Entries this day: Bits Mick mac

Bits

9:09am CDT Wednesday 5 June 2002

Interesting to watch things falls to bits here at work. Or it seems that way at least. Got in to work and learned that if I had tried logging in as one of the participants, I would have discovered that they couldn't add feedback providers. I lied to Karla, saying that I hadn't thought to look at that, but truth is I hadn't logged in as them at all.

So that one got fixed but in the process of fixing it, I caused an error due to dataset being opened exclusively (by me) to fix it. Only one error, but still that's not preferable.

And now I remember that we have staff meeting scheduled for noon today (so that Dave and I can both attend, because we both work 1/2 time and he's working the latter half of the week and I'm working the former half of the week (but somehow 1/2 + 1/2 adds up to an overlapping meeting in the middle), and even though I do almost nothing at the meetings, they want my poker face there.

I had scheduled a 1pm meeting at Paint This, and a 2:30pm meeting at my doctor, and I should have been able to make the staff meeting and those meetings as well. But then Kevin asked me to come in at 4pm today, so I figured I had extra time in the morning, so I shifted my PT! meeting to 11am, not remembering staff meeting. I felt anxious (fearful) going in to tell Karla that I couldn't make the staff meeting, but that was my choice (to not make it) instead of not go to Paint This!.

Mick

7:45 pm Wednesday 5 June 2002

Just spent about an hour talking (mostly listening to) Mick, a man who looks pretty much like a bum, but who has been traveling around the US for over 30 years.

I asked if he was traveling.

Yes.

"Where are you headed?"

"From here, I don't know."

"Where have you been?"

"San Marcos, Austin, Little Rock, and now here."

"By what mode of transportation?"

"I ride freight trains," he said with a smile and glint in his eye.

Thus began the story. He said he is rarely bothered if he doesn't ride the Money Trains, those with expensive cargo. But the others, like those carrying sixty thousand pounds of grain, or concrete were perfect for riding. "What are you going to steal?" He explained.

He can generally tell where a train is headed given what it's carrying. He said that many railyard workers will be glad to tell which train to ride to get to a certain destination. "The trick," he explained, "is to ask two different workers at different times. If they both indicate the same train is headed for your destination, then that's your train."

A ten dollar bribe in Mexico will keep one out of a Mexican prison, which is well worth the bribe. Not many trains run in Mexico, so he advised against train travel there when one is first getting started.

He says that people don't mind because he doesn't drink alcohol, and he doesn't ride the Money Trains.. Makes sense to me.

(Drunks are likely to get hurt around trains, so the station has to kick them out to reduce their liability.)

He was in Florida once and made it to California 5 days faster than a man who hitch hiked the same distance.

He knows of places in the back woods that are 20 some miles from the nearest highway. No one comes out there, so they can hang out and fish for weeks. Wow.

mac

1:19 am 6-6-02

I have just arrived home from Dude's, after doing some research online and at Microcenter to get a Macintosh PowerBook G4 677Mhz/ 30 gig / 512 meg/ CD-DVD combo / AirPort / 15.2" screen for a bit less than $3000 including tax, shipping.

I haven't purchased yet, but I'm close.