My Week from hell
I don’t post very often but I wanted to put all of this in writing so I would remember it down the line.
We got back from vacation on Sunday the 5th.
Monday
I went to work on Monday and slowly got back into the swing of things. I only had 1 meeting to attend so I spent most of my time getting caught up on e-mail that I had come in while I was away for a week. After work on Monday we had to forfeit the final monday night volleyball game and then I found out that we got some water in the basement while we were away. Monday wasn’t a very good day but compared to the rest of the week it was pretty good.
Tuesday
Tuesday was a non-event. I don’t really remember anything we did that day. So it was neither good nor bad.
Wednesday
My laptop has been acting up recently. Sometimes when you push the power button it just won’t turn on. I demonstrated this for my boss but there’s nothing he can do because it’s out of warrantee. Oh well, a few months of annoyance and maybe I can talk him into getting me a tablet for christmas. I took the bus home after work on Wednesday and it started to rain just as I stepped off the bus. By the time I walked the ¼ mile home I was soaked from head to toe. Once I was home and dried off I found out that we got more water in the basement.
Thursday
Fortunately my clothes and my shoes dried over night. We got up on Thursday and it was already pouring. We almost turned around and went home because we couldn't see out of the windshield at one point. When the bus finally arrived I stepped in a 4 inch deep river of water while getting out of the car. Then I had to run to the bus because it was pulling away. I chased it for about a block (running in the stream of water on the side of the road) before the bus driver finally stopped. I went to my one meeting of the day then decided to come home and work remotely for the afternoon because I was still all wet and cold. I also wanted to try using the shop vac to remove some water from the basement in case more was coming in with the new rain storm. I left the office around 12:15 and amazingly the sun was finally shining and it was warming up. I got to the bus stop at 12:25 so I could catch the 12:30 11C bus but it didn't show up. I didn't know if I'd missed it or if it was late because of the rain so I waited. The 11D showed up but I didn't know where that went so I let it go by. Then the 11D showed up again and I let it go by again. At this point this really annoying kid came and waited at the bus stop with me. He kept complaining about how he’d missed the 11D and now it was going to mess up his whole day. He borrowed my cell phone so he could call Port Authority for the bus schedule then call his girlfriend to tell her he’d be late. A few minutes later another 11D came and I was really tempted to take it because I was so tired of waiting but the really annoying kid got on so I decided not to. I called Manda and she told me that the schedule says that the 11C no longer runs during the day (they changed it last month apparently) so I had to catch the next 11D. I took that to the Giant Eagle near my house and then had to walk more than a mile home. About 1/4 mile from my house it started to rain (yes the same place I was at on Wednesday when I got rained on). This rain storm was the worst yet. I literally had my umbrella pointing straight out in front of me to stop the water that was coming sideways from hitting me in the face. I went inside to get changed and warm up only to discover that the power was out.
I logged on from home and worked remotely until about 4:30 when my laptop battery died. It was still raining that night so Volleyball was cancelled. We had grilled cheese for dinner because we could still light the gas burners on the stove using the aim n' flame.
Manda came home and we read some harry potter and played some board games before going to bed early (there's really not much to do in our house without power).
Friday
On Friday I drove Manda to work and stayed home to work from home because we still didn't have power. I wanted to mop up some of the water in the basement and then start shop vaccing as soon as the power came back on. I didn't make much progress on the basement though because I could only work inside for about an hour before my laptop battery was dead and I had to sit in the car for an hour charging the battery off the AC inverter (best christmas present ever). Manda came home at lunch and we went to Taco Bell for some food. We took some time to move the rugs out of the basement and get them drying in the yard. We pulled out the brushes we used to blacktop the driveway because they had squeegies on the back of them and used them to push the puddles of water into the laundry room floor drain. Friday night we had cereal for dinner because we needed to drink the milk before it went bad then we went to Dairy Queen for ice cream (had to drive all over because the closest Dairy Queen was closed and the road to the next closest Dairy Queen was barricaded off). Finally we came home to watch Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone on my computer while we sat in the car eating our Ice Cream. We had called the power company earlier in the day and they said that the power would be back on by 12:30 Saturday morning so we went to bed with high hopes that we'd wake up in the morning with lots of lights on in the house.
Saturday
Unfortunately we woke up and it was still dark in the house. We called the power company and found out that the power wasn't going to be fixed until 6pm on Sunday. I had promised Manda that I'd help her with her video so we drove downtown and I drove her through the tunnels 13 times while she filmed the inside and the outside of the tunnel from the passenger's seat. We went to Arby's for lunch then headed down to Jamie's house so she and Kelly could do an interview for the video. We got home to find out we still didn't have power so we went to the mall for dinner. We ate at the food court and wandered around the mall doing some window shopping. We didn't really find anything to buy (just made fun of a bunch of people). We checked Sears for prices on Dehumidifiers but they were $150-300 so we probably won't be getting one of those right away. We went home and read some more Harry Potter then went to bed. To our surprise we were lying in bed when the fan turned on. Everyone in the neighborhood was so happy to have power again. Mary (our drunken neighbor) was screaming for joy from her porch.
Sunday
We slept in then got up and went downtown. First we stopped at Manda's school so I could record the voice over for her video then we went to Primanti's for lunch. After lunch I went into work and she went back to school to edit. We both worked until about 8 when she picked me up and we headed home. We read some more Harry Potter and I played with my computer for a bit then we headed off to bed.
Monday
Today I’m back at work and busy solving the remaining problems that are going to stop us from deploying our remote access software on Vista.