The Michael Swayne Story V: King of his Castle

To put my head on a desk. Not my desks at school, not at work, not even at home. But today while working, I really felt like putting my head on the desk. Maybe it was because I did about ten hours of work in 6.5 hours. Maybe it was because I woke up way too early. All I know is that I still didn't.

This morning I gave my brother money to get dog food for Luca. I haven't received the change from it yet. I know that Luca's food is not $25 per bag...yet. I saw it as I was putting it in the buckets. It is not made of gold.

Today I also spent $50 on the following...

This is not the exact bike I bought, but it looks like it. The bike I bought is actually the bike I rode a few weeks ago as a substitute for when my previous route bike finally broke. Misty asked me if I still wanted it, because they would be selling it in their yard sale this weekend. She said that if I wanted it, I could buy it for $50. I told her that I would have the money as soon as I cash my paycheck. Then this evening, my brother and I went and picked it up. So now I have a bike specifically for my route (the HUFFY Nel Lusso), and a bike for other trips (the MONGOOSE whatever it's called).

To describe my new bike, it is a 21-gear, 26" tires, mountain bike. It has the most comfortable bike seat I have ever remembered sitting on. This seat is more comfortable than my route bike's. It's red or burgundy, or rusty brown (but not rusted). Though I am this bike's second owner, I am the first person to actually ride this bike. I was going to put "only person to ride this bike", but that's not true. My brother thought it would be fun to ride it and do wheelie with it.

Apparently, it is a good bike to do wheelies with. I wouldn't know, because I don't have the arm strength to lift the bike enough to even do a bunny hop.

You may be asking, "Michael, you keep your bicycle in your bedroom to prevent it from being out in the elements. Where are you going to keep a second bicycle?" Though my room is big enough for ten or more bicycles to stay comfortably, I have both out in the garage right now. The brakes are squeaking on the Mongoose, so I asked my brother to take a look at them. He says that since the bike wasn't used a lot, it is probably the cause of the noise. And the HUFFY is in the garage because I plan to eventually switch which bicycle I have in my room depending on the day of the week. Or something else that I will decide in the future.

Basically, the Mongoose will become my primary bike for trips to Sinking Spring, going to do office work, and trips that don't require the basket. And the HUFFY will be used for delivering, or for trips to the store to get food, or other similar occasions that require carrying things.

I have also decided what my next bicycle purchase will be, provided I don't have to buy another bike. I want one of these...

or something similar. With ever-rising fuel prices, I could capitalize on that and start a bicycle delivery business.

My hope is to one day own a rickshaw and taxi people around. Like one of these...

Then I could open a whole new business.

Anyway, I should get back to why I wanted to put my head on my office desk.

I arrived at the office at 9am. I proceeded to work immediately. I worked without taking a break until I left at 3:30pm. Everyone else had already gone home. I am nearly finished with every ad that I was tasked to make today. Right now, it is turning out to be a tight 8-page paper. There is possible only 1/8th of a page left for actual news. I did type up the obituaries and already place them. I wanted to get as much done today as possible, that way there will plenty of time to make changes and corrections if needed. Since my future depends on how this paper turns out, I have to make sure everything goes well. That's why I arrived one hour early, and stayed 30 minutes after closing.

Today in tutoring, Joey and I played a game where I would write a word on the board and he would guess what it is. If he guessed correctly, then he would move one step closer to where I was standing and one step closer to him being the writer. When he would get to where I was, we switched places. This was good because it made him practice his handwriting and spelling. My brother even played a little. If only he could spell the words correctly ("4 weeler" is the funniest one).

The Gaming King election is winding down. There's only three days and seventeen hours left. I am still holding my position in 8th Place with 2,317 votes. I still have the friend I am working with holding onto more than 800 votes if I need them. Unless something major happens and turns the tables, I will stay in 8th place until the end. I am fine with that result, because it is two positions higher than my best result. It may be that those votes will continue to increase and won't be used until my next big run for the title.

I played a little Final Fantasy XIII-2 today. Basically, I went back to the game's start and collected the one fragment I didn't have yet, and then placed the two artifacts I received in 5AF in the gates. It looks like I can either go to 10AF or 300AF next. If you want, leave a comment on which one you think I should go to first. I unchecked the comment moderation box, so there will be no problem in posting a comment. I accidentally checked it when I was last looking through the permissions page and didn't realize until today that comments were being moderated. And then it took me about ten minutes to figure out how to find where the comments were to approve them. Which brings up a good question...

Why did I not receive a notification when someone commented on a blog entry so I could approve it? Is there a place for me to check to receive such notifications?

Moving on...

Tomorrow I will be finishing up this week's newspaper. I am still not sure which bike I will be riding to work. If my brother doesn't fix the squeaking on the Mongoose, I will probably ride the Nel Lusso. Other than that, I don't know what I will do. Probably the same things I usually do. Upload a video, campaign for more votes, and maybe play a video game.

I know what I will do tomorrow, if there's time I will start it at work and then work on it more at home. I have until Friday to make a new signature for the GFX tournament. And if I want at least a sliver of a chance on going to the finals, I need to figure out how to do something along the lines of the following...

Mainly because I highly doubt I could get lucky enough and have my opponent flake out and not submit their entry again. I have no idea what I will base the new piece on. I want to do something other than video game characters. I thought maybe some sort of animal or something I am interested in (like bicycles), but I don't know.

Anyway, that's all for now. I hope to see you around the forums, and until then...

Later!

Michael