October 2017 is a month where some minor changes could live on and mean major changes in the near future.  I can't say it was a great month.  So on with the updates.

Sun Oct 1, It was just another typical Sunday at San Marino.  I honestly don't know if my co-worker's body is looking better to me or is better and therefore looking better to me.  Or I could just be a horny bastard that needs to get laid.  But then, it could also be both.  M's behind looks really good to me when she walks away to help a patron.  It's practically mesmerizing.  There is zero chance that she would sleep with me.  Never say never? I'm saying it, because I seriously doubt she's looking to be with a washed up guy like me.  Still, a man can dream.

I went on social media and noticed that one of my former co-workers from San Marino had just posted a picture of a plate from Club 33 in Disneyland.  I sent her a text and asked her if she was there.  Yes, she was.  Woo! I almost immediately asked her to buy me a pin from the club.  You can only get those pins up there.  To my knowledge they don't sell those anywhere else in the park.  The time I went to 33, which I just wrote about a few days ago in this journal, I thought about buying the pin.  But, I didn't, and I regretted it since.  Anyway, I am not the presumptive owner of a Club 33 pin (shown above).  Woo hoo!

I told my buddy that I would pick up his mom from the Burbank airport.  I had planned on going to Disneyland tonight, but my buddy's mom was the priority.  But that also meant that I was going to starve to death if I didn't get some food in my belly before picking her up.  I went to McD's for a double cheeseburger, but ended up eating some new chicken strips.  They were pretty good.  I shouldn't really be eating any of this stuff, but it turned out that the strips were good.  Probably not good FOR ME, but they tasted good.

Mon Oct 2, My aunt is usually Johnny on the spot in the morning when I get up.  First thing as I'm on my way to the bathroom to pee she will ask me what I want for breakfast.  Today was no different.  I peed, took my shower and got out to finish up dressing.  But, no breakfast.  I looked at the time and in my haste I didn't notice that my aunt hadn't brought me my breakfast.  She's usually super eager to do so.  It was too late to eat, so I grabbed my things and left.  On my way to work my aunt called me to apologize that she had forgotten to get me my breakfast.  I was cool with it.  I'm usually not very hungry in the morning anyway, and anything I eat these days feels like I'm forcing down my throat.  By the time I reached Pasadena I was getting hungry, so I went to Tommy's to order up a breakfast burrito from there.  I had the thought to go to Lucky Boy, but the Tommy's one hit the spot.  It wasn't too big, and had that yummy chili.

I was in no hurry to finish eating my burrito, because I knew the new librarian was taking over the Monday morning desk duties today.  Well, that's what I thought anyway.  That is until the boss said, "There's no one on the reference desk." I went down there and the new librarian was not there.  No one told HER that she was going to take over.  The boss said that this would be the last week I would have to hold her hand.  I'm good either way.  The new librarian has picked up things fast.  She's good.  But, I do have projects that I have to work on as well.

Speaking of that, I have two semi-big projects that I'm working on.  One needs to be done by next week.  The other I have about a month to finish.  Time flies though.

After work Chan and me made our traditional Monday visit to TheGirl.  She showed me that she hung the picture that I gave her for a birthday gift last week.  Yay! We talked a little about our trip in February.  We're not entirely sure what we want to do, but I know it will be chill.  We don't have to go nuts to have fun up there.  Soon, soon enough.

Tue Oct 3, I walked into work this morning and in front of me was these black forms (pictured above).  It turns out they are the new sorting bins for the new sorting machine.  Oh, I knew today would be fountain of bad ideas manifesting into reality.  Here was the first example.

And the best example goes to the actual sorting machine.  My first thought was about how big this thing is.  But also couple that thought with what a monstrosity this thing is.  It's so big, but so much of it is wasted space.  The fucking conveyor belts on this thing run about twenty feet before they are even scanned by the computer.  Then comes the whole area where the sorting is actually done.  To be brief, this thing is a colossal waste of money.  I went online to see the paperwork for this thing.  It's total cost is something like $800,000.  It is a solution to a problem we didn't have... how to sort.  The lowest person on the totem pole gets to sort.  The pages.  When I was a page that was my primary job.  I moved books from the book drop to a cart.  And then from a cart to a sorting shelf.  And from that to a cart again, and then on to the regular shelves.  They paid my barely $10 an hour and I did the job most days for six to eight hours.  Think about how in my entire time at the library I haven't made anywhere near $800,000.  But these idiots are willing to drop that kind of money on a machine that has many flaws.  The biggest being that it is a solution without a problem.  But, these days those who run the library are mesmerized by the notion of modernizing.  But instead of staying with their core values they chase this idea that a library has to be something that it has never been.  Whatever you want to say about libraries they work, because for a long time they got it right and didn't try to re-invent the wheel.  These dopes that run the library want to re-invent the wheel, but they're forgetting we already have a wheel.  These dopes forget that it's about information, not about sewing machines, or VR computers, or remembrance rooms.  They can't even get the fundamentals of what a library is, what made them think they could now branch out into worlds that have nothing to do with the library? In short, this pack of morons have sold what little soul they had left to snack oil salesmen who want to sell them million dollar machines that useless yet expensive.

I don't want to go on too much with this, but I do want to say that this shows how lost these idiots really are.  To spend nearly a million dollars on this thing that only creates more problems is nearing insanity.  They were sold a bill of goods, snake oil, and they are calling it wonderful.  It's not wonderful, it's gross.

Meanwhile, in Pasadena... I arrived a little later than usual to Pasadena thanks to one of my coworkers wanting to send something out in the interdepartmental mail.  I had to wait for her, because she wasn't ready when I was going to leave for Pasadena.  My tardiness turned out to be fortuitous.  If I had arrived at my regular time I would have surly ran into the dopey parents who were in line for the storytime registration.  It's hard to see from the terrible social media post picture above, but the line of dopey parents are standing right in front of where I park the van when I go to Pasadena.  Another disaster avoided.  Woo!

The book bins were a total fucking mess today.  I had to sort nearly all of the bins today.  Every fucking branch stop had issues with their bins.  Some where overfilled.  Some where tipping.  Still others were packed in a way that made me think someone simply dumped the books into the bin.  I'm not sure that's not the case for every stop today.  For sure Brand was one of the worst today.  None of Brand's bins were correct.  All these branches need to burn for making life so difficult.  One thing, Benedict takes bins away from the branches for some reason.  That means that on Tuesdays I also get to deal with branches leaving books on the truck (as seen above).  I'm not sure why Benedict is making this play with the bins, but people other than myself are starting to notice.  The former driver even said to me that he is close to confronting Benedict about his taking of the bins.  Yes! Benedict needs to stop being so petty.  But what am I saying? That's his nature.  He's always going to be petty.

Wed Oct 4, It was a year ago that I got nice and tanked and I threw a cup of coffee at a window after seeing something inside TheDesire's purse.  I still don't remember what I saw, but I can only tell you that something triggered a great anger in me that night.  It was quite a night.  It was the night I finally let go of TheDesire.  Up until that moment I had this crazy hopeful notion that I could somehow win TheDesire over.  Little did I know she may have already been secretly married.  Little did I know that less than a year later she would pop out a kid.  I'm not happy with some of my actions that night, but I'm glad that night happened.  It needed to happen to FINALLY let go of a hopeless dream.  It was not my finest hour, but like so many things that happen, they don't often come happy events.  Many times positive results come from what is perceived as a negative change.

