Today I awoke to the silent sound of falling snow, and it continued to snow all morning. At about noon, the weather forecast called for the snow to stop, and then the rain and sleet was to start. Since we none of the parts that we're installing had made it to Maine yet, we decided to bug out at about noon. You may be asking yourself "Noon? I thought you were working evenings." Well...
Before I left Waco, I was told that we would be working evenings/nights, but I found out yesterday that we'll be working days, at least for the first week. I was both happy and sad about this. I was kind of looking forward to sleeping in and not having to be at work until the afternoon, but on the bright side, I'll be able to do some swing dancing.
http://www.downeastdance.net/calendar.htm#two
So anyway, we got off at noon, and after my round with Ice and Gravity last night and then getting my socks wet walking around in my Sketchers, I decided that it was time to get some boots. When I was at Walmart last night, I tried on some of their boots, but none of them were very comfortable (I should have guessed since the most expensive were $40). Fortunately, L.L. Bean has its corporate office and "Retail Village" in the nearby town of Freeport. After about a 15 minute drive, I found another New England town to get lost in. Parking lots are weird around here: lots of one-way drives with the exits nowhere near the entrances. L.L. Bean's "Retail Village" was an interesting sight to see. They had something like 4 or 6 stores spread out over a couple of blocks. There was the main store (which looked like a huge 2-story log cabin), the outlet store, a hunting and camping store, a skiing store, and probably a couple more that I didn't see. I first went to the outlet store to see what kind of deals I could find. I saw some good-looking shoes, but none larger than a size 8 (I wear between a size 11 and 12, depending on the shoe). So, I went over to the main store to find some climate-appropriate footwear. I must say, their customer service was awesome. After staring blankly at the wall of shoes for a few seconds, an elderly man asked if I needed help. I found a shoe that I liked and asked if he had it in an 11 or 12, and he said "probably not for that one; we're clearing out our winter boots to make room for our spring clothing lines". Great! After a couple more attempts, I found a boot that they had in my size.
http://www.llbean.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?page=gore-tex-day-hikers&categoryId=42040&storeId=1&catalogId=1&langId=-1&parentCategory=503034&cat4=502767&shop_method=pp&feat=503034-tn
They were a little more expensive than the "boots" at Walmart, but I'm pretty sure that they're a little better. On my way out of the store after buying my boots, I stopped off at a bench to change shoes. While I was working on one of my feet, I overheard a guy telling his wife "he's not wasting any time putting on his new shoes" to which I said "that's why I bought them". With my feet now nicely dry and warm, I headed back to the outlet store to see if I could find any good deals. I found a 3-in-1 one jacket that normally costs $89.00 and bought it for $34.30. That's a pretty sweet deal. I didn't do too much more looking since I figured that I'll be back sometime between now and the end of the month. I'll try to get some pictures on the next trip, but right now it looks like I won't be able to post any on the blog.
I got back to the hotel at about 2:30 and decided to do a little work since I had my laptop. I got about 3 more hours of work in (I hadn't even gotten to the hotel yesterday and I'd already gotten a call about changes to the installation), and then stretched out on the bed to watch TV. I ended up taking a nap until about 7:30. Feeling a little hungry, I munched a little on my spoils from my conquest of Wally World and settled down to play some Xbox. Unfortunately, I can't get the thing to connect to the internet using the wireless network. Sorry Brad, Keith, Kevin, and Will. It just can't find the network, which is funny since I'm connected to it on my laptop IN THE SAME ROOM! If I get it to work, I'll let y'all know so that we can do some online gaming. The Xbox did work out very well last night as a DVD player. I watched The Shawshank Redemption last night to get myself in the Maine mood, since it's set in Maine (just like almost all of Stephen King's books).
Well, that's about it for me for today, so good night from the Pine Tree State!
Doctory Moments
13 years ago
2 comments:
Boots are a good thing for the ice, for sure. I always bought my pair and then sprayed them with waterproofer or oiled them so they wouldn't get wet in the snow.
How well do you know your co-workers that came with you from Waco? Do y'all hang out at all or do you all pretty much split off to your individual corners after work?
I wrote a little bit about my co-workers in my Day 3 entry. I didn't really know either of the guys before coming on this trip. We've eaten out a few times, and we've talked about playing some dominoes or poker, but I don't really see myself hanging out with them much on this trip. They're more into going to bars and drinking. I told them today at lunch that if they asked I might go with them, I would just drink water or Dr. Pepper or some other soft drink.
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