Giving it a try

Well, I went ahead and listed some of my copies of Torn with amazon. Since these are signed copies they're listed under the collectable category.

Now just to see if they actually sell. If they do, that's great. It allows for people who otherwise wouldn't have an oppertunity to get a signed copy to get one. And if they don't sell it hasn't cost me to list them since they only collect their commission when a product sells.


Now... of to get some lunch!

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word veri

Sorry all, but I've turned word verification back on. Since I'm not participating in HNT right now, and since the spam comments are getting bad again I felt that it was time to do this.

But I guess that means that we can make u words with the word veri on here again.

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Weird Weekend

Maybe I should have titled this post 'pile on the stress' but I won't. Because I did have some good things happen along with the bad.

Last week was interesting. Granted I spent most of the time working, but between getting to see my grandpa (which may be the last time (keep reading)), cousin and seeing my brother for a part of that I actually had a semi-good time. Despite the smoke.

Of course I was glad to have the normalcy of life return on friday when grandpa left. I was more glad to have the smoke gone.

I used my last paycheck to set up a savings account. I had several hours of overtime on top of my raise, so it was for more than I had expected. And even though I've been attempting to pay off my credit cards faster with my excess money, my parents still look at my purchases and complain that I'm not saving any money. So now I have a savings account on top of paying my credit cards off faster. Which really means that I'm doing even better.

No, I didn't set up the savings account to placate my parents. I had already been tossing about the idea before the latest round of 'you should save you money' speeches. Mostly to save up for a vacation or for any larger purchases, but I had already been considering it. It just happens that something that I was already considering worked to shut them up for a while. At least until some more stuff shows up.

Speaking of stuff... I've been watching several box sets of anime on amazon. And today a whole bunch popped up really cheap from a new seller. I have the feeling that these are import editions, and not the US releases. Common traits seem to be fewer disks. But has anybody had experience with import editions? Quality issues?

I guess I should also be worried about bootlegs. Especially at some of the prices I'm seeing.

Anyway, to get back on a sort of topic. The calm of having the house empty again was quickly shattered almost as soon as I got home from work on saturday. (here comes the stress)

My grandfather had no more than gotten home before he was in the hospital. As of last night it sounds like he not only has some clots in arteries from sitting in the car for so long, but he also had a stroke in the hospital yesterday morning.

My dad could be heading out at any time to help, but we just don't know yet. And until we know more it's just a waiting game. It just also has the additional worry factor of my grandfather's stubborness. That man refuses to get his affairs in order.

Well, that's my excitement for the past week in a nutshell.

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RAM and wh I couldn't date a smoker

I know... those two topics have nothing to do with each other. But those are what I'm talking about today.

I'll start with the RAM. I need more. My laptop has 512 mb of RAM, and when I bought it I though that it would be enough. Of course when I bought this laptop I never foresaw that I would be getting into 3d art. Heck, I didn't even think I'd use GIMP as much as I do. But here I am, with one scene that I can't position right nor render because I finally overloaded the ram when trying to work with it.

I guess that I should mention that I really am enjoying playing with the 3d art. Since I can't draw, but get stuck with these scenes in my head it is a nice thing to be able to get it out and looking the way I want.

Anyway, right now I'm thinking of taking my laptop up to 2 gigs of RAM. Of course that'll take me probably 2 months to save up for. I roughly priced laptop ram a few days ago and it look like it'll be close to $200 for each 1 gig stick.

On to the other subject, why i couldn't date a smoker.

ANybody who read my saga from my last post knows that my grandfather is now in town visiting. And I think I mentioned that the man smokes like a chimney.

Well I had pretty much known that I would emotionally have a hard time dating a smoker because I've lost one grandparent on each side due to smoking induced lung cancer. And I just couldn't set myself up for that pain in my later life if it were to ever go beyond dating.

Well as I'm absolutely miserable today from the second hand smoke I can safely reaffirm my conviction not to date a smoker. It was a relief to go to work today, it meant that I got to get away from the smoke.

If anybody's wondering if it's that bad... yes, it is. He rolled into twon about half past noon yesterday, and by one I was already coughing and my allergies (which were starting but not horrible yet) were in overdrive and my head felt like it was filled with fog. I even had worse sleep than usual beause I was breathing all that crap in the air.

Of course the worst was when I was trying to eat dinner. There was no escape, and I get semi-nauseous (sp?) when there's smoke around me when I eat. So even though I was really hungry I ate almost nothing. After a few minutes I couldn't force anything else in me without being sick from the smoke.

