three in one project: episode two. (june 19, 2011; 17:54-18:54)

this is episode two of my three in one project. in case you missed the first one, you can find it here. with the explanation given already, i'll cut straight to the tracks. hope you enjoy. or are at least mildly amused.

"turtles and hellhounds."

this song's suggestion by annie. quote: "a chipper/catchy song, with lyrics narrating some pathetic event as it unfolds before our eyes? i.e. a dog eating your birthday cake."

thanks again for the suggestion.
song title: turtles and hellhounds.

"dewey's departure."

this song's suggestion by neil. quote: " Dewey's first day at army camp, he is sad, misses his friends trace and neil, and he relizes he forgot his pants."

thanks again for the suggestion.
song title: dewey's departure.

"thundering cultural hall."

this song's suggestion by steve. quote: "44 dwarves and a bearded woman playing church ball in the thunder dome.

"thanks again for the suggestion.

song title: thundering cultural hall.

fifty thousand words.

"when asked, 'how do you write?' I invariably answer, 'one word at a time.'"

-stephen king.

today i'm beginning my june project. rather than sitting around to relax in my scheduled downtime, my goal is to write a novel (albeit an awful one) in that time instead. this was inspired by a few things: the first is that fact that i've been meaning to write a novel for several years now; the second is wanting my downtime to go towards something besides high scores; and lastly, the suggestion of my friend eric. eric gave me a lead to national novel writing month (http://www.nanowrimo.org/), which basically is an event that invites you to take one month and write a novel (at least fifty-thousand words in length) from scratch, start to finish. the actual month takes place in november, but i decided to give it a solo run in june--we all know i'm impatient.


for my mother's sake, i'll remind you it's a downtime project, and my schoolwork, work, etc. come before it. just the fact that i'll have a pet project for a month is a wonderful thought. 


it will never be published, likely never be read. but it'll be written--that's worth something, right?

wintermute.

"measure twice, cut once."

--zion base founder

(neuromancer, william gibson)

for time first time in a long time, if ever, i'm in a spot where i need to organize on a level far past my experience. this is in no small part due to the fact that much of my planning is reliant on computers.

i've an able enough hand at hum-drum activities on a computer, but utilizing them for planning and record keeping (activities i typically reserve for paper and pen) is a matter foreign to me. so... what to do? it's strange that one of the greatest challenges of my near future is becoming more familiar with computers where for the past three years, i've been more than competent. 

for better or worse, me and my lappie will be getting to know each other even better. we'll see what happens.

reacquainting myself with the floating bum.

as i'm sure you're all well aware, times ain't the easiest when it comes to finding work. whether it's for full time skilled labor or part-time grunt work, jobs are competitive. bearing this in mind, i've had the great fortune of being able to find another job. so to speak. for the unaware, i currently work at the benson science building on byu campus doing early morning (4:30 am) custodial work, and have been since last november. it pays well enough for what it is and has been great for a job both during school and break. the only disadvantage (outside of the occasional disgusting happening) is that the hours are limited to 17.5 a week. that means that while it pays well enough, it still lands short of a fulltime job. which is really what i would hope for during a break where i have no school. so i've been looking for a second job for the summer. and luckily, i actually found one, or rather, rediscovered one.

the job i worked before the benson building (and the job where i met my dear girlfriend) was at byu laundry. i pressed coats and pants and drove a laundry truck for about six months when i first came back to the university. when i left, my boss said if i was interested in a job again to give him a call. i did, and he didn't have any spots available until recently. but since he had one as of last week, i finally got the second job i'd been looking for.

it's interesting coming back to a job after you've been gone for over half a year. especially a job like the laundry. it's a great place, but much of the work is fairly monotonous. for instance, my past job (and now current job) was/is pressing coats and jackets at a little station for the duration of the shift. not the most thrilling business. that's not the reason i left the laundry, but i must confess it may have had some influence. now, though, i've come back and see people who have been there since before i started last summer still at the presses. i have to wonder how they can bear it. honestly, it's sort of like making xerox copies of a weirdly shaped papers one after another for hours without ever speaking to anybody or moving. it's practically a varicose vein farm. because i'm a fidget, i can't stand at the same spot that long so in the few seconds that the machine is on autopilot i take the chance to bounce on my toes, find an excuse to walk a bit (drinks of water are the most common), or simply jump in place a few times. but these other people who simply twist their waists every few minutes have me baffled.

