Right off the bat, I want to hope that 2020 will be a better year than 2019, because 2019 was a shitty year.  With that I once again I wish for a Happy New Year!  Let's get into the update.

 

Sunday, December, 1, What will these dopes do when responsible dumb dumb doesn't work on Sundays any more?  Chaos, it would seem.  T texted me earlier today asking first if I was working today, which isn't my responsibility to email everyone on Sundays to say that I'm going to be there.  But of course my boss never thinks to email the Sunday crew that I'm not going to be there.

It was super nice to be home today.  The entire long weekend.  I wasn't sad about not going to SF, but I was missing Carmel this weekend.  I somehow have to figure out a way to go to both next year.  Gotta take a lot of saving.

I wanted to check something on the cameras at work and I noticed today that they were not recording.  A few weeks back someone supposedly hacked into the cameras and the boss had to create a new account for the cameras.  I guess she didn't pay for the recording service.  Oh well, let's see how long it takes someone to notice they're not recording.

Monday, December, 2, I was just starting to shower when my loofa thing just unraveled around my hand.  Juuuust great.  I didn't have time to try to repair the thing, so I just finished showering and figured I would fix it when I get home.

At least the drive to work was relatively trouble, and dope, free.  Thank the maker.

I went to bed relatively early last night, and I woke up relatively rested.  For some reason my back hurts sometimes, but not constantly.  I don't know, I'm just falling apart, I guess.

I visited the ladies tonight, as per usual on Mondays.  Cheyenne was pooped, but so was I tonight.  I wasn't even sure why I was so tired today, I hardly didn't do anything at work.  Nothing strenuous.

My finger nail that I broke trying to drive a poll into the ground for the fundraiser last month is at a critical point.  The broken part of the nail is in such a place where it is now starting to catch little threads, and it hurts.  I hate it.  I seem to always catch everything with that part of the nail these days.

Tuesday, December, 3, I arrived at work, picked up the keys for the van, and then went out to get the van.  But, the van wasn't where it's usually parked.  I went around to the alley parking lot and didn't see the van there.  Then I went to the parking structure and walked around there for a while.  I finally gave up.  I was going to try and use the mini van that's used by the IT people.  But, just then I see Kvon crossing the street and I asked him what happened to the van. He tells me that the other driver took it into the city garage to fix the back door latch, which gets stuck every once in a while.  ARGH!  Why wasn't I informed?  Why wasn't there a note, I thought to myself.  Fucking dopes.  Why didn't Kvon email me?  I was quite frustrated.  I walked to the city hall lot and found the van.  I talked to the guys there and they said the van was ready, they just wanted to give it a wash before it was "ready to go."  I tell them, "Isn't it supposed to rain tomorow?"  They then just said, "You gotta point there."  And I took the van.  A little heads up would have been nice.

The problem with the van's door was supposedly caused by this metal rod that we use to move the bins around.  I still don't know if that's really the reason, but I'll go with the mechanic's suggestion that we not have the rod where the door will knock into it.

One of the administrators is leaving this week.  He's worked at the library for seventeen years, and now it's over.  He's going to USC.  The poignancy of him going to USC and DrDeath coming from USC is not lost on anyone.  Even DrDeath had to point it out while saying some words about Jay.  Oh well, all the good ones are going.  I didn't have many interactions with Jay, but he seemed to be a good guy.  Serious at times, but also a funny guy.  He was a bit of a rock there, because he knew his job.  Now nothing but scrubs will be around.  It was sad to hear him say his good byes, because it's yet another person leaving.  LP is also leaving.  Fucking bullshit!

These dopes continue to push that all of us RSVP to the holiday party, but none of us give a shit.  This is why they continue to ask and ask and ask us all to please tell them who is going.  Yeah, assume none of us are going.  Another funny thing is that there is also another email floating around asking for coverage of library events.  Most of these are on a Friday night, and don't end until the earliest 8pm, and the latest past 10pm.  No thanks.  If I start work at 8am and I have to work until 10pm I'm going to pass out.  Otherwise I might pick up a few extra bucks here and there.

