Bureaucratic Red Tape and No Juice

This past week was an interesting one - frustrating, anxious and joyful within the space of a few days. My wife's brother was paroled from prison in July, but due to complications and regulations he didn't get out until Tuesday of this week. My wife hasn't seen or heard from him in the twenty years since he's been gone, except through her mother, so she wasn't sure what to expect when she showed up to get him. Backing up just a bit, her car has been acting up so she called Enterprise to rent one for the trip across the state. She'd asked for a full-size car, an Impala was what she'd wanted, but when she got there the only thing left was something that looked like Herman Munster drove only smaller, and bright red. She came out to the land where I was working right before she left and when she pulled up in that thing I couldn't stop laughing. Anyway, she took her mother and other brother to pick him up and was more than a little pleasantly surprised at his appearance. Rather than looking like the hardened criminal type she expected after so long, he had turned his life around and was clean cut, well spoken, and courteous, with a plan laid out for his future. He had maintained from the start that he was innocent of the crime that sent him there, and still declares his innocence. I really hope he can find success in the everyday world and doesn't slide back into the crowd that got him started down the wrong path years ago. A fresh start is something we all wish for at one time or another in our lives.

Also last week I tried to get things set up to get electric to the cabin. The power company had sent me diagrams for what I needed, so I went to buy everything at once and get it done. However, I ended up more confused and frustrated than I was before, because some of what was on the diagrams didn't apply to my cabin, and product codes didn't match what was on the paper. I gave up and called AEP to find out exactly what to do. Now it's going to take even longer to get electricity flowing and it's going to cost a lot more than I thought.... it's always something. The good news is that I'm on vacation starting today, so at least I won't have worries from work following me home every day.