Happy New Year!  The last month of 2017 was packed with happenings.  Here's what happened.

Fri Dec 1, I showed up this morning and found that all the bins for the branches were placed on book carts.  A nice gesture.  I'm 99% sure that it was Jade that did this.  Again, a nice gesture.  It did help in packing of the van this morning.

I got word from Vagabundo that Benedict called to say he would be late.  Something to do with his pipes at home.  Of course.  He did eventually show up, but this is so his pattern of calling out.  How many times must this guy have plumbing issues?  Poor guy (end sarcasm).

I went to Chevy to drop off the books but also to pick up the six tables I dropped off on Tuesday.  To my surprise I was not the only one there.  One of my coworkers, Anna H was in the building, along with about one hundred Japanese students learning how to draw from some guy.  They weren't going to be done until noon, which meant I had to wait about fifteen minutes.  I figured it would be OK to take the tables on Tuesday, but then Anna mentioned they needed them at Montrose on Monday.  So, I decided to wait.  In the meantime I talked to Anna, who is kinda nice.  She's as attractive as any of the girls I work with.  She has a nice figure, and of course horny me likes how she looks.  Yeah, I'm just a horny bastard.

I went to Casa after Montrose and having lunch and Les was there.  The official start of his "reign" at Casa is supposed to be Tuesday.  But, he's "learning the ropes" right now.  Of course as I'm about to leave Snow shows up with a huge ice cream cake.  Mind you, it's her day off.  Yet, she still feels like she needs to be in charge of her former branches.  She can't let go.  It's going to be interesting to see how Les adapts at "fitting in" at Casa.  I'm pretty sure he's just biding his time until he can retire and leave these jokers.

I went to Brand and picked up a bunch of pillars that they needed at Central.  I didn't want to have to come back for these pillars after the route.

I got back to Central and got to taking the pillars out of the van.  I went looking for the key for the room they needed to be placed in and that's when Benedict saw me.  He mentioned his meeting with Mala and how he felt that she "discriminated" against him.  He added that he told AD that Mala treated him badly and "discriminated" him.  And said that he was going to be looking for another job and quitting by the end of the year.  I don't think he will, but we shall see.

Sat Dec 2, I forgot to mention that I bought my aunt and myself a pair of tickets to an exhibition that's coming in March... King Tut.  I plan on giving her the details on Christmas day.  Woo!  That's one gift done.  Now, on to everyone else.

Mon Dec 4, Photos pop up on my feed on the server where I backed up my photo files.  Today this one popped up.  It's a picture of a hospital window.  My Grandmother was in that hospital room.  By this time we already had the diagnosis... stomach cancer.  It looked grim and of course it was.  I haven't put up a Christmas tree since she passed.  I do love the lights, but I don't put up a tree any more.  It's hard to believe so much time has passed since then.  The pain never really goes away.

The food for my lunch in the fridge was not appealing to me in any way.  So I skipped packing a lunch and hoped that I still had a can of chili in my work locker that I could eat.  Sure enough, it was in there.  I keep it there just in case of emergencies like this.  Call me prepared.  I'm glad that I had it.  The food in the fridge at home was just not OK.

I went over to TheGirl's tonight, as I always do, and played with Cheyenne.  I've noticed for the last few weeks that she is getting tired faster than in the past.  But then again, so am I.  She did give me a good face licking.  That's for sure.

Tue Dec 5, I went to bed early last night.  As a consequence I woke up early this morning.  When I woke up it smelled like burning wood.  Apparently overnight a fire broke out in the hills north of the Valley.  The winds carried a lot of the smoke over my part of the Valley (as seen above).  The picture doesn't illustrate just how bad and thick the smoke was over my house.  The thing is the more I traveled towards the East the less the smoke I encountered.  At work there was no smoke.  Hmm.

The library is going to have a holiday party at the end of next week.  AD sent out an email with a stupid survey (pictured above).  Everyone in circulation was ripping the thing apart after I mentioned that it was sent.  I mean, what kind of fucking bullshit is this survey?  I like that she thinks this is "fun" or something.  I fucking think it's pure idiocy.  I hope AD chokes on her own blood.

There were a lot of bins going out to the branches.  I mean a lot.  Tuesdays are pretty busy.  How much of this load is because Benedict flies through the route and doesn't give the branches a chance to process their holds and their outgoing books?  Oh well.

I asked the new page from Adams a question over social media last week.  After she helped me out I told her that I owed her a Coke.  She mentioned last week, "Where's my Coke?"  The other day I went to the market and bought her a Mexican Coke.  This morning I put it in my lunch bag and gave it to her when I went to Adams.  When I walked in she said to me, "So where's my Coke."  I told her I had it in the van.  She smiled and that made my day.

Just as I was leaving I saw that Benedict was leaving work.  He was at work for some reason.  He said that he basically told someone in administration that he was looking for another job and would be quitting as soon as he got another job.  You know, talking to him there at the end of the day he comes off as reasonable.  Intellectually I know what he does because of all the circumstantial evidence I see on the route.  But because our schedules are totally opposite I don't actually see first hand the things he does out on the route.  The whole thing about how he treats others is all these people saying he's creepy.  And that's the thing, I trust these people and what they tell me.

Because of the fires the 210 freeway was closed.  That caused a huge back-up on the 5.  Which looked bad for me on my way home.  I decided to take the streets home, figuring that it was better than taking the freeway.  I don't know if it was better, but it was better for my health.  I got home in about an hour.  Despite going to the market to get some things.  That's not bad considering how terrible the maps above looked.

Wed Dec 6, A new fire broke out this morning in the wee hours about where the Skirball center is by Mulholland drive on the East side of the 405.  The smoke didn't really come towards the house, because the winds were blowing towards the south.  However, the highway patrol did close the 405.  That meant that there was less traffic on the roads, because so many people decided that it was better to stay home.  Like TheGirl.  I talked to her this morning and told her that the 405 was closed on the both sides.  Even if she was able to get to work how would she get home?  She decided to stay home.

