long week

spent the majority of last week working, more so than usual. worked 10 hours on Sunday last week, then a full week, and another 10 hours yesterday. haven't put 60 hours on the clock in a long time, and i'm pretty much beat. a little creative bookkeeping kept my hours from last Sunday off the OT clock; my boss would likely have given those hours to a part-time employee if he had to pay me overtime for them, but offered me the time on the clock instead, to help make up for the day i missed when the clutch went out on my truck. so those hours got moved to a prior pay period. i still owed him an hour OFF the clock for time i was overpaid the week before Christmas, so taking that hour into account, my 10 hour shift last Sunday worked out to 1.2 hours of OT. yesterday's hours were all at OT rate though (assuming i'll get full shifts in for the remainder of the pay period). this is a good thing, because even 10 hours of OT isn't enough to make up for the $235 ticket i got upon arriving to work yesterday. it sucks to get a ticket at all, but it REALLY sucks when you get one on the way to work, when you're already tired and trying to make up some of the money you already spent on an unexpected expense, and now you will work the entire shift knowing the state's taking the money you needed, and then some, and you would have made more money STAYING HOME. i hate the police. they're never there when you need 'em, and they're rarely able or willing to do much (if anything) about problems you have- the time my house was robbed comes to mind. all in all my experience with police has shown me that you're just better off when they're not around.

i'll be fighting this ticket (or at least part of it). i was fined $132 for allegedly travelling 51mph in a 40mph zone; my speedometer said 44, and i saw the policeman. i'm always looking for them there, on the block i work on, where there accidents are frequent and police presence is common. they're out there giving out tickets all the time, and i'm generally quite careful to watch my speed. in this case, i didn't even bother to brake, believing myself to be travelling within an acceptable margin of the posted limit. obviously that was not the case. i don't believe my speed exceeded 45mph, so i'll be contesting this one. and, as advised by many, i'll be requesting the officer's presence in court.

the other half of the ticket was for not having a driver's-side sideview mirror. i don't plan on contesting that, but will have it fixed forthwith. i'd actually bought a replacement mirror and had it in the vehicle with me at the time of the stop. i suppose i should have explained that to the officer (a Snohomish County Sherrif) before i let him write me a ticket.

i wonder if it's legal that he didn't ask me for proof of insurance? i gave it to him anyway, when he asked for my license, but maybe he realized he'd be writing me tickets for the other offense(s) and was trying not to pile me up with $600 in fines (though a fine for no insurance would've been impossible).

on to other news.

i started calling Loren at his mom's house around 4pm yesterday afternoon, as per my stated plan, and after a couple calls managed to get an answer about when he planned on coming for the evening, so i could leave work. i definitely needed to stay working as long as possible yesterday, both in terms of wages to be earned and also in terms of work to finish. i made adequate progress on both fronts, and left around 5:40 for home. i was in a fairly miserable mood for much of the evening, and pretty tired to boot, so it wasn't the most fun Loren or i've had. i ordered a pizza delivered (both more expensive and less enjoyable than the frozen ones i normally buy) and we watched an episode of ST:DS9. he was ready to watch more, but i didn't, being tired at 10pm and ready to fall asleep on the spot. he was pretty tired too, though he had a little more gas in his tank than i did. in the end, inactivity won out, and we both were crashed out on the couch before we knew it. sometime in the middle of the night i woke up and woke him up, told him to go to bed- before falling asleep again myself. then i woke up about 4am and padded upstairs to my own bed.

we spent a little time together this morning, he played some video games and i watched. we got cleaned up and before you knew it, it was time to take him to his basketball game. his team played another "select" team, and got pounded something like 78-11. Loren played a good game overall, but not spectacular. he didn't score any points, but did block a shot, and played well on the low post for the duration of his minutes (about 1/3-1/2 of the game) and put a lot of pressure on the players he defended. he played aggressively enough to rack up two fouls. that's a success in itself, i've been trying to teach him to use his fouls. the other team shot horribly for the most part but put up a ton of shots, and in the end their offense was just too much for the Tigers defense to stop. the Tigers looked a little shell-shocked in the first half, but played hard in the second and had more success. Loren took off after the game to go back to his mom's place, to hang out with a friend of his (and moreso his brother's). thanks to my sister Melissa for coming, and another thanks for the coffee she bought me! after the game it was home for me.....and now i'm here, so it's time to decide what to do for the remainder of the afternoon.