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Life in Denver, updated
Dec. 9th, 2003 06:29 amWow. What a week (and a day) it's been!
As some, heck, most of you have probably heard, on Monday, I was pulled out of my comfortable rut and told that I was going out to Denver... and, *if* I was there until Christmas, they'd fly me back to Seattle for Christmas.
Note the "if", which starts with "I" which stands for "indefinite"....
The situation started with an ugly situation; a co-worker, and guy who's close enough to a friend to be a friend in need, turned out to have a serious illness.
Originally, I was going to come down while he had some corrective surgery and therapies and such, to fill in. The trouble is, it turns out that his condition was too severe for those things to do what they were supposed to, so the trip was called off.
Then, last Monday, he was in the hospital with a staph infection, and he'd already had to miss a bunch of work, and they realized they needed someone in place to take care of... well, of the things that you need someone in place for.
So, Monday morning I found out about this, and Monday night I was on a plane to Denver. Thankfully, just before I left for my plane, it was pointed out to my boss that, well, I'd *need* a vehicle. It's not that I'd necessarily need one for where I was staying... they were planning to put me in the La Quinta Inn which is right across the street from work.
Let me point out, it's not that my boss is cheap... he won't blink an eye at spending money that needs to be spent, and he didn't even urge me to keep car rental costs down. But, I had a roof over my head, food that was accessible, and I could get to work nearly as conveniently from the motel as I could driving. What else did I need?
In fact, the way things were going last week, the answer was nearly "nothing", because I was going stark raving crackers, and too darn busy for words much of the time, and tired much of the rest of it.
Figure it out... Monday night, I arrived at about 11:00pm local time; I got about three hours of sleep and and wanted nothing but sleep on Tuesday. Wednesday (I *think* it was Wednesday, but there's a bit of a blur there) we had a database crash. In retrospect, I'm pretty darn impressed with how well I handled it. Later analysis shows that I chose to bail out of full recovery and go to restoration from backup when it was appropriate.
Anyway, Thursday was definitely database analysis day, and Friday was the realization that I was going crazy.
I think that, for most problems, there will be something small that sums up the problem for people. For example, it wouldn't surprise me if people in wheelchairs could, for the most part, deal with being in wheelchairs... but couldn't deal with *something*. Maybe it's less-than-optimally-designed elevators; maybe it's crosswalks with a ramp at only one side, and not the other. The big thing (not being able to walk normally) would be easier to deal with because it's big... but there'd be something that might seem ridiculously small that just drives home that there's a problem.
For me, that Friday, it was the craziest thing. My keys were bothersome... but I couldn't leave them anywhere.
When I say "my keys", by the way, I mean "my apartment key; my mailbox key; my car (MY car, not "my rental car") key, and a set of miscellaneous keys that I may or may not be able to find a use for.
You *can't* leave you *KEYS* in a place where you can't get access to them, right? But they weren't necessary! I was carrying them around because, well, you can't lose your keys!
Iike I said, it can seem ridiculously small, but it just drove home everything that was bothering me. I wasn't home; I couldn't just stick my apartment key into the lock, and see Chibi and Skitty and Isis (Chris's new kitten) come running because I always feed them when I get home. I couldn't burn my votive candles, because I didn' thave any votive holders. Oh, they're cheap... but I can't just get on 167 north to 212th, take 212th up the huge hill to Albertson's and pick up one of the votive holders I know they sell, and the Albertson's across the street from the motel didn't have any decent votive holders. I couldn't suck down a cold beer from my refrigerator to help soothe my sorrows, because I didn't have a refrigerator... and, hell, I wasn't even 100% sure yet where to buy beer!
(Colorado's liquor laws are similar to Pennsylvania's, but (some) liquor stores sell beer, as well, in Colorado. If Pennsylvania hasn't changed relatively recently, you got beer at a distributor, and wine and liquor at a state store.)
I didn't want to get on the internet at night, really... I had some other stuff planned. But, I couldn't... I suppose I could have dialed a local Earthlink number if I had one, but I didn't have a phone cable, and I didn't know where to buy one.
Well, Friday, some things started to happen, and they found me short term housing for Saturday night, for the rest of my stay here.
Lord and Lady, but I never imagined how big a difference this would make!
I don't think it's that much bigger, but it feels enormously bigger. The kitchenette helps with that, I'm sure, as does the window. (Hey! There really is more sun here than in Seattle!), and the layout.
There are laundry facilities (good thing, too... Sunday saw me putting on my last pair of clean underpants....) and a workout room that I think maybe two people use (I've only seen one other person in there, and he was fixing his rollerblades) There are dishes, and silverware, and, okay, it's still a pain to realize how much has to be purchased to survive (food, condiments, seasoning, coffee, etc..), but suddenly, having to outfit this living space was, well... almost an adventure.
Saturday, I treated myself to a trip to the bookstore. I was bound and determined to find the Barnes and Nobel that had eluded me for months. (Yes, I'd only been here less than a week, but that evil Barnes and Nobel actually compressed time for the sole purpose of being able to elude me that much longer.)