I finally remembered to get Chan his Santa hat to wear today.  Yay, Chan!  I had this crazy idea of taking Chan to these Christmas light displays to take pictures of him in front of them.  I know, crazy.  But he is a monkey.

Work was work today.  Pseudo supervisor and I put up a banner advertising the bookmark contest currently going on.  There haven't been many entries submitted, but perhaps they will be submitted in the next few days.  The contest is over on the thirteenth.  She was worried that we might not get enough entries to actually have the contest.  But I think most of the kids are just waiting until the last minute to turn in their forms.

TheGirl told me that she wanted to go out to a restaurant tonight without Cheyenne.  I was OK with that, because it was bound to be cold and windy.  And of course with Cheyenne in tow we would have to sit outside.  We got to eating and drinking and of course the booze is truth serum.  We got to talking about things from work and life and she mentions that she believes today is close to the anniversary of when she left the husband years ago.  And that also lines up with the death of her father.  She left the husband in a week later her father passed away.  My food wasn't very good, but the booze was just right.  It's seventy-eight days until our trip up to Carmel.  I know I just went up there and I said I was kinda tired of going up there, but... big but, I think going with TheGirl and Cheyenne and Chan will be much more fun than me going up there by myself.  I liked doing things by myself, but I'm not not liking doing that so often.  I want to do things with a nice lady.  What's wrong with that?  Anyway, it was good times and another example of why TheGirl and I are still friends.

Thu Dec 7, This is the now former desk of Les.  It's finally been cleaned out, ready for its new holder... Keyvon.  We shall see how long they keep Keyvon as manager of circulation.  We shall see if he is a good manager.  We'll see a lot of things.

I already knew this going in today that Benedict didn't pick up the Pasadena bins yesterday, but I didn't expect such a small amount of books today.  I guess I should have since so many books going to the branches are coming from Pasadena.  But of course there's the matter of Benedict not picking up the books at Pasadena.  He dropped off the ones going to Pasadena, but didn't pick up our bins.  The driver at Pasadena told me that Benedict came late.  They have Benedict starting at 9am for some reason.  I forgot to mention in my last entry that Benedict actually called me last night as I was driving to TheGirl's for dinner to tell me about the bins situation.  See, this is what I mean about him being OK with me and seemingly only me.  I seem to not just be neutral in his eyes, but supportive and even helpful.  I think he has a negative attitude towards everyone else at work.  But since I don't see him and vice versa, I'm positive somehow.

And then I go out to the van and I see this scene in the back.  Bins that have not been consolidated.  He told me last night that he didn't stick around Pasadena to look for the bins because since he got a late start yesterday that he had to get back and deliver the books to the branches.  I would think that he would just do the route as normal and of course finish late.  I've done that in the past.  But Benedict's excuse about the books not being ready at Pasadena doesn't hold water.  He told me that he didn't see them, but the sorting room at Pasadena isn't that big as to make it easy to hide what must have minimally been sixteen bins.  But as I told the new boss, "He always has an excuse, and it's never his fault."  Hmmm.

Of course because Benedict didn't take the outgoing bins yesterday I got yesterday's delivery and today's.  Thirty-two bins.  It didn't fill the van, but it was quite a bit.  Honestly, I don't know how much longer Benedict has with the library.  He said he's looking for a new job, but I wonder what will happen first, his firing or his finding another job.

When I got back from the route I wanted to talk to the new boss about some Benedict issues.  He wasn't really that receptive to me talking.  He was more involved in wondering where he should put his daughter's picture in his office.  Ah, OK.  Yes, that's important to him, but this is important to all of us that work at the library.  Benedict's actions are bordering on malevolent.  FireGirl told me today that he came in yesterday and said to her, "Because of what you all said about me not coming here (meaning the fire station) I got yelled at today."  FireGirl said that it wasn't here, and went on to say that there are other people in the office that notice that on his days the mail doesn't get picked up.  This made me think of how he doesn't pick on men really when he lashes out.  He picked FireGirl, who is slight to say the least.  And the way he runs right to AD's dress whenever he's in trouble.  Not a good sign.  But it also shows that he is insecure.  He assumes that FireGirl said something, when it wasn't even her.  Did Keyvon hear any of this from me?  I didn't get the vibe that he was listening, so I left and went home.  I still think that Keyvon will be firing Benedict soon, but how soon remains to be seen.

My aunt talked to our neighbors to ask if they knew a good and inexpensive plumber to unclog our utility room drain.  They did and they sent him over.  He and his crew worked for a few hours fixing the seemingly always clogged sink in the utility room.  But, at least now it's fixed and my aunt can do the laundry with impunity now.  Woo!

Fri Dec 8, As I have said in the past my photo feed from the cloud storage I use to back up my photos shows me photos from the past "On this day."  Today for 2004 the photo above showed up.  It's of my Grandmother in the hospital bed looking at a book.  As I stated in a previous entry she was in the hospital diagnosed with stomach cancer.  I had worked on a project to give her a book of my photographs for Christmas.  I felt that I couldn't wait for Christmas to give it to her, so I gave it to her on this date back in 2004.  As I think back to that time when she was diagnosed and died it feels like those few weeks were such a longer period of time.  To me right now it feels like she was sick for a longer time than November to January.  But that's how fast everything happened.  That's how fast her decline was after her diagnosis.  I still miss her very much.

The route today was easy.  After writing about my Grandmother it feels trivial to go over it.  Not much happened anyway.  I told Keyvon that Benedict and I start work at 8am, but that our online scheduling still shows us starting at 9am.  Keyvon said he would look into it.

