observations from a nobody

Yesterday’s morning shift was quite the change. I am covering the main tech’s shift while she is on vacation for two weeks, so I got the honor of opening the photo lab. Since it was Friday that meant our weekly big truck dropping its load on us. When it arrived we got ready and the boxes just piled up. What I was surprised with was the amount of Christmas toys we were getting in. It’s August. I don’t even want to think about Christmas  yet, but apparently Walgreens disagrees with me (all the time). We ended up with hundreds of toy boxes. After serving to the rest of the stuff a few of us began the task of unpacking those toys. That pretty much took up the rest of the shift.

After work I hung out with a co-worker and some other guys. Didn’t get home until close to 3am. Now I get to finish the weekend with back-to-back 2:45-11s. Not the greatest shift but whatever.

The last 72 hours haven’t been the greatest. On Sunday I woke up at 5am with a horrible feeling in my stomach. I jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom only to lose the dinner from the night before. I ended up throwing up two more times and decided I should probably call in to work. Called them up and took a sick day. The rest of the day was spend in bed sore as hell. Felt like I had been hit by a truck.

On Monday I was feeling better and to top it off it was my day off. I paid my cell bill and then relaxed for the day. At around 10pm I decided to do  my dad a favor and pick up my brother form his girlfriend’s house which is up the freeway a bit. My dad left me drive his car and I was off. Halfway to the next town I see a car coming up fast behind me. I was wondering who the fuck it could be considering the highway was pretty empty and he could have just passed me in the other lane. Turned out it was a not so happy CHP officer. He flashed his lights and the scared feeling crept up on me as I pulled over. When the office approached the passenger window he said that he pulled me over for speeding and that I was doing fifteen miles-per-hour over the limit and said that it “took him a while to catch up.” He got my paperwork and wrote me a pretty ticket. After he left I continued on and got my brother. To top off the night I wasn’t able to meet up with Miryana since I had to deal with everything else. Killed my night twice as hard.

The morning of yesterday (Tuesday) was the finale to the three day torture. As I got up and getting ready to watch my morning television the power went out. A few seconds later it came on again and then out. This time it stayed out for about an hour and a half. When it finally came back on I noticed it fried one of my clocks. I liked that clock. Damnit.

Now it is Wednesday and I hope to hell it is a lot better than the last three days or I am going to go crazy. Now not only do I have to save up money for the books for my classes but also for the speeding ticket and the driving school crap so I can avoid the insurance hike. I feel like I drove into a brick wall.

Well June seems to be flowing at a decent speed. I have been out of school for almost three weeks now and haven’t done pretty much anything. No travel, no real hangouts (aside from coworkers), or anything else. The rest of this month is filled with workday after workday until July when my vacation is. I haven’t really heard from anyone (aside from those I talk to daily) and haven’t heard anything about anyone wanting to do anything (especially that fits with my retarded schedule), so that pretty much leaves me at home most of the time. My usual day consists of dicking around until work. My photography hasn’t advanced at all. I haven’t taken a single photo in who knows how long (okay, that is a lie, I took some two weeks ago but they are candid stuff which I don’t use for my site). My only hope is that my five day vacation gets my ass in to gear and do something fun. I might consider a trip (and I am hoping) but not sure if I can get some people or have the money to do it. I guess we’ll see.

Tomorrow marks two years since I graduated from high school. Hard to believe it has been that long (and sometimes that short) since then. I still don’t see or talk to a lot of the people I used to know. Many seem to have gone away, starting up new lives somewhere else. Meanwhile I am stuck here where I have been for-fucking-ever. I miss the good ol’ days where I had no worries and everyone was still around. Then again it feels good not to have to deal with that bullshit anymore.

I guess it’s time to go back to watching CNN. It’s sad to see how dull my life has gotten.

Going in to today I figured it would be an average Monday. For the most part that was true. Computer class went by fast and I finished up everything early. In my art of photography class we watched a movie about two photographers. That put me out fast. I came to when they were over (which was when class was over). During my break I got lunch and talked to friends. When they went to class I headed to my car and continued reading out of Seagalogy. Great stuff as usual. Then it was time for my intro to photography class.

I gathered my gear and headed to class. When I got in I popped my film out of the camera and Zak (the professor) told me that another person was in developing as well. He followed me to the room and checked on them. She was having trouble so he sent me in to help. I managed to get her film on the holder and then got mine set. The two of us turned on the lights and got to the chemicals. Once that was all done I went in to the darkroom to print. After setting up and doing a proof sheet I dipped it in the fluids to develop. During then one of the other students and myself got into a conversation about Battlestar Galactica and things flew from there. She hasn’t seen much of the last season so we talked about others things like how she named her dog Starbuck and how I ordered the dog tags. The conversation moved on to Warhammer 40k where I learned that she used to get the tabletop models and customize them. I totally wasn’t expecting her to be such a geek. It was cool. For the rest of the time we talked about various things and how we have to have some kind of BSG party when she gets caught up to watch the last episode. Good stuff. Oh, and I printed one of my night photographs. It came out good.

People who watch Battlestar Galactica are awesome.

Things got interesting at work yesterday. One of the guys is back from his vacation and from getting married and various things were going around the store. I expected to hear something from him about not going to the wedding. I already told him I had prior engagements for that day and an stupidly early shift at work. When I got there I saw him in the hallway to the office and he asked to speak to me in one of the backrooms. I followed and he closed the door. The first thing he says is “So what’s with all the fun and jokes last Friday?” I was like “I told you that I had stuff on Friday and that’s why I couldn’t…” He cut me off and said “No not that. I mean the whole thing about how long until I cheat. What the fuck is that about?” Then I remembered.

Last Friday someone started up a conversation about how long until he would cheat on his new wife or something along those lines. One person mentioned a specific time while the rest of us strayed from the conversation altogether. We expected this to stay on the down low but apparently some people can’t keep their mouth shut.

Back to yesterday and I tell him what I remembered and he seemed pretty pissed (even though I told him I didn’t say anything). So he opened the door and walked out. For the rest of the night he didn’t say a word to us. I talked with the others who were there and we all felt it was way overblown for what it was and were pissed that someone would open their mouth about such a lame duck joke. After he left the store was more talkative.

There was one interesting moment when a mother brought her son in and the guy on register called a manager up front. I looked out the window to see what was going on only to notice the kid. It was one of the skater kids that the manager called up front and me talk to every so often. Apparently he and his friends tried stealing some candy and his mom busted him. Tisk tisk. We were nice to those kids too, but now they are banned from the store.

The rest of the night sucked though since it was just two of us on the floor and a manager. I teamed up with the other person and cleaned up the store. The only good news to report is that the annoying dumb bitch on register is history. She has moved and the world is once again better. The only bad thing is that we were about to hire this 19 year old girl who one of my managers thought matched me perfectly but she hasn’t called back so I guess we’ll be getting this 36 year old woman instead. Damn.

After work I headed home and changed for a party in Dixon. I got somewhat lost on my way there (stupid Google Maps) only to find I was right in front of the guy’s house. Once I got there I chilled and chatted with people. Then I played some Halo 3 and Soul Calibur IV. I ended up leaving a bit before 4am and got home just after. Somehow I managed to wake up at 7am all fine and dandy. Work is going to suck because I have to be there by 2:30pm. I’m going to be out of it in no time.