Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Where's Daniel Powter When You Need Him?

Not that I really want him around me; I just have that friggin' "Had a Bad Day" song running through my head this evening, and I want to "thank" him upside HIS head for putting it in there.

It started around 3AM. We had an ice storm move through our area, and thanks to a combination of ice buildup and reckless drivers, power was knocked out through most of the rural parts of our county, including my house. By the time we woke up this morning , the temperature inside the house was 60°.

As a result, Ian's daycare was closed, so Kathy took him with her to work, since I had deadlines to meet on our weekend paper. I got to work, and realized that several of the ladies in our office had brought their kids into work, because their schools were closed for the day. They set up shop in our layout room and watched movies for the better part of the day.

When it came time to deal with the Weekender, I did not go into the layout room, opting instead to check pages in the advertising department. Around 2:30, I got the last page from the print shop across the street, and sent it on its way. A little while later, the kids went home with their respective moms.

A little after 4pm, when most everyone had gone home, I was walking around the office, and by the layout room, when I noticed a light was on. I looked inside, and my light table had been left on. There was a negative on the table. When I went over to look at it, I discovered to my horror, that it was a negative for the Weekender.

I went into a panic and looked for anyone who could tell me what that negative was doing there. I figured a) someone had taken the negative out to inspect it and neglected to return it to the stack, or b) there had been a change made to that page, and no one had bothered to tell me about it.

I discovered it was in fact the latter, and I ended up having to take it to our printers to make sure the correct page made it into the Weekender. Unfortunately, the presses are in a town about 40 miles west of here, and Kathy had to use the car to get to her teaching gig, so I had to bundle the boy in the van with me, and drive all the way to Covington to deliver one freakin' negative.

Needless to say, I was pretty damn exhausted by the time Ian and I made it home. Luckily, the power had been restored to our home by the time we got there. This wasn't the worst Valentine's Day I've ever had. It wasn't good, but definitely not the worst. That VD was still 1989, when I had my heart ripped out and ground to a pulp before my very eyes. I'm not bitter, though. Nope. Not a bit. Nuh-uh. No way. Zero bitterness here.

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