One Man's Holiday is Another Woman's Challenge

Monday was Martin Luther King Day.  I realize this is an important holiday.  And I do not begrudge anyone a day off.  But if everyone could just start scheduling their lives to be a little more compatible with mine, that would be awesome.  Thanks.  :-)

We recorded Lisa's speech for an online speech class over the weekend.  (I can't say we taped the speech anymore because when she made a mistake and we had to start the recording all over, my mom told me to "rewind."  I did finally figure out how to delete the first recording and she made it all the way through the second time.)  She either had to upload it to the website by Monday or it would have to arrive to her teacher in the mail by Wednesday.  My camcorder creates mini-DVDs, and it has no adapter cord to hook it up to anything.  I tell her no problem, I don't know how to make it a digital file but if I mail the DVD by Monday it is sure to arrive by Wednesday.  If nothing else we can send it Express mail for $10 (that's not how much it costs, by the way, in case you are suddenly excited about Express mail - turns out it's double that). 

Monday morning before work I arrive at the post office - and that's when it finally dawns on me that it's a holiday.  We don't get this holiday off, so it's kind of easy to forget that other people do.  I don't panic because our PO has self-service kiosks.  I put the package on the scale and type in my info.  There are only two mailing options offered to me - Priority Mail and Express Mail.  Priority Mail tells me it will arrive Thursday, which obviously won't work.  I try to the Express Mail option.  Thursday.  Freaking Thursday.  I look at my Express Mail packaging - it says Extremely Urgent, Please Rush.  It's Monday.  It can arrive on Thursday.  How in the heck is that a rush?  I can drive it there by Thursday.  I cancel out and try again, certain there is a next day option.  There is not.  I leave and go to work without mailing the package.  I check with Fed Ex and UPS.  You don't even want to know how much they wanted.  This is bad, really bad. 

I decide to get off work early so I can try converting this DVD to a digital file at home.  Yeah, not leaving work early - suddenly everyone needs something.  I finally get home and pop the DVD in my laptop, where I think I might have software for the conversion.  The laptop has decided it doesn't want to read mini-DVDs.  RB.  I take the DVD to the desktop.  Aha - we have a winner!  I do have software that will convert the DVD file to a digital file.  Yippee!  I had to convert it 4 times to get a format and size that would work, then Lisa had to get the file uploaded into her school site.  By 11 pm it was done - file was readable on her school site and ready for her teacher to grade.  I haven't heard the verdict yet, but I think she did a nice job on her speech.  We have another one to do this weekend, but at least I know how to digitize the file after we record it.  The sweet smell of success.  And that's my holiday story - some people got the day off, I had to work extra-hard but had a sense of accomplishment when it was all over.