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Daily Writing

Work…in Progress?

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What jobs have you had?

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My work history is rather short, but I am currently in the process of adding to it.

While I search for a new job, I may as well speak about my previous work and remember better times.

My first job was as a doorman at a dance hall. On the weekends of my senior year in high school, I would ride my bicycle to the local Masonic Temple. The business owner rented the facility to host his DJ work. I would help him set up the sound equipment and then I set up a station near the entrance to collect entrance fees.

For my work, I received a portion of the proceeds from the event each night. I usually spent the money on my ride home each night. I would stop at the grocery store and buy a computer magazine, something to drink, and a sandwich for my dinner.

The ride home was around 11pm and the town was completely dark except for a few street lights. I knew my way around so this wasn’t a great issue. The traffic lights couldn’t see me in the dark so I would just ride through all the red lights or I might take a shortcut through the lagoon park.

This was my first job and I recall the time fondly.

While not quite a job, I did join a trail crew for the summer just after graduating from high school. The other members were an eclectic group of similarly aged people from around the county. The trail crew was led by older volunteers I think. I recall getting homesick and leaving the program partway through only to regret the decision and ask to be reinstated.

The trail crew was a stopgap. I was not looking forward to attending college after high school. It seemed ludicrous to go from school, which I didn’t enjoy, to another school right away. I was looking for an alternative. The trail crew was one option. The next option that I went with was applying to the Job Corps service.

I completed two vocations and attended a little college while attending the Job Corps Center in Astoria Oregon. After that, I moved to North Carolina and I got a job working at a pharmacy chain local to the Carolinas.

I got burned out working there and sort of fell to pieces. I couldn’t work for the next 2 years and eventually went to vocational rehabilitation and received counseling.

There was a short period when I worked as a Maintenance Technician for a local business owner and did lawn care, pool cleaning, and groundskeeping work for him. I also cleaned out rental houses and did some restoration and painting work.

After that short summer job, I applied to and was hired at another pharmacy. I worked there for a little over a year before injuring my back. I didn’t take the injury seriously enough and left it until my whole leg began to seize up.

I was fearful of reporting the injury at work. I had been reading horror stories about workers being mistreated by that employer on Reddit and this clouded my judgment. I made an excuse to my boss and resigned to focus on my recovery after that.

Two more years passed before I was able to walk properly without a cane again. Thankfully I was able to get employed back at my old job again and I happily returned to working at the pharmacy.

I kept working there until 2020 when I decided to return to school to get a college degree. Now I am one class away from graduating. I bought a car and now I need to find a job to pay my bills.

The job hunt has been difficult, but I will continue to apply to whatever is available. Hopefully, I can get something that aligns with my degree.

That’s all for today. Thank you for your time.

Questions or comments? Please level them below.

Daily Writing

Unplugging as needed

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How do you know when it’s time to unplug? What do you do to make it happen?

Hmm, maybe when my wrist hurts? My back is sore? Or when my jaw seizes up from clenching too long?

Gaming woes to be sure.

Actually, I am quite happy to be connected and “plugged” in.

I recently finished a 14 month suspension from smartphone usage and I must say, life with a feature phone is tough.

Not only did I have to give up mobile gaming but I also encountered many difficulties navigating modern life, which is more and more connected these days.

While I had heard of people being unable to shop or dine without a smartphone or QR code readers, it was not until I experienced it for myself that I realized how much of an issue it could be.

The fast food industry is moving to digital and doing away with cashiers and even cash acceptance.

It’s not just restaurants either, the other day I went to a pharmacy and found only self checkouts and not an employee in sight.

There was actually someone there, but they could have passed for a ninja, as I barely noticed them as I left.

My Charles Schwab and Sofi accounts were inaccessible, except via PC, during my unplugged period. The same was true of my other brokerage service’s and a myriad of apps I installed for offers on Swagbucks.

