The first month of 2018 has gone by super fast.  A lot has happened this month, and here's the update.

Mon Jan 1, 2018, Last week and this I was lucky enough to have three days off thanks to the holidays and work closures.  Today is the last day of that second three day weekend.  Tomorrow I get back to work.  Thankfully I don't have to get up as early as last week since I won't be going to Pasadena in the morning.  I will lose some hours, but I'm sure I can make it up somehow.

My aunt asked me what I wanted for breakfast.  I told her and a few moments later she came back into my room to ask if I wanted to go to IHOP instead.  I told her yes, but I had to shower first.  In a little while we were at the IHOP.  The place was packed, but since we were only two people my aunt got us a table almost immediately.  I somewhat mention this because there are always some pretty women eating there or working there.  There's one girl behind the counter that's very cute.  And like me, who has to be friendly to the public, she's been generally friendly to me.  Not THAT friendly, but she is cute.

Tue Jan 2, Yes, it's back to the grind today.  But at least I got to sleep in a little longer.  See, I don't have to start work until 9am these days.  Which means a little bit of extra sleep in the mornings.  Only a little.  And with the brats still being out of school the commute to work was one of the fastest I've ever experienced.  I mean I was in Glendale in less than twenty-five minutes.  That's nuts.  I sometimes don't even get to the 134 freeway in twenty-five minutes.  I best enjoy it now, because come next week it's back to the traffic grind.

Pasadena took over today.  It was a fairly smooth transition to them taking over.  The Pasadena driver arrived just before I was going to leave, so I was able to help him with the bins.

And since I didn't have to drive to Pasadena, and because there was no money to take the treasury department I was making really good time this morning.  In a word, I was flying through the route.  I took the above photo just past 10:30am and I was already heading towards my first branch stop.  I'm usually there another hour later.  I usually heat up my lunch at this branch, but today it was too early to think of eating.  It's kinda amazing how taking the whole aspect of going to Pasadena saves time.

Since everything gets pushed back, including my lunch, I had lunch at a place I haven't had lunch in for at least two years.  Probably more.  I had lunch at Grandview today.  I regularly used to have lunch and a nap at Grandview, back in the day.  But with the renovation and then the silly hours imposed by MicroManager, I haven't had the opportunity to eat lunch there.  But today the timing worked.  It worked so well that I had the building all to myself the entire time I had lunch.  I left and no one was coming around yet.  That's awesome!  I'm definitely going to like having a lunch period alone while inside.  Eating in the park is cool, but it's going to get hot soon.

From Grandview on there are only three more branches and one stop at the fire department.  I figured I had plenty of time to finish those four stops and still finish up by 3pm today.  Sure enough, right on time.  But then I thought about how I'm shortchanging myself.  At this point I'll be about eight hours less per week compared to last week when I was starting at 8am.  Sucks.  Maybe there's something I can do to add at least an hour to the day.  We shall see.  For now the big question isn't my hours, it's whether Benedict is true to his word that he quit last week without telling them upstairs.  The story, as the security guard that talks to Benedict said, is that Benedict told him he was bouncing.  Again, we shall see.  I don't trust Benedict as far as I can throw him.

Last, but not least, for today is a picture of Talia from 2004.  Way back when we were seeing each other.  Wow, that seems like so many years ago now.  She was pretty back then.

Wed Jan 3, I haven't been to San Marino in a week.  Because of the holidays I didn't work on Sunday or Monday of this week.  But I did check up on them via the cameras in the library.  The last day I noticed that two of the cameras were off line.  I went to one of them to see if I could reset it.  Before I could someone tells me, "There's no power at the reference desk."  Well, that's the reason why the camera wasn't working, but why the second camera, and why just the reference desk.  The new analyst had the plans for the building and he was going to check the circuits.  Apparently none of the breakers in the main breaker room were off.  Later he found a panel in the friend's bookshop.  That fixed the problem, but not before TheLamp was having to answer questions at the circulation desk for about an hour.  I was glad the problem was fixed.

I had work to do, but most of that was not done because I was talking to pseudo supervisor.  It's cool.  I did some work this weekend.  Still, it was time for lunch and I went upstairs and ate and then had my after lunch nap.  Gee, it feels good.

My buddy and I were talking yesterday and we came to the conclusion that Benedict would not show up to work today.  Even though I knew he wouldn't, I had a tiny doubt that he would be so dumb.  Of course he is THAT dumb, because he called out .  Here is the short, but sweet, email from Keyvon.

Good morning:
There will be no deliveries today because of an absentee.  We will resume deliveries tomorrow.
Sorry for the inconvenience. Keyvon

Benedict is such a fucking douchebag.  I'm absolutely sure that he wasn't sick today.  He just called out to fuck with the library.  Benedict has called out more times in ONE year than I have in nearly ten years at the library.  I think one time he mentioned how his pipes burst, so that has become the running joke with my buddy and me.  We simply mock the excuse for being so lame.  Because it's always something with this guy.  You can't trust that he isn't just being a dope and calling out because he has another job, or out of spite.  Whatever!

After work I had dinner with TheGirl.  She told me that she was going to walk Cheyenne and that we would go out to dinner without her.  Poor thing.  But this did give us a chance to try out a place we've been wanting to go for a while, Little Toni's.  I had a craving for Italian, but I also wondered if this place was living on their old reputation.  In a word, no.  It's has some damn good food.  I ordered a lasagna and a lemon drop.  Both were really good.  And the lasagna was huge.  I only finished about a third of it.  That's OK, I'll have it for lunch tomorrow I'm sure.  The sauce is what made the meal for me.  It was nice and thick and really tasty.  I will definitely want to go back there again some time soon.  We were waited on by this kindly older lady named Barbara.  She was super sweet, and that also made for a great experience.

Thu Jan 4, When I arrived at work this morning I expected to see a lot of bins.  Sure enough, I had a mountain of bins going out today, thanks to Benedict calling out yesterday.  When I finally finished loading the van I had to triple stack some of the bins in order to get them to fit into the van.  It was nuts.  I don't think I've ever had the van that packed.  Even in the early days of the renovation, that little extra amount that forced me to stack three high today was extraordinary.  But, what can you do?  When dummy doesn't show up to do his job after a long weekend there's going to be a huge pile of books.  I just had a thought about Benedict missing work yesterday.  Last week was the same as this week, in which the bulk of the week's deliveries fall on a Wednesday.  Because of the time off this weekend, and the branches taking Tuesday to catch up, Wednesday becomes the day when there are a lot of bins to be delivered.  I now wonder if Benedict didn't call out on purpose to NOT have to do all that work.

