I got through!

I voted for Kelly last night, not that she needed it, and all I really did was negate Lori's vote for Justin. "Kelly's going to win, but I feel sorry for Justin," she reasoned. "I always feel bad for the underdog."

But the clips from the British Pop Idol were eerie. I mean, it was like a show of Simon clones. And that touching moment during which Will Young disagreed with Simon, and Simon said, "You're a true gentleman," and then likely thought, "I'll be your officer."

These last few days at work are weird. I generally worked nights, but because I was supposed to be on vacation this week, I'm in on day shifts for my last three days. I had to "give back" some of my vacation because, in reality, I actually hadn't earned them all. In my third full calendar year here, I was slotted to have two weeks' worth, but it's not two weeks given out right in January. You have to work the year to earn all the days. Presumably, for working half a year, I had a week, which I'd used. So I don't really have that other week to use now.

My trip to South Bend helps -- because I already bought plane tickets and was committed, they couldn't make me not go; I had, after all, made the plans based on my vacation under the assumption I'd still be employed here. I had no idea I'd get a new job within 10 days of the first contact with the magazine. And I had plans and regular off days arranged so that I got the four days (Friday-Monday) of Labor Day weekend off.

So now I'm in the office, with a bit of a break from work because we've pretty much finished the NFL preview section and are awaiting page dummies for the weekly Thursday fishing section. I was filling out my final time sheet and was a little confused on how to do it, with all those days off and whatnot. My editor saw I was working on it and must've noticed my dilemma -- or at least realized he hadn't explained to me what he was thinking -- because he came back after passing by, leaned over and said, "Here's what you do ..." He then told me to put that I worked two full weeks, including some of the days I was actually off, AND (the big one here) that I worked Labor Day, which is double time. So what it really all comes down to is that, in finishing here tomorrow and starting the new one on the 12th, I'll only have two days I'm not getting any money for. And, according to the way my time sheet is filled out, my "official" final day is Saturday, so I'll be sure to toast it at a tailgater or two in Indiana.

It's some compensation for taking me off of two of the final four BlueClaws home games, and to have to work with the incompetent associate editor on these two sections. I mean, here we are, just twiddling our thumbs (or, in my case, typing away). And I'm hoping to be home by 8 p.m. for the start of the American Idol finale. Not sure if that's going to happen, which would suck.

But it's the last time it would suck.

Well, I've been looking at "optional field 1, etc." for a few months now. I haven't deleted them because I figured someday I'd get around to labeling them and using them. So let's give it a try...

(Am I doing something wrong? Do I actually have to type in the bolded headers each time? That seems stupid, if you ask me.)