How long

Yesterday blew on all fronts.  If September maintains the suckage that was the first of Sept, then i’m in for a long long month. 

I was excited to leave the office a little early yesterday knowing this would be the only evening I would get to hang with the wife this week.  So, I was thinking about what I would cook for dinner.  As I am leaving my office, I decide to go the back way home so that I can swing by my brewing supply company to pick up the ingredients for my next batch of beer.  As I am driving I see a cop and before I know it, i’m pulled over.  As I sit there being told I was going 41 mph in a 25mph zone, I am looking up in front of my car at a 40mph sign not more than 200 yards up the road.  Apparently 40mph doesn’t begin when you see the sign as the officer informed me in high school during the classroom portion of drivers ed.  10 minutes later and a 75.00 ticket in hand I made it to the brewery supply store. Pick up the ingredients and am on my way.  The wife calls to tell me she’s working late, so I was on my own for dinner.  No biggie, since I wanted to bottle my 3rd batch of beer and get my 4th batch of beer in 1st stage fermentation.  That was my second run in with the law in less than four days. 

As a treat to myself after my ticket, I decided that I would sample my 2nd batch of beer that has been in carbonation for a week now while I was bottling batch 3 and boiling batch 4.  Batch two was a Raspberry Hefeweizen (think blue moon type beer with a raspberry flavor).  I poured it beer, it looked good but smelled horrible.  I took a drink and it didn’t taste very good either.  Batch two is a total waste.  I have almost 5 gallons (28 22oz bottles) of beer that I am not going to drink nor am I going to let anyone sample it.  Just another kick to the groin on a shitty afternoon.  A simple bump in the road as I shall call it. Batch number one which was an amber ale was ridiculously good and I could drink the stuff all day.  Batch 3 was bottled last night which is an american wheat, and batch four (Nut Brown Ale) will be ready for consumption in another two weeks.  I guess that beer making isn’t the most simple thing in the world and there will be times where I will learn from my mistakes.  I know now to never use Raspberries in beer.  What sucks is that I put so many hours into that batch.  I would guess that I worked on that batch of beer for a total of 10 hours time all together.  That and the 40 bucks for the ingredients and I’ve taken a big step backwards.  Oh well.  Hopefully for every step backwards I am able to take two steps forward. 

Back to the title.  One of my fellow employees died suddenly nearly three weeks ago.  I wasn’t close with him although my desk is all of 15 feet from his.  I had seen him in the office many times, but he was a newer employee.  My question is this.  How long after someone passes do you clean off their desk?  I walk by his desk right now and it’s the same as the day he left the office.  His photos of his family are still up, his notes for projects still sit right by his computer, it’s as if we are waiting for him to come back to the office.  I couldn’t imagine being one of the guys that sat right next or across from him having to look at it each day to be reminded of my friend that is no longer with us.  Just seems a bit weird to me. 

My final office quandry as I rarely ever talk about my day job is that they have offered to essentially cover my cellular expenses if I switch to the corporate plan.  While the 110.00 bill going away does sound nice to me, I am concerned that they will now own my phone number that I have used for a good 10 years.  My balloon business thrives on that phone number and if for some reason I left the company and they wouldn’t give me that number back, it would be downright detrimental to the balloon business since I have over 10,000 business cards floating around the suburbs of chicago with my cellphone number on it.  I was told that I could switch that number to a personal phone line before I left the company but with my luck I would get the axe and wouldn’t be able to put int he request before that and they wouldn’t give it back to me.   I have to believe they would, but do I even risk it?  My other concerns center on the fact that they essentially can look at everything I do on my phone.  While I do nothing worth hiding, I feel as if there would be a lack of privacy as if there is any such thing in todays digital age.  I am torn.  Honestly the 1400.00 a year saved would be great. 

That’s about it.  I have a crazy night tonight. I will be attempting to draft to fantasy football teams at the same time tonight which will be a first in my 12 years of playing Fantasy football.  I will be in person at one draft while doing the other online.  Hopefully all goes well, we shall see.  Have a great evening!

