$78.50 of Gas

$8.50 bought me two Delissio pizzas. I just ate one of them, minus one slice. Damn you, slice, for being existant after I am already full. The gas is forthcoming.

$70 bought me gas from Chevron - eventually. I think I can count the number of times I've put gas into my own vehicle on one hand. I may have to borrow a finger from the other hand, but I'd doubt it. I'm 20 years old, as of yesterday, and I've hardly ever filled a gas tank. Well, what can I say. I don't like paying for stuff.

So today, after work, I decided I needed to fill up my gas tank. More accurately, the annoying light on my rusted dashboard suggsted such. Thus, a trip to the gas station was in order. It was 7:40, aproximately, on a Sunday next to the Costco parking lot. Costco closes at 5 on Sundays, so the parking lot was empty. Thus, the gas station was also empty. I decided I would use the "express" land so as to not hold anyone up. I still chuckle at my ironic actions. I stumble out of my vehicle and begin the deciphering process. This is what I was thinking.

Insert and remove card. Done deal. Processing. Alrighty then. Cute girl working inside there. Do I want to fill it up? Well, not really. That's too much. Do I want to put in a certain amount, well, yeah.. how much worth? $70 sounds about right. That's what I dropped in last time. That's one days work worth. Driving sucks. Which account is it again? Right. Chequing. PIN. Fun numbers. Ok. Now what. Right. Lift nozzle and lever. Got the nozzle. Oh, right, gotta open the gas tank. Curses. I hope the girl didn't see/hear me twist that damn cap the wrong way. Open. Insert nozzle. Press thingy. Wtf. It's not going. Instructions. Lift lever. The hell is the lever? Normally it's on the side next to the nozzle thingy... Nothing on that side. Or that side. This is embarassing. Good thing no one is here to see me. Except that girl working inside. She's talking on the phone.. good. Must be distracted. Now, instructions again. Lift nozzle and lever. Where's the lever? Do I have to push a button somewhere? That's not a button. Nor is that. I'm confused. Am I going to have to go inside and ask? Oh geez, she's looking at me. Talking on the phone. Is she talking ABOUT me on the phone? There. I sent here my confused look. She's making hand motions. She looks like she picked up a plate off a very low table. The hell does that mean? Alright, I just mimicked her motion with both my hands. That ought to send a "WTF" signal to her. What's she doing? Oh sweet, intercom! Oh, THATs the lever? Point and nod. Keep it smooth. I hope she's not talking to another cute girl. Oh well. Let's fill this beast up. I hate driving.

I did not, in the end, ask her for her phone number.

Although, upon further thought, I should have.

Life is Work

So, essentially, this is my life:

Work. When I'm not working, I think about work and how long until I'm back at work. Is that good? Sometimes. Not always. Yesterday I worked the door at Costco. If nothing else, it really showed me just how many people I know in Kelowna. I saw people from highschool, including a retired teacher, people from church, and people who I know I know but am not exactly sure how. I worked the door for 8 hours yesterday. The normal shift for the "in" door at Costco is two hours, distributed throughout the day in half hour segments. Otherwise it's just too mundane, boring, and generally terrible for the person working. Did I mention I worked it for 8 hours yesterday?

I got bored.

Today I didn't work the door. I found out I'm being trained as a casher on Monday. I start at 7 that day. I normally start between 11 and 3:30. 7 is early. I also picked up some hours on Saturday morning, also at 7. Apparently we're setting up for my birthday party. Yeah, Costco is having a party on my birthday. Thus, it's my birthday party. And I get paid to be there, setting up.

How awesome is that?

In other news, not much happening. I stay in the house a lot. Eat food. Like popcorn. I bought Guild Wars, so I've been spending some time leveling up my Mesmer/Elementalist. I think I may start a new character, try a different combonation until I find something that I like. Maybe a monk.

I go to watch Wrestling (WWE) with the boys on Monday night. It's not for the show, trust me. However, also on this Saturday "Smackdown" is coming to Kelowna. I was offered some tickets for $30. I'm terribly tempted. Perhaps I'll bring a sign that says "Make love not war", or "Hi Mom" or even "Subtle Innuendo Regarding Your Origins of Birth". So tempted.

I am not productive with my time. I work, and I wait for work to begin again.

I've been worse off.

COSTCO

So, yesterday I began to work for Costco Wholesale. It was a 6.5 hour day, for which I was paid, to "orient" myself with the business, policies, and workplace. It was pretty easy money, to say the least. The "shift" started at 1:00, on a glorious gloriously sunny afternoon. We all went downstairs in a hotel to a chilled conference room. I think we should've been taught on the beach. Anyways, the next 5 hours were watching crappy 90's videos featuring the president and vice president of Costco, either teaching a class about our Code of Ethics or recanting a fictional nightmare about how Costco should not be run. Neither of which seemed particular important to my specific job, but required nonetheless. The rest of the time we signed various things saying that we would not be an ass and they can send our money to the bank account here.

