My American Life

Here's a brief run-down of where I'm at right now.

I'm in Lovell, Wyoming, but just for the night. Tomorrow I'll be back in Billings, Montana, ready to get up at 4 AM to catch a flight back to Baltimore. My hotel is pretty trashy, but not altogether bad. The refrigerator is broken, which wouldn't be as big of a deal if I would have been able to eat dinner tonight. The only food in town, a Blimpie and Taco John's smashed into one gorgeous/awful conglomeration, closed at 8, exactly two minutes before I arrived.

I was late because I was at work. My work consists of me trying to get new audiovisual systems to work with outdated and possibly broken old lighting and sound systems that the National Park Service is trying to make live past their prime. In some cases, well past their prime. Many parks still use LaserDiscs as their main form of show playback. LaserDiscs.

Everything went well today. This morning at Yellowtail Dam went great - cleaned up and buttoned up well. The drive to Wyoming wasn't bad. I had a good lunch. Even stuff in Wyoming went well - the audio system now works perfectly, we were able to diagnose and fix a problem with a start button, and all of the equipment was in. Everything went well except for one thing. One small, and yet monstrously big, thing.

Their lighting system won't interface with our audiovisual system.

The idea is that when the movie starts playing, our video player sends a signal to their lighting system to turn the house lights down gradually, and when the movie is over, it tells it to come back up. Easy, right?

Well, it's not...but I won't bore you with the details, because, truth be told, you really shouldn't care. It's my problem. But my point for writing this whole thing is that for the next day, my entire life, reputation, and peace of mind will revolve around trying to make two electrical systems talk to each other - something that 95% of the population would happily shake their heads at and say, 'glad that's not me'.

But I don't have a choice - I'm responsible for the completion of the project and I'm the only one that has a stake in the outcome. I cannot leave Wyoming without the lights in the theater dimming when our movie plays. And yet, I have to leave two days from now because my ticket is non-refundable.

Did I make the right choice in letting such a trivial thing shape my happiness and schedule? Should I care less or more than I do about this? Would anyone else worry enough to write a blog post about it at 10 PM in a lonely hotel room? I have no idea. I do know that I take enough pride in what I do and the work that I do to work my ass off to get the thing to work, but really everything that I can try right now will be a leap of faith and a hope for some luck.

In some ways, I really wouldn't wish this situation on my worst enemies.......and yet, this is my life and I'm proud to live it. I'll let you know how things turn out.