As I write this on my Samsung galaxy, I am running Windows update on my old Gaming rig. Each update gets me a step closer to being fully connected again.

I am looking forward to slouching in my worn out chair and inviting more sore wrists, clenched jaws, and perhaps even some back pain.

Plug me in and never let me go.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading.

Comments and questions, please drop them below. Have a great day!

Daily Writing

Nope, and I plan on it never happening…

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Have you ever broken a bone?

I have gone out of my way to avoid taking part in any activities that more likely than others could result in a broken bone.

I have little interest in sports other than Golf and Ice Hockey, both of which I prefer to watch than take part in.

I have had some close encounters though.

I have been hit by a car while crossing a highway on my bicycle.

I have fallen out of a truck with a faulty door while speeding around a corner.

I have sustained knife wounds to my midsection and I once swung a machete into my leg.

I also crashed my moped after turning off the pavement on to a gravel road.

No broken bones. Just bruises and cuts.

I am thankful my close encounters have not yet resulted in a break.

I will of course remain ever vigilant. I don’t like pain and I shall ward against it wherever and whenever it is humanely possible.

Daily Writing

My most dear possessions

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What personal belongings do you hold most dear?

That would have to be my photo albums and greeting cards. I keep these in a safe and dry location in the house.

The albums include photos from my childhood and from my parent’s travels from before I was conceived.

They are precious memories that could not be replaced. They are also representative of my families history on both sides. I can trace my roots through the images seen on every page.

We pay respect to our ancestors every year by way of the Korean Jesa ceremony (제사), which my family has adopted.

Ancestor worship is rarely present in either cultures of my heritage. So, I was quite thankful to find a way to honor my forebears.

Daily Writing

Collections? They’re hidden.

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Do you have any collections?

In drawers, in boxes, and stashed in closets. My collections, which started in childhood, and continued through adulthood are now simply nostalgia and a glimpse of fond memories.

I can still recall that fateful day in third grade when my older classmates brought out their Magic: The Gathering cards. It was still early 1995 and Magic was making a splash with the release of the Ice Age expansion.

I had up until this moment been happily paging through Archie comics during my break periods. However, Magic was a whole new world that I felt driven to explore.

I convinced my parents to give me the money to buy a booster pack. Once I got back to school the next day, I traded all the cards in the pack to my classmates. I left that day with enough cards for two decks.

I continued collecting Magic cards and playing matches with my friends until the end of Summer when I encountered a fellow who was nuts for Baseball cards.

Having contracted a similar strain of sports fever, I traded away my Magic collection for Baseball cards.

I must say, In my adult life I have often regretted that decision.

Later, when a friend was visiting from Canada, I got to see his Magic collection. This was the spark that reignited my love for Magic cards. 

Sometime after getting into Magic, the Star Wars Trading Card Game (TCG) was released. My dearly departed best friend Cedar and I both collected and played Star Wars TCG.

I got my Executor Star Destroyer card from Cedar. Later I pulled an Executor variant from a booster pack. I still have the two cards in a hard case back to back.

In late 1996 I joined legions of aspiring Pokémon masters as I took up the Pokémon TCG. I had been quite enamored of the Gameboy game and the cartoon and so was more than happy to shell out my allowance for some more cardboard.

With Pokémon, I didn’t have anyone to play with so I taught my mother how to play and then bothered her whenever the mood struck.

After Pokémon it was Yu-Gi-Oh!, I pulled the foil Gate Guardian from my very first booster pack. That got me hooked.

This repeated with a few different card games that I don’t recall the names of and that likely no longer exist.

Aside from trading cards, I have an extensive collection of domestic and foreign coins including quite a bit of silver coinage.

Some coins came from working in retail while others have been gifted to me by relatives. I inherited my maternal grandfather’s coin collection and I’ve purchased some coins myself.

Notably, I purchased 5 sets of the Pride of Two Nations silver coin set which features Liberty and the Maple Leaf of Canada. I’m selling 3 of the sets on eBay.

