Really, nothing much as happened since my last blog post. Well...at any rate, nothing much worth blogging about, as I'm sure you guys don't want to listen to me complaining about work.
So, instead, I'll keep this a little more light-hearted by throwing out some random photos I've taken. My cellphone camera has turned me into a bit of a shutter bug.
I took this one at the local rec center...the subject line being irony.
Somehow, combining "Repo Car Sale!" and "Tickets 'It's A Wonderful Life!'" just seems a little...wrong.
Anyways, on to the less ironic, and the more awesome:
Santa playing bagpipes. As seen on Saturday when Mom, Dad, Amanda, Matt, and I went down to SLC to see the lights in Temple Square. All I had was my cellphone camera, but I got a few good pictures. I may put them up later.
That's pretty much it for now. Hope everyone is enjoying the holidays.
The bloggery has been a bit slow lately, mostly because my life has been living up to the title of said blog.
However, working in the wonderful world of retail, I get to experience the yearly event known as "Black Friday"...a phrase that conjurers both joy and dread, depending on which side of the counter you are on.
So, after spending Thanksgiving with my family (thanks again to Chrystie for hosting!), I went to bed around 9 pm. I know that doesn't sound all that early, but it is for me, who usually doesn't go to bed until around 2 or 3 am. I am such a night-owl. And I also knew from prior experience that if I tried to go to bed much earlier than that, I'd just wouldn't fall alseep.
So, anyways, after catching about 4 hours of sleep, I wake up and make the drive down to Layton. I remember the first time I worked a Black Friday, I figured the traffic would be bad, so I gave myself a lot of time...only to find the roads empty.
I know now that the roads are empty because everyone is already at their store of choice come 4 am.
One thing good I can say about my store is that we are not Wal-Mart. That isn't to say that there wasn't a lot of people at the store (some people actually camped out over night), but we don't get the same kind of trampling and stampeding that happens at bigger stores. I suppose the police car that was lurking out front to prevent such things might of helped.
The crowd was actually a little smaller this year...probably because they opened a Kohl's in Clinton, people up here had two stores to go to instead of just one. Not that I could really ntoice from where I was standing, as they line never ended, anyways. I can't really complain about the length of my shift, as I got a "short" shift...only 10 hours intead of 12. Not that I mind at all, 'cause 10 hours of bending was about all my back could handle.
Still, it could of been worst, according to stories I've heard about happenings at other stores. I guess the Toys R Us in Layton had to stop letting people in because the building was loaded to capacity. And I'm sure Best Buy had a 3 hour long line, as always.
Really, if I ever get out of retail, I'm never going near any kind of store on a BlackFriday.
Well, at least it's a short shopping season this year. Less than 30 days to Christmas already.
...I guess that means I need to get my shopping done.
Ah, the joys of internet shopping...no lines, no crazy people, just my computer and a comfy chair.
To set the stage, let just say that I haven't had to go into work very much the last few weeks...basically, I've worked 2 days in the last 3 weeks.
So, unsurprisingly, especially with my luck, the password I use to log into the registers expired.
No big deal, usually. I went in, changed my password, and went to log back in. As you might imagine considering the tone of this blog so far, it wasn't that easy. When I try to log in again, it tells me that my password is still expired.
Yeah.
So, I do the logica thing and try to change my password again. However, as I do this, I get a lovely screen basically saying "You're locked out the system, sucker! Call the Help Desk!" So, the Help Desk gets a call...and I met with a recorded message that says "The password system is working slow today. If you change your password, wait 5 to 10 minutes. If you try to change your password again, you will be locked out for 30 minutes."
Great.
So, one of the poor girls at the jewlery counter have to come over and cover the register that I am supposed to working at, while I go and help to fold clothes and such. A half-hour later, I go back and try to log on.
Same screen.
So (and the auditor in Amanda was not happy about this), I just used to number and password of the girl that was covering the register. So, I wait a full hour before trying again. Guess what happened? Yep...the same screen. So my manager decided take things into her own hands, and called the Help Desk for me...since, you know, she can sit and the office and wait for them to do their thing without customers staring at her.
Of course, the Help Desk does not live up to its name. The supposedly all-powerful override password fails to override. So, she comes back out, and shrugs.
