I don't know where the start with this thing, but I will say that for some reason this month felt like it went by faster than any other month in my life.  With that, here is the update.

Tue Aug 1, The dummies at work posted some pictures on their social media page.  But, they can't even do that.  As you can see from the screen capture above, they made the photos extra small.  So small that everything is super pixelated, and it looks like ass.  But, what do you expect.  I expect them to get everything wrong, because that's their style.

This morning I was craving a hot dog for breakfast.  But my aunt woke up, though she doesn't have to when I go to work so early, and asked me what I wanted to eat this morning for breakfast.  I told her I was going to have a hot dog and some cold pasta she made.  But when I saw the fucking abomination she made me this morning I no longer wanted the pasta.  She put mayo on my hot dog.  She has know me for my whole life.  And NEVER, ever, ever, ever, have I put mayo on my hot dog.  Also, why didn't she FUCKING ASK ME if I wanted mayo on my hot dog?  See, these are the little things that drive me crazy with her.  The other day she was telling me that she thought my cousin was going to take her to visit my Godmother.  When I got home she told me, "Oh, your cousin told me that she was going to take me on Wednesday, not today." I told her to call my cousin just to ask her what time she was picking her up.  But my aunt refused, waited until past noon, and then went to visit my Godmother.  If she had waited she might not have gone to visit my Godmother on Sunday.  This is what kills me.  There are very simple solutions to these things, but my aunt will go and take the long road.  Could she just ask me if I wanted mayo on my hot dog?  Yes, but she rather just do it.  Thereby ruining my breakfast.  But I'm not going to tell her.  And of course that means she won't ever know.  I fucking hate everything.

I could tell today was going to be rough on me, because the morning was super humid.  I mean when I woke up it was horrible.  I honestly don't know how I was able to sleep a wink last night.  The photo above will have to do for evidence that it was humid this morning.  It may be cloudy, but it's certainly not cool this morning.

I'm trying to limit what I say about the dummies at work on this journal.  Mainly because I'm sick and tired of these people, and I don't want to record everything they do for posterity.  I have more important things to record, or so I think.  What I do want to point out today is the Benedict is of the type that knows that most people won't call you out on shit.  Case in point, I've been struggling during the delivery, because the dopes at Central have taken the few flat top trucks and used them for who knows what.  But, Benedict isn't one to just adapt and use the hand truck.  No, he wrote an email, and that email went to AD, and that went out to everyone.  When AD talks they have to listen.  Even though she ain't right, she's the one in power.  Well, now these two trucks are reserved for Benedict, and no one can touch them under penalty of AD's wrath.  I won't touch those trucks, because I don't give a damn.  I'll make things harder for myself.  What do I care?

As I walked back from parking the van in the parking structure I noticed that the guy that was banned from the library the other day was sitting in front of the library.  I went inside and thought about not even mentioning it to the dopes there.  But, I did.  And of course what happened?  They went outside with me, in a huff, and did nothing.  They all just said to me, "Oh, he's on the sidewalk." Ah.  No.  He has his back on what is library property.  That means you can harass him and get him to leave.  His signs said something about how the library "times" people when they go to the bathroom.  Ah, no.  That place is a pile of shit, but they don't time people's stay in the fucking bathroom.  Only this idiot thinks that, because he is doing something else in the bathroom.  Whatever, all they needed to do is warn him that he was on library property and he would likely go away.  If not, you can call the police on this guy.  But, the dummies I work with all said, "Oh, he's no the sidewalk." And that cut it.  From this point forward I will never mention anything to anyone at that job again.  I will try my BEST to not even talk to anyone.  Done.

Wed Aug 2, This is now an every day thing.  Some dope will inevitably drive into the exit only driveway.  It's all part of this "no consequence" mentality these days.  No one gets a ticket for something like this, because a police officer would have to literally do nothing all day except police this turn.  So dummies get away with doing the wrong thing and they get this mentality that "oh well." So many times at the library people will want me to do something that's against the rules.  When I say no, they will almost always say, "But that other person let me last time." That doesn't meant it's right, I tell them.  It's still against the rules, no matter how many times someone has broken the rules in order to accommodate you.

My desk shift was pretty good today.  I do like being on the desk.  I am now on the desk four days a week, for a total of sixteen hours a week.  That's double from before.

I have a coworker that will be leaving next week.  She's really good, and super nice.  But, of course she has to be moving on.  Today, just before I was going to go home, she came up to the reference desk and handed me the cupcake pictured above.  She's good, and will be missed.

It was four years ago that I had the pleasure of helping put up a display of Bradbury items.  The picture above is of a baseball cap with Bradbury's signature.  Pretty cool.  It feels like so long ago.

TheGirl and I went to Timmy Nolan's for dinner tonight.  We didn't bring Cheyenne with us.  TheGirl told me to text her when I arrived, and she would come out and meet me outside.  I was cool with that, since most of the time we have to limit the places we can go eat, because we have to go with Cheyenne.  I honestly don't mind having Cheyenne with us at dinner.  I love her.  We had our roughhousing session when we went back to TheGirl's place.

Thu Aug 3, I wanted to post this here as a record of AD's stupidity and actual ineptitude.  Now that I think about it I might have already posted something like this before.  Nevertheless, the above photo is of the infamous AD schedule.  It is a piece of trash.  It truly doesn't really assign anyone to a specific duty, but rather relies on people knowing what to do and doing it.  Yeah, that's not going to work.  In some ideal world people would do their job without being asked to do it.  Without accountability.  But this is the real world, and people will slack off and not do anything if they don't have to.  And that's what's happening.  That is why they have to have stupid shelving parties.  Not because there are so many books, but because the pages don't do their job.  And this is why no one answer the fucking phone at Central.  So many people at the branches have told me that they call and the phones just ring and ring and ring, but no one answers.  In the old days there was a dedicated person on the phone, and we were told to not let the phone ring more than three times.  Anyone calling Central now is lucky if someone answers after thirty rings.  AD's management style is somehow both micromanaging and yet completely detached.  She micromanages stupid things like this schedule.  But she's laissez faire about the actual assignments.  This is one of the main reasons I love the fact that I don't have to be on the stupid desk at Central.  What they now call the "info space." Using stupid words to describe things is dumb, and they are dumb.  AD is some day going to be the director of the library.  She will run it into the ground even faster than Maleficent has been.  Fucking shit!

Today is the last day for this summer of free lunches.  No more stupid free lunch delivery! The main thing I want to say about the lunches is that it fucking sucked to have the delivery smack in the middle of the route.  We all adapted to it, eventually, but it was not fun at all.  Also, I would say conservatively half of the food we delivered was thrown away.  Some locations, like Central, gave out most of the food.  But I know for a fact that Casa and Grandview tossed out over half of their lunches daily on average.  Not right.  Oh well, it least it's over... for now.

My favorite but also least favorite stop is Adams.  Why favorite?  Because of the incredible looking women that work there.  Ru and Gen to name a couple.  They are both so gorgeous, and a pleasure to be around.  And then there's the displeasure.  This fucking pile of floating collection bullshit.  I don't want to get too into it, but float is my bane.  And because Benedict doesn't do the route correctly, I get stuck doing ALL the float.  It's not fair, and float is just an artificial means of booting circulation numbers.  And it's busywork.  I fucking hate it, because like today, float will be more than the actual delivery for Pacific.  The people at Pacific see me as the bad guy that brings in the float.  But they need to look at their boss, that tells them to do this shit.  It's such an abomination that I don't even have the words to express how much I hate that fucking float.

I finally ended my day and I flew out the door to leave.  I had zero energy this entire week, but especially today.  And then I came out the front door and saw the sight pictured above.  Some idiot drove up the handicap ramp and was now trying to back up.  I could not help but snap a picture and post it here.  THIS is the new normal everywhere.  No one knows how to do anything correct any more.  Everyone just does what they want to do without any consequences.  Sound familiar?

Fri Aug 4, When I woke up this morning my neck was in a lot of pain.  I woke up yesterday with some pain, but it was bearable.  Today, it was bad, but still bearable.  I guess I was all twisted up last night.  Well, my shift on the desk was not too bad, thankfully.  Still, my neck hurt pretty much the entire day.  Not fun at all.

