http://www.opendiary.com/entrylist.asp?authorcode=D667081 ToyMan's Journal http://www.opendiary.com/entryview.asp?authorcode=D667081&entry=11172 http://www.opendiary.com/entryview.asp?authorcode=D667081&entry=11172 Yay! I got to see her again for the first time in <em>months</em>! She's still such a cutie! For some reason the school system didn't get their supply lists up on their web site this year, so I had to call to get her list. I told them I was calling to get the supply list for the most adorable first-grader in the county, and they laughed and asked <em>which</em> most adorable first grader she was so they could give me the right list, lol.<br /> <br /> So I got her all set up with supplies, her father sent her home from his place with a pencil box and a box of crayons. While only being two of the twenty or so items she needed it is two more than he contributed last year, so I guess it's an improvement. She's keeping the same backpack from last year, which is good. I had one picked out for her (it's a RealTree camouflaged day pack with pink trim) but I was running out of money since I will need to eat before I get paid again in two weeks and I like to have a little left over as I coast into payday. Granted, I could stand to miss a meal here and there, and I likely will, but I can't skip forty-two of 'em in a row. O.o<br /> <br /> I went to B's open house with her and Critter. K came with us, D stayed home. I like B's school. It's an older building (Critter attended middle school there too) but it's been well cared for. The air from the vents didn't smell stale or musty and all the paint was fairly fresh, so I was pleased. The county's been having a bit of a budget issue that past two years due to a drop in collected sales taxes, but we're recovering. K's school is barely older than she is, so it's in <strong>great</strong> shape.<br /> <br /> My store did a Hunger Games release event, but it pretty well bombed. We had about fifteen people show up. Apparently everyone went to Walmart instead. I've got a <strong>lot</strong> of unsold movies to deal with right now, my only hope is as other stores run out we'll be able to puck up the slack. Or, if it comes to it, the other stores can come buy mine at full retail and then go sell them at a loss for all I care. We had one guy show up insisting that <em>Battleship</em> was supposed to be coming out at midnight too, and when we showed him it didn't release until the twenty-eighth, he declared that not only were <strong>we</strong> wrong, but Amazon.com and Google were both wrong too because <strong>he knows a guy</strong>. Dip-wad. I'm hoping he was just mildly intoxicated and not actually that amazingly stupid. Of course it didn't help that one of my guys told him we wouldn't do an event for a movie like <em>Battleship</em> because "only good movies get release events, we don't waste our time on crappy ones." Oy.<br /> <br /> I will have the last of my student loans paid off right around Thanksgiving (in the US) so with the exception of my car I'll be debt free! Woohoo! Starting in January or February I'll be taking most of the money I was putting towards student loans in savings, but there are some necessary purchases I've been putting off, plus Christmas to consider, so I'll be glad to have the extra money the last six or so weeks of the year.<br /> <br /> Sat, 18 Aug 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.opendiary.com/entryview.asp?authorcode=D667081&entry=11171 http://www.opendiary.com/entryview.asp?authorcode=D667081&entry=11171 So, I almost hit a cow on the way into work the day after inventory. Well, technically a calf but if was a frakking big one, probably about a year old if I'm judging correctly. It was just standing there in the middle of the road, being fascinated by the shadow my headlights were casting. I barely had time to stop since it was just over a small rise, but since I was tired, bleary-eyed, <strong>and</strong> heading into work an hour early to work on inventory follow-up I was going slower than most folks do through there. I honked and it fell over, got up and started running toward a driveway, but the bottom part of the driveway was made of stone instead of concrete and it fell again. I waited until it was into the grass before I drove off. There's a dairy farm in the area, but this is the first escaped bovine I've heard of in the five years I've been driving through there.<br /> <br /> Inventory was not as good as we'd hoped, but we are certain most of the store got a good count. I know for a fact my areas did, because I watched the counters like a hawk and then helped work the reports the next day. There were some errors, but they didn't affect us financially, just with what our in-house SKU counts were. For example, say I sell three kinds of widgets in one of the departments, and they all cost a dollar. I physically have three blue, three orange, and three green, but the inventory service counts all nine as blue ones. This causes an overage in the blue widgets, and shrink in the orange and green ones, but they balance out exactly. Of course if I don't get it fixed the warehouse will start sending me loads of orange and green widgets I don't need since <strong>they</strong> now think I'm out of them. That's what we need the post-inventory reports for.