Emma put up a picture of me at Disneyland on our Disneyland social media platform.  It's funny, because Bundy from Casa mentioned it to me the other day, but thankfully my buddy wasn't there to hear about it.  Hey, it's no one's business but mine.  But it is funny how slowly, and surly, I will be known to be hanging out with Emma.

Wednesday, December, 4, I came into work and Pseudo supervisor tells me that some group from the city was walking around the library checking out the staff computers.  Easy enough, they may want to upgrade mine, since it's one of the oldest in the building.  AND, big and, they might get me a Mac to work on since I work with Photoshop all the time.  That's only part of it though.  The bad part is that Pseudo supervisor let it slip that I sometimes use my Mac computer for projects, because it has a newer version of Photoshop.  The boss later said that I can't do that any more.  I did point out that if they are afraid of any viruses getting through from my Mac to the greater network that it might not be very probable.  Mostly because any virus for Mac I might download would not affect any Windows machine.  So the question of safety and virus protection is muted a bit.  That is not to say that everything is perfect in my little exchange of files between my work computer and my own computer.  I'm sure there could be a problem in theory.  But, whatever.  There are things I still can't do on my work computer that I can do on my computer.  Like I can't install a needed font on my work computer, because I can't just download anything and install it.  I've given up trying to ask the IT guys to install individual fonts.  This is yet another over reaction to something.  And you know how much I HATE overreactions to things.

I don't have any personal stuff on my work computer, but I made sure to clear out anything that these dopes might consider "incriminating."  Again, not that there's anything in there.  I cleaned all that stuff out a few years ago after my talking to about was I "OK."  Bullshit!

Friday, December, 6, I was super early to work this morning, and I didn't need to fill up the gas tank.  Because of that I figured I would use my extra time before work to take a picture.  I wasn't sure what to take a picture of though.  But on my way to Glendale I remembered an old house by City Hall that I thought might make for a good picture.  I drove down there and thanks to the early morning light the building looked really nice (as seen above).  I also took a picture or two with my iPhone.  I think the picture from the Polaroid looks pretty good.  I'm going to have to research some places to take pictures with my new Polaroid.

On what was supposed to be a chill Friday I got so much extra bullshit to deliver today, including some "emergency" kits to several branches today.  I packed a book truck with these bags and just as I was getting off the elevator the entire book truck collapsed.

In addition to the emergency kits in duffle bags, they had me deliver two huge trash bins full of supplies as well (shown above).  The duffle bags weighed a lot because they were carrying water packets.  I'm not sure what was in these trash bins.  Probably bricks, by the feel of them.

Saturday, December, 7, TheGirl and I had planned on this day for a long time.  We have gone to the Enchanted Forest of Light for several years in a row now.  There were two possible obstacles in our way today.  One was possible rain.  Which wasn't such an obstacle.  But we did get an email earlier this week saying that rain or not we could not get a refund for our tickets, nor could we reschedule.  OK, that's fine.  But, TheGirl is expecting to become a grandmother soon.  Her daughter-in-law is super due, and her doctors thought they might have to induce labor... today.  Which would have meant missing out on tonight.  Thankfully it all fell into place.  The doctors didn't induce, and we got to go!  Here are some pictures.

Monday, December, 9, Emma posted a video featuring me eating a hot dog at Carthay Circle at DCA.  I think I did pretty well, considering.  But, you be the judge.  It's just nice to get out of the house and have these Disneyland adventures.

I was thinking about how I still want to sleep with Emma, but I feel that if it doesn't work out I'm OK with it since it's just nice to spend time with her.  She's so full of energy and life, and I'm falling apart and old.  I mean look, if we happen to fall into each other's arms I'm still good with that.  It's just nice spending time with a human girl.  Ha!

