Road Trip!

I have a weird story from the night to mention off the top. I was having a nightmare that I forgot some aspect of a customers order for the year. It was something that I did forget to follow up on. Unbeknowst to me, I emailed myself about the issue. My subconscious to the rescue. I was up at 3am for that, and again at 5am to pee, and again at quarter after six, finally succumbing to wakefulness at twenty to eight. The scramble was on from there. I had a call at half eight so was able to still have breakfass but it was at my desk, while on a call. Had to turn off my camera for a spell. I reviewed my old emails and discovered that my nightmare and email were appropriate but it was in the customer’s camp. I reached out and they had realized the same thing the day before. Weird situation all around. At least they didn’t have a nightmare about it. The rest of the morning was pretty fast paced. We have all our paperwork to get stuff shipped finally. Or a version of what we need. When systems hold up a seemingly simple process I think that is easily the most frustrating part of my world. The seed is all there and ready to go but we’re delayed because we can’t do something in a system. It is such a stupid reason to give for why they can’t have what they need. It drives me bananas. It is also completely out of my control, which I also don’t like since I’m the one who is responsible for the transaction. Some days I’m fit to be tied. I spent the last half hour of the morning cleaning up email and preparing to be away from my desk for a bit. I found it hard to break the connection. Pretty gross actually. I had to get on the road after all, what?!?

I had agreed to go pick up some seed from one location and move it to our warehouse so it could be combined with a customer’s order and they’d only have to arrange one trip and the place I was getting it wouldn’t have to make a special trip to our warehouse. Plus I felt like I was due for an afternoon away from my computer. The day was most overcast and snowed a couple times on and off. Not ideal for a drive but still pretty sweet. I put on my new audiobook. Another Drizz’t story, the first of the Icewind Dale trilogy. I consider it research since the legend himself is involved in the D&D campaign currently. I grabbed a McLunch on the way out of town and filled my fuel to capacity. It was like a mini-holiday for me, time away from constant emails.

As it turned out I was about fifteen minutes early for the time I said I’d be arriving so I drove the extra couple miles to the shore of Lake Erie. It’s fairly rare that I get to see the great lake nowadays so I took the time. There was an older man that pulled up a few minutes later and just sat in his car and didn’t move at all, kinda creepy actually. I got out and would have liked to go sit on the little pier. The wind was much more intense than the photo belies and the waves were licking up but it was still refeshing. I drank in the scenery for about five minutes and then headed back to duty. I picked up a partial skid of soybean and went on my way. I pulled over a couple miles away so they couldn’t see me being hyper safe. The bags were wrapped and it was flapping so I put two of the ratchet straps I’d purchased before Christmas last year over top in the requiste X pattern dictated for such a load and that seemed to get things under control enough that I decided to take the big highway rather than risk the two lane road that could have slow drivers. I made the drop and got back into my own town about an hour ahead of dinner time. Since I was out and about anyways I ripped into the local Wendy’s to get a baconator. After all, the meal board said take out on it.My inspiration being to mentally compare the real deal to the Pringles I’d eaten the previous weekend. They are a poor imitation of this behemoth.

I scuttled up to my desk with a full gullet to answer emails and keep things moving along. At half five I powered it down. It felt weird to be out and doing work away from my computer. I felt almost guilty, that I shouldn’t have been doing that. I found that to be alarming, and had to rationalize with myself that I was doing my job. I don’t like that line of thinking at all, it’s not right. Once I’d come to terms with that I figured I’d better get my taxes going. H&R Block had called me during the day to let me know I needed to file by the end of the month. That’s only partially true, I could file at any point during the year since I’d filed last year. Nice try. But I did want to get that task completed. I gathered my files and all my gear I need to go out in the pandemic and made the voyage to the other end of town to drop off my materials. I got back in the truck around twenty after seven. I got a call roughly an hour later telling me that they were done and I could pick them up. I think when I used to do them in person it was around a half hour so pretty much spot on. My return was going to be the biggest in a long time. This was because I paid more tax than ever in my life and also because I made some other financial moves to cover myself. I watched the Leafs get a much needed win for the rest of the evening and I got to sleep at a good time. I was dozing ahead of ten for once. A good day all around.