Thu Oct 5, I went into work today expecting that the new stupid sorting machine would be ready to go.  Nope.  They STILL don't have any power hooked up to it.  Mind you, the guy said that they asked for an electrician to hook up the power to this thing a couple of days ago.  But has an electrician shown up to connect this monstrosity to the power? Nope.  And they won't show up tomorrow, I'm sure.  That means that even though the machine is technically ready, the thing won't actually be up and running until next week... if they're lucky.  I told the guy installing the machine that knowing how things run in the city and this renovation project the electrician won't show up for a couple of weeks.  Ha! I love telling everyone the truth about how horrible the administration of that library really is.  They can all burn.

I went to treasury and for the most part I don't see TreasuryGirl these days.  She used to work the front desk more in the past.  Now she always seems to be at her desk.  But, I do get some glimpses here and there, but nothing that lasts a long time.  Well, today I only got a glimpse, but I did get to take a picture of said glimpse.  Her dress today was so tight that to me it was as if she was wearing a cat suit.  Amazing.

I was about to drive off to start my route when I saw a woman in the window of the library that looked like TheDesire.  I lingered a little to see if it was her.  When I took the above photo I was pretty sure it was TheDesire.  But, when I was leaving work I saw this woman and it wasn't TheDesire.  If it had been TheDesire then I would have said that having that baby was harsh for her body, because she did not look like TheDesire of old.  She gained a lot of weight during her pregnancy.  And I know that it's not easy for women to bounce back from these things.  When I saw this woman and thought it was TheDesire my only thought was "How the mighty have fallen." I'm not sure TheDesire doesn't look like this woman now.  It's very possible.  TheDesire was absolutely gorgeous.  Today, I honestly don't know.

The newspaper featured another letter the editor that I must share here (pictured above).  This time it's not about the library, but about the outgoing city manager.  I've never met any other city employee that liked the city manager.  What I really love is that there are people out there that "get it" when it comes to the crooked city manager and the stupid library renovation.  My favorite line is the last one... "Don't let the door hit you on your way out." Nice.

Meanwhile, Ru sent me a text just as I was leaving Brand.  She wanted me to pick up her keys from Adams and take them to Pacific, where she was working today.  When I got there I got quite a sight.  I mean just look at her in the picture above.  Her body is incredible.  An incredible assortment of curves.  And she's a wonderful woman.  She and I had a nice conversation, a real moment, about the job.  *sigh*

Fri Oct 6, For my Friday Instagram feature I've been telling the story of Crowelly and Finn.  Today the story needed Finn to ask the librarian on duty a question.  That was the new librarian.  I told her that in the photo she would be blurred out, and she was.  I also put a filter on the photo to make it look more like a comic strip.  Still, I do have to say that the new librarian has a really nice figure.  But then so does TheLamp.  She looked really nice today.  Then again, so did TheWish.  I guess I'm just a horn dog.

I went to get some lunch at a fast food joint down the street.  I didn't want to eat the same old things I've been eating all week.  Also, I was able to get away a little earlier due to the fact that the new librarian was on the desk.  I did off desk things.  Anyway, I went and they had a new ribeye burger.  It seems like this fast food joint has a new burger every other week.  It wasn't the greatest burger ever, but it was good for what I'm used to from this fast food joint.  Years ago, when I would go with my Grandmother to eat at this place, they had some good burgers.  But then prices went up and the quality went down.  This burger is something I would eat again in a pinch.  But I'm not going to sit here and say it's the greatest.

My buddy and I talked about how his next week will be his last week driving.  That means that two Fridays from now I'll take over the route.  It's not official, because Les hasn't told me I'll be driving.  But it's nearly official.  Les just needs to tell me next week.  For sure Vagabundo isn't driving after next week.  I told San Marino the date so they know that I won't be able to work Fridays any more.  As a matter of fact, I just texted the boss and she texted back that they will accommodate my not being able to work Fridays any more.  Look, I love working at San Marino, but I do need the extra money that I would get by working at Glendale on Fridays.  Damn, everything is changing again.  It needed to happen, but it will suck.  I won't get to see TheWish but once a week.  Oh well.

My buddy took a picture of the sorting machine where one of the guys installing the machine left a note addressing the electrician.  It said, "Give me a call when you arrive." Shoot and sweet, because by today that guy has been waiting THREE days for an electrician to show up.  So great.

Mon Oct 9, I need to go to the store to buy some things this morning.  I don't do a lot of shopping these days.  I basically get what I need online.  But I was really in the need of some gum, and couldn't wait until it showed up in the mail.  Also, I wanted to see if the price online was better.  It is.

When I arrived at work I went straight to the back office, because I don't have to be on the desk now that the new librarian has taken over the desk on Mondays.  Woo! Now I can do my own thing.  I will miss the desk, but it's not like I'm never going to be on.  I'm still on Wednesdays and Sundays.

I'm pretty sure that I wrote somewhere in a previous entry that the new librarian already has a fan club of men.  Why wouldn't she, she's pretty.  Well, it turns out that one of the pages likes her too.  Enough that he kinda made a pass at her.  And not only her, but the girl that I work with on Sundays on the desk.  The one pictured above.  The one that I check out every chance I get.  The one I once told my buddy that her ass was "speaking" to me.  Yeah, see, I'm a creep as well.  But I haven't made a pass at anyone that didn't first show me the signs that they WANTED me to make a pass at them.  And even then, I don't do those things so easily.  It took me a YEAR to ask TheWish out to dinner.  A fucking year! Apparently this particular page doesn't have that fear.  He is special, so that bit of his internal governor is a little different.  He's quiet, but he has let it be known in the past that will will speak up for himself.  Like the time many years ago when he heard some of us saying we were going to go out as a group.  He wasn't invited, because he does make some of the girls uneasy.  Well, he told the boss that it wasn't fair and that we should invite him.  We didn't, but we were told not to talk about our outside plans whenever he was around.

After work I went over to visit TheGirl.  She was telling me about an interview she had with a temp agency.  She had a bad feeling that the place was a scam.  She was hoping to get a job today, not in the future.  She said it's a lost cause with this place.

Tue Oct 10, It wasn't a surprise, but of course I walk up to the library and the outside bookdrop door still has this sign covering it.

That's because the new sorting monstrosity still doesn't have power.  I love it.  I told those dopes that it would be weeks before the machine was powered up.  For now the machine sits idle, not sorting a single book.  It's wonderful.  Once the machine gets started it's going to be even funnier.  Why? Because of how many times it's going to break down.  I guarantee this monstrosity won't work very well, if at all.  It's well made physically, but the dopey RFID thing isn't fully implemented.  And what has been done has been really slipshod work by a bunch of amateurs.  But that's the way of the world in this place.  Replace good workers with dummies that are clueless, lazy, and just downright bad at their job.  I'm looking towards Benedict and the new pages.  Yup, that's the "future" of the library.

