Not a whole lot to say lately, guys. Here's a quick rundown:

I hate my job. I have never, ever hated a job before. Shredding paper was unpleasant but it never made me miserable. Bank teller/hot dog vendor will probably go down as the best summer in history. I liked Subway because I really liked making sandwiches; I know, it's weird, but seriously, I would have contests with myself. How quickly I could make sandwiches during the lunch rush. My crowning achievement was the day when there was a baseball tournament in town and I was working the counter by myself because the other guy called in sick. In the hour between noon and one in the afternoon, I made, rung up, and took payment for no fewer than seventy-four sandwiches. That's one sandwich every 48.6 seconds. Admittedly, there were multiple orders where I made five sandwiches at once and took payment for them all at the same time, but I still made all those sandwiches. Pretty sweet.

So that was a digression. Forgive me.

Seriously, I hate my job. I've already quit, but I told them I would work through Mother's Day so I'm not just leaving them high and dry. This should make it easier for me to be there, but it is in fact next to impossible now. Every customer that treats me like dirt makes me think, "why don't I just tell them off and walk out the door?" But then I look at my coworkers and how shorthanded we already are and I can't just walk out on them. So I take the bad treatment and the crappy tips and the being miserable, and it just gets worse and worse; I have an incredible amount of respect for anybody who can do this on a permanent basis. It takes infinite patience and skin thicker than a rhino. From now on, I am forever a 20% tipper.

So after my job ends, I'll have two weeks until summer school starts. I haven't really decided what to do with that time yet. It's summer, so it's warm enough to sleep outside, and even though gas prices are ridiculous there are a few road trips I have wanted to take for a very long time. I'm thinking about driving the entirety of old US Route 66. But then there's also the Grand Canyon. Ever since reading Through Painted Deserts I've wanted to hike down to the bottom and stay the night. That would take a couple days' time, and I don't know that I would have time for that if I were also driving the whole highway.

It would take me about nine days to drive from Chicago to LA if I drove about eight hours a day. Add on the two days it would take to get to Chicago, then the three days to get home from LA, that's a full two weeks. I have sixteen days in between my last day at work and my first day of school, so I could just make it. But then I would not be able to fly during those days, thus postponing my private pilot certification. As cool a story as it would make to have driven the whole "mother highway" (http://www.historic66.com/ their term not mine), it just seems like it would be significantly cooler to be able to say "I'm a pilot." Then I could just fly to Chicago or LA whenever I wanted.

Okay, that last sentence just settled it right there. I'm going to get my first solo next week, then I'm going to set to work on my cross country flights. My instructor doesn't think I'll be able to get certified by May 30th, but I'm determined. We'll see.

This has been "my decision-making process" with John Carmack. Tune in next week to watch me pick out a shirt. For now, I go to clean my kitchen and then it's off to work.

Watching - Friends Season 9