Sad news about Aloha Airlines shutting down passenger operations after 61 years of business in Hawaii.

It makes me wonder what kind of impact that will have on the state’s economy with an influx of 1,900 people to join the unemployment line. It saddens me to see iconic local businesses like Aloha Airlines going belly up and it makes me want to boycott Go! Airlines. I suppose it’s akin to a Wal-mart coming in and running the local mom & pop stores out of business. But, what’s a consumer to do in these tight economic times? The smart thing would be to patronize the business who can give you the most bang for your buck, but more often than not, that’s not going to be a small or locally-owned business. It’s like the “made in China” dilemma, but there’s enough to be said about that for another entry entirely, so let’s not even go there.

On a more selfish note, the closure of Aloha Airlines affects me because I managed to accumulate 70,000+ miles with Aloha Airlines mostly through the usage of my First Hawaiian Bank Aloha AirAwards credit card. A lot of those miles were obtained from charging the more than $5,500 in expenses associated with my recent in vitro procedures. I did this consciously with the expressed intent of earning miles for air travel sometime in the near future. Now, I suppose I can kiss those free trips goodbye. Aloha oe.

Do you know anyone who has to practice waking up in the morning? Well, now you do.

After four (glorious, wonderful, relaxing) weeks of post-surgery R&R, tomorrow I must return to work. For four weeks, I’ve been going to sleep and waking up whenever my body felt like it. How awesome is that? No alarm clock, no rude awakenings, for FOUR WEEKS. Nocturnal by nature, I have been regularly going to sleep around 2:00 am and waking up at 10:00 am. It’s the way my biorhythms work. I seem to be more alive between the hours of 8:00 pm and 1:00 am than I am all day.

For the past week, I’ve been consciously attempting to get to bed earlier in hopes of adjusting my internal time clock to a more work-friendly schedule. So far, I’ve been terribly unsuccessful. I’ve been heading to bed around midnight and have found myself lying in bed, staring at the ceiling for HOURS. This may not be unusual for some, but for me, it is pure torture. Normally, I am asleep within five minutes of my head hitting the pillow. For people like Lindy who has traveled with me and had the misfortune of sharing a room with me, you know that I’m not exaggerating. So, for sleep to elude me for upwards of 30 minutes is unheard of.

Last night, I set my alarm clock to 6:30 am and dove under the blankets at 11:30 pm. I tossed and turned until at least 1:30 am. It was the most frustrating two hours of my life. I think it’s a combination of the biorhythm issue and the inability to turn my mind off. In a recent chat with Derek, he mentioned the travails of dealing with an active mind just before bed. At this point in my life, it seems that I now have a TON of stuff on the brain.

It felt like I had been asleep for a mere five minutes before my alarm buzzed obnoxiously from my nightstand. Half-asleep and feeling like misery on a stick, I fumbled around to switch off the alarm. It was raining outside and the air was chilly, a perfect morning to stay in my warm, toasty bed and just linger until whenever.

It took every ounce of willpower to force myself out from under the sheets. It’s 9:00 am and I still feel like heck. I’ll try to tire myself out today, get some exercise, run some errands, and hope I can get to sleep by 11:00 pm — otherwise Monday morning is going to be hellacious.

Did I mention I am SO not looking forward to tomorrow? *sigh*

Somehow, it seems that my bottom is less tolerant to sitting for extended periods now.

I decided to spend some time on the computer today, in lieu of lying in bed all day. Hubby needed to catch up on his zzz’s, so I thought I would give him some uninterrupted time of rest. So, I aimlessly surfed the web, watched Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”, updated my WordPress installations to ver 2.1.3 and subsequently broke one of them. I had updated 3 others previously without a hitch, but I knew I was pressing my luck with this one.

And wouldn’t you know it, when I tried to restore the databases, it errored out. Now, it’s displaying:

WordPress database error: [Unknown column 'user_level' in 'where clause']
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM main_users WHERE user_level > 1

Unless anyone knows what to do to resolve this error, I guess I’ll have to try and figure it out later. Right now, I’m tuckered out — and my butt hurts.

Dang it, it’s almost Monday. Already.

*sigh*

Needless to say, it’s been pretty painful lately.

I find it pretty darned sad that I can relate to so many of these attractive lithographs. Cynical, moi?

There must be something to the date: 06/06/06.

I had the worst day at work today. Ever. In the entire history of the world. (Or at least my world, that is.) Absolutely miserable.

I’m glad that 06/06/06 only comes around once, oh, cursed date.

I knew I should’ve called in sick. Oh yeah, I can’t. I’m still on stinking probation. I’m going to attempt to OD on my codeine cough syrup now and try to get some sleep. Bah, humbug.

I purchased some new clothes to accompany my new job. And whenever I buy new clothes, it means another trip to the tailor. Even items found in the petite section don’t quite fit, so I always end up having to get my pants and suit jackets altered. I am cursed with short extremities, I guess. Someone needs to create a clothing line for the “short and squat.” Petite tries to cater to that crowd, but it often falls short (har har) of really meeting our needs.

Anyway…

The store recommended a tailor in downtown who specializes in formal wear, so I went to see her on Saturday. She had a constant flow of women, filtering in and out of the dressing room, standing on the podium, getting their garments pinned up.

I brought in three lined pants and two jackets for alterations. The pants are pretty simple, just shorten the length. However, the suit jackets are a bit more problematic. Since I have broad shoulders, my jackets fit around the shoulders, but end up being long in the arm and baggy around the sides. She’ll be tailoring a better fit to accentuate the waistline and shortening the sleeves. When she pinned it up, I was pleased with how much better it looked.

When her assistant wrote up the sales tag, however, I experienced a bit of sticker shock.

It’s expensive to be “short and squat.”