The days are getting shorter as summer draws to a close. The kids are back in school, we're losing two to three minutes at a time and our time in Printing are down to the last 7 days. Seven days left and the old gang will move over to packaging, some will go to days, a couple will trek to Minnesota to start what I think is a losing battle of keeping printing alive, and the rest of us going to Iowa City for a half year.
At this point I have to go where the work is at, and there's not much going on down there. But I still have a good two and half weeks of vacation and another week of unpaid time off. But with a new baby in the family, a four wheel baby I call Redd, I'm back into the tradition of car payments and keeping it looking good in a crappy environment. The leaves fall and get in between the grill and under the wipers and then winter comes along and make everything even worse, salt on roads, gravel, dust leading to rust but I'm placing bets on hoping Redd last 10 years at least. And maybe pay it off before then.
I'm enjoying what satellite radio has to offer but the more I listen to it the more I hear the same old same old as heard on the FM dial. Deep Tracks and their Pink Floyd at midnight gets me to change the channel, not that I don't like Pink Floyd, I have 8 of their albums but geez can we just live without hearing The Wall or Dark Side Of The Moon once in a while? I think this is the wave of my future, to finally end the wild CD buying habits and live the rest of my years on pay radio and what I have in my collection. There's really not much out there that I'm hard up to buy. Disposable music, that's what we're stuck with today and we can always turn on the radio to hear the overplayed memories. But I don't think paying 19.95 a month just to hear Free Bird on XM is going to convert me as much as the comedy channel or Willie's Roadhouse, where country classics live. Or KDST when it comes into range.
I don't think I've ever had a car that I bought that the mileage was 10,000 miles. Except maybe the rebuilt 1990 Skylark which my brother slaved away getting together and watched it rust within 8 years of hard driving and harsh winters. There's a feeling of euphoria when you drive in something brand new, like you have been reborn again to drive the roads and not have to worry about things falling apart like the 1994 Purple Corsica has done the past five years. A four door car with only two doors that opened, it was a good car before it hit 200K, but then after that, the old age and rust it finally gave up the ghost. I think I got a good deal from the folks at Brad Deery in Maquoketa. They managed to email and call me a couple days later for a followup. Yep, it's a love affair with Redd.and hope it last. But since it stays outside due to no garage I'm going have to invest in a cover to keep it from trees, limbs, flying shit bag birds taking target practice and the elements. But I now have something reliable to get me to the bargain hunts in Madison or even take that trip to St Louis that I have put off for a couple years. But for now, there's no trip planned to go anywhere. Except in town.
July took forever to get through but this month has gone by faster than a speeding train. With school back in session, I have to now deal with school buses and the idiot Kirkwood semi truck drivers in training. Going to I City, on highway 1, it's two lane all the way and the closer you get there, the cars seem to come out more and more, especially in Solon. For years I've bitched about the crappy printers and the crappy towers and paper cutters that wouldn't work half the time. Maybe I'll miss it when the scanner's break but maybe not, I'll miss the co workers that got me through the hard times and put up with my antics. I have no idea what they're going to have down in I.City but the high Bejeweled scores will come to an end. I think out of all the ones I'll, the one I tend to worry about, like everybody else does is Margaret, as she has to go to days since the folks in packaging didn't really want her all that much.
If I took the money and sat on my ass for a year and did nothing, chances are I wouldn't bought a new car. I would have settled for something much cheaper but not reliable and probably would have plenty of miles. A 2004 or 2005 Impala with low mileages are just as rare as Corsica's. But with a year off, I would have cleaned and cleared my house of clutter, or at least die trying. I could live off selling the CDs or my musical instruments as well, but nobody really much anymore and with Music Go Round a memory, trying to find some place that would pay a decent price for used stuff is even rarer than that elusive Corsica with low mileage. The hoarder house of 250,000K records scared me straight into perhaps getting rid of the things that sounded like a good idea at the time.
I have things on the back burner that needs to be tended to. The new Townedgers record that I made I need to revise it. Some songs are good but some of it sucks and the world doesn't need a remake of The End, no matter how desperate for music you may be. The inner critic in me is showing again but it's obvious that I fucked it up on the song selection and sequence. But then again it's all for my benefit and nobody is going to hear outside of those who hear it on www.radiobuzzd.com
Meanwhile, the ratings continue to drop, and the big blog that was the moneymaker, the Brains Blog isn't packing them in anymore. And like in real life, I'm beginning to run out things to say, like watching the setting sun, fading into darkness. Wondering what's next in life. Wondering if there's anything left to say in life that I haven't before. There's really nothing left out there that I haven't heard yet, I think I covered most of it. I guess that's why I have a substantial collection of music, since I can't be at a record store all day, I think that's why I have so much, so I can go dig deep into the archives and see what I did buy and haven't played yet or forgot all about them. I don't need any more, but I drive to Madison or go to Mesa FYE stores or Zia's and it makes me feel like I belong there, even though I go to Madison a couple times per year and Arizona every other summer if I can afford it.
But I'm going have to prepare for life after the record stores; they're too far away and age is slowly creeping up on me that I'm the oldest dude at the local Zia's or Mad City Music X. With Best Buy shrinking their selection and the help more annoying then ever, maybe I have to go the mail order route for the new and reissues.
Maybe it's later than I think?
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