Give me an R! It’s Read Free Sunday (RFS) at The Diary.
It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Saturday, November 19
The big news at the hotel is that that heavy-duty styrofoam board at the doorway that leads to the being-remodeled lobby that replaced that taped-up sheeting is, triumphantly, still up…(Really, whoever came up with that idea should be given a generous government pension because it was sheer genius.)…It really came in handy tonite because it was brutally cold and ol’ Sparrow was able to get the #2 key from Amy and duck into the lobby and get to the back office without having to go back outside.
We were at the front desk about a half-hour into the shift when two guys show up holding cups and a bottle looking for “a warm place to drink” because they “don’t want to bother our old ladies”…The lobby, of course, is being redone and there is a bench near the NFDA but the problem is the thermostat at the New Front Desk Area (NFDA) has – just in time for winter – been copping an attitude and hasn’t always been working and it was a toasty 58 in the hallway…They noted that I appeared warm, and I acknowledged as much, noting the portable heater.
– Then you’re drinking with us.
This was actually moderately funny, especially because they took a couple of more steps into the lobby.
– What are you drinking???
One of them looked at the bottle and shrugged.
– Tequila.
– Oh, Christ, I can’t drink that…That’ll put hair on my palms.
– Good…That will help with warmth.
After some thought, we referred them to the sitting area at Door 4, between rooms 166/167 and the gym…Later, when we were walking the hotel they were still there, drinking and chatting amiably.
The big news is there was an electrical problem at the NFDA this morning…It’s about 0520 or so and we’re printing out the day’s registration cards when BOOM the printer stops…This wasn’t too big of a surprise because it had been jamming paper all morning, but a check showed the printer wasn’t getting any power and further inspection showed the entire workstation wasn’t getting power, either…The power strip hadn’t been messed with because I’d been there all nite and would’ve known if I’d messed with it and another check shows the heater we had plugged into the outlet where the power strip was drawing its power from wasn’t getting power, either…One of the things we learned in the Navy was basic troubleshooting skills and you did not have to be Thomas Edison to deduce there wasn’t any power coming thru the outlet.
The fly in the ointment was while the other workstation had power, we couldn’t log into The System…Crap, because this means we couldn’t print receipts for departing guests who wanted one, which turned out to be no big deal because the couple of departing guests didn’t require one.
We’ve been having electrical problems at the NFDA for a while now, because the electrical system there is not designed to take the sheer amount of electricity required right now…You’ve got two workstations, plus the sundry stand freezer and refrigerator, plus the portable heaters because the main heater has gone out and all in all it is more than the system can sometimes bear…We texted GM Andy and Maintenance Guy Luke and Luke showed up and threw a breaker and BOOM everything was back to normal again.
There was more good strength in the gym, with gains on two exercises: we moved 30 lbs on the shoulder side lateral raises for the first time in years and moved 90 lbs on the cable tricep machine twelve times…Now, the form on the side lateral raises wasn’t strait out of the Weightlifting Manual on the last couple of sets, but it wasn’t too bad and we’ll take it…Form on the tricep machine was solid for all twelve…We were in earlier than usual for Saturday (see Sleep Log below) and had time for an hour-long soak, too, key because with vacation coming up starting Tuesday morning, this will probably be our last workout for ten days or so, and it was good to get max weights and a long soak in.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 0900 Saturday until 1630 Saturday, 7.5 hours for the day and 47.5 hours for the week…Regular readers of this crap know there was a time when this would’ve been a solid weekly total, but with 50-hour weeks the new standard, it’s subpar now.
Some of you might be wondering if the flannel sheets require the use of the heated mattress pad we’ve used for years…The answer is yes, but not until the temperature reaches zero degrees like it was this morning when we turned in…It is also almost interesting to note that zero degrees is the threshold when we have to put our liner underneath the new Under Armour watch cap…It’s really warm, but zero degrees is zero degrees and must be respected.
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The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Anything else is a coincidence.
It was inspired by the 19th-century British novel of the same name.
Coming soon! Gaylon’s books in actual book form!