And yes, the route was easy today.  There weren't that many books going out today.  No special deliveries either.  Next week I do have one drop off, but that's also easy.  I liked that I finished early today.  I think I have to get trying to finish up at the normal time as many times as possible.  Sometimes I won't be able to avoid the special deliveries that I often have to make.  That's fine.

My buddy is forcing me to hang out tomorrow.  I really don't want to do anything tomorrow.  Saturdays are my most important and lazy day of the week.  I love not having to do anything.  But now I'll have to entertain him by going out for dinner.  I just want to stay home.  But now I'll have to shower tomorrow.  ARGH!  This is why I've become so antisocial.  I just need my rest.

Sat Dec 9, As I've said many times here on this journal, I don't want to do anything on my day off.  But, my buddy did mention something about getting some food and talking a few weeks ago.  He asked me earlier this week if we were going to hang out and I felt like I HAD to hang out.  The good thing is that I would still have most of the day to recharge my battery.  Not that it ever really gets THAT recharged.

We went to get a burger.  Then we talked about our trips.

Sun Dec 10, My aunt invited me to get some breakfast at IHOP this morning, but when we arrived the parking lot was PACKED and we could see that the restaurant was also packed.  So I decided to take my aunt to a place I've been with TheGirl in Toluca Lake for breakfast.  The food there really hits the spot.  My aunt liked it.  Perhaps every other week we could go there instead of always going to IHOP.

Work was not too busy today.  Though my stupid phone was dying I had enough juice to text TheDesire.  She mentioned that she had gained a lot of weight.  Fifty-two pounds to be exact, when she was pregnant.  I know I posted a picture of her when she was pregnant on this journal.  I'm not going to go find it now, but yeah.  She didn't have to tell me she gained weight.  I think about how lovely she looked when I first saw her.  And then she goes and gets knocked up and ruins everything.  TheDesire has always been nice.  Of course I was attracted to her figure.  I did also just love being around her.  I know she will bounce back.

My buddy called me as I was getting ready for bed tonight.  He wanted to tell me that Benedict called out and they were asking him to cover the delivery shift tomorrow (Monday).  Just lovely.  Another demerit against Benedict.  Benedict is on thin ice as it is, and now he does this.  What a dope.  He has called out more times in just over a year than I have in ten years.

Mon Dec 11, Some of the staff attended a seminar, for lack of a better word, that had as its topic "Safe Workplaces."  My boss signed me up for this week's installment.  I have to say as talks to it was pretty good.  I don't know if I learned anything new, but I did get to see that some of the things I already do in relation to dealing with the public is what others prescribe for certain situations.  Still, it was good times.

Tue Dec 12, Because Vagabundo drove yesterday I didn't have a million bins waiting for me this morning.  I told him that he didn't have to worry for me, because I don't care if those who our bosses don't care.

And imagine that... actual outgoing fire department mail.  Again, that's because Vagabundo went to the fire department and PICKED UP the outgoing mail.  Unlike Benedict.  Big difference.

AD has said that every item in the system is now floating.  This means that if a book that was originally from Central but it's returned at say Montrose, that means that that book stays at Montrose.  And it will stay there until it is checked out and dropped off somewhere else.  If it's returned to Montrose there it will stay.  If it goes to say Pacific then that's where it will stay until it is checked out again and returned to a different location.  The main problem with this is that the branches don't have a lot of room.  Some branches don't circulate a lot of books, but do have a lot of returns.  That means their books aren't being checked out, but it also means that books that don't belong to them are bring brought back to them.  These idiots think that floating is a good thing, but of course it's an impractical thing as well.  This is why I will often find in the delivery a bin like the one above filled with books going back to their home location.  The people that work at the branches have caught on.  They don't check in the book so that its location changes to where it was checked in.  No.  They placed a pre-made slip in it (like those pictured above), and then sent to its home location.  So, by that they thwart AD's decree.  Good, AD is a fucking tool.

For some reason the spot where I park the van, no matter where that is, becomes a popular spot for dopes.  I've put many a picture up here on this journal over the last few years of dopes that will park in the old library dock and out here in what used to be the front door.  Today another dummy decided to use the curb as a bench.  As you can see from the picture above of course it has to be at the EXACT spot I usually park the van.  I parked it a little farther up, but of course that just meant that I had to push those items farther.  Thanks dopey girl, thanks.

Wed Dec 13, Today was the San Marino employee's luncheon.  Wow, it feels like I just attended the last one.  One of my coworkers that got herself a full time job and of course left to work at that job.  But, as she was saying, she technically worked there for five years.  Five years and four days, to be exact.  I don't know how the pin thing works, but the boss said that they need to be active employees to get the pin.  I think that's a shit move on her part, if she had anything to do with that.  The boss comes off super nice and silly.  But then she does these little things that make me wonder about her sometimes.  Like what skin off her nose would it be to have my former coworker get a cheap-ass pin for her five years of service?  It just seems to petty to not get her a cheap pin.

The luncheon itself was cool.  TheLamp was looking really good, and so was LaFlor.  The both of them wore tight black skits.  Be still my heart.  Aside from that it was the pretty standard lunch.  I said it before, I can't believe it's been a year since the last one.  The new city manager was there.  She's not OK.  I've heard some bad things about her.  For sure I know that she didn't allow the library to put up a Christmas tree.  She said it offended her.  Ah, what?  A lot of other people in the city want a Christmas tree.  I'm certainly not offended by a tree or any other decoration that pertains to someone's religion.  I may not believe in those religions, but people certainly have the right to worship.  But, whatever.  The dark times are only going to get darker.  I truly believe that.

I picked up dinner for us tonight.  TheGirl and I get a bit emotional when we drink these days.  This week's subject was of course death.  TheChisel apparently doesn't have long to live.  He's bad, TheGirl told me.  Look, whatever our combined history is I never hated the guy.  If anything I should hate TheGirl for her actions.  He didn't force her to have her pay more attention to him than to me.  It certainly was a life lesson.  But again, it wasn't TheChisel's fault.  So yes, I do feel for him a little.  I don't know him at all, and for a while he was the focus on my ire.  Now he's a footnote in my relationship with TheGirl.

