Thursday night was a good time had by all. In particular, the after-action at the Elbow Room was smoky but even more fun than dinner, since demon liquor was flowing with abandon. Dinner was fabulous and the sound system worked to perfection, even if I did cause feedback once while adjusting the volume and about blew the windows out.
Friday I installed a 15-minute timer switch on the fan in our master bath, something we’ve both been wanting for a long time. Otherwise I pretty much sat on my ass — it was a lousy day and I didn’t feel like doing much. I did spend a lot of time putting my files in order for the new secretary of my lodge, who took office on Saturday.
Yesterday was a run to Costco after breakfast to get things we need for the New Year’s party, followed by changing into nice clothes (yeah, I had to tux it up) for the lodge installation at noon. I was the installing secretary for the ceremony (meaning I had to read the incoming Master’s credentials and the list of the new officers when asked by the installing Master). It was a good time, marred a bit by the absence of Chris Hodapp, but there were lots of shining faces and cool presentations and visits by Past Grand Masters and members of the current Grand Line. (Well, one PGM and one Grand Line officer, anyway, but two of my favorites in those departments.)
They even gave me an award. It kind of looked like a Masonic lifetime achievement thing. I really wish they hadn’t done it, but if I’d balked I would have been shot by several people, including my wife. It’s this very nice wooden plaque made by two of our past masters and then taken to a trophy shop and laser-etched. They used my past master head-and-shoulders because (heh) Sally couldn’t find any other head-and-shoulders shot of me. I hate getting my picture taken. Not as much as Og, though.
Anyway, we got home around 4 and chilled out for awhile, then we went to Pizza Hut and had dinner, followed by a visit to the Verizon store. We wanted to check on whether the data plan was mandatory for the PDA phones we wanted before we did our New Every Two today. Sally lucked out because the agent we talked to said to forget about coming back tomorrow, he’d do the NE2 right then if she wanted the phone. She’d been looking at the Motorola Q, but he said “avoid it like the plague” — lots of returns, lousy battery life, crap phone in general. He recommended the Motorola Q 9m instead, which they seem to have gotten right. It is a very cool phone, and it ended up costing her about the same as the Q after the rebates and such. Much cooler than these fucking brain-damaged Razr V3c’s we both have that don’t have any way to get pictures off of them short of sending them through Verizon’s VPix service and paying them for the privilege. The Q 9m also lets me copy MP3s directly to the phone to use for ringtones. (She’s using the chorus from Mustang Sally for her main ring, and the last verse of “Wonderful” from Wicked for my personal ring…because, you know, I am the Wizard. Cough. Ahem. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.)
I didn’t get a new phone yet because I’m holding out for the Palm Treo 755p, which is supposed to be in-store sometime the week after next.
Today we went to Home Depot at an ungodly hour (9AM) and used a gift card I bought with American Express points to buy one of the two new bypass closet doors for Sally’s playroom. (There’s a six-foot closet and a five-foot closet — we’re doing the six-footer first because the original doors were in such bad shape, we’ve already removed them.) I’m hoping to have that up tomorrow, but I have to do some demolition to get the original, 50-year-old wooden bifold door tracks out. I have no idea if they’re in with screws or nails. Guess I’ll find out…
Tomorrow I also have to go to the county recorder’s office, if they’re open. Missed out doing that last week because just before I went downtown, I found out that my driver’s license was expired, and I decided to run to Freemasons’ Hall, do the things I had to do there, and run back up north to get it renewed before I went home to change for the dinner that night.
It took a fucking HOUR to get my license renewed. And I had walked right in, there were only about 10 people in the place ahead of me. It took 20 minutes to complete the transaction to the point where they took my picture. The remaining 40 minutes were me sitting and waiting for the license printer to spit my license out. I kid not. The printer had gone offline and nobody noticed for almost 20 minutes. When they managed to fix it, it started spitting licenses out IN REVERSE ORDER…and then it hung again on mine, the very last one.
I have had exactly ONE good experience with the BMV over the years, and this wasn’t it. Although I must admit, the lady I was talking to while waiting had it over me in spades: The BMV insisted that her car (which was sitting in the parking lot, and for which she had an absolutely huge folder of documentation) did not actually exist.
I hope she got some satisfaction out of them.
A "surly curmudgeon[], suspicious and lacking in altruism." (Robert A. Heinlein)