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maniacmarshallThis is actually mostly a report of bizare things that happened the week before the con, though there are a few con tie in's as well. Since it's SO long, Ill put it under a cut.
It was on the Wednesday before the con that things start to go hideously, hideously wrong.
I'm headed down to visit my son, who lives about 4 hours away. We're going to have his "birthday party", this W-R-F since his actual birthday falls during the con, and since he had plans to be out of town anyway.
I have a flat tire on the way down, about 10 miles from where he lives. I get out to try to change it, and it starts literally POURING on me. We're talking tropical storm levels here. Some nice people stop and call the Marion County police to come give us a hand (my phone had no service there), which is a good idea since my jack is, by now, sunk into the mud by the side of the road (note to self, get that hydraulic jack soon).
After the rain lets up, we continue the "hopeless" effort while waiting for the police, which turns out to be a good thing, since the police NEVER show up. About two hours, and one falling off the jack moment (note to self, get that hydraulic jack soon!) we finally manage to get the baby spare on in time that I should be able to make it to Wal-Mart to get a tire before they close... except, five miles down the road, the baby spare blows out (I swear I'm NOT making this up). My ex wife refuses to leave Kevin (he's 13 if you are wondering) alone for 15-20 minutes to come drop me and my rim off at Wal-Mart before they close (She's usually not like this. We have a pretty good relationship, we usually can work everything out amicably, and you can probably count on one hand the number of times over the last 10 years that I have wanted to choke to choke the shit out of her, but this one was worthy of one of those fingers, maybe even the middle one...)
Fortunately, this time I was able to get to a gas station and call for after hours help to bring me a tire. Of course, this leaves me waiting for about ANOTHER two hours, and puts me out over 200 bucks for the tire. I have AAA from my phone, but I get absolutely NO signal there, so I have to pay for it myself...
By this time it's late, and I'm a miserable drowned and mud caked rat, so I just go to the hotel rather than dropping by.
The party on Thursday went off very well (at least something did!), however, when it came time to go back home on Friday, he wanted to go to Wal-Mart with me so he could show me some games that he wanted for Christmas. Wal-Mart is on my way home, so I'm following them when suddenly I have an -omg there is a red light where did that light come from?- moment. I DID see a light there, but, I swear my brain has made it part of a light pair. By the time I realize what's going on, it's too late. I'm in the middle of the intersection. Fortunately, the light has JUST turned red, and no one has started into the intersection yet. Unfortunately, the guy behind me is Officer Bob in an unmarked. Rather than stop right on the street, I go up half a block and pull into the Holiday Inn parking lot.
Fortunately, I get a "good cop" who simply asks me what the hell happened back there with a chuckle. I tell him I swear I didn't see that light till it was too late, and that I'm sure I need a ticket for that. I ask him if he minds if I go in and pee while he writes me up. He says sure, go ahead. At this point, some evil demon possesses me with the idea that I should throw the keys onto the seat before I leave... don't ask me why, because I have no clue. So I throw the keys onto the seat, and close the door. When I return I discover that I've locked my keys (and my cell phone, which is ringing because my son is calling me to see where the hell I am) in the car. Seriously, this really happened. I'm SUCH a dork sometimes.
On the plus side, officer Bob just gives me a warning ticket. Seems the reason I didn't "see" the light is, not only wasn't it there when I lived in town, it was actually just put up a few weeks earlier. So basically, my brain was conditioned to the idea that there was not a light there. Apparently, a LOT of other people have been doing the same thing it seems, so I was let off with a "No harm, no foul" He also got someone out to open my door in less than 15 minutes, and the guy did not even charge me, for which I was beyond grateful.
Able to retrieve my cell phone at last, I call and let my son know where I am and that I'll be there shortly. The whole Wal-Mart thing goes well at least.
It's 4:30 when we come out of Wal-Mart and I start for home. I've left my cell phone in the car on the charger. I come out to find I have a message. I listen to the message, and WTF, it's a collection agency demanding over $4,000 bucks within 30 days?!
