Tuesday, August 9, 2011

What I Learned Today

Another eight hour shift at the clothing store today.  I learned a whole bunch more stuff.  Here are the highlights.

I learned how to dress manikins today.  They were only torsos, but it was still interesting.  I had to follow the guide the company put out as best  I could, even though we didn't have most of the clothes that were supposed to go on them.  Manikins are heavy.  Well, actually the metal bases are really heavy and they want to fall off the bottom while you are carrying the manikin down a very tall ladder.

Old men are strange.  I helped an old dude today find some briefs.  That should have been easy, but the ones I gave him had grey and black briefs in the package.  The geezer shook his head and put them back, informing me that he could only wear grey undies.  I spent 10 minutes rifling through our stock of gitchers to find a package of grey ones so they odd duck would have the correct colour.  I wonder if he was planning on wearing them on the outside?  Oh, I nearly forgot that the reason he was getting new undies, was that his wife is in Ontario visiting their daughter and with their recent move he couldn't find more underwear in the house, so he decided to come buy some to get him through.

Finally, I learned that responsibility sucks.  When I was hired, the manager let me know that she had given me a position where I would be a keyholder and be able to close and open the shop.  Apparently, it would make my shifts longer.  Well,  I guess she forgot to tell me that with a key (which I haven't even caught a glimpse of yet), comes a 27 step process for closing.  There are so many steps to cashing out the register and writing down the amount of money in at least three different places, that I just want to stick all of the money in a shopping bag and stuff it in the safe for the next person to deal with.  I don't think the manager got the memo that I really don't need this job and that the whole point was that I can have an easy and carefree way to earn some extra cash.  Responsibility is not what I do during the summer.

A Must See

You should spend the few minutes it takes to view these three very slick, very interesting 1 minute videos: Move, Learn and Eat.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Stopping and Smelling the Roses

I went for a bike ride the other day and decided to take the camera with me.  I am normally a person that exercises with a purpose.  I want to ride a certain distance, run a certain amount of time, etc.  This time I decided to look at my surroundings while I rode instead of just the path in front of me for obstacles.  I hopped off my bike several times just to take some pics that I thought might look good.  I still got a decent workout, and I enjoyed my time out quite a bit.  I think I might have to bring the camera on my rides every once in a while from now on.







Saturday, August 6, 2011

House Man No Longer

I started my summer job this past week.  I am now an employee of Mark's Work Wearhouse, purveyor of women's and men's fine clothing.  When I first applied for the job, I was told that it would be two or three shifts per week and around 15 hours.  This past week I worked 18 hours, but I was training.  Next week I'll be working 28 hours with a few hours of elearning to squeeze in as well.  I'm not complaining.  I just wonder if I'll get as much done around the house in the second month of summer as I did in the first.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Jen and I decided to work so that we could have some money for ourselves without raiding the household account.  With things always going wrong with the house and a possible work stoppage this year, we want to have a nest egg to fall back on should the need arise.  I found that if I waited to be able to afford all of the things I wanted, those things would be obsolete by the time I could.  Action had to be taken.  My first two purchasing priorities are a flat screen TV and an upgrade to Windows 7 for my PC.
The TV is a big ticket item, so will probably take some time to accomplish.  I'm just want to come out of the cave and join the rest of modern society.

A big bonus of the new job is the 40% discount I get on clothes.  I will be needing new clothes for work this winter, and you can't beat getting them for almost half price.  Jen also gets a discount of 20% on anything she buys.  That's a pretty sweet deal.

I'll keep everyone updated on how the new job is going as the weeks progress.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Early Adopters

I have never been an early adopter of anything.  Those that know me, understand that I take a cautious approach to change.  I need to see how it will work out and how it will fit into my life and world view.  I change slowly.  Unfortunately, technology does not give us the opportunity to go as slowly as some of us old codgers would like.

For example, up until a year ago, I had no use for either Twitter or blogging.  I thought Twitter was a place where a bunch of self important people tweeted about where they were having lunch or how large their bowel movements were.  I thought that blogging was for self-indulgent people told the world about the minutia of their lives and figured the world deserved to know.  Luckily, some people showed me how both of these tools could be used with a purpose.  I stated using Twitter for professional development and now also use it to connect and meet new people in my hobby as well.  I started a personal blog in order to understand it so I could use it for my classroom and students.  Now I keep this blog (as you know), a classroom blog and a nerd blog.  I was clearly wrong about blogging and Twitter.

Now I'm trying to figure out Google+.  I am trying to adopt early!  This is a change for me.  It is also one of the few ways I can adopt early.  I have found that generally adopting technology early is expensive.  I would love to have a tablet, but don't have the money.  I find it hard to be as active as I would like on Twitter because I don't have a fancy phone.  I am still one of the 15% of North Americans that don't have a flat panel television.  Unless you have a job where you make more money than a teacher or your employer provides you with new technology as part of your job, you can't keep up.  My only option is to wait until the technology becomes cheaper or I can save up enough money to buy said new technology (and usually it's not new by then).

So, now that my mindset has changed somewhat on being more open minded towards new technology (and other things I hope), I only need my paycheque to change its mind about being bigger.
OK.  I just thought this was funny.