In more pleasant news, Chan wanted a picture in front of TheGirl's Christmas tree.  Here are the results.  Chan is quite a photogenic monkey.  We finished up dinner and of course I had to roughhouse with Cheyenne.  Definitely good times.

Thu Dec 14, I'm pretty tired of talking about Benedict's actions, and also writing about his actions here.  Suffice to say I'm just tired.  These dopes aren't going to do anything about him.  I got reports that he was up to some of his old tricks again yesterday.  Like going to the branches in the wrong order.  The boss, Keyvon, asked me to get something for him at city hall.  It wasn't at the office he sent me.  It was in the mail room.  If the timing is right than that means Benedict didn't pick up the interdepartmental mail.  To be fair, I think they must have put it in the mail later in the day.  So yeah, he skirts by again.  Whatever.  I don't want to deal with this shit any more.  My buddy still wants to talk about it.  As I write this it's about two hours since he sent me a text while I was asleep asking if I was busy.  That usually means "Let's talk."  But tonight I don't want to talk about Benedict and the route.  I just want to sit here and watch TV and talk of other things.

Tomorrow night is the holiday party for that slaughterhouse of a library.  Everyone kept asking if I was going.  I kept on saying I wasn't.  I really have no use in going to that Nazi rally for AD.  She's not OK.  I told TheDesire this via text.  She thought I liked AD.  Nope, I told her.  I told TheDesire how I thought her actions were bringing the library down.  She wanted to know more.  But she has a kid now and she got quite on the text.  I didn't tell her more.  Suffice to say, AD can eat shit.  And she can eat shit at her stupid holiday party that she had the employee pay for.  Oh yeah, no thanks.

I came home and rested then ate.  My aunt always pounces on me when I get in the door and asks if I want to eat.  And every time I say no, "Let me take my shoes off first."  For some reason she always asks.  I appreciate that she feeds me, but really I want her to rest.  She's been at it all day and I can certainly heat the food she already made me.  I ate and passed out shortly afterward.  My buddy, as I said before, texted me to see if I was busy.  I was asleep, but even after waking up I didn't want to talk about the day.  I'm tired.  I'm tired of all this shit.

Fri Dec 15, There is ONE catalog computer on the main floor of the library.  On Tuesday I noticed that it had a message about how the computer hadn't been properly shut down or something to that effect.  This morning I walked in and saw that yes they still haven't repaired it.  One of the main problems is that the patrons have the ability to turn this machine off and to mess with it.  The computer should be set up for that it limits what a patron can do on it.  A patron should not be able to do anything such as shut it down.  A patron should only be able to access the catalog, THAT's it.  But these dopes never do that with these computers.  Now, the one computer downstairs is busted.  Fuck these dopes.

When I go to Pasadena I never know what to expect in the dock.  Lately it's been pretty good.  On Tuesday there was a Pasadena city vehicle in the dock, but just as I drove up they started to leave.  Today, not so lucky.  There was a guy parked right in front of the door.  Thankfully I was there early enough that I could still drive around the other way in the parking lot in order to get to the dock.  The Pasadena driver pointed out that this guy picked the worst time to do his power washing of the steps.  Why was it the worst time to do that?  Because this guy started spraying the stairs down five minutes before the library opens.  Rightly the Pasadena driver pointed out that everyone entering the library would track all that water on their shoes and bring it into the library.  Not only that, but of course the parking lot was empty, no one would access part of it thanks to this guy blocking the way.  Lastly, why couldn't this guy do it much earlier in the morning to avoid all this shit?  No one does anything right.

This entry is going to be all over the place, so bear with me.  When I reached Montrose I did my thing, got the books out and heated up my lunch.  But for some reason I walked by where the copier is located.  What I saw there, pictured above, made me laugh and shake my head.  The collection of machines that are meant to make copies of documents is mind boggling.  Just look at the above picture and try not to tell me that it's a collection of shit.  The new machine is on the right.  It's a $4000 monstrosity.  Best thing is, in some locations it doesn't work at all.  This is why they STILL have to have the big traditional copier.  The new machine, which is called a KIC machine, is a total failure.  Not only is it stupidly designed, it simply doesn't work.  These idiots bought this any machine thinking that it would solve some perceived problem with the old machines.  I grant you, the old machines weren't easy to deal with.  They have their own issues.  However, they at least would make a copy.  There is a KIC machine in every branch and none of them are functional.  At Brand they are considering putting it in the basement to get it out of the way.  Mainly because patrons keep asking about it.  At Grandview they had a "coming soon" sign that they took off earlier this week, only to have to print a new sign that said "coming soon."  I showed the page there how I wanted to scan my hat.  The machine failed to scan anything.  At Casa the machine sits by the old checkout desk and still just says "coming soon."  Think about how much they spent on this new technology, including that useless sorting machine at central.  They have spent more than a million dollars on these things that DON'T WORK.  This is part of their legacy.  Instead of going with tried and true they were mesmerized by the fancy buttons and the salesman telling them this was "state of the art."  State of the art bullshit.  This is one of the main reasons why I call them idiots.

Krishna had an idea to give me some poinsettias to distribute to the branches for her.  Originally she wanted to meet up at Chevy, but the timing didn't quite work out.  So, she meet me at the park where I have lunch.  She found me and handed the poinsettias to me to distribute.  Why I mention this is because Krishna was looking really nice.  I've shown her here before, because I am attracted to her.  I think last time I posted a picture of her it was a picture of her thighs.  Today it's her butt.  Her butt is big, not going to lie.  But I don't mind the size as long as it's a nice shape.  Krishna wore tights and it showed the whole thing off.  And yeah, she looked nice.

