Time You Enjoy Wasting Is Not Wasted Time

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Overheard in the halls:

Student 1: What do you think about the reading assignment?

Student 2: Reading?!? I don’t read!!

So today is Labor Day, “a day off for the working citizens” or the unofficial end of summer. Karen, the girls, and I went to the Crossroads Market on our day off.

I was reading an interesting post on the Get Rich Slowly blog where the author was recounting Every Job I’ve Ever Had and I thought that could be fun. So here I go (I am going to include volunteer work too, since that is work even if there is no pay - I’ll indicate volunteer work with a (V)):

• Assistant Stage Manager, Hello Dolly (Community Theatre, is it really bad that I can’t remember the name of the community or the theatre just that it was in New Jersey?) (V): This was a lot of work, and my first non-school related gig. It made me really want to pursue technical theatre as a possible career.
• Assistant, Staten Island Children’s Museum (V): I worked in various areas, but my favorite was the broadcasting section where the kids could produce a news cast with the weather report and everything.
• Assistant, Children’s Science Program (V): One of my science teachers in high school did a workshop on Saturdays for kids where we did all kinds of fun science projects.
• Environmental Research (V): That same science teacher helped me become interested in the environment. We would go out regularly to take measurements to track the population of the Blue Herons on Staten Island.
• Night Desk Attendant: My first paid job in college. Signing people into the dorm since the doors are all locked over night. I had the 3-7 AM shift, so I didn’t sign too many people in or out. However, I did have to disarm the alarm and unlock all of the external doors. Disarming the alarm wasn’t a simple on/off you had to turn a key in just the right fashion, which is probably easy when you aren’t about to fall asleep. There was many a time I accidentally set the alarm off. Luckily I was usually able to shut it off pretty quickly.
• Dish Washer/Sandwich Preparer, FSA: I had a couple of shifts where I worked the dish room. Loading a giant dishwasher and emptying garbage cans. Hey it’s work. My other shifts were spent making sandwiches. Nothing too intricate although I got in trouble often for putting too much meat on the sandwiches.
• Mathematics/Computer Science Tutor, The Learning Center: My first “knowledge-worker” job. In addition to group tutoring I also did individual tutoring.
• House Painter, College Pro: Believe it or not this was a very enjoyable job. It was a nice feeling to have a physical completed result at the end of the job. I guess I was pretty good at it too, since more often than not I wound up on the clean up crew, where we would fix the mistakes of the previous crew.
• Computer Technician, Performance PC: My first “career” job. I spent five years at this job, learning a lot about computers and customer service. It was a great experience leading up to:
• Instructional Support Technician, Academic Information Technology, Help Desk: My current position. I love it here. My worst day at work is still better than most other days at my previous jobs. I maintain seven labs, five servers, and several campus-wide programs/services among other things. It’s a very interesting job, never a dull moment.

Since being a fake rock star is so much easier than being a real rock star, I’ve found a new site to blow away time. JamLegend is kind of like a Rock Band or Guitar Hero of the interwebs. I find it completely addictive and had to tear myself away long enough to write this post. Of course it’s really nothing like playing in a band, but it is still a fun way to while away some time. I do have an invite if anyone reading this wants in on the private beta. Back to rockin’ out.

The Daily Show welcomes those in town for the Republican National Convention

Photo Credit: The Zeppelin on Flickr

What a busy day! But the first day back is always crazy busy, so there’s nothing new there. I managed to keep on top of all of my calls today plus teach my class.

I saw this today and thought it was very fitting, it’s from PHD comics.

see Obama pictures

So today after Farm Fest I played handyman. Our drain has been clogged preventing us from doing wash. Since the weekend is when we do most of our laundry this is a problem. The hand snake I have is just not up to the job, so today we rented an electric one. That did the trick. This is an example of needing the right tool. By renting the electric snake I was able to clear the drain for less than it would have cost me to hire a plumber. There are certainly some jobs that require an expert, but this particular one isn’t one of them. It’s just that the plumber already has the right tool and knows when to use it. So I can add one more thing to my seemingly ever growing list of household repairs I have successfully accomplished.

Today we went to the Fredonia Farm Festival.  Actually, I met Karen and the girls there yesterday after work too. But it was really hot and I was still in work clothes so it wasn’t exactly comfortable so we didn’t stay very long (Karen and the girls had already been there for about an hour anyway).

We went down around 10:30 this morning and stayed for a few hours. The girls watched the dog show while we had lunch. My favorite part of Farm Fest is the food. On my must buy list are the kabobs from the Spanish food cart. This year I also got the Cuban sandwich, which has quickly become one of my favorite sandwiches. We checked out all the vendors, chatted with the people we knew, and all in all had a fun time.

The one thing that I’ve never understood is that they keep the road that goes right through the main square open instead of diverting traffic a couple of blocks. At least the directions to campus coming off of the Thruway no longer divert you through town like they used to. Since it is move-in weekend the traffic to campus and therefore through town is very busy making it even worse to drive or walk downtown.