Happy Birthday to me

Yesterday was my birthday. I've never minded getting older and for me, birthdays are just an excuse to have an extra good time that day. I usually don't buy myself anything for my birthday, but this year I made an exception. I decided to buy myself a Kindle because now that I'm reading books again, I've rediscovered just how fast I devour books. I bought a paperback on Sunday to read while I was at the laundromat and two hours later it was finished. That brought the total number of books that I read in a week to six. Five of those I will want to read again later, but I don't have room in my RV to keep a bunch of books so I ended up giving some of them to my neighbor. I got to thinking about the Kindle and the other variations of the same thing and decided something like that was a perfect fit for someone who lives in a small space, but loves books. It was a bit more money than I usually spend on myself and not a very practical expense at a time when I should be pinching pennies, but what the hell - who wants to be practical on their birthday?

I know it won't be the same as having a real book in my hand and I much prefer reading off paper instead of a computer screen, but I'm very excited at the thought of eventually having hundreds of my favorite books right at my fingertips. I guess it will be much the same as my migration from albums to MP3s. I still think the music sounds better off an LP, but it's very nice to have the convenience of all my music in easily accessed MP3 files and it's definitely the better music storage solution for RV living. I suspect the same will be true for books.

I wonder what's next? Digital clothing? I'd love to have shirts that could change color or design. That way you could have five physical shirts in the closet, but hundreds of choices. Hopefully someone is working on that right now and it will be in the stores soon so I can also solve my lack of closet space problem.

A Texas Swing evening

My trailer repairs were finished today, but when I got home I found it was not put back where it was before they hauled it off to the shop. They did at least get it in the correct lot, but it's way too far back on the pad. And, I hate to admit this, but it's also crooked and I know that's going to drive me crazy. I was a little bit annoyed. Well, let's be truthful - I was very annoyed. They didn't even hook up the electric back up so the trailer was hot as hell inside. Could I live with it where it was? Nope. So that meant not setting it back up - no lowering the stabilizer jacks, unpacking breakables out of cabinets and drawers, and no picking stuff up off the floor since I was going to want it moved at least five feet forward. In other words, everything I had planned to do tonight if the trailer work was finished was not going to happen so that left my evening free and unscheduled. And for reasons too complex to explain here, I had a craving for an old fashioned honky-tonk. But a DWI is not something I want to experience and I have no idea if there's cab service or even an old-fashion honky-tonk around here. But I had cold beer in the fridge and a Texas Swing station already created on Pandora that would play the perfect music. And there was a cool breeze blowing outside so I cranked up the computer speakers and left the door open on the RV so I could hear it. My neighbor on the door side of my RV was gone so I could play it plenty loud and I kicked back in my lawn chair under the stars and found myself sitting in a great honky-tonk beer garden. It was a very nice couple of hours thanks to Shiner Bock, Pandora and the beautiful weather. Oh, and thanks to the stars as well - nice to be able to see so many more out here where I'm a tad bit more in the country than I used to be.

A funny thing happened last night

I took the last of the "stuff" that was getting stored over a friend's basement. I pulled into the driveway on the side of the house, a dirt driveway that I had never used before, parked and unloaded the stuff. I stayed for a short visit which was long enough for it to get dark outside so when I backed up out of the driveway in the pitch black darkness, I didn't realize I was backing up too far to the right and headed for a retainer wall that I hadn't noticed when I pulled in. Instead, I thought I was just backing up down the gentle slope to the street until... oops! Yep, the right rear wheel went over the retainer wall and the frame came to rest squarely on the wall leaving the wheel spinning freely in the air. Now I do have an SUV, but it's not four wheel drive so I definitely wasn't going anywhere. After surveying the situation I realized I probably wasn't going to have any success getting someone to pull me off of that with a pickup truck so I bit the bullet and called a wrecker to come winch me off the wall.

This event was funny for several reasons. First of all, it just IS funny - I mean, this is the sort of stupid thing that, when you see people do it, you just can't help but laugh. After all, there was no harm done - no one got hurt, not even the SUV. For the second reason, I had unexpectedly received $80 not two hours before this and guess what? The wrecker fee was $85. It was as if the universe knew I was going to pull some bonehead stunt later that day and made sure I had the cash on hand so I could just laugh about it and still get home before midnight. The third thing that makes this so funny is that I have had nightmares off and on about this exact sort of thing happening ever since I started driving a car. And of course, this was nothing like the nightmares - just a bit of a bump, the realization of what I had done and a good chuckle over it.

Hmm... I wonder if this means another recurring nightmare is about to be retired?

Countdown to a holiday weekend

I pretty much have no internet access at home these days and I've been way too busy at work to squeeze in a post. But being busy at work is good since it increases my chance of keeping this job past October when business slows down, however, I'm definitely ready for a break. Well, I've got one on the way since Monday is a holiday and for the first time in many, many years I will not have to work on the Labor Day holiday. In addition, I'll be spending the holiday weekend away from home which is also something I have not done in many, many years. My RV will be in the shop for repairs so I'm going to be staying with friends at a vacation cabin on a lake where I plan to do a lot of beer drinking, napping and book reading. There's no internet access or even cell phone access out there so it will definitely be a bit of "digital downtime" and that's going to be a welcome relief after these months working back at a call center. And there's just two more days of work to go...