To a lesser degree, I have dabbled in collecting bottle caps, stamps, liquor bottles, (photos of) custom license plates, stones, jewelry, and seashells. Oh, and the PEZ dispensers. I have the Star Wars, Lotro, and Harry Potter Limited Edition PEZ sets.

While I no longer possess them, I had a moderate collection of heavy blocks of sediment filled with semi-ancient shells and bones. I was quite enthralled by fossils for a period after an excavation when I was enrolled in Cub Scouts.

I’ll leave aside my digital collections of Pokémon, literature, and Internet Obscurity, and call this the end.

Thank you for taking the time to read my response to this writing prompt.

Questions or comments? Please leave them below.

Have a great day!

Daily Writing

Job for a day? Maybe Barista

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What’s a job you would like to do for just one day?

I love coffee and I really appreciate the effort the people at my local drive thru coffee shop go though to make a good cup of Joe.

I think we’ve seen the cool designs that get put into the foam on cups of coffee on social media.

There are some truly artistic designs. I would like to try out being a batista and learn how to make Latte art.

Daily Writing

Community Service

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What do you do to be involved in the community?

I was taking part in trash pickup for around six months at the local landfill and surrounding grounds.

Between all the locals bringing in their trash and the big semi trucks hauling it away you get a lot of waste that gets scattered or blown away.

So what I was doing was going around with a trash can slung over my back and one of those grabber-poles and gutting all the small bits strewn across the landscape.

It was an endless process, there was always more trash than could be humanly picked up. I was happy if I could get a hill or ditch clear each day. The next day though it would likely be covered in trash again.

It’s surprising how many households put recyclable and compostable materials in with their trash.

I grew up in a fairly “green” town in the Pacific North West and so planet friendly living is engraved in who I am and how I live my life.

We make sure anything and everything that can be composted goes in a bin and that bin gets regularly emptied into a bucket.

The buckets will either get dumped in the compost pile with grass clippings or they’ll get buried in the garden beds directly.

Depending on weather and the propensity of bugs, we usually get good yields on our crops. Our growing zone is 5b-8b here in NC.

We have Tangerine and Lemon trees grown from seed, a peach I bought as a sapling, and three bamboo groves.

It’s all been a work of love and often curiosity. Just this morning I noticed the seeds in a cut apple had partially sprouted.

I planted them.

Maybe we’ll have a new addition to the garden next year?

That’s it for today. Sorry, I got a bit off track with the garden.

Questions and comments please put them below. Have a great one!

Daily Writing

The morning. If it’s still around when I wake up.

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When do you feel most productive?

Last night I went to bed at 4:58amn the day before it was 6:01am the sky was brightening and the birds were singing.

If I can manage to go to bed at 11pm I have great mornings in which I am super productive. I study best in the morning when my mind is sharp and focused.

Somehow I find excuses to stay awake. I get thirsty and instead of tea or juice, I have coffee. I often find myself wanting to watch TV come bedtime. I’ll suddenly recall a show I never finished or one I want to re-watch.

Sometimes I’ll be so enthralled by what I am thinking on that I will stay up late imagining stuff.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about real estate. I browser property listing and day dream about my dream house. Often, my mind takes it further and I get in to a Sim City imagination mode where I think about building small towns on sections of the map.

Before the towns I was imagining hybrid diesel electric fire trucks, and before that it was starting a non profit to support formerly incarcerated women.

All sorts of imaginings keep me awake. But on the rare few nights when I go to bed on time I have wonderful mornings.

Thanks for your time. Questions and comments please put them below. Have a great day!

Daily Writing

Camping? Not since childhood.

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Have you ever been camping?

I think my last time camping was when I in the Boy Scouts. We had a big meet up with the other area chapters which included the Sea Scouts.

I recall that on a different camping trip, I had left the tent door open and it rained. The tent and all my belongings were soaked through.