I didn't have too many interactions with TheWish today.  She was looking really nice today though.  See, I find myself all the more attracted to her as my doubt on what I should do grows.  I'm not feeling that spark that I've felt in the past.  But I do find myself attracted to her body and her personality.  But it's not clicking in THAT way, if you know what I mean.  I'm just too jaded these days, I guess.  Fucking bullshit.

It was another one of my coworker's last day at work.  She will be missed.  She asked if I wanted to take over the social media feed for the library.  I told her I would be happy to.  Until they find a replacement.  But maybe I should keep the job.  Might be a good experience.  I wish my coworker luck.  She's now a full fledged librarian and will be working for LAPL.

There is this girl that I've been following on social media from before there was the term social media.  I know I've mentioned her before in this journal, but here she is again.  I'm leaving this here because well, it's amazing her transformation over the years.  It's also kinda amazing that I first saw her on a photo sharing site, the name of which slips my mind now.  And then one day on Instagram I checked to see if she was on using her old handle from that old photo sharing site.  And sure enough, there she was.  I've been following her ever since.  I never expected she would move to Europe and become a model and then a DJ.  But, that's what she's done.  Kinda crazy that I've followed her life for so long.

Sat Aug 5, Yesterday was my coworkers last day, as I mentioned in the last post.  Today I had my hand at posting to the library's Instagram account.  For my first post I figured I would try to find something historical to mention and tie that to some books we might have at the library.  As it turns out today would have been Neil Armstrong's eighty-seventh birthday.  I found out that we had some books on him, and I picked out another book about space and took the above photo and posted it.

Today I didn't work the regular reference desk, but rather the children's desk.  It's pretty chill at the children's desk.  I think I helped five people today.  I think that many people come up to me on the adult reference desk an hour.  Believe me, I don't mind.  H was telling me that I should work on Saturdays.  They are hiring a new library assistant.  Perhaps the boss could move me to Saturdays and the new assistant could work on Saturdays.  I have to think about that.  One, I could watch football games.  Two, my aunt usually goes and visits my Godmother on Sundays.  That would mean that I could maybe have the house to myself.  It really sucks to have my day off and have her nag me pretty much the entire day.  More on that in a minute.  Anyway, I have to figure out if I want to float the idea of possibly moving to Saturdays.

And that brings me to an old story... my aunt nagging me.  It's not even that she does it that much, it's just that she knows what buttons to push with me.  There was a point tonight where she asked me if I had picked up something to eat on the way home.  Ah, I literally made a sandwich in the kitchen this evening and didn't make a secret out of the production.  The dirty plate is in the fucking sink.  I honestly don't know why she just speculates about things when there is actual evidence that would show her the answer.  I just don't get her.  It's super petty to bring this up, but it just fucking gets to me, and I'm damn tired of it.  She drives me to drink.  Period.

Sun Aug 6, TheGirl and I have been planning a breakfast for some time now, but we could never get it to work.  I had to go to San Marino yesterday, and I suggested that we try then.  But, TheGirl had a thing with a friend in the early afternoon, and couldn't make it.  But, she suggested today.  We went to the Honeybaked store, which also has a grill.  I haven't been to too many Honeybaked stores, but this is the only one that serves hot food like this one.  It's more like a diner.  The point was, it was yummy and I'd like go to back again.  It was also inexpensive and good times.

I went to work and arrived a little bit earlier than usual, because I was so much closer seeing as I was in Toluca Lake.  The building was warm when I went inside.  I figured that I would reset the chiller on the roof.  Well, when I did it tripped the main circuit breaker and all the power went out in the building.  What followed was about twenty minutes of running up and down the stairs after the chiller tripped the power again, and then me having to reset it.  After that I turned off the part of the unit that was saying it was having issues (pictured above).  To cut a long story short, I spent nearly half an hour after opening resetting the computers and the servers.  But the wifi didn't come on, so we had to call for service.  They came and fixed the wifi.  All-in-all it was not a fun early afternoon.  Thankfully the rest of the shift was uneventful.

The sight above drives me nuts.  Why?  Because the natural checkout side of the circulation desk is abandoned.  For some reason there are clerks that have this idea that they should plant themselves on the far side of the circulation desk, the side that faces the door, and never come back to the checkout side.  Know how it's the checkout side?  Because there's a HUGE sign above that part of the desk that says "check out." Ever since I have been off that desk it's gone to shit.

Vagabundo sent me an interesting letter to the editor (pictured above).  To recap, the author of the letter burns the library for being an ugly monument to wasted space, and having a nonsensical design.  Amen, brother... amen.  In such a short letter this guy gets it.  The library is just a shell of what it used to be.  I've said it before, it's not like Central was a paradise, but at least it was more honest of a library.  Today, it's an abomination.  Truly a monument to their backward thinking and backwater mentality.  I would hope that a letter like this one above would light a fire under those dopes.  But it won't.  Nothing will, because they truly believe that they're doing the right thing.

Mon Aug 7, I'm doing my best to keep up with the social media feed of the library.  It's easy but at the same time I've been told I should update once daily.  THAT makes it a bit of a challenge.  Because I'm not going to post any stupid thing.  The above gif is a looped video that I took for the media feed.  I'm trying my best to keep up to the level of the previous coworker that worked the media feed.  Maybe I can somehow do better than her.  Time will tell.  I do have some ideas for the feed.  Hopefully something good will come of this.

My shift was a typical shift today.  Nothing to write home about, or write about here.  I did help a lady out with something to do with her flight miles.  She was a little older, but she was a pleasure to view.

After work I went to visit TheGirl and boy was Cheyenne aggressive tonight.  She was roughhousing pretty hard.  She lunged at my face a couple of times.  I went online to check what that means, and they say that I should do my best to change that behavior.  The next time I play with Cheyenne I will do my best to calm her down and make it known that it's not OK to lunge at me.  I do love that dog though.

On my photo feed tonight came a photo of Talia from 2004 when I first knew her, and when she would take her top off at the drop of a hat.  Whatever she is now I do have to thank the Universe for having her walk into my life when she did.  I haven't been very "lucky" with the ladies in my life, that's for sure.  I'm happy with the women that have thought I'm nice enough to give me a change to love them.  I never fell in love with Talia, but it's not for lack of effort on her part.  I just knew she was nuts, and my brain could not commit to her under those circumstances.

Tue Aug 8, I knew today that I wouldn't find two lunch bags in the van, but I honestly didn't think that Benedict would leave red bins in the van.  But, of course he did.  This guy is the worst.  The other picture is of a painting hanging in the hallway.  Every day I come in there's at least one of these painting on the floor.  Every fucking week.

This is the new whiteboard of death.  Or as they just call it at the library, the whiteboard.  As you can see there are various things that are listed.  This is supposed to give people an idea what's going on at the library.  OK in theory, but of course these dummies mess it up.  I like to point out that there's a guy in the library named Jack.  And he was off the other day.  So they wrote, "Jack-off" on the board.  I mean come on, really?  In the above picture I added an extra "space" to the word "InfoSpace." Because these idiots tend to add the suffix "space" to everything.  There's the "Reflect Space... the Maker's Space... the InfoSpace." Just stop adding the fucking word "space" to everything.  Idiots.

Which brings us to another idiot... Benedict.  What did he do/not do this time?  Simple, he didn't go to treasury.  Ralph is a guy that works in circulation.  He's on top of things, and I've warned people not to mess with him.  He sees all, and then stores that information in his memory.  He's quite.  Anyway, I show up and he hands me the money to go to treasury and says to me, "Yeah, the Monday driver didn't go to treasury... and he just returned the money." It's even worse than that.  Not only did Benedict not take the money to treasury, but then he lied and just put it in the bin for outgoing mail for Tuesday.  Meaning I would have to do it today.  Ralph old me about this and I told him that I was not surprised.  I was asked if Benedict still works for the library by those in treasury, because they have not seen him in months.  MONTHS! He's only been working there for about eight months.