<br /> <br /> Tired now, after a month of extra days and long hours, so I'm going to sleep.<br /> <br /> Sat, 4 Aug 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.opendiary.com/entryview.asp?authorcode=D667081&entry=11170 http://www.opendiary.com/entryview.asp?authorcode=D667081&entry=11170 Yeah, that's been the high point of the past two or three weeks. I need more pants too.<br /> <br /> We have inventory coming up. My area is ready to go, ship-shape and Bristol fashion. Some of the other areas, not so much. Particularly my partner's area. We've all been working extra days, and on one of the overlap days we don't normally have at the normal end of day meeting to make sure everything got done, he mentioned his folks had fallen farther behind but he had a plan to catch back up. A favorite quote from <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379786/combined" target="_blank"><em>Serenity</em></a> went through my head, "yeah, well what you plan and what takes place ain't ever exactly been similar" and a hush fell over the office. Apparently after going through my head it made its way to my mouth and came out in all its sarcastic glory for everyone to hear. Oops. After a few awkward moments, my partner stated firmly, "no grenades" (the response to the original quote in the movie) and the only other <em>Firefly</em> fan in the office laughed and the moment passed. Of course Facility Manager held me after...<br /> <br /> Partner (one of the Buck Bucks that I have neglected to number) caught up with me after and said I was right, but keep it to myself please, and went off to yell at some of his hourly managers. Of course, if he'd yelled at them (or better yet worked his checklists) a month ago he'd be in as good a shape as my area is. My area is completely ready, there are two areas that are not ready yet but are on track to be ready. They are high-volume areas and can't start prepping as far out as the rest of us. Even StrangeBoy's area is better off than Partner's area and he's <strong>still </strong>working fourteen-hour days. *sigh*<br /> <br /> I had today off. I'm supposed to have tomorrow off too, but if I wake up with an overwhelming feeling of guilt I might go in and help.<br /> Sun, 29 Jul 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.opendiary.com/entryview.asp?authorcode=D667081&entry=11169 http://www.opendiary.com/entryview.asp?authorcode=D667081&entry=11169 Went up to the cabin today looking for some kind of special salt my mom thought she'd left behind. It wasn't there and it isn't in Seattle, so I'm thinking a rouge TSA agent with high blood pressure grabbed it. Or she used it all and forgot about it, but she was only there for three weeks.<br /> <br /> I bought new pants for work. I need to buy new shirts when I get paid.<br /> <br /> And people wonder why I don't write more.<br /> Sun, 1 Jul 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.opendiary.com/entryview.asp?authorcode=D667081&entry=11168 http://www.opendiary.com/entryview.asp?authorcode=D667081&entry=11168 What the crap? It's been a month already?<br /> <br /> We've got inventory at the end of this month at work, so we've been doing prep stuff and all. No extra days yet, but those start next week. Sadness.<br /> <br /> I managed to replace the choke tube on my shotgun and I had not damaged the threads, so yay me!<br /> <br /> I've been very very tired all month. I'm not sure why. I did manage to get up to the cabin and see my mom. I got up there the next week too to see my aunt. I found some old pictures from a family Christmas party and we uploaded them to Facebook. And I tagged all my cousins in them, which is a <em>little</em> embarrassing since they wouldn't listen to their grandmother (my aunt) or me about checking security and privacy settings and the pics of them as babies went right up on their walls without any need for their approval, lol.<br /> <br /> I haven't been shooting since the last time, I just haven't had the money. I've got ammo, but the drive down to the range, the range fees, buying targets, etc. just seems a little much for me right now.<br /> <br /> The white dog that's been hanging around (I'm not sure if I've mentioned her before or not) now has a small companion that looks like a tiny beagle. The only thing is whenever the big dog gets anywhere near the small dog, the small dog lets out a high-pitched yip like it's just been bitten, but it hasn't. I've been watching them to make sure. And of course they do this routine of theirs all night some nights, right outside my window. Just yay.<br /> <br /> Not a lot going on other than work and trying to stay awake on my days off. I haven't abandoned OD, I just haven't felt like writing. I'll try to make more of an effort in the future. Summer isn't nearly as much fun now that I'm an adult.<br /> <br /> Sat, 30 Jun 2012 00:00:00 GMT