AD was lurking in circulation this morning.  I never see her down there.  There was a reason, she was down stairs to check out the new self-checkout machines (pictured above).  I went up to one of them and said to myself, "Already obsolete."  None of the technology these fools buy ever works.  The old self-checkout machines work OK, but that's not saying much.  These new machines will be a total failure.  The new scanner/printer machines don't work.  And now they're talking about some wifi based communication system that on first sight seemed to me like another pipe dream technology.  Sure enough, I got the skinny from the internet and a coworker that used it.  She said that the thing failed half the time, and that the only thing that it was good for was to locate her supervisor so she could avoid them.  Awesome!

FireGirl and I made a joke about some interdepartmental mail envelopes that were waiting at graphics in city hall for her and whether Benedict would deliver them to her.  Sure enough, since he called out they weren't delivered to her until today... by me.  Today I went around calling Benedict "Mr. Unreliable" to everyone.  Because he flat out isn't reliable.  Someone on the route pointed out that a patron was complaining about their book not arriving yet.  When they checked the computer it said that it was in transit.  Sure enough, it was in the delivery today, which was mostly from yesterday.  Again, completely unreliable.

The rest of the route after Brand was pretty standard.  It's funny that my final two stops are some of the least popular branches in terms of delivery.  Which makes me question their circulation as well.  The bulk of any delivery I make is usually to Montrose, Casa and Brand.  The other library branches are also-rans.  Which means after I'm done delivering to Brand the route is generally all down hill, so to speak, from there.  Today was no different.  Brand had about a dozen bins today.  So after dropping those off the remaining bins were only a few.  Whew!

And then on my second to last stop I saw Ru.  She came back from her leave time yesterday, but of course I didn't drive yesterday.  She looked really good.  It doesn't look like she was sick.  She didn't give a reason as to why she went on leave.  Oh well, it was just nice to see her again.  She was quite active when I was there.  Another girl at the branch was looking super good today as well.  This other girl was wearing the tightest pants I've ever seen her in.  In profile her body looked crazy nice.  *sigh*

Fri Jan 5, I went into work expecting fewer bins today, and sure enough there were fewer bins.  What I didn't expect was my coworker telling me about the broken countertop in the bathroom.  We went in there and sure enough the second faucet had a big crack running through it on the countertop.  It clearly shows that someone pulled the faucet and the force of that broke the countertop.  This is why we can't have nice things.  Amazing.

Speaking of amazing, Benedict came into work.  He had his sunglasses on while I was at the safe getting the delivery money out.  He didn't say anything, but when I turned around I told him, "Hope you're feeing better."  He just grunted.  Whatever, dude!  A moment later I overheard him tell one of our coworkers that he had to leave early tonight.  What a guy.  I didn't say anything to him after that.

There's an attractive red head that works in the city hall complex.  I see her once in a while.  Today I saw her in the hall.  I've tried to say hi to her, but she never responds.  She probably sees something in me and says to herself, "No way."  Ha!  Well, today I saw her as I was exiting the building and returning to the van.  Again, no interaction.  Not that I stand a chance with this woman in any way, but it would be nice if just once she acknowledged me.  Oh well.

As I got ready to get out on the road one of the monitors comes up to me and starts talking to me about the page queen.  More on that another day.  Right after that she mentions, "MicroManager is officially retired."  I was not surprised.  I was expecting that for some time, but I guess now that it's official it's not that big of a deal.  My coworkers and I have been saying for a while that we didn't think MicroManager would be back.  Hell, I started saying it last year.  In short, the news that MicroManager had retired was anticlimactic.

While I was driving from one branch to another I drove by Descanso gardens, which is where TheGirl and I are going to be for the light show.

I brought some lentil soup with me for lunch, but I was really getting hungry with all the bins I had to haul today.  I decided to get a burger to supplement my soup.  Both hit the spot today.  It was also nice to eat in the park again.

Once again after visiting Brand the rest of the route just fell into place.  Before I knew it I was back at Central, where I dropped off all the bins and ran out of Dodge.  No need to talk to anyone at that point.  I saw Benedict, and even thought about going up to him and talking to him for a moment.  But then I said, "Fuck that shit," and went straight to my car and drove home. When I got home I ate some food and even though I didn't think I was tired I passed out.  I woke up and felt a little achy.  I then went to bed to just chill and I think I passed out for a little while.

Sat Jan 6, Tonight I went to Descanso Gardens with TheGirl to see this thing called "Enchanted: Forest of Light."  We checked this out last year, and I liked it so much that I wanted to do this again.  Good thing I bought the tickets months ago, because the whole thing sold out soon after.  Here are some pictures from tonight.

We went up to the big sign and I was about to take a self-portrait of TheGirl and me when a woman comes up and says, "Oh, let me do that."  She was nice enough to take our picture.

This photo was taken in the rose garden.  It was one of my favorite stops this time around, and totally different from what was displayed in this area.

This photo looks over from the rose garden to the lake, where there were lights installed on the other side that shine across the lake.  There's even a controller that allows patrons to move the lights.

I liked the pattern made by the lights in the rose garden.  The looked cool straight on, but the patterns on the ground looked great as well.

This area in a grove of oak trees looked pretty cool.  And the thing that this photo illustrates isn't just about the lights, but about how few people there were.  As we were leaving the grounds I did see that there was a long line of cars coming in to see the lights.  It would seem that most people booked their tickets for later in the night.

This path light is way different than the lights that were in this area last year.  Last year there were circles that would change colors when stepped on. This year it was a path, and the pattern of light changes seemed to be more random than last year.  It was a cool change.

The last section was in the Japanese garden, where last year and this there was placed many, many paper lanterns glowing in red.  TheGirl loved this section the most, and said that at one point she felt very tranquil.  That is until some dope came up to take a selfie right in front of her view.  Yeah, at least she got that moment.

The lights were great.  So much so that I do expect to check them out again next year.

Sun Jan 7, The weather people said that we are supposed to get some rain on Monday.  It shouldn't have been a surprise to see the sky overcast today, but it was still a surprise.  Mainly because at that moment I didn't remember that it was supposed to rain tomorrow.

My aunt goes to visit my Godmother on Sundays, usually.  This Sunday she was going to visit her.  In the morning she asked me what I wanted for breakfast, so I naturally told her what I wanted.  She comes to me later and says, "Why don't we just go to IHOP?  I'm good with that.  Today they sat us in a different area behind the scenes, so to speak.  I could see that cute hostess at lot from where we were seated.  It's nice, she's cute.  Seeing her makes my morning.

