Grumpier Old Sore Man

Alternate Title: Hidden Nail, Crouching Toe

Alternate Alternate Title: This Ain't No Seattle Grace

Nothing beats fate taking another quick, hard swing at a downed guy. It's almost as if fate is taunting me while I roll on the ground crutching onto my sack of balls in pain before kicking me yet again in the nuts. Yeah, I love this feeling...

As if having to adjust to the new Southwest flight that departs on Sundays at 20:00 after Southwest Airlines discontinued the 15:50 direct flight wasn't enough, I had to accidentally leave my Shure noise-blocking earphones at home, thus making the four and a half hour plane ride for a miserable hell. Well, at least I spent part of the flight writing my previous blog.

And to sweeten the wholesome experience, I ended up visiting the Emergency Room on Monday instead of going to work.

Yippie yay. Give me a cheer...

As I rose out of bed in all of my naked morning glory, I hit the Snooze button for the final time and stumbled around the room. As usual when I stay at the Downtown Seattle Hilton every week, I'd look out the peephole of my door, hold my breath and listen hard for signs of any other hotel guests walking by my room. After all, the last thing I want to do is to accidentally flash some poor fellow patron with a good view of my other moustache.

When I thought things were in the clear, I cracked open the door a good foot apart, took a step forward, and bent down to get my fresh, crisp copy of the USA Today paper while my banana and plums hung out there as if they were ripen to pluck off the bushes. But yesterday, when I took that fateful first step after revealing my naked self to the hallway, I felt a sharp pain. I let out a brief OUCH! before hurriedly grabbing the newspaper and closing the door shut.

What the fuck was that?

I must've stepped on an exposed nail of a carpet tack strip! I bent down and felt the carpet with the palms of my hand, and felt nothing in the area of an inch from the edge of the door edge. Thinking it was just nothing and that I had an overly sensitive feet bottom that morning, I proceeded to the bathroom while I take my leisurely dump while reading my fresh newspaper.

Interesting... The United States is in a rock and hard place with Pervez Musharraf's recent abandonment of the Pakistani Constitution. What will Dubya do?

After I had read a couple more articles and wiped my ass in satisfaction, I prepared to get up from my porcelain throne before I suddenly noticed something in the bathroom rug. A red dot.

What the...?

I moved my right foot away and there was yet another red dot on the rug! Before long, a huge, giant light bulb came on in my head! I flipped my right foot over, and I found my big toe with broken skin and blood oozing out of the little hole.

Great! My suckiness apparently will be continuing into the new day...

While I was still naked (after I had wiped my ass and flushed the toilet), I began to do the whole CSI thing and investigate what had happened. Surely enough, I found a nail sticking out about a quarter of a centimeter from the carpet! Holy moly!!!

Instinctively, my recessive Asian genes became dominant suddenly and I decided to start taking pictures of whatever evidence I could gather. If it wasn't for Erin and her experience this past year with a hotel where it disclaimed any responsibility for the injury she had gotten during her stay, I would not have thought about being a savvy crime scene investigator. I needed all the ammo I could gather to force the hotel into:
A) paying for all my medical bill without making a claim against my health insurance,
B) comp'ing one night of my hotel stay if the whole ordeal was going to take the entire day, thus missing a day of work (which did happen), and
C) providing me with Hilton Hhonors points to compensate for my inconvenience.

As if luck would have it, fate picked the perfect day for me to get injured by my hotel room. All the managers were not available, as there was a board meeting which required all managers to attend. I asked to speak with the secretary of the General Manager, hoping that she could interrupt the meeting to inform some manager that one of their valued guests was injured and needed medical attention. Pronto. But no luck.

Grrr...

I tried to remember from my high school biology class about tetanus, and I knew I had to get a shot of some kind, and that there was a period of time I would be okay before getting lockjaw. In my mind, I thought it was 12 hours, so I told her that I would wait till the meeting concludes. The last thing I want to do is take the General Manager's business card to the hospital and inform the triage person that my bill will be covered by the hotel, and that the business card would be used as, uhm, collateral. Yeah right!

Soon enough, Joe, a controller in accounting decided to take matters into his own hands. He gave me $20 for the cab fare to and from the Swedish Medical Hospital, and gave me his business card so that the triage person could call him directly and obtain the necessary financial and insurance information from the hotel. So off I went.