Since last year Jade has been placing stuff in delivery claiming that it's a "hand carry," which means it's of high priority.  I'm to take a hand carry directly to the department written on the envelope.  Jade thinks everything is of "high priority." Since I caught on to his dumb tactics I have not taken a single item in the so-called "hand carry" bin to the department.  I throw everything in the general interdepartmental mail.  And you know what? Not a single complaint has occurred on my delivery days.  Not like when Benedict was not going to the mail room and things magically took longer to arrive to their destinations.  Anything Jade puts in the bin I regard as normal mail.  Today there was an envelope in the "hand carry" bin and I couldn't help but open it up.  Sure enough, it was just a book going to a fellow city employee.  It doesn't need me taking time off the route in order to take this book to this employee directly.  The fucking general mail will get it to her today.  This was an absolutely perfect example of the "hand carry" not being a priority.  That is, unless someone in the administration office actually hands it to me and says that it's a hand carry.

There were no red bins in the van this morning, unlike every other Tuesday.  However, there was still a present from Benedict in the van... a white mail bin inside by the driver's seat (shown above).  There's no use in asking why this is happening.  It's obvious... he is a big jerk.  Well, he continues to think that he's untouchable, but no one is.  He can get fucked with as well.  Especially now that he and I will have each other's work days back to back.  He needs to just do his work, but knowing him he's incapable of such a thing.

Speaking of... the above pictures are of two bins going to Pasadena.  The one on the left is good example of the terrible packing job the branches do.  The other is more of the same, with an added bit.  It's also an example of Benedict's laziness during the route.  Part of the job is to consolidate the bins so that the bins are even.  Clearly the bin on the left is much more packed than the one on the right.  What we are supposed to do when on the route is redistribute the books so that the bins don't get too high and by that prevent them from having more of a propensity to tipping over.  One a typical Tuesday there will be at least two bins that have just a few books in them.  Meaning those two bins could be consolidated.  But, Benedict doesn't do it.  Fucking lazy bastard.

Now we come to Emma.  We're going to hang out next Friday, the first Friday I drive the route in over a year.  She wants to go out and get some food and drinks.  Emma is nice.  She's certainly not perfect, and I'm pretty sure that I've discussed how I can't imagine being in a relationship with her.  Not because of any of her failings, but really because of mine and because of our age difference.  But, I hate to say it I want to get nice and tanked on that Friday so that I can make a pass at her.  My buddy O said I should go for it with her.  He said, "Why not? She's cute." And Emma is cute.  I am attracted to her.  But of course I'm a cad and really only interested in sleeping with a woman these days.  I'm too cynical to think that I can be in a relationship.  And really, I don't have the energy for all that.  I am emotionally tired these days.  What with my aunt's shenanigans, my Godmother's whole thing, and trying to make ends meet while trying to save for trips.  It truly won't be fair of me to make a pass at Emma and make her think that I want a whole thing with her.  I want to sleep with her.  Anything beyond that is not on my radar.  Still, knowing me and how horny I am these days I may just go for it with her in a couple of weeks.

The route was pretty chill today.  I arrived at nearly all my stops earlier than I have been the last few weeks.  I do have to start trimming some time from the route in order to be able to clock in around eight hours per shift.  That way I don't go over the twenty-five hours allowed per week.  That's when I start driving on Fridays again.  Today was a good test of that new schedule.  It can be done, though I slowed myself down during my last stop.  It's funny enough not many people could or wanted to talk to me today.  Which made for a faster route.  I think I need to go back to being silent on the route.  Well, as silent as I can be on the route.

When I arrived at Brand I had to take back some of the junk that was sent from Central last week (pictured above).  What is all that junk? I joked with one of my co-workers that it should all go straight into the trash can outside.  Then I said, "The thing is... this stuff isn't trash, it's garbage." Zing!

The rest of the route went pretty quick.  I got out of Dodge and headed home to get my hair cut.  When I arrived at my barber's he greeted me and I noticed that a bunch of his stuff was in a cluster on the floor.  I asked him what the deal was and he informed me that he was closing up his shop after thirty-five years.  He told me he is looking for a salon that will rent him a stall, so that he can continue cutting hair.  I sure hope he does find a place, because my hair needs cutting.  I have been feeling bad for the guy because he is getting older and I've wondered if he was thinking of retiring.  I sure hope this isn't that kind of situation where he wants to continue but then the realities of the world force him to retire.

I haven't been feeling well the last few days.  I have been feeling achy.  Last night I took some pills and went to bed after talking to my buddy on the phone.  He was pissing me off yesterday.  We use this VOIP program that has been working pretty good.  That is until last week when for some reason he cuts out a lot.  Last night he sounded like a robot and said I sounded the same way.  I had to call him on the phone, but I couldn't talk long because of the fact that the battery dies so fast.  He kept on repeating, "I don't know why you're on the wi-fi." I told him that I've always been on wi-fi and that the sound issues had only been something recent.  He expects me to install the program onto my computer, which is fine, but I don't use it on my computer because I want to be able to walk around while I'm talking.  It was just very frustrating.  Also, talking about these idiots every day after work has become exhausting.  I want to have a bit of a break.  Tonight my buddy called, but I was not in the mood.  I am not feeling well and I don't want to talk about these dopes at the library ad infinitum.  Which is what it feels like we're doing.  More and more things like this tire me out.  Life is too short to talk about these idiots at work.  I need to be able to walk away from work and not think about work when I'm relaxing at home.  My buddy really needs a lady friend.  I just need Emma to agree to sleep with me for the next few months.  Anyway, I'm here writing this, some of which I wrote in bed on my phone.  I'm still not feeling well.

Wed Oct 11, I ditched talking to my buddy last night.  I was so not in the mood to talk about those work idiots AGAIN, for the umpteenth time.  So I let his call go to voicemail and played some SNES baseball.  I used to play this one game all the time, and it's still fun after all these years.  Last night my team won and the stats showed some good hitting all around.  The names of the players are of people in my life.  Perry is my buddy Dane.  Corrales is my friend from CSUN.  Granada is Vagabundo.  Suarez is TheWish.  Chandaka is Chan, of course.  Arnold is an old friend from elementary school.  Villa is my buddy from CSUN.  Lawrence is the girl I met online a million years ago.

The place where my Godmother was moved called to tell me that they have successfully moved her there.  I did some research for when my aunt will want to go visit her on a Sunday.  There is thankfully a bus that will leave her about a block away from the rest home.  I want to buy her a cell phone that I can track in order to be able to make sure she's doing OK.  I feel bad for my Godmother.  The poor thing can't get out of bed on her own any more.

A few weeks back I placed a phone holder in my car in order to have the phone comply with a new law that says drivers can't have a phone in their hands while driving.  Also, I felt that I needed something that I could use to have the phone viewable, but that would keep both of my hands on the wheel.  Well, the glue on the thing melted in the heat of the car.  What I did yesterday was to add this putty that hardens up after twenty-four hours.  It did and now the phone holder is nice and stable.

Every time I look at TheWish I think about how without explanation I just stopped asking her to dinner.  The last time we hung out I said something to the effect that the next time we would go somewhere good.  Yeah, that hasn't happened, and most likely won't happen.  I think she's a great girl, but I obviously am not putting in the effort that I once was with her.

