Woo! A weekend!

I finally get some days off. Monday-Tuesday I get to rest up to do it all again next week!

I don’t know if I said it before, but I quit the pub early. I’m not willing to do that again, I actually got to the point where I wasn’t getting more tired because I couldn’t. So hopefully that’ll help things.

I almost broke a $100 vase at work. I only chipped and cracked it, so I guess that’s okay or something… Whatever, it’s all okay in the end as long as I don’t have to pay a day-and-a-half’s wages to fix a 30 second mistake (that includes cleanup).
Today or tomorrow I do some pond maintenance on my own pond at home, before the froggies start to attack it with billions of baby tadpoles. I’ll feel bad killing several.

I get my new laptop today, I hope. It’s an LG (not Dell), so that makes it better already. I like LG, everything they make that I’ve ever owned lasted forever. The only downside is I might not be able to find a battery that fits in the CD Drive, which would extend the battery life to about 12 hours. If I can’t find a new battery for a decent price, I think I’ll try my hand at re-celling the existing one. Where can I find cheap/free ‘A’ cells?

Death.

I’m veeeery tired. I might even go to bed soon. The next couple days will be hard on me. Tomorrow I’m at work alone, although I’ve been given a lengthy list of things to do over the next two days. Saturday I’m working 9-1 at Harper’s then 5-Midnight at the pub (and handing in my letter of resignation), but luckily I’m working at Harper’s at 11-6 on Sunday, so it won’t be as bad as it could have been otherwise. Monday and Tuesday I get off. Hurrah!

I talked to Sam (Sam Harper, my boss) about getting some weekends off. In a month or two when all the University Students start coming in, he’ll make sure I get some weekends off. He’s very understanding. He’s a great boss. I like him a lot.  He also was working with me for this and next Saturday, the days I’m working at the pub. He’s the man to work for, for sure.

Brutally tired.

Well, right now I’m just extra extra tired. I get a 20 minute break, then I gotta get ready for my other job.  That makes a 7.5 hour job almost immediately followed by a 4 hour job. That’s a 11.5 hour work day for those not willing to add 4 to 7.

(To those confused, like Kevin. I’m quitting the job at the pub). Just thought I’d throw that in there.

But yeah, tonight I quit at the pub. My new job is giving me MANY many hours. I believe they can’t give me over 50 every week, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be doing 40-50 easily. Getting off at 4 is getting off “early”, so a 9 hour work day seems to be the standard I’ll be doing. I don’t mind the work (or the money), I’d just prefer to have some time for myself. I hope I’m not working 7 days a week. I think I might be some weeks.  But if 9 hours is standard (which I don’t mind doing), then I’ll only be able to work 5 days at 9 hours, or 5 days at 9 hours and one at 7. Either way, I get at least a day off work a week. It’s not a lot, but it’s enough for now. I can always take a day or two off, my boss has been really cool about all that lately.

MORE Tired.

I just got back from my first day at my job at Harper’s. A 9 hour shift. Although it was much better and much more liked than my other job at the pub. Which might be causing some problems. I’m going to have to quit, and I might have to do it on the spot, without 2 weeks notice. My goal is to quit as soon as possible without making Ken look like an ass for recommending me. Tomorrow isn’t going to be fun.  ASSUMING I get off work early, I’ll be working 7 hours, then another 4. And if I can’t get my Friday shift traded, then I’m really screwed, because I absolutely can NOT start work at 5. Especially if I get off at 6 again. If I get off at 4, that still leaves very little travel and dinner time. And it leaves no break time.

Anyways the job itself is great. There’s not really anyone my age there yet (University students will fill the place like no tomorrow after they get off, I’m sure), but everyone is really nice, except for those people who just kinda sat in the corner and lurked. I’m sure they’re nice too, just antisocial and shy like me!

I don’t actually know WHAT I’m doing yet. Today was all simple grunt work. Moving some plants, but mostly packaging things for sale (Lava Rock, $2.99, D-17; Salt, $4.99, D-17; Gravel, $2.99, D-17. This went on for most of the day.) Tomorrow I meet the part-time person who’s working with me (Not actually ‘with’ at the same time as me.). His name’s Bruce, and he’s 70. He’s also a noob like me. Pretty sure I’m in charge of all things pondular. Catching and bagging fishies, cutting pond liner, and giving helpful pond advice. That’s all I know that I’m doing for sure. I guess I’ll find out more tomorrow.

Posting daily is becoming a pain. I’ll probably still do it, because it’s a nice log of events in my life to look back on, but this week, at least, is brutal. It started off with no sleep and ended with two jobs and many chores to do outside of the jobs. Chores include: Buy Khakis for the job (they don’t like jeans), get a haircut for the job (they don’t like hair), and buy a cellphone so I know where everyone else is in case I get stranded or something comes up or they forget about me one day. Once things calm down (next week or in two weeks), I also need to buy a wallet (I burned my current one along with everything else she gave me), pick up that Dell I’m getting for free, and get a cellphone if its priority is bumped down a notch.

Tired!

I’m very tired. I got up at 11 when everyone was screaming for me to get the phone. (You think by now they’d realize I wear a retainer at night and can’t talk.) I got ready for the meeting at work, which I later found out was not only next week but canceled also. So I wandered around town. I caught Fred, Kenton, Dave, and Meghan at their jobs. Me and Kenton mailed a letter to Chris, paid for with as many one cent stamps would fit on the envelope. (26, for your information, plus a 25 cent stamp.)

I decided to get a cell phone. I always need one when I don’t have one. (No duh…)

The call in the morning was Harper’s Garden Centre. I go in tomorrow morning to go talk to them. I kind of would like a haircut before I go, but the only person I trust with that doesn’t work Sundays. I spent quite a bit of time reading up on water gardens to prepare for it.

