Hibernation

This was just such a good weekend to hibernate for me. This morning, 10:00 AM was as dark as 10:00 PM, with rain on and off all morning long. This led me to knocking out my laundry several hours earlier on a Sunday than normal, since all I did this weekend was take naps throughout the day. I guess I'm making up for the lousy sleep I get during the week, and yes I know they say that getting exercise will make for better and more efficient sleep, so you won't be so tired, so you can do even more exercise which will then make you sleep even better, well you see I know there is supposed to be some up cycle to it all, but I'm on the other end of the energy spectrum, the part that is too tired to exercise, which makes my sleep lousy, well, my point is made right? I need to break that cycle, any tips?

So, I alluded to laundry a moment ago right? I'll get to that in a moment, but let me tie it in by mentioning the other things going on around here at the infamous Greentree Building, West Chester's most exclusive address! (um, not really) It's been one week since I've started walking to my car that's now in the Bicentennial Garage, since they've closed the Mosteller Garage. That'll be worth of it's own headline blog, but in a nutshell, so far so good. The other thing is there's been a change in maintenance management for the better, as I'm no longer showering in ankle deep water in my bathtub, I guess all the hair I've lost over the last 4 years living here finally managed to clog the place up. (Oh wait, unlike my brothers, I've not lost my hair, so what could it be????)

Anyway, one day coming home from work I find a note slipped under my door, (you know, it's the passive aggressive way our building managers communicate with us tenets.) to tell us they are installing new washers and dryers in the building. Are you kidding? Talk about exceeding my expectations! I had checked them out, and they are pretty cool, pure white, front end loading washing machines with black tinted windows, looking all futuristic out of 2001: a Space Odyssey.


Wait, can that statement be correct? Can something look futuristic if the aesthetic is set 8 years in the past? I guess it's easy for futurists and science fiction writers to have taken what was going on in their eras, and apply a little forward looking Darwinist evolutionary thinking to propose that if they were in 1968, by 2001 we'd have space stations and moon bases, just like with the decay that was evident in 1970's New York City, that by the late 20th Century, New York would be a dystopian, maximum security prison in need of being escaped from. Ahem. Anybody else saw The Disney Company coming into Times Square? Yea right. And no, Disney cannot be considered Dystopian...

Why do I get the feeling that my prediction of the year 2020 will have me driving a 30 year old car? I don't want to know, who moved my cheese, I want to know, where is my jetpack?

Ah the heck with it, it looks like rain again, I'm going to take a nap...rawr! (That's my bear imitation, woof, woof woof, that's my other dog imitation.)
Any body who can name where that last reference is from, (other than Ralph), I'll buy them a Coke. Ya Oddball!

Oh and if this post seemed to ramble, remember, I'm only now coming out of hybernation.

I got my scooter back, scooter back, scooter back, ribs...(sorry)

So yesterday I got my scooter back from the shop where it had a recall notice taken care of an it's 700 mile checkup done. Of course I drove it all over town, you know, to break it in, and check out what's new in town.

Obviously this sweet photo is from the roof of the Mosteller Garage, soon to be demolished, in what, maybe June, July? I'm not going to worry about it until I need to worry about it. Did you notice the decal on the front above the headlight? That's the US Army Senior Aircrew Wings the kind I earned in the Army. It should make the scooter go that much faster, that's how it works right?

One of the things I did was stop by the West Chester Farmer's Market, where a man stopped me to ask about the scooter. He was a man in his late 50's early 60's perhaps, and mentioned that he hadn't ridden a scooter since his youth in England. So that put him riding around about the same time as the whole "Mod" scene back in the early to mid 60's. I told him I was going to put a whole bunch of rear view mirrors, an RAF rondel, and wear Italian suits while riding around town, and he laughed.

That's Sting, from the movie Quadrophenia, you know?

If the weather holds up, I'll start riding it to work this week. Sure the summer of nearly 5 dollar gasoline seems to have passed, so any sort of calculations I've done on the scooter paying for itself have gone out the window, but still, it's fun to ride, so what other excuse do I need?

The Evil Midnight Bomber what bombs at Midnight

"So he says to me, you gotta do something smart, baby, something big! He says you want to be a supervillain, right, and I go yeah baby, yeah yeah! What do I gotta do? He says you got bombs, blow up the Comet Club, it's packed with superheroes…you'll go down in supervillain history and I go Yeah baby 'cause I'm the Evil Midnight Bomber what Bombs at Midnight!!! Ah ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!"