Today I got a new project at San Marino involving the library card and selling it to the masses as "The Best Card in San Marino."  I have to have most of the stuff ready by open house, which is the third week of January.  So much work.

Tuesday, December, 10, Emma wanted me to do some recording for the next vlog she is going to post, which involves my little trip to Descanso Gardens for that Enchanted Forest of Light.  I shot some B roll and later did some voice over work to loop into the footage of the Descanso sign.  I like doing this project.  It focuses my mind on some cool things, rather than some BS like work.  Emma is also getting better at putting together the footage and editing the videos.  Good job.

TheGirl is a grandmother.  Her daughter-in-law gave birth to a baby boy today.  I'm happy for her.

Wednesday, December, 11

Thursday, December, 12, The saga of the so-called "Market Place" books is a sad one.  They are meant to be popular books that patrons can easily find by the front door.  Making it easier to have patrons find the popular books that they want, without having to go into the stacks, and probably more important for these bozos, not having to ask for help.  The promise was that the most popular books would be there and patrons could just walk up to them to find them.  DrDeath, like so many others, I'm sure, before him, have tried to put their stamp on this idea.  But it's a flawed idea, at best.  Because you have to know what is going to be the next hot book, months before they are on display.  Simply because you have to order the books, and then process them for check out.  DrDeath seems to think he knows what patrons want.  He's wrong.  The books at the market place have wallowed and have not circulated as much as DrDeath would have hoped.  He has diverted money from the new book fund in order to fill the market place shelves with books.  Yes, some patrons do check these books out, but the amount of books has grown so much that there isn't any room on the shelves.  And so now these market place books are being flung to the branches.  The best part is how the books are designated for the trash.  As the note in the picture above shows, the branches can find a home for these books or toss them.  What do you think is more likely to happen?  There are about a dozen books that I have been delivering and redelivering from Central to Grandview and back again, AND back AGAIN for the last three weeks.  When I was talking to one of the librarians about how these books are just floating around her answer was, "Oh, we can just send them to," some organization that takes donated books and supposedly gives them to people in need.  I like how that's the solution to these extra books.  Because the reality is that this "solution" isn't a solution.  The library is burning through money and then basically just throwing away these books after a few weeks.  Such bullshit!

Earlier this week the saps at Central brought out the old, tired, Christmas tree from somewhere in some closet at Central and placed it in the middle of the main reading room.  Today I walked by the circulation desk and saw the sad, sad decorations... this ONE piece of fake garland.  One of my coworkers commented that one piece of garland was actually sadder than no garland.  Absolutely right.  Why even bother with one stupid little piece of fake garland?  Someone later asked me why Central didn't decorate better, and I told them that it wasn't a priority.  I also added that those who care for that sort of thing are done, aka AD.  There's no way that DrDeath gives a damn about decorating the library.  I'm not even sure who initiated the putting up of the tree.  Just typical Central bullshit not decorating earlier and better.

Saturday, December, 14, The plan for today's trip to Disneyland was to take my Polaroid camera with me and Emma was going to film me taking pictures with that and my iPhone.  The idea was to compare and contrast the two different cameras.  I mean, I know that in terms of resolution and such, the iPhone is going to blow away the Polaroid.  But that's not the point.  The point was to take some interesting photos with both.  Certainly the nature of Polaroids lends itself to those photos being unique.  The first one I took was of Sleeping Beauty's Castle.  It came out really dark.  Of course the iPhone one came out great.  First attempt was not so good for the Polaroid.

I like this picture of a store in Car's Land, because it's more what I want from my Polaroid pictures.  Which is basically good composition and interesting visuals.  It's also the best exposed photo.

There was a point in the day that both Emma and I were getting hungry.  We originally thought of going to Trader Sam's bar, but we ended up in a new burger joint in Downtown Disney.  I didn't know anything about this place, but we tried it.  The burger I had was meh.  The fries were good, but also just a bit meh.  However, the onion rings were a marvel.  They were huge and super tasty.  They came with a buttermilk dipping sauce that had dill mixed in.  It was super yummy.