I don't know if there was ever a time when I returned to Central with so few bins.  My buddy thinks it's because of the floating collection, but I see that the branches are catching on and are starting to return items to their home locations.  I think today was just a matter of some branches not getting to their work.  Pacific had some gingerbread house making event and none of the books I brought them on Thursday were checked in.  When I walked into that branch today the people there was JUST starting to check them in.  That means they didn't even get to the book drop or the holds.  Oh well.

I went home and watched TV.  At one point I went on social media to check on some things.  I ran into the library's feed and saw the picture above.  I didn't realize what it was at first.  I thought that they were showing a picture of someone that had been evicted from their apartment and all their things were on the front lawn.  It was actually a picture of the "paseo" by the Neon museum.  They had the performance tents up for the 666 concert bullshit series along with cart after cart of books for their book sale.  Mind you, the friend's bookstore makes more in online sales than they ever could off this bullshit outdoor sale.  But that doesn't keep them from trying these sale things out in the open.  To me it just looks tacky.  Also, the so-called concert series was supposed to be a way to get people to come to the library.  Now it's not even located on library property.  This "paseo" thing is hundreds of feet from the library entrance.  What a bunch of dopes.  The purpose of these series isn't just to have street entertainment for people.  It's underlying purpose is to get people inside the doors of the library.  ARGH!  These fools need to hang.

Sat Dec 16, The last time I went to my barber he told me that he was closing his shop because the rent had gone up to a point where he could not afford his place.  My barber told me his plan was to get a booth at one a local nail salon and cut hair there for a small rent.  But, when I called him he told me that even those places had rent that was too high.  Then he told me I could go over to his place to get my hair cut.  That was last week.  This week I called and he said to come over.  I showered and got out the door.  His new "shop" is naturally in his garage.  I say so what.  I need a guy that knows how to cut my hair.  But, funny enough, I forgot to take Chan with me.  I won't forget next time.

The rest of the day I spent either sleeping or watching TV.  I did a little bit of work, but not much.  Hey, it is my day off.

For some reason the other day I was thing of a certain Penthouse pet from the 90's.  She was something out of my dreams when I first saw her in a magazine called Penthouse Lingerie.  Back then I often went to Crown books to check out the magazine rack.  They had some skin magazines there and one of them was this lingerie one with this "Pet" on the cover.  I bought two.  I remember the guy behind the counter asking me, "You know that you're buying two of the same issue."  I told him that I knew.  I still have that magazine.  I gave the other copy to a buddy of mine.  Suffice to say this "Pet" was my ideal of beauty for a long time.  I so wanted to be with her.

Mon Dec 18, I don't know if my actions in some way caused us to finally get our tree at the library, but I like to think that I played a small part in getting the snowball rolling.  A couple of weeks ago the library was decorated with garland.  What the fuck, I thought.  Where's the tree.  Apparently the dummy new city manager told all the departments to not put up a tree, because it offended her.  Ah, what?  We're now making decisions based on ONE person's feelings?  Also, this decision was made unilaterally.  She didn't consult anyone on the decision.  Suffice to say the kid here talking to the one super squeaky wheel that comes to the library might have helped us get the tree.  Mainly because this one person might not realize that there was no tree unless I said something.  So today the boss asked me to help her put up the tree.  And we now have a tree.  It's only a week until Christmas, but it feels like a good victory.

TheLamp informed me via email that she was going to give me my annual evaluation today.  I wasn't sweating bullets, but I also wasn't looking forward to it.  I shouldn't have been so worried, because I had a nearly flawless evaluation.  Damn right.  Woo!

I went to visit TheGirl after work and of course played with Cheyenne.  Not much I can elaborate on that.  TheGirl played with her and her blanket.  TheGirl mentions that Cheyenne and her don't play like this on days that I don't show up.  This is only a Monday/Wednesday thing with her.  I feel special.

Tue Dec 19, Here we are so many days removed from the time that Mala had that talk with Benedict and in my mind it's a done deal that he got away with this shit... again.  I had little faith that these dopes upstairs would get this right, and of course they made me want to believe that they COULD do the right thing.  But no.  As always, they failed.  I know he SAYS that he's looking for another job.  And I know he SAYS he's intentions are to leave this job as soon as he finds that other job.  But really they need to give him a bad evaluation and fire him at this point.  They won't fire him, but at the very least they need to give him a less than satisfactory evaluation.

Even though Les is no longer my supervisor he still did my yearly evaluation.  He had to, Keyvon has been on the job for barely two weeks.  How can he know what I have or haven't done on the job?  When I arrived at Casa I did my thing and that's when Les says to me, "I have your yearly evaluation."  In the past he would go over it, but today he just said, "Read it and sign it and give it back to me."

As I walked back from parking the van I went up the main stairs and found myself in front of the now busted front door.  The building opened back in May.  That's just about six months since the building opened and already the front door is busted.  But of course that's not the only thing that doesn't work.  The bathrooms constantly get clogged.  Dumb.

Wed Dec 20, Today we had the holiday potluck.  If I had remembered I wouldn't have even had to pack a lunch.  There was so much good food.  I ended up taking my lunch home with me, of course.

The big open house is about a month away, but of course certain things have to be finished by then in order to be able to have them approved or printed or both.  I have a list of about seven items that I have to get done in the next couple of weeks.  The problem is that with the holidays this weekend next and that will cut into days worth of work time.  In what should be two weeks I'll only have two official days of work.  I told Pseudo supervisor that I would do some work during the time off.  She said I shouldn't, but I know I need to get this shit done.  And, I can just go ahead and put it on my time card but not show up on one day.

TheLamp is looking really curvy these days.  Today she called me to help her with the change machine in the copy room.  It apparently didn't have any quarters.  While I opened the coin machine TheLamp was hovering around, her curvy body so in my face.  Then she sat down next to me in that folded leg fashion.  OMG, she looked so nice.