I’m exhausted. I could go to sleep right now. But I’m meeting Derek in an hour, which is cool I guess.

I’m getting my grandpa’s old Dell. I’m gonna pimp it out with a new battery, a CD-Drive battery (I think the proper, cool term is a “Modular Bay Battery”), and a USB Hub, which I will then attach an analog joystick to, and maybe a few buttons, and add them into the existing laptop case (If there’s room). For emulators, of course. I’ll probably give it a new paint job after that’s done

I hope it’s not a 15″ screen, those are too big for my tastes. 14″ is just fine. And I hope it isn’t too slow. I passed up a Core 2 Duo (2.2Ghz T7000 series) with 2 gigs of ram and a good 6 hours of battery life (Thinkpad Z61t, a discontinued experimental model) for about $800-850 for this thing. It’s free, so that counts for something. Even if it only lasts a few years.

Time for dinner and a movie.

Not much to tell.

Well, I did not complete another activity from the book. I tried gazing and wondering at work, but it was really busy and I had no time, and then later I got kind of angry because everyone complains about me behind my back but never tells me what I’m doing wrong.

I’ll go people watching one day, I’ll join some old people and pigeons in a park somewhere…

Another day of solitude.

I enjoy being alone. It’s quiet, calming, peaceful. You can just be completely yourself.

I called around for copper pipe. No place sells it by anything except 12 foot lengths. So I’m going to make an unusual design and see how that prices out.

I played the ol’ CS: S today, I haven’t touched that game in a while, mainly because of the computer it’s on.

I applied to Harper’s also.

Morgan may come over tonight, if so we’ll play Brawl and that’s about it.

This wasn’t quite an exciting post, I know. I’ll work on that, but nothing exciting happened today. (Compare today’s application with the Timmy’s one. Understand what I mean now?)

— 7:15 PM —

I just finished dinner. My dad came home with my crazy ruin-all-of-our-lives Grandma’s dog. My mom had planned a day of relaxation today after a hard week, but instead she came home to this dog, which she hates, and a story about how my dad responded to a “suicide” attempt by his totally trashed mother and how he threw her in a “clinic”. (The “clinic” will only keep her for a few days though. Nobody wants her but jail, but for some reason she hasn’t gone back there. She’s violated the terms of her bail many times over, but my dad’s too scared to send his mom to jail.)

So now she gets to drive the dog she hates for an hour and a half, dump it at my Grandma’s husband’s house,  and drive all the way back.

You may have noticed the phrases I use to define relationships, and how they’re somewhat unusual. “Dad’s mom” really symbolizes how much my Grandmother is dead to our whole family. And she’s remarried, so that explains that bit above.

An uneventful day, so far.

Today I basically sat at home doing nothing. I attempted to carve that soapstone chunk I was blabbing about but I messed it up so I stopped. I played some piano too.

I just want everyone out there to go over to www.purepwnage.com right now. It’s my single most favourite web-only series out there. It will blow your mind.

Blow your mind like POWERTHIRST

It was so funny I had to stop after half a minute. It was rather unexpected, I must say.

Tonight I’m possibly doing something with Nick and Derek. I haven’t seen Nick for a year and Derek for four, so I hope things work out. More to come.

— End of Post (6:00 PM) —

Well I didn’t see either online, and I kinda neglected to get any other kind of contact information from either of them, so I’ll have to do that and reschedule with them. So today, I got very little accomplished.

Man! Woo!

What a day! So first, I get up at around 2, although from 10:30 to 2:20 it was a bunch of lying in bed with my eyes closed.

I drew the outline of the coyote on my piece of soapstone. It’s really soft, which worries me. The particular piece I have has the consistency of about hard plaster.

I also worked a little on the piano piece “Clubbed to Death.” I’ve almost got it.

But the main event of the day started around 6:30. You see, I had a job interview at Tim Horton’s. So, I show up at Tim Horton’s 6:30 dead on, and tell them I’m there for a job interview. A few whispers and puzzled looks later, they tell me they weren’t expecting me and to have a seat and wait while the manager comes back from slacking off or whatever. She comes in, flips through some papers in the back room, and tells me I’m at the wrong one, and that there’s one by the traffic circle. So I start walking around 7PM, only to realize midway that this particular Tim Horton’s is a good 45 away. I arrive at sunset at this other particular Tim Horton’s at 7:45. I knew this was the right one because of the address!

So I trudge in, muddy as hell from the walk on the side of the highway, and ask to see the manager and explain that I had an interview forever ago. Turns out THEY weren’t expecting me either, even though I got a call to come in two days prior. So the manager plays along anyways, we chat for awhile, and she sends me on my way around 8:15 with nothing more than a job application and some false hope.

Too embarrassed and weak to ask to call home, I trudge over to Walmart, which is about 5 minutes away. I wander around looking for a pay-phone, but don’t see one. I do see Claire, however. I knew her back in grade 9. She says it’s alright to use the Customer Service phone. I call home, and coax my dad (Who is watching basketball and nearly left me to walk home) into getting me. I wait around a little chatting it up with Claire, who thought it was kind of pathetic nothing had changed. I didn’t want to tell her what had, as I wasn’t about to open up to her after what I’d just been through.

But in the end, I’m not worse off for wear. Sure, I didn’t get a job, but I didn’t lose one either. All that’s changed is I have another story to tell. And if everything goes smoothly and as planned, where’s the fun in that? And no fun, no stories! So I come home, and here I am, finishing up this blog post with a sip of a Pina Colada. Mmmmm…