personally, i've always been more partial for pressing jackets. it's what i started on. also, you put the jacket on a sort of wire-and-cloth mannequin rather than...

the floating bum.

i thought i was rid of this abomination when i left the laundry in november, but my dismissal was premature and even rash in retrospect. it would seem fate has intertwined our destinies. either way, there are always more pants to press than jackets, so when one of the pants presses are open i get to head over. in case you're curious, this machine basically take the pants and floods them with steam so they balloon up to their max size and eliminate any small wrinkles and also reinforce pleats (as seen in the photo). then it's our job to take them to the press itself and put the crease of the pants in place and eliminate any stray wrinkles. and to be fair, from this angle, i guess it's more accurately titled "the floating crotch." that sounds a bit crass, though, doesn't it?

anyway, this means a bit more income for yours truly which is a good thing after half a summer of searching for some extra cash flow. at least i have an mp3 player now. autumn is being kind enough to loan me hers (amongst other acts of kindness--so thanks to her), and i'm only working three hour shifts. how in the world i use to work four hours without any music or radio theater to fill my skull is beyond me. but i see other people doing it, so i guess it remains possible. to be fair though, these are the same people who'll be getting varicose veins.

so there.

p.s.--yes, i know i neglected part two of my washington dc adventure. i apologize. i totally forgot and will work on getting it posted soon. forgive me, williams.

mopping with cute little animals.

so, i know i had a post something like ten hours ago saying to just wait because it may be a bit before i have another reason to post.

well, a reason came up sooner than i expected. on top of that, it actually has nothing to do with tunes like i said it probably would. oh well.

i clean bathrooms every morning starting at 4:30 am. as you can probably guess, things can get pretty interesting with everyone consistently being up at this time. (for a great example of this, check out my coworker laura's post about it.) part of cleaning the bathrooms is mopping.

here's a typical perspective. nothing fancy, just a simple stick to mop head view that doesn't allow much to be seen outside of it mopping up a (often bizzarre) collection of marks, hair, and spills. this is, after all, what it has as a purpose. to clean up what mop's good friend broom misses.








anyway, this morning we put a new mophead on the stick because the one we put first on essentially had been used as part of a bullet-proof vest, it was not working at all. it was referred to as "the devil" by travis and "a wet t-shirt" by kyle. this is unimportant, though, outside of the fact that it caused us to go downstairs, replace the mophead, and come back up. because we were carrying it up we were able to see it dry which is unusual, as its almost always in a bucket of consume eco-lyzer mopping solution.

on our way upstairs, i began using it as a sort of gandolf staff, and met this when i looked at it.

it's a kitty!

or maybe the antagonist from soul reaver for playstation. whatever.

either way, it's adorable. i'm mopping with something that is just tooooooo cute! these animals are cute enough that other cats have been able to even spark and internet pop culture icon. i smell a spin off.

so. expect to have this image in your inbox soon, along with "hilarious youtube clips" from your coworkers.
because it's adorable.

i'll try to have an interesting post up soon. but at five in the morning, this seemed like a post opportunity i couldn't afford to pass up.

the obturator foreman inspired 3:30 am shift.

so, random.
yesterday morning i woke up an hour early to be able to study up for my anatomy quiz. an hour earlier for me is three in the morning, as i normally begin work at 4:30, thus requiring me to arise around four.
well, that worked just fine yesterday.

today, the time came to awake, i did the morning routine, and headed to work. much to my surprise, when i got to the office to punch in, the room was empty save my supervisor, who greeted me with, "um, why are you here?"

pause.

"i was wondering who was here this early."
a glance to the watch confirmed that i was indeed early. my blessed early morning study method from the day before had (compliments of my absent mindedness) brought me to work an hour early.

"go ahead and just start if you want, then you can leave an hour early."
and so i did.
but i still have a class in this building at 8:00 am. so: no point in going home, just enough time to study. or...
blog! i feel so true to myself now.