The bigger point is that Ralph doesn't forget and he did mention that he will email the boss about this.  Nice! Maybe fucking Benedict will finally be caught doing something wrong.  Also, I will add that I did tell Ralph and Achee that I know Benedict doesn't go to at least two of the branches.  Because he's not scheduled to on his route day.  That was an answer to Achee saying how Benedict finishes up so much earlier than Vagabundo and myself.  I know from Jade that Benedict leaves at around 1pm.  I'm still in the teeth of the route at that time.

When I got to Brand of course there were a lot of bins going and coming.  Once again I made a point of saying that it was both Monday and Tuesday's delivery in one.  Perhaps these dopes will FINLLY get it.  I can't trust that they will though, so I keep planting these seeds.

There is a homeless guy on the sidewalk protesting the fact that the library kicked him out a couple of weeks ago for being a disturbance.  I just like how these dopes don't do anything to have him leave the grounds.  Not that I care, but this guy's protest is bullshit.

In my last entry I mentioned how the picture was taken in 2004.  Well, almost a year to the Talia took her top off again and I was there to photograph her.  The photo above is of a time when Talia and I were in the midst of our relationship.  I want to say that soon after this I broke up with her, but I honestly don't remember when I broke up with her.  I just remember that she said something to me about imagining my baby inside her belly.  I went nuts because I had zero intention of having a baby with her.  Today she's nearly 40 years old and I'm glad I dodged that bullet.

Wed Aug 9, Something funny came up on my computer today (pictured above).  Someone went ahead and inflated a giant chicken with the hair of the President on the lawn across from the White House.  These are crazy times we live in, to be sure.  I guess a giant chicken with Trump's hair is the least of the crazy.

I'm wondering how I could ask this really pretty patron to lunch or something.  I think I have a little angle by using the social media angle.  I want to ask her if she'll say how much she loves the library for a video.  I was task with doing that.  But of course I have an ulterior motive.  She's nice, and of course stupid me thinks it would be nice to get to know her.  Even though there's 99% chance that she's being nice to me because.  *sigh*

TheGirl and I stayed in for dinner tonight.  In other words I brought food and we ate in.  Not much to report.

Thu Aug 10, I went into work and noticed a new barrier to keep dummy patrons from using the side exit as an exit.  Pictured above is the newest stopgap measure to keep people from using this exit as an exit.  And I say stop because they aren't supposed to be exiting out this door.  They are supposed to be using the the front and back doors.  But, since this building is so poorly designed this door looks good to the dopey patrons to use as an exit.  It does have an exit sign above.  But it does strike me that people look at these heavy steel doors and automatically don't think that they are fire doors.  Another frustration with people, they're stupid.

After walking into the library an nothing the stopgap I then turned around and noticed that a couple of name plates that are used to denote the names of the paintings were on the ground.  At least this time the actual painting wasn't on the floor.  The problem with this so-called hallway gallery is that the walls were not made to hold anything heavier than a piece of paper.  What they need to do is install a rail on the top and use it to anchor a wire that the frames can be hung from.  But no.  No one thought of that before.  What a bunch of morons.

My campaign to slowly but surly add the word "Space" to everything is slowly working.  On Tuesday I added the word to "Program," making it "ProgramSpace." As week it the word was added to "InfoSpace," making it "InfoSpaceSpace." Mwahahaha! They can so eat shit.  Using the suffix "Space" on everything is just annoying.  I want to illustrate just how dumb it is to do what they are doing.

On Tuesday I picked up some things from graphics and took them to Central.  I had in inkling that they were to possibly be distributed to the branches.  But, I wasn't going to help those dopes one bit.  So I took them to Central and assumed they would be distributed yesterday.  Nope.  They were in the interdepartmental mail this morning with the name of the person they weren't to in administration crossed out.  In its place was the words, "Send to Central and branches." Let's ignore that they're already in Central, so there's no need to say send to Central.  But why does it take so long for these dopes to first of all GET these in the interdepartmental mail?  And two, what takes them so long to figure out that they need to go to the branches?  Whatever, I'm through helping these dopes out.  These things can rot on the vine for all I care.

Emma joked with me that I was late.  She based this on Benedict showing up at Montrose at 10am and me arriving there just about 11:30am.  I corrected Emma by saying, "How come no one says that he's early and I'm on time?"  She then pointed out that Vagabundo and me pretty much arrive at Montrose at the same time.  But, of course Benedict doesn't.  I told her the party line, that Benedict doesn't go to Chevy.  My point in all this is that Emma represents a growing number of people that are noticing that Benedict is at their stop super early and voicing that.  Ah huh.  It's about time they notice that my pattern has not changed in years, but that this guy six months into the job is super early to each stop.  That's because he's cutting corners to finish up early, as I have stated here many times.  Maybe now people will figure out that Benedict isn't OK.  Now I say that because Emma mentioned that because Benedict is SO early on a Monday that the branch manager can't finish the money until after he's come and gone.  This is significant, because all money is supposed to go to the treasury department once a day.  The branches are not to keep the money for more than a day, unless it's the weekend.  Blatant Benedict showing up a 10am prevents that from happening.  What I want to illustrate, and I'm sure you already know, is that his actions do have negative consequences.  The route was established a long time ago.  It isn't perfect, by any means, but at least it works.  Because Vagabundo and I do the route in an established way the branches can count on us being there at a certain window of time.  But with Benedict racing through the route in order finish as quickly as possible, that makes it impossible for the branches to rely on him.  I just want more people to not just notice, but to actively complain about how he does the route.  Ah, it probably won't fix anything.

When I came back from the route I had to stop in the dock area to drop off a folding table that the dummies there are going to use for the book sale on Saturday.  While down there I ran into a librarian that I can only describe as being excommunicated from the reference department.  They literally don't have him do anything all day as punishment for him existing.  Anyway, the two of us got to talking about everything that's going wrong with the library.  We both mentioned AD, with him mentioning that is is, "Over her head." Oh I believe that.  I see the consequences of her actions and they clearly show me that she doesn't know what the fuck is going on in that building.  Like I say all the time, she can eat shit.

TheDesire was in circulation nearly the entire day helping out my stupid boss do page interviews.  I saw a couple of them and they didn't look like much.  Whatever.  This is about TheDesire.  We used to be friends, a long time ago.  Today she is just a shell of that former friend.  She's bloated thanks to the child inside of her.  She has a tired look about her.  I know I'm always tired.  When I asked her how it was going she said, "Just hanging in there." I hear that, I told her.  And that was the extent of our interactions.  I certainly don't miss her.  I certainly don't think now of what might have been.  I hate to say it, I think of how I dodged a bullet.

But, I also think about how I'll most likely never be in another relationship again.  The want to be with TheWish is waining fast.  The last time we hung out was nice, I'm not going to say different.  But I also didn't feel a spark from her and for her.  Well, I will say that I do find her more physically attractive lately.  But of course that just means that I want to sleep with her and not much else.  As I've said before.  As far as a life with her, or any woman for that matter, I have to say that I'm not seeking that.  And I don't see myself seeking it for the foreseeable future.  I'm just tired of the bullshit that comes from a relationship.  And truthfully I'm not good at relationships.  I've messed up every relationship I've been in.  None has lasted more than a couple of years.  Also, I'm tired of trying.  I don't have the energy to try with TheWish or any other woman.  I rather just go home and work on my photo projects.  I rather just go home and watch TV.  I rather just go home and play on my computer.  I rather just go home.

Sat Aug 12, I'm taking it easy today.  Next Saturday I have plans to hang out with TheGirl at Downtown Disney.  But today, I'm just resting.  I went online to check out my photo feed and I found the pair of photos above.  They are of a former Glendale librarian.  Back in 2O12 my relationship with TheGirl was going south.  She was spending every other weekend with TheChisel.  It hurt, but I figured that since the relationship was doing a downward spiral into nothingness that I could seek out other avenues... to say the least.  One of the librarians at Glendale was pretty, and I liked her butt.  I figured I could maybe get something going with her.  We hung out a few times, but nothing beyond going on mini-photo missions ever developed.  Story of my life, what can I say?  It's funny how things work out though.  Nothing but a few hangs ever came of me and Jennifer.  And these pictures.

