Memories

Part of my job is to visit different sites on a semi-regular basis. After a couple of visits I like to think people remember me and I can at least have a nodding acquaintance with the people on that site. Now I always have trouble with new names and I'm sure my "most difficult" name is hard for some people to remember.

What I don't understand is how some people don't seem to even remember meeting me previously. I went to a site on Friday morning to deliver a few things. Upon arrival I, once again, introduced myself to the receptionist. While this is a fairly quiet time of year and this site isn't exactly inundated with people, I'd have thought the last 4 or 5 times I'd visited and introduced myself I'd have at least received a "Oh, hi" or some other form of acknowledgement. But nope, not a batter of a eyelid. I tried to put this down to her being busy and me not being there every single day. But she's not alone.

I think I've mentioned previously about my invisibility to wait staff. Well I can now officially include sales staff in this list. While in a major department store over the weekend, I wandered into the high tech section ("Ooo, pretty lights and buttons") and started reading information, pressing buttons and generally making eye contact with the sales staff in a hope to get them to come and talk to me about their fantastic flashy things. No luck.

So after the 6th person had been served a head of me (4 staff on the floor and really it wasn't all that busy) I picked up the most expensive item I could find in front of me (a god awful mini stereo or something) and calmly wandered to another stand. Depositing the aforementioned stereo on this new stand, I looked around again - made eye contact with at least 3 different sales people - picked up the stereo and took it to the opposite end of their "area". Where by I almost tripped over a sales man kneeling on the floor attempting to sell the cheapest TV to an uninterested couple. The TV was less than the stereo I still had in my hot little hands.

So, when I picked up the stereo I may have dropped (a little) and handed it over to the sales man (still on his knees) I said something along the lines of "Well, I guess I won't be spending any money here today".

Then went off and spent a bucketload at another store where I was greeted and assisted within a few moments of walking in the store.

The weekend of travel and money

In response to Cathy's current entry - there are no second hand items, burkhas, or even dildos (perhaps a vibrator, but let me digress). There have been times I've attempted to surprise Cathy by doing or buying things for her. The last biggest case was the trip to Brisbane when she got back from Russia - the surprise I organised the day she left, the same surprise that lasted most of her trip away until she started getting pissed off that I wasn't answering her question of "Why don't you come up and see me in Brisbane?"

So when christmas rolled around I decided to get all my ideas down and do the shopping as late as possible. Also to give as many pointless hints as possible. Or perhaps not pointless, but not accurate.

When the weekend that just ended rolled around and Cathy went to Brisbane, my shopping skill had to kick into gear. My record so far has been 7 presents in 45 minutes. This christmas - 6 people in 1 hour ... the last person? Almost 5 hours.

Admittedly most of those 5 hours were driving. Oh, so much driving. But I got what I was after - and I even got some ideas for Cathy's birthday. Not to remember those ideas until her birthday!

Now to prepare for the "celebrations" and the holiday ... and to attempt to keep the magic alive just a little while longer for the most wonderful woman in the world.

I love you my dear ... and I hope that each of our christmases together are more special and magical than the last.

Post 70 ... yay!

Whenever I see (or write) the word "yay" it takes a long time to get a certain green frog out of my head. I think forever the word "yay" and uncontrolled clapping will take me back to early saturday mornings watching "The Muppet Show" and wondering what sort of children Kermit and Miss Piggy really would have.

Anyway, Post 70 - it's almost a mile stone, well actually I just realised I was in the high 60's the other day and tried to stay away from Post 69 (*snigger*). So, 70 posts and all seems well.

May 2007, that was post number 1 of this little corner of the interwebs I like to call my own. At least I like to call it something, "my own" is just the most acceptable. May 2007 I can't even remember much of what happened in that month. To be honest since 2001 the years really have flown by. From different career paths, to major relationship hurdles, to so many house moves it's not funny. I guess even since May 2007 I've had all of those as well. Perhaps I'll get to settle down soon?

He says hopefully thinking about the woman he is currently ensconced with.

So what do the next 4 months mean for me? Before my blog turns 2. Wow, a blog that is almost 2 years old. I'm not even sure how "old" my previous blog got to, I may have to investigate that one day.

The first thing that jumps to mind is my first holiday over the christmas period in quite a number of years - and the first "holiday" with Cathy (I doubt she'd class it as a holiday and looking at the "To Do List" she's already got for me, I doubt it also). Then there will be the job that I've had for more than 3 months (let's not talk about the job that only last 3 months and really I should have left sooner). And there will also be the lead up to dating someone for 12 months. Admitedly we've only gotten past the 6 month marker, but really from 6 to 12 months doesn't seem that long.

I'm sure there are many other things to do, be said, have done and plan for. Perhaps even shedding much more weight and gaining much more money? ...Yes, a boy can dream - get off my back!

I guess it's back to waiting for other people to finish what they need to do before I can do what I need to do - oh the joys of working on a friday night! The overtime better be worth it!

Crap!

Well it seems my wonderful attempt at blogging every day has slipped a little. Apparently people noticed over the weekend and made comment. Hey, stones and glass houses people - I don't see anyone else out there attempting to blog as much as I am!

Yes, that also includes Cathy ...

So today I've decided to blog twice - not only to catch up, but so I can hit my 70th post on here. Although with some of my posts being edited, I suspect I've made more than 70 entries.

