Boy is this year flying by. I can’t believe it. Last week was Min, Andy and my two year anniversary of living in the house in Geneseo! Two years! It was two years ago last weekend that Andy took the job in Buffalo that turned into the job in Puerto Rico.
Today is a travelling day for me. I had to get up this morning to go to lunch with dad. We were meeting someone from ADP at the Omega and I had some paperwork that I wanted to get together before going over there. So I didn’t manage to get more than six hours sleep last night which is fine for me.
After lunch, dad came over and picked up Oreo to keep for the next two days while I am out of town and Min is working her two doubles. Then I was off on my trip to Northeastern Pennsylvania. I have never worked in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area before so this will be a little new for me. Not much because they are like an extension of Upstate NY and I drive through them more than almost any other cities but at least it is something to look forward to a little bit.
It is about a four hour drive down to Scranton. On the way I listened to an older book by David McCullough called “A Path Between the Seas” which chronicles the building of the Panama Canal. It isn’t as long as most of his books but it is pretty interesting. I never realized why they had had so many problems building the French canal several years before the Americans built the canal that is there now. The French canal had actually been the work of a con artist. The French people were inclined to believe him because he had been the same man who had built the Suez Canal but the reality was that he had done nothing for the construction of the Suez Canal and had, instead, simply been the man who had made friends with the right despot to get to be the person in charge of the work. He was a crook on a scale almost unimaginable and the number of people who gave him their life savings just to have him cover up the fact that he couldn’t make a canal in Panama and even if he could, he made sure that the engineers weren’t allowed to build it the only way that would work. The collapse of the French Isthmian Canal was the great business failure of all time and several months after the collapse the truth finally came out that everyone in government and in the press had been on the payroll of the company. So not only was this guy a thief and a swindler but the reality is that he must have hated the French people more than anyone and even so, even after he shafted all of those poor people – perhaps hundreds of thousands of middle class French workers who lost their entire life savings to him – they still loved and worshipped him. The hard facts are that he probably should have been led to the gallows as a traitor. Few would ever do more to destroy the French nation.
I am staying at the Comfort Suites in Scranton on Montage Mountain right off of Route 81 at exit 182. It is pretty convenient here since both the Scranton and the Wilkes-Barre Wegmans sit right off of the highway. I really like Comfort Suites, they are very comfortable. I got checked into the hotel and brought my laptop up to my room and got online just to make sure that that was working and then headed out to go to work.
Work went about as usual tonight. They had some problem in the main office in Rochester so I wasn’t able to leave at 12:30 when I was done but had to wait until almost 1:30. While I was there with nothing to do, though, I did get a chance to discover that I am able to play the MUD from work;) So if I ever get really bored there again, I know what I can do.
I got back to the hotel and wasn’t tired so I spent some time playing on the MUD. No one was on but me but I could see that Jeremy and some friends had been on playing earlier in the day. I did manage, eventually, to level to level eight. I am staying one step ahead of Loopy. But just barely. He made it to seven today.
I decided that I was hungry so I stayed up late enough to be able to go to breakfast down in the lobby before going to bed. I really like that they have eggs and English Muffins on the menu so that I was able to make myself a sandwich. I sat outside and ate before going up to my room to call Min and to go to bed.