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What a Long, Strange Day It's Been
After dealing with my worst insomnia in years yesterday, I finally got a set of naps and into bed at the conclusion of the Giants game at around 2230.. hours later than my normal bedtime, but at least I was honestly sleepy. Feel into a nice deep sleep which lasted about an hour, when my cellphone announced that I had a text message. Understand that ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kshandra is about the only person who ever texts me. She was asleep next to me. Blearily, I read the two texts. They're from Adam. My boss. Stating that we were going to be slammed today, and could the drivers come in early? I call in and in my best "you have woken me, knave!" voice agree to come in a half-hour early. Finally get back to sleep. Get up at 0400, out the door by 0430, at work at 0500. Where I find that out of seven drivers for the day three had gotten the message. Best part? The three routes that were hardest hit by the avalanche of orders were among those who came in at the normal time.
I was just shocked to see Adam and the entire PM crew still there at 0500. They had so many orders to process that it literally required an all-nighter.
But anyway, I was finally back on the Livermore Valley-1 route (remember that? supposed to be my regular route? Yeah.) Routed it out, and found that I had a pretty average day staring at me. On the route sheet, or looking at the stack of invoices, it might have looked bad, but six of my deliveries were to the same company at one site. Contractors often do this when they have multiple jobs on a single site so they can add things to each order like "label all items 'Building 2'".
But here's where things got bizarre. My second stop was a company called Solyndra. If you follow the news at all, you may have noticed that today President Obama visited Solyndra. The main job site, where a new factory is being built, was completely shut down for the day. I had a delivery for a secondary site, a building undergoing renovations adjacent to the company HQ. Normally, you pull up, tell the rent-a-cop who you have a delivery for, and he waves you through. Not today. Today alongside the security guard were three Alameda County Sheriff patrol cars, two black SUVs, and a whole lot of cops. Also, three Agents. This was almost two hours prior to Marine One landing and at a building the President wasn't even coming close to. I was ordered out of the vehicle, and the search began.
Friends, I deliver to secure federal facilities. I have delivered to prisons. I deliver to oil refineries and pharmaceutical labs. I know intrusive security measures. I have never examined in this much detail. I was patted down. They ran some sort of scanner over every box on the truck and over my freaking lunch bag. As I was standing in the spot they told me stand in I looked around.. and saw a sniper on the roof of the building next door. He a clean shot on me with a nice solid wall as a backdrop.
The lesson, do not fuck with the United States Secret Service. These guys are the pros from Dover.
The rest of the day was as normal as my days get. After all that hurry up and get in last night, I was back early, took lunch, did two hot shots, and still got out an hour early.
kshandra is about the only person who ever texts me. She was asleep next to me. Blearily, I read the two texts. They're from Adam. My boss. Stating that we were going to be slammed today, and could the drivers come in early? I call in and in my best "you have woken me, knave!" voice agree to come in a half-hour early. Finally get back to sleep. Get up at 0400, out the door by 0430, at work at 0500. Where I find that out of seven drivers for the day three had gotten the message. Best part? The three routes that were hardest hit by the avalanche of orders were among those who came in at the normal time.I was just shocked to see Adam and the entire PM crew still there at 0500. They had so many orders to process that it literally required an all-nighter.
But anyway, I was finally back on the Livermore Valley-1 route (remember that? supposed to be my regular route? Yeah.) Routed it out, and found that I had a pretty average day staring at me. On the route sheet, or looking at the stack of invoices, it might have looked bad, but six of my deliveries were to the same company at one site. Contractors often do this when they have multiple jobs on a single site so they can add things to each order like "label all items 'Building 2'".
But here's where things got bizarre. My second stop was a company called Solyndra. If you follow the news at all, you may have noticed that today President Obama visited Solyndra. The main job site, where a new factory is being built, was completely shut down for the day. I had a delivery for a secondary site, a building undergoing renovations adjacent to the company HQ. Normally, you pull up, tell the rent-a-cop who you have a delivery for, and he waves you through. Not today. Today alongside the security guard were three Alameda County Sheriff patrol cars, two black SUVs, and a whole lot of cops. Also, three Agents. This was almost two hours prior to Marine One landing and at a building the President wasn't even coming close to. I was ordered out of the vehicle, and the search began.
Friends, I deliver to secure federal facilities. I have delivered to prisons. I deliver to oil refineries and pharmaceutical labs. I know intrusive security measures. I have never examined in this much detail. I was patted down. They ran some sort of scanner over every box on the truck and over my freaking lunch bag. As I was standing in the spot they told me stand in I looked around.. and saw a sniper on the roof of the building next door. He a clean shot on me with a nice solid wall as a backdrop.
The lesson, do not fuck with the United States Secret Service. These guys are the pros from Dover.
The rest of the day was as normal as my days get. After all that hurry up and get in last night, I was back early, took lunch, did two hot shots, and still got out an hour early.
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Amen.
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Seems Reagan was passing through the AF base and the team was allowed to eat in the chow hall.
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I just sorry we have to have this sort of security around the President, while admitting that we probably have to do it, especially for pre-announced visits. (There are, after all, a whole lot of people -- regrettably, far too many of them Americans -- who want the President dead, no matter who he is.) Besides all of the disruption it causes to everyone else, it isolates him from the people that he's leading. Sad for everyone, really.
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Did you do a little finger-wave, a la Vir?
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