After lunch and after going to get a drink at Trader Sam's bar Emma and I ended up going through some of the stores in Downtown Disney.  I took the above picture of Emma and something I did to the print after I took it out of the camera made all those finger print looking thing to happen on the print.  Oh well, it did add some "character" to the print.

Sunday, December, 15, I don't know how my aunt made my bed earlier this week, but it quickly fell apart.  Last night I was struggling with my stupid sheets.  The bottom sheet just came out and I was just too tired to deal with it.  But then the bed cover was all over the place.  ARGH!  I basically slept only with the red bed cover.  And that's another thing, my aunt had both the warm cover and the cover I use in the summer.  ARGH!  She thinks I'm going to be freezing, because she is cold at night.  I have to remake my bed later today.

Tuesday, December, 17, I was mentioning to a couple of people today how the amount of bins going out on delivery has gotten to be less and less each month.  Today I noted to someone that back in the renovation days I was delivering at least sixteen bins to Casa alone.  Having forty bins on the route was not unusual.  But since circulation has been going down over the last couple of years, the days of forty bins during the route is long gone.

Kvon mentioned that it was very likely that Syco was going to be made the head librarian.  Not that it means a lot, since direct supervision of the librarians was taken from the head librarian a while back.  Someone mentioned that it's just a pay raise for Syco.  Someone also mentioned that this makes the library very top heavy with a lot of supervisors supervising fewer and fewer grunts.  Typical of this place.  The new guy in charge of technology literally supervises one person.  Good job, dopes.

There was a point when I was in Kvon's office talking about Pasadena's choice to use a different system to check out book.  I asked why Glendale went with the system we have now and Kvon, without missing a beat, says, "Probably picked it because she slept with the vendor."  I don't think AD was good at her job, and she was an opportunist and a shill.  But I can't say that she was a slut on top of everything else.  This isn't the first time Kvon has mentioned her possible promiscuity.  But why does it always have to be that way?  Why does the default attack on a woman is that she's promiscuous?  I know that she's married, but I'm not going to sit here, with my history, and judge her for possibly fooling around outside her marriage.  Also, why does it always have to be about a woman sleeping with something to get something else?  The reality is, it's more likely that the vendor gave her a little money on the side, not fucked her.

Wednesday, December, 18, TheGirl and I went to dinner to the Italian restaurant that has that bland food.  Last time I went I ordered the spaghetti and meatballs, and that was good, if not great.  However, this time I had the Chicken Parmesan with angel hair pasta.  It was meh.  Thankfully the company is always good.  I think the next time we go to this restaurant that I'll just stick to the spaghetti and meatballs.

Thursday, December, 19, The route today was pretty chill.  I only had seventeen bins to deliver today.  I've said it here before, circulation is down.  I mentioned the whole thing about no longer being associated with the Pasadena library and one of my coworkers said that it would be the death of our library.  Yeah, pretty much.  So many of the books the Glendale patrons check out come from Pasadena.  Especially the new books.

Emma uploaded another video today, one that features me taking Polaroids at Disneyland.  I liked that video, and I think that it might be our best one so far.  I honesty think we're getting better.  Neither of us are camera shy, which helps.  Maybe it's farfetched, but it would be great to turn this into a career.  I know I'm getting ahead of myself, but it's a nice thought.

Friday, December, 20, Jade and I were joking about having to work on Christmas Eve when he told me that he has to go into work on Tuesday for a few hours, because the city doesn't consider it a day off.  The full timers would have to take a vacation day.  Then I noticed that the online schedule showed that I was scheduled to work on Tuesday.  What the fuck?  I asked Jade and he said that it was clearly a mistake.  But, he had a great idea to call out "sick" that day, and still get paid.  Nice.  I like that idea.

Sunday, December, 22, Sundays on the desk usually suck, but today it was pretty chill.  So chill I basically spent the entire time talking about food with my coworker.  There was even an attractive patron in the mix.  I don't want to work many more Sundays, but I had to I would like them all to be more like today's shift.  Chill.