And since these days old photos come up and remind me of stuff that happened in the past, I add this set of photos that Talia sent me last year at this time.  As I think back these pictures motivated me to want to sleep with her again.  Boy, was THAT a mistake.  I was definitely thinking with my dick.  That should be enough of the Talia posts for now.

Sun Aug 13, I didn't get to say anything about the new library assistant that was hired, because I didn't know her name.  That is until today, when the boss sent out an email with her name.  THAT's when I could finally search for her online and see what's her deal.  She doesn't have much of a presence online.  Which makes me wonder about her taking over the social media feed for the library.  Whatever, I'm starting to like it.  I'm pretty sure that I will keep doing this social media thing.

There was a row today because a woman wanted to go on a computer that another woman was using.  The first women, woman A we'll call her, was on the computer.  Woman B wanted to upload something from her USB, but the computer she was working on has busted USB plugs.  Because of that woman B wanted to use another computer.  I helped her reserved another computer.  It happened to be the computer that woman A was on.  Woman B wanted me to ask woman A to get off the computer, but I told her that I couldn't do that.  But, when I walked away woman B got a little testy with woman A.  My coworker had to try to work to resolve this dispute.  But of course the two women were children about the entire thing and couldn't just be reasonable.  Of course they had to make a scene.  I thought I had resolved it by letting woman B use a computer behind the reference desk.  But it turns out that woman A was still hopping mad.  To the point that she came up to complain to my coworker.  And because my coworker didn't bend over backwards woman A got even more angry.  To wit, just before closing time we got a phone call and H picked it up.  I could tell it was one of the women complaining.  It was woman A.  I guess she thought that we didn't back her up, even though all of our actions, my coworker and my actions, completely sided with her (woman A).  But I guess that wasn't good enough for her.  Fucking idiots.  I wanted to just tell them both to not act like douche bags and act like adults.  Yeah, right!

Mon Aug 14, I woke up this morning to the sight of a horrific accident on the news this morning.  They were warning people that the transition road from the 101 to the 134 was closed, and was going to remain closed for a while.  This made me put my foot down on the gas and get ready super fast.  Thankfully I woke up a little earlier than normal.  I got my ass in gear and hot footed it to work, nearly forty minutes before my normal commute time.  It worked out though.  I used side streets in order to get to were I could pass the closed transition road and get on the freeway unmolested.  That happened to be all the way to Hollywood way in Burbank.  It took me about forty minutes for me to get there from home.  But, thankfully the rest of the commute was WIDE open.  I arrived at work extra early.  Which was fine.  The total commute time was over an hour, but at least it wasn't more.  It definitely had that potential if I had used the freeway.

My morning was super busy.  As if dodging the accident wasn't enough for a day, I was slammed on the desk.  I even got a "nice" phone call about the parking situation out front.  The woman on the phone told me that she was going to give the library a negative review on social media.  Mainly because the monitors that usually police the idiot parents that want to pick up their kids in front of the library (pictured above), don't know that the monitors aren't going to be able to go out there any more.  Mainly because the monitors shifts have been cut due to budget concerns.  Or at least that's the official party line.  It's more complex than that, but that's a good enough short version for now.  The lady on the phone hung up after I told her that she SHOULD go online and say whatever she wants to.  Fuck her and the horse she rode in on.  These motherfuckers need to have a police officer in the parking lot, not these poor monitors.  We need someone packing heat.

If that wasn't enough I got wind that woman A from yesterday called AGAIN today to complain to the boss.  Thankfully the boss is going to side with us.  If only because she knows that we would not do the things dummy woman A was accusing us of.  Well, mostly my coworker was accused.  Thankfully I found a guy that came up to the desk that basically backed my coworker's version of the events.  Ah huh! I lobbied the boss for perhaps limiting the dummies to two hours on the computers on Sundays.  Not every other day, just Sundays.  We're only open for four hours, and some people come in and use the computers the entire four hours.  This is why we have these sort of conflicts on a Sunday.  She said she didn't know of a way to do that, but part of me wants to figure it out.  But then how do I implement it?  Dang.  Oh well.

Tue Aug 15, Today was the first day of school for the girls.  As predicted, they arrived at 7am.  Well, really a few minutes before.  Thankfully I have to be out the door at 7am.  I can not take having them in my room, trampling all over and touching my things.  Thankfully, as they get older they are less prone to that sort of action.  But still, I close my room door when I leave.  And then there's tomorrow.  When I don't leave at 7am, but I'll have to deal with them anyway.  Maybe I should wake up early and shower and then bolt out to work.  But wait, now I remember that I can take a shower and when they leave for school I can have breakfast.  I hate having to juggle things like this.

As of today it's one hundred days until my Thanksgiving trip up to Carmel.  That time will go fast.  Look how fast so much of the year has already passed.  Pretty soon 2/3rds of the year will have passed.  When I post this journal online the year WILL be 2/3rds over.  Damn.

My campaign of adding "space" to everything on the white board at work continues.  This time I was able to add the word "space" to two different sections of the board.  A couple of my coworkers were staring at the board as we talked about one of the items.  None of them said anything about the extra "space" word on "InfoSpaceSpace." Love it!

Benedict doesn't have to pick up the lunches now, but he's still up to his old tricks when it comes to the red bins.  It's so easy for him to just take them in a the end of the route, which makes me wonder why he still doesn't understand that they need to be brought in with the rest of the junk.  I know, I know, he's cutting corners.

The route was thankfully pretty good today.  I think it was a combination of not too much drama and really nice weather.  But truthfully it was unseasonably cool today.  Which made things all the better.  I can't wait for the winter to cool the weather all the more towards temperatures where I would have to wear a jacket.

Wed Aug 16, My aunt sometimes makes me breakfast on the days that I start at 10am at San Marino.  Today she made me a tuna salad sandwich.  But she has this idea that the tuna salad is too wet and it will get into the bread.  Because of that she insists on putting the lettuce on the top and bottom of the tuna salad.  I fucking HATE that move.  I've told her I don't like it that way, and yet she insist on continuing to do it.  Of course I turn around and take the lettuce from one side and place it so all the lettuce is on the same side.  Because, I know I'll wolf the sandwich down faster than the time it would take the tuna salad to soak into the bread.  *sigh*  I'm so tired of everything.

TheLamp is attractive, not going to lie.  Today I had an encounter in front of the fridge in the employee lounge that has me wondering about her.  Of course I'm sure it's perfectly innocent, but you NEVER know.  I was standing in front of the fridge after placing my lunch bag inside of it.  That's when TheLamp came up and stood in front of me and the fridge. She opened the door, blocking my path out from where I was between her, the fridge, and the wall.  She then proceeds to bend over and present her behind to my crotch area.  The first thought I had was, "What is going on here?"  Later I wondered if she did this as an actual come on... or because she thinks I'm a gayblade... or because... well, because girls are clueless.  I would like the answer to be that she did that because she just wanted to shove her behind in my face.  Intellectually I know girls do that purposefully only once in a blue moon.  The other 99.9999% of the time it's just because they're moving around doing what they're doing.  In other words, I get that women don't bend over just to entice me.  They're doing that because that's what they're doing.  But I do have to wonder why she has to SO present her behind to me today.  I'm a weak man.  Something like that means something to me, even if it doesn't to her.

I got on the desk and TheLamp told me that it was slow.  Famous last words, to be sure.  What followed was a non-stop barrage of questions for the next two hours.  There wasn't so much as five minutes in those two hours that I had a chance to breathe.  It was kinda fun, but it was also exhausting.

TheWish was on the phone with a dummy patron asking a million questions about passports.  The poor thing was on the phone for nine minutes with this douche.  In the middle of it I couldn't help but film her as she tried to answer all the dope's questions.  It was just so funny to catch her in such a real moment.  And of course that brings us to how I still like this girl, despite the fact that I have turned away from pursuing her.  I want to be with her in some way.  But I'm still emotionally isolated.  And I don't want to start anything right now, except a fuck buddy situation.  THAT, I think I can handle.  Probably not.