Even though I love my grandpa, I'm now counting down the days until I can breathe again.

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update

busy, busy, busy...That's how this whole past week has been.

On monday afternoon we got an early buy in. The initial portion of it consisted of about 2 pallets of assorted stuff. I was glad that I had already reorganized the back room to make a space for some of the stuff that wouldn't fit out onto the shelves. But it still took a reorganization of the front in order to get it to fit. And there was still close to another pallet load on backorder.

It took me until tues. afternoon to get the store organized enough to have all the initial boxes either out on the shelves or in the back, and I still had to input the order into the computer.

Which I started to do on wednesday. Then the boss called, with a request to do the most loathesome job imaginable... collections calls. I got lucky, I got about half machines, and the other half were fairly cool with me calling. But I absolutely hate doing that. Maybe that's why I was told about the raise I'm getting right before they asked me to make the calls. Cushion the blow a bit.

Oh yeah... raise! I'm back up to the Santa Fe minimum wage. My raise was for a whole dollar an hour, which brings me up to $9.50/hr. Of course that's the Santa Fe minimum wage for companies with more than 25 employees and a couple of other conditions, but I don't feel bad about making less here. I mean where else could I practically surf the internet all day with the owners knowledge and still keep both my job and not get reprimanded.

I've also been told that I'm officially the manager here. But the only person I'm managing is myself. I think I got the title because there was no one else to give it to.

On to thurs. Collections calls made I finished getting the first part of the early buy into the computer. And then the rest of it came up that afternoon. So more unpacking, pricing and figuring out where things were going to go.

I finally got a chance to rest yesterday, and by then I didn't want to even think about updating my blogs.

In other news... I'm still running two stores. Hank's (the guy who usually runs the water store) wife is getting better after her stoke, but she is still paralyzed on one side. Of course running two stores doesn't mean much except I will probably end up with overtime hours. Not much, probably only three or four, but... eh. I only accumulate those because it takes longer to close two stores, and I have to work every saturday instead of every other.

Finally, I have familly coming out to visit this next week. My grandfather and a cousin are coming for spring break. The cousin is bringing a friend. I don't know exactly how I feel about all of this. I'm looking foward to seeing my grandpa, and even slightly my cousin. But I don't knwo about this friend, and I've learned to grow wary of some of my relatives from that side of the family. Guess knowing that the real father of the cousin is in prison, and the older brother is in juvie makes me nervous. I'm also not looking foward to a week of a smoke filled house and tv blaring at obscene hours.

I'll have to keep a good eye on my babies. Smoke is really bad for birds, really really bad. Also really bad for electronics.

Oh well, now just to see how everything goes.

Later.

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Understanding

I think I'm finally understanding a small portion of my exhaustion as of late. I need a break. It's been more than five years since I've been on a vacation, and I think that part of the problem is the endless repetitivness of the 'daily grind'. I mean I went straight from school to work to school to work. Of course, even if I had the money for a vacation (which I don't) I still have another fundamental problem. Vacations are no fun by yourself. At least not to me. I mean sure, you can go on one by yourself, but the enjoyment factor would be signifigantly less. Roller coasters are no fun without someone to scream with, and museums are boring without somebody to share in your discovery or to discuss the finer points of the art. I also have no idea of where I would want to go. There are plenty of places I want to go to, but would cost more than I could save up for right now. And all the close places need that extra person doubly so because I've been there. I think that I probably will be saving up to get my passport renewed. I don't think it's much, as long as I didn't let it sit long enough to have to get a completely new passport. Then I think I'll start saving for a trip to Europe, or somewhere abroad. Maybe Canada. Yeah, I know. It'll be even longer to go on vacation if I'm saving up to leave the country. But maybe by the time I feel I have enough money to go there will be somebody to go with me. Besides, it's been ten years since I first went to Germany and Italy. And I really had a lot of fun seeing the historic sites and being somewhere where the culture was so different. I guess in the meanwhile I should really think about something that's not quite so lofty. But for now it looks like I'm still stuck.

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Final HNT, for a while at least

I hate to say it, but I need to stop. I do hope to come back in the future, and I really hope that you will all still come and visit me here once in a while.

But so I don't leave ya'll hanging here are the reasons why:

1. Participation: I can't participate as much as i'd like. I find it harder and harder to go and look at everybody else's pics and comment. At home I'm on dial up, and some of the page load times make it impossible for me to comment even when I can see the pic. If I'm lucky I can go through twenty pics.

