It’s a rare day off, now that I live in the land of retail. Of course, since I have the day “off” I’ll be pretty busy – two doctor visits (one to straighten me out, one to help me see straight) and three chairs to rebuild and two valances to get worked on and a motor to get rewound …
I was unpacking freight today, outside the back door of the store, when a couple (who happen to be regular customers) pulled into the parking lot. He was driving (?), looking at his “Smart” phone, and carrying on a conversation with his wife. No distractions there, right?
Did I mention they are both deaf and communicate with each other by American Sign Language? How’s that distraction thing working now?
On my way home tonight, I was at the light on Shea at Tatum. I was in the left hand lane, since I need to turn left at the 51 and don’t like to fight my way over at the last minute. I also happened to be pulling my trailer, since I had delivered the last of the milling wood to the railroad club today. ANYway, sitting there in the lane, just where the turn lane starts to widen out into the median, and a “Smart” car pulls out of the shopping center at Tatum and Shea, pulls in behind me, and then starts to inch up along side my trailer in order to get to the turn lane. No, I haven’t moved. No, there’s not really enough room to do that. When the light turned green, I “accidentally” swerved a little to the left so the “Smart” car had to stop before they could continue on into the turn lane. What was the hurry? They would just have to sit at the light for the full cycle anyway…
While I’m on the subject of bad driving, I would just like to point out that the lever on the left side of your steering column is called the turn signal lever – at least on most US-style vehicles. May I respectfully point out that it’s not giving up any secrets when you use your turn signals – it’s just polite to give the rest of us some kind of warning before you vacate your lane and try to take up residence inside my wheel well …
I happen to have a few minutes, so I figured I would let you know I am still sucking air. Haven’t had a lot of spare minutes, so as always the blogging goes away first.
I had been cutting spline for a wood contract – that finished with a whimper. It’s all cut, and ready to go, but the delivery date got moved – again. I had finished the spline, and was slicing up the last board I was using to put some extra pieces in the order (I’m cool like that) when the motor on my table saw retired. Great timing. Anyone with a spare 1 1/2 horsepower electric motor they won’t need, let me know.
The office manager has been on vacation this past weekend, so most of the pre-BlackFriday preparations are being done by the owner and myself. The preparations consist of Kate telling us what needs done, and then me supervising and facilitating the process. Since this is my first job in retail, and consequently my first Christmas in retail, I’m learning a lot of things very quickly.
Gotta run – time to get going, since I need to stop by the warehouse on the way to the store – which is not a new thing, but this time of year we start siphoning off all the merchandise we have been storing up all year, so I pull up at the warehouse empty and leave loaded, a reverse from the rest of the year.
Sorry for the late post – today’s schedule was: cut the rest of the spline, go to the races.
The schedule became: get the tires replaced on the front of the Camry, cut some spline, go to the races.
The most important part of the schedule? Go To The Races.
Yes, this was taken on the way out. The rest were taken in order:
I caught a little grief for wearing a Dodge lanyard and admiring the Shelby 500 right next to the Dodge RV.
The Shelby driver is a Marine/Navy man. We had a nice little chat.
Pardon the cruddy quality, but I just had to show you how close I was. I was standing on top of the Dodge Dealers RV inside of Turn 3. And yes, that was the number 3 Chevy Truck towards the end of the video …
