So my work asks me to come in on my night off (thursday night). Now, I had nothing in particular planned for this night, other than not going to work. I was inclined to say no, but they really needed me. They needed me because we were going to be cleaning out our loft -- the place where we keep fixtures and various pieces of junk.

Why?

...well, let me give you a little back story on this!

Earlier in the year, the loft was cleaned... twice, I believe. But this was over the course of a few days, if not weeks. The reason this area gets so messy is because there are only four or so people in the WHOLE store who actually give two-shits about keeping it straightened out when we take things up there for storage. These people are the ones who are always chosen to clean it.
These are the most reliable, talented, and knowledgable of all the associates in the store. ...and probably the most under-appreciated, under-paid, and the ones most taken advantage of.

Anyway! During our store remodel, things got quite messy. That tends to happen when you split it in half and give the other side to another store.
So the loft was once again cleaned up, with the task given to the night crew (whom two of these associates were on). This happened over the course of a few days. This time wasn't as bad as the first because we had a huge dumpster to throw all the trash away in. This wasn't available the first time.
We had the loft organized, and clean! We had shelves set by length, width, and type... even color! With various other fixtures in dedicated spots.

After a few weeks, the "new" half of the store is completed (this was being done by another crew) and the loft is utterly destroyed by this group.  They put random crap wherever they could fit it. It just kept piling it up.

A problem a lot of people have is that the loft has only about a five foot clearance from the floor, along with pipel, and rafters with sharp edges... and you have to climb stairs to get to it. So these people were just too lazy to sort their shit, and put it where it needs to go. They stick it as close to the front of the loft as they could. Some didn't even care if you couldn't GET IN.

So the loft was a mess and needed to be cleaned. In one night. The fire marshal was in the store on Monday (the 22nd) and nearly gave the store a fine due to it, but was feeling lenient and decided to give us until Friday (the 26th) to clean it out. The biggest problem she had with it was that there was cardboard, paper, and even paint up there. All flammable items.

We couldn't <em>really</em> clean it during the week becuase night crew had to unload and process trucks on the 23rd and 24th. And the daytime crew couldn't do it because... er, well... I don't really know! Don't question what day crew does, and DON'T MAKE ANY WORK FOR THEM. ...is what they've essentially told us.

So Thursday night, the 25th, it was. Two guys, an eight hour shift. Back-up/relief will "might" be in at 5 or 6am. We go in at 10pm.

6am and the other guy with me has to go (it's what he was scheduled, and he was getting a ride). We had the first half of the loft completed, so it wasn't too bad. One of my good buddies comes in to replace him at 6am... but the other guy doesn't show. They never actually got a hold of him to see if he was going to be there. My friend says they called him at 9pm. I'm sure it was the same for the other guy! I'm surprised my friend decided to come in.

So I can't leave my him all alone up there to clean the other half of the loft. So I stick around...

...14 hours of running up and down a flight of stairs bringing down garbage and throwing it away before the fire marshal came to inspect the store.

Here's the real clincher, though... and a mighty fine example of how my store is run. The fire marshal had come when we had our "soft opening" on September 14th. They notified us then, and told us we had 30 days to clean it. They gave us even more time than that, since they visited us on October 22nd.
So what does our management do? Wait until the LAST freaking night before it needs to be done. No cleaning here and there during that month long period. Wait 12 hours before the visit, stick two guys up there and have them clean the whole thing. I'm not sure about the square footage of it, but it's quite a bit, and considering that we have to crouch up there because the roof is only 5 feet from the floor... it was a big pain. I still feel like there's a huge knot at the base of my spine.

...and why the hell didn't the people that create the mess clean it up? WHY?!

Thanks for listening! -=P

Tags: work
feeling: groggy
background: Soilwork - 20 More Miles

I've returned. I'm not dead, in prison, exiled, etc... I'm doing quite alright as a matter of fact.

I'm just not "there" you might say.

That remodel thing I was talking about last post? It's still not technically finished. The new store is open, but there are still things to work on, apparently.
I'm still stuck on nights, as well. I thought last week was going to be the last, but they keep scheduling a night crew, which I'm now in charge of it would seem. ...well, I was supposed to be over summer, right? Not so. We had someone higher up in the company in charge, but being a key-holder, I still had a bit of authority, I suppose.
But now it's just me and the few that made it through the summer along with me.
We were supposed to be finished with our stuff in July. The entire thing was supposed to be complete on Sept. 14th. Now we're so close to season, that I think they're going to push night crew straight through that.
That would be seven months straight of nights. I don't know if I can handle that. I want to find a new job!

Besides that, things are going well, I think. Nothing entirely new that I can think of. I haven't had the time to do much damage in my personal life or anyone else's... so I think I'm good there.