There's a new soda vending machine in the library's lobby.  The thing is good in a way, but there are also a few negatives.  One negative is that the thing is loud.  I joked that it sounded like a plane was taking off.  It's not THAT bad, but it sure contributes to the din.  Also, the sodas cost $2.  No thanks, I have my own sodas in my office.  But, I will say that in a pinch it's a good back-up to me forgetting my Cokes, or running out.

T asked me just after opening if I wanted something from Veggie Grill.  I told her it was a bit early, but she pointed out that they take about two hours to deliver the food.  That would be perfect then, since I would be hungry by then.  I told her to order me a Buffalo bomber sandwich, which is faux chicken covered with Buffalo wing sauce.  It's super yummy, but not too spicy.  It's my favorite meal at Veggie Grill.

The library is using a new cleaning crew and they suck.  These are just a few of the trash bins that were not emptied last night.  I checked the cameras and they didn't even show up.  But this trash isn't something that happened overnight.  No, this is several night's that these dopes haven't emptied out the trash.  I wrote an email to the analyst upstairs, because he emailed all of us to tell us about the new cleaning crew, and to check if they were doing the job correctly.  Well, they're not.

Mon Jan 8, Today is the first day of school after the winter break for my cousin's kids.  Of course they all had to come in yelling BEFORE 7am.  I mean what the holy fuck?  Because I start work a little later these days, this showing up at 7am or earlier is fucking bullshit.

Whoever designed Chan got it just right.  He has such a great little face.  And he's just cute all around.  I've seen other stuffed monkey's, but none of them have made me feel like Chan does.  Hims a good monkey.  And he's cute.

In just over two weeks we're celebrating the tenth anniversary of the library at San Marino.  All our efforts have been focused on that event.  So right now it's go time to get my projects on the final stage.  I've been good, and steady, doing my job the last few weeks.  I even worked on this stuff during the holiday break.  Had to.  I knew I wouldn't have time to finish otherwise.  Well, today pseudo supervisor showed all the stuff I've been working on to the Foundation board president.  She liked it.  This week will be about finalizing all of it.  Woo!

Tue Jan 9, It rained today while I was on the route.  Nothing new there, but here's the story.  It rained pretty hard last night, but the story was that it wouldn't rain as much during the day.  But, there were times when it really came down.  When I loaded up the van it wasn't raining, thankfully.  On my way to Montrose the sun was behind me, and it looked really nice (see above).  When I took this picture it was the last time I saw the sun today during the route.  It peeked out just before I got home though.

After leaving Montrose and before I got to Casa is when the sky opened up.  It came down in sheets while I drove to Casa.  The picture of the wash above shows that it was pretty dry, but I could see a bit of the water start to come down.  Just after I took that picture it really came down.  That lasted for about ten minutes.  When I got to Casa it was subsiding.

Despite the rain I was running the route at a rather good pace.  When I got to Grandview I was hungry and it was just past noon.  When I arrived it was perfect, no one was there.  Last week my plans for a solo lunch were thwarted by the fact that two coworkers were there.  But thankfully today no one was there.  THAT made my lunch.  The timing has to be just right or I don't get a nice solo lunch these days.  And I do love my lunches to be uninterrupted.

My left foot was feeling a bit wet during the route.  Especially after it was coming down really hard and I was at Casa putting the bins in the van.  By the time I was having lunch I could really feel the water coming up.  When I arrived at Brand it felt like I was stepping on a wet sponge.  I've been putting off buying some new boots, but after today I can't skip on this.  My foot was not OK with being wet all day.

The route was pretty nuts today, what with my foot being totally soaked and the rain.  But, my work wasn't done after being done.  Operation Chummy is a name Vagabundo came up to explain my plan to be friendly with a lot of the dopes at the library that can get some things done.  Like AD, Keyvon, and Mala.  It's important to counter Backdoor Benedict's influence there by being the counter to his stupidity.  By doing the job right, and without drama is the first step.  Well, that's what I've been doing anyway.  Two, being able to have a working line of communication with these managers.  Coming in like a bull in a China shop, like Benedict does, isn't going to do me any good.  Thankfully that's not my style.  I'm in my first steps, but I do plan on ingratiate myself to the likes of AD.  I know, it's horrible, but there has to be sacrifices made for the greater good.

When I got to my car I couldn't wait to get my boots off and dry off my left foot.  My right foot was fine.  It was nearly bone dry.  But my poor left foot was all wet (as shown above).  I dried it as much as I could and didn't put on my shoes until I got home.  The heat from the heater helped dry off what I couldn't with the paper towels.  My poor foot was in water nearly the entire day.  The good thing is that my drive home wasn't too bad.  Until the end, when I was exiting the freeway.  Some idiot nearly sideswiped me.  But, at least I was home.

Wed Jan 10, The library hired new maintenance people.  They're horrible.  Ever since they started working on "cleaning" the library pseudo supervisor's trash hasn't been emptied out.  It's been over a week.  I finally just tossed the trash out myself this morning after I arrived.  My trash can still has trash from last week as well.  It's not OK.  I wrote the analyst upstairs about this and he said he has emailed the company.  Yeah, but this was something that was emailed about earlier in the week, and they STILL haven't cleaned up the trash.  And it's not only in my office, it was also the outside trash can by the front door.  It was overflowing with trash.  ARGH!

I'm sure that I've written about this girl in the past, but I'm not entirely sure.  At my San Marino job there's a pretty Latina that I see studying.  She didn't come in for a while, but now she's back nearly every day I'm there.  She was there today.  She's cute, and it would be nice to start up an actual conversation with her, instead of just passing by her table as she listens to to something on her headphones and writes on a small whiteboard.  Oh well.

TheGirl walks Cheyenne in and around Toluca Lake, where we often eat dinner.  On one of her walks she noticed that a place we went to for dinner had closed and had reopened as a vegan restaurant.  Tonight we decided to try it out.  I have to say that what I ordered was pretty good.  Not amazing, but really good.  TheGirl's pasta was a bland.  She asked for some pepper to "enhance" it a bit.  Even after that it wasn't all that much better.  Like I said, mine was good.  Would I go back?  Sure.  Next time I would try something other than pasta.  I will say that most of the dishes seemed to be pasta based.  But there were some things on the menu that are not pastas.  If and when we go again I'm going to try something like that.

Thu Jan 11, There isn't much to mention about the route today.  It was pretty standard.  I only have one really big thing to report on, and that's TheDesire showing up at Central.