We got free sandwhiches. They were alright, I guess.

The last hour and a half was a tour of the warehouse. We were shown the lunchroom, how to punch in and out for our shift and lunch hour, the various parts of the warehouse (majors, centers, foods, endcaps, etc), the tills, and how to enter/exit the building when it's closed. Which I'll be doing tonight.

None of this taught me how to do my job, which is to put stuff in people's carts. Apparently, it's pretty basic and I'll just pick it up. Alrighty then.

So anyways, in the middle of our tour, Costco got busy so we got thrown onto some tills packing groceries. It was pretty sweet. I kinda suck at it. One of the other guys (who was wearing the same shirt as me.. weird) came over and helped me out when I was slow or whatever. When the cashier I was helping got switched off, the other cashier started doing my job, thinking I was just a customer helping out or something. Heh. Awkward. Oh well.

At least it helped me figure out how to do what I'm supposed to do.

Today I get an 8 hour shift doing that, all day, pretty much I guess. I don't really know. I don't have my card to punch in and out, I don't know where to go to get it, and I don't know where anything is in the store. So ok. This'll be interesting.

I want to do well, I'm just not sure I'll be able to, yet, given the lack of training. I guess I'll just figure it out.

Let's rock this roast.

I Have An Old, Odd Family

Seeing as it's my parent's 25th Wedding Anniversary tomorrow, my extended family has come to town. Also, my immediate family has come to town. Whenever you put all of us in the same place at the same time, interesting things happen. I realized today that we're an old family. We do things that I wouldn't normally remember doing, simply because we're all old enough now. More mature. Classier. Also, we're weird.

Things my family actually does:

- Sits around the dinner table, eating an appetizer of aged cheeses, crackers, and wine.
- Discuss the merits of the latest redocation of our bathroom, including the many pitfalls of the toliet in comparison to the potential models retailed at various merchandisers.
- Compares ankles by lunging in the kitchen
- Go out to dinner at the classiest, hippest resturant in town, and complain constantly about the service, making sarcastic statements towards the ability of the waitresses
- Tells the waitress that they have very nice shoes
- Brainstorm ideas for a future vacation plan, probably Hawaii, discussing potential trip details such as flight plans, hotel expenses, tourist destinations, etc.
- Get slightly tipsy off 1/4 cup of wine
- Make amusing comments to the slave servants of the following companies: Wal-Mart, The Gap, and The Greenery

Things I wish my family did:

- Drank beer
- Killed zombies
- Fought crime in the names of truth, justice, and Jesus

Now In Color!

You should check me out.

This is what I wear to work everyday. Yeah, I have a work outfit. It's pretty smokin'. I've worn the same pair of years to work every single day. I've slowly amassed a fairly decent collection of filth upon their thigh region, resulting in a popular "anti-faded" effect. At least, I pretend it's popular.

And yes, I get to wear a radio all day long. It's awesome.

Things I have said into the radio:

"Roger that"

"Uh, that's a negative. I'm going to need backup on this one"

"Affirmative"

Most of those are variations on CounterStrike radio commands. Yeah, I'm a geek.

Things I wish I have said into the radio:

"Rrr.....oger that, Delta Five. ETA is aproximately twentythree seconds and counting, over"

"Man down! Man down!"

The sweet mic radio attachment thing is new. Before I just had the handheld transmitter. But now I plug the sweet dealie into my transmitter, and I throw the big sucker on the back of my belt. Then I just clip on and rock out. I feel like it's similar to achieving an "epic" item in WoW, except, more real.

I also got my sweet leatherman on my hip there. It comes in handy often. Sometimes I'm like, "sweet dude, I gots to cut stuff open.. Leatherman away!" (said, of course, in the voice of homestarrunner). I got it as a gift for my sixteenth birthday party from my Aunt and Uncle, who's house "The Left" stayed at during their most recent tour. That Aunt is out visiting my parents for their 25th Wedding Anniversary, and brought her friend, who's nephews I had class with at CBC. We all went out for dinner tonight, and I told them about the time I saw a zombie. Yes, I stood up and did the appropriate actions.

What else do I have on my sweet body...

My shoes are awesome, but they have holes in them. So on days like today, when it rains and pours and rains some more, I get wet feet. That makes me sad, but not all the time. Sometimes it results in me dancing about in the rain, putting away carts while the fleeing customers take snapshots, while I sing U2, loud and proud.

Some other times I use those shoes for dancing. For customers. I haven't gotten them to tip me though... not yet...

Anyways, that's what I wear to work. It's pretty nifty.

A Moment In My Life....

