MY LIFE - JULY 1999

Friday, July 2, 1999

The vacation is almost over. Three more days before I go back to work and back to the grind of things, this time with more hours on my schedule. I guess I'm not complaining. More hours never hurt anyone, but I wish my manager would've at least asked me first. My hours have little bearing on the schedule since I work in the pharmacy, so increasing mine along with everyone else's just didn't seem likely. It's not too bad. I'm only picking up an hour and a half each day except for Saturday, which will give me 40 hours a week. Just like last summer.

The increase came after we lost our assistant manager to another store, as a way of promoting him up as well as Mike Jacob at our store from shift supervisor B to shift supervisor A. Don't ask me what the difference is. I just know that it's a promotion for him and he was happy with it, even if his hours are all screwed up now. So everyone's hours increased, well except for Shoe since he came in and immediately bitched about everything and demanded a decrease. He's another one.

It turns out that Shoe lost his license and insurance. What did he do? He let his 17 year-old friend drive his truck around in a parking lot. That friend doesn't have a license and just happened to hit a car. Not just any care, mind you, he hit a PARKED car. So Shoe is going to lose his license because his friend couldn't avoid a stationary object in a parking lot. I tried to find out if it was at night, but Shoe wasn't saying much.

Hey, at least he didn't let his friend drive down a road. He has enough trouble with stationary objects, I'd hate to see him with moving targets, I mean objects.

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The heat's going to be coming back to Northeast Ohio just in time for the holiday weekend. I still have no clue if I'm going to be doing anything this weekend since I really can't find out if anyone I know is doing anything. It will be nice, since my mom and both sisters will be in Geneva for the Great Lakes Medieval Faire that's going on right now. They all participate in it and have been trying to get me along for the ride, but I've had to decline. You see, it's already bad enough when it's 90° outside when you're in a t-shirt, but it's about ten times as bad when it's 90 and you're wearing all this heavy clothing.

I remember doing it last year and a for a few years before that, dressed up and everything. It was a lot of fun. The people who put the attire on and do the acting are really good at it and can probably do it as well as anyone else. Some of the shows they put on are absolute riots, as comedy is a central force in everything they do. Everything is very carefully planned out, and it's all intended to be funny in many cases, which keeps it from being stale. Lori, my older sister is especially good at this.

Among my favorites is "Hack & Slash," which is sort of a mockery on sword fighting featuring a lot fancy fighting and some quick tongues, as insults and jokes are thrown left and right. If you're going to be in Geneva, Ohio in the next few weeks, make sure you check this out. I would, but it's too warm for me.

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My portable CD player finally bit the dust the other day. It had been slowly dying over the last year or so, but you know things are getting bad when the skip protection isn't protecting against skipping. I went to Target and bought a replacement CD player, since I already have the car kit and the power adapter. It sounds so much better and works about ten times better. I also didn't spend much on it, which means it was easy on my bank account since I'm down a little bit.

Last week I had over $600 in my checking account, which was an all-time high for me. Now it's back around $270 after paying several large bills About $200 was directly from my adventure at Southwest General Hospital back in February when I was having an Upper-GI performed to make sure there was damage to my stomach or intestines. Back then I was getting some pretty intense stomach pains that were later diagnosed as primarily being caused by irritable bowel syndrome, which runs in our family. So now I'm taking four dicylomine tablets everyday and so far it's worked.

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I finally have a credit card. Not that I was that interested in having one, but when I get those applications, I don't see the harm in filling them out, especially since I have no credit and would normally be rejected. This time, I was accepted though, which I found to be a somewhat pleasant surprise. The card came today and is now activated, but I only intend to use it when it's an emergency. The one thing these credit card companys count on is you to use that card all the time and not have the money to pay your balance. I figure as long as I use it sparingly, I should be okay.

The young woman who took the information over the phone was really nice too. She basically did what she was supposed to do and even cracked a few jokes as well. I don't know if she appreciated the way I coughed into the phone at one point, but she was very nice and a lot of help. So now I have a credit card. It's through Visa, but I don't have a very high credit line right now since I am just starting out. Hey, anyway that I can establish credit is great.

But anyway, it is the Fourth of July weekend, so I'm just going to relax and have a little more fun while I still can. Happy holidays everyone.

Tribe Watch '99

Last Game
Kansas City, 9
Cleveland, 7 (F-10)

Summary
An up and down game in which both starting pitchers, Jose Rosada for Kansas City and Dwight Gooden for the Tribe, pitched into the seventh inning. The Indians picked up two runs in the first on a two out, two run single by David Justice. Gooden eventually surrendered the lead by allowing a couple of runs, then gave up a two run homer to Jermaine Dye, his second in the game. The Indians eventually tied it and took the lead in the eight, thanks in part to Jim Thome's two run single. The Indians had a 6-5 lead going into the ninth, but the lead was blown as the Royals scored once in the ninth and three times in the tenth to take a 9-6 lead. The Indians' rally fell short in the bottom of the tenth as Mark Whiten grounded into a force for the second out and Kenny Lofton bounced out to end the game with runners on base.

Game Notes
Lofton is in an 0-15 skid right now and Manny Ramirez only has two hits in his last four games, striking out five times....Rosada went seven innings, allowing three runs on two hits while Gooden went 6 and 1/3, allowing four runs and ten hits....The two teams will meet in a day-night doubleheader tomorrow with Mark Langston starting the day game for the Indians and Charles Nagy starting the night game....The Indians bullpen struggled again against the Royals, allowing five runs in 3 and 2/3 innings while the Kansas City bullpen allowed four runs in 3 innings.

Record
51-27