The Aerie
Well that was fun. Yesterday I worked from home. I was going to head in, but I checked my e-mail just before leaving and my only meeting had been canceled only moments earlier. So I figured the heck with it, I change jobs next week anyway, and worked from home.
But I took advantage of my work-from-home status to run an amazing number of errands between 10 and 11. Drove to the mall, bought myself a windbreaker. I have an old "wind shirt" from a company I worked for five years ago but I was way tired of it. A "wind shirt" is a windbreaker without a zipper that you pull on over your head. Tiresome.
My new windbreaker is nice enough, with deep pockets, a hood, and a velcro flap over the seam to keep the wind out. It's a little longer than a jacket which offers better coverage, but makes it a little tight to sit down in, such as in a car. Hopefully I can learn to live with it, since it is otherwise very nice.
By the way, in case you were wondering, this ISN'T going to be one of the most fascinating blog posts ever.
Anyway I left the mall and drove over to the St. Paul campus of the U of MN. My homework for last night (yes: at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday I began to consider my homework for 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday. Go me) required me to look over the course catalog and make some selections, and while I hadn't yet visited the website, twelve years of attending and working at the U of M made me skeptical that the course catalog website would be very good. So I stopped at the St. Paul campus to pick up a catalog.
As it later turned out this was a good decision, because the St. Paul campus was the only place where there were any course catalogs remaining. Blithely unaware of my good fortune I grabbed one (they're free), and then noticed a poster regarding U of MN identification cards.
This reminded me that I needed such a card, and surprisingly enough there was a photo station nearby, and surprisingly enough they were due to open at 11:00. Thus wreathed in a cloud of serendipitous good fortune I made my way over to the photo station and got my card. Go me!
I then leaped back into my car and drove over to the leather repair and cleaning store near our house. I wanted to get my leather jacket repaired. I received this jacket as a hand-me-down from my brother in law - either he didn't like it, or he thought the lining was too worn out to wear. In any event I've worn it for three or four years, and now the lining is TRULY too worn out to wear. Putting the jacket on is somewhat like sticking your arm in a spiderwebby crawlspace trying not to become entangled in any of the dangling threads.
Now, I'd brought the jacket in before to this place, and to other places. All of them told me the same thing - replacing the lining would be prohibitively expensive. They flatly refused to repair the jacket.
But I'd shopped around, and any replacement jacket was going to be several hundred dollars. I stopped by one store that wanted a thousand dollars for a leather jacket! (I asked the salesman if for $1000 the jacket could stop bullets.) So this time I was determined. I marched in there all ready to argue - hey, I'm the guy with the money, I want this fixed!
"Hi, I'd like the lining replaced."
"No problem."
But! But! My cogent arguments! My insistence! My umbrage! I had been all ready to bawl someone out. I was left suffering from blue bawls. *rimshot*
Anyway I dropped off the coat and headed home, only about ninety minutes after I left, four annoying chores accomplished.
And I even managed to get my homework for class.
So I'm really enjoying the opportunity to work from home.
Posted by Albatross at September 21, 2006 3:12 PM | TrackBack