So there I was, standing ontop of a palet of cardboard, when Christina walks into the box room.

Christina is one of the cashier girls that works at The Greener with me. She's different from all the other cashier girls because, well, she's a girl. Not an aged woman. Thus, she gets extra points in my books. Easier to talk to, flirt with, you know. Now, Christina is also off limits, which I am ok with. She's Stephen's boyfriend, who happens to be the guy I work with the closest. So, whenever it's breaktime or lunch time, they're always together, and I'm working. We can't have breaks at the same time, because we cover each other (z1 - countstrike command "cover me".. ), you know? So, it's hard for me to get to know Christina because, well, I never have the chance to talk to her. Except like, when I go to bring her till boxes, and I'll make some comment about the weather or something. She seemed pretty nice, but something was always off whenever we weren't talking. She wouldn't smile. Ever. Or look mad. Or anything, actually. I then determined that she was, in fact, expressionless.

So I was working away, making sweet boxes using my stapler from the palets of unmade boxes, making them into many multiples of stacks of sweet boxes for cashing use. I ran out of unmade boxes to make, so I had to go to the last palet in the line to get some more. There were two stacks there, one ontop of another. So I climbed up on one stack to get to the top one, and Christina walked in. She didn't have any emotion displayed on her face. She bent over to grab some boxes and that's when I said,

"Hey, has anyone ever told you that you're expressionless?"

Yeah. It just popped out of my mouth.

She sort of stopped, startled, and put the boxes back down. She stood up, turned to look at me and said in reply,

"You try being a model for two years and see if you have any expression."

'nuff said. I sort of grunted, shocked, and mumbled something adequate in reply. She took her boxes and left, and I sort of stood up there, four and a half feet higher than I'm supposed to be, contemplating.

She returned and we talked for a bit, from that awkward distance. She told me that I was the first person to "have the balls" to tell her that. She said that other people just assume she's a "bitch" (I can say these things because they're quotes.. not my words.. right? ...right?) because of it. I said things, she laughed a cartoon laugh (too classic - reminds me of cartoons/fake laugh/etc), we bonded. It was a nice moment.

I've been working a lot lately. Last I wrote about Job Hunting and Work, I was and had not. Now I'm not and have lots of. I've gotten two job offers this last week. I want to take both, but since they're with the same company, Costco, I can't. So, I took the one I said yes to first, I think, and then said that I'd pick up a few shifts at the other if I could. So we'll see. That starts May 15th.

In the meantime I went back to my old work at The Greenery. Making boxes. It's awesome. I sometimes bleed. Today I made over 2000 boxes. I was going so fast the friction from the moving cardboard wore a blister into the side of my thumb, which I ignored. When I noticed red splotches on the boxes I was making, I decided to get a bandaid. It was a Dora the Explorer bandaid. I was pretty pumped. The work there can be very hectic, but it's fun. I like the people I work with too. I've been working 9+ hour days though, so it gets tiring. I go to work, come home, sit at my comp and try to not fall asleep. It's 10:12pm right now, and I'm going to go to bed soon. That would be a good decision.

Yesterday I had the day off, however. I went to the beach with Ashley Laird. Ashley is an old friend, and one of the only friends from highschool I have. She and I actually went to preschool together too, but different elementary schools. So we hung out and went to the beach, even though it was cloudy. It was still good and warm though. I had fun just sitting around, talking, or not talking. She described it as "comfortable", as we talked sometimes, and didn't sometimes. It felt pretty darn normal to me. We walked to the old neighborhood convience store which I used to go to during highschool for lunches sometimes. It was a morning of memories. We'd talk about highschool people, 'cause those are really the only people we both know. How they were, what they're doing.

It's weird to hear that people in my highschool are either a) still in their parents basement, doing drugs and working out too much, b) living with their girl/boyfriend and generally moving upwards in the corporate ladder, or c) rich, famous, and on the cover of magazines or winning gold medals.

Awesome.

I think I could filet a fish with an air compressor and some yogurt.

POSCOB

I have named my truck "POSCOB". If you're unsure how to pronounce that, join the club. I don't much care how it's pronounced, it's supposed to be an acronym.

This is a truck that is being lent to me for the summer. I pay insurance, I pay gas, I get to use it for the four months I'm in Kelowna. It's pretty much a necessity. I can't use my parents vehicle very often/ever, because they're often out and about, doing pastoral things, like visiting sick people. I can't steal their vehicle from that, now can I. The bus system is Kelowna is one of the worst in the province. I've already checked, it doesn't go to where I work, or where I want to work, or where I might be working. Much walking required. The commute (which already takes 15-20 minutes, depending on traffic and the work I'm attempting to go to) would probably be closer to 1.5 hours. That's just ridiculous. I can't walk everywhere, because, well, I live out in the mission.. and that means I'm a long ways from everything.

