Work is the Curse of the Drinking Class

Now that I have your attention. . . . my old Dell has been acting up this week, always an irksome, paranoid-making situation. Significant Other is giving me his PC once he gets his new MAC working online with the cable modem and the airport whatchemacallit. There is a critical path here somewhere, and it's kind of complicated and not by any means the primose path.

Monday morning, the last day of my on-call month, the dreaded beeper sounded at 5:30 a.m. Wouldn't have been so bad but we just set the clock ahead one hour. Someone I like had screwed something up, and my PC was barfing so I hustled into work without growling too much. Hustled in early today, too, in a not very succesful attempt to get a jump on the day. Today was hard because of being out carousing last night with some of the local writers. Not good to carouse on a Tuesday. Tomorrow I hustle in for the new credit card processing. Many years ago, when the company I worked for put in a new payroll system, I spent the night at work with the payroll manager, and she admitted, "I've never spent all night in the office before." Been there. Done that. Did that a lot for the Y2K testing. What a nightmare that was.

In between work gigs, I've been doing a lot of research for my new book. One of the characters flies an Ultralight, and I've been reading about those flying machines. Sounds like fun. Something else that maybe sounds not so much like fun but like bizarro is a fund raising effort to raise money for the Black Rock City (Burning Man) post office. I am quoting and I kid you not:

Get a Mile High With Your Lover! The Black Rock Travel Agency, the official FBO at Black Rock City Airport and infamous leader in the BM Aviation Community, has been gracious enough to donate to the Black Rock City Post Office a few chances to actually join the Mile High Club ! Scenic & Erotic Flights are being offered over Portland, San Francisco/San Jose Area, and the main event itself, Burning Man 2005. Don't miss this chance to help support the BRCPO and to tell your friends that you "did it" while circling The Man or enjoying the beautiful scenery in your hometown. Indoor & Outdoor photography is encouraged and all landings are "Clothing Optional". These incredible flights will be raffled off on May 28th. The last day to buy ticket(s) will be May 27th. The Portland & Bay Area flights are 2 hrs long so there's plenty of time for "everything". The Playa flight is approx 50 mins long, since everyone at Burning Man is already in a perpetual state of arousal and circling The Man for extended periods has been known to cause irreversible Nirvana. Tickets are only $10 dollars each and can be purchased via PayPal www.paypal.com

I wonder what "irreversible Nirvana" would be like. Surely different that going in to work early to check out the credit card processing. Very different. Now you know why it's so much fun to write about Burning Man.

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