Tonight I REALLY needed booze and good food.  TheGirl was nice enough to provide that, as well as good company to boot.  We skipped out on Cheyenne tonight, leaving her at TheGirl's place in order to go to the Mexican restaurant that serves up super strong margaritas.  The shift today called for some extra strong margaritas, to be sure.  I only needed one to get my flying tonight.  The food hit the spot as well.  TheGirl and I have a good time together.  I think that's what's missing from every other woman I meet... the instant and easy spark that we have just being together.  There is no need to explain in a lot of words that we like each other's company.  I'm pretty sure this is why our friendship has lasted three times as long as our relationship.

After dinner we went back to TheGirl's place and I roughhoused with puppy.  She's really getting rough with me, but I don't mind.  I just like that she's having fun.  So what if my arms are all scratched up?  Who cares?  I'm having a good time roughhousing.  This life is so short, and more and more I'm thinking about the inevitable end to my journey.  At the end of it all I want to remember moments like tonight with Cheyenne, where it was just pure fun.  Just fun.  Where we both felt a joy that comes from the simple act of loving the moment.  I think that's why I love that dog so much.  She has reminded me of what's important.

Thu Aug 17, Last night I decided to just go into silent mode today.  On Tuesday night my buddy called me about ten minutes after he got off work at 9pm.  And honestly, I was hoping that he wouldn't call me.  I'm not really in the mood to continue talking about these idiots at work.  I'm worn down to the point that they are one of the last subjects I want to talk about.  Because of that I decided to limit my texting about the route today.  I made a nearly zero effort to engage in a texting exchange with my buddy and Misa.  The norm would be for me to report on the things going wrong during the day.  Well you know what?  None of that is going to change in the current state of the library.  Real change will only come when some of these dopes die.  In the mean time my next move is to just be silent, and stay off of the radar.

I arrived at work and saw that the whiteboard of death still had the same information from Monday (pictured above).  MONDAY! What a bunch of fucking idiots.  AD mentioned in her weekly email that she was off to Idaho.  I told Vagabundo that I hope she crashes her car.

Speaking of AD, in her email to the "troops" she mentioned how RFID is in, "Full swing." Oh sure, if you consider tagging a few dozen books in "full swing." The collection has about 500,000 books, she admitted in her own email.  Let's say they do 100 books in a day, which is being VERY generous.  How long would it take to do 500,000?  5,000 days, or roughly 13 years.  Yeah, that's not going to do.  Let's say they did 1,000 books a day, that's still five hundred days to complete the project, or roughly a year and a half.  Yeah, we're in "full swing" alright.  Fucking idiot.

I was moving the books onto the van when I hit a bump and off came one of the wheels.  Of course that couldn't be enough.  As I tried to put it back another wheel came off.  Thankfully it came off after I put the first one on.  But then when I tried to put the second one back on, the first one fell out again.  This is one of the many reasons why I don't use these fucking trucks any more.  They're useless.

The route today was quiet.  Mainly because I decided not to keep my talking to a minimum.  I put my head down and just did my job.  I looked online and noticed that I'm not on the schedule this week, or next, or the week after that.  Just typical.

As I was going from one branch to another on Glenoaks I spotted a driver that was doing the wrong way on the road.  This idiot then had to put his car into reverse and back-up to align himself in the left turn lane.  I shouldn't be surprised by this idiot's actions, since they seem to be following the new normal these days.  Everyone just does what is convenient for them, the hell with everyone else.  It doesn't matter if it's dangerous to themselves or to anyone else.  They're going to do it because it's convenient for them.  Well, I say they can go fuck themselves.  This is another thing that has contributed to my emotional weariness these days.

Fri Aug 18, Yesterday at work T and the boss cleaned out the fridge in the staff lounge.  It was sorely in need of a review of items.  As you can see from the picture above, there was a cheesecake in a bag that was green beyond belief.  Some people just leave things in there, and they forget about them.  I only have a small jar of mayo in the fridge, and of course my lunch.  But I don't leave that in the fridge much more than a few hours until I eat.  Then I take everything home with me.  Eaten or not.  There were so many bags in the fridge before, and as you can see from the picture, it's practically empty now.  Finally... room for my lunch bag.

The big question that I had to field, and that my coworkers have had to field the last few days is... "Do you have solar eclipse glasses." The answer is no.  But that doesn't stop people from calling the library for some solar eclipse glasses.  The calls tapered off though.  I told a few people about an event at Cal Tech for the eclipse.  Maybe that will learn them to be prepared for such things, and not wait until the last minute.

The desk was pretty chill today.  Plenty of questions, but not the onslaught I had to deal with on Wednesday.  Next week is the last of the ESL conversation hours for about a month.  I'm looking forward to being able to leave work closer to when I get off work.  It's just that by Friday I'm tired from the week and I just want to go home and rest.  Of course I still have to contend with my cousin's kids, but that not so bad.

TheWish has been looking really cute lately.  Not that she wasn't cute before, but what I'm saying is that she's been looking cuter.  I mentioned to her that we have to go out and get some food again soon.  I'm sure she's wondering, "It's up to you, dummy." And yes, it is up to me.  I've been hesitant, for reasons I've already stated in this journal.  And really this is kinda why I've been so anti-social lately as well... I'm just tired.  I don't have the energy to keep trying.  I need to recharge my batteries, but I also need to focus on what's important and not spend so much energy dealing with bullshit I can't change.  Especially when it's work related.  I can't change the minds of those dopes I work with at Glendale.  They're going to continue to make the wrong decisions, the wrong moves, and to forget I exist.  I need to be off the radar while still getting paid.  Not an easy thing to do.  And all this and more keeps me weary.  So much so that while I like TheWish, and would like to spend more time with her, I just don't have the energy.  Like I would like to be intimate with her, or someone else.  But, truthfully I don't know if I have the energy to do so.  And that sucks, because I do like TheWish.

Misa and Vagabundo mentioned that they wanted to go out for tacos tonight.  But truthfully I didn't want to hang out.  I just wanted to go home and rest.  I'm not interested in doing anything.  I love my friends, but right now I really have this want to just go back home and not do anything after work.  Or anything.  I have these notions that I want to go get some food.  There's a burger joint in Santa Monica that looks pretty good, but going there would mean changing something about my schedule, or waking up early on a Saturday.  And most of the time I don't want to do that.  I feel bad I ditched Misa and Vagabundo tonight.  But I simply want to go home.

Sat Aug 19, TheGirl and I made plans to go down to Downtown Disney a few weeks ago.  I NEEDED to get away and go down there to get some drinks and some food.  We drove down there, parked the car, and walked to the hotel.  But before we got there we spotted a girl walking around with her ass cheeks hanging out (pictured above).  TheGirl pointed this girl out to me as we walked to the escalator.  I saw her just as I was walking away from our parked car, but I didn't think anything of her other than there was a woman coming out of a car.  But TheGirl pointed out that the girl didn't shave around her private parts, and because of that there was hair poking out of her oh too tight shorts.  I didn't notice that, because the moment I looked at this girl's behind I was repulsed.  The fact that she was willing to throw her behind out there to the masses was OK by me.  However, the fact that she could not realize something in the mirror, or the the practically of having to deal with hot seats all over the park, make me cringe.

Our first stop was a little place in the Disneyland Hotel for a Dole Whip, with a splash of rum.  And when they say splash, they really mean splash.  There was hardly any run in it, but it was still good.  Mainly because it's a Dole Whip, and that's yummy.  TheGirl tried a little bit of it, but was mainly interested in getting a drink at Trader Sam's.  Which was packed.  Sucks.  If we hadn't stopped for the Dole Whip we could have found a seat.  Sucks! Our back up option was the Hearthstone Lounge.

We popped over there and sat down.  It was easy to find a seat, the place was nearly empty... unlike Trader Sam's.  TheGirl ordered some wine and I ordered a flight of whiskey.  It was a generous pour for TheGirl.  The whiskey I had hit the spot.  It was super nice to just sit there and chat about things.  We started a whole conversation with our waitress about the nut mix that they serve.  It's damn good.  The waiter was nice enough to give us a couple of cups filled with the mix.  Score!

