October 16, 2005

We might have been exhausted when we finally arrived back in Geneseo last night but when we got to spend the night sleeping in our own bed we were quite happy. I slept for nine hours not getting up until almost 11:00. Boy did that feel good. I have not yet caught up on my sleep but that is going to help a little bit.

Dad called at 12:20 and said that he was down at the Silver Lake Family Restaurant and that the Ralstons were going to be there in a few minutes and that we should come down for lunch. So I woke up Min and we ran out the door. We made it right at 1:00 which was pretty impressive for having woken Min up only forty minutes before.

Dominica Miller in front of Upper Falls in Letchworth State Park

We took Oreo along with us down to Perry and after lunch we took him down to Letchworth to go for a hike. Oreo has never been to Letchworth before and he had a great time. We went for a walk from the St. Helena parking area up to Tea Table and back down again. Then we drove up to the Middle Falls and went for a shorter walk. We stopped at the Upper Falls snack bar and had a quick meal. I love eating at park snack bars. When I was a kid my mom and I used to come down to Letchworth all of the time during the summers and we would get hot dogs and French fries at one of the snack bars and eat while looking out on the falls. It was a lot of fun. One summer my mom and I came down to Letchworth at least once or twice a week and walked consecutive sections of the park so that we managed to walk the entire trail on the west side of the park which is more than double the length of the road that runs through the park.

Dominica Miller and Oreo looking out onto the Genesee River at Upper Falls in Letchworth State Park

I included some pictures that I took while we were out walking. The leaves were really nice and I am really glad that we managed to get out to go for a trip outdoors at least once with the leaves changing.

We didn’t get back home until after 6:00. While we were at the park we stopped by the gift shop. We got an Empire Pass so that we can go to Letchworth or any of the New York State Parks anytime. I also picked up the book “Events of the Genesee Vally 1668-1986” while we were there.

Min had to get ready for work when we got back home. She had switched shifts with Mary earlier in the week. So she is working from 9:00 pm tonight until 7:00 am tomorrow. A little shorter than her regular shift. She was almost delirious with exhaustion by the time that she left for work. Hopefully she will be able to make it through the night. We have a busy week ahead of us. Tomorrow morning is the funeral at 11:00 in Covington. It is at the church just down the street from my parents’ house. I haven’t been in that church in years. Probably not since Sonic Brass played there in the mid-90’s. Ten years ago easily. Maybe more. Dad, Min, the Richardsons and I are all going out to Ohio on Friday and will be there until Sunday. The Ralstons are taking Oreo for the weekend. We are all going to be staying at the Comfort Inn in Canton.

Min got off to work and I got onto the computer and got caught up on the weekend’s updates. I finished watching A Wrinkle in Time that I started watching several days ago. It wasn’t very good. I had loved the book but the movie was just blah. It wasn’t awful but it sure didn’t live up to the book. I haven’t read the book in forever. I plan on reading it again soon. Oreo appreaciated the chance to pass out on his pillow and get some rest.

I was hoping to get a lot of work done tonight but it didn’t take long before I figured out that that wasn’t going to happen. I pooped in Hooper which is an old Burt Reynolds’ film from the late 70’s that we have had for a while but I have never gotten around to watching. Nothing special but a cute film. I hung around in the office for a long time but Mr. Humphries never got up to hang out. I thought that he would want to come out and visit but he decided to snub me tonight. We got up when Min was still home and got his food but after I fed him he was gone for the night.

I wasn’t really tired yet and I had some paperwork that I needed to take care of so I hunted around in the basement for a movie that I hadn’t seen yet and came up with Another 48 Hours. I never saw the original 48 Hours but I read a quick synopsis and it didn’t look like I was missing very much. The good news is that the movie has Eddie Murphey. The bad news is that it has Nick Nolte – one of the worst actors to ever sneak into a feature film. The hamster did finally decide to wake up and come out to play.

I ended up staying up really late because I got my paperwork done but wanted to get some technical work done before hitting the hay so I stayed up to get a jump on that. There is an unlimited amount of work to do. I never seem to be able to get on top of it.

Dominica and I decided that we really do need a real vacation so we are going to Disney World in two weeks. We are flying out of Rochester on October 31st which is both Halloween and my grandma’s birthday – and we will arrive in Florida around 3:30 in the afternoon. We will manage to get half of a day in the park probably once we get there. We are staying in the same hotel that Eric, Mark and I stayed in many years ago when we last went to the park. I called today to get the hotel reservations moved forward one day and discovered that the hotel was no longer a Radisson. That was a surprise. It is a really good thing that I called to make the change or we would have discovered that the hotel was no longer there once we actually arrived. That might have ended up being a real problem if we had arrived down there and then couldn’t find the hotel. With the change in plans we are going to be able to be in Disney for 6.5 days! We are pretty happy with that. That should be enough time to get pretty sick of the park. The hotel is in an ideal location that allows us to walk to the park in the morning and get Disney provided transportation all day long. It is great because it keeps us from having to worry about how to get back to our hotel if we decide to stay until the park closes because the Disney transportation always runs until everyone has had a chance to get home. We aren’t doing anything in Florida other than going to Disney. It is going to be a nice relaxing time. Min has been going crazy making plans for all of the places that we are going to go.