I can not even BEGIN to figure out what the hell is going on with this, so I call them. Supposedly, I owe a hospital where I used to live and work over $3,000 bucks they say, but they can not tell me what that's all about (they cite patient confidentiality). I have not even set foot in that hospital for more than THREE YEARS. I have received NOTHING in the mail from them for at least TWO years. I have NO idea what's going on, so I decide the best thing to do is to just take a personal day (thank goodness I still had one!) to go over there on Monday and find out. The hospital is two hours away, but on my way to where I needed to be later that night.
Now we finally get to things that have some relationship to the con!
A week before the con, It looks like we have eight people coming, which is down from the nine we had at the beginning, but still not bad. It was my plan to try to get as many of my and Rachel's friends to come up this year as I could, since it was 1) In August instead of the usual October and 2) NASFiC.
Frankly, I don't think Rachel even bothered to really ask people, other than making a hasty entry in her LJ. That's a shame, as I've wanted to get a chance to really meet some of her friends. There were 3 or 4 of them that I especially thought sounded like fun, and fascinating people. I suspect her natural shyness was mostly to blame...
I offered people a free hotel room, and help paying for airline/bus tickets to get here. Heck, I even offered to feed them and show off the city before the con if they came early. All I asked from them was to pay for their ticket to the con itself, which was an outrageous $90+ this year (gouging anyone?) So anyway, I was looking forward to getting to meet a lot of people that I've talked to online for a while now.
When I get home, that Friday, I get the news that my friend Thorne, who I've played online MMO war games with for like 7 or so years, and who just lives about 2 hours away in Springfield (Why the hell is it that we have never met? I drive past there every time I go visit my son or my mom. Honestly, we need to just arrange a get together soon.) has had his hours cut just today. He was going to get his badge at the door, but now thinks it's best if he and his lady friend don't go, which I completely understand.
Not fifteen minutes later, Eliminator aims me. It seems that Elim's parents suddenly decide they don't want him going to some con with people they have never met. The kid is 18, and I've known him online since he was 11, but I can't say it was a complete surprise, and it does save us the logistical problem of driving to Clarksville TN to pick him up.
So I get out the cell phone and call the other Rachel (we'll just call her BD from now on to avoid confusion) to see if she minds if we just have one room since we are down to 5 people. She tells me that just in the last hour or so, John has called her and said that HE can't make it either... I can't say that one broke my heart, as he's the one person I really didn't know that was supposedly coming.
Fortunately, all this happened in time for me to call Drury and cancel the other room.
This brings us to Monday. I call the hospital on the way, and talk to various departments. this hospital has a complicated structure, so I had to make several calls to try to figure out what branch was trying to say I owed them money. None of them seemed to have any record of me owing money. Finally a light bulb goes off. I call human resource, and, yep, it's not a hospital bill at all. It's the hospital claiming that when I left, I was in breech of contract and owed them some of my signing bonus back. After some hasty phone conversations, I conclude the best course of action at this point is just to drop by and pay them the $3k bucks and fight them later, since they are willing to take it out of collection if I do. Nothing like a collection agency charging $1050 to try to collect a $3k debit....
I drop back by to see my son and take him to the county fair after this fiasco, since he lives 30 minutes from where I'm picking BD and Dustin up off the bus later that night. That goes well. We even play some video games before he heads off to bed. Then head down to Mount Vernon to the hotel to get some sleep... (to be continued)
I'm headed down to visit my son, who lives about 4 hours away. We're going to have his "birthday party", this W-R-F since his actual birthday falls during the con, and since he had plans to be out of town anyway.
I have a flat tire on the way down, about 10 miles from where he lives. I get out to try to change it, and it starts literally POURING on me. We're talking tropical storm levels here. Some nice people stop and call the Marion County police to come give us a hand (my phone had no service there), which is a good idea since my jack is, by now, sunk into the mud by the side of the road (note to self, get that hydraulic jack soon).
After the rain lets up, we continue the "hopeless" effort while waiting for the police, which turns out to be a good thing, since the police NEVER show up. About two hours, and one falling off the jack moment (note to self, get that hydraulic jack soon!) we finally manage to get the baby spare on in time that I should be able to make it to Wal-Mart to get a tire before they close... except, five miles down the road, the baby spare blows out (I swear I'm NOT making this up). My ex wife refuses to leave Kevin (he's 13 if you are wondering) alone for 15-20 minutes to come drop me and my rim off at Wal-Mart before they close (She's usually not like this. We have a pretty good relationship, we usually can work everything out amicably, and you can probably count on one hand the number of times over the last 10 years that I have wanted to choke to choke the shit out of her, but this one was worthy of one of those fingers, maybe even the middle one...)