About 45 minutes later, I get a break. She says let's try changing it one more.
Luckily, this last time, it worked.
So, basically...it took me 3 hours to change a password.
And some people wonder why I'm looking for a new job.
You know what the downside of job hunting is? I mean, the sending out of application part of job hunting.
It's that the best case scenario is that you get a job interview.
I hate job interviews. I don't much like talking about myself in the first place, let alone doing it while trying to impress the person sitting across from you.
So, I had mixed feelings as I listened to a voice mail on my cell phone after work on Wednesday. I've been on Jobs.Utah.Gov pretty regularly, and I found myself applying for a lot of bank teller jobs. It seemed like it would be something close enough to cashiering that I could get the hang of it easily enough, but different enough that I wouldn't get sick of it soon. And sure, I would still be dealing with the public, but at least it would be dealing with the public during regular business hours.
Anyways, I get a call back from the Wells Fargo on Gentile Street in Layton, by where Kings used to be (on a side note: How long has Kings been closed?). I call them back and set-up an interview, which went down today. I think it went alright, but I've thought that before, so we'll see. The woman who interviewed me, the manager for the tellers, was pretty nice. She said that they'd call people for a second interview soon...maybe starting tonight, but probably tomorrow.
So, yeah...I went through a job interview...and now the best case scenario is another job interview.
Meh, I guess it's what I have to go through if I want to get out of retail before the holidays start again.
For some reason, today was my day to abuse lumber.
As happens in October, business is relatively slow at my work. However, hours are very short because they recently started to hire temporary/holiday/whatever help, which means that my hours have gone way done, unfortunately. On the upside, I also have 50-something hours of vacation time coming to me, so I can parcel that out to augment the hours I work so I don't go broke right away.
On the upside, this gives me time to work on some other things. Right after I moved out, my mom sent me an e-mail saying that she and my dad would pay me for painting their fence. The fence hasn't been painted in quite some time. I think Amanda painting back in 2002 or something. I put it off at first because I moved out in the end of May, so the idea of painting a fence in 90-to-100 degree weather wasn't too thrilling. I know my some people won't be too thrilled about doing it in 50-60 degree weather, but for me that's about right...its cool enough that I don't sweat every much.
I actually started on Friday with the scraping. At first I was told "sanding", so I had these images in my head about having to go along the whole fence with a piece of sandpaper. However, I just had to use a wire brush. It still took a while...two or so hours on Friday and another two or so today, and I fear my respiratory system has a fine layer of sawdust on it. I probably would of done it faster today, but I couldn't paint since it's suppose to rain, so I went slower.
Anyways, when I was done with that and was eating a dinner my mom was kind enough to cook for me, I got a call from my friend Gary. Gary came back from Afghanistan a few months ago, and used the pay he got from that to pay for a house. It's just a little one-level house in Layton, but it works for a first house. However, the people who owned the house before left quite a bit of junk in the yard. So he happened to call me as I was eating dinner, and since I was in town anyways, I drove over to help. There was a fair-sized pile of wood that had been there long enough that it was starting to rot and had roots, worms, and bugs in it. I'm sure there are a bunch of angry bugs in that lawn tonight. It will be a bit of a project for him, but I suppose most new houses are.
To put a end to the story, I then came home, did the world a favor and took a shower, and sat down and wrote this. I know it's not the most exciting blog ever (again, see the title of the blog), but I felt somewhat inclined to post one since everyone else did, too. I can't be the only Haun kid who didn't blog this week.
I know I'm not, thought apparently the seasonal area of the store I work at is.
I remember back in the good old days (see: the days before I started working retail) that I would look forward to Christmas time. I still try to be excited for Christmas, but it's hard to be when it means I'm going to be dealing with swarms of angry, impatient people who definately are not filled with the Christmas Spirit. I know it's a little early to start worrying about that, but dang...it would be nice to enjoy Christmas again.
Well, I got a few job applications out there, so with any luck (me...luck...hah), I won't be having to do retail this year. Okay...my luck will maybe go as far as maybe not having to go in a 3 am on Black Friday.
Still, I suppose it could be worst...I could still be working at Frightmares. I'd deal with angry customers over wearing a rubber mask and breathing in gasoline fumes for 9 hours a day anytime.
