Apr. 18th, 2001

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Yesterday morning went by in a blur once I left the house. Once at the store, I did two reports at near-light speed...if I'm lucky, I made no mistakes. I then reviewed a bunch of notes that I'd made with Galina, Lee, and Rena (the new bookkeeper).

Finally, Galina and I got on the road to Durango and the pace of the day slowed considerably. Galina and I had a leisurely hot dog at the airport, we parted, then I ran back like a crazy person to return the keys to Shannon's car (neat trick, as Galina had by this time driven the car to the parking lot exit, if anyone reading this was there, the idiot yelling "GALINA!!!" outside the terminal at the top of his lungs was me).

The flight to Denver was uneventful, and calming. I love looking at snow-capped mountains. From the ground or from the air, it doesn't matter, I can't get enough of them. Once in Denver, I made my connection to Houston and slept most of the way down.

I landed at IAH (Bush Intercontinental), which is on the other end of town from where I'm staying. I stopped on the way to buy some victuals, and once home, had a salad.

I unwound by watching Sands of Iwo Jima. I must have seen the film a couple of hundred times when I was a kid, and it is not unlikely that it influenced my choice of service when the time came to enlist. I hadn't seen the film in a couple of years, and last night it seemed as if I was watching it with a whole new set of eyes. I don't know what it was that struck me, but emotionally, I was much more engaged.

Anyway...daylight's burning, and I've got to get to the bank and do a bunch of errands, including a couple for Galina.

Cheers...
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Two days...two negative experiences with banks.

Yesterday, as I was leaving Pagosa, it occurred to me that I didn't have a credit card with enough meat on it to rent a car once in Houston. I proceeded to transfer money from one account to another at my bank, so I'd have enough in the debit card account for the deal.

Once in Houston, it turns out that the transfer didn't hit (probably needs a day to clear even within accounts at the same branch). Fortunately, there was enough there to begin with to allow me to rent the car for a week; I'll just have to call to extend is all.

What burns me, though, is that I thought I made it clear to the teller that I needed to make the transfer so I could use the debit card. Then again, maybe I didn't make it clear enough, or it didn't occur to her to do anything special, or maybe she has no discretion in the matter.

No biggie, I guess.

Today, I arrived at my local Houston bank with two checks from my accounts in Pagosa, only to be told that it would be five days before I'd be allowed to use the money. That really puts me in a jam of sorts, as the whole purpose of the maneuver was to put money in the account so that I can pay bills.

I'm sure they're within their rights, but what burns me is that I've banked there for over five years, and when I asked them to bend the rules (at least for the smaller check), I got the cold, icy blue shoulder.

That makes it a lot easier for me to decide to close my account here in Houston and move the whole shebang up to Pagosa.

Cheers...
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I've forgotten to mention that I got up today without a care in the world, ready to put paid to a bunch of things that needed to get done before starting my assignment. That ended at about 11:40 am, when I noticed my pager (which was still inside my suitcase) was beeping intermittently.

It was the office. I called, only to find out I had been expected in the MCC at 9:00 am this morning.

Yikes! I thought that - like last time - I would have a day off before starting work associated with the flight. I was mortified when I heard the news.

I have never missed a work assignment before in my life. At least not like this.

Ah, well. First time for everything. And better today than during the mission, which starts tomorrow. And I managed to minimize the damage to being "only" 3 hours late.

Collateral issue: I have to go now to the 24-hour K-Mart and buy an alarm clock, because now that I think about it (and look around) I notice that I didn't bring one with me.

This morning, when I switched on my cell (to call the office), there were two messages from Galina waiting for me. The messages indicated there was some problem with the fax at the store. When I tried to call, though, I got an "all circuits are busy" message. Several times. Over a couple of hours.

It turns out the phone lines to and from Pagosa (at least) were severely limited for a large part of the day. I suspect it was this glitch, which prevented me from returning her calls, that was the cause of the "fax problem."

I spent about an hour and 40 minutes walking Lee through a daily report cycle. She then did another spreadsheet and got it to me via AIM. It looks good. Kid is sharp. We'll get together again tomorrow and walk though the mechanical parts.

Galina told me we lost a customer today. This was an outfit that came in quite often and racked up monthly bills of about $1,500. She made it sound as if he was taking his business elsewhere.

Since I'd absorbed this company's phone number by osmosis while processing their packages, I decided to give the boss a call and find out the straight skinny. He told me that his operation had gotten so big, they'd opened their own UPS account.

In the final analysis, it makes sense for him to do this (in fact, I mused about exactly this scenario a couple of weeks ago and wondered what it was that kept him coming to us).

When I get back to Pagosa, I think I'll buy the fellow a cup of coffee and ask a few questions. Who knows? Maybe he can direct some other business my way...or maybe I can do something else for him.

Gotta go get that alarm clock and get a night's rest. As it turned out, the Russians didn't send over their "radiograms" until after I'd gotten to the MCC, so it was a pretty tiring 4-hour stint.

Cheers...
alexpgp: (Default)
It occurs to me today that I must internalize the relaxation techniques the Zach's been trying to teach us at the acting workshop.

Or die.

That's a pretty bold statement, I guess, but over the past weeks, I have reached depths of frustration that are new to me. And my immediate reaction to the myriad minor, niggling setbacks that life throws at me has become such as to probably raise my blood pressure by an unhealthy amount, thereby putting undue wear and tear on my ticker and the associated piping.

I must learn to change my reaction to life's slings and arrows from one of alarm (maybe not the right word, but it'll do here) to one of calmness.

I'm sitting here, recalling the title of a popular book that goes something along the lines of Don't Sweat the Small Stuff (and it's all small stuff). The author has a point.

It's really all small stuff. I can accept that on an intellectual level.

Now, I've got to convince myself on an emotional level. Hard, perhaps, but the hardest part - understanding what course I must take - is done.

Cheers...

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