A Body at Rest Does Not Tend to Blog....

....but how about we try to refute that truism I just made up?

So yeah, today was the first day of a seven day break from my job. At my work, taking vacations the final two months of the year is a no-no. This means you must use your vacation days before October 31st and you lose them unless you can bank them. I had 8 days remaining and could only bank three, so I took Monday-Friday off and had the weekends off anyway, so that worked out well.

We had planned for about a month or so to head up to our parents' cottage in the northeastern part of WI, about 20 minutes away from the Michigan border. The cottage is nestled deep in the woods, and quite rustic; there's no indoor pumbling and our electricity will come from a gas generator. But I think it will be quite nice not to be tied to the internet or my Playstation or DishTV for a little bit. Not in any kind of Walt Whitman-esque yearning for the sanctity or nature, but just to be....away? If anything, it will be an adventure.

The last time we were up there was the last weekend we had the boy we had in our care for 1 1/4 years and he had a blast. My middle brother came up with his wife and their five kids and my folks came up, too. It was a nice goodbye to him under some less-than-ideal circumstances, so now hopefully this trip will allow Kel and I to have our own memories of "The Shack", as my mom refers to it.

Of course, as seems to happen with any long-term plan we start executing, we hit a few snags on the road. The main one came to light about three weeks ago when I got a call from Chris, a former co-worker who had worked her way up the ladder to where she had recently become the Operations Trainer for the group of stores in our territory, or "District" in our vernacular. I am currently doing the job she did when she worked at our store, and she helped train me when I was promoted back in March. I can't remember how the conversation flowed word-for-word, but basically she told me there were openings for her position at the Milwaukee district office and in her opinion I would be a great candidate. After a few fits and starts, I applied electronically and had it on my mental back-burner until this Sunday, when I realized going for the interview might mean curtailing or even cancelling the shack excursion. Obviously, for such an amazing opprotunity, I'd cancel it and not think twice about it -- you're not guaranteed any shots at the fabled "brass ring" so you go for it when such a chance falls in your lap.

One of the fellows whom was to interview me called just before I got home Tuesday, but he was gracious enough to give me his cell number, so I quickly called him back and it turned out he wanted to talk to me...but for scheduling purposes it pretty much had to be Friday morning in Milwaukee. It was nice that I didn't have to eat up part of a vacation day, but my store has a supply truck come in Friday AM and part of my duties entail scanning all the merch. I explained this to my interviewer and he said he didn't think it would be a problem and just to let my manager know. His intuition was correct -- my manager gave me the thumbs up and got the second-in-command to come in and replace me (thanks again, Troy!) so I could make my way. Since I was looking fairly shaggy, I got a haircut and -- for the first time in about eight years -- ended up with a complete lack of facial hair. Kel purchased me a nice little outfit, and by early Friday AM I was ready.

I took my Neon, which was badly in need of an oil change. As a result, I budgeted time for an oil change along the way. I stopped to the local lube joint just before 7am. The lights weren't on and there were no hours of operation posted, but there was a fellow behind the register, emmersed in a magazine. I got his attention, but he stated the store wouldn't open til 7:30am, which would not fit into my timetable. Instead of trying to Lincoln-Douglas my way into him opening early or finding another place, I made my way to the Cream City. "Hey," my internal logic joked as Janesville shrank in my rear-view, "if the car breaks down along the way, that's a big sign the job wasn't for you, anyway." My internal logic is such an optimist....

My voyage to Milwaukee was fairly smooth, my soundtrack provided by the newest Mew album (I won't type it out, this blog is long enough already) and Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest. The only minor hiccup was a minor misunderstanding of the Mapquest instructions I had transcribed in my notebook. (General hint: following step 8 becomes much easier when you make sure you've complete step 7 first. Oh numerical order, what would we do without you?) Even with the lovely detour around downtown Milwaukee, I still managed to end up at the locale with 20 minutes to spare.

It's weird how little I remember of the actual interview itself. I remember seeing my store's old pharmacy manager, as he had been promoted to a district position earlier in the summer, but other than that, I have snapshots in my head rather than discernable YouTube clips. I think by watching too many inspirational sport movies, people tend to equate Potentially Big Events with the dramatic slow motion scene where a second or two of real-time gets elongated to gain suspense and drama. That isn't really something you can convey by having two people on one side of a desk asking questions to a fellow on the other side. Still, the interview lasted right around the time budgeted and both of my interviewers seemed pretty upbeat at the end. I guess the future will tell. After stopping at the Walgreens for some liquid refreshment (my interview took place in a building with a Walgreens on one side, an empty shoe place on the other, and the Office up the stairs of an unmarked area between the two) I headed back to Janesville to finish my shift, but took a lunch break at the local Burger King as I had a Buy One Get One coupon for a chicken sandwich.

As I came back to work, I estimated I had three hours before I could punch out. Funny related note: if half your day is travelling multiple counties to take part in a potentially life-changing interview and then coming back, the other half of your day is going to go as slow as Paris Hilton doing long division. Maybe even longer. Still, eventually the little hand got 90 degrees to the right and my vacation time could offically begin.

Today was supposed to be Packing Day, and tomorrow we were to leave bright and early in order to meet the parentals in Green Bay at noon. But Kel has been sick all week, and my motivation to do anything is solely lacking. (Although I do have my clothes, most of my tolietries and a crap ton of books and board games ready to go as I type this.) I'm bringing a notebook and will hopefully have a few reflections while up there I'll jot down. Considering how earnestly I blog and transcribe stuff in my notebooks, expect the read the results... by 2010? Maybe?