2. Pictures: It's hard for me to both find time to take the pics, and get a shot. I really think that to get some better shots I need to have somebody else to take the pictures, and I have no such luxury right now.

3. Personal Life: Right now I just have too much going on to actually be able to have fun with this. The past couple of weeks I didn't get pics up at all because it felt like a chore. And something as fun as HNT should not be spoiled by such feelings.

I think that fairly well sums up the reasons why I'm stopping. I really do hope that future circumstances will let me come back and play again. And please do keep visiting.

For now I'll leave you with one of my favorite HNT pics. It's silly, but I hope that it makes you smile.

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sour peas and where we're headed

There is a thing I fear. I fear that the world is on a course that will take us straight to a cyberpunk world where the government is a puppet, and corporations hold the true power. One even more so than it is now.

I Don't know what we can do to keep it from becoming that world though. All we can do is fight it.

I'm fairly sure that none of you have heard of the great sweet pea lawsuit. But I'm hoping that by reading this you will become aware. While it doesn't affect you right now, the long term impacts of this case and how it's handled could hurt us all in the future.

Personally, since I know one of the defendants I'm probably too close to the story to be reasonable about describing all that is wrong with it. So I'm gonna drop some links and let you decide for yourself.

Miami Herald Article
Sourpeas.org

Now to tie all that in with my opening statement. Some of you know that I am a fan of Tales from the Afternow, and things like this only prove that we are currently on a collision course with the world described in the series.

I would like to say that the court will laugh and throw out the case. We all know that this is a case of internet extortion. But the way laws are currently set up the plaintiff is working within the letter of the law.

I'm not saying that a company shouldn't have a right to defend it's marks. But trademark law needs to be reexamined. We cannot continue to allow blanket trademarking of common terms and phrases. A recognizable mark is one thing, but if the plaintiff in this case wins it will be obvious that our government is selling the rights to own words.

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Gaaaahhhhh! Part 2

ok I know that I skipped part one here. So if you need to figure out what happened in the interim check here.

Quick update if you don't want to go over there to read: I overflowed the water tank a little this morning.Not much, but enough to stress out.

Ok, now to the update.

I went at lunch to the bosses house to grab the wet vac. But the fun didn't start there, no it started in the parking lot.

As I was leaving the lot I was nearly hit by somebody. They were turning in, and had their turn signal on. But I've learned in Santa Fe to not actually pull out into traffic until the person turning has actually turned. Sometimes turn signals are on for fun out here.

Anyhow, as they finally stopped about six inches from the drivers side door the driver then looked annoyed at me as if I had done something wrong by waiting for her to enter the parking lot, and then waved me on.

Had she been any closer I would not have been able to go.

Then once I reached the bosses' house. I went to grab the wet vac, and then the alarm started going nuts. Luckily I remembered how to turn it off, but it sure did give me a scare.

Then of course after I left I saw public safety aids and cops headed in that direction. No lights, and I even went back to make sure that I had reset the alarm properly and they weren't looking for an intruder. As far as I can tell the alarm wasn't on for long enough for it to call the cops.

Of course things settled down again once I got back to work and had vaccumed the wet area. But I hope that this isn't a sign of the week to come.

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things in threes?

So the exhaustion is continuing, albeit a bit less with the rest from the weekend. But I'm only an hour into this monday morn and I already know that this week has a greater than average probability of being the week from hell.

Ok I'll start off with this. 2 businesses, 3 employees (including me), 2 owners (married).

Employee 1: Wife had 2 strokes last week, brother in law dies over the weekend, and god only knows when I'll see him again. Hoping for a speedy recovery for his wife, but knowing better with 2 strokes.

Employee 2: On vacation, had airline tickets since late dec/early jan. Will be back next week.

Owners: His mother died over the weekend. Owners now on their way to Missouri for services. Hoping to see them back next week.

And anybody who's keeping count can now see my problem.

As long as both stores are relatively slow I'm ok. But with the warm weather I have no idea what this week will be like. All I can do now is hope.

I guess I should maybe clarify something. Some of you probably already know that I've had to run both businesses before. But not like this. Always in the past there's been somebody I could call in an emergency if I absolutely had to have help. This week I have no such luxury, and additional responsibilities since the owners are out. When they're out I also have to run the deposits to the bank. Finally add to this the, sometimes impatient, service customers who may or may not understand the circumstances as to why there are no services this week.

Anyway, I guess I won't know until it's over, but that's what's going on.

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