cant shut up...?

When Shoo suggested blogging, I was unsure if I could come up with stuff to write about.

Turns out that "stuff" is not really an issue. I can apparently blog something at any given moment. Quality? probably cringe worthy at best.

At any rate it does give me some idea what my mind was doing at some point in the past.

What a strange trip its been...

Werking at the Company of Costs.

For the last 11 weeks I have been gainfully employed full time. It is still a lot of fun. My title is Major Sales. I will greet people as they enter, field questions about electronics and diamonds, and give my best directions as to where a given item might be located. Our store is a warehouse in name and nature. Things are moved to make room for other things every single day. It is a treasure hunt atmosphere. Luckily my brain is wired well for recalling where items are located.

I have become quite versed on HD televisions, blu-ray adding to my knowledge on computers. Thanks to my sister in law Connie I got a laymen level of information on jewelry which I am supplementing. My goal in talking to our members (read customers) is to make sure they get the product that fits the need. They should be able to explain why they chose that computer or that Television. "Zero returns" is my personal sales motto.

I was able to fix the Gordian knot of component cables that run our Televisions. In general I am become the go-to guy for fixing frustrations.

Also, I passed the safety test on forklift driving, which will allow me to start training on them (woot!). Further the marketing folks have tapped me to do the front board pictures. This is a rather fun assignment with some frustrations on the slowness of our intranet printing (4 min 23 sec a page).

Then comes the unexpected new projects. Where they need to squeeze six pallets worth of new items into an area that has one pallet worth of room. It is a challenge and requires some creative solutions.

In the past I have worked at places where the management would sit in offices, hand down expectations with a vagueness that would set one up for failure. Or they would come out of their hovel, bark orders for seemingly no purpose then to display alpha dominance then walk away not caring about the outcome. This is not the case currently. I see management running forklifts, restocking product and sweating it out like the rest of us. Most of them have been with the company in nearly every position. It is VERY common to see them manning cash registers, sweeping up messes and pitching in during heavy times. This, to me, is inspiring.

What I find I enjoy is showing up, doing the job then heading home. When I hop on that bike I might have a thing or two about work to consider, but as the miles roll on those too fade.

Life is good.

Efficiency on the fly.

At work I am finding that tasks called 'daunting' are my favorite. I got home tonight very exhilarated by my work day.

I do need to digress a bit. Thursday Night my supervisor apologetically gave me a long list of items that needed to be done before the store opened on Friday. He himself, was to arrive at 6:00 Friday morning to try to complete whatever was not finished. He pretty much dismissed the Idea that I would be able to accomplish a modicum of the list.

I finished it all. With the list in hand my mind was able to organize the job in an interlaced series of tasks that could be done prior to the close staging an efficient undertaking. It could have easily been a debacle, but the things outside of my control fell into place.

Tonight was a similar situation. This time I was not staying afterwards, so I have to pass the job onto my co-worker. I had notes and a plan of attack. We got the do-able portion either staged or done prior to close (when I had to leave). This left my co-worker with one smaller task and the awaiting of new shipments.

I even anticipated a number of problems that would occur and pre-solved them as well. It was my brain firing on all cylinders. Solving complex, real life, real time problems like these certainly appeals to me. My favorite command is "Just get it done"

Juxtaposed is my not wanting to create any problems. That is to say, leaving well enough alone, keep it simple stupid, if it aint broke... Are more the motto's that guide me.

As I sit here on the brink of a Saturday, I am really looking forward to work in the morning and skating in the evening. Sadly I miss out on Connors swimming. Sunday Connor and I are going on a bike ride... It is going to be a nice weekend.

Shocking Obama news!

I was shocked to find some people out there have the opinion that Prez. Barry is anti-business!

Look in the next days for Obama to say how great he has been for business!

How Stupid is doing the right thing?

While working at a movie theater I came across a large wad of bills. It was on the floor in the very back and there was about $200.00. The other ushers wondered what to do. Seeing as how I was not 100% trusting of our night manager I put the dough in my pocket and went through various options I had available to me. It never occurred to me that the money was now my own. Mostly I kept thinking of how panicked I would be if I lost that much.