Upon returning to Central I had to take a present to Mala from her former branch.  I went upstairs to her office and sitting in her office was TheDesire with her son.  TheDesire got up and gave me a hug.  I'm not going to lie, I liked her scent.  She wasn't wearing perfume or anything.  She is fatter than I remember her back in the day, but still nice.  Anyway, she told me that she's definitely looking forward to coming back and that hopefully they will give her a promotion.  I think they will, but they have to keep it hush hush.  It was nice to see TheDesire after so long.  And it was good to see her as a friend.

Fri Jan 12, The Pasadena driver has been hoping to lobby Glendale to have us change our delivery bins.  I want to champion the effort on our side of the equation.  As part of Operation Chummy I think this project will not only get us good bins for delivery, but it will show the upstairs dopes that I'm not just a dopey driver.  Although, maybe I don't want them to know that I'm not just a dopey driver.  Anyway, pictured above are the bins as they nest and stack.  The plastic that these are made of is much tougher than the ones we have now.  Not only that, the bins are made to stack on top of each other.  This without having the bins touch the items inside.  There are little food rests that the bins sit on when properly oriented.  Oriented the opposite way and they nest, aka they store easily without having to take up too much space.  I plan on working on a proposal over the weekend and giving it to Syco next week.  I think this is a great move, and will ultimately help on delivery.

After going into the city hall complex I came back and some dummy parked super close behind me.  When I parked the van before going into city hall I had this fear that someone would park super close to me.  I didn't think it would be a delivery truck, but of course my premonition was correct.  ARGH!  I was able to get out, thankfully, but not without having to move back and forth at least four times.  Dammit!

I've featured photos of this girl from work.  She's one of the new pages and I think she's wonderful.  Today her thighs looked incredible.  That is all.

I didn't forget, but there was no room for it anywhere else so I'll say it now.  After Chevy I went to Pasadena to pick up some books for an event next week.  Then I drove back to Montrose to drop off their delivery.  And to ogle that pretty page I just posted a picture of.  After that I had lunch in the park.  I hit Casa and Grandview quick.  Then Brand.  I was kinda dreading Brand, because I had to pick up some instruments in order to then take them back to Chevy.  I thought they were the huge lot of instruments that TheDesire bought years ago.  But, thankfully it was just a handful of instruments.  I quickly went to my last two stops and went up to Chevy.

As I said, the amount of instruments going to Chevy wasn't that many.  I was grateful for that.  But even going to Chevy couldn't be easy.  On my way up on Chevy Chase there was a big accident next to the hospital that blocked my way.  I had to double back and go around the long way.  Thankfully the mess was nearly cleaned up when I was on my way back.

After finishing up the route Benedict came up to me to say hello.  He told me that Keyvon is still on his ass about things.  I told him that we've all had to go through a lot of stuff there.  He told me, "I don't know how you've done this job for so long."  I'm not sure how I've done this job for so long either.  He repeated that as soon as he finds another job he's leaving.  Look, I don't hate the guy.  I just want him to do his work.  Simple as that.  Just do the route the right way.  Don't be mopey.  It's not easy, since I have had moments at that job that have made me just want to run.  But I need the money, and what else am I qualified to do?  I go out there and give it my all and get paid.  No ego, no anything.  Just work and go home.  I'm too old for the drama.

Sat Jan 13, I wanted to show the hole on the bottom of my work boot that let in all the water on Tuesday.  Yeah, that's it.  Of course my shoe felt like a sponge, it was a sponge.  With every step I was soaking up more water.

I'm so glad that I bought new boots.  Too bad they're not going to arrive before next week.  I'll have to wear my hiking boots until then.  Sucks.

Sun Jan 14, I took this picture of Chan last night as hims was "getting ready for bed."  I think I see Chan as really alive sometimes.  Like I think I see little movements in there somewhere that I know is just me projecting.  Hims is a cute stuffed monkey though.

My aunt and I went to the Honeybaked store in Toluca Lake for breakfast today.  I was craving a burger, but I wasn't sure if I should get a burger.  Maybe next time.  I ordered a Reuben sandwich instead.  It was good, but big, and served with a lot of fries.  I liked.  I ate the leftovers for dinner.

I dropped off my aunt at my Godmother's place and went on my merry way to work.  Work was busier than I expected.  I was hoping with the MLK weekend that some people would just think we were closed.  Wrong!  It was actually quite busy, but thankfully not super busy.  Still, I didn't want to be there today.  I'm pretty tired of working Sundays.  Ironically I hate it because it's my shortest day at work.  It's only a four hour shift, but it's right smack in the middle of the day.  It ruins any kind of plans that I may have.  And I always have to ask for it off when I want to go on a trip.  Fuck!

Mon Jan 15, Most dopes had today off for Dr. Martin Luther King day.  Not this dummy, because the city of San Marino doesn't celebrate MLK day.  But, in lieu of that the library still closed for a "staff training" day.  This is the same rouse they use every year to say we're closed.  In other years it's been a bit of a waste, but at least sometimes we actually learn something.  A few years back, including last year, we would do our CPR recertification on this staff day.  But this year we hit a new low.  This year we did some stupid survey that told us what "color" we are.  Ah, what?  It was some stupid personality test that told us what we were.  But, because I skipped some of the questions I didn't get any results.  What a load of shit.  The new city manager, who is a human sleeping pill, talked and talked and talked about the different "colors" and what that meant.  ARGH!  It was super boring.  But extra boring, because I didn't have any results.  At least I could have laughed at the results.  As it was I was falling asleep at the end of her presentation.  Boring!

Before all that color fun we had a short staff meeting.  That was pointless as well.  You could tell that they didn't have anything good for the "staff day," so they just made up a bunch of bullshit.

After our color survey thing, and during our "policy review" part, we learned how to shelve books.  OMG, do we REALLY need this?  Anyone worth their salt there should know this shit.  Anyone that doesn't know should be thrown out on the streets.  There are some dopes that don't do things right, no matter what.  These dopes may have a chance to change, but for the most part they are going to remain bad workers.  Simple as that.  A five minutes shelving refresher isn't going to reform these dopes.  Again, such a waste of time.

During our lunch period I didn't go get any pizza.  Instead I needed to take a nap, thanks to the city manager and her color survey talk.  You can tell she likes hearing herself talk.  ARGH!  Not OK in my book.  I finally got to see her in action and I have to tell you that it doesn't fill me with confidence that she's going to do right by the library, or anyone else that works for that city, for that matter.  She's a big phony.