Filed under: Death, coworker, fantasy, train wreck, work

Near death experience

This week has been a bit of a whirlwind.  Not as much of a tornado but kind of blowing in all sorts of directions. I could even compare it to the game of chutes and ladders.  Lots of highs and very quick lows. 

This week looked like it was going to be somewhat relaxing other than a church meeting last night, nothing was really on the books.  I got the call from a friend on Tuesday morning asking me to go to the Cubs game after work.  So I went.  Lot’s of highs in the game, lots of lows (when they lost in overtime) Three of us went out for dinner and drinks before the game and overall it was a great evening.  Until the drive home. 

I could venture to say that I almost died without being the tad bit over dramatic.  I didn’t get into a car accident, but came closer than I ever have in my life.  This story isn’t the same without all the emotion of my shrieking voice but i’ll give it a go. (those of you local to the Chicagoland area might be able to follow along better since you will know the roads I am talking about)

So I’m driving home from the Cubs game.  The clock on my car radio read 11:25pm.  I am on the tollway heading up 94 North having just passed 176.  It’s under construction and down to two lanes.  The right lane of the two is newly paved but on an angle to the right (wall).  The left lane is level.  Semi’s are instructed to stay in the left lane since the right lane was newly paved.  There is a semi in the left lane and a semi in the right lane.  The semi in the right lane is going a little faster than the semi in the left lane, so I speed up in the right lane to pull infront of the semi in the left lane.  As soon as I got far enough in front of the semi to my left to pass, it rev’s it’s engine in an attempt to prevent me from passing.  So, I slow down a bit and decide to wait to pass.  The semi to my left slows down a bit and there’s another chance to speed up and get in front of him, but as I speed up, so does the semi.  All the while the semi in front of me is going the same speed.  I looked up in my rear view mirror and I now have a semi right behind me as well.  I am as they say boxed in.  To my right is a rail and Concrete wall since I am effectively driving on the shoulder during construction. As we drive along and the semi to my left does everything possible to prevent me from passing him, I give up and decide i’ll just stay in my lane while keeping an eye on his massive tires all of 4 to 5 feet away from me.   All of a sudden, his bright orange right turn signal light began flashing. 

It was at this moment when I might have made some sort of noise that I have never made before.  As soon as the semi to my left’s turn signal came on, I sped up next to the cab and begun honking my horn in an attempt to get his attention.  I quickly realized that there was nowhere for me to go if he begun merging into my lane.  I still had a semi in front of me. I still had a semi right behind me, and I still had a rail on my right without a shoulder.  While keeping my eyes on his large right front wheel right next to my window, suddenly it began to get closer to me.  He was actually coming over knowing I was there.  So, I slammed on my brakes while honking and praying to God that I don’t die.  As I slam on my brakes and inch as close to the guard rail on my right as possible I hear the breaks of the semi behind me begin squealing and I leaned as far to my right and as low as possible anticpating that the merging semi’s rear trailer tires are about to drive over my car and crush me in addition to the semi behind me jack knifing and running over me as well.  I looked back to my left to see the semi continue into my lane and came within centimeters of hitting my car.  I never came to a complete stop, just slowed down as fast as possible without locking the brakes up.  

I floored the accelerator flashing my brights at the semi in front of me trying to spell “F U C K Y O U” in a headlight Morse code fashion without so much of a response.  In a regretful but neccessary moment, I began driving with my leg and pulled out the closest scrap of paper to write down his license plate number, truck ID and the phone number on the back of the semi.  It was a Fedex Truck which made filing a complain that much easier.  I felt bad for the poor girl that answered the phone at Fedex because I laid into her in between continued high pitched rants about what that Fedex truck driver had just put me through.   She asked if I wanted a call back from a safety coordinator the next day and that was a no brainer.  I still haven’t gotten that call so I will be calling again tomorrow to speak to a higher up at Fedex about this retards stunt that almost killed me. 

This is my second run in with a disgruntled  Fedex Truck driver in a little more than a month.  Due to these two morons I am effectively switching all of my freight business to UPS until the day a UPS driver finishes the job that the Fedex driver attempted this past Tuesday night.

Filed under: Cubs, Death, scared