TheGirl and I went to a Umami burger for dinner tonight.  The food was good, and so were the sides.  We just have a good time hanging out together.  Our trip to Carmel is so many months away.  But it will be here before you know it.  It will be time to go on our trip and chill.  I still get to go up north in November, which I'm so looking forward to.  I think we'll have to come back to this Umami place.  The burger wasn't the best I've ever had for sure.  But the sides were good, and I think that there's a chicken sandwich that looks good as well.

Thu Oct 12, When I usually show up to work there's no one in the building except the person doing the maintenance.  Today I walked in and there were a bunch of dummies standing around.  It turned out today the library was hosting some sort of job fair/tech bullshit.  The place is never this packed with people this early.  Everyone was dressed up nice as well.  Yeah, not the norm.  I'm pretty sure this was just another farce that these administration dopes think is good for the library to host.  Bullshit!

I had a light load going to Pasadena today.  Because of that I was able to get to Pasadena early and drop off the bins and get going faster than usual.  But, I was starving to death.  I had this idea that I would pick up a breakfast sandwich thingie from a fast food joint.  But then I settled on going to a place that has breakfast burritos that are super good.  I didn't get the burrito, because it's TOO much food.  I just wanted something small.  I ordered up a burger and of course the burger is big.  I didn't think I would eat the entire thing, but I ended up eating it all.  I was THAT hungry.

I was nearly done stacking all the bins into the van for the branches portion of the route when I noticed this guy trying to get into the library via the side door.  I shook my head and continued with my work.  He looked at me and asked about the door.  I told him that wasn't the front door any more.  He mentioned that he had a bunch of books to donate, but that they were heavy.  I took them and took them directly to the recycling bin in the back of the library.  Well, when I got there some idiot had parked in what is clearly a no parking zone.  I so wish the city would give me the power of a parking enforcement officer.  I would get them so many tickets on my route.  Well, this idiot's actions needed some street justice.  I went ahead and moved the trash bin behind this dummy's car.  Fuck'em.

The rest of the route was without incident.  I have this feeling that people have been told not to talk to me.  Why? Because everyone is usually super friendly.  But the last couple of times I've driven I've noticed that most of the stops the people there have been quiet.  Sometimes it's been because the boss is around.  But at Grandview especially, the people there didn't even acknowledge me.  Oh well, better for me to get things done and not linger in idle conversation.

On my last stop I was starting to feel that much stomach wasn't feeling well.  I kept on bleaching.  By the time I got off work and I reached my car I was still bleaching, but I also had stomach cramps.  I've never had the kind of pain I had earlier today.  As I write this I still don't feel great, but at least those strong cramps are gone.  I just ate something small, but really today food was not an issue.  I ate more food than usual, thanks to that burger in the morning.  I hope this isn't a sign of something worse happening to my stomach.  I have had so many issues over the years with my stomach.  I really don't want this to morph into something worse.  I don't think I could handle stomach cramps like that again.  I was nearly doubled over.  ARGH!

Fri Oct 13, I drove to work as usual this morning.  I also made a stop at the grocery store, to get some money from the ATM.  I usually park upstairs on the roof, to avoid the dummies in the parking lot.  I pulled out, turned slightly and in a moment I hit a pole next to the car.  How could I miss it? I park there all the time.  Intellectually I knew the pole was there, but my mind was wandering.  It wasn't focused at that moment.  I was thinking of the long day ahead for me, and boom, cracked up my car (as shown above).  Now I'll have to file a claim and see how much this is going to cost me.  I don't want my car to look like this.

This is my last Friday at San Marino... for the foreseeable future of course.  I didn't feel all nostalgic, seeing I still work there nearly half of the week.  But Fridays were pretty nice.  Mainly because of TheWish.  Now, I'm OK with walking away from the library and TheWish.  She's wonderful, but as I've said here before, I'm just not feeling that spark.

Since I was working late I figured I would get a sandwich and eat half of it before going into work and then eat the other half when I would get hungry.  Likely during the event.  There's a Italian deli a few blocks by the library that people say is really good.  I've never been there, but I've wanted to try it for a while now.  Well, today was the day.  When I walked in the place looked good and it smelled good.  The sandwich itself was just OK though.  It didn't really have much of a taste.  I only really tasted the oil and vinegar and not the meats.  That's pretty sad.  Supposedly the Italian sausage is supposed to be good.  But can I believe that when a simple sub with two kinds of meats is bland?

And then I went into the library to work tonight's event.  I haven't worked an event in about two years.  I think after tonight I won't want to work on again.  First, the person that was running the event is a big dummy.  The other day Achee was railing against this person, because she was being a bossy boots.  Nothing wrong with knowing what you want.  But, don't be a jerk about it either.  Which is what this woman is... a jerk.  But, I know how to handle her most of the time.  Tonight was different only because of what happened next.

We were telling people that wanted to use the library that it was closed.  This one guy walks in, we tell him the library is closed and that the only reason why we are open is for a lecture.  He says, "Oh, I'd love to hear a lecture," and proceeds to go to the auditorium.  I hoped that he would get bored and leave on his own, but of course that would be too easy.  When I was downstairs he apparently made noises and was yelping.  Two patrons left almost immediately after he arrived.  They told me, "We don't feel safe with him around." Oh boy, I thought.  Here we go.  I took a picture of him putting his feet up (shown above).  He wasn't even listening to what was going on.  Two times he got up and smiled at me, apparently amused that I was in the little control booth.  That's when I figured I best call the non-emergency police number.  They arrived and went into the auditorium to talk to him.  They took him out to the hallway and had a talk with him.  I could hear some of that from the control room.  It was pretty cool how they basically asked him to leave.  They stayed outside for a little while and then left.  I thanked the officer and went back inside.  The event ended shortly after that... thankfully.

Sat Oct 14, My car needed some maintenance, so I took it in today.  It turned out it needed more than just an oil change, but what can you do.  If the car needs more service I figure that it is preventative and will save me more money in the future.  That's my hope.  I usually schedule these things early in the morning, but I didn't want to wake up super early today.  But I also wanted to go when it was less busy.  A 9am appointment was my compromise.  It worked out near perfect.  They had the car back to me in a little more than two hours.

This gave me time to head out to Glendale and meet up with Dane.  He wanted me to take him to a hardware store near the library and buy him a tarp.  I was fine with that, but he thought we were going to hang out.  I told him I couldn't and he suddenly told me to just forget about the tarp and seemed agitated.  He's done this before and I'm not too happy when he gets like this.  He doesn't lash out, but he seems to want to lash out.  That's why he said, "Just forget about it." See, Dane had thought that we were going to hang out afterward.  I had other plans.  I guess I should have mentioned that.  But then again he should have mentioned that as well.  Whatever.  I think I'm just going to move farther away from him.  I like him, but you can tell that the years on the street weren't the only thing causing him to distrust people.  He has never really trusted people.  Not going to be my problem.