Of course, after waiting almost an hour in the lobby, I finally got admitted. I couldn't believe it took an hour on a slow day. I'd hate to see how long it will take for me to even tell someone my name, address and date of birth during a busy night! And of course, after getting admitted, I waited and waited for almost another hour before being escorted to a room in the Emergency Department. And the kicker? I waited yet another hour in my room before a nurse even came to check my vitals before an attending could see me.

By the time all was said and done, it was almost 16:00 by the time I returned to my hotel. It was simply wishful thinking that it might be a quick ordeal and still allow me to go to work. So basically, I lugged around my laptop bag in the cab, then the hospital, for nothing! And I returned to my hotel room with a sore arm, because the doctor said that since it was a nail that I stepped on and the last time I had a tetanus shot was eight years ago, it was probably best to give me another shot.

Lucky for me, tetanus shots are one of the most painful vaccines. No, not painful as in when the needle gets inserted into your muscle, but the lingering effects for days afterwards. And I have never been afraid of needles anyway, as I was one of those odd kids who enjoys watching the needle go in.

When I got back, I talked to Joe and reiterated my list of demands. I should have added this to the list:
D) Buy me lunch.
After all, I had spent all day in the freaking hospital without food.

Well, it is now Tuesday, and I can say for sure that the CDC wasn't kidding in their pamphlet when they indicated that tetanus shots were one of the most painful vaccinations. My left are is sore and painful, as if I had been tackled high and hard on the field.

Now, I'm just a grumpy old sore man.

Below are pictures and (yes, I wrote and) videos!!! Enjoy!!!

The Last Day's Luck

Seriously! What the hell?!? Saturday night was going to be my last overnight work with my current client, as there were only 5.5 hours left in the contract. It kind of sucked that I have to spend my last remaining hours of this gig alone in a non-air conditioned building in the middle of summer. (Cheap bastards, I tell ya! They can't even turn on the air conditioner after 19:00 during the weekdays, or all day during the weekend, unless some department pays through their internal funny money for the service with days in advance, which my client's department was unwilling to do so.) But fate has a funny way of screwing around with me.

With the current project since January of this year, I have had to come in to Schaumburg in all sorts of hours: early morning rush hour, 10:00 post rush hour, afternoon pre rush hour, evening hours, all of which were both for weekdays and weekends, and late night hours (anything past 22:00). Save for late night hours, I have never had the luck of making it to Schaumburg faster than 48 minutes. First, there is the horrendous road that I have to trek across from where I live to the highway, littered with traffic lights and dumbass drivers. Then there is the I-90/I-94/I-190 traffic which seems to be omni-present. I suspect the reason for that is because O'Hare is the busiest airport in the United States, and there never is a lack of people going to pick up someone or dropping off someone at O'Hare at all kinds of hours.

So I've been dealing with commutes that have ranged from 48 minutes to near a couple hours every day I go to Schaumburg. It typically is worse during the weekend, because people tend to want to drive to God-knows-where in the weekends. But earlier today, with my drive starting at 20:01, a time typically at the height of its worst, I somehow made it to the highway in 20 minutes! And mysteriously, the highway was flowing at a respectable 70 miles an hour (in a 55 mph limit)!

It was as if I had suddenly entered a magical world, where irritating drivers and annoying traffic just suddenly disappeared. Better yet, I was blessed with pretty much all green lights on my way to the highway, a practical first! So rare is something like that to happen that I'm sure that the odds makers in Las Vegas would have pegged better odds of doomsday occurring before something like what I experienced today! All in all, my drive to Schaumburg took only 36 minutes.

Yes, I almost shat my own pants too! And I wasn't speeding any more than I normally do too! Granted, I did have to press the pedal to the metal a couple times to beat the yellow lights. And I can admit that I totally blew a red light in one of those attempts! But still...

In all of the seven months that I have been driving regularly to Schaumburg, why didn't fate part the red sea for me a couple times, especially when I was running late, or during a stressful time? Nooo... Fate has to bless me with this eight wonder of the world ON THE LAST DAY OF MY PROJECT! When I didn't need it. And when I actually left the house super early just so I could go shop and have dinner. WTF?!?

