One Crazy Long Weekend

I tried to savor it as much as possible -- driving around in the afternoon sunshine of a Monday.. waking up at 10am on Tuesday... 5 straight days without work!


Here's the backstory: After 2 weeks on the 12-8 schedule, I was informed Friday morning that I was being put on D crew as the fill-in hot end supervisor, until a bona fide replacement can be found. 12-hour shifts on a rotating schedule, starting out on days (6am - 6pm) on Wednesday. Aha! An extra 2 days off, courtesy of my boss. AND, with the way the schedule works, I work Wednesday and Thursday, and don't have to come back till Monday night (6pm - 6am)! Except I'm taking Monday off to go to New York City!
So yeah - lotsa days off in a short space of time. Something to savor indeed.
And before the NYC trip hits, I want to jot down what I did with all those days.


Friday I slept till about 4pm, packed up and hung out with Daniel as he packed up for Grove City, and reluctantly left at 5:37pm -- 37 minutes after I planned to leave, and 97 minutes after I should have left to get to frisbee on time. Yep: a frisbee game in Akron - the kickoff to a long-overdue Ohio weekend. Even though I didn't arrive till almost 8, I still caught a lot of great frisbee action, as the sunset painted the sky light orange and the breeze was warm over the drying August grass. We hit Zack's (excellent frozen yogurt) after it was too dark to play any more and we were tired of playing while it was too dark to play any more. Then the night changed from the plan. Chad and I went to a good-bye party for Dave Davis at the Chimas, and I ended up hanging out there with Brian and Nick, Steve, Jes Arlia, Joel Putnam and some others until around 3am. Everyone would say we had a good time, but I wonder about the usefulness of a bunch of immature people lounging around talking about nothing and making each other laugh. We did go to Taco Bell, though, and that was definitely time well spent :-)


Slept till noon Saturday up in Craig and Chad's room, and wiled away the afternoon hanging out with Collin and going on a couple errands with him and Craig. Not real purposeful, but I wouldn't call it a waste. Since Steve-O had slept in from the night before, he was working late, and then going to a movie, so I shrugged my shoulders and accepted the Tuminos' invitation to come along to a birthday/anniversary gathering with their relatives. Ended up being a sweet time at a really nice house, eating some good food (yes, including corn), talking to some new and very pleasant folks, climbing saplings, and jumping a badminton net (which amazed everyone there). Craig, Chad and I left early, listened to some of my recordings on the way home, and ended up watching "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly" for the evening. Great movie! Aa-ee-aa-ee-aaahhh....


Thus endeth the chronicles of the Tumino house era of my trip. Beginneth "Smorgasbord Sunday." Woke up at the Tuminos, went to church (sans breakfast), enjoyed the Chad-led worship service and Randy Stewart-preached sermon, chatted about, double-entreed at Chipotle with Steve-O, picked up some shingles, and sat in the parking lot watching a TV show on Steve's iPod while waiting for the rain to clear up so we could finish this roof he was working on. OK, so, the rain's not clearing up. Off we go to the (old) Roberts Care Group farewell picnic, where I have a couple good conversations, grab a burger, and head off down the road following Cory Thompson's Jeep Cherokee towards Cleveland. Cutting out the details, I end up standing on the floor of the House of Blues with Craig, Cory, Steve-O and Charlie (my buddy from Pitt), waiting for Styx to hit the stage. And they hit it! And boy howdey did they hit it good :-) A dazzling and entertaining display of proficiency and experience. Maybe a little too up close and personal for a band of that style and age, but everyone basically said it was the best concert they'd ever been to. The night ended flopped upon the couch in the Hoffman's den at 2am with Brandy curled up at my feet and Steve-O getting out his schedule to discover what classes he had tomorrow and when he should get up. Ah yes.


Thus endeth the Akronian segment of my saga. Now beginneth the brief, second, Cleveland excursion. I got up as soon as I could drag myself out of bed (about 9) and drove to Charlie's place to hang out for the morning. We took a long walking tour of Case Western and got lunch at this sweet place called Tommy's (which ironically is right by the Grog Shop, where I saw State Fair play with Golinski and Shannon).


Now we enter the Grove City portion of my wanderings. However, we don't enter it easily, since my cell phone absolutely refuses to get charged, and by this point is completely dead. I called Daniel from Charlie's phone right before I left, and left a voicemail to the effect of "Hey, I'm coming... um, I don't know where your room is, or what your class schedule is.. and I don't have any way to call you again, and you don't have any way to call me... but here I come!" So we set sail to GC with a broken telegraph and no wood to make a fire for smoke signals. Fortunately the celly takes enough charge to get a text with his room location. Unfortunately, the driver is dumb and goes on the wrong highway. Fortunately, there's a Rita's where he cuts through to get back on track, and cotton candy ice is deLISHious. Daniel is asleep peacefully on the couch when we arrive.

It was interesting being at Grove City on the first day of classes, but not being a student. Lots of people greeting friends they hadn't seen in awhile, and lots of bustley class stuff. We ate dinner in the cafeteria with a few guys from AEX, and went to the hall afterwards and chilled for awhile. It's fun seeing the fun and funny things that transpire in a dorm hall, and get little pictures of people as they stop in the room for a minute. Eventually we got our butts up off the couch and went to Wal-Mart with Jess. Pretty much the classic thing to do when visiting a GCC student :-)

The rest of the night was spent in Daniel's room, with a morphing group of people occupying the room as time went by. Eventually Daniel, Tim and myself were left, talkin' about good stuff and relaxing in the light of the white mesh Christmas lights. Then people started getting back from the freshman square dance, somebody was talking in a hillbilly accent, three people returned pieces of western garb borrowed from Daniel, and EVERETT finally came in! I had been waiting to meet Daniel's roommate, and I was unprepared for how sweet he is. He seems pretty easy-going and considerate, and he's got a good streak of random humor, which will serve him well in his Daniel-roommate capacity. Definitely a good guy.

Sleep that night, wakeupfulness the next morning, lunch at Taco Bell, and off down the sun-baked highway home. I'm SO glad I got to see Daniel's setup, see some of the faces around him, and get a little feel for where he's at. His room's quite nice, with a couch and two big chairs and carpet, and there seem to be a lot of solid guys in his hall. I'm sure he'll be going over to the AEX hall a lot, and I'm looking forward to seeing Skipper and Shane and other quality dudes from there as I drop by over the semester.

Thus endeth the saga. Thanks for reading! I'm sure my next post will be even harder to keep from being too long. New York, here we come!