With Dane's thing now off the schedule I went home straight from the dealership.  My aunt wanted to go to a laundromat to clean our clothes because she refuses to call a plumber to get the sink in the wash room fixed.  She knows how much it will cost, and so do I, and I'm not looking forward to having to call a plumber either.  We are exploring alternatives.  In the meantime we had to go to the laundromat, as I said.  But before we went to IHOP for some lunch.  I saw that there was something crazy on the menu called a Denver omelette burger.  I LOVE Denver omelettes, but I wondered about this thing.  Still, I ordered it.  It was OK.  I should have just ordered a regular old Denver omelette.  Live and learn.  Our waitress seemed new, because she didn't even bring us the check.  She checked up on us twice, asking how everything was going, but she never brought us the check.  Usually the second visit to the table is when the waiter/waitress gives you the check and says some pleasantry.  Nope.  This one never came back to the table.  Someone else gave us our check.  One of the pretty hostesses was working there today.  She's just so pretty.  I'm sure she sees me and thinks I'm a huge creep for seemingly always looking her way when she turns around.

My aunt and I had to go to a local laundromat in order to clean our clothes, because the drain at work that the washing machine drains to is clogged.  We can't afford a plumber, so the stop gap is to do our laundry out of the house.  Just great.  We really need to get that sink fixed.

It begins... another countdown to another Star Wars movie.  Quite frankly, I've been done with the franchise for a long time.  When I see people gasping and going nuts over the new trailer I shake my head and think, "Not again." More like never again for me.  From the time the Lucas trilogy that included "episodes" 1 through 3 bastardized the original trilogy I've felt like I was being sold a bill of goods.  I happily dropped my cash to see episode one.  Yeah, what a disappointment that was.  A disappointment that was eclipsed by episode two and then beaten and left for dead by episode three.

The Lucas trilogy suffers from a lot of things.  Stilted acting and bad writing being big failings.  But the biggest failing, a thing others don't mention or realize, is that they are essentially not Star Wars movies.  The original trilogy was very much based on Joseph Campbell's "The Hero's Journey," and "The Hero with a Thousand Faces." The style and the visuals were directly inspired by Akira Kurosawa.  Kurosawa was inspired by American westerns and Jidai-Geki films.  To me the new films are more closely related to The Fast and the Furious than with the original Star Wars trilogy, since the original trilogy is more closely related to westerns than to sci-fi or flashy blockbusters.

One thing that I always point to is the use of the lightsaber in the original trilogy vs every other Star Wars film since.  In the original trilogy the lightsaber was a storytelling tool, showing the internalization of the character.  There is one lightsaber fight PER movie.  In the new films it is the equivalent of keys in front of a baby.  The lightsaber is in nearly every shot.  But is the story propelled by this constant light show? No.  The lightsaber is still a tool, but now it's no longer a storytelling tool, it's a tool used to distract the audience from the lack of a good story.

I could go on, but what I want to say is that I'm not sold on any of these new Star Wars films.  There hasn't been a great Star Wars film since The Empire Strikes Back, quite frankly.  So go ahead and react with gasps and tears, because I'm not.  I won't be fooled into buying a ticket to a movie franchise that sells me a retread and tries to call it new.  I am done with Star Wars.  I'll stick to the original trilogy and pretend nothing else exists.  Today Star Wars is a monster franchise.  Today that original spark is gone for me.  Today's movies are more masturbatory material for "fans" that simply want to see shiny lightsabers and ships flying around shooting laser beams.

Sun Oct 15, It was 29 years ago today that Kirk Gibson hit a home run in the bottom of the 9th to win game one of the 1988 World Series -- if only the world today could have as much hope as a Dodger fan had back when Gibson's hit sailed into the cold Los Angeles night.

I love this entry above from a social media feed that posts things overheard in town.  I submitted one, but they never used it.  I guess it's not as good as this one, which I do love because it's true.  By the way, for a long time I was that guy.  Then when I was with Talia and TheGirl I wasn't.  Now I'm back to being that guy.

Sunday at the library was good.  It was super busy, but we handled it.  The new librarian is pretty good.  She doesn't back down from things, which is great.  She's still wet behind the ears, but she's a fast learner and I think she's going to do great.  She stood up to a patron that was being a twat.  The patron didn't have her library card or any ID.  Under those circumstances we aren't supposed to check out things to patrons.  But of course this twat says that's she's done it in the past and blah blah blah.  Thankfully new librarian told her no and stuck to her guns.

Mon Oct 16, My morning was pretty chill.  I didn't do much work.  Actually, for the first couple of hours I didn't do any work really.  But I made up for that later in the day.  More on that in a bit.  This paragraph is going to focus on my coworker, LaFlor.  OMG, she looked really nice today.  She usually wears whatever jeans or whatever cargo pants to work that don't flatter her.  But today she wore some tight black pants and man was unable to stop checking her out every time she walked by or I saw her in the distance.  The photo above was an attempt to get a shot of her, but it's the best I could get.  Shame, because she looked marvelous.  I so wish I could get the courage to ask her to pose for me.  In lieu of going out with me.  Ha!

I didn't do much during the day, but then at the end of my "shift" Pseudo supervisor asked me to change a bunch of things on the newsletter.  I was obliged to stay.  She had a meeting tonight with the Foundation board and she wanted to have this mockup of the newsletter done in order to show it to the board.  This meant I had to say until nearly 7pm tonight.  Nuts, but at least we had something to show for it.

I went over to TheGirl's a little later, but not too much.  Cheyenne was in rare form.  She was super roughhousing tonight.  There was a point that she almost broke the skin when she was biting me.  Almost.  I don't mind, it's too much fun.  Something like this only lasts a short time and then it's gone.  I will enjoy it while Cheyenne is in my life, though I would never want it to end.  Cheyenne has shown me what it means to love a dog with all your heart.  I would miss her if she passed away.  More than a lot of people I know.  Certainly more than my father, for example.  I cherish every time we roughhouse.  I really do.

Tue Oct 17, It's been two weeks since the mysterious automatic sorter was installed.  It has YET to have any power connected to it.  I like that stupid AD and Maleficent aren't seemingly pushing for this thing to get power.  They sure didn't stop talking about this fool machine when it was being installed.  But now it sits there doing nothing.  Yeah, because that's an efficient use of taxpayer money.  Fucking idiots.  AD and Maleficent need to go.

The one desk was constructed completely by a bunch of idiots.  They didn't take into account that someone might be sitting behind the desk, rather than standing.  I know that they WANTED people to stand all day, but that's unrealistic.  Well, the desk resembled a kitchen cabinet rather than a desk.  Most of the employees would hit their knees on the desk.  Also, it's the wrong height for standing or sitting.  If you're standing the desk is too low.  If you're sitting the desk is a bit too high.  It's amazing how they fucked that desk up so royally.  Well, they're going to try and "fix" it now.  So they went ahead and erected this new temporary desk.  It's a total fail as well, but for other reasons.  The best part is that the hold desk's desktop has been chipped.  There's a big chuck of it missing.  One of the librarians later told me that the contractor blames the library staff, but of course the library staff blames the contractor.  By the way, as you look at the picture above I will point out that they made the same mistake of having one computer facing away from the two other computers.  They should have all three computers facing the same way.  But that would be too much like the old circulation desk, I guess.  Morons.

I went to get the van this morning and a white mail bin was in the cabin.  Then of course in the back there were two red bins.  This is not OK.  But it's only going to mean more of the same from this point forward.

