Nostalgia, Naps and Nice Days Off

The word of the week is challenges.

June 3 - Happy Mondays

Work is going very well for me, I have to say.

I'm learning quite a lot every day and not feeling too overwhelmed; there's a lot of details than taking in and I'm making sure to take accurate notes about all the little things that I have to remember.

For the most part, it's a job where you have to have excellent communication at the start in order to know exactly what a customer wants. For me, that's fairly easy in general, but I have to know which options are available and which aren't depending on the job being discussed - that's going to be the hardest part to get memorized in order to properly set up each order, which I can do given time.

Producing the orders is the next step and there's a lot of detail associated with that as well. Knowing what we can do in-store and what has to be sent out is also a big thing, so that the work being ordered here is work that can be produced on-site in a timely manner. Again, I'm learning this step-by-step and memorizing everything I can so that when I'm operating on my own I won't have to keep referring to someone else to double check that what I'm saying is correct and so not look like I don't know what I'm doing in front of the customer.

It's enjoyable and definitely challenging; there's some sales involved but certainly not as much as on the technology side of the store. I'm quite happy that I don't have to worry about selling something that we may not have in stock, which has been a bit of a bug in my ear previously. Being a good listener will serve me well when dealing with people about their orders and I'm looking forward to the rest of my time working in this new area.

June 4 - Marvel Movies

Apart from the next Hobbit movie, is there much coming out that I want to see?

From the looks of this lineup, I'd have to say yes:

SpiderMan 2 and The Avengers 2 both top my list; I may want to see the next Thor movie, but I'd have to get around to seeing the first one, first. Wolverine I can live without, though I have to say kudos to Hugh Jackman for having done such a great job playing the same character for over a decade now.

The movie I REALLY want to see this summer? Pacific Rim!

Giant robots fighting giant aliens, with a LOT of attention paid to detail AND in 3D. What more could you ask for? Oh wait… Guillermo Del Toro's directing!

Can't wait! July 12th, get here fast!

June 5 - Water and Phones, Mixing?

I've had my Samsung Galaxy SIII for 9 months now. I love the phone.

Yet occasionally I worry about damaging it, despite having a protection plan. Not so much dropping it, but getting it wet somehow; spilling tea on it, perhaps?

I've looked into waterproof cases, but they're bulky and awkward and there's no film coating you can apply that is totally splash or puddle-proof.

What's really caught my eye is LiquiPel, who've just opened in Canada at the West Edmonton Mall. I'd first heard of them in late 2012, about the time I acquired my new phone, but sending the device to California for treatment was going to be both expensive and time-consuming, enough so that I didn't think about it further. It's not like I live on a boat or am accident-prone. Still, LiquiPel stayed on my mind.

For those of you who don't know about the process, LiquiPel basically puts your phone in a vaccum chamber and releases a gas that coats every surface of your device inside and out. That coating repels water while not interfering with the normal function of your phone, which is very cool. Check out their demo video:

I may get my next phone coated by LiquiPel, if they're open for business in Canada by then. I hope so, as it should be fairly affordable by that point to mail my phone to them within the country instead of to the USA.

June 6 - Anniversary Dinner

Today's my parent's wedding anniversary, their 44th.

My family went out for dinner to The Waddling Dog, where we've all been a few times before for their pasta special.

Over the meal, which was wonderful, my sister and I pressed our parents for good memories of their marriage. We wanted to know the things that we hadn't talked about in years. About the trips we made to Toronto to the 'big' shopping malls and places like The Eaton Centre, about the first houses we lived in and what the neighbourhoods were like. About what it was like to be newly married, to have we two young kids come aboard and all the other things that made their lives special all those decades ago. Times like this one:

We talked a lot about things we've not discussed as a family since, well, ever. Memories that were half-remembered were clarified and laughed about, things we thought we knew were put in a new light and things we've never heard before were told to us in between bites.

It was a great evening.

June 7 - Friday Off!

Today I had the best Friday off I've had in years.

Sure, I've had plenty of Fridays off in the last long while, both when I was and wasn't working. But far too many of those weren't spent outside in the sun, like today:

It was glorious.

What else can I say?

June 8 - Life in a Box

After work today, I had an unexpected surprise - of my own making.

I was going through my closet looking for a few things and decided to open up my keepsakes box. It's a box that I've put things with special meaning into for many years and I've never really gone through it in quite some time.

Tonight, for some reason, I decided to take it down off the shelf and opened it up.

Inside were treasures of memories. There were quite a few birthday and Christmas cards, many of which I had taken the time to date so I knew when they were given to me. There were certificates, ribbons from various events I've attended, some small keepsakes and knickknacks as well.

But what really stirred my memories were letters and small journal entries. The letters were from friends that I've lost touch with over the years or hadn't kept up with as much as I'd wanted to. They were quite revealing in how the illustrated paths not taken and friendships let lapse through no one's fault but time and letting life get in the way. The journal entries I've made here and there in small notepads, before I decided to purchase a few actual journals in the early 90s to consolidate them all. While I know most people tend to discard their journals, I'm not one such as I like to know where I've been. I don't revisit my journals all that often, probably once or twice a decade, and even when I do I don't read them thoroughly or at length, but instead just visit here and there to see a sample of what I was thinking at the time. Not to mention how I was feeling and what I was going through.

After an hour, I closed up the box and put it back on the shelf, feeling unusually happy. It seemed my hands had found many things that I needed to read now, at this time in my life, to see how far I'd come from where and who I'd been. The box has been with me for years and likely will be for many more as I add to it here and there with things that have meaning to me now, and will have meaning to me of a different kind later most likely.

We'll see when I open it next.

June 9 - Sunday becomes Nap Day

Ouch… for some reason, I didn't sleep well at ALL last night.

Which meant today was rather a wash, as I was so tired I napped on and off until well past noon, which didn't do much good either. I'd planned to do a few things today, including gaming online and putting up pictures from my trip to Phoenix, but those didn't happen.

I ended up taking a walk around the park in the afternoon sun, then caffinating myself in the same sun for a while at Moka house in the hope that the bright light and tea would help steady my errant body clock somewhat. I'm really not sure what made me toss and turn last night, as I hadn't had any unusual foods. It was a good day at work, I finished on time and had a good evening at home, all told. Very odd.

Tonight I watched Iron Man 2, finally, as my previous attempt a month ago went belly-up as my PC couldn't play the disc: the software was too out of date. Fortunately, this week Giveawayoftheday.com had Aiseesoft's Blue-ray Player on for FREE, which worked like a charm - I check the site daily and it paid off this week for having something I needed!

The movie was good, which surprised me, as the reviews were less than kind. Perhaps because I didn't go into it with the massive expectations of seeing the first movie only, I enjoyed it more; seeing the third movie before the second seems to have been better, in this case. Micky Rourke as Whiplash was one of the more laid-back villains I've seen in film, which was interesting and disappointing at the same time, as he didn't chew the scenery.

That's all I've got; I'm tired and it's a new week all too soon in the AM. Good night!

Darned if my wrists have been bothering me last few days, so much so that I had to give up on typing this blog and went back to dictating it via Dragon. I had hoped that with less physical lifting at work that I was past the point where my wrists would act up, but I guess I was mistaken. I'll have to take even more care to ensure that I'm not straining them unnoticed, but I've become used to that I guess, in that it's a long-term road to recovery.