And here we are... TheGirl and me.  We definitely still have a great time together.  See, THIS is how we should have continued our relationship.  With a deep friendship at the core.  It's a good thing we stuck it out and remain friends.  We have been friends WAY longer than lovers.

For lunch we went to Storytellers cafe.  We have a history with that place.  Years ago when we were seeing each other and I was promoted to delivery driver we came here for our celebration.  So yes, it's a special place for us.  I ordered up a pastrami burger instead of my usual corn chowder.  I really LOVE the corn chowder there.  But I also wanted to try something different.  The burger was good, but not great.  The pastrami needed something else.  Oh well, can't win them all.

It was getting late, so we saddled back up and returned home.  I dropped off TheGirl and went home and took to bed, where I fell asleep for about an hour.  All-in-all a really great day.  Something I've been missing from my life lately.  I told TheGirl we should do this more often.  I hope she wants to do it sooner than later.

Mon Aug 21, Today is the day! The eclipse finally happened.  For weeks we've been getting phone calls about eclipse glasses.  After today, no more.  Of course someone had to call TODAY, just minutes after the eclipse happened, and ask if we still had glasses.  Nope.  You'll have to wait until 2024.

The eclipse itself was pretty cool.  My coworker gave me a pair of eclipse glasses and with those I was able to see the crescent sun.  It would have been cool if it had gotten darker here, but it was slightly darker.  It was as if it was overcast.  And it did feel a little cooler.  Crazy.

Today was kinda chill on the desk.  I had my share of questions, but nothing too crazy.  I'm glad, because lately the desk has been a mad house of questions, issues, and patrons being dummies.  So it was definitely nice to have a shift where everything wasn't a shit show.

My co-worker Shawnie was not in a good place today.  She is struggling to make ends meet, and has to deal with a family that is jacked up.  Suffice to say, she was not in a great mood.  I tired to comfort her by telling her a story of when I was deep in a bad place financially and emotionally.  I don't know if it helped, but I did tell her that I would take her to do her driving test.  It's the least I can do for her.

I went to the children's room while helping a patron and on my way back to the reference desk I saw the above scene.  The pages that were on duty last night and this morning didn't do the clean-up.  Which is why all these books are on this truck and not on the shelves.  ARGH! It's just so frustrating when you know that it doesn't take THAT much of an effort to clean up these books BEFORE they reach this level of mess.  But, no one wants to do their job these days.

Tue Aug 22, I went into work early to write "space" on more of the things on the board.  I pretty much have filled out all the names on the board with the word "space." The funny thing is NO ONE has ever mentioned that the names all have "space" tacked on at the end.  Especially the one name that says "infospacespace." I mean COME ON.  You think you would see THAT.  No one cares to notice or say anything if they did notice.  Hell, they might even be getting a good laugh out of it all.

As is now a Tuesday "tradition," Benedict left two red bins in the van.  Because it's TOO hard to fucking take those bins into circulation at the end of the fucking route.  What a fucking douche.

I went to Pasadena first thing, as usual.  I then went to drop off some spare books at Vroman's, and then returned to Glendale to go to city hall.  I went to treasury and then went to graphics to pick up the mail.  When I got there I saw the above.  What is in the above picture, you ask?  A money bag... in with the graphics work.  I wanted a witness for this mistake.  Which truthfully is a small mistake.  But, I wanted to use it to put yet another dent in Benedict's shield.  I went and asked the graphics boss what was the deal with the bag.  He tells me, "Oh, it was left on the counter." Again, not a terrible mistake.  There was no money in the bag.  It just shows Benedict's carelessness.  But honestly, it is a mistake anyone could make.  But this is Benedict, and I'm going to use anything to let it be known that he isn't doing his job correctly.  I went back to base and told Achee about the bag as I handed it to her.  She tells me, "There's no use telling Les about this... he never does anything about it." This, is true.  Les could watch Benedict set the van on fire and he still wouldn't punish Benedict.  This is the world where we live now.  Later in the day I told Ralph about the money bag thing.  I couldn't help but tell him.  He's the one that witnessed Benedict take the money with him in the morning, but then he dumped it in the afternoon.  Meaning he never went to treasury.

On the route it seemed like everyone was short on bins.  Montrose had loose books, and so did Grandview.  In both cases I used the extra bins I took along with me just in case this happened.  At Grandview Grigor told me that Benedict has this nasty habit of taking the "extra" bins he finds at the branches.  And that he nearly talked to Benedict about his actions, because it leaves the branches with fewer bins that they need.  This is why today Montrose and then Grandview had books just sitting outside of the bins.  From what I gather Benedict has been doing this for a while now.  I don't know if it's out of spite, or to fuck with me or fuck with everyone else at the branches.  But it shows yet another pattern.  I had some extra bins for Grandview, and I also was able to consolidate what they had loose.

As if the little mess wasn't enough I show up at Adams and there is a bigger bunch of books sitting on the cart (shown above).  Now at Adams they compound their lack of bins by always using those bins for "float." A practice I think I've talked about here before.  But if not, the quick and dirty version is that they "float" some books by changing their location code.  This way they can theoretically have a good assortment of books at tiny Adams.  And not the same books all the time.  But, they take liberties, and instead of sending one bin of books a week they will sent four or five a couple of times a week.  It sucks, and it's a waste of my energy.  The added fun is that the circulation numbers go up on these books, and it creates busy work for the workers.  Today I decided to fuck with the little float scam.  I didn't deliver the books to Pacific.  I took them to Central and then put them in the Pacific bins.  This does create work for my buddy tomorrow, who has to now haul two more bins to Pacific.  I told him about it, and he applauded my action.  I also told Kayvon about it when I went back to Central.  Another employee that used to work at Adams and Pacific chimed in and filled Keyvon in on Mala's terrible actions.  Good.  No one gets protection any more.

Krishna's father passed away last week.  Today was the funeral, at noon.  At 10:57am Maleficent sent out the email seen above.  If there was a less appropriate time for an email to be sent I don't know.  Just about an hour before the funeral, knowing that many of our coworkers were attending the funeral, Maleficent drops this bomb, to remind everyone that attending the funeral will cost them.  I get it, the city shouldn't be paying for that time.  I'm just questioning the timing of such an email.  The funeral was known about for a few days now.  Why not send this information at the same time that the funeral information was sent out?  A couple of my coworkers said how callous it made Maleficent sound.  And you know what?  She is callous.  She is a bitch.  She is a horrible person.  Case closed.

Wed Aug 23, This is a picture I took of Talia from way back in 2005.  Back there we were having a good time.  She was nuts, and I knew it.  But it also wasn't a concern.  She wasn't as nuts as she is today.  And she was more attractive, which helps mitigate any craziness.  Anyway, the point was that on this day back in 2005 I took the above picture of her.  Whatever!

And now we come to TheGirl, who I took the above photo in 2010.  Five years separate those two photos, but a big difference.  Talia was always crazy.  TheGirl, she was not.  She was just right... Goldilocks.  My relationship with both of them didn't last very long.  But of course I'm still friends with both.  Maybe I'm just not good at this relationship stuff, but better as just being a woman's friend.  Hmm.

A regular patron, who is a stuntwoman, and quite attractive, gave me a coffee gift card for helping her.  I really shouldn't take it, but I did because she's nice.  I have helped her in the past, and have been patient with her.  You know, I'd like to go out with her, and of course sleep with her.  But, in lieu of that I'll take a nice smile from her and a gift card.  Good times.

It was nice interacting with TheWish today.  She looked really cute in her cute dress.  She knows how to dress, I'll say.  I still want to get to know her better, despite me just blowing it with her already.  Despite me not asking her out to dinner since taking her to that horrible pizza joint.  Still, I want to kiss her lips.  Still, I see LaFlor and I want to do the same with her.  In other words, I'm a cad.