So I have this truck, and I've named it POSCOB.

The POS, well, I'll let you figure that part out on your own. Needless to say, it's junk. It's a 1987 Dodge Dakota that has been used for the last whoknowhowmany years as a backup/workhorse vehicle. It was used to move heavy stuff, help with landscapping, and hold things that don't fit anywhere else. When I got it, it had about 8 old house window frames, with glass windows included (on most - some of them were broken and scattered about the truck bed), a bike helmet, a few sheets of unknown origin, a toy helicopter, and an elevator door. Yes, an elevator door. It weighs more than I do, which is not something you want to drag around with you when you drive around Kelowna. The rest of the truck was, and continues to be, filled with dirt which will only rust the truck bed right through, eventually.

The COB stands for "Caged Old Bear". This is because of its temperment. To start it up, I usually have to give it a little bit of gas by pumping the accelerator once or twice. Otherwise, it'll just whine and roll over. Once it gets some gas though, it just roars. It is, at the least, an old 80's V6. There's rumours that it might even be a V8. I'd lift the hood and check, but the hood doesn't lift - it's rather broken (which isn't good, because the bloody thing leaks oil like an angry mother, and I gotta get in there to add some before the idiot light comes on). Anyways, I wouldn't want to stick my head in there. Dangerous. Sometime when I'm driving the POSCOB, I'll come to a red light. Most cars idle. The POSCOB likes to alternate between lulling me into a false place of safety and security, and shaking wildly making terrible, terrible noises. When I finally (and luckily) get to the place I want to be, I'll jam the gearshift into "park" (assuming it'll let me) and the POSCOB will not simply stop, but give a death throe or two, then shudder to a halt.

I call it a Caged Old Bear because it resembles a wild beast that is far past it's prime, yet with a look in it's eye that wishes it still was. It remembers the days when it would tear things limb from limb, and now it's a spectacle in front of shiny onlookers. It's old, it's tired, and if it were able to be - probably suicidal. It's lost it's will to live. At the same time, there's still strength left. Old bear strength. He can "give 'er" if he needs to, but not nicely, and not willingly. Just out of spite for being alive, more than anything.

I went to fill 'er up today. I stopped at $70, still short of full.

Sigh.

Hectic Daze

This morning began unlike any other morning I've had here, in Kelowna. My parents, being out of town, entrusted their dog to me. Millie, she is called. I had to get up, and out of bed, about six hours after I went to sleep. I had to walk her by 7:30AM. That's early. I was less than impressed, especially considering she kept me up late last night, what with the puking of her own poo onto our formerly nice carpet. The good news is that I got to wear a bandana across my face, like a bank robber or a cowboy from the 50's. I felt like a man.

So anyways, instead of going back to sleep, as I thought I would upon the return to the house, I decided to eat some cereal. Then the game's over. I was going to be awake for sure now, there would be no going back to sleep.

This would prove to be a good choice.

Soon afterwards, the following events occured. I received a phone call from my old English teacher's son, who heard I was looking for work at Costco and had an "in" for me, if I left immediately and went to the Costco bakery. I finished watching my episode of "Scrubs", and then did. I scheduled an interview for tomorrow at noon. Upon the return to my house, I made and ate lunch. I then made two phone calls, one returning a call from The Grand Hotel about a job interview, but sadly both times there was no answer, though I left a message. I then called my old work, The Greenery, and asked/wondered if there would be any work for me for the next couple of weeks, perhaps longer. I said I might need something until I find a job that will last me for the whole summer, not just until the end of June.

I start tomorrow morning at 8.

I then got in contact with an old friend from Kelowna, and found out he was moving today. I asked if he needed any help, and he said sure. So I emptied my truck (oh yeah, I have a truck. Next post will be ALL about my POSCOB) of rather large, useless, and extremely heavy objects (seriously, I think they had a metal door in there.. it was effin' heavy.. like, 200-250lbs, easily). Why have I been draggin this trash around in the back of my truck? I don't know.. I really don't know.. Anyways, I emptied it all out, drove and got $20 worth of gas (my food money while my parents were gone - who needs to eat?) which filled it up from just below 3/4 empty to just below 1/2. Oh boy. This is going to be an expensive vehicle. I drove the 10 minutes to their house, and filled the truck and other vehciles with random stuff. People that don't pack/move organized make me crazy. We then drove the 25 minute drive ALL the way across town, where we unloaded. I then drove the 20 minutes home.

So, here I am, tired at 10:00 because I didn't get much sleep last night, buzzed because I'm going to work (which I haven't been to in years) again tomorrow, and bored because the stupid hockey game isn't exciting.

I don't even like hockey.

I wish my house didn't smell like poop.

My lunch break tomorrow is going to be an interview at Costco.

G'night.