in Louisville, but I blew that off. So at 4:05 pm I left work, sped home and packed a bag. Then i sped back to the airport to try and catch the last flight to ATL that left at 6:05. I'm really impressed with myself since I actually made it with time to spare. Grace had found us a traditional Vietnamese place to dine, and we had some tasty pho, once we decided it was ok to put the random greenery piled on the table int he bowls.

This week as involved a lot of moving about of other peoples stuff. Monday I assisted the Mutt family in loading their house into a 25' truck. Again on Saturday, it was time to relocate the Lewii apartment to a storage area. Luckily, they did not require the 25' truck. I think we did pretty well with time, and was even able to catch a Brave's game afterward, mostly for free :-).

So, now with most of they're earthly belongings spread hither and yon across the south Metro area, the Lewii are spending their last week in he US before embarking on a grand adventure to the Mekong Delta. I'm really kind of jealous, thinking it'll be something really cool to experience, with moments of sheer fright at moving into a totally new culture. But that's part of the excitement. But, I'm still hoping I can win the powerball and maybe entice them with monetary rewards to stick around here.

SO, back to that Brave's game thing. Jersey and Genna were planning to go see a game, and invited us to come join. We finished the moving (after a quick trip to the Tanjoe Manor to drop off some items and rummage through the fridge and bedroom drawers since they weren't home) an headed back to the Ted. While we were standing in 45 minute line for tickets, a random guy walks up to me and asks how many people in our group. I almost just blew him off with a "we're not interested in buying" comment, but I went with "3". At which point he handed me 3 tickets, and turned and sped off. he was lost in the crowd before we could thank him. And they were $28 tickets.. outfield pavilion. There was concern voiced as to whether they were real tickets, but since we hadn't paid.. nothing lost but some time in line. They weren't fakes, and we went.

A blast was had at the Chophouse. There was a game in the background but mostly it was just hanging with good friends. After the game, the Lewii and I ended up at Verisano's for pizza and "whorey" martinis. After doing a little side work and flirting with the waitress, it was home to J's old apartment. Probably for the last time...

SO, that's the narrative for the weekend. This weekend should be more fun. Back to ATL for DragonCon and the bon voyage fun.

I just wrote a long social/political commentary here, but decided against it. Not the time for such seriousness.

This week will hopefully go pretty fast and painless. It's all midnight shifts which is kind of a drag, but I like them better than day shifts. I still feel like I'm behind in the world, like there's something I should be taking care of. Maybe its the cleaning I'm continually not doing or the money I feel like I'm missing. Since changing from one a month pay to weekly, it feels like I'm missing some pay. I know that there there's the matter of the 10%ish paycut i took this year (in the form or voluntary time off), but it should have balanced out with the latest raise. Somehow, it just isn't. Again, its nothing that a lottery win couldn't rectify :-)

I suppose that's it, look for DragonCon pics next week. Should be interesting and not for the faint of heart. Everyone in the ATL area should consider being at the Marriott Marquis atrium bar at about 7 PM Friday.