Lately I've really needed a good drink at the end of the day.  Today was no different.  We went to one of her favorite restaurants, one we've been to many times, called Riverside.  I suggested going there because I knew they would make me a good drink.  I also supplemented that with a few swigs of whiskey before going to the restaurant.  Once there I ordered a Gimlet (pictured above).  I ordered a pizza and of course chatted away with TheGirl.  Our waitress tonight was a pretty girl, but TheGirl pointed out that she is usually bartending.  Well, I hope she's a better bartender than waitress, because she took a really long time to get us our drinks.  Even though TheGirl could see them on the bar waiting for us.  TheGirl commented, "There they are, getting watered down." And then, after I finished up my Gimlet in like two swigs, our waitress didn't ask if I wanted another drink.  I mean, what!?  Whatever.  I guess it's OK since we were driving.

Thu Aug 24, The flashbacks continue, thanks to the website that shows me photos taken on this day in the past.  Today I have one of the first photos of Talia that I have.  She agreed to pose for me.  The original isn't in black and white, but I thought it looked good in black and white.  She was cute back then.  That night I drove her back to her house and we sat in my car in her drive way.  I wanted to kiss her, but being a big chicken I didn't.  Thank the maker she made the first move.  She let me finger her that night.  I think she would have had sex with me, but I think I said no because I didn't have a condom.  The way I remember it she didn't care that I didn't, but I cared.

I checked my Glendale work email this morning and found yet another example of how I'm invisible in that system.  We are emailed our schedule for the month in advance.  Well, as you can see above, I don't have any shifts on my schedule.  Yeah... sure.  Just another example of their idiocy and incompetence.  When I say they're tools it's not a strong enough word.  They are horrible.

The route today was not that bad.  As a matter of fact there wasn't that many bins.  It was an easy day, but at the same time I was dying.  I had no energy today.  I felt incredibly tired.  I took an extra long lunch to rest up.  But even then I was still tired by the time I ended the day.  So tired that I decided to take a nap in my car before driving home.  That nap helped a lot.  I felt more awake and better.  As I write this I'm at home feeling tired, but not as much as this afternoon.

My boss at San Marino texted me while I was having lunch about a missing copier key.  The key is a bypass key that allows us to make copies for free for the library.  I did use it yesterday to make copies of the library card registration form.  But I put it back in its place.  But then I was wondering if I put it in my pants pocket and took it home last night.  Despite that thought, I was pretty sure that I didn't take it home.  As you can see from the text exchange I was pretty sure it was T that had it.  She worked the shift after me.  So she would have used the key after me.  Sure enough, it turned out that she had the key.  Junior detective does it again.

Fri Aug 25, The above photo is from way back in 2005, the day I went to CSUN for new student orientation.  I can't believe that was 12 years ago.  That was right at the beginning of the best part of my life.  After having my Grandmother die earlier that year, and having to deal with my "lost" summer, it was good to get started with school.  I wasn't even on campus for two full years, yet that time represents such a wonderful time in my life.  It's continued since then, for damn sure.

Happy to report that the shift today was chill.  I did get some idea about possible changes coming to the desk schedule.  I was talking to the boss, and it seems as though I'm the only one NOT rotating on the schedule on Sundays.  The librarian and the library assistant will be working every other Sunday.  Oh, THAT's going to so work out perfect.  I think I already mentioned that in a previous entry.  But today the boss told me that the new librarian says he can't work weekends or evenings.  Oh, just great.  The fucking application of the job specifically says that it requires working at least one weekend day and possibly evenings.  One evening.  I wanted to say to the boss, "So explain to me how there is going to be a rotating schedule?"  But, I didn't.  I told T the other day that rotating schedules sound great, but they can often end up being a clusterfuck.  Like now.  And of course the rotating shit is now going to affect my Fridays.  It appears that I'll go back to working every other Friday.  Fuck! I don't want to stay home during my Fridays off.  Maybe I will buy an air mattress and take it to work and sleep there for most of the day on my Fridays off. 

AD sent out her weekly shit show of an email to the "troops." Most of it was the usual glad-handing and cheerleading bullshit she does to say that everything isn't doing down the shitter.  Which it is, mind you.  What I want to focus this part of this entry on is a few lines about the ongoing RFID project.  Mind you, I did the math on a previous entry.  So, keep in mind how many books have to be tagged with these chips.  Here are the lines from AD's turd polishing email:

"RFID is in full swing! Thank you Liana, Edgar and Joseph for all their work on this so far! We have completed Reference and have a good chunk of the Global Languages tagged now.  Slow and steady wins the race."

Slow and steady wins the race?  Yeah, sure.  When you have a collection of 500,000 books it's a good idea to go slow and steady.  Again, at a 1,000 books tagged a DAY it would take them 500 days to complete this project.  Conservatively 500 days.  That's including weekends.  Not counting weekends it would probably take TWO FUCKING YEARS to finish tagging every book in that library.  They are NOT tagging 1,000 a day.  Probably not 1,000 a week.  So to have AD crow about the fact that the reference books have been tagged is bullshit.  First, those books don't circulate.  In other words, they don't leave the building.  They are a "captive audience," so to speak.  It's the easiest section to tag.  Also, it's a now small collection of books, thanks to them having been weeded.  Oh... and those books DON'T CIRCULATE.  Why the FUCK are they tagging them with RFID badges?  They're not going to be checked out! I can only think that they did it to waste time, and to have the badge work as a security device.  The old devices inside the books must not work with the new security system.  Brilliant.  And yet that reference collection took three weeks to tag.  The easiest part of the collection to tag took three weeks to complete.  I hope AD chokes on her words.  She's a fucking pain in the ass, and she's incompetent.  Simple as that.

I have a quote that is apropos for AD's email, and it goes a little like this:

"I am beyond their timid, lying morality, and so I am beyond caring."

Sat Aug 26, Today I got to show the new library assistant the "ropes," so to speak.  Why me?  Because, why not me.  Actually, because I know what I'm doing.  But, also because the head honchos don't want to be bothered with such things.  As a coworker said, "They have you do it because they don't want to be bothered with such things." So true.  And they know I'll just do it without saying anything.  That I'll do a good job, and that I'll care.  Yes, they have me pegged.  Still, it was a good shift.  I think.  I may end up working with the new girl on Sunday.  Perhaps every other Sunday.  We shall see.

After work I wanted to treat myself to a good burger.  I went to a place in Pasadena called Super Burger, and as you can see above it's a super burger.  Ha! I ordered a pastrami burger with bacon and some fries.  The burger wasn't the greatest I've ever had, but it really hit the spot.  I should go to this burger joint more often.  They have a good teriyaki burger.  The burger hit the spot, but it was fucking hot out today.

When I got home I went straight to bed.  Food is like a sleeping pill to me these days.  But also the heat.  Now that I think about it, I should have left work earlier and had the burger and doubled back to work to be in the A/C.  Oh well.

The campaign to canonize the social worker at Glendale continues.  Syco has sent out at least four emails asking us all to relay any stories we had about the social worker, who I'll call Santa Maria.  Look, she's a nice lady, and seems to be doing something at the library.  What I resent is this constant push by these dummies to make her sound like she's saving the world.  She's doing her job.  Good.  That's more than I can say for most of those dopes.  How about putting me on the online schedule?  Huh?  Here is a quote from an email sent today by stupid Syco.

"The California State Library will be paying for Santa Maria to stay with us until September 30.  She will then have a short, well-deserved vacation from September 14 to September 28.  After September, we hope to convert her to a part-time Glendale employee."

Ah... she's going to be paid until the 30th, but for nearly two weeks of that time she's going to be out on vacation?  So it's a fucking paid vacation?  Where is the justice in that?  This job has become a circus, filled with clowns.  And, as usual, everyone there can eat shit.

