Sunday misc

It’s been a hectic week, it seems like.  My van was off the road a few days, I had my yearly apartment inspection Friday, and have been having what seems to be my yearly cold for spring.

Yeah. spring is here, according to the plants and the rabbits on the bike trail. It rained all of January (or so it seemed) so we’ve gotten nearly all our rainfall for the year.  The Cascades to the east have more snow than normal on them, and that’s our summer water supply.  I don’t think we’ll be hearing "drought" this year.

I put minimal effort into my apartment inspection preparations.  It’s my sixth or seventh one since I’ve lived here, but in years past I was not so busy living outside my apartment.  This year I felt busy as shit and didn’t do much to the apartment, partly to see how little I could do for it and partly because I am L A Z Y.

I passed, but need to clean my oven and fridge.

***

I talked to the boss on Thursday regarding his ideas to save himself some money with the papers.

He wants me to drop my SE Portland route for the first edition and give it to him, which cuts about 3 hours from my day and 30 some miles of driving.  I would be doing just the South route in the mornings, which would mean at most, three hours of work in the early morning, followed by the second part of his proposal:  I would be doing the street final edition of the paper on both routes.

I would be working from approximately midnite until 2:30am, then get back to the paper plant at 11:30am to get my 200 something papers for both route’s afternoon papers and would be done by 3pm, then repeat.

Obviously, the intention is to cut the afternoon guy and get as much out of me as possible, while doing some of the papers himself.

I like the idea of just doing a few hours of work then coming home, and I like the idea of getting out and about in the daytime.  I’m something of a night owl (cats are nocturnal…) anyway, so that would be nice, but I tend to hole up in my apartment if I’m not working, and doing the afternoon papers would get me out while everyone else is.

I’d like that. Being out and paid for it.

Of course, it makes my workday "day" into a mess – a few hours here, a few hours there, but there is enough of a break between papers where I could acutally try to find a job in the afternoons a few days a week.

If I was ambitious.

Another aspect of this proposed change is that I will be working everyday of the week.  12 of 14 issues of the paper each week.  I told the boss I really liked my present schedule, that gives me Tuesday night and Friday night off (sleep in the dark!!!  Laundry!).  There is only one edition on Saturdays, and he’ll do those, and on Wednesday morning, he will do both routes.  I would be working Wednesday afternoon for the street final and early the next morning for the first edition, so I would basically be working every day.

Hmmm.

Do you know that Styx song, "Too much time on my hands"?  It sorta applied here.  I’ve had too much time on my hands and still have a little extra, so using it is good to me.

But nearly all of it?

But what does it do for my wallet?  I have a lifestyle, I told him, that I’ve become used to and want to continue and do desire to get above the poverty I’m living in now.  My pay does go up, doesn’t it?  And how many miles of driving are we talking about here?

My pay will go up a little more than 50 bucks a week.  Total miles driven would actually only incease by 50 miles a week.  My van seems like it will do it fine, once I get the money for that new timing belt the van needs yesterday (boss, take the hint, willya).  I’ll have more time on my hands, but shorter periods of null time (when I’m not doing anything).  I’ll have more money to pay for the costs of living this life (and it’s been a long time since there was extra)

I don’t know why I shouldn’t do it.  We’ve already talked about the summer, when K* comes, and how I will need a few days off, and we’ve agreed to talk as time goes on about how to tailor the work, if it don’t fit as-is.

And, I’ll be out and about in the daytime.  With my camera.

I’ll do it.

***

My rack at Reed College got ripped off again.  Last year and the year before, the whole rack got taken, but the last few times the rack got ripped off, the thieves cut the locking bolt on the coin box with a torch.  With a torch.  A gas torch. Right there on the street in one of the richer neighborhoods in Portland.  That rack sells out a lot, so that’s 25 bucks in silver a week in the coin box, and I think the boss lets it slide two weeks before he empties the coin boxes.  Coincidentally (I think not) the rack was ripped off the same way, cut with a torch and everything two weeks ago.

I wonder how long we can afford that rack?  Too bad, it’s one of our better sellers.

At least they were fairly neat with the torch – put a new lock on it and a new bolt in the box and it’s good to go.  Not like last year when the remains of the Reed rack were found in an industrial wasteland in NE Portland.

Dr. Demento graduated from Reed.  I wonder if he ripped off that rack in his day too?

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