With eleven days to go, my immediate plans are beginning to form. I intend to stay for all of next week. That'll help the folks at work get almost completely through November ratings. They end the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and since we try to work a week ahead we should be set by the time I leave.

Dad's coming up that Friday. I hope we can stay here that night. I haven't asked, but I assume the station booked through Friday night for me, since I'm working Friday. I can't image the station would plan for me to check out of here on my way to work in the morning. We'll go somewhere nice Friday night and maybe hit one last Cincinnati attraction Saturday morning and head for Virginia.

"I'm getting a little nervous..."
I'm gonna hang out with him till Thanksgiving day, when the search begins for a car I can drive to San Francisco. Driveaway only lets you book cars three days out, so that'll be up in the air for a while. Dad's offered to drive me to wherever I need to pick up a vehicle, within reason. They have offices all over the east, so it could be somewhere like Richmond, DC, Raleigh, Greensboro, Charlotte, Philly, Atlanta, Pittsburgh... and on and on.

I'm getting a little nervous about getting a car. A week ago there was a huge list of available vehicles on Driveaway's website. Now there are hardly any. I talked to the guy who runs the Richmond office. He ways it comes in cycles and you just hope to catch it at the right time. He said right after Thanksgiving he'll have a car going to Spokane. I guess that'll work if I'm desperate. It's still a long way from California.

"I started running faster and faster..."
I outran an Ohio River barge today. I went running through downtown, around one of the new sports stadiums, across the landmark Roebling suspension bridge into Kentucky, and back across another bridge. On my way back I was about a third of the way across the bridge when I noticed a barge coming downriver. He was only pushing one or two of those big coal things. Usually there are more. It felt like I'd have plenty of time to get to the end of the bridge where he would go under so I could watch him go by. After a few seconds I realized he was going faster than I thought and might beat me to that point. I started running faster and faster till I was sprinting as hard as I could. (Yes, I suppose I looked a little odd, but it was entertaining.)

The funny part is the captain on the barge must have realized what I was doing and revved up the engine. I could hear the motor start to roar and the water start splashing up higher on the sides of the boat. I think I beat him, but not by much. I kind of waved, but I never saw him. He blew his horn at me as he went under the bridge.

"This guy actually flew into a rage."
And one other thing... for the first time in my life, I pissed off a telemarketer to the point he yelled at me and hung up. I've been trying to do this for years. See, if I'm not overly busy I'll just try to mess with these people... waste their time. Usually they let me go on and on acting like a lunatic till I lose interest and hang up after a few minutes. Occasionally they'll politely rattle off a number I can call back and hang up... but I've never really gotten one worked up.

This guy called and asked to speak to "the person in charge of the phone bill." I mean come the hell on. What kind of respectable telemarketing firm doesn't at least do enough research to get the name on the phone bill. So I start in with various annoying lines from Office Space and The West Wing such as "Yeah... hmmmmm.... not sure I know who's in charge of the phone bill. Hmmmmm." and "Maybe not so much for you with the talking." This guy actually flew into a rage, saying something like "Do you fuckin' get off on telemarketers?" When I did the Bevis and Butthead "Heh heh. You said get off." He lost it, called me a motherfucker, and hung up. Sadly, this was the most fun I had all weekend.