Actually, it turns out I found it just in time. See, what can you think but that things were meant to be when a youngish boy was looking at graphic novels, and his mom was saying they were just too expensive, when I happen to have a $20 bill in my pocket?
In true Palmer fashion, I went up and with the utmost grace and style produced the $20... and watched it fly from my hands to the floor. Oh well.
You know she said she couldn't take it, but this made things even more perfect; I started to walk away, saying the money would just sit there if *she* didn't pick it up. She wanted to know why, and I wish I'd been able to verbalize the truth... instead, I just said that I remembered wanting books that I couldn't have.
What was the truth? Well... think about it. I made the world a little more magical for a young boy, and that's nice. But I made it more magical for a mom who got to see a long haired weirdo throw $20 at a stranger, to make a child happy.
Where *else* could you buy that kind of magic for so little?
Sunday was even better; I found the local pagan bookstore, and found some candleholders I'd been looking for, but they told me where to find another store that had some other things that I wanted.
By the time I was done, I had no fewer than three sets of sun and moon candle holders (I like to have a candle for the Lord and one for the Lady, and I've found many candleholders with moon pictures, and many with sun pictures, but never two matched ones, one with the sun and one with the moon.)
I also found some other nifty things... but I won't tease Pat any more about how I found a really wonderful gift for her :-)
Wow... There's more news and stuff to talk about, but it seems to have been swallowed up by a spot of tiredness over yesterday's snow, and carquest.
(Briefly, I had to swap out cars yesterday night. Pat managed to get me a reservation to rent a mid-sized car, but Budget didn't have a mid-sized car, so they put me into an SUV for the same price as a mid-sized. Strangely, it seems like last week they were renting out mid-sized cars for the price of an SUV, and this week they've started pricing them at about the price you'd expect. If I kept the SUV one more night, it would have cost $50. It wasn't that I wasn't willing to spend $50. If I could have given the $50 to "any car rental company but Budget", I'd have gladly spent the $50 to avoid having to go through a long, semi-perilous drive through the snow yesterday. But, given the consistency of what appears to be their lies about the rental, I was completely unwilling to let them continue to overcharge me. Plus, now I have a station wagon for the price of an economy car, which I appreciate much more than having an SUV at any price. (I don't like SUVs. I don't *despise* them, but I like being closer to the ground, and I like having an idea of how much road space I'm taking up.))
Anyway, it's about time for breakfast, and then for work. More later, I hope.
As some, heck, most of you have probably heard, on Monday, I was pulled out of my comfortable rut and told that I was going out to Denver... and, *if* I was there until Christmas, they'd fly me back to Seattle for Christmas.
Note the "if", which starts with "I" which stands for "indefinite"....
The situation started with an ugly situation; a co-worker, and guy who's close enough to a friend to be a friend in need, turned out to have a serious illness.
Originally, I was going to come down while he had some corrective surgery and therapies and such, to fill in. The trouble is, it turns out that his condition was too severe for those things to do what they were supposed to, so the trip was called off.
Then, last Monday, he was in the hospital with a staph infection, and he'd already had to miss a bunch of work, and they realized they needed someone in place to take care of... well, of the things that you need someone in place for.
So, Monday morning I found out about this, and Monday night I was on a plane to Denver. Thankfully, just before I left for my plane, it was pointed out to my boss that, well, I'd *need* a vehicle. It's not that I'd necessarily need one for where I was staying... they were planning to put me in the La Quinta Inn which is right across the street from work.
Let me point out, it's not that my boss is cheap... he won't blink an eye at spending money that needs to be spent, and he didn't even urge me to keep car rental costs down. But, I had a roof over my head, food that was accessible, and I could get to work nearly as conveniently from the motel as I could driving. What else did I need?
In fact, the way things were going last week, the answer was nearly "nothing", because I was going stark raving crackers, and too darn busy for words much of the time, and tired much of the rest of it.
Figure it out... Monday night, I arrived at about 11:00pm local time; I got about three hours of sleep and and wanted nothing but sleep on Tuesday. Wednesday (I *think* it was Wednesday, but there's a bit of a blur there) we had a database crash. In retrospect, I'm pretty darn impressed with how well I handled it. Later analysis shows that I chose to bail out of full recovery and go to restoration from backup when it was appropriate.
Anyway, Thursday was definitely database analysis day, and Friday was the realization that I was going crazy.
I think that, for most problems, there will be something small that sums up the problem for people. For example, it wouldn't surprise me if people in wheelchairs could, for the most part, deal with being in wheelchairs... but couldn't deal with *something*. Maybe it's less-than-optimally-designed elevators; maybe it's crosswalks with a ramp at only one side, and not the other. The big thing (not being able to walk normally) would be easier to deal with because it's big... but there'd be something that might seem ridiculously small that just drives home that there's a problem.