I'm working on another tattoo. This one will be quite a bit more work, and a lot more money... I haven't gotten any ink, or even talked to anyone about it, but I think it'll be pretty sweet once it's done, if I can get it done the way I want.

I haven't a whole lot else to say. Just figured I'd pop in real quick.

Tags: personal, work
feeling: contemplative
background: Amorphis - Black River

This place is so neglected, yet I refuse to get rid of it. In fact, Jessica updated my LJ subscription back in January. Here I am a full 3 months later... "updating!"

Nothing terribly new has happened. Same job, virtually the same life. Jessica and I are no longer living at the dorms. It was too expensive, and too much drama was involved with it.

With the help of my lovely girlfriend, I managed to finally build a new computer. It's not cutting edge or what-have-you. But it's multitudes better than my 2002-era budget PC. Although my old system is still reliable, and gets everyday tasks done in a timely manner. I just wanted more. Jessica has inherited my old one, and she seems content with it. But I still want to get her something a bit more modern.


Getting a new PC will hopefully jump-start my interest in graphic design. I want to get back into it, but I just don't seem to be able to find the time to play around with it. My life breaks down like this: Girlfriend > Work > Sleep.

I want to toss a hobby back in there! Gaming would be a good one to go with, but I need a freaking gaming console to be able to play any of my games.  My Xbox 360 gave me the Red Ring of Death back in March... then the replacement Microsoft sent back to me gave it to me two weeks after having that. So it's on it's way back to the repair center in Texas, and I've got 6 unfinished 360 games that I cannot play.

Pretty frustrating.

We have a Wii, but the only game we have for that is Zelda, and I can't sit down long enough to get too much done in the game, so I tend to stay away from it. Same goes for my PS2 with God of War II and Final Fantasy XII. -=(

Anyway. I thought this Summer would be a good time to take another vacation and get into doing <em>stuff.</em> Alas, that is not to be. I'll be managing night crew again. My store is going through a HUGE remodel, and I'll technically be supervising the reconstruction of the store aisles, and product layouts/placement.
Don't get me wrong, I love working behind the scenes. However, this is going to be a huge responsibility. I know I can do it, but it's going to be pretty taxing.
I'm mostly concerned with getting a competent team. So far it seems to be all good, but there are only two confirmed night crew members besides myself. o_o

Anyway. Jessica is on her way home, so I'll be going. I'll be back before another year rolls around. Promise. -=P

Tags: personal, tech, work
Current Location: phelan, california
feeling: okay
background: VNV Nation - Carry You

It's been a while!
I don't remember all too much as to what's happened since last time. Some of the more notable things to happen are "moving" back into my parents house, switching to night crew at work for the holidays... and uh, starting the 21st, managing night crew. Yikes.

It's pretty scary, considering night crew carries a pretty large burden when it comes to the productivity of the store through-out season. However, if I can manage to keep everyone going at the same pace that we've been for the past few weeks there really shouldn't be any issues.

The reason I'm in charge is that the current night crew manager (who is also the sales manager during the rest of the year) has been transferred to another of our stores. ...and I'm apparently the one left best suited to finish what he started. I'm not too sure about that, but we'll see.

Fortunately we're able to keep him until Tuesday, which also happens to be the day of a visit from our regional vice-president - or some-such title of importance. After this and Wednesday/Thursday night, it should all pretty much be smooth sailing until Christmas.

I've been told I'll get a raise with this. I don't know how much yet, or whether or not it's permanant. My guess is it'll be a dollar or two, and it will not stay once night crew is disbanded. I could be (hope) that I'm wrong, though. -=)

In other news! Tomorrow the Wii comes out, and I'm pretty hyped. I think I'm more hyped for Zelda, but getting a new Nintendo console is always something to be enjoyed. The Playstation 3 looks pretty nice, but I've yet to see anything for it that I can't/won't be able to get for the 360.
Don't get me wrong - I'd love to have one, but there is no way I can afford it. Jessica and I are scraping the bottom of the barrel just to be able to get a Wii. Unless I get a real nice pay raise, then there is no use even thinking about owning one. But there are many things I'd rather spend $600 on (I wouldn't settle for the "cheap" one. I'm a deluxe kinda guy). $600 would cover two of my car payments, half of my yearly insurance premium, a new exhaust system, springs/struts, or a really nice set of brakes for my SVT. -_-

Of course, by the time I can afford it, Sony might have enough in North America that it'd be possible to actually buy one. -=P

Now that I'm back at my parents house, I have very limited Internet access. We're back on dial-up... sorta. We can't connect at any speed higher than 28.8k >_<. Why this is, well... I don't know. Back in 2000 we could easily connect at 56k speeds... but no... So virtually useless.
Pretty much just usable enough to type an LJ update in Notepad, and then copy/paste it in and hope that it uploads!

