It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Well, after the last month of putting everything in my life on hold due to the upcoming shift bid at work, it turns out that nothing has changed. My seniority number was 136 out of the 152 full-time dealers, so I was mentally prepared to be bent over the examination table and violated by the quirky finger of fate. Thankfully, the experience this weekend was quick and painless--I ended up with exactly the same shift I wanted, which, coincidentally, is the exact same shift I already have. Swing shift, 8pm-4am, Tuesdays and Wednesdays off.
I was considering changing to having Sunday/Monday or Monday/Tuesday off, but then I remembered how everyone who has Mondays off are the first people scheduled for six days whenever it's a holiday weekend. Screw that. I've done enough six-day workweeks lately. None for me, thanks. So when it came time to sign my name on the dotted line, I stood pat. All that worry for nothing. But now I can get back to making plans and getting on with life. It's amazing how much control the casino has over me. And I don't think I like it, now that I think about it.
Anyways, I haven't posted an update on this site since Thursday, and there's a very good reason for it. I was sort of living on Gilligans Island for the past few days--I could recieve but couldn't transmit. My tiny ship of electronic communication gear was tossed for awhile, and I've been rigorously chasing down gremlins getting everything sorted out. I could read email and surf the web, but I couldn't type anything. At the same time, my surround sound system decided to stop broadcasting audio from the tv--the dvd player and tuner worked fine, but if I wanted to watch TV, it was like somebody was sitting on the mute button.
Since I had to unplug everything anyways while I assembled my new entertainment rack and relocated all of the components, I figured it was as good a time as any to try and fix it. Armed with a voltmeter, flashlight, wire strippers, and a can of compressed air, I had the problem diagnosed and fixed within five minutes of crawling behind the cabinet. Loose connections, that's all.
The computer issue was a little more troubling, but I finally narrowed the problem down to a bad keyboard. When I picked it up and turned it over to make sure the control wire wasn't loose, about a half a cup of water fell out and onto my lap. So not only was my computer inoperable, it looked like I'd pissed myself, too. Good times!
Suddenly I remembered the large glass of water I spilled all over my desk just before I was leaving the day before. When it happened, I immediately grabbed up all the expensive stuff like cellphone, digital camera, and USB cables as quickly as I could, and then swept off all the important papers before getting after the spill with a towel. I was running late, so as soon as the puddle was cleaned up, I tossed the towel in the laundry and headed out the door.
I forgot about it until I got home the next morning and my computer didn't work.
Anyhow, all of that drama led me to this morning. Once I got up and got dressed, I drove down to the local Fry's Electronics to pick up a new keyboard and do a little browsing around. I found a great new keyboard for twenty bucks--It's got a lot of built-in shortcuts and even a trackball-type of thingy, but the biggest selling point was the lack of four-plus years' worth of crud and detritus stuck between the keys. While there I also found the new computer desk I'll be buying, probably next week, along with some lustables like a 20-inch monitor, a new set of speakers, and various other items that I just can't get along without...
Speaking of Fry's, next time I go down there, I'm going to take my camera with me--they've got the front entrance of the store decorated like a huge slot machine, and the concrete car-bomb barriers out front are built to look like huge stacks of quarters. Pretty cool, and of course, Only In Vegas.
So that's the news. On the t-shirt front, I've already sold 16 of them, and got the first checks in the mail yesterday. If everyone is fairly quick about it, we might be able to have them inside of three weeks.
More later--right now I've got to put my room back together.
Mikey
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