Anyways, just so this isn't just a blog with me whining the whole time, here is a picture that I took on the river walk trail near Amanda and Matt's house with my cellphone camera.
So, something rather unexpected happened yesterday...I got a new phone.
I wasn't expecting one. But I'm totally not complaining. My old phone was rather...well...old. Don't get me wrong, it did what it was supposed to do (let me talk to people on it) very well. But I'm never one to say no to a new toy or gadget.
Anyways, the most interesting thing about the phone (so far) is that I found a way to load custom ring tones for free, and totally legally. This is nice, seeming as my cellphone before had maybe two rings I didn't find painfully annoying. I mean, I suppose that's a good thing in a cellphone, but I was ready for a little variety.
I fear I might be going a little overboard with it.
At first, I figured I'd get one song for each "group". You know, family, friends, work, people who aren't on your contacts, etc. However, I have yet to find a way to assign groups...but I did find a way to give each person their own ring tone. This, as you might imagine, lead me to scramble through my music collection in search of inspiration.
Sorry about the lack of updates for the last few weeks, but my life has basically been living up to the title of this blog. Really, all that has been going on is me going to work or hanging out around the house doing nothing, so really, outside of horrible customer stories I'm saving for a long stretch of utter and complete boredom, nothing of note happened.
Anyways, obviously something of note did happen, otherwise I wouldn't be posting something on here, right?
Well, around noon today (er...yesterday? Technically?) Matt told me that him and Amanda were thinking about driving up into the canyon to watch the meteor shower, and asked if I would like to come. In all honesty, my initial reaction was "No really". I've never had much luck with the meteor shower. When we were younger, we would just go out in the backyard and watch the meteor shower from there...needless to say, the middle of suburbia isn't really the best place to watch a meteor shower from, and so, as far as I can remember, I'd never seen a proper shooting star in all my 26 years of life. With this as my prior experience, the idea of driving any kind of distance so I could see a whole lot of nothing wasn't all that appealing. Factor in the fact that basically if I go, I drive...well, I suppose you couldn't entirely blame me for not really wanting to go.
So, when Amanda got home and I was still heeing and hawing about going, trying to find a proper excuse to not go, she decides to play the "Mom would probably want to come" card. Now, don't get me wrong: I'm positive that Mom didn't get invited solely for the purpose of getting me to go. After all, Mom would be the one out there with us kids in the back yard watching meteors with us, but her coming combined with the fact that she could drive us up in the Jeep left me flat out of excuses not to go.
So, we drove up Ogden Canyon, and found a nice little "Photo Spot" or "Scenic Overview" or whatever you want to call it on the road up to Snowbird...Snowbasin...one of them skiing places with snow in the name. We spread out the blankets and pillows we had brought, Matt set up his camera that he set up to take long exposure shots (we won't know how they turned out until Matt goes over them tomorrow. If there's anything good, I'm sure Amanda will put in their blog, or give them to me so I can post them here), and we got settled down just as a few other cars pulled up. They seemed happy to stay out by the road, so we had our little observation point to ourselves.
I must say that it was a pretty good show. We saw quite a few, including four or five that had tails, which puts me at four or five "shooting stars" that I have seen in my life. While I didn't see any, Mom and Amanda saw what Matt was something called iridium flares (don't ask me to explain them...as Matt).
We were only up there for about an hour, as mom and Amanda have to go to work in the morning, so we couldn't hang about until 2 am (right about now, actually) that the shower is suppose to hit its peak. On our way back down, there were quite a few people just pulled off on the side of the road watching the meteor shower. So, while we may not of had the most original of ideas, we were the first ones there.
Interestingly enough to note (and not to mention that it proved amusing to Amanda), there was someone who recognized me as we were walking back to our cars. This is made impressive by the fact that I didn't even have the flashlight I was carrying on (the Mag-Lite that I bought Dad for Christmas) so that it wouldn't ruin things for anyone else. Apparently, she used to be a playground monitor at my elementary school, and had a son my age. She said I probably wouldn't recognize her 'cause it's been so long...but that fact that it was pretty dark up there might of had something to do with it, too.