My parents ordered satellite, which is the closest we can get to broadband out here. That should arrive Wednesday, so I will hopefully be back more regularly starting late this week, or sometime the week after.

Current Location: Bedroom!
feeling: lethargic
background: A Perfect Circle - Vanishing

The one day off work I get this week, and I haven't much to do. Although I did get to fix a few things that have been annoying me.

First, my car. It was acting up the other day and misfiring all over the place when Jessica and I were on our way back up from visiting the Aquarium of The Pacific a week and a half ago.
Obviously it was something within the ignition system. Spark Plugs and/or wires. Eventually I got around to checking the plugs, and re-gapped a few of them. That fixed the problem instantly... however!

I ordered a new wireset last week, just to be safe (at the time I had the originals with 87,000+ miles no them). Jessica was kind enough to drive (in secret) all the way up to my parents house to retrieve them for me while I was at work. I installed them a few days after that, but the car bogged a bit afterwards. -=\
I wasn't misfiring or anything, so I didn't give it too much thought. That's not to mention that I didn't really have the time to mess with them.
So this morning I was set on fixing them. I go out and check the plug connections, and everything seems to be fine. I add some dielectric grease to the connections and stop for the time being. Jessica and I were heading up the hill to deposit our checks and eat lunch before she starts work.
So as soon as I back out and accelerate, I'm getting misfires up the wazoo. I turn the car off immediately and pop the hood. By this time Jessica decides to go to her bank in her car and deposit her check (which she already had).

I take a closer look at the wires, and one wire's connection to the coil-pack wasn't snapped down all the way. >_< I rip them all off and add them back on, making sure they stay down.

Fine, done.

Start the car, and drive it around the parking area and it's not misfiring, but it's still boggy. -=( Oh well, I'll wait until after lunch and all.

I was going to buy new spark plugs, wondering if those could be the culprit. Autozone only had four of the six I needed, so I held off on that.
After I came back down to the dorms, I open the hood up, this time with the intent to redo every plug and wire. I get through all the coil-pack connections, and lo! One of the boots connecting to my #2 cylinder was loose. o_o I take it out, put in some grease, stick it back on, hop in and start the engine and rev it... no more shuddering! Woo!

So I take it out for a spin just to make sure everything is good.

...yes, it's ALL good. -=)

When I got home, I decided to toy around with the Internet connection in the dorm to see if I could get a wireless connection set up. They don't allow routers. They've got some way of blocking them.
Oh well. Jessica borrowed the kids' wireless adaptor, so I set out to get us connected!

That took about ten minutes. World of Warcraft, here we come. ^_^

Jessica won't be getting off work until midnight or so tonight. I've got to find a way to amuse myself until then! I think I'm going to go attempt to clean my car up a bit. She deserves it. -=P

Current Location: Dorms >_>
feeling: bored
background: All That Remains - Six

Posting really hasn't been my thing, lately. But, I'm forcing myself to right now.

...this is genarally a bad idea.

My family has finally moved out of the wretched shit-hole known as Spring Valley Lake out to what looks more like a literal shit-hole called Phelan. But when it comes to the people -- or the lack thereof -- it's a much nicer place.
I actually like the area a lot, but at the moment, I'm not really living there. About 98% of the roads are dirt. Not just dirt, no, that wouldn't be enough. They're also filled with dips, washboards, and three foot drop-offs into ravines that are placed strategically in the middle of the goddamned road! Obviously something my car was NOT designed to work with. So I try at all costs to stay off of the roads.

Oh yeah, we're also in a part of the area that doesn't have broadband Internet access. Woo! -_-

The nice thing about this move was that we were able to leave at our own leisure. We weren't getting kicked out by the landlord around Christmas again. My parents are able to buy a house this time, and we moved out when we (they?) wanted to. The landlord we had this time around was actually a good guy. We probably could have stayed at his rental for another year, or more. Go figure, right? The guy with the house in one of the most stuck-up areas of the High Desert is the one decent landlord we've had in the past 5 years.

I'm not really living there right now, though. I haven't "officially" moved out, and I'd rather not move out at all right now. But I can't afford to drive my car on those roads anymore.
So I'm staying at Jessica's dorms with her right now. Ohhh, what a cruel fate!! -=P

I guess that's about all that's going on right now. The big move is over, and life continues as it normally would. So I'm going to head out, and go up to my brother's, I think. Jessica's going to be gone all day, and I haven't much else to do.

So until another life changing event occurs!

feeling: bouncy
background: Pagan's Mind - Supremecy, Our Kind

Whew... I went a bit overboard on that last post, eh? Maybe not. -=P

Anyway, I feel much better now. My situation isn't as dire as once believed. I still don't have my car, and I won't get it back. But I don't care at this point. I'm just not forking $500+ over to the impound for them to keep it. It'd be over $1000 if I wanted it back. Not going to happen.