With the exception of my honeymoon last year this vacation will be my first vacation longer than an extended weekend since Eric, Mark and I went to this very same destination in 1999. I am almost 100% sure that it was 1999 because we went in November (so Min and I are going to the same hotel to visit the same park in the same month) and I wasn’t able to help drive down because I didn’t have my driver’s license back yet after having lost it for having too many speeding tickets in too short of a time period. I am pretty sure that I lost my license in early 1999. I know that I did not lose it until I had been working at the Wellesley Inn for several months because I went back and did some consulting work at the Days Inn for a day or two and I had to be chauffered around to be able to do it. I am pretty sure that I started at the Days Inn in late 1997 and left there in 1998. Then I worked at the Wellesley from 1998 until February 19, 2000 when I quit to move to Pittsburgh. February 20th was the big moving out party when Andy first introduced “For Me To Poop On” which all of the SGL readers know and love. I must have been without a license during most of 1999 because I was getting rides to and from the Wellesley and not the Days Inn. But I know that I had a driver’s license by the time that I quit the Wellesley to move to Pittsburgh. I think that I only ended up losing my license for about six months but I am not sure.

It is amazing how time plays tricks with you. It seems ages ago that I was living with Josh in Greenleaf Meadows in Greece and commuting down 390 to the Wellesley in Brighton and going to MCC. I can barely put together enough pieces from that time period to figure out when I was where and what I was doing. I went to school at Monroe Community College from the fall of 1996 until the spring of 1998. I finished three semesters. I had graduated without knowing it in December, 1997. My appendicitus was towards the end of the spring semester in 1998 if I place it correctly. It was because of the operation that I was unable to complete the semester. Josh and I got the apartment in Greece in September 1998 I think. Prior to that we had been living in Irondequoit. The appendicitus hit within my first two weeks at the Wellesley so that places that pretty well. So I must have worked at the Wellesley for almost two years. I would have been at the Days Inn from summer 1997 until very early 1998. Could it have been less than a year? I can still remember going to apply at the Days Inn. The previous auditor had quit the night before and they had no one to work that night. I interviewed with the front desk manager, Chrissy, who was doubling as the life guard and so interviewed me in her swimsuit. That is how I am able to remember that it was summer that I started there. She hired me on the spot as the only auditor that she was able to find. It was a crappy job but it worked out well for me. A few months later Andy came to work there as the other auditor. What a joke that place was. But it was a good experience for me. Part of growing up. It definitely made me sure that I didn’t want to get stuck doing anything like that for the rest of my life. It was about the worst job like that that you could possibly imagine but it should me just how mad it could be and I think that I needed that right about then. I was very lost when I was there. I had no idea what I wanted to do or where I was going. I was in college to be a performing musician. I was pretty serious about it back then. I guess most twenty year olds are pretty serious about music. That sure isn’t what the Lord had planned for me. But it definitely had a lot to do with who I am today. I can’t say that I am unhappy for the experience. But what a strange trip it has turned out to be.

One of these days I am going to construct a timeline and try to fill in as many chronological details as I can. I am so disappointed that I didn’t start keeping this journal/diary/blog thing until so late in the game. Now that I understand that value of it I so wish that I could go back so much farther and see what was happening back then. Now I have to piece together significant days as much as possible through loose records and connected memories. My father has a really good record of a lot of important stuff that he is going to try to convert to some form that I can use. A lot of it is handwritten and very inaccessible. But the last several years are digital and can be used pretty easily. So maybe I will be able to start using that to start building back more information from the past. Now that I am looking at turning thirty in just a few months I am starting to see how the memories of my youth are starting to slip away. And now that I have fewer and fewer of the people left around who shared those memories with me I find it more and more important to try to hold onto them.

Now that I am using the upstairs office all of the time I have really come to notice how incredibly loud the water heater in the basement is. I always knew that it was unbearably loud if it came on when we were trying to use the theatre in the basement. But this is really loud upstairs as well. I can’t believe that Andy never said anything living directly above it for two years.

Okay, it is 4:10 am and I have to be up in the morning for the funeral. Min will be home in three hours. I just wrapped up the work that I was trying to get done and luckily I did manage to get it done. Oreo is looking at me trying to convince me to go to bed so I had better get going.

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