Monday, December, 23, There was hardly any traffic on this morning commute.  I so wish that this was the way my commute was every morning.  Then again, if it was like this all the time then it would mean some sort of "Omega Man" situation happened and going to work is the least of my worries.  Still, it's nice to not have so many dopes share the road this morning.

My aunt is sick again, so she didn't make any food for my lunch.  Or so I thought.  I come to find out later that she DID make some food the other day, but I honestly didn't see it in the fridge.  Anyway, my mistake.  But, because I didn't see the food in the fridge I decided to buy some stuff to make a Frito pie.  Boy, did it hit the spot on a cold day like today.  I feel bad that I later found out that my aunt had made me food for lunch, but this Frito pie really hit the stop.

As I showed in an earlier entry, the dopes at work scheduled me to work Christmas Eve.  They corrected their mistake today.  Way to catch that.

Tuesday, December, 24, I thought that I was going to be just chillin' today, but then my aunt came to me and said that she needed to go out and buy something for my cousin's husband for Christmas.  I so didn't want to go out today, but it seems that any day off that I have now is a target for my aunt.  Despite not having showered I got dressed and we both went to some outlet stores in Van Nuys.  The stores were thankfully not packed, and thankfully my aunt was able to find something to gift.  She even got something for me.

My aunt didn't want to go home and heat something up, so we went to a restaurant to get some supper.  I ate my favorite at this restaurant, a Frisco burger.  It really hit the spot.

Here is a picture of what used to be a garage behind my neighbor's house, but is now a house of its own.  This is the trend here now.  Someone said I should do the same to my house, but I don't have the financial flexibility to do such things.

Merry Christmas!

Wednesday, December, 25, I honestly don't want to go to work tomorrow.  But, when DO I want to go to work?  When does anyone that isn't enjoying what they do at work relish the opportunity to go to work?  That does make me think of a quote by Steve Jobs that's been going around the inter webs about how you just need to follow your heart.

"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart." - Steve Jobs

I would like to know where my heart would lead me.  I honestly don't know.  The easy answer is to say follow my heart to photography.  But then again, I do like doing this project with Emma.  Maybe THAT's meant to be the path my heart follows.  I honestly don't know where my heart wants to go.

My aunt's cough is slightly better today than yesterday, but not by much.  I feel so helpless when it comes to her being ill.  She's been sick so frequently this year, including that bought with pneumonia.  But even before that I remember how she was sick earlier in the year and how we had to go to urgent care.  I really wish she would take care of herself better.  Maybe it's time to buy a bunch of those masks people wear in order to not get germs.  Would that work?  Would she even use them?  Knowing her, she wouldn't.

I had the last two days off, but tomorrow I have to go back to work at the library.  And it's going to rain and I'll be on the route.  ARGH!  At least the forecast says that it's not going to rain all day tomorrow.  Basically until late morning.  I hope they're right.  The last two nights I was going to jerk off, but then I ended up having one too many drinks.  I basically got whiskey dick, and then I just went to bed.  How pointless.  Why did I drink myself to that point?  I'm such a dope.

Thursday, December, 26, Because yesterday was Christmas Day TheGirl and I didn't have dinner on our usual Wednesday.  She suggested we have dinner tonight, which I was fine with.  We decided this a couple of weeks ago, but that was before my aunt was sick.  I almost cancelled tonight's dinner, but thankfully my aunt was feeling better.  I mean, she's not 100% yet, but she was feeling WAY better today, so I felt I could go home a little later.  Nevertheless, I did have this anxious feeling though dinner that I couldn't stay out too late.  I didn't want my aunt to worry, and I wanted to make sure that she was feeling better.