Let me start off by saying....I really don't need this. Honestly, lately, my life has been hard enough. The stock market sucks, work is stressing me the hell out, my love life has taken one bizarre turn after the other, a part of one of my back molars broke off, and my back, I don't know what I did to my back, but I must have pulled something or pinched something but I was finding it damn hard to move for about 3 days. I've also done a crappy job staying in touch with friends and family since I've been so bummed lately.

Now this.

Bomb found at parking garage

I'm going to work this morning, and as you know my commute starts off by taking the old school elevator down to the first floor of my building, turning the corner to walk the 20 steps down Prescott Alley, into the parking garage, and then either into my car or on the scooter and off to work. What was I met with when I approached the garage? A cop, and yellow crime scene tape.

My first thought was, "Jumper". I know things are bad, but when I was kid, I passed a similar scene in Winter Park, at the old Langford Hotel, where somebody did a swan dive from the 6th floor. When I asked the cop if I could get my car, he asked me where it was, (in the corner of the second deck) and he said, "Yea you better get it, because that's right above where the suspicious package is, but keep that under your hat."

Oh God.

You know, with Lehman Brothers going belly up, Mother Merrill getting bought by BoA, (as a side note, I got more than a little Schadenfraud going on as a former laid off Merrill Lynch employee) I was more concerned about getting to work knowing it was going to be a rough day, so I was really thinking that was more important to get to work than worry about some stupid hoax. It never occurred to me for a second that it was real.

Turns out, this area has been plagued for a few years by "The Suburban Bomber" who the FBI at one time thought might have been Nick Berg, I mean who knew?

At this point, I can only laugh. Turns out it was the real deal, and we're lucky it was diffused, and who knows what could have happened to my scooter, my car or, um, oh yea, me!

That's why the only way I can deal with it, since I've had a pretty lousy track record of coping lately is make fun of it, and what better way than by associate it with the ridiculously insane, Dennis Hopper-ish sounding mad man than The Evil Midnight Bomber what bombs at Midnight?

Life is ludicrous as it is, so best to take care of yourself, not take life to seriously, and as bad as it is sometimes, it could always be worse. God it could be infinitely better, but best to take what you got and not raise a fuss.

The Countdown begins....Goodbye Mosteller Garage, Hello ???

I participated in my first civic anything, which was a public discussion of the plans for the demolition of the old Mosteller Garage, to be replaced by what I assume will be called, the New Mosteller Garage. There were some cool pictures of Parking Garages built already around the country to serve as an example of what we as a town could have built, including the "award winning" Bicentennial Garage on South High Street. (Can you imagine what the award ceremony is like for the organization that recognizes great parking garages? I wonder if there is a red carpet and after parties)

Anyway, it was pretty cool, there seemed to be some confusion about the potential demand for spaces in the new garage, what with Jurors coming to serve in the courthouse going to the new Justice Center parking garage, and with the YMCA moving to Airport Road, no more people in Spandex. Seriously though, it seems like the only time I have a hard time finding a parking space is when I'm coming home from work, and there are many ghosts and pirates and princesses and their parents pushing strollers on their way to the Halloween and Christmas parades. That said, since it is my home garage, I'd like to park my car and scooter there on a Friday night, and come back to them without having the bow ties on my Chevy ripped off, or my scooter lying on it's side. (The first thing happened, the second thing hasn't happened yet, knock on wood)

It was also pretty cool to see the movers and shakers of West Chester, Jim Jones was there, of WCJim.com, as he is the Ward 6 councilperson. He introduced me to Cassandra Jones, my Ward 2 councilperson. I was very warmly greeted and asked to come back to more meetings, which I will for sure, because the longer I live in the Dub-C, the more I like it. Years ago I had always wanted to live in a hipster town ever since I visited my friends in Seattle and Portland. I kind of almost did when I lived in Salt Lake City, I took a step back to Suburbia when I lived in Denver, and Bensalem and Croyden, but I really feel like a combination of luck and more luck finds me here, and I'm not going anywhere, even if it means that we are looking at 14 months starting in April of 2009 of me being without my easy parking deal.