Fortunately, this time I was able to get to a gas station and call for after hours help to bring me a tire. Of course, this leaves me waiting for about ANOTHER two hours, and puts me out over 200 bucks for the tire. I have AAA from my phone, but I get absolutely NO signal there, so I have to pay for it myself...
By this time it's late, and I'm a miserable drowned and mud caked rat, so I just go to the hotel rather than dropping by.
The party on Thursday went off very well (at least something did!), however, when it came time to go back home on Friday, he wanted to go to Wal-Mart with me so he could show me some games that he wanted for Christmas. Wal-Mart is on my way home, so I'm following them when suddenly I have an -omg there is a red light where did that light come from?- moment. I DID see a light there, but, I swear my brain has made it part of a light pair. By the time I realize what's going on, it's too late. I'm in the middle of the intersection. Fortunately, the light has JUST turned red, and no one has started into the intersection yet. Unfortunately, the guy behind me is Officer Bob in an unmarked. Rather than stop right on the street, I go up half a block and pull into the Holiday Inn parking lot.
Fortunately, I get a "good cop" who simply asks me what the hell happened back there with a chuckle. I tell him I swear I didn't see that light till it was too late, and that I'm sure I need a ticket for that. I ask him if he minds if I go in and pee while he writes me up. He says sure, go ahead. At this point, some evil demon possesses me with the idea that I should throw the keys onto the seat before I leave... don't ask me why, because I have no clue. So I throw the keys onto the seat, and close the door. When I return I discover that I've locked my keys (and my cell phone, which is ringing because my son is calling me to see where the hell I am) in the car. Seriously, this really happened. I'm SUCH a dork sometimes.
On the plus side, officer Bob just gives me a warning ticket. Seems the reason I didn't "see" the light is, not only wasn't it there when I lived in town, it was actually just put up a few weeks earlier. So basically, my brain was conditioned to the idea that there was not a light there. Apparently, a LOT of other people have been doing the same thing it seems, so I was let off with a "No harm, no foul" He also got someone out to open my door in less than 15 minutes, and the guy did not even charge me, for which I was beyond grateful.
Able to retrieve my cell phone at last, I call and let my son know where I am and that I'll be there shortly. The whole Wal-Mart thing goes well at least.
It's 4:30 when we come out of Wal-Mart and I start for home. I've left my cell phone in the car on the charger. I come out to find I have a message. I listen to the message, and WTF, it's a collection agency demanding over $4,000 bucks within 30 days?!
I can not even BEGIN to figure out what the hell is going on with this, so I call them. Supposedly, I owe a hospital where I used to live and work over $3,000 bucks they say, but they can not tell me what that's all about (they cite patient confidentiality). I have not even set foot in that hospital for more than THREE YEARS. I have received NOTHING in the mail from them for at least TWO years. I have NO idea what's going on, so I decide the best thing to do is to just take a personal day (thank goodness I still had one!) to go over there on Monday and find out. The hospital is two hours away, but on my way to where I needed to be later that night.
Now we finally get to things that have some relationship to the con!
A week before the con, It looks like we have eight people coming, which is down from the nine we had at the beginning, but still not bad. It was my plan to try to get as many of my and Rachel's friends to come up this year as I could, since it was 1) In August instead of the usual October and 2) NASFiC.
Frankly, I don't think Rachel even bothered to really ask people, other than making a hasty entry in her LJ. That's a shame, as I've wanted to get a chance to really meet some of her friends. There were 3 or 4 of them that I especially thought sounded like fun, and fascinating people. I suspect her natural shyness was mostly to blame...
I offered people a free hotel room, and help paying for airline/bus tickets to get here. Heck, I even offered to feed them and show off the city before the con if they came early. All I asked from them was to pay for their ticket to the con itself, which was an outrageous $90+ this year (gouging anyone?) So anyway, I was looking forward to getting to meet a lot of people that I've talked to online for a while now.
