Day: May 26, 2007

Fulfilled. When I got to step 33, “attach the net,” it felt good. After mowing the weeds today, I successfully reversed the step that could not be reversed and completed the following 28 steps to completion. Of course my back is aching now so there won’t be any more than an obligatory few layups… Now it’s time for a shower and 30 minutes of stairs and rock followed by another shower and who knows what. Kyle is in a “I miss my mom” mood and will be hanging with her tonight so I’m solo and single! Yeah, I’ll probably stay in and watch the Sox…

Kyle’s mom has been gone since Thursday to rescue her own mom who was left in Canada by her insanely evil (not in a good way) husband. He’s a real dick. He once said to his wife about Kyle, “in my day they used to put kids like him away.” He’s a fucked up old man, and I hope if I ever see the small minded SOB again, I’ll rise above the emotion his heartless statement brings out in me.

Anyway, let’s get that out of the system with some stair climbing, shall we?

(Written Friday…)

I’m back. Back in a tin can, with Vegas back in the desert dust and depression. The title of this post is a great line from Wilco’s “How to Fight Loneliness,” the first song to pop from mypod on the flight home. The APA show was good for me. It was great to chat with many of our customers. They are so hungry for that dialogue… that relationship. I’ll do it again next month at the SHRM show and I’ll be better prepared after this weeks experience.

As for off-hours observations, the first is that smoking is allowed in the casinos and you have to navigate them to get to the conference center, restaurants, etc… There’s no avoiding the maze of craps and cards and it’s 24/7. One morning I walked down in search of caffeine. I was darkened by the drooping dropping ashes into cups detained desperately by one armed dreamers downing one more drink… It was 6:30am.

Still, I do love the fakeness of it all. Fake skies, fake cities, fake tits (not that there’s anything wrong with that…), fake love and fake Elvi… Depraved Disney.

Just today the whole Memorial Day thing dawned on me. It also occurs to me I have no plans at all. I’m sure I’ll take the boy to see “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Hey, maybe it’s at the local Drive-In. I hear it’s hot back home.

Update: The tech support folks at the basketball hoop manufacturer responded to my plea with a possible solution to the “This step cannot be reversed” quandary:

“You will need to make sure that there isn’t any hardware on the poles, take a piece of cardboard or a blanket and place it on your driveway, kneel down and hold the pole horizontal (flat) about waist high while you are kneeling, you will then drop the pole from waist high onto the blanket or piece of cardboard about 50-60 times and the vibration should release the poles.”

I guess I do have plans.