Seriously, I think fate is not on my side. I think fate likes to make my life akin to Jon Arbuckle or Dilbert, with a minor adjustment: all the sucky stuff without the humor. Or maybe all my satirical life events find you amused as you read my blog. So yeah, this totally blows. When I realized it took merely 36 minutes, I instantly hummed the tune of Ironic by Alanis Morissette. Sigh...

Well, given the fact that this is quite possibly my last day at this project (while I'm secretly hoping that the client won't sign the new contract in time), I began to think of the things I've experienced because of this project. In no particular order:

GOOD: I have more of a reason to dine at Todai more frequently.

BAD: The weight gain as a result of being constantly peer pressured by client to go out to for lunch.

GOOD: The ability to almost always wake up at 08:00 and having only to be at work by 10:00.

BAD: Waking up late for work just feeds my night owl habit, which I admit is totally bad.

GOOD: The sudden need to use the toll roads around Chicago finally forced me to purchase the I-Pass transponder, especially after frustrated waiting in only two lanes to pay for toll during rush hour.

BAD: After only having put in less than a thousand miles in the first year I've owned my Land Rover, I suddenly had to change the oil on a regular schedule! And instead of filling up the gas tank once every two months, I now feel lucky if I only have to fill up once a week!

GOOD: I no longer fly out of town, and can enjoy sleeping in my own bed every night.

BAD: I no longer fly out of town, and because Schaumburg is so far away (in terms of commute time), the only free time I have left besides work is simply to go straight to my own bed every night!

GOOD: I get to do what all white trash folks love to do: illegal dumping. Well, sort of. Since my condominium doesn't really recycle, I bring in my empty bottles of sports drinks and rebottled municipal water to work once a week and dump them at my client site's recycling bin. I have never felt better doing something illegal while thinking it was the absolute right thing to do.

BAD: I now have to buy toilet paper more often, and worse, do the dishes way more often.

GOOD: Meeting new people (client employees) that I actually like and have hung out with during personal time.

BAD: Having to risk my life every day when I drive. I've seen beautiful college-age girls drive during rush hour with a textbook in her lap, stupid men driving during rush hour while reading the paper, stupid women driving during the evening rush hour putting on mascara so they could go straight to a date, dumbasses who gave me many opportunities to test the efficacy of my Land Rover's braking system who don't know how to use the mirror and turn signals and sideswipe you at 80 miles an hour, and people who ignore their stop sign and nearly t-boned me. Yeah, this last seven months have given me near heart attacks more alone than combined during my teenage years.

GOOD: I finally got to join basketball leagues and play pickup games of football.

BAD: I couldn't enjoy the basketball leagues I've joined because I had to work weekends.

GOOD: I discovered some authentic and cheap Chinese food out here: Asian Noodle House and Hong Kong Café.

BAD: Realizing that after today, I might not be able to enjoy cheap food at Asian Noodle House or Hong Kong Café, especially when factoring in the cost of gasoline used to get to Schaumburg.

GOOD: Discovering cheaper gasoline, usually at least 25 cents per gallon than the cheapest gasoline within the city of Chicago, at the I-90 oasis.

BAD: My cheap ass made me play the Kramer game, testing how far I could go on Empty, just so I could save a mere couple of bucks. (14 gallon tank times 25 cents per gallon.)

GOOD: Taking charge of a small project and perfecting my own process.

BAD: Working weekends and totally screwing up my sleep pattern.

GOOD: Shit... I'm running out of good things to say about this project.

BAD: Having to drive home delirious and tired after pulling an all-nighter. Health experts believe that tiredness like that has the equivalent mind acuity as driving drunk.

GOOD: Still can't find anything else good to say.

BAD: Poor restroom etiquettes such as other people peeing on the floor despite urinals with rather large drip lip and people sleeping on crappers, not to mention some inconsiderate people who don't give warnings.

So yeah, there you have it. It sure was good to reminisced about this long-ass project that was supposed to end in June. I think I'm ready to fly now and see the world. If not the wide world, at least the Midwest region. I wouldn't be opposed to going to Wisconsin for a change. =)

Stupid fate.