When I get home, that Friday, I get the news that my friend Thorne, who I've played online MMO war games with for like 7 or so years, and who just lives about 2 hours away in Springfield (Why the hell is it that we have never met? I drive past there every time I go visit my son or my mom. Honestly, we need to just arrange a get together soon.) has had his hours cut just today. He was going to get his badge at the door, but now thinks it's best if he and his lady friend don't go, which I completely understand.
Not fifteen minutes later, Eliminator aims me. It seems that Elim's parents suddenly decide they don't want him going to some con with people they have never met. The kid is 18, and I've known him online since he was 11, but I can't say it was a complete surprise, and it does save us the logistical problem of driving to Clarksville TN to pick him up.
So I get out the cell phone and call the other Rachel (we'll just call her BD from now on to avoid confusion) to see if she minds if we just have one room since we are down to 5 people. She tells me that just in the last hour or so, John has called her and said that HE can't make it either... I can't say that one broke my heart, as he's the one person I really didn't know that was supposedly coming.
Fortunately, all this happened in time for me to call Drury and cancel the other room.
This brings us to Monday. I call the hospital on the way, and talk to various departments. this hospital has a complicated structure, so I had to make several calls to try to figure out what branch was trying to say I owed them money. None of them seemed to have any record of me owing money. Finally a light bulb goes off. I call human resource, and, yep, it's not a hospital bill at all. It's the hospital claiming that when I left, I was in breech of contract and owed them some of my signing bonus back. After some hasty phone conversations, I conclude the best course of action at this point is just to drop by and pay them the $3k bucks and fight them later, since they are willing to take it out of collection if I do. Nothing like a collection agency charging $1050 to try to collect a $3k debit....
I drop back by to see my son and take him to the county fair after this fiasco, since he lives 30 minutes from where I'm picking BD and Dustin up off the bus later that night. That goes well. We even play some video games before he heads off to bed. Then head down to Mount Vernon to the hotel to get some sleep... (to be continued)
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no subject
Date: 2007-09-06 11:05 pm (UTC)It turns out that the CIA meeting is ALSO the 15th, so I probably will go to that since it's about 650 miles closer to home ;) . I'm glad you posted though, because I needed to get ahold of you, and Rachel has your email addy and is still in Atlanta.
The day of the Police Concert happens to be the 3rd saturday of the month, so it would be a meeting saturday by coincidence. I think we will just come in November (I should have no problem getting that day off).
Are you interested in going to see The Police when they are in Atlanta? The show is sold out and the ticket prices are being scalped for more there than ANYWHERE the entire tour of course, but there are some semi decent tickets for about $200 each :(
I naturally assumed Rachel got our tickets during the presale, but no... sigh. Before we got tickets, I thought I'd double check to see if you guys were interested in coming.
Oh, and community joined :)
no subject
Date: 2007-09-07 05:10 am (UTC)Are you interested in going to see The Police when they are in Atlanta? The show is sold out and the ticket prices are being scalped for more there than ANYWHERE the entire tour of course, but there are some semi decent tickets for about $200 each :(
I naturally assumed Rachel got our tickets during the presale, but no... sigh. Before we got tickets, I thought I'd double check to see if you guys were interested in coming.
Well, I didn't even know that the tickets had gone on sale yet. :( See how little I pay attention to things around here? Would love to see the Police! However, the prices sound beyond crazy. I did see Sting on his Dream of the Blue Turtles tour in the mid-80s, but that wasn't the Police, of course.
And of course the scalpers get higher prices here. Atlanta and Fulton co. are corrupt places. Dekalb co. next door isn't much better. The governments are run (more like ruined) by ignorant and bad people. I lived in Fulton co. for less than a year, and am quite happy to be north of all that.
Btw, if you are looking for DW icons, try
And I also friended Rachel's LJ, but couldn't comment since it's Friends-Only. I do that myself, so no problem. I also emailed her that I did. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-09-07 05:22 am (UTC)The tickets there STARTED OUT higher than they did other places, even New York, Chicago, and Boston, although those places had multiple shows.
One thing working against us is that is the FINAL stop on the tour, and it is therefore possible that attending will mean you see the LAST EVER Police Concert. I'm guessing that jacked prices as well =/
If you are interested, I just need to see if we can get 4 together at an acceptable price. You could pay us later. There ARE tickets going for like $120 bucks, but they are all behind the stage/obstructed view, and I'd rather not do that if it's avoidable.