Here's another thing Benedict doesn't do and will hopefully now get caught for skipping... going to treasury.  He will now "have" to go twice a week.  Once a week I think treasury lets slide, but not twice.  Him not going on a Wednesday means that on Thursday I'll have at least three more bags for treasury.  There is no way they don't say something when I start showing up every Thursday with seven to nine bags of money, with at least half of those being something they should have processed already.  Yeah, Benedict will certainly just continue to do what he's been doing and skip a lot of stuff.  But now he has to go to Chevy and Brand, two more stops.  I predict that he will "forget" to go to treasury again on Wednesday and also not go to Chevy, because he forgot.  What a tool.

Misa attended some meeting where employees were asked what is wrong at the library.  Boy, did they have a list.  As you can see in the above screen capture the list is long.  And that's not the entire list.  I would add that the renovation was shit.

When I got back from the route this is the amount of book bins that were left from this morning's run to Pasadena.  Fifteen fucking bins.  How is that OK? These dopes would not have survived in the old days of Central.

Wed Oct 18, The guy above was the talk of the library last night and today.  What happened is that he bit another patron.  From what I gather, Kenny, got into an altercation with another patron in the bathroom.  Apparently Kenny told thought this other patron was looking at him.  Kenny is not OK, just so you know.  The other patron apparently said something and that angered Kenny and then he splashed the other patron.  Somehow Kenny came up behind the other guy and scratched his face and then they both got into a tussle.  At some point Kenny bit the other patron, and then returned to the computers.  The patron left and then noticed that he was bleeding.  The police were called and now Kenny is banned from the library for a year.  Kenny is not OK, like I said.  He's off and he's had other run-ins with patrons and even employees.  He won't be missed at the library.

I got the skinny on last night's drama involving that crazy patron with a couple of coworkers, which included TheWish.  It was all I could do to not stare at TheWish.  I know that things didn't work out between us, for my part anyway.  Nevertheless, I do still find her very attractive.  I look at the picture above and I can't help but focus my gaze on her face.  I so wish things had worked out between us.

TheGirl and I went to Bob's for dinner tonight.  I wanted to have the spaghetti with chili for dinner tonight.  I figured that I would have that or the famous burger.  I picked the spaghetti because when I was little my family would go to the Big Boy on Ventura near Reseda.  When I would order the spaghetti from there I just loved it.  They would serve it with a big slice of American cheese on top and a tiny little hamburger bun that looked more like a slider than a full sized hamburger bun.  And I fucking loved it.  Tonight's spaghetti and chili was not as good as my memory of the old plate, but it was OK.  Part of me thinks that I should have ordered the burger instead, but I did clean my plate completely.

When we all went back to TheGirl's place I made it a point to have the greatest of times with Cheyenne while we roughhoused.  This life is so short, and it's even shorter for dogs.  I don't want to deny her all the joy that she can get in this world, because she has brought me so much joy.  I dare say that she has given me more joy than 99% of the people I've known in this world.

Thu Oct 19, The library has been open for about six months.  No new building is going to stay looking super new after the public gets a hold of it.  But the carpet coming up is one thing that's not just the public's fault.  This is happening because the installation was done fast and slipshod.  The second set of pictures show books sitting on various pieces of furniture.  I might have mentioned this before in a previous entry, but the short version is that those books shouldn't be there.  If the pages did a good job cleaning the library of these books the night before I shouldn't see a huge pile of books, let alone several piles of books.  In short, this is lack of leadership.  I know it's a little thing, but those little things are consequences of choices made at the top.  AD assigning pages to do RFID instead of actual page work, like cleaning up the library, shows.

The note above was left on the whiteboard in circulation.  To me it shows a desperate attempt by AD to get this RFID project moving faster.  Good luck with that, stupid.  She's the worst.  She took a project that would take experienced people to do right and handed it over to a bunch of pages.  Some of which have just started working at the library.  And have zero experience with that collection.  Instead of going to the people that already work there she went cheap, and now she's paying for it with slow progress and shoddy work.  I say good.  This is all on her.  Now she wants people to process the books as they come in.  Good idea, if you want to slow the process down even more.  People have other things to do.  But that's not good enough.  Now you have everyone in the system that checks in books doing the job.  That should save 5% off the process.  AD is an idiot.

I got an earful of what Benedict did and didn't do yesterday while on the route.  When I first started my day there were four red bins in the van.  I don't give a shit any more, but come on.  This guy needs to fucking go down in flames.  I fucking don't want to have to spend precious energy on this dope.  But, it looks like I'll have to do that.  When I went to treasury the lady there told me that he will bring in the money bags and then exit treasury in order to go to the mail room and such.  This is a violation of the chain of custody, as it concerns money.  The drivers are to stay in treasury to make sure that everything is on the up and up.  But this dope, Benedict, wants to rush though the route and finds it easy to ignore something that's in place for not only the city's protection, but for his.  Well, on his first Wednesday driving he has already failed.  I think it's time to get these people from other parts of the city to start collecting information on this guy.  Lastly, of course dopey didn't stop off at the fire station.  This is not exactly strike three, but it's pretty darn close.  I wish he would just burn already.  But of course the Universe won't grant me that.  At this point I can't say that I care enough.  I do care enough to mention it here, but I think not enough to do something about it.  Yet.

On Tuesday I was driving to one of my branches when I saw that an old Big Boy building was being demolished.  The building hadn't been used in a while.  After the Big Boy closed there was a all you can eat buffet.  That didn't last long either.  And now, that old building is gone.

My buddy doesn't seem to get the hint that I don't want to spend most of my nights talking to him about those idiots at work.  Sure, the exchange of information is important, but I don't need to talk for a couple of hours a night about these dopes.  The older I get, and that's a daily thing now, the more I don't want to waste time on stupidity.  And these co-workers are stupidity incarnate.  I can't stand these dopes.  No one at my Glendale job is OK.  I was hoping that with my buddy not driving and not working late on Thursdays that I would have a bit of a reprieve from having these long conversations with him about these idiots at work.  But right in the middle of me writing this journal he calls.  Oh no, I thought.  Not tonight.  Not any night for a while.  And it's crazy, because not more than ten minutes before I was thinking how it was so nice to not have to deal with a phone call.  But, of course the Universe hears that and has to fuck with my quiet evening.

Fri Oct 20, When I arrived at work the cleaning lady comes up to me just as I entered and tells me that someone is in the library.  She points me in the direction of the corner of the library.  Sure enough, just as you see in the picture above, he's sitting at one of the study corrals.  A few minutes later the guard shows up and he goes to escort the guy out.  On his way out the patron is answering questions about how he got in.  He says that the door was open.  Sure enough, the South facing automatic door was left open.  It's a miracle he was the only one in the building.  It turned out he wasn't.  Someone else also entered, but then left before I arrived.  Clearly the staff last night forgot to check the doors.  I think one of the closing personnel was AD.  I sure hope it was, because it just shows you yet another thing she's gotten wrong.