As far as the rest of my life, we'll be moving again shortly. But this time it's not because we're getting kicked out by an evil landlord! Nope, my parents are in the process of buying a house, which is great. The only problem is that it's back out in the Phelan/Pinon Hills area, and what comes with that is more dirt roads than my poor car can handle.
So she'll probably become a garage queen, and I'll end up buying a beater car to go... well, everywhere. That, or Jessica and I will be spending 90% of our time at her dorm instead of at home!

...and that's about all there is to say right now. I just thought I'd put a less hate-filled post at the top here. -=)

Current Location: Bedroom!
feeling: calm
background: Dragonforce - Revolution Deathsquad

I'm pissed off.

That's pretty much what you'd think, right? It seems to be the only time I post on here.

So what's happened this time? My old car got impounded. In the impound. Towed away by the cops. I hate those assholes. Everyone of them. EVERY SINGLE ONE.

Why was it impounded? I don't know yet. It got taken away during the middle of the day, and nobody noticed. There wasn't a knock at the door or anything. I'm pretty sure it's due to it's registration being a bit out of date. Although I have not been driving it. I can't, in fact - the battery is dead (if not more). Plus, why drive it when I have my SVT?

Here's part of what really irks me. We live in a (shitty) area that the CHP never patrols. Ever. A neighbor, or "Spring Valley Lake Security" had to have made a call to them. The impound says the CHP called them in, but that's all I know right now. I have to go by there tomorrow after work to see what's really going on. If they're even open.

So I'm going to be fucked financially. I don't know what I'm going to do, honestly. They said the impound fee is $180, and there's an added bend-over fee of $46.

Soo, about $220... and that's just the impound. I'm sure the CHP is going to rape me a bit more after that, then toss me over to the state to make me their bitch for the rest of my goddamned life. I hate this state, and I'm really starting to hate my own fucking country.

You also have to remember the car doesn't DRIVE. How the fuck am I supposed to get it out of the impound? Push it? Drag it? Pull it? I can't afford to get it out of the impound, let alone afford to get it PHYSICALLY out. I can't pay to have it towed.

I'm in a very destructive state of mind, which I'm entirely uncomfortable with. This is quite the pickle I'm in.

feeling: enraged
background: Norther - The Cure

I'm told that I should update. But I need to get some sleep.

Perhaps another day the update will come.

Current Location: Home
feeling: blank
background: Katatonia - Follower

I hate this god damned state and the hypocrites that run it.

I got a speeding ticket a little over a month ago... as well as a fix-it ticket for my license plates (or the lack there of).
Apparently I was going 67 in a 55 zone. I'm not really sure since my speedometer was off at the time. But that's what "The Man" said. Regardless, if I was intentionally speeding, I'd have been going a lot faster then 12MPH above the limit. Then I'd have nothing to complain about. This also happened around 1AM. I was, besides the CHP, the only car on the road.

So I got the actual ticket in the mail tonight.

$134.

$196 if I hadn't got my plates.

That's more than I pay for my insurance in a month -- heh, at least before this ticket. God knows how much I'll be paying now.

Oh, sure. Go to traffic school. ...what's this? It's an additional $29.00 to even get information on traffic school from them. FUCK THAT. I'll pay my insurance company extra just on principle. Yeah, they're just as evil, but I doubt even the insurance company wastes as much money as this state.

Quit whining? I broke the law? Fuck off. One of the main reasons this pisses me off is that cops are above the law. EVERY SINGLE cop that has EVER been behind me on the road has passed me... when I was going the speed limit. Huh... why would they need to be in front of me? To go faster, duh. I've seen cops get sick of waiting at red lights and just drive through them (without even using their lights/sirens). Not to mention, when I got pulled over, the CHP made an illegal fucking U-turn to pull me over. He turned his lights on after he was on my side of the road. He was driving in the southbound lane, I was northbound. Double yellow, you piece of shit.

The first thing he asked me...

"Have you been drinking tonight?"

Go to hell. You go to hell and you die.

Don't even try to bring up the whole thing about how hard their job is, or how they risk their lives every day for us, because I don't buy it for a second.

First of all, they chose that profession. What's more, every run in I've had with a cop has been an unpleasant experience. Not once has an officers presence been comforting. They've never made it seem like they're out to "serve and protect" or whatever bullshit they say now.
What I see all the time are cops scouring parking lots looking for expired registrations and such.

"Hey look, that guy only has dealership plates. Turn on the 'FUCK YOU, BUDDY' spotlight!"

I want out of this state. -=(

By the way, it's nice to be "back." -_-

feeling: disappointed
background: In Flames - Reflect The Storm