The Little Things
Lately Thursdays have turned into my busy days. Today, for instance, I left my house at 8:15am and got home at 9:45 pm. I realize that a lot of people have days like that. And it really doesn't bother me normally... but today was one of those days when the little things started to get to me.
My two big tasks for the day were: get the pianos at church tuned and give 2 presentations in my class. Somehow that took well over 12 hours. But even that didnt really bother me. I worked on my presentations at church while waiting for the pianos to be tuned. I also managed to clean up a little of the paper mess that seems to accumulate with all the music material. My first presentation for my class went well (I presented a website called Classical Music Library which offers free access to LOTS of classical recordings... unfortunatley it's a subscription database, so I can only access it through UMD's catalog and as soon as I'm no longer a student, I'll have no access). And by the time everyone had presented their websites, there wasnt enough time for me to give my other presentation... so I got out of it. Completely. All I had to do was turn in my notes instead. So main items for the day were accomplished. I feel good about that.
Here's what sucked. I got cut off while driving to church by someone who was completely out of line (and then had the nerve to honk at me). Then after writing up my notes for school during the piano tunings at church, I stopped by my parent's house to print them. I'm creating a new law... Jessica's Law: Whenever you have to print something at the last minute, the forces of the universe will cause every possible printing scenario to crap out on you, leaving you printed-less. I couldnt email it to my parent's computer because I didnt have the password to access their network. I tried to connect directly to the printer, but of course my computer didnt have the correct driver to install it. They have an HP 2600 something and my computer had drivers for the 2500, 2550, and 2700 series... where's the 2600??? How can you just skip right over that??? UGH. So then I tried to burn my files onto a CD-R, and for whatever reason my computer wouldn't recognize the CDRs my parents have. So I searched the whole house looking for a different brand (there are 6 people living in that house... all with computers... you'd think there'd be more than one brand of CDRs in there). But that didnt work. So I tried a DVDR (oh by the way, at this point I was about 30 minutes past when I usually leave for school) but that didn't work either... I dont even know if my laptop has a DVD burner... I guess not. So after exhausting every possible option I could think of (I was so proud of being able to come up with so many alternative ways to do this all on my own), I decided at this point it would probably be faster to just re-type the whole thing on my dads computer. So that's what I did. I typed as fast as I could. And when all was said and done (and finally printed) I only had one small typo. Not too bad.
By now I was about 50 minutes past my usual "leave-time." So I got in my car, and started it up, only to realize that my tank was on E. So I went to the gas station... tick tick tick, at this point i was praying that I'd get to class on time. I hit lots more traffic than usual on the Beltway, but somehow managed not to be late for class anyway... this is mostly due to the fact that I leave WAY earlier than necessary.
So then I had class.
On my way home i took my usual route of 495 to the Dulles Toll Road to the Greenway. As soon as I got on the Toll Road and past the first exit after the toll plaza traffic stopped. They were repaving the road and pushed everyone into 1 lane. One itty-bitty lane. And even though it was after 8 (so you'd think there wouldnt be much traffic) it was ridiculously backed up. And of course whenever they close multiple lanes, they do it one at a time, slowly over a certain distance. So I'm doing my best merging (waiting until you get the point where you have to merge, and then staggering with the lane next to me), and when it's my turn to stagger in... 3 cars don't let me. I'm inching my way up and over, with my blinker on, in a clearly marked force merge. The cars ahead of me had no problem with the stagger technique. But for whatever reason these 3 people just couldn't bare to let a car in like they are supposed to. Grr. So I tried to force my way over on one of them, but they didn't like it, and they honked. So i was honked at twice today. TWICE. I'm the most cautious and non agressive driver ever (even to a fault), and I got honked at twice in one day. That's crap.
It took me nearly 2 hours to get home. Usually it takes 45 minutes. Nothing like paying for access to a road in which it takes you 4 times as long as the free road. Awesome. Then I finally make it to the end of the Toll Road, and as I'm getting ready to go through the toll booth to get on the Greenway, the car in front of me stops. He has no smart tag. Why do you go through the smart tag only lane with no smart tag? I understand that maybe you can get confused and end up in the wrong lane, but what happens when you do. The little gate wouldnt go up, so this guy gets out of his car and starts wandering around the lane. I guess he's looking for the magic "open sesame" button. After a minute or two of looking he decides to go down to a booth with a person in it. So he cautiously makes his way across several lanes of tolls to find a person who can help him. Meanwhile there are cars piling up behind me... all honking away. And the guy in the booth motions that he'll be there in a minute. At this point I was just tired of being in the car, tired of the day, and tired of stupid drivers. So while this guy tries to figure out what the heck to do to get through this gate, I was sitting in my car behind him, screaming away. Not screaming at him, just screaming. My patience was shot.
