Come home and give me my heart back

So I haven't made any substantial posts since I got back. I've been tired, and kind of down. It's about 5 am right now, in the middle of my two days off, and I can't sleep. And, despite all the mythology about how I don't need sleep, I do. I do, and I'm not getting it right now, like I should be. I spent most of Monday asleep on the couch, until I finally managed to drag myself up to get ready for work. Which was fun - I ended up closing, even though I was originally scheduled for 6 - 11. I guess I will be getting my 40 hours this week.

So, yeah. The Minerva project has been reborn, and should bear fruit within the next week. Just an fyi there.

Finally finished watching all of Firefly. Outstanding show. I loved it. I guess next, I'll start working my way through MST3K and trying to free up some hard drive stuff with that. WoW's going okay - finally got Gnometastic up to 60, started doing 60 stuff - LBRS, UBRS, PvP grinding, that kind of thing. I'm going to start leveling up Ihatebrooms as well. Or Ulkesh. Or maybe roll a mage. Not sure yet. Saw Doom on Sunday with David. It was a very, very last minute, spur of the moment kind of thing. The movie was alright, I guess. I kept falling asleep, a foreshadowing of the sleep issues I'm having right now. Fun stuff.

Hmm... I was going to start posting my pictures from New Orleans, as well as do another picture dump of the various pictures I had on my camera before I emptied it out to go, but Blogger's being weird and not letting me post pictures. I'll try that again later. For now, I'll just go with a word-based recollection of my adventures down in the bayou.

So I was supposed to work 5-C Sunday night before leaving, which sounded fine. I'd go in, close, do the Sunday night paperwork, come home, and have a few hours to clean up and pack before we left, then sleep the whole way there. Gina had another idea. When I got there, she told me I'd be leaving fairly early. I ended up leaving some time around 10. Got home, wasn't really in the mood to start packing just yet. Did Start Baron, followed by BRD. It was my first time in Stratholme, either side, and about half the group were total idiots. Good times. One of the warriors would show up later in a LBRS run, but he bolted after he lost a Valor drop. Anyway. So around 4 or 5 or so, I finally start packing. And realize the only portable container I have is my backpack, and while it can hold a lot, it can't hold clothes for four days. I had everything I was taking laid out, just nowhere to put it. I also did a ton of laundry, but didn't get to the dishes. I called Mom when she got up, and she said she was sure we could find something, so I headed over there. Got a tiny little bag thing, which I crammed full and managed to get everything I needed. Came home, laid down on my bed. It got to be about 8:45, and I hadn't heard from anyone, so I called Jenn and Ambra. They were both off to a late start, which was fine.

I fell asleep. Ambra knocked on the door, which I didn't hear, then she called me, which I did. I went down, and we went to the Seguin store, where we left her car for the next four days. Jenn and Kassandra showed up about ten minutes later to pick us up. After very little ado, we got in, and we were off. There were some brief introductions, but for the most part, the entire trip was fairly quiet. I put on my headphones and went in and out of sleep for the next eight hours or so. I think Ambra and Kassandra did more or less the same thing, though I definitely remember Kassandra pulling out a PSP at one point, and Ambra was reading Memoirs of a Geisha throughout the entire trip. The drive down there occured without incident - it was basically a straight shot down I-10. We got there around... well, I think it was fairly late, but not *that* late (yeah, that's specific). Around 7, I'd guess. I remember quite vividly the images we saw as we arrived in the city. The Superdome was trashed, and a lot of buildings has noticable exterior damage. The odd thing was, you could pass a few that didn't have anything you'd see immediately. The thing that really stuck out, though, were the vehicles. Major cities tend to have large dividers on large roads, and in New Orleans, the dividers were fairly wide, with grass growing in them. And at the moment, there were tons of cars parked on them. As far as we could find out, they moved cars out of the street during clean-up to those areas until they could be better dealt with. We also got fairly lost. We had to call the store a few times as we got closer, but we finally got there.

We parked, and headed towards the store. Another lasting image greeted us as we approached the store - a member of the military walking across the parking lot carrying both 6 pizzas and his rifle. (One of the humorous images I keep seeing is a CO yelling at a rookie - "That is not how you eat those wings, private!") Anyway, we got in, and met Calvin and Dale, two of the people in charge of, well, everything Domino's related in the area. They referred to Murph as "Mr 250". Apparently, he had said that he was going to bring down sufficient generators to get 4 stores up and running, but it became 1 store. Thus, .250. Yeah, anyway. They told us we wouldn't have to work on Thursday, which was great, since we'd be driving back that day. They gave us a brief tour of the command center they had set up, and told us to report back at 10 to find out where we'd be working. They also gave us our room assignment. Yes, singular. One room for the four of us, three girls and me, with two double beds. It was the only room they had left, and they offered to try to put me up with a group of guys, but we declined, noting it'd be much easier if we stuck together.

So we got to our hotel. It smelled... funny. Not bad, just funny. Our room was on the ninth floor, and there was only one elevator. We were staying at the Garden Distrit Hotel. There was no ceiling in our hallway - the wiring and everything was exposed. Fun stuff. But our room was just fine - two nice beds, TV, mini-fridge, great view. Jenn and Kassandra claimed the far bed, Ambra got the one closer to the door, and I got the floor. Well, it never really came up, but I figured I'd make things easy on everyone. 'Bout that time, we were kind of hungry, so we decided to try to find something to eat. We asked the fron clerk, who directed us to Igor's, right next door. There was a *huge* pile of refuse on the street as we crossed - gave off an incredible stench. Yeah, I realize they just got hit by a major natural disaster, I'm just commenting on the smell.

Which was awful.

Anway.

We went in. It was... well, I've never really been in a bar before, so I can't say. Seemed dingy. Odd. We asked the bartender what they had besides alcohol. "Burgers." Heated up in a microwave, with a side of lettuce and pickle. We got four and went back to our room. Kassandra had them bring up a blanket for me and some more pillows; we only had like two total. Watched some TV, then we eventually drifted off. Well, they did. It took me forever to fall asleep, as usual.

Anyway, we woke up and got dressed, ready to head out and work. They ended up splitting us into two groups - Jenn and Kassandra would go work "the trailer", while Ambra and I would stay and work at the store adjecent to the command center, and they could come pick us up en route to going back to the hotel later. We took a few deep breaths and got ready to face whatever they might throw at us.

Monkey feces.

...

Not really.

Things happened kind of fast at this point. They already had the store set up, and they threw us on the makeline, and we (four of us at this point) started making pizzas. Non-stop. Large deep dish pepperoni pizzas. It was weird, for several reasons. Their spoodle was much wider, but incredibly shallow. They didn't have an auto-cheeser, which made cheesing the pizza interesting, but fun. They only had cheese and pepperoni available as toppings, but we weren't using the normal pepperonis. Apparently, they had been a test market for tini pepperonis - smaller than a quarter - and they had a ton left over, so we were using those. That was quite different from what we were used to. Overall, though, we adapted fairly well.

More later.

Bambee -- Baby Baby