Of course tonight is the Wednesday night dinner.  We went to get Mexican and had margaritas.  When we got back to TheGirl's place and of course I played with puppy.  Good times.

Thu Dec 21, One of the full timers brought in some crazy tasty potato balls that were stuffed with turkey and gravy.  They were damn good.  It was like a fully encapsulated meal in a bite-sized form.

On Tuesday there were some guys working on the doors at Montrose.  I asked what they were doing, but of course no one knows anything.  Today I found out what they were doing.  They were installing new automatic doors.  This is going to be great for me.  So many times I've had to hold those damn doors open with my legs in order to get things inside.  Just a few weeks ago I had to struggle with getting some tables out the door.  Thankfully someone helped me with the doors, but it was still a mess.  Now, it's all gravy.

A security guard that left a few weeks ago for a better job came crawling back to his Glendale job because they made him do actual work at the other job.  He's been back for a couple of days.  I saw him for the first time he's been back today.  We chatted a little about how he is back now.  And then he tells me that Benedict told him that he plans on quitting at the end of the year.  We shall see.  I don't believe anything Benedict says.

Mala sent out an email today saying that talked about the etiquette of answering the phone.  I'm not going to bore you with the details.  Suffice to say it doesn't matter what those etiquette rules say, because the reality is that the phone isn't answered at Central.  People have told me that they wait up to thirty rings and that no one answers.  That's because their new system doesn't allow for a dedicated person to be on the phones.  I know the schedule SAYS there is someone manning the phones.  But the reality is no one is on the phones.  In the old days there was a person sitting at the phones that had to answer it while they checked in books.  I know, I was the person at times.  Today... nothing.  Well, Mala... you will soon find out that what you think is happening and the reality are two different things.

Fri Dec 22, There were not that many books in delivery today.  Of course that means nothing once I'm out on the route.  Lately this idea of a "floating" collection has made the amount of books going around less.  Of course the books WILL return to their home location over time when the shelves at certain branches.  For now there are just fewer books out there in rotation.  Some parts of the collection are protected.  Like anything from Brand is going to return to Brand, no matter where they are returned.

There is a new lot of pages all over the system.  Many of them are quite attractive.  Certainly part of that attractiveness comes from them being of a certain age.  But another part is that they are attractive.  I already featured one of them that I think is really cute at Adams.  Today there was one at Montrose made me look twice.  Maybe I'm just a horn-dog.

When I got back to the garage some idiot was parked in the van's spot.  It happened yesterday and again today.  It was bullshit.  I parked in front of the car and waited and waited for parking enforcement.  I got tired of waiting, so I went back and sure enough the owner of the car was all worried and wanted to leave.  I told her she needs to look more carefully next time.  After that I was able to park the van again.  I so don't need this shit at the end of the day.

One good thing about the commute tonight was that it was actually pretty fast.  I think most people have left town and the few that did weren't on the road tonight.  I made great time tonight.  That was until I nearly reached home.  Then the freeway slowed down to a crawl.  ARGH!  I was so close to home but that last mile took almost as long as the rest of the commute.

Misa sent me a picture from social media that showed the old gang from the library.  MicroManger, Junior, Bundy and Les were there, among others.  We all speculate whether MicroManger will return, but my buddy and I think that there is little chance she will come back at this point.  One of the full timers said that they received a text message from MicroManger saying that she went to Central.  She didn't interact with anyone, which makes me wonder why she wouldn't.  Only thing I could think she didn't want to interact with anyone was that she was giving the administration her walking papers.  But, who knows at this point.  She's been gone more than a year.

Sat Dec 23, Today was a typical Saturday for me... I didn't do anything.  Damn right!  It's my one day off.  This week it's different since I will have Sunday and Monday off.  The same thing happens next week since it's New Years day and eve next week.  *sigh* I do wish I could have two days off.

I wanted to post something I forgot to last night.  The above photo is of a rocket launch.  Everyone on social media was posting it and wondering what it was.  I didn't get to see it live, but I've seen a few of these already so I knew that it was a rocket launch.

Time for some clean-up of things that I have on my miscellaneous folder on my computer.  First an email that a patron from the library sent me an email that I'm sharing here now.  Click on the above picture to read the contents of the email.  The photo gives you a clue what the email subject.

Here are some random social media posts that I also had in my miscellaneous folder.

Sun Dec 24, My cousin called my aunt to ask her if she wanted to go visit my Godmother today.  That got me off the hook.  That also meant I could just rest today.  And that's what I did.  I threw out some old boxes, but aside from that I didn't want to do anything.

After my family went to visit my Godmother they came home and we had dinner.  My aunt made spaghetti and my cousin bought some chicken and a salad.  Afterwards I caught up with my cousin and told her the whole sorted story about my Glendale job.  My cousin couldn't do anything but laugh.  I told her how I'm lucky to be outside of that bullshit and that I'm able to laugh about it.

Talia texted me today to tell me that she's going back to school to finish up her degree.  He apparently was given a grant.  She will supposedly graduate in the Fall, and was basically asking me if I could go see her walk.  Her only family is her asshole brother.  I can understand why she wouldn't want to invite him.

Mon Dec 25, Merry Christmas!  Time for a picture of a Christmas monkey.

Tue Dec 26, Tuesday and it was time to return to the grind.  I had planned on going to bed early last night, but of course that didn't happen.  I ended up jerking off longer than I should have and I went to bed at nearly midnight.  But thankfully I wasn't super tired and the route was super easy.

