* niqui really wants to blow off the rest of today and shop for yarn stuff.
<twork> s/niqui/twork/ s/ and shop for yarn stuff//
<niqui> yeah, i could s/ and shop for yarn stuff// as well.

so, road trip.

it occurred to me that when harry potter and the order of the phoenix came out, i was on vacation — you remember, the very worst vacation ever in the history of vacation-kind? — and perhaps not coincidentally, harry potter and the half-blood prince came out during this vacation. i must remember not to schedule a vacation that will coincide with the release of book seven as it appears to be a curse.

i’ll start out by saying that only very rarely a phone-call at 00h30 turns out well for me. sure, sometimes it’s the guy who found dan’s phone after he lost it dialing the last number called to ask how he could get the phone back to its rightful owner, but other times it’s someone calling to tell you that someone died, and it’s the latter type that i got early monday the 11th. so i spent monday alternately very upset and planning for a tuesday trip down south, complete with a rush trip to the north side for a pre-road trip oil change.

tuesday, 11h45m on the road for 700 miles. wednesday, thursday, friday, depressing shit. friday afternoon, on the road from south of little rock to nashville. saturday, nashville to cleveland.

don’t worry, we’re not done driving yet.

sunday, watch the white sox play the indians at jacobs field. which is a pretty nice ballpark. had a good time. mmm, pretzel. mmm, the good guys winning.

monday, tuesday, wednesday, laze around at my friends’ place. read half-blood prince (OMGWTFBBQ.) knit some stuff. watch The Incredibles because the kids were incredulous that i hadn’t seen it yet. eat delicious barbecued food. laze around some more.

thursday, hit the road again. 14h30m on the road for 700 miles. WTF? turns out the last 240 miles of that were on two-lane country highways. two-lane country highways that were under construction, so i averaged something like 30-35 mph. that kind of sucked.

friday, saturday, sunday, palavercon. fun time. shame about my overpriced hotel which was not the con hotel (boo, hiss).

monday, dover new hampshire to north east pennsylvania. not particularly tired when i pulled off to find a hotel, but had decided that 18 hours driving (to go straight through) would be a near-criminally stupid idea. turns out, didn’t matter anyways, as after i went to bed at 10PM, i could not sleep at all. got up again at 8AM EDT and lit out, stopping in cleveland to pick up my copy of order of the phoenix which i’d accidentally left at my friends’. arrived home about 7PM, unloaded the car in the pissing-down rain (with a moving truck parked in the way so i got to get extra wet). get everything up to my apartment, change into dry clothes, start going through my mail, and realize i left a houseplant in the car. stomp off in the still-pissing-down rain to the car and retrieve plant, stomp back to apartment. halfway there, hit a puddle that’s too deep for my shoe and, rather than slipping and sloshing the entire way back, take shoes off so at least i have some traction. stomp past moving guys, stomp to elevator, go upstairs, sit down, find a spot for the plant, crash.

fifty-nine hours and fifty minutes of driving, thirty-four hundred miles travelled at an average speed of 59 mph and getting an average of 32.4 miles to a gallon.

i’m thoroughly sick of driving.

really kind of would have liked to have had today off work as well, just to recover.

at least there are only two more days until the weekend.