I'm Doing Graduate-Level Work in Procrastination

Even though I've been extremely busy so far this morning, all I can say is "It's about time".  You wanna guess what I did just now?  I finally unpacked my overstuffed garment bag that I took on the cruise in October.  Yep, that thing has been riding around behind my seat in the truck forever, and then I finally brought it in the house about two weeks ago.  Since then, it's just been sitting on the floor next to my dresser.  Until today.  Luckily all of the clothes were clean--it wasn't full of dirty underwear or anything like that--but now I have all of my shirts and such back where they should be (on the floor of the closet).  Just kidding--I'm tackling the laundry monster as I write this.

I know, I should've taken care of it when we first got home, but the weekend after we returned, I moved out of Amy and Scottie's place and into my current digs down here in Spring Hill.  And it was just easier not unpack it at the time.  And then once I loaded up all of my gear in the truck, the garment bag just never got unloaded.  Besides, it's not like anyone ever rides in the jumpseat behind the driver's seat in my truck, anyways, so it was content to remain packed for the past two months. 

Thankfully it wasn't an eight-day trip to Vegas.  I remember how bad my luggage smelled after a six day bender back in 2004.  I opened up that suitcase once I got home from the airport, and it smelled like a combination of Keith Richards (back when he was alive) and the carpet at the Golden Gate.  I think I had to run everything through the washer twice, and the suitcase went in the dumpster.

But now that chore is done, and while unpacking it, I realized that I never wore four of the shirts I took with me (my Cardinals jersey being one of them).  Guess I won't need to pack as many clothes next time around.  Don't know when that'll be, though--we haven't even started looking at next fall's vacation yet. 

As far as the holiday prep is concerned, I am tantalizingly close to being done.  I only have to wrap one more gift that arrived this weekend while I was gone, then hit the liquor store, and maybe get a few small stocking stuffers.  That's it.  I'm heading up to Mamasan's place on Thursday to help her prepare for the big Christmas Eve shindig that she's hosting, so maybe a trip to the grocery and some cooking will be on tap, but then I get to relax and enjoy Christmas with the whole gang, something I've been looking forward to for far too long.

Speaking of the Christmas Eve party, my niece Stephie decided that we should all share some sort of talent that night, since we'll all be together.  I don't know how well the idea was received by the rest of the family, but I'm doing my part.  And I haven't picked up the guitar in so long that the potential for unintentional comedy is off the charts.  So yeah, I'm spending a good part of the next three days practicing my fingers off.  I'm hoping somebody has a video camera with them, and if they do, well, you'll have something interesting to see on YouTube next week.

Oh--a couple of housekeeping things:

Email.  It's a complete pain in the ass for me.  Here at the house, I use the Verizon wireless 3G system.  It sucks like crap on a stick.  And, since that's the only option, I don't have an outbound mail server.  So, I'm stuck using my webmail to retrieve anything.  Same address, I just have to go to a secure website to get it--I can't use Outlook. 

Well, Outlook is where all of my addresses are.  And, whenever I need an email address, I have to open Outlook to go get it.  That causes all of my mail that was on the webserver to be downloaded here (I have my regular hurricanemikey.com mail server that follows me everywhere).  So once that email gets pushed into Outlook, I can't respond to it.  (Well, I could copy and paste and take it back to the webmail site, but who wants to do that?).  Anyhow, long story short, that's why a lot of time I haven't responded to emails.  They're on the webmail system, but then they get buried in the avalanche whenever I open Outlook, which is by far a more useful tool.  So until we get real cable service out here in the boondocks, email will be an ongoing struggle.

Also, I was traveling most of the weekend, and forgot to take my phone charger with me.  Actually, I thought I might be gone overnight and coming right back home first thing in the morning, but that didn't happen.  So my phone was dead for two days and I just got it back working and fully charged yesterday afternoon once I got home.  So I wasn't really dodging anyone, I was just unable to call anyone back (lookin' at you, E!).

I'm hitting the road again Thursday (maybe Wednesday night, not sure yet), so my time around here is pretty limited.  Besides all the housework I've already done this morning, I still have to go out and run errands.  I still don't have a checking account here in Tennessee, and doing all my business through the mail has been another pain in the ass that I'm ready to pull the plug on. So at some point either today or tomorrow, I have to go down to one of the local banks and open a new account, then change all of my auto-pay stuff.  Not looking forward to that.

That's about all for now, but I'm hoping to have another holiday-type post up before Christmas Eve.  No promises, though.  Just wishful thinking at this point.

Later--

Mikey