A national bank holiday has been declared, starting June 5th. I got word of this through Aaron Russo’s Restore the Republic network. Video to follow, and I encourage everyone to take part.

This was by far the highlight of my day yesterday. After 3 loooong days of work, I finally got to sleep in yesterday morning. Sort of. The pager kept going off for this, that, and the other. I didn’t even pay attention to what for (3 for a traffic light out and one for a car into a tree), just shut them up and went back to sleep. That is, until it started going off for a hazmat incident with a tanker overturned, just after noon. Figured it was a good time to get up anyway.

Got dressed, checked email and RSS feeds, and waited. Sure enough, eventually the right page came through. I hopped in my truck with my camera and headed down (would’ve liked to ride the scooter due to the distance, but it was drizzling). Went everywhere I could think of where it was safe to do so and shot all sorts of pictures. Growing bored, I hung out with Annville’s fire police captain at the rehab tent, where we discussed the fact that an awful lot of tankers have been rolling over lately.

Aaaanyway… we happened to be right next to a wire fence. Nobody really paid any attention to it, myself included, as it’s just a fence, and it’s not like it’d be comfortable to lean against or anything. Well, in my moseying around, drinking my water, watching them prepare to foam down the truck, I apparently got a little too close.

Let’s just say, I’m glad I was wearing my jacket. It probably would have hurt a lot more on bare skin, and probably would have burned me too, for that matter. Since it didn’t even send me to the ground, I briefly considered trying it again, just for kicks, but decided not to press my luck

I was down at the station after returning from an accident when I finally got the call from the book store - my copy of Ron Paul’s new book, The Revolution: A Manifesto, had arrived. Excited as I am to crack it open and soak it all in for a few hours, I must resist. I’m days behind on a bunch of menial work, especially due to the turn of the month. This includes balancing all of my accounts (and wondering why my AES payment scheduled for today is going to show up tomorrow or not, considering I’m now 3 days overdue), updating spreadsheets, and who knows what else I’ll find that I have to do.

I drained my emergency fund, all $600 of it, to hope and pray I can take care of things. I’ve still got to pay my rent, a $24 electric bill, $20 to the collections agency, and the other day I got a nice fat $75 bill from Comcast. Apparently I didn’t pay up last month, hence the size of it. My records corroborate this, which makes me wonder if I ever got the bill in the first place, or if it was just lost in the mess.

I also got a letter from Capital One apologizing for screwing up my payment. Why a check for the amount couldn’t be included at the same time, I do not know. But whatever. Maybe it came in the mail today and I just don’t know it because for some reason the post office was locked.

The rebate is still in limbo, but I believe I’ve figured out why. In actually reading the statements accompanying the much publicized rebate schedule, it only applied for those who filed early enough for their taxes to be processed by April 15th. My tax return was processed April 28th, if you want to judge it by the date they cashed the check.

My next pay will be on the 16th, for a relatively meager but lately pretty good $400 or so. This whole working 12-14 hours a couple days in a row (my first taste of which was this weekend) blows. As if we didn’t see that reaction coming. If I think it’s bad now, though… every week will be another day added on. The search for a new job has been unsuccessful. One option I’m considering is becoming an electrician apprentice. I’m not so sure about that, though, particularly due to the fact that it takes a few years (up to 4 or 5) to get through it, and because I’d feel like I’m in school, and we all know that never works out well.

Right now I just want to find something suitable that I won’t be sick of in a matter of months, so I can get out of the park and not have to work myself to death whilst having no life. It’s already killing my feet worse than ever before. *flashback* The weekend before last, I broke a toe acting like a jackass and/or monkey. The middle toe on my right foot, if you really wish to know. It’s fine now, bruising’s gone with the exception of one spot under the nail. On Saturday, walking around the park all day pretending to be a manager it was fine (and a beautiful day, at that). Until about 8 hours into the day, mister toe didn’t want to do any more walking, and all at once, mid-stride, started hurting like a fiend again. The rest of the day, my left foot was killing me from all the limping I was doing, until eventually I didn’t have to limp anymore and now both feet hurt. Sunday, which required minimal walking but plenty of standing in one spot, was no better. Getting ready for work, I could hardly walk around the apartment, my ankles felt exhausted and didn’t want to allow my feet to work right. Standing in the stand all day, at one point my right heel just started throbbing for no reason. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. And I swear, my heels are reshaping themselves to conform to the shape of my boots. I’ve always had problems with my feet and knees, but this weekend makes it seem like we’re going to be taking it to a whole new level, and I’m not looking forward to it.

And no, a new pair of shoes is not the answer. These boots are the most comfortable footwear I have, as proven in the warehouse, where they suited me just fine. All I have to be able to do is sit down every once in a while… not once or twice throughout the whole freaking day. That’s why I almost busted up laughing in my dispatcher interview last year when I was asked if I’m able to sit for long periods of time. All the more reason I need to get out of the park and find a new job as soon as possible.

P.S. I missed half a day of work on Friday to go to a school fair with the girlfriend. She asked me if I remembered how lame it was. My answer? No, I never came to it when I was here because I knew it was lame. She’s got some pretty interesting friends, though, including one who is practically a mirror image of someone I knew a long time ago. Which kind of freaked me out. I was bored out of my mind, but just happy to be spending time with her.