Song in my head right now: Norah Jones' "The Long Day Is Over." No insight or philosophical musings here; just a boring summary of the day's events.

I think as the 24th and my departure to Japan approaches, I feel this new impulse in me to try and get as much accomplished as I can before I leave. This of course clashes with my familar impulse of just laying back and taking things easy, AKA slacking.

Oh, the conflict.

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Part 1

Anyways, I left the house early this morning around 9:15 AM to try and go to the Japanese Consulate-General's office in downtown Seattle to finish up some travel paperwork. I was hoping traffic would be better around that time, but much to my disgust, the crap-tastic traffic was backed up on I-5 early and by the time I was near the Swift & Albro exit, it was already around 10:00 AM. This is an important detail because the consulate office is closed 11-1 for lunch... who knew those ambassadorial folks like 2 hours lunches? Since I had no idea how long the paperwork would take, I diverted to CBC instead.

In any case, I was supposed to meet with Dave at CBC to help get the ball rolling on some video filming and editing - Dave got the church to purchase a digital video camera for future ministry projects. The plan was to meet around 11, so I hung out in the church library for a bit, trying to prep some paperwork for my trip to the consulate later in the day. Dave came around 12... apparently the Mrs. caused him to be late. He still needed buy some DDR-RAM for the editing computer and some mini-DV tapes for the camera, so we went to Costco... where we encountered checkout lines from Hell. Not as bad as when I went to the opening of Fry's, but still bad. Of course, the worst line happens to be the one Dave gets stuck in... some idiot lady buys over $1200 worth of stuff and when it's rung up, she decides she wants to return $200 of it. Geez, Costco needs moron screening at the door.

Dave eventually escapes the line and our anger and rage are calmed by the most excellent Costco meal of a $1.50 Polish sausage and drink... with free refills. While Dave was enduring the lines of Satan, I jumped into the food line to score us the grub.

We got back to the church around 1:30 PM, but again we were foiled... turns out his user account on the computer we were to use for editing was not given privileges for installing Adobe Premiere or the drivers for the camera. On top of that, our church's computer guy was nowhere to be found via phone. Bah! Dave and I pretty much agreed to meet another day and nix our efforts for the day... this is around 2:15ish.

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Part 2


I drive down to the city and find that downtown Seattle's traffic is still crap-tastic at 2 in the afternoon. In retrospect, I should have drafted a friend who was free, so I could just get dropped off at the consulate and not worry about parking. I try to hunt for street parking, but the cause is as lost and gone as Britney Spear's virginity. It's close to 3:00 pm and I'm getting antsy because the Consulate closes at 4, so I resign myself to parking in the building's underground parking lot, knowing those greedy bastards are gonna charge me all I got.

It takes a little bit of navigating around the building's lobby, but eventually I find my way to an elevator that takes me to the 5th floor, where the consulate is at. The place is completely empty, so I'm relieved to not have to wait in any lines. I step up to the window, pass the paperwork, answer some questions, and get a ticket to pick-up the finalized work visa on Friday. Yay... the time: 3:20 pm.

I'm exiting the parking garage and right when I'm turning into the pay booth, handling the steering wheel with both hands, I drop my parking ticket, losing into the car. I scramble around looking for it for like 5 minutes while pissed up people honk behind me. Not wanting to get lynched in the parking garage, I manage to pull over to the side to look for the ticket. In the dimly lit garage, I can't see very well, so I end up having to dig my trusty flashlight out of my glove compartment to find the stupid little parking ticket. Thoroughly embarassed, I pull up again to the booth, wondering how much it's gonna cost me for parking in this building for about 20 minutes.

Seven dollars?!! The hell... I rolled my eyes and paid without whining. Some days, you just have to bend over and accept the unavoidable facts that you're getting molested. Navigating out of downtown to get back to the freeway sucked another 15 minutes of life from me.

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Part 3


The crowded lanes I-5 and 520 are somewhat crappy, but I manage to make it to work in Bellevue around 4pm. Work is pretty busy, and there's a lot to do, but I think somehow, my low energy keeps me from being as productive as possible. My boss has to leave early for his honey moon, so everyone bounces around 7:30pm, me with a backlog still to do. Man, I hate being behind at work.

One bright spot of the day: reading amusing e-mails from the wedding party about plans for Dave's Wedding Party. Best quote: I don't invite all of Dave's Ex-Girlfriends to strip... they're my exs too. Puwahahaha.

So I got home about an hour ago. I'm beat. Time to OD on war-crack before tomorrow comes to soon. I hate being this kind of busy... hrmph.
posted by G at 9:02 PM   |

in?scrip?tion (n-skrip-shun)n.
1. The act or an instance of inscribing.
2. Something, such as the wording on a coin, medal, monument, or seal, that is inscribed.
3. A short, signed message in a book or on a photograph given as a gift.
4. The usually informal dedication of an artistic work.
5. Jeremiah 31:33