After a little work I did on the graphic novels I got out of Dodge and went over to TheGirl's.  She said something about maybe getting a margarita.  I didn't have anything in my belly, and it was relatively early, so I was thinking it wasn't a bad idea.  But when I texted her she didn't mention it, so I thought that she didn't want to go.  I then went to get some fast food and after that visited her.  I left early and got home fairly early.  It was a long, boring and pointless work day.  I should have just boycotted the entire thing.  But, at least they paid me to waste my time today.

Tue Jan 16, The bookdrops were packed this morning.  On a long weekend like we had there are times when someone comes out and empties the bins in order to not have what we had this morning... packed bookdrops.  I helped empty them, because at the end of it all there were four trucks full of books from the bookdrops.  That's a lot of books.

Today's route was pretty chill.  I'm sure most of the books will show up tomorrow for good old Benedict to have to deal with.  I'm OK with that.

When I get to my last two stops it's usually like a fucking fashion show of cute girls.  Not that the other branches don't have nice girls, but the last two stops have some of the prettiest.  Today it was Ru, MR (for lack of a better name), Serina, and TheNice.  They're all so nice in their own way.  The newest is MR.  She super cute.  Or maybe I'm just a dirty old man, past his prime, lusting after younger girls.  Who knows.

The back lock on the van was not working today.  Not only that, it was making a strange sound whenever I tried to unlock the van.  When it was locking it was fine.  But unlocking was another story.  I tried a few things, but nothing seemed to work.  I think I'll have to take it into the garage later this week.

Wed Jan 17, The BIG open house celebration fo the library is quickly coming up.  It's now go time, down to the wire, and all that jazz.  This is when I'm busy doing projects.  I have so many little projects on my plate.  Posters mainly, but also some handouts and mailers.  Oh and the bookmarks, I can't forget the bookmark contest winners.  After January 27th I can cruise a bit.  Good times.  Until then, it's every day with me.

My coworker Lilah is going away.  She said six months, but she also said it could be longer.  And who knows if she'll come back to the library when she does return.  You would think that she would definitely be back if she wanted to come back, since she's such a great worker.  But who knows with these dopes.  I told Lilah that we have to remain "pen pals."  I am going to make an effort with this one.

These days dinner with TheGirl turns into a walk down memory lane.  It always happens when we have some drinks.  Since we went to get Mexican food, and with that food some margaritas, we went down that memory lane again.  Also, we are just over a month away from our trip up to Carmel.  So we spoke of that tonight.  We have no idea what we're going to do, but I've done some research.  She has been busy moving things at work into boxes, because her office is moving.  In a couple of weeks she's going to be in a new office.

Thu Jan 18, For some reason my cousin's kid's STILL come SUPER early in the morning to school.  School starts at 8am, but that means that they should be there at least ten minutes beforehand.  To be on time, I guess, my cousin's kids show up fifty-five minutes before they have to show up.  If that were true then they wouldn't be leaving the house fifteen to eight.  They would be leaving about twenty to eight.  But, what do I know?  I'm not a father.  All I know is that I just want to have those extra free minutes in the morning where I can get ready for work.  That is too much to ask.

I've been lucky enough in a few of the last few route days that I've been able to have a lunch without disturbance at Grandview.  Of course I couldn't count on that for too long.  A fellow employee showed up just as I was finishing up my meal.  I count on these dopes not to show up in order to have a little bit of freedom during the day.  Of course, since everything in my life is an obstacle, there is no way that I could have a full hour to myself.

There's a lady that I visit once a month at a rest home.  The last time I went to visit her I was told she was in the hospital.  I went today to see if she was back and the people there told me she was living in another place.  Thankfully they remembered where she was and I went over there to look for her and our books.  I found both.  Poor woman needs help.  I let her use my phone to call her daughter in Pasadena.  Poor thing is living out of boxes.  She didn't even know the name of the facility she was in.  I had a thought that I need to make a truckload of money so that I won't end up like this.

One of the consequences of the bathroom countertops being broken is that water is dripping onto the floor.  There was a pretty good size puddle on the floor.  Of course nothing has been done to fix the damn thing.  Whatever!

Fri Jan 19, I was paid yesterday, but when I went to my local bank to use the ATM machine there was nowhere for me to park.  Since I was tired, I figured I could just to this morning and get some money out of the ATM by work.  There's a market that has an ATM machine close by.  Easy, right?  Wrong.  I've been there so many times only to find that the damn machine isn't working, or doesn't have any money in it.  Today, same thing.  I put my card in and the ATM and I see that the scene says no withdrawals.  I mean come on.  Why even have this fucking ATM?  I was pretty early for work, so I ended up going to another market (pictured above) to withdraw some money.  ARGH!  This shouldn't be THAT hard.  I guess I could have waited until tomorrow, when I go into San Marino for a special extra work day.  But, I needed the cash now.  My car was low on fuel, and I had plans for tonight.

Even though I'm not even on the clock yet, I have decided to attend the morning meeting in order to get some face time with AD.  I think it's important to show that I'm a "good worker," because she seems to value that sort of fake shit.  I do the work, but now I have to play this game.  Whatever.  She mentioned that the sorting machine that I call Cerberus is going to be FINALLY turned on on Monday.  After that on Tuesday they will "train" us on how to use it.  There is so much wrong with that fucking machine that I don't even know where to start.  One, it is meant to solve a problem we didn't have.  This thing does one thing, it rough sorts books into bins.  That's it.  It doesn't solve world hunger, or even cut our workload all that much.  It's pretty much useless.  But, the administration dopes sell it to us as it was sold to them at some conference... as some kind of magic bullet that will make all our lives easier.  Bullshit it will.  Nothing about this sorting machine is thought out.  It's a million dollar paperweight that will fail.  It's only going to create MORE work for us.  Which actually might be a good thing, because I'm sure the idea was that it was going to be let loose on the library and it would solve all the problems we have.  Nope, it will actually have to be attended to as if it were a human baby, with near constant attention and guessing to what's wrong with it now.

On Tuesday's route I found at the end of it that the back door lock on the van was not working.  It was making a strange noise, but it was not unlocking.  I went to the city garage to see if they could do something about it.  The bad news is that the one mechanic there was all alone.  He told me that it was best to return next week, but then he tried to fix it.  He took the panel off and sprayed some WD-40 on the parts.  Just then a police squad car pulled up and the officer behind the wheel tells the mechanic that he needed a new tire.  The mechanic leaves me with the open panel to help out the cops.  I don't mind, because he was already telling me to return next week since he was the only mechanic on duty.  I button up the panel and tell him I'll be back next week.  Meanwhile, the door was working about 75% of the time after he lubricated it.  Not perfect, but serviceable.

