Friday, May 27, 2011

Multiply 365 Day 146 - Snooze alarm

I am hoping I can get a couple of intelligible words out, but for the last 45 minutes or so I have just been staring at the screen and slowly nodding off, only to snap back awake again before I could enter a restful slumber.  It has just been a long, draining week at work, and tomorrow isn't looking much better.  What should be a short day is looking like at least an 8 hour affair (overtime), but I could use the extra money for the upcoming birthday stuff.  Plus I am working on Memorial Day (time and a half, plus I get an additional paid vacation day), so for a change I may have a better than usual paycheck, if I can stand being around my coworkers that is.  Since my run in with Belinda the other day, I think I have said 50 words to the entire staff (save for Sammy since he is on my crew and the managers since they knew nothing so they couldn't have been the ones running their mouths).  And anyone who has read a blog entry or two of mine knows that 50 words usually works out to about two sentences with me. 

About the only positive to come out of this week is that I finally started making a concentrated effort to ride my bike to work to save some money.  It went well this week too, of the 5 days I worked, I biked it four times, another $18 that will never see the Port Authority coffers.  And I plan on biking to breakfast before work tomorrow as well.  Biking home on that full of a stomach from Deluca goodness may be a challenge, but one I am willing to attempt. 

But for now I think I will sleep, lest I actually nod off with my face pressed against the keyboard and something coherent actually ending up on the page.  Rather than leave you with a typical good bye though, I am going to break the 365 rules a bit and leave you with some Stolen Content.  There is a reason for it, this event happened the day after I had my little pow wow with Belinda.  And the person in the article?  Well, that would be her son.  It borders very close to a "karma is a bitch moment".

Man faces charges in dispute, standoff
Gun jams several times, police say
Friday, May 27, 2011

A Perry Hilltop man faces aggravated assault charges after police said his gun jammed while he tried to open fire on a couple at a bus stop in broad daylight.

Police say Chavez Vera, 18, was later holed up in his home with his grandmother for 90 minutes as members of the SWAT team swarmed his street.

Mr. Vera also is charged with carrying a firearm without a license.

Police said the chain of events started at the intersection of Kennedy and Perrysville avenues around 10:20 a.m. A man who had accompanied his girlfriend to the bus stop told police he thought he saw Mr. Vera involved in a drug deal.

Mr. Vera became angry, police said, and asked the man what he was looking at.

"I'm looking at you," he replied, according to police.

At that point, Mr. Vera started to raise his gun at the couple and pulled the trigger several times, but the gun jammed. A bullet fell from the gun's chamber, but it never fired.

The man and his girlfriend turned and ran, yelling for workers at a nearby child care center to get inside. They then called police as the gunman fled in a car.

Armed with a description of the car, police followed him back to his house at 121 Marshall Ave., but he had gotten inside by the time police arrived.

The SWAT unit was called out, and Marshall Avenue was closed as they attempted to reach him. Finally, his mother came to the scene, and he called her cell phone, telling her he was going to surrender.

He walked out of the home shortly after noon, walking backward into the street with his hands up. An uncle, Clarence Samuel, said he wanted to wait until he had a chance to speak to his mother before he surrendered to police.

Police said he had a juvenile warrant out for his arrest.

Moriah Balingit: mbalingit@post-gazette.com, 412-263-2533.

First published on May 27, 2011 at 12:00 am


Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11147/1149518-53.stm#ixzz1Nc8M8RBd

4 comments:

  1. I spend my day at work trying to avoid even making eye contact with my co workers. With me and them it is worse then a Mars Venus thing. I don't even think I am from the same galaxy as the secretary and the office manager is not the brightest bulb on the tree. I just share a work space with them. She's nice but I'm not the hang out with women who get charged occasionally with bar fights. I think the last full conversation I had with either one was "please put the box with the timing device and wires sticking out of it down and lets walk outside shall we?" I'm not kidding when I tell you the bomb robot came, tucked it in it's little explosive tight belly and rolled the box out into the parking lot to explode it. Oh wait since then I may have said "thats the fire alarm and everyone needs to go outside now. Remember what the Fire Marshall said the last time about the $1000 fine if he finds someone in the building after the fire trucks pull up." Then those 2 usually blink both sets of eyelids and follow me out the door. Excellent on riding your bike to work. I would if I felt I would live on the 5 lane blvd to work but it looks like instant death if I tried. People drive like nut jobs in Maryland

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  2. There are actually quite a few bike trails and routes in Pittsburgh, many of which run along the rivers and make them fairly flat. From what I have been led to believe, technically there should be enough bike trailage to actually ride from Pittsburgh all the way to DC. But my motivating factor was money more than anything else. When I first moved to Pittsburgh back in 87, riding public transportation, while not ideal, was relatively tolerable. Ample buses, a single fare was $1.25 (plus .25 for a transfer), weekly bus passes were $11 and monthly bus passes were $40. Nowadays there are fewer buses due to service cuts, a single fare is $2.25 (plus $1 for a transfer), weekly passes are $22.50 and monthly ones are $90. So every time I ride my bike I can practically buy a pack of cigarettes, thus killing any potential health benefit, lest people thing I am into that sort of thing.

    As for my coworkers, when I was in radio for 12 years I can honestly say that I worked with some truly professional people, but I really didn't hang out with them outside the office all that much. We all just went home to our own personal lives. But at the newsstand I thought things were different, everyone pretty much gets along, we worked together but we also played together and I did like that aspect. It was nice knowing after work a group of us might head out for drinks afterward or just go do stuff non work related. But if anytime I speak it is going to turn into a silent whisper campaign about what I said, then I am better off not doing it. If I wanted my every single utterance broadcast to the public at large, well I would put it here. And like I said a couple of posts ago, I had no problem helping people out if they needed it at work and I might be of assistance. 5 different times people had come to me looking for help in getting themselves a computer, and they all got one relatively cheaply ( I was getting refurbished laptops for about $240). Belinda has been looking for a house for better than a year now, when she first started looking I gave her the name of my real estate agent friend Phil, who I used to work with at the radio station (he did one of those brokered Saturday shows that dealt with real estate questions) though Belinda was pretty lax in keeping in touch with Phil I at least gave her a potential lead in finding a new home. A few different times just out of the blue I said screw it, we are having pizza for lunch and bought for the entire staff. So I would like to think that I have been at least a decent guy to work with, though I do have my bad moments as I am sure many people do, but at the end of the day if I am going to be repaid in a fashion where people are hanging on my every word just so that can then use those words against me, well then, fuck them. I have far better things to do with my time than waste it on such people.

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  3. I am a contractor at work so that automatically makes me the outsider looking in. When they don't do their job like answer the phone I do it because I can't stand to hear a ringing phone. Of course the more I answered it the less then did. The secretary is now too busy to answer the phone. All she does is talk about shopping, home renovations and her crappy paste jewelry business that drives me up a wall. My biggest entertainment at work is that the secretary's ass is so big it flows under the arms of her office chair and when she stands up it shoots off her ass like a cannon and hits the wall behind her. Of course she is always on a diet and can't lose weight and when I have invited her to come to the gym she tells me she doesn't like to sweat. I use to try to be social with them and gave up.

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