big city efficiency

Friday, October 29, 2004, at 01:51PM

By Eric Richardson

I was driving into work this morning when all of a sudden I had a very "doh!" moment. It occured to me that I had a wedding to go to tomorrow, and that suit that I really needed to take to the dry cleaners was still sitting rumpled in my closet.

No fear, though. A quick look at the now useful google local (dry cleaner near 90014), a few phone calls, and I had soon found Sloan's Dry Cleaners in the Wells Fargo Center. They weren't the closest, but when I called them and asked about getting my suit done before the wedding tomorrow they gave me an unequivocal "No problem." I went with their confidence.

So I left JPL around 3:30, came back to Premiere Towers to pick up my suit, and checked the mail. In it was my North Muskegon, MI, absentee ballot, due back by the close of polling on Tuesday. Now, it's not North Muskegon's fault it's so late; I did just fax them the form late Monday. So I grabbed the ballot, walked over to the dry cleaners, dropped off my suit, and found a place to sit down and make a phone call. I called my mom and told her I knew nothing about any of the Michigan races. Together we went through the ballot and she told me what the Michigan buzz was for each of the races. I didn't vote for regents for U of M or MSU, but I came to a decision on most of the rest. Then I went next door to the Fedex store and sent the ballot back 2nd day. They tell me it'll be delivered Tuesday between 12 and 4.

Now to finish a little of the work I left to come home early, and then to head out somewhere to go pick up a gift for the wedding tomorrow. They're registered at Macy's, so I think we might go see what we can find at their downtown location. I've never been in there.