The pretty page that is currently on my radar was at Montrose today.  Later in the day I heard from her cousin that TheRose doesn't like working at Montrose any more.  I talked to her for a little bit.  I think that she likes me.  Whatever that ultimately means.  I don't think she's going to be going out with me on a date, but I think she likes talking to me.  I know I like talking to her.

This morning I woke up not knowing what I was going to have for lunch.  My aunt asked me what I wanted for dinner as I was looking to make my lunch for today.  There was nothing in the fridge that appealed to me.  This is why I took a can of chili that I have on top of the fridge for situations like this.  I went and bought some bread at the Trader Joe's across from the Montrose library and then went to the park to have lunch.  Thankfully it wasn't raining then.  It was cool, but not too bad.  There was no wind, so that kept me from getting too cold.

The route today was gloomy, but only because of the weather.  It was actually not bad work wise.  I finished faster than I have normally finished lately.  I'm glad that it didn't rain on me much today.  I did get some sprinkles, but nothing major.

I had planned to go to dinner with my coworker from San Marino, Shawnie.  I texted her last night and she said she was looking forward to it.  But, when it came down to go time tonight she told me that she had to do something else.  I was looking forward to tonight's dinner.  But, I don't really have time for this sort of stuff.  I will definitely try not to ask her to reschedule.  I like her, but I don't have time for this.

Sat Jan 20, I had to go into work today in order to finish up a lot of things needed for next week's open house.  I got a lot done, which is great.  Of course it came at the cost of my off day, but it also means money.  Money that I need, especially after the paychecks representing the time off during the holidays were so small.  One of my San Marino checks was just over $200.  I mean come on, I could barely pay for my car insurance with that.

Because I was at work on a Saturday I ran into TheLamp.  I have to say, she sure looks good these days.  Yes, I've said it many times, I'm a horn dog.  I lust after almost any pretty girl I see.  But that does mean pretty, and TheLamp is looking really good these days.  It's also nice to have a little brush up here and there.  Nothing major, just that our shoulders brushed up against each other.  I definitely have a thing for her, because I felt a nice little spark go up my spine when that happened.  *sigh* Alas, she brings up her fella to me now all the time.  She openly wondered about the things he does, but really that just means she loves him.

Sun Jan 21, I bought a smart phone in order to give it to my aunt so I could track her movements while she's out of the house.  I worry about her, so sue me.  Last week her phone didn't work the way it should have, which meant I couldn't tell where she was.  This week I wasn't going to let that happen.  I'm even considering switching apps to track her better.  I tend to use this OK app along with the Android find a phone app.  Both together usually work.  Now if I could only rely on one of them working when the other didn't then I'd be set.

The pretty patron showed up again today.  A buddy of mine says I should ask her out already, but of course I say it's not that easy.  It's not.  I'm also chicken.  I'll probably end up asking her out to eat in a clumsy way.  It may work, but even if she does go out with me for a meal it doesn't mean she's going to want to sleep with me.  And yes, that's the goal.

My aunt said this morning that we should have dinner somewhere.  One, because since I brought pizza yesterday and we ate pizza leftovers for breakfast.  And two, because she had been paid for something, and she had money.  I was good with that.  I used the GPS tracker to see that she was close to home as I approached home on my way from work and I called her to have her get off the bus by the restaurant (pictured above).  I haven't been there in a long time.  The meal hit the spot, for sure.  We went home and I passed out while watching the football game from this morning.

Mon Jan 22, By the end of the week it's going to be the library's open house.  After that I'm hoping my workload goes down a bit.  I will have worked three weeks in a row when I finally get a day off next Saturday.  I can't wait, because I'm pooped already.

On Saturday I picked up a breakfast burrito on my way to work in order to have it for lunch.  I know, makes no sense, but it's yummy and I knew I needed a good amount of food to keep me going on Saturday.  I only finished half of it, which meant leftovers.  I thought of having it for breakfast today, but I totally forgot I had it until AFTER I was already eating breakfast.  I therefore decided to take it with me for lunch today.  It certainly hit the spot.  Mind you, this is HALF of a breakfast burrito.  It's way too big.

As I said before, the time of the open house is nearing.  Which means working late.  Tonight I worked until nearly 7pm.  I was late to visit TheGirl.  Puppy was SUPER excited and we roughhoused.

Here is TheGirl and me from when we went to Pink's back in 2011.  That was the BEST of times.  I know for my part I was completely in love with TheGirl.

Tue Jan 23, Thanks to Benedict not leaving Montrose enough bins on Mondays I get to deal with overflow in books on Tuesdays.  Today was no different.  I have to always take extra bins with me on the route on Tuesdays, because dummy won't leave them enough on Mondays.  When I got back from the route Keyvon didn't seem too sympathetic with Syco's email about the overflow of books.  She had apparently also taken a photo and sent it to Keyvon with an email saying something about the bins.  What it was I don't know exactly.  But it was probably saying that they need bins on a Monday.  Keyvon just shinned it on.  Not OK in my book.

After the route I still had to take a pair of big boxes to Casa tonight.  I don't mind since I am making money.  But, it's only Tuesday and I'm already tired.  And I won't have this Saturday off.  Oh well.  I know Benedict won't do this, so I did.

Wed Jan 24, I'm hitting the home stretch for the big open house on Saturday.  I'm tired.  I can't wait for this to happen already.  Most of my assignments are done or nearly done.  But I'm sure there will be something that needs to be done at the last minute.  At least most things are done.

TheGirl claimed that she had picked the previous three week's meal ideas.  This week it would be up to me to pick.  I picked the Counter.  When we arrived we noticed that the place was quiet, even for a Wednesday night.  They gave us some cockamamie excuse about the kitchen.  That meant we needed a plan B.  I had thought about having a plan B, but I was super busy today and didn't think of another place.  What could go wrong, I thought.  We ended up at Riverside.  Not my favorite place, but they do have booze.  I had a lovely Manhattan (pictured above), followed by a lemon drop.  I had some food, but mostly not.  TheGirl told me about how TheChisel won't allow her to visit him.  Which I said was dumb.  He still has stupid pride even in the face of his death.  That's messed up.  I feel for the guy, because no one deserves cancer.  Well, some evil people do, but they rarely get it like the good people I know.  That's his decision.  I can't say I wouldn't do the same.  Though I don't think I would keep people I supposedly cared for away.  I think I would treasure their company as I neared the end.

