Finally got a sunny day that the tem­per­a­ture made it to the upper 50s, it seems like it has been for­ever. We dropped the con­vert­ible top this after­noon and went for a drive. We were mind­ing our own busi­ness, motor­ing along a two-lane road at 45 (that had a posted speed limit of 40) when a full-size pickup approached from behind, clos­ing fast. After a few sec­onds of fill­ing my mir­ror try­ing to intim­i­date me into increas­ing my speed or some­thing, he passed me. Less than a 1/4 mile later he turned left into his dri­ve­way. Sorry I got in your way pal.

While wast­ing time after din­ner and fin­ish­ing lis­ten­ing to This­tle & Sham­rock on the local NPR sta­tion, I flipped on the TV muted and did some surf­ing. Paused on CNN for a bit and read the scroll, “Ebay halts sales of Chal­lenger debris.” read one. Holy shit! What kind of peo­ple were selling/buying this stuff? Have we got­ten this low in our quest for mak­ing money and get­ting rich?

When we check in, the clerk gives us room 231 and some vague direc­tions on how to get there. Off we drove to the back of the com­plex, notic­ing that the place is nearly empty. When we get to our room it is right at the top of the stairs. If you walk straight ahead after the last stringer you would bump right into the door of the room. There are 2 room loca­tions in a motel you should never stay in; 1) next to or across from an ice machine and B) at he the top or bot­tom of the stairs. Both spots are noto­ri­ously noisy because of the peo­ple traf­fic (they wouldn’t be so bad if peo­ple were still con­sid­er­ate of oth­ers, but that is a whole ‘nother blog post.) We headed back to the front desk and ask for a room 2 or 3 doors away from this one. The clerk, after mak­ing a big show of check­ing for empty rooms, gives us a key to room 233. When we get back to our new room it is not 2 doors away, but merely one. Not only is it not far from 231, it is an adjoin­ing room! The doors are lit­er­ally 6″ apart. See­ing as the place was empty we decided not to try for room #3, know­ing that if we did he would put us next to the weight room or guest laun­dry next…

When we check-in on Fri­day our first impres­sion was good. The lobby looked nice and was dec­o­rated well. The build­ings them­selves looked new. But unfor­tu­nately new was not the case. This place had obvi­ously been ren­o­vated in the last cou­ple of years. It didn’t really show until you got in the rooms. The tub had been cov­ered up with one of those plas­tic sur­rounds, top and bot­tom. There was about 2 inches of the old white tiles peek­ing over the top of the plas­tic and the tub creaked and gave way slightly while stand­ing in it. Another big give­away was the room car­pet. they either had not replaced it or had with the cheap­est stuff they could find as it stained, show­ing wear and start­ing to come up in the cor­ners. I guess another clue was the “vin­tage” TV.

You are now rightly ask­ing your­self, “Why does he stay in Hol­i­day Inns if every time the expe­ri­ence s*cks?” The rea­son is I am a Pri­or­ity Club mem­ber and I get points towards a free night every time I stay. How lame is that?

We needed gas for the car, so I headed over to a gas sta­tion I haven’t used for a while. When I got there I remem­bered why, they don’t have Pay-At-The-Pump con­ve­nience. Pulled back out onto the road and drove a 1/2 down to pull into another sta­tion. Insert card — remove card and the read­out says, “Couldn’t Read Card, Swipe Again.” After 3 attempts I walked back to another pump to see if it would work there, nope. Back in the car and drove across the street. Read the card, first time, so I gassed up and went.

I didn’t watch this and I can’t for the life of me fig­ure who would want to after see­ing the title and promo, Facelifts From Hell. What kind of sicko Pro­gram­ming Direc­tor picked that for a Valentine’s evening of TV?

Can’t for the life of me find it on the web any­where, but I could have sworn I saw an ad on TV for a motor­ized recliner. Not the kind that actu­ally help an infirm per­son stand up, but just a reg­u­lar middle-America liv­ing room recliner that reclined by push­ing a but­ton and lit­tle motors gen­tly leaned you back and lifted your feet. Are we really that lazy that the arm motion required to use a recliner has become so inconvenient?

Real bummed out this evening. Sun­day is usu­ally my least favorite day of the week mainly because Mon­day is next. This evening the weight of impend­ing doom was heavy on my shoul­ders and there are sev­eral rea­sons for that:
1) Yes­ter­day was sunny and 70 — today rainy and 30s and I hate win­ter.
2) In spite of the theme for this evening’s broad­cast of This­tle and Sham­rock being Songs of Life and Love Celtic music sounds so melan­choly. (There just isn’t any way to make a bag­pipe sound upbeat.)
3) Watched “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sis­ter­hood” this after­noon, God, is that the exact oppo­site of a feel good movie.
4) It’s time to do our income taxes. Not that I’ll owe a lot of money or any­thing, but just see­ing how much I’ve paid to Uncle Sam hurts.
5) My blog com­ments are on and off, tonight as I write this, they are on. I don’t like incon­sis­tency.
6) Maybe it is read­ing all the teen angst over on Court’s blog, Tan­gled Mind.
7) I’ve been try­ing to redesign the Barn­door Fan Club site and I’m not sure I like what I’ve got.
8) or it is just the fact that tonight is a full moon…

Watched West Wing tonight so you know I have plenty of fod­der for here on the absur­dity of adver­tis­ing, but I won’t do it. Instead, I keep com­ing back to a lit­tle thing I saw in this morning’s local paper about folks renew­ing their wed­ding vows, they were Alzheimer patients. Couldn’t help but think­ing, “How often do they have to do that?” Insert your own insen­si­tive remarks here

Don’t run, except it. (Jenny Agutter…Mmmm)

Some­times I think there is some­thing to be said for not liv­ing past 30. I’m well past it and some­times feel much fur­ther past it. Today is one of them with just a whole litany of minor ail­ments that make me want to go lay down and nap to for­get about them, but I’m afraid if I do lay down I won’t wake up. I know this is some sort of age thing, because if I was still in my 20’s none of these things would bother me, I’d just shrug them off if I noticed them at all. And I remem­ber watch­ing Let­ter­man a few years back when he was at the age I am now and every night he would com­plain, in his way, about some minor ail­ment befalling him. It has got to be some, per­haps a male trait only, age induced hypochon­dria. I just hope I live through it.