Mon Aug 28, The social media feed at Glendale is fucking bullshit.  Case in point, the above photo.  It's from a FB post.  For some reason these dummies always take a regular photo obviously taken from a cell phone and resize it until it's the size of a postage stamp.  And then of course FB goes ahead and compresses it even more, so it comes out look like ass.  As you can see.  And that's not even to mention that EVERY fucking picture that Benedict takes is from the same fucking angle.  And that every picture taken looks exactly the fucking same! Of course there's NEVER a photo of the "crowd." That's because there isn't a crowd.  These idiots have fucked this entire series up.  One, by having it in the middle of the summer, in the middle of the day.  Two, by cheeping out and not getting a fucking stage and proper equipment.  Three, by not providing any food to go along with the event.  Anything.  Hot dogs, popcorn, ice cream.  Anything! Idiots.

I'm not sure what I think I'm doing, but I went ahead and renewed my Disneyland annual passport for another year.  They gave me a "discount" for renewing early.  It said online that I was getting thirteen months for the price of twelve.  Whatever that means.  I think now that so much of the construction is done that I'll be able to enjoy the park a lot more.  But, at the same time I fear that when I do go it will likely be packed.  That I'm not looking forward to experiencing.

I love Tommy's chili-burger, but a few months ago they changed the soda they sell from Coke to Pepsi.  I really hate the flavor of Pepsi.  Today I was craving a Tommy's burger, but instead of settling for a terrible soda I just took some of the cold tea I had at lunch.  It hit the spot.  Also, no fries.

As is the norm for a Monday I went over to TheGirl's after work and played with puppy.  Cheyenne is playing pretty rough these days.  I mean, rough enough that my right hand and arm always comes away with many scratches and some bite marks.  Nothing major, since I do have tough skin.  Still, she goes nuts.  TheGirl mentioned that Cheyenne never plays like that with her.  Which might be a good thing since TheGirl's skin is pretty thin.

Tue Aug 29, I know I shouldn't be surprised when I open the van doors and see that there are red bins.  Misa thinks that it's not just Benedict being lazy, she thinks it's out of spite.  Well, I have plans for him.  Involving a mallet and his Saturday equipment.  That's all I'll say for now.

And why should I care that he is lazy and doesn't bring the red bins inside the library?  See, it's not specifically that, because of course I can do it very easily.  I shouldn't have to, but that's not a reason.  The reason is he's not doing his job correctly, and the red bins have become a symbol of that.  I found out last week that Benedict is taking the extra bins from the branches in order to probably mess with them and me.  The above is the result.  See, so THIS is what I have a problem with.  He is petty and vengeful.  He always sees himself as the one that was done wrong.  He's not reasonable.  And so he takes bins from the branches so they won't have enough.  Think I need to talk to some of these dopes at the branches about this.  What I did to day was grab a bunch of bins, and it's a good thing since I needed nearly all of them.  Fucking Benedict.  He'll get his.

There was filming at the park I usually have lunch in, so I had to park a little farther into the park and eat on the lawn.  It was OK, but I rather sit on the other part of the park.  Maybe on Thursday.

I did the delivery at Adams fairly quickly, but I lingered because I used the restroom, and because I had to respond to an email from San Marino.  I was about half way done with the email when I see Ru trying to open the door.  I usually have it locked, so she knocked on the window.  I opened the window and she told me that some crazy was in the library.  When I got into the van I turned it on so I could get the A/C running.  Then I started to write my email.  I did look up at some point and see this guy pictured above coming down the sidewalk towards the library.  He was acting strange and seemed to be talking to himself.  I didn't give it a second thought, but then when Ru said "There's a guy talking to himself in the library," I knew it was the same guy.  He was still in the library, she said, and that he had gone in... exited with a DVD in his hand... and then returned.  That's when she came out to get me.  I was talking to Ru and about to go in when he walked out, still talking to himself, but at least not with the DVD.  He continued walking until he crossed the street.  That's when I finally took a picture of him.  And I also took the one of Ru.  Ha.  She is nice.  She was standing close to me today, as if for protection.  Yeah, she can definitely stand closer if she likes.  I joked that this seems to always happen when I come around the library.  Like I'm some sort of magnet for these dummies.  Ha! Maybe.

My final stop I saw Krishna, fresh off her father passing away last week.  I don't know how she maintained her composure.  I even made her laugh a couple of times.  And boy, for some reason I could not stop checking out her legs.  She's not thin, by any means.  But all that flesh looked really good today.  She hasn't mentioned my lunch for taking photos of her son's birthday party a few months ago.  Hmm.  I'm not going to remind her just yet.  But maybe soon.  Hate to say it, but she did look nice today.

Wed Aug 30, Here is a picture of Crowelly, the unofficial library mascot, and his new shark friend.  We don't have a name for the shark, but I wanted to call him Finn.  TheWish wanted to call him Chewy.  I also mentioned the name Chum.  We shall see which name we all pick.

Today I was supposed to show the new library assistant the giant printer and how to use it.  But, for some reason I wasn't told that she wouldn't show up THIS Wednesday, but rather NEXT Wednesday.  I would say it was miscommunication, but I was not told the date, just the hour.  That is not my oversight, that's TheLamp's.  But, TheLamp is pretty, so I'll let it go.

I was entering the employee lounge when I caught a glimpse at who I was pretty sure was the new part time librarian.  Later I came to find out I was right.  She seems pretty, which is always nice.  I guess time will tell if she really is what I saw today.

I went to dinner with TheGirl to a local diner on Riverside Dr.  While there we saw a singer and his entourage.  I'm not going to name the singer, but he had one big single some twenty years ago.  I figured out who he was, but I wasn't quite sure.  It wasn't until we asked out semi-competent waitress who the person was that want into the big Cadillac that we found out that I had guessed right.  Whatever.  I was with TheGirl and Cheyenne.  That's good enough for me.

Thu Aug 31, I woke up and Misa sent me a text asking me to check out my work email.  I did, and what I saw should have turned my stomach.  That is, if I had any feelings left to churn.  You can read the above text, but it's horrible.  Benedict is a HUGE ass kisser... to say the least.  But really this email is a new low for him.  He couldn't help but send the email to the entire library.  He just couldn't help himself coming off like a total douche bag.  I like how he HAS to address this email to AD, when he clearly wrote it for political reasons.  But man, what a total fucking douche.  I can see how he gets away with some things, since he really does know how to lather someone up good.

I like how the email shows that he's mirroring AD's style.  What I mean is that AD also uses exclamation points the end of her sentences.  I mean like nearly every fucking sentence.  And you can see Benedict does the same thing in his email above.  Like I said, he's a good ass kisser.  And this grandstanding email did allow me to see to what extent he is willing to debase himself to get ahead.  Good job, Benedict.

I had this assignment to take some items out of the storage room in the garage.  When I arrived down in the basement level there was one car all by itself.  There were two guys sitting in the front, and to me it looked like one might have been blowing the other guy.  OK, whatever.  It's not like I didn't have my fun in a car in that parking lot as well.  But, when I got out of the van I could smell the distinct odor of marijuana in the air.  Within a few moments the car started and then drove away.  Whatever.  I'm not the cops.  You can keep smoking out and blowing each other for all I care.

I went to the city garage to have the van cleaned today.  Something I've been wanting to do for the last couple of weeks.  But, it wasn't until today that I was able to go in and get it cleaned.  I should say that I cleaned it, because the regular crew that cleans the city vehicles wasn't there yet.  I took it upon myself to clean up the van.  The poor thing needed a nice wash, and I gave it.  It's the least I could do.

Once again, bad stacking causes problems.  No one seems to know how to stack books in the bins.  Not that the system as a whole was all that great at doing this.  But these days it seems somehow more horrible.  This literally looks like someone dumped the books into the bin without care at all.  I tried showing Achee this morning how horrible the bins situation was.  But I did it in order to establish that I do this for EVER STOP I make on the route.  That's all I wanted to do.  I know the situation isn't going to improve.

On my way home tonight I hit the 125,000 mile mark on my car.  This is not the most I've driven a car, but it's certainly a lot of miles, considering that I've had the car for just over six years.

Went out to dinner at Bob's Big Boy and could not resist taking a picture of the neon sign.

I went to Forman's Tavern for dinner and had a really tasty Manhattan.

I went out to Bob's Big Boy for dinner and the sky was looking really nice reflected on the big windows.