TheGirl and I went to get Mexican at her favorite Mexican restaurant.  We each had a margarita, but we couldn't get too sloshed since we both had work tomorrow.  Still, good times.  We exchanged Christmas gifts as well.  TheGirl got me a bunch of shirts, which I really need.  The current state of most of my undershirts is pretty dismal.  A good percentage of them have yellowed stains in the armpit areas.  Not good.  I got TheGirl wine and batteries for the flashlight she uses on her walks with Cheyenne.  She was telling me that the flashlight is great, but that the batteries die fast and then the cars on the road don't see them as they cross the street.  I worry about them, hence me getting TheGirl something practical like rechargeable batteries.

Friday, December, 27, I've really been enjoying the empty streets and the easy commute these days.  I would love it if it was always like this, but it won't happen.  After the holidays and the kids come back to school everything will be terrible again.  Someone at work said that the current state of traffic is like straight out of the movie "The Omega Man."  Truth.

Outside of the library, where I park the van to pack it with the book bins, there seems to always be dopes around.  Case in point the dopes above.  They always seem to just be hanging around the loading zone.  They usually park there for a while and smoke outside their cars.  Today I beat them and I staked my spot before they arrived.  It really sucks when they beat me and I have to crowbar the van into a small spot.  I wish these dopes would find another place to smoke.

The other day one of the people from administration asked us to tell someone about any "new leaks" appearing after the rain.  Today I saw a leak that someone told me about in the upstairs reading area.  I didn't think it would be THIS bad, but at the same time I wasn't surprised.  This area of the ceiling was the site of a HUGE leak a couple of years ago.  There's a part that they patched up back then, but it's already bad again.  The city is currently suing the dopes that installed the new roof, but that's going to take some time to resolve.  Until then, the roof will just continue to leak.

The mountains in the distance look really pretty due to the fact that they are capped with snow (as shown above).  I love that the air is so clear right now that you can actually see the mountains in the distance.  They're usually obscure thanks to the smog.

Sunday, December, 29, I fielded a phone call today asking about the city hall in San Marino.  The caller wanted to know who the architect was.  I went online and found nothing.  I had to really look into many sources until I FINALLY found out the answer.  It was a man named Frank D. Hudson.  The person asking was thankful for the information.  It turned out to be someone that works at USC.  He is writing a book.  He sent me the cover.

Monday, December, 30, Cheyenne.

Tuesday, December, 31, There isn't much to say just now.  I'm home.  As I write this it's 9:29pm and I'm just waiting for my aunt to go to sleep so I can have some booze.  I bought some wine the other day, the same wine I had the last time I was with Emma at Disneyland.  After I'll probably do the traditional New Year's Eve jerk off.  Yeah... good times.  Happy New Year!

Emma uploaded a video today featuring her parents and her sister.  There is a point where Emma's sister tells her to stop filming her that cracks me up every time I watch it.  This... is what I like about Emma.  She is fully Emma.  And I'm fully Eric.  I think that makes a good team.  Time will tell.

December wrap-up, I have to say that December wasn't as bad as other months this year.  The Christmas lights and that projects I've been involved in have lightened things up a bit.  I'm glad, because this year has sucked dick.  December has had its moments, but nothing compared to the previous months.  It's terrible that the standard is now, "Well, at least no one died."  For that December gets a C+ grade.  It could have been better, but it also could have been worse.

2019 wrap-up, There is no denying that 2019 was a pretty awful year.  The death of both my Godmother and my aunt tops the list of terrible.  But close behind is the terrible work environments I'm currently stuck in.  Each of the jobs I work is circling the drain.  San Marino held up well over the years, not going down the road to decline for some time.  But now it's hit the warp speed button and is flying towards disaster.  Glendale has always been slow and steady stupid, but even they ramped up the downward spiral with the hiring of AD and later DrDeath.

As I look back at this year I suppose that it's apropos that I started it sick as a dog.  This year my aunt was also sick several times.  Once she had the flu and would not go see the doctor.  Then she was sick again with pneumonia.  But sadly my other aunt died of heart failure.  It's been a tough year, what with everyone sick and people dying.  This year has sucked.