If my tentmate is reading this, I’m very sorry for the wet night.

I spent the night and the next day shivering in my Long John’s near the campfire. A sorry sight indeed.

I also forgot that I had packed my spare (dry) clothes in the bottom of my pack. I was struggling with ADD back then and was often spacing out important details. I only noticed the clothes after I returned home and was unpacking.

Earlier camping trips included visiting the natural hot springs in the Olympic Mountains of WA. Skiing trips at Mount Rainier and Mount Baker.

There were a few camping trips that included my mother. We camped in the designated park area at Fort Warden. She preferred the comfortable surroundings of home for the most part.

One season, while on a beachside camping trip, in our small sailing skiff, my father raided a seagull nest for eggs. He fried them over the fire on an old steel barrel lid that he found washed up on the shoreline.

I experienced #Vanlife early on. My father had outfitted his old dodge van with a bed, wood stove, a gas cooker, and various other comforts of home.

We would sleep in the van when he went to craft shows like Best of the Northwest and to the Barter Fairs in Eastern Washington out near Tonasket, Yakima, and Omak.

Actually, I was born at the general hospital in Tonasket. Although my family eventually settled in Port Townsend, after their step van broke down, the sagebrush and scrub land was always a second home for me.

That’s it for today. Thank you for reading.

Questions and comments, please put them below, and have a great day.

Daily Writing

I would, if I could, but I’ve been disenfranchised.

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Do you vote in political elections?

Disclaimer: This is a sensitive topic. I won’t be hurt if you decide to not read it.

I can remember my first election where I was eligible to vote was in 2004. Bush and Kerry were facing off and I managed to get picked as an alternate delegate.

The orignally selected delegate was unable to attend and so I was activated and went to cast our ballot at the primaries.

I recall the exciting energy that seemed to suffused the air. Neighbors who normally were quite reserved had become animated and agitated.

The actual casting of the vote was sobering and I found myself back at school with little changed.

I voted Democrat in 2004 and 2008. Growing up my father, who is British, had said that the Americans would never elect a black president because racism was so engraved in this countries culture.

It was certainly surprising that Obama won, not once, but twice over. I was hopeful for change.

Change did not come, rather things got worse. Obama was not a peacemaker, but warmonger. The same, however, is true of Hillary, Biden, and Trump.

For the 2012 election, I looked for an alternative, the democrats had lost my vote but I still wanted to vote, it was my right.

In modern terms you might say it was a civic flex and the little “I Voted” sticker was swag.

I was aware of the Green party but did not feel they were quite in my direction.

I eventually found the Libertarian party and switched to them. In the 2012 and 2016 elections, I voted for the Libertarian candidates.

And them in 2020, I was stripped of my voting rights. Disenfranchised is the term that gets bandied about.

So, I would if I could. Vote that is.

Thinking back now I don’t believe the Libertarian party was a particularly good choice for myself. Their platform leaned pretty heavily into the Christian faith and its tenets.

There was a strong push to move many government functions into the private sector, a playstyle which I would consider to be shortsighted at best.

They seemed to think that all that was needed to end poverty or homelessness was to throw money at charities or leave it up to a church to sort things out.

A lot of wealthy folk in that party. Big on giving, not so much on helping in-person.

A spot of good news is that come August, I will have been restored in full of my voting rights.

Just in time right?

Oh, if only that were true.

I now face the issue once more of needing a party that aligns with my moral and ethical beliefs. I have looked and found a few that touch on various points, but sadly none that truly fit my wants.

Maybe what I really need to do is start my own party. A useless effort I know but who knows, right?

Perhaps somewhere out there in big old America is someone else who shares my feelings and beliefs.

If I find the courage, I might just ask.

That will be it for today. Comments or questions? Put them below.

I’ll leave you with these words from a great YouTuber,

“If you made it this far then you my friend are a true legend and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”