For me, that Friday, it was the craziest thing. My keys were bothersome... but I couldn't leave them anywhere.
When I say "my keys", by the way, I mean "my apartment key; my mailbox key; my car (MY car, not "my rental car") key, and a set of miscellaneous keys that I may or may not be able to find a use for.
You *can't* leave you *KEYS* in a place where you can't get access to them, right? But they weren't necessary! I was carrying them around because, well, you can't lose your keys!
Iike I said, it can seem ridiculously small, but it just drove home everything that was bothering me. I wasn't home; I couldn't just stick my apartment key into the lock, and see Chibi and Skitty and Isis (Chris's new kitten) come running because I always feed them when I get home. I couldn't burn my votive candles, because I didn' thave any votive holders. Oh, they're cheap... but I can't just get on 167 north to 212th, take 212th up the huge hill to Albertson's and pick up one of the votive holders I know they sell, and the Albertson's across the street from the motel didn't have any decent votive holders. I couldn't suck down a cold beer from my refrigerator to help soothe my sorrows, because I didn't have a refrigerator... and, hell, I wasn't even 100% sure yet where to buy beer!
(Colorado's liquor laws are similar to Pennsylvania's, but (some) liquor stores sell beer, as well, in Colorado. If Pennsylvania hasn't changed relatively recently, you got beer at a distributor, and wine and liquor at a state store.)
I didn't want to get on the internet at night, really... I had some other stuff planned. But, I couldn't... I suppose I could have dialed a local Earthlink number if I had one, but I didn't have a phone cable, and I didn't know where to buy one.
Well, Friday, some things started to happen, and they found me short term housing for Saturday night, for the rest of my stay here.
Lord and Lady, but I never imagined how big a difference this would make!
I don't think it's that much bigger, but it feels enormously bigger. The kitchenette helps with that, I'm sure, as does the window. (Hey! There really is more sun here than in Seattle!), and the layout.
There are laundry facilities (good thing, too... Sunday saw me putting on my last pair of clean underpants....) and a workout room that I think maybe two people use (I've only seen one other person in there, and he was fixing his rollerblades) There are dishes, and silverware, and, okay, it's still a pain to realize how much has to be purchased to survive (food, condiments, seasoning, coffee, etc..), but suddenly, having to outfit this living space was, well... almost an adventure.
Saturday, I treated myself to a trip to the bookstore. I was bound and determined to find the Barnes and Nobel that had eluded me for months. (Yes, I'd only been here less than a week, but that evil Barnes and Nobel actually compressed time for the sole purpose of being able to elude me that much longer.)
Actually, it turns out I found it just in time. See, what can you think but that things were meant to be when a youngish boy was looking at graphic novels, and his mom was saying they were just too expensive, when I happen to have a $20 bill in my pocket?
In true Palmer fashion, I went up and with the utmost grace and style produced the $20... and watched it fly from my hands to the floor. Oh well.
You know she said she couldn't take it, but this made things even more perfect; I started to walk away, saying the money would just sit there if *she* didn't pick it up. She wanted to know why, and I wish I'd been able to verbalize the truth... instead, I just said that I remembered wanting books that I couldn't have.
What was the truth? Well... think about it. I made the world a little more magical for a young boy, and that's nice. But I made it more magical for a mom who got to see a long haired weirdo throw $20 at a stranger, to make a child happy.
Where *else* could you buy that kind of magic for so little?
Sunday was even better; I found the local pagan bookstore, and found some candleholders I'd been looking for, but they told me where to find another store that had some other things that I wanted.
By the time I was done, I had no fewer than three sets of sun and moon candle holders (I like to have a candle for the Lord and one for the Lady, and I've found many candleholders with moon pictures, and many with sun pictures, but never two matched ones, one with the sun and one with the moon.)
I also found some other nifty things... but I won't tease Pat any more about how I found a really wonderful gift for her :-)
Wow... There's more news and stuff to talk about, but it seems to have been swallowed up by a spot of tiredness over yesterday's snow, and carquest.
(Briefly, I had to swap out cars yesterday night. Pat managed to get me a reservation to rent a mid-sized car, but Budget didn't have a mid-sized car, so they put me into an SUV for the same price as a mid-sized. Strangely, it seems like last week they were renting out mid-sized cars for the price of an SUV, and this week they've started pricing them at about the price you'd expect. If I kept the SUV one more night, it would have cost $50. It wasn't that I wasn't willing to spend $50. If I could have given the $50 to "any car rental company but Budget", I'd have gladly spent the $50 to avoid having to go through a long, semi-perilous drive through the snow yesterday. But, given the consistency of what appears to be their lies about the rental, I was completely unwilling to let them continue to overcharge me. Plus, now I have a station wagon for the price of an economy car, which I appreciate much more than having an SUV at any price. (I don't like SUVs. I don't *despise* them, but I like being closer to the ground, and I like having an idea of how much road space I'm taking up.))
Anyway, it's about time for breakfast, and then for work. More later, I hope.