...There is also the minor fact that I'm pretty bad with names and faces, but we'll say that the fact that it was the middle of the night in the mountains canceled that out this one time.
And before you think I was rude to her, I was not. Even Amanda noted how polite I was.
Finally, and I really forget how we got on the subject, but for some reason part of our conversation drifted towards the musical styling of William Shatner. This reminded me that, for some reason, I ended up with a pair of Shatner "songs" in my music collection: Mr. Tambourine Man and Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. I listened to post while typing this. Mr. Tambourine man was about what I expected. Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds...er...not so much.
I can't really explain it, so here...just listen to it.
Warning: This is the only video I could find with the song. It is, for lack of better terminology, "psychedelic". As such, it has changes of color and lighting that would like cause a fit if you have your sensitive to that kind of thing, at least one piece of imagery that I saw and thought to myself "Man...that might creep Chrystie out". So, you might just want to star the video then scroll up or bring up another webpage in another tab or something...the video isn't that great.
Even though I'm writing this post from the comfort of my...er...study? Computer room? My second room in Amanda and Matt's basement, I've spent most of the last few days over at my parent's house, keeping an eye on the place to make sure everything is okay. Of course, while there, I'm also enjoying the chance to control the TV again. I have to admit, it was somewhat refreshing to make it through a Sunday without watching "The Next Food Network Star" (Amanda likes that show...and well...it's her TV).
Of course, Amanda and Matt are going out of town this weekend, too, so I'll have to try to sit two houses. At least houses are easier to -sit than kids. Houses don't run away.
Another thing I'm enjoying at my parent's house are my cats, Harvie and Beef. I've only been at the house I live at now for about 2 months, so the cats here (Queequeg and Pippen) are categorized as Amanda and Matt's (mostly Amanda's) which tolerate my presence. Maybe it's just my ego, but Harvie and Beef seem to have already accepted my presence again, as proven by the fact they try to wake me up at night for attention.
The only other interesting thing I can think of that happened this week is that Matt hosted a BBQ for some of their friends in the neighborhood. I think he was hoping for a few more people, but only one couple managed to make it. To entertain their guests, Amanda and Matt bought Tetris on their Wii.
For those of you who know Amanda, you can probably predict what happened next. A few hours of non-stop, no blinking until your eyes are about to fall out of your head Tetris playing. I can't help but to comment that I did actually manage to beat Amanda twice at Tetris, which for those of you who have played against her know is no mean feat. However, this also means that my record against her is now something like 2-500, so I won't dwell too much longer on that. That and if I go on about it my rent might go up.
And finally, in a fit of boredom and in reference to my last post about my music collection, I decided to throw up this music track on the side of the blog that you might be able to see. I'm not sure why I went through the trouble of doing it. If anything, this will only convince people that I am crazy because of the weird collection of music I have. But before you think to yourself "What kind of stuff is he listening to?", that there is a 50-50 chance that I got the music from my siblings...more than a 50-50, really.
If you see a lot of The Cure up there, blame Matt. Because of him, I have more than a days worth of Cure music.
Oooh, I think I like this font better. It's easier to read.
So, one of the bad things about having a blog and having a boring life is that I feel compelled to write on the blog...but nothing happens that is blog worthy. I mean, sure, I could turn this into a weekly blog about the crazy people I have to deal with at work. But then I would have change the title of this blog to "My Life Is Duller Than Yours and My Job is Worst Than Yours," but that's just a train-wreck of title.
We'll save the annoying customer stories for when I really have nothing to write about.
Instead, I'll write about my music collection. A much more interesting subject for everyone, I'm sure.
Well, considering all the music I've collected over the years, I have more than 12,000 songs on my computer...which, according to iTunes, comes to about 33 days of music (almost 2 days of that is just Christmas music). I preparation for buying an iPod, which I bought earlier this year, I switched over to iTunes and started to rank my music back in February. So, out of curiosity, I figured out how much of my music collection I've gone and listened to / ranked in the last five months.
I've listened to about 1600 songs, or about 4 days worth of music. Roughly 1/8th of my collection.
So, given the rate I'm listening to music, I'll finish listening to my whole music collection in...er...2013, I think.
Yeah. I'm glad I have enough time to think of stuff like that.