So here I am in a very nice office in the city (7th floor has great views!) with 4 laptops around me, trying to do everything at once. I don't even get time to watch the progress bars float across the screen - how do they expect me to blog efficiently with no time to watch the pretty blue bars.

Perhaps I shouldn't be watching all the professional young ladies wander around the office as much.

Mmm, perhaps I shouldn't make comments like that either.

Ok, little update - I have a weekend of "singledom", well at least as close to "singledom" as I hope to have in the near (or far) future. With Cathy going to see her parents for christmas (apparently she's blaming my not going on lack of funds - but seriously, I think I've spent enough time with her parents in the past couple of months!) and me having to do a whole truck load of christmas shopping, I don't see how I'm going to be doing much of the "singledom" type things.

On that note - it's interesting at this time of year, how people assume that their family is fine and dandy to spend lots of time with. Yet on the other hand of other families, it's a drain and/or a bore. I guess it's just lucky that my grandmother isn't over this year and I get the "Come and spend Christmas Day with us" invite.

Well, back to watching lots of progress bars for me ... back later to blog about something even more interesting! - No, I have no idea what either.

Oops

Oops, I may have missed a few days. I may or may not have been getting intoxicated on Friday (work Christmas parties that start at almost midday are pretty cool in my book) - then Saturday flew by like nobodies business (didn't help that my family decided to have an impromptu bbq - on the wettest summer day I can remember). Sunday was probably the best day for blogging, but it just didn't seem right. I had things scheduled and any number of things fell apart to leave me wondering what was the point of scheduling them in the first place.

Then yesterday - Mondays really need to be stricken from the record. I mean really, is there any worse day of the week? Excluding Sunday of course which is the closest day to Monday.

So here I am on Tuesday without any blogging material that I really feel like airing in public.

Oh and apparently it's less than 10 days to Christmas day ... on yay?

18...19...20...

21%
I'm sitting here, on site, watching a status bar slowly crawl it's way across the screen. This is what, apparently, I get paid the big bucks for.

26%
If only I was paid big dollars. But then again I'm still only starting out, I mean to put my whole career into focus, I've done just over 1 decade. There's what - 4-5 more of those? Unless of course I strike it rich and marry, I mean work hard and earn lots of money. Lots and lots of money I suspect.

27%
I tell you it's not going to be by watching status bars crawl across the screen. Although I've done worse things with my time. Because I've been told to do them and because I really didn't want to do something I was told to do.

28%
I still think I've had a very decent career path so far - I seem to end up at the top of the pile. My first job as a "Forecourt Attendant" - when people actually "served" the customer at a "Service" Station - I was running my own shifts by the end of my first 6 months there. Not bad for a 17 year old.

31%
Woo, things got a little quick there for a moment. The next big thing I guess was running the McDonald's store. Admittedly this took me a little long (almost 2 years) but those big companies aren't exactly known for their "outside of the box" thinking when it comes to promoting people. I think the basic thought process went "Let's get this person to have the responsibilities of the next level up, without the rights or pay, for as long as we can - then just before they quit we'll promote them". Or in my case you get the store manager drunk enough and everyone loves you and won't say no.

34%
This is just getting crazy. Think I might just pack up and go home. Of course if that happens it's going to fall over at 99% and I'll be in royal shit. Not that I didn't warn everyone that might happen. But these things are never fun.

35%
What was after McD's? Oh that's right, the helpdesk job. I'll skip the little jobs I had to keep fuel in my car between these 2, but let's just say working 2 jobs and studying between the hours of 0430 and 2300 6 days a week is not fun. The helpdesk role - even though I've been through it, I still cannot stand idiots who man the phones. To articulate correctly (I even rolled the R's in my head when I typed that) is a very important thing to do - even when english isn't your first language. I don't get annoyed when people laugh at my crazy attempts at french, I just grin, look a little (more) stupid and try again - it's not their fault I can't speak their language, or they can't understand me.

39%
Fuck, things are right moving along now. I think 50% will be the time to make my peace with the world and go beat my head against the brick wall that is the traffic in Melbourne. At least what they call traffic.

40%
Time to sign off before I start rambling even more - this isn't good for me. Think I'll need to lie down somewhere. I wonder if the GM will mind if I stretched out on his desk. He's not using it at the moment.

Lol.

Once again into the fire

Once again I've started an exercise kick. I'm currently swinging around the 120/121 kg mark. So looking at my "starting" of 127 I don't feel that I've really lost all that much. I suspect the worst thing I did when I was exercising was not change my diet radically enough. Since then (ie since Cathy got back from Russia) my diet has changed for the better. Problem being I now sit on my arse more during the day and don't have a gym to go to after work (or the excuse of one anyway).

I'd been tossing around the idea for a while now, about the one hundred push ups challenge. Or as I like to call it "pushing this much weight has to be good for something". I worked through the different sorts of push ups last night and found the regular push ups were best for me. Well "best" as in I could do them, it actually felt like I was doing something and after 10 I was ready for a good lie down.

So there we go, I've scheduled myself in for the 100 push ups, apparently it "only takes 6 weeks". At least I know I can do push ups almost any where - and they are still free.

The 100 might even help with the other form of exercise - well, it might decrease the recent influx of complaints!