I haven't spoken about this, but there is someone that I am not friends with any more that keeps on trying to contact me.  Right before the election in 2015 this former friend said something silly.  It wasn't THAT bad in the scheme of things.  But it was the straw that broke the camel's back.  I was tired of her stupidity and lack of empathy.  I've been thinking of the fact that there may be fewer days ahead than behind at this point.  And that I shouldn't have to deal with idiocy if I don't want to anymore.  In that spirit I told myself that I could no longer be friends with this person.  It's been over a year and they insist on trying to contact me.  I'm done, and when I say done I mean done.  The same goes for another dope that I befriended at the library and was always questioning our friendship.  She mentioned something that I posted on FB and I said the same thing... I don't have to deal with things that make me miserable.  And these two so-called friends made me miserable.  Dealing with them took energy I didn't have.  I don't want to waste my time on these people.  Hence me walking away.  But they won't just let it die.  That's not OK.  But I won't ever talk to them if I can help it.

Thu Jan 25, Cerberus, the useless sorting machine is "alive."  They were showing how the machine works again today.  It is such an impractical piece of machinery.  It's as useless as those dopes that bought it.  I made many points against this monstrosity in a previous entry, so I won't repeat myself again.  But now that I've seen this thing in action so many more shortcomings have come to light.  It's such a huge machine that it doesn't leave much room for us to work around it and get the books.  To say is impractical is an understatement.  It's a fucking mess, but fitting for that fucking library.  Idiots.

In my tired haze last night I agreed to make a special delivery from Chevy to Brand today.  When I was asked yesterday I thought that today was Friday.  Wrong!  Well, I opened my big mouth, and now I had to do this delivery.  I should have just come tomorrow since that's the normal day I pick up things from Chevy.  But, as I said, I was in a tired haze when I said I would do it today.  Later at Montrose Emma did give me some insight on this special delivery though.  I shouldn't have even been asked to do it, since Benedict should have beaten me to it.  He picks up items from Chevy on Wednesdays, but did he pick up the instruments and take them to Brand?  Nope.  I will say, no one specifically told him to do it, but the instruments were placed on the delivery cart.  Meaning to any normal person "Hey, take these with you."  But, he didn't.  And that meant stupid me had to today.  Idiot.

When I arrived at Adams my new favorite, TheRose, greets me with the phrase, "So what do you want painted on your face?"  Huh?  It turns out that they were doing face painting later that day and they jokingly wanted to know what I would have painted on my face.  Ah, no thanks.  Although, just before I left I told TheRose that I should have a scar painted on the side of my face.  THAT would be cool.  In lieu of that I got to watch Ru have a Minnie Mouse bow painted on her forehead.  Ru can so take it.

Long after I got home my buddy and I were talking on the phone and he mentions to me that I should take a look at my Glendale work email.  The above message was in my inbox.  It basically reads that there are going to be some "reassignments" to personnel.  Number one, Les is now in command of both Casa and Grandview.  My buddy and I asked what this means for TheDesire's chances of taking over there.  I hate to say it, it's not good.  Initially I thought that maybe it's still OK, but really I don't know after this move.  Unless they move her to another managerial-like position.  But where?  Number two, Krishna is now officially interim boss at Adams as well as Pacific Park.  I thought she was, but her cousin Ru works at Adams and family members can't be supervisors to other family members.  Number three, Ru moves to Central.  Since she can't be at Adams under Krishna, and she hates it at Adams, Ru has been moved to Central.  Number four is they will now supposedly open the two branch manager jobs to candidates.  I think Krishna has the inside track for the Pacific/Adams job.  I thought TheDesire would have it for Casa/Grandview, but now I don't know.  However, I don't think that Les will even go out for that job.  And I know that TheDesire will.  If that is the scenario then I can see TheDesire getting the job.  Number five, the official announcement that MicroManager has retired.  Nearly a year and a half after she injured herself and never came back, the announcement was made official as a footnote in Maleficent's email.  Wow.

Fri Jan 26, Stupid me went to Chevy yesterday to pick up some dopey musical instruments even though I don't go to Chevy on Thursdays.  But, I opened my mouth and I went.  Today I went for real.  I didn't take a nap today, but boy did I feel like I needed one.  I'm exhausted.

After Chevy and Montrose I went to Burger Queen to get a burger to supplement the lentil soup I had from home.  It wasn't a big portion of soup, so I knew that I needed something to round out my meal.  I bought a burger and some iced tea.  I went to the park and wolfed down the burger and soup and passed out.  Thankfully I set an alarm to wake me up, or I would probably sleep all day.

When I arrived at Grandview I could see Snow's car in the parking lot.  This is the third or forth straight week that I've seen Snow come into work on her Friday off.  Unless she is scheduled to work on those Fridays.  But I know she's not, because like today she will say to me, "You don't see me, I'm not here."  Meaning she's not supposed to BE there working.  Whatever.  I don't give a damn, I'm just pointing out how shady it is that she is always working on her days off.

I went over to Judy's place, the shut-in that I deliver books to, today.  I promised her I would visit.  She asked me to get her some books.  When I got back to Central I thought about putting some books on hold, but found it easier to just go up to the fiction section and find her books by an author she has discovered lately.  The few books they have at the home she's living in are by authors she has not read before.  She liked one of them, and asked me to take a picture of the book list (above) so I could find some of these books.  It's my good deed of the day.

My coworker, that I've featured here so many times, has such a feminine figure that it's hard not to lust after her.  She's always been so curvy, but more now.  She's gained a little extra weight, but in my opinion it's made her look better.  Yeah, I'm a perv.

I came home and ate a little something and passed out for an hour.  Now I'm sitting here writing this before I have to head off to bed early so I can go to work super early tomorrow for the library open house.  It's the BIG project I've been working on for weeks.  I'm exhausted.  My official anniversary for starting work there was today.  It was a decade ago that I started working at San Marino.  This is the beginning of my tenth year there.  It's been a good run, I have to say.  I love it there and the people that I've met have nearly all been such great people.  I don't have the same affection I had a few years ago, but that's because the place also taught me to be a little more cynical.  But that's not a bad thing.  I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

Sat Jan 27, The open house was today!  Yesterday was my anniversary of starting work at Crowell.  Ten years ago yesterday.  Crazy how time flies.  I honestly don't know where the last ten years have gone.

I arrived just before 8am this morning to get ready for the festivities at 10am.  It made for a cold and super early morning.  I'm so tired that I don't know how I didn't just sleep through my alarm.

Something different that was done this year was to get some kids to grab people for "testimonials" asking how much people love the library.  They asked me to do it later in the day.  It was good times.  Supposedly they were able to record fifty people.  Nice.

