Monkeys, with tools...

[triadruid]

This morning was sort of epic in its failure. I'm not entirely sure how you get "sort of epic", but it looks a lot like this in my world:

• Take up ALL the bandwidth in the house overnight downloading torrents of the music I have on tape (much easier/cleaner than piping them through a input jack).
  
• Waking up at 4AM for no discernable reason. Oh well, go load some more torrents into the queue... soon I'll be able to actually do my part in the Great 2008 CD Swap.
  
• Back to sleep; wake up at 8:mumble, figure out how to carpool to work despite featherynscale and I having three different meetings this afternoon/evening.
  
• Carpooling in such a manner requires that I drive, which means I need to get cash for the street-level lots downtown, having given up my Parking Garage pass for Lent budgetary reasons back in August.
  
• Drop off K at work, go downtown via Oak Street, get onto Grand. Here's where things start to go screwy:
  • Cannot turn left onto 12th from Grand (only buses have that skill/privilege). Go down Grand to Sprint Center, turn around in a still-being-built parking lot. Turn right onto 12th.
    
  • Cannot turn into the alley off 12th that leads to the US Bank drive-thru, because someone has put up double chains and padlocks to prevent such a clever maneuver. Back onto 12th during red light with no incident. Proceed over to McGee, take that north into the designated 'not-an-alley' that actually leads to the US Bank drive-thru.
    
  • Driver-side window does not lower anymore on this vehicle, so get out and operate drive-thru without incident. It gives me $20 bills, parking requires $4 or $3.50 (I have two quarters in my pocket, as it happens). Park in row of cars in closed drive-thru lane so I can duck into the Quick-Shoppe-type-establishment for change (and a pack of gum, or whatever is required to get change from them).
    
  • Drive-thru teller informs me that the cars there are "bank *mumble* only" (employees? customers? can't tell), and that I cannot park there for five minutes. Thank her for her cheerful bedside manner, get back in car, find an open meter on Grand (which is where the drive-thru lets out, for those following along at home) with four minutes left in it from the last customer. Duck into brand-new Quick-Shoppe-type-establishment instead of old ratty one across street, in order to spread the wealth around downtown with my imminent 59¢ purchase.
    
  • Find 59¢ purchase after discarding the idea of getting a donut for my troubles; wait for counter clerk/owner to get off phone and ring up the person in front of me. Find out that the apparently new shop has in fact only been in existence for 12 weeks.
    
  • Brand-new Quick-Shoppe-type-establishment is apparently utterly out of change this morning, and cannot facilitate my parking-cash-and-peanuts transaction. Sigh. Put peanuts back on rack, go across street to old Quick-Shoppe-type-establishment.
    
  • Find new purchase (breakfast bar this time, having expended all my enthusiasm/jokes regarding peanuts in the last line), wait in line behind cursing indigent buying a cigarillo or lottery ticket or something. Make transaction.
    
  • Go back to car, which has of course run the meter out but has not been spotted by the ever-vigilante Downtown Parking Nazis. Small wonders never cease, but they do get a late start some days...
• Drive up to 10th, over to Holmes, and down into parking lot.
  
• Discover badly-marked spot open in the $3.50 section of the lot, collect materials for the day, deposit money, walk to City Hall.
  
• Wait some time for traffic to clear so I can get across 11th Street, due to massive J.E.Dunn-related construction project that has closed half the lanes of 11th, Locust, and 10th in this part of the world, and all of Cherry Street.
  
• Get to City Hall, where the brand-new revolving doors are working for once (you have about a 50% chance of this on any given day, since they were installed). Another small wonder.
  
• Realize that I have forgotten my work badge at home in the rush to get ready this morning. Foil security by the simple expedient of walking in through the Lexan "employee-only" gate immediately after someone else scans themselves out of the building. Go ahead, ask me what I do for a living...
  
• Wave to the security guards when the alarm goes off because two people have passed through the gate; they recognize my face so they wave back, ignoring the klaxon.
  
• Arrive at desk. Begin "Dear LiveJournal..." post (okay, some work got done between those last two steps).

I thought yesterday was supposed to be Monday? Yesterday was pretty good, actually, after about 10:05AM...

Anyway. archway has given me a pick-me-up meme of sorts to do, which I'll probably wrangle after lunchtime.