I took off to Pasadena and when I was there I was starving.  I had to get something to eat.  I went up McD's to get some breakfast, but instead of the usual I tried something new.  It was some bowl with turkey sausage, egg whites and some kale covered in a pico de gallo.  I can't say it was great, but it wasn't bad.  The sausage is the best thing in the bowl.  The egg whites needed some sort of seasoning.  The girl behind the counter gave me some packaged salsa and ketchup.  That and the hash brown made the whole thing tastier.  I doubt I'll have this again, but there is another version that I might have to try.

I haven't been up to Chevy in over a year.  Yesterday was Benedict's first run to Chevy now that Vagabundo isn't driving.  Of course dummy Benedict leaves Chevy ONE BIN.  So this morning I run up to Chevy and sure enough they don't have enough bins to put their paltry amount of outgoing books.  I told Emma that I would be leaving them two extra bins at Chevy and to tell the folks that work there that I'm hiding them.  Since Montrose is my next stop she told me when I was there that Syco had already emailed Benedict to leave them three bins.  Yes, I thought! Maybe finally this guy is going to get nailed.  But something like this is small, and can be played off as a mistake.  He won't do it again either.  But, perhaps something can be done to now get another manager to this time email AD.  AD needs to know.  Not that she's going to do anything about it.  But this is certainly a pattern of dumb.

The van was packed today.  There were a bunch of boxes and spindles of RFID tags for the books.  Brand also had a bunch of new books.  The van was packed, but it's been more packed.  Benedict mentioned something about it being my first Friday back and that I had a lot to go out.  I just told him, "It will get to where it needs to be." And it did.  I got the route finished in the same amount of time that I did yesterday.  Faster by a fifteen minutes actually.  Despite the extra Chevy stop and my little trip to get breakfast.

As I was leaving for the day I noticed that AD was on the slaughter desk.  It was wonderful to see her with a line of people.  She was only on the desk because one of the full timers left work early.  Not sure why.  But I saw the schedule and it had his name crossed off and her name replacing his.  She always talks a good game about the library, but on that desk you can talk all you want but it won't help against the onslaught of patrons.  I wouldn't help but laugh as I left.

After work tonight I went out with Emma for drinks.  I choose a place where TheGirl and I have been to before.  Thankfully there was little chance that we would run into TheGirl while there because TheGirl left on a camping trip this afternoon.  She was going to be over a hundred miles away.  Drinks with Emma went well, though I don't remember much of what happened thanks to having so many gimlets.  Oh I best not drink too many of those in the future.  I should just stick to Manhattans.  I remember talking to my buddy O about this night and he suggested I try and make a pass at Emma.  But you know, nothing happened.  I never got a good chance to possibly throw out the idea of making out.  It's probably for the best.

Sun Oct 22, My aunt invited me to breakfast this morning, because I was going to take her to the new location where my Godmother is living.  I had printed out a map and the bus schedule for her to get back home after her visit.  My aunt mentioned that when she went with my cousin last week that they ate at this restaurant that was pretty good.  She said we should go, but when I checked for their address it said that they were closed until noon.  Oh well, that went that idea.  So we ate that our local IHOP up the street.  The girl with the amazing body was there today.  You know how I post pictures of those really pretty girls on Instagram? Well this one could so have her own page on that.  And then there was the other girl who is quite cute.  Today she gave me such a look, like I was going to murder her and she was afraid for her life.  Not good.  Dang.

I dropped off my aunt and went to work.  Work was work.  Nothing special.  The new librarian mentioned how I knew my stuff.  Ah, yeah.  I've done this for a while now.  I like setting things up so that thing run efficiently.  Hence me having all my ducks in a row.

Tue Oct 24, When I opened the van this morning I saw that is the normal for a Tuesday... a bunch of bins in disarray.  Like the ones pictured on top.  That top bin should not be that sunk into the one under it.  This means that the bottom one hardly has any books, or no books.  Sure enough, there were only a few books in there.  I consolidated those books into another bin that wasn't full and I was able to have an extra bin for later.  Which was sorely needed, is it turned out.  This is typical of Benedict and his lack of work ethic.  It's the little things that count, and this may be a little thing but it does count.

When I got inside I noticed that there were several bins all wrapped up for Montrose.  I later came to find out that they asked circulation for those.  Of course, since dummy Benedict left them two bins yesterday.  Syco said she emailed him, but of course this is where it's going to stop.  I tried to get Emma to push for Syco to not only email Benedict, but to email AD and Les.  Not that Les is going to do anything, but at least Syco would be putting him in the loop.  And it would be another black mark against Benedict.

When I got to Montrose I saw the above.  Actually, even before I did.  Emma took the picture and sent it to me just before I arrived.  The book truck pictured is of course packed with books.  Again, this because dummy Benedict left them two bins yesterday.  The five "extra" bins that I took up to Montrose were ALL used to pack the loose books on this and another truck.  I told Syco that I would try my best to bring more bins on Thursday.  She mentioned that it was touch with the shortage of bins at Central and I corrected her by saying that the shortage is artificial.  We have bins at Central.  Not a ton, but enough that the branches should have enough.  I tried to pin this on Benedict, but she wasn't listening.  This told me something about this whole situation.

What it told me is that Benedict is going to get away with this as he has with everything else.  He is surviving every one of his "scandals" by just waiting things out.  He's not a good hustler, but he is a con-man.  And as a con-man he's waiting things out to see how they play out.  Also, he plays the game well enough that he comes off like "Oh, I didn't know." He knows.  But these library rubes fall for his nice guy act and think "Oh that's fine," and let him get away with yet another crime.

If this whole thing plays out like I think it will then he's just going to get away with this shit again.  And you know what, I give up after that.  I won't give a shit.  I'll just wait for the ticking time bomb that is Benedict.  Because one thing is true, he will blow up.  It's going to take some effort, but he's going to blow up at some point.  He's just that way.

Wed Oct 25, My new Mac mini arrived yesterday at San Marino, but I wasn't able to pick it up until today.  I wanted to send it to work so I could set it up at work and use that super fast internet to download some things quicker.  Well, I should have just taken it home, because the stupid monitor didn't display the computer screen.  Well, that fucked things up, because after that I couldn't get the computer set up to work properly.  I thought I could finish up and have it all ready for it to just take home tonight.  But no.  I ran out of time and the darn thing wasn't working by the time I had to start work.  So frustrating.

And then when I got home I tried to get the computer working and my old computer failed to transfer some files.  So those files are now still on the old computer.  Fuck me!

I can truly say that I still like TheWish.  She cute and I like her personality.  But is there a spark? I think there is certainly the physical attractiveness spark there.  I check her out all the time.  I checked out her butt several times today.  But what now? She mentioned how she hated me for not working Fridays any more.  I gave her candy to make up for that.  It sucks.  I did like working there on Fridays because of her, and only because of her.  Now I only get to see her once a week.  But I do need the extra dough that working Fridays at Glendale affords me.  Sucks.  I thought to see if she wanted to get some dinner next week.  But I'm always so tired after the route that part of me wondered if I should bother.  And I guess that's my answer, really.  If I wanted her I would not think of how tired I am at the end of the week.  I would think about how wonderful it would be to finally spend time with her.