Eventually I got home... I let my dog out, made myself a toasted peanut butter-banana-honey sandwhich (my favorite) and now I'm blogging away my frustration.
Grr to the little things.
My two big tasks for the day were: get the pianos at church tuned and give 2 presentations in my class. Somehow that took well over 12 hours. But even that didnt really bother me. I worked on my presentations at church while waiting for the pianos to be tuned. I also managed to clean up a little of the paper mess that seems to accumulate with all the music material. My first presentation for my class went well (I presented a website called Classical Music Library which offers free access to LOTS of classical recordings... unfortunatley it's a subscription database, so I can only access it through UMD's catalog and as soon as I'm no longer a student, I'll have no access). And by the time everyone had presented their websites, there wasnt enough time for me to give my other presentation... so I got out of it. Completely. All I had to do was turn in my notes instead. So main items for the day were accomplished. I feel good about that.
Here's what sucked. I got cut off while driving to church by someone who was completely out of line (and then had the nerve to honk at me). Then after writing up my notes for school during the piano tunings at church, I stopped by my parent's house to print them. I'm creating a new law... Jessica's Law: Whenever you have to print something at the last minute, the forces of the universe will cause every possible printing scenario to crap out on you, leaving you printed-less. I couldnt email it to my parent's computer because I didnt have the password to access their network. I tried to connect directly to the printer, but of course my computer didnt have the correct driver to install it. They have an HP 2600 something and my computer had drivers for the 2500, 2550, and 2700 series... where's the 2600??? How can you just skip right over that??? UGH. So then I tried to burn my files onto a CD-R, and for whatever reason my computer wouldn't recognize the CDRs my parents have. So I searched the whole house looking for a different brand (there are 6 people living in that house... all with computers... you'd think there'd be more than one brand of CDRs in there). But that didnt work. So I tried a DVDR (oh by the way, at this point I was about 30 minutes past when I usually leave for school) but that didn't work either... I dont even know if my laptop has a DVD burner... I guess not. So after exhausting every possible option I could think of (I was so proud of being able to come up with so many alternative ways to do this all on my own), I decided at this point it would probably be faster to just re-type the whole thing on my dads computer. So that's what I did. I typed as fast as I could. And when all was said and done (and finally printed) I only had one small typo. Not too bad.
By now I was about 50 minutes past my usual "leave-time." So I got in my car, and started it up, only to realize that my tank was on E. So I went to the gas station... tick tick tick, at this point i was praying that I'd get to class on time. I hit lots more traffic than usual on the Beltway, but somehow managed not to be late for class anyway... this is mostly due to the fact that I leave WAY earlier than necessary.
So then I had class.
On my way home i took my usual route of 495 to the Dulles Toll Road to the Greenway. As soon as I got on the Toll Road and past the first exit after the toll plaza traffic stopped. They were repaving the road and pushed everyone into 1 lane. One itty-bitty lane. And even though it was after 8 (so you'd think there wouldnt be much traffic) it was ridiculously backed up. And of course whenever they close multiple lanes, they do it one at a time, slowly over a certain distance. So I'm doing my best merging (waiting until you get the point where you have to merge, and then staggering with the lane next to me), and when it's my turn to stagger in... 3 cars don't let me. I'm inching my way up and over, with my blinker on, in a clearly marked force merge. The cars ahead of me had no problem with the stagger technique. But for whatever reason these 3 people just couldn't bare to let a car in like they are supposed to. Grr. So I tried to force my way over on one of them, but they didn't like it, and they honked. So i was honked at twice today. TWICE. I'm the most cautious and non agressive driver ever (even to a fault), and I got honked at twice in one day. That's crap.
It took me nearly 2 hours to get home. Usually it takes 45 minutes. Nothing like paying for access to a road in which it takes you 4 times as long as the free road. Awesome. Then I finally make it to the end of the Toll Road, and as I'm getting ready to go through the toll booth to get on the Greenway, the car in front of me stops. He has no smart tag. Why do you go through the smart tag only lane with no smart tag? I understand that maybe you can get confused and end up in the wrong lane, but what happens when you do. The little gate wouldnt go up, so this guy gets out of his car and starts wandering around the lane. I guess he's looking for the magic "open sesame" button. After a minute or two of looking he decides to go down to a booth with a person in it. So he cautiously makes his way across several lanes of tolls to find a person who can help him. Meanwhile there are cars piling up behind me... all honking away. And the guy in the booth motions that he'll be there in a minute. At this point I was just tired of being in the car, tired of the day, and tired of stupid drivers. So while this guy tries to figure out what the heck to do to get through this gate, I was sitting in my car behind him, screaming away. Not screaming at him, just screaming. My patience was shot.
Eventually I got home... I let my dog out, made myself a toasted peanut butter-banana-honey sandwhich (my favorite) and now I'm blogging away my frustration.
Grr to the little things.
Comments