As we began closing for the night, I was still at a loss for how to handle the situation. A knock from the glass covered front drew our attention. There was a look of desperation that tagged him as the one. One of my co-workers, who was aware of my find, motioned me over. The man told us how he had lost a good sum of cash. My own mind wanted some additional confirmation so we let him in to "look" for the cash. His beeline to the exact seat was enough for me. So I produced the wad and he looked quite relieved. He peeled off a 20 and offered it to me. I declined

The discussion came up that the smart thing to do would be to pocket the money. The ethical spin being that it would teach the looser of the cash a valuable lesson.

This is perplexing on many levels.

Small goals

Since I started walking to and from work, I always wanted to be able to run. After learning how to run again. I was able to attain that goal. I did not put much into that achievement. It had a feeling of "wow I did it, glad thats over" and running less then a mile is hardly anything by my measure.

Last week I started a good 10 week low calorie cycle, to loose down to a more healthy weight. Being nearly 6' and at 207 pounds is not a healthy weight. Yes, I know that height weight charts are fraught with errors and everyones body needs to be what it needs to be, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Still...

I am carrying too much body fat. By my estimation about 20 pounds too much. ANY physical activity I do would benefit from not carrying around 20 pounds. (I am hoping to find someplace that can check my fat by immersion... but thats another deal.)

So today I felt was worthy of a self-nod, this was the second day in a row I was able to run 30 minutes total. While that is 2.5 miles I would note that includes 783 foot climb and descent. I would love to do that barefoot. Over the last seven days I have been running 20 minutes a day with a 30 minute walk.

With a bit of work I will be eliminating the walk and running the full route. I guess thats my next small goal.

Sleeping at night

It's not helping.

My sleep pattern is all fubar. I find myself waking up at 4:30 AM and most times just laying there in bed till the alarm at 6:00 AM. This is after I have fallen asleep sometime after 1:00 AM.

Last week during work I got this annoying buzzing headache that made my eyes water trying to look at anything akin to writing. I ended up going home sick and sleeping most of the day.

That night I hit the sack around 9:00 and slept to the alarm only to awaken to a nauseous head pounding sensation when I sat up. I attributed it to a lack of sleep. By Friday evening I was much better, thanks to a dark room and ear plugs.

There are a lot of unknowns coming down the road. My job being primary. Tina's job has some stability issues as well. We are not in a terrible situation. Just an uncertain one.

Did I mention its cold?

Rare Event type cold! Long time residence are remarking this is like 1972!

This is the observation window at the Winchester Dam Fish ladder. That is ice (for the So Cal folks).

High Infidelity

I read someplace that one in every four marriages is impacted by infidelity. If you haven't experienced the searing pain of unfaithfulness, odds are you know someone who has. The affects of infidelity are devastating and have destroyed many families.

The intrusion of the Tiger Woods story across the various media. In case you have missed it. The most famous golfer of his generation was in a car accident. He was unconscious. He was in serious condition. He was treated for facial lacerations and released. He hurt his face in the accident. He hurt his face before the accident. His wife hurt his face. He's having an affair. They're just friends. There are more of them. (and so on).

Then the thought occurred. If the roles were reversed and it was Tiger's wife who had the accident and then refused to talk to police, if Woods had gone berzerk over the possibility of another man, if he had scratched her face and then wielded a golf club as a weapon as she tried to escape, I guarantee the question on everyone's lips would be, "Is Tiger Woods a wife beater?"

When someone does snap, the American double standard kicks in and dictates how we react based on the gender of the parties involved. We have zero tolerance for men who assault women but make excuses for women perpetrators.

Sexism is alive and well!

A man can never hit a woman, but a woman hitting a man is not big deal, especially if he was "asking for it" by having a girlfriend on the side? But what does this say to female victims of domestic violence? That sometimes there's a good reason to batter? That sometimes the victim is asking for it? That the violence wouldn't have happened if only the victim hadn't made the abuser so mad? These are the excuses that have been used by batterers of every generation. They don't suddenly become legitimate reasons when the abuser is female.

As a society shouldn't we treat assault by a woman against a man (or a woman against a woman, or a man against a man) exactly the same way as violence by a man against a woman. For that matter, we wouldn't make a distinction between domestic violence and the same acts perpetrated against strangers on the street.