As I walked up to the library this morning I noticed the address looked strange (pictured above).  The center number was off.  From what I could see it looked like the middle number had fallen down and someone just placed it back up.  The number seems to be held on the bottom with a couple of screws and on the top with epoxy.  Whatever they used it didn't hold.  I'm not sure why the top part of the number couldn't also have a screw.  I would think that having a screw in the cement and then using epoxy on those three screws would make for a better hold.  But clearly I'm thinking too much.  Clearly the shoddy workmanship that is found all over the library continued into every aspect of the building.

I loaded up the van to go to Pasadena super fast, because there were only two bins waiting to be loaded into the van.  There are eight bins in the van already from Friday.  I booked it to Pasadena and back super fast.  I was going to go into city hall and that's when I realized that I didn't have the branch money.  I had to go back to central and pick it up and go to treasury.  Womp, womp.

I dropped off all the Pasadena stuff and loaded up the van, if you can call nine bins a load.  That's one of the lowest amount of bins I've ever had to deliver.  Some of it is because of this stupid floating thing.  Some of it is just because the circulation numbers seem to be down as well.

All the bosses are out on vacation this week.  What's left is the scrubs on the desk and everywhere else.  I saw people on the slaughter desk today that I've never seen on it.  And the schedule showed more of the same through the week.  Ha, they can have that idiot desk.

The route was pretty chill today because of the few book bins.  What I wonder is Benedict going to be true to his "word" that he told the security guard that he was going to quit at the end of the week.  I seriously doubt that he will quit at the end of the week.  But, that would screw them good.  I wouldn't effect me much, because he does so little work that his impact leaving would be minor.  In short, good riddance.

Wed Dec 27, The holidays and not only workers being on vacation but also the brats being on vacation has made for some really empty streets.  I wish the city was like this all the time, or more than 50% of the time.  Oh well, not going to happen.  By next week this street will be packed.

My coworker, who I have posted pictures of here before, was looking REALLY curvy today.  I could go on, but why I've said it many times that I'm just a horn-dog these days.

I have a lot of work to get through with at work.  I'm SO looking forward to ending this list of projects next month.  For now most of these projects are nearly done.

TheGirl had a coupon for for a two for the price of one burgers at a place we frequent.  Since we've had some issues with idiots when we have gone there to eat, we decided to take the food back to her place.  This also meant that we could have a nice bit of wine and not worry about driving back home.  The food hit the spot.  TheGirl and I talked about our trip to Carmel and how we haven't figured out what to do there yet.  I told her that I had a online document that we can both contribute to with our ideas for the trip.  She mentioned that it was empty.  I told her we best start populating that document with ideas.  I stayed extra long tonight, because I was roughhousing with puppy.  TheGirl asked if sometime next year I could sleep over with Cheyenne, because TheGirl was doing to do a mud run and that she would be out of town overnight.  I said yes.  I mean, why not?  I'll make it a mini vacation.

Thu Dec 28, There wern't too many bins on Tuesday, but today there was about the normal amount of bins for a Thursday delivery.  For various reasons there haven't been as many bins going out these days.  Today wasn't the normal amount, but it was closer to normal for some of the branches.  There are some branches that are just not pulling their weight.  Grandview is a dessert except for the kids piling into that place after school.  But the circulation numbers aren't doing well, from what I can see from the bins.  The stupid "teen" room that they built as part of that branch's "renovation" is yet another unpopular thing about that branch.  There are few teens that go there.  Pacific has some of the same problems that Grandview does.  It's a bigger branch, but because of it being mainly populated by children from the neighboring school there aren't that many adults there.

The route was pretty standard.  I have it down to the same pattern these days.  I told someone that you could set your clock to me, and that's pretty true.  I pretty much arrive at the same branch at the same time.  That's just how I roll.

Mala sent out an email today (pictured above) that kinda misses the point, but also doesn't miss another point.  The dummy and lazy pages are doing the RFID project.  Not that they're doing it well.  Case in point, this email.  Mala points out how the machines used for this RFID thing are being left unattended out in the aisles.  Mind you, the point I think she misses to mention is that's not JUST that the machines are abandoned, but that they are abandoned.  Meaning the pages aren't doing their fucking job.  I was told by some of my coworkers that they see that these pages abandon the machines for over an hour.  I'm not in the building long enough to see them being abandoned for an hour, but nearly every time I walk by where one of those machines are in the aisles there's no one manning the damn thing.  Last week when I did see one of the pages sitting at the machine they were looking at their phone.  Mind you, I didn't just walk by.  I was in the area for about five to ten minutes.  And in that time the page didn't scan a single book.  Morons.  This is all on AD, by the way.  She gave the job of coordinating this to the least experienced person in the library system.  A page that has a bad reputation for not doing her work.  A page that has no experience in being a supervisor.  THAT's the person AD puts in charge of what might be the biggest single project the library will ever do with that collection.  What a bunch of dopes.

Fri Dec 29, It's the last Friday of the year, and the last day at work for the year.  Come Tuesday it will be 2018.  One thing I like about the new year is being able to sleep in a little bit more, because I won't have to start the route until 9am instead of the 8am start I have these days.  For half a year Pasadena brings the books to us, and for half a year we drive it to them.  It's been a quiet week since most of the big wigs have been gone.  Maleficent showed up yesterday and today.  But aside from that none of the other big dogs upstairs showed up.  Good, they can all rot.

I think the bins were a little more than yesterday.  I didn't actually count them yesterday or today.  But it felt like there were more going to the branches today.  The practice of everything floating is slowly being undone by the practically of it all.  I noticed a lot of books with makeshift routing tags on them.  I've mentioned this before in this journal, but I point it out today because last week it wasn't that much.  This week nearly all the branches had something outgoing that had the makeshift routing slips.  Floating can devastate a collection.  I'm not sure how the dummies like AD can't see that.  Oh I know why... because she's high atop in her ivory tower.  Fucking bitch.  Well, even though floating is the official policy, the reality is that the branches can't survive it and are going on their own to return things to the "natural balance."