Part of the festivities was to have cake for the patrons.  How I ended up serving the cake I don't know.  But I did.  It was good times, but towards the end my back was starting to hurt.  I was pretty much ready for my cake duty to end.

Aside from celebrating the anniversary of the library there was also the unveiling of the bookmark winners.  This has been my project for the longest time.  It turned out later that I messed up one of the winner's names on the big poster bookmark.  Damn.  Still, it was nice to hear people say nice things about the library.  I got a little choked up from it all.  To think that I've been here so long.  Just under 25% of my life has been spent in that building.  Fucking crazy.

At the end of the festivities there remained just us workers.  The Foundation Board president thanked me for all my work in getting today done.  I appreciated that.  H and P said we should pose for a picture outside since this year we didn't do a employee picture.  That was strange.  Not that everyone would have been there, but still.  Anyway, H and P and me went outside super fast to take a picture of me as the one and the ladies making a zero.  These are the best bunch of people I've been privileged to work with.  It was a good day today.  Not as huge as it could have been, but good.  And as I said, at the end it was just us workers.  Having fun and getting things done.

Sun Jan 28, I checked my social media and one of my coworkers at Glendale posted the above photo taken at MicroManager's retirement party.  Her retirement was made official last week.  Obviously the celebrating was left until it was official.  I wonder what was said about her leaving.  I can't say that I've missed her since she's left.  I waited for this day, but of course the impact was taken from the moment by it being a known thing for so long.  That even though it's now official it was something I knew for a long time.

I felt that the poster for the stupid music series needed to reflect truth in advertising.  This is why I "fixed" it (pictured above).  See, now it's not lying like the old poster was.

Mon Jan 29, After the whole thing with the open house I had to get cracking with this stupid passport agent re-certification.  It's so silly to still have me certified.  I don't remember how to do these things.  Not that I was ever super good at it.  But still, I don't do them often enough to remember all the details.  Which is why I spent over two hours doing this re-certification today.  I took the test about seven times before getting it right on the eight time.  There was a point where I was just barely missing the score needed to pass.  But then I was frustrated and I started making mistakes on answers I knew in previous attempts.  I was just tired.  Finally I got the right score and I can forget about this shit for another year.  Or so they say it's a year.  I seem to be doing these fucking things all the time.

After work tonight I went to McD's for some food.  They have a mini Big Mac, what is basically minus the middle bun and one burger patty.  It's actually just the right size for me these days.  Along with the mini burger I also had some of the new chicken strips that are pretty yummy.  It's fast food, which isn't good, but for some reason the food hit the spot tonight.

As per usual I visited TheGirl.  She had an antenna that she bought for her TV to get better reception.  But in her area she needs a much better one than the one she bought.  So she gave me the cheapo antenna for my house.  I think I'll put it on the TV in the kitchen.

Tue Jan 30, Despite what AD claims the sorting machine (Cerberus) is NOT working yet.  Oh sure, it will transport a book from the bookdrop windows to a bin.  But that's about it.  It doesn't print out holds, order anything but a rough sort.  Again, they paid a $1 million for this pile of rust.  Even it this machine fulfilled its promise it's still not a big deal.  It's main promise is that it will sort books.  THAT's it!  sIt won't shelve the books.  It won't place the hold slip in the books.  It won't do anything special.  It's a monstrosity.  Pure and simple.

Krishna asked if I had already been to Adams.  I don't know why the fact that I never go to Adams first when Pacific is open doesn't get through these people's thick skull.  But, whatever.  She was looking nice today, and I also didn't want her to have to deal with Benedict tomorrow, so I agreed to take a few things today.  I'm hoping that Benedict leaves soon, but it sure doesn't look like he's going to leave any time soon.

My buddy Dane needs to get his food stamps renewed for another year.  As always, he can't take all his electronics with him when he goes to downtown on Thursday.  Once again he asked me to watch his stuff.  I came by the library and picked up his stuff until Thursday.  It's the least I could do for him.

Wed Jan 31, It has been thirteen years since my Grandmother passed away.  Again, as I say every year, it's so very hard to believe it's been that long.  The years stretch out more and more.  Of course each day isn't sad now that it's been many years since she died.  Yet it still hurts.  I went into her room a few weeks ago and just sat on her bed.  I miss her a lot.  Even now as I think that I start to tear up.  She was one of the two most significant people in my life (the other being my Mother).  My Mother dying was the first death I had to face.  But that didn't make my Grandmother's death any less painful.  In some ways it was more painful.  Because now both of them were gone.  I was lucky to have them in my life as long as I did.  That's how I see it.

TheGirl and I went to a new place for dinner tonight.  I don't think we'll be back any time soon.  The service was slow, and the food was just OK.  Not bad, but not great.  And for the price, it should be good.  Not just meh.  TheGirl had a bad commute tonight.  She told me it took her two hours to get home.  As a matter of fact, she arrived just a few minutes before I arrived.  That's nuts.  She wants a new job, but it's easier said than done.  It's just over three weeks till our trip.  I can't wait.

On my last trip up to Carmel I took a short drive down to Andrew Molera to hike down to the beach.  There are little teepee-like "structures" that line the entire beach.  I don't know their purpose, but they're cool.

This is a photo of a random cute house in Pacific Grove.  I was walking around checking out the town when I saw this nice little house.  It thought it looked cute.

On my last day of my trip up to Carmel I took a drive down to the beach.  It was chilly, but also super nice... and forget about the view.  It was awesome.

On my way back from my November trip I stopped at the Mission San Miguel to check it out and take some pictures.  I like the one above because it has a old California state flag.

I still own an original iPhone, the first one that came out in 2007.  It's over ten years old now and obviously not the state of the art.  Its camera isn't up to snuff compared to the cameras on phones these days.  Nevertheless I start this project photographing things now with the old camera because it just has an old, quaint, feeling to it.  Its 2.1 megapixel camera wasn't even the best on a phone back in 2007.  But it did the job and started us on this photo-taking revolution we now live in.

For the first photo, in this 52 photo series, I pick a photo that I took up in San Luis Obispo while traveling to the Monterey peninsula.  I had gone to a sandwich shop to get some food for the trip, but since it was Thanksgiving everything was closed.  I took this photo on my way back to the 101.

This photo was taken on highway 1 in the gorgeous area in Big Sur just North of the Big Sur Lodge.  The area is beautiful, to say the least.

Spreckels is a tiny town West of Salinas in the Salinas valley.  It's tiny and is surrounded by huge farms.  On my last trip to the Monterey peninsula I stopped here to take this and other photos.  In the picture is the local saloon, the post office and the volunteer fire department.  It's pretty much the whole town.