On our drive out here, Clancy was getting paranoid that the hotel wouldn’t honor our reservations, so she had me call the hotel. I called Best Western, confirmed the reservation, and was perfectly fine with the fact that we wouldn’t be getting there until 2am. When we rolled in to Callie, I found out that we were never staying at the Best Western. Our reservations were at the Super 8. So the BW confirmed reservations that never were. Then again, why not. No doubt they had a lot of vacancies and figured our confusion could land them an occupant.

We brought three laptops with us to Arapaho, which seems kind of excessive. However, one of my laptops has a 3-prong plug and hotels are spotty about outlet availability. So I brought my Linux laptop, too. That laptop has a 2-prong plug, but the computer crashes about once a day (not Linux’s fault). So I wasn’t sure which would be more useful. Besides, when you’re driving, it’s easier to be excessive in regards to the luggage.

I had a last-minute emergency for a job interview here. First there was a question about whether I should wear a suit that was notably too large or a shirt and tie that was only a little too large. Once I got that settled, I realized that I did not bring with me a black belt so I had to scramble around town to find one. There is no Walmart in Callie and indeed none of the chains that I would ordinarily beeline to exist out here. You forget how much you appreciate those everywhere places when you realize that you’re outside of everywhere. I figure that once I get accustomed to the area, it will matter less because I will know where to go. Just as I know where to get belts now.

When we were driving around Callie last time, we had a rented Subaru Forester with all-wheel drive. It was great, though ultimately unnecessary. In the intervening week, it snowed. So now we’re in the Camry when having an AWD car would be much more useful.

Colosse has multiple area codes. The State of Arapaho has only one. The City of Callie has only one exchange (the middle three numbers) for non-cell phones. So when people give their phone number, they only give four numbers. It’s kind of trippy.

Everyone out here keeps bragging on how sunny this place is. But I don’t want sunny. I want the nice, cool, wet Zaulem Sound weather.

I almost never watch Law & Order at our house in Cascadia, but frequently do at my folks’ house in Colosse and the inlaws’ in Beyreuth. I find that any time I’m out-of-pocket, it’s what I want to watch. Even now, when I have more worthwhile programs on my new pocket drive.

Anyone else have a pocket drive? These things are great. My father-in-law introduced me to the concept and I didn’t “get it” because I could just as easily use a regular external drive for the big things and a thumb drive for the small things. But really, there’s a really good middle-ground for something with the space of a big drive but the increased portability by the fact that you don’t have to plug it in independently.

The rest is placed under the fold because it pertains to the medical condition I talked about previously.

It’s one of those suspicious coincidences - but a genuine coincidence, I swear - that my posterior started getting better right about the time suppositories entered the discussion.

Clancy was right. Definitely hemorrhoids. All that bleeding that did not occur while I was in pain? It’s been coming ever since. In spades. My jeans are ruined.