I have a lot of cute coworkers at Glendale.  You might say my flavor of the week is this girl.  I know I posted another coworker from San Marino this week.  No one said I can't find more than one lady attractive.  Anyway, it's been nice interacting with this young lady.  She's nice.  I mean really nice, and not just look wise.  Gee, if I had any balls I'd ask her to lunch or something.

I mentioned my evaluations came in this month.  Today I got my copy from Glendale.  It's not perfect, but it's near perfect.  It does have a funny line about that my supervisor hopes that I will ask to work on the desk if my schedule provided for it.  I'm not going to say I don't need the money, because I do.  But that desk at Central is a slaughterhouse.  It's set up all wrong, so it's doomed to fail.  But the only reason it hasn't sunk is that the workers are keeping it afloat.  Not by much, but it's still kinda floating.  If we take the boat analogy further I could say that the boat has definitely taken water.  But it hasn't completely sunk.  It's only a matter of time.

Sat Dec 30, As I write this it's nearly 9pm.  I'm dead tired despite not doing anything today.  The only thing I did was pick up my aunt from the metro station.  Of course this tired feeling could be from staying up late last night and jerking off.  But then I did sleep in this morning.  Though I know that doesn't always make up for staying up so late.  Especially when there is a whole lot of booze involved the night before.

I have this pipe dream that a week from now I'll wake up fairly early and go out for a walk and try to do that every Saturday until I lose some of this extra weight I'm carrying.  Like I said, it's a pipe dream.  It would be nice, because that walking would hopefully take off some extra pounds and I would theoretically have more energy.  Time will tell.

As I said earlier, I picked up my aunt from the metro station.  I think I mentioned how I bought her a cell phone that I can use to track where she is at nearly any given moment.  I've used it to make sure everything is OK with her when she leaves the house, such as today.  Today she went to visit my Godmother.  She told me that she was going to go on Sunday, but she thought that things would be hectic because of the Rose Parade.  I told her that the parade never runs on a Sunday.  But, she was all dressed and ready to go.  I gave her a check she wanted me to give her to pay for where my Godmother is staying.

Anyway, I used the phone to track her progress back home.  I had intended on picking her up from the actual home where my Godmother is living.  But my timing was bad and I missed when she left the location.  I did catch when she was on the bus and on her way to the metro station.  To cut a long story short, my timing was much better this time.  I drove up to the metro station just as she was walking to the bus stop.  I parked the car and called her.  But she keeps the phone so buried in her purse that she couldn't hear it.  I did reach her before any buses came up to the stop.

Sun Dec 31, As this is the time for reflection a thought came into my head that put words to a concept that I already intellectually knew.  The thought came to me that one of the things I learned from my relationship with TheGirl is that one can seemingly do everything right and still fail.  At least that's how I feel.  I don't think I made any major mistakes with TheGirl during our relationship.  Yet time and time again I failed.  I won her over, but then soon she was thinking of going back with TheHusband.  And then when I thought I had won THAT battle she up and breaks up with me and goes back to him.  THAT return failed miserably, and I took her back.  The last break-up by her was expected, but it didn't make it any easier.  As I just said, time and time again I snatched defeat from the jaws of victory with her.  Maybe I'm being generous that I think I did everything right.  I'm sure I did a lot of things wrong.  But what I'm saying is that I don't think I did any major things wrong.  I was loyal.  I loved TheGirl with all my heart.  And I was there no matter what.  I think that's why I'm not that eager to enter into another relationship.  Having seemingly done all the right things and yet still getting hurt, I'm not ready to go through that again any time soon.  I don't know, it's just a thought I had.

Here are the "best" nine photos from my social media feed, according to the amount of "likes" given.  Hmm.

Wrap-up, I don't know why the months seem to be flying by faster and faster.  This month has gone by like a flash.  As I look back at the events I wrote about I see why this month felt like it went by fast... because a lot happened.  I can't sit here and say it was a great month.  But, it wasn't a horrible month.  The end of it was quiet, thanks to the holidays.  For that I give this month a solid B grade.
 

2017 Wrap-up, I went back to some of my old entries on this journal in order to see what to write about here.  I was just looking at entries from the beginning of the year.  One thing dominates my entires... the library renovation.  That was a terrible time.  I had fewer hours.  I had to sort the bins in the morning and the evening.  And I submitted a few application for other jobs.  No of them even contacted me.  Thankfully things have improved since then at the library.  I have more hours and I don't have to work that horrible circulation desk.

Then there was this idea that I would ask TheWish out.  I debated it and of course finally did it.  And then that was anti-climatic since I didn't feel a spark with her.  I do like her a lot.  I do want to sleep with her even now.  But a romantic love?  That I couldn't see happening.  But it sucks because she's a great woman.  I like her a lot.

What I see when I look back at the entries is a whole lot of bullshit this year.  Not many things seemed to have gone right this year.  I'm tired of a lot of shit, but mostly I'm just tired of how whenever there was some momentum built it would quickly be stopped by some obstacle.  This year has not been easy and I think my body is showing it.  It doesn't help that I drink nearly every night.

But I will say that this year has taught me so many things.  The most important thing is that I learned not to give a fuck.  Not about everything, of course.  But to not give a fuck about work.  Things will improve, I know that.

On my last trip up to the Monterey peninsula I stopped at SLO to get some food and gasoline.  I wanted to get a great sandwich at a certain sandwich shop, but it was closed.  Still, I saw this great city seal and had to photograph it.

On my last trip up to the Monterey peninsula I stopped at Paso Robles to take a picture of a Carnegie library.  Across the street from the library was this really cool building (above).  I might have to return to that city some time.

On my last trip up to the Monterey peninsula I stopped at Spreckles to specifically get a photo in what looks to be the downtown area.  In what is a bar, or former bar, I saw painted on the side this Coke advertisement.  Cool.