Speaking of spending time, Wednesdays means dinner with TheGirl.  Truly our Wednesday night dinner is one of the highlights of my week.  I had a thought about how we couldn't make it work before when we were in a full-fledged relationship.  I'm sure I've said this before, but our friendship is the best relationship I've ever been in.  Sure, when we were dating it was the greatest thing I've ever experienced.  It was hot, but it was also fulfilling.  Even without the sex I think this is the best relationship I've had.  I think it's because there's no pressure.  And before we were still dealing with the feelings left over from TheGirl's marriage.  Not an easy bunch of obstacles to have to deal with.  I think we've dealt with them now, and this is why our friendship is so strong.  Yeah... good times.

Thu Oct 26, When I arrived at the library this morning I noticed a couple of city guys out front with a pressure washer.  It turned out that they were cleaning up the handy work of some idiot that fancies himself a poet.  When I was leaving this afternoon the writing had been cleaned off, but you could tell that the guy doing it was not too happy about this assignment.

Once inside the library Misa called me and I went into the stacks to assure that no one would be listening.  I sat at a computer and logged in, for no particular reason.  When I logged in I noticed that a email account was still on.  And there were a lot of other email accounts logged into the computer.  These idiots didn't make private browsing the default.  So much for their fancy computers.  Just another black eye for this place.

And then we came to the meat of the day... Benedict's continuing bullshit.  Above is a picture of some of the bins Benedict left for me yesterday.  The most glaring this is how empty some of the bins are.  I made a video that chronicles what I saw in those bins, and it's not pretty.  Idiot Benedict didn't do ANY consolidation of the bins.  And then he left two boxes of books bound for Pasadena in some of those office boxes, when he clearly had room in the blue bins.  It took me about four minutes to consolidate the books he had in the nearly empty bins.  This guy sucks so much dick.

Misa told me yesterday via text that Benedict told her that he's tired of driving.  Just barely a year in and he's tired.  Think about how I've been driving for six years now.  Yes, at times I have been tired of this job.  But it feeds me.  It's certainly not perfect, but Benedict didn't have to deal with MicroManager at all.  He has had it "easy" without her around.  But it's telling that he has said that he wants to quit already.  We've all been there at some point.  The fact that he is already saying this to people means that he's been thinking about it for a while now.  Oh I do wish he would just quit.  He needs to go.  He's terrible at his job.

The restaurant that TheGirl and I frequent on Riverside Dr. was apparently featured on the show Kitchen Nightmares about twelve to thirteen years ago.  Back then it was a pizza joint.  The food looked bad.  Today they still make pizza, seeing as they have two stone pizza ovens.  They food is OK, but not great.  I go there because of TheGirl.  I rather prefer other places on Riverside Dr.

Fri Oct 27, The route today didn't have much to report.  It was a pretty standard route.  Since I'm following myself there isn't usually any bin drama.  I do have to mention that my buddy kinda ticked me off by telling me the bin situation.  In a series of texts he told me how many bins each branch should have.  Ah, no.  He always hates that I underestimate things, but that's because I like having that little bit of wiggle room.  I don't want to overestimate and not have that safety.  According to him Montrose should have eleven bins.  Not even close.  I was able to consolidate books and because of that Montrose ended up with seven bins.  Not eleven.  I left Casa with six after giving them two extras.  They also had one in reserve, so they had seven total.  My buddy said they should have nine.  Mind you, I told him we were short at Central, and his response was that there shouldn't be a shortage.  I wanted to tell him, "you're not at Central." When I left work yesterday, and when I arrived this morning, there were no "extra" blue bins.  I had two from yesterday and that's it.  What ticked me off was my buddy telling me how many bins there "should" be.  Yeah, sure.  I know that his change of job and getting off the route is going to change things in our friendship.

And now time for a flashback to 2010, when TheGirl and I were just starting out and we went to the Griffith Observatory.  Of course she was still married.  I remember her getting a phone call from TheHusband while we were having a snack.  What I see in that picture is a pair of super happy people.  TheGirl made me incredibly happy.  I think I made her happy.  It was definitely good times back then, despite the fear of getting "caught." All I knew is that I was happy.

A year before the previous picture I took the picture above of LM after we had slept together.  My car died and LM was nice enough to drive me home after working late (9pm) at San Marino.  That was a great night, because LM and I had been flirting hard for a while at that point.  She made a pass at me and that was it.  It's a shame things didn't work between us.  It just wasn't meant to be.

Sat Oct 28, On Tuesday my new Mac mini arrived at work.  On Wednesday I was super happy to go to work and pick it up and hopefully set it up before I had to start working.  But of course things went wrong.  It wasn't until today that I was able to finally devote some time to fixing the problem.  It sure wasn't easy.  I had to erase the hard drive and download the OS.  Thankfully it worked.

And yes, it FINALLY was working.  I was able to get to the set-up screen and get the computer working.  But of course nothing about this can be easy.  I say that because just as I was able to start the set-up my aunt comes into my room to talk to me about such trivial things.  Which of course delayed me from getting things all set-up.  Yet another obstacle.  Like everything these days.  Nothing these days can go smoothly.

I found this email pictured above while I was cleaning out my work inbox this evening.  It's from the beginning of the month and it shows you just how out of touch these dopes at the library really are.  It is a blue print of bullshit.  The new sorting machine, which STILL doesn't have power, was supposed to be up and running by now.  According to that email the machine was to be powered up by Tuesday of that week.  Mind you, at this point that was a MONTH ago.  But yeah, the fucking machine won't have power for the foreseeable future.  Fucking idiots.  And when it does get power it's going to fail... hard.

Sun Oct 29, I woke up this morning and when I looked out the window I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was fog.

Today's program was a neighborhood watch meeting.  There have been a rash of burglaries in the neighborhood.  I should say everywhere, but of course in San Marino as well.  A lot of the houses are bought by Chinese investors that don't actually live in the homes they buy.  But they have to have some residency so they do live there once in a blue moon.  That means they do have things in the home to steal.  And the other homes that have been hit have just been easy targets, because the people who live there have long hours at work.  Which is understandable.  So yeah, that was today's event.

The event organizer gave me a little red envelope and said, "Here, it's for you for all your help." Later I got a chance to look at how much she gave me and it was quite a bit... to say the least.  I mean $100! That's awesome! I want to save it and put it in my piggy bank.

I went to the graphics department and found a job that was ready on FUCKING FRIDAY last week.  Of course Benedict didn't go to pick this up, nor did he go to treasury. What a fucking idiot.  There isn't much to say about that.

I was checking my social media feed when I noticed that TheWish wore a Halloween costume to work.  She was Madeline.  Suffice to say, she looked cute.

I went for a early supper with a friend to an all you can eat Korean BBQ.  The food was plentiful, of course.  The Korean "sake" was inoffensive, as was much of the food.  All in all a good time with a good friend.

When I'm at San Marino on Wednesdays I will often take a nap in the conference room upstairs after lunch.  It's a nice room to take a nap in.

I haven't spent too much time in Long Beach.  Mainly because it's a little farther than I'm used to going.  But a friend asked to go down there with him, and what I found was an interesting and colorful part of this huge megapolis.

The drain that the washing machine drains to is clogged, so my aunt and I had to visit a laundromat in order to clean our clothes.  While there I took the above picture.  I think I really like laundromats.