So, yesterday, after I had woken up in a sweat after dreaming about being stuck with Leslie Thompson in the middle of a swamp somewhere, I left the apartment, pushing the Yellow Trek cruiser bike, which I didn't have a lock for.
I pushed it past a group of 4 individuals who were at the back door of the lobby in the "designated smoking area" of Sacred Heart Apartments.
One of them was none other than Wayne, my next door neighbor, and the guy who had just sent me an e-mail, requesting a "digital resume" from me, in regards to the job that he now does, from his apartment.
"I got your e-mail! I got my laptop in my backpack and I'm going to look at it up at the kava bar," I told Wayne as I was leaving.
"Ok, be careful of your laptop and your bike up there!"
"Yeah, it's...." I was trying to gesture in the direction of the Uxi Duxi indicating that is in the direction of the nicer neighborhoods, and in the opposite direction of the Quarter, where I would have to keep an eye on my bike, and an eye and at least one hand, on my laptop.
A Clue
Just as I had walked up on the group, though, Wayne had been in the middle of skeezing a dollar off of Carlos, who is another of our 4 neighbors on floor 1R.
"I just need some change, so I can get a cold drink," he was saying.
I had a little over 4 dollars in change, and was reaching for it, when Carlos produced a paper dollar from his wallet and handed it to Wayne.
Wayne then asked him if he could just owe him the whole dollar, rather than giving him what change he did have, which was apparently short of the 85 cents needed for a cold drink out of the machine.
Carlos said that it was OK for Wayne to owe him the whole dollar.
Why do I mention this? Is it because I exalt trivia?
No, it is in relation to the pressing matter of whether or not I want to pursue getting the same job as Wayne has.
Sometimes (every time, if you are so inclined to believe) the universe will reveal clues as to its nature to those who are open to it and perceptive enough to notice. ...I can get you a job where I work, and then you can be short 85 cents for a cold drink, too...type of thing.
I never got around to putting the resume together.
I blogged, and I downloaded a couple versions of "Muffin Man," by Frank Zappa (and The Mothers Of Invention, I think) and then, it became late enough so that, it being a Friday night, I felt duty-bound to go out and busk.
I sure would have loved to have stayed in and made recordings, as my mind was teeming with ideas, with "There's A Golf Ball On The Moon," being a title that came to me for a song about the evolution of Man, for example...
28 Dollar Friday Night
One more day of recovery from plasma donation possible.
Friday night was a test, in a sense, of my assertion that I make "18 bucks an hour" busking.
This was the figure that I was using in order to determine, through calculation, if I was better off as a busker, or if I wanted to start to devote 40 hours a week working for Concentrix, like Wayne does.
I stopped to see Bobby about some weed. I hadn't smoked hardly any in a whole week.
This is another realm that the universe kind of gave me a hint about, as I found that Bobby was in one of his "moods."
He greeted me in a friendly enough way, but then seemed to snap when he noticed that I was on my way out to busk with the Takamine guitar, and not the Epiphone which he had bought for me for a hundred bucks, after the tuning machines had jammed on the former.
I had taken the strings off the Epiphone and taken out the bridge saddle piece, which is made out of bone, and had asked Bobby, a couple months ago now, if he would file it down some, so the strings would run closer to the frets. This is called "lowering the action" of a guitar.
Bobby has all the required tools to do that particular thing, but I had repeatedly forgotten to bring the little thing of bone to his apartment.
"Where's the guitar I bought for you?!?" he asked.
"I have it apart right now, waiting to have you file the bridge saddle down, remember?"
Bobby remembered and told me that he could do the job the very next morning. That would have been this morning, but, I have let it slip one more day.
"I bought you a nice guitar, and you're not even trying to play it," he said angrily. This is the danger of accepting any kind of gift from someone with "no strings attached," excuse the pun.
I told Bobby that I wanted to just file a bit off of the piece and then put the guitar back together, and then play it for a whole night to see the degree of improvement, if any, I would notice. Then, I might use that as a gauge, before asking him to take it down some more.
The truth is that, I found the Epiphone, even though it was brand new, to not play as well as the Takamine, which is a three times more expensive guitar, when purchased new. The only way I was going to continue using it was if I was able to do some serious "setting up" to it, at least lowering the action on it to make it easier to play.
Bobby's judgment seems to become clouded by appearances. For example, he thought that I was going out and playing using a piece of junk, because the Takamine has a ding on its side, where it had been dropped at some point, and the wood is chipped and frayed a bit at the spot.
He thought that the brand new shiny Epiphone, had upgraded me from a piece of junk to a fabulous guitar, just based upon appearances.
Johnny B. was the same way. After I had played him something on my Takamine, which had new strings and was tuned up and sounded great, and had turned to him with a "what do you think of my playing?" attitude, all he had to say was that, if I were to get some wood putty and fill the hole in and then sand it down, varnish and polish, etc., then "you wouldn't even notice that," referring to the damage that I don't even think about.
"That's not the way you do it!," he fumed.
He was suggesting that the way to do it was to file some off the bridge, put the strings back on the thing, tune it up and then have me play it and make an instant decision over whether it is low enough, or could come down some more.
I know that a lot more playing has to be done on a guitar to make such a determination. There might be one fret that is a hair higher than its neighbors, due to imperfections in the universe, and if one lowers the action to just the point before the strings start buzzing, he might find that when he plays a certain chord, a certain string buzzes.
I wanted to shave a bit off the bone piece and then put it through its paces. Plus, I like to make small tweaks and tiny improvements, refining as I go.
"What are you thinking?!?," he then said, in a tone of voice that I have become familiar with, and which told me that my best course of action was to try to gracefully exit his apartment.
It is the same tone of voice he used after he discovered that I had once taken my air conditioning unit apart and had found a valve that I could shut off which caused the sound of water rushing through a rubber hose to subside to the point where it brought blessed silence by comparison. I could even notice about a 12 decibel difference in the noise that my noise reduction effect was trying to filter out.
Bobby had suggested, as a friend and not trying to be mean, that I consult a psychiatrist, just so he could check me out, just for the hell of it.
"Because this...." he said, looking at the unit with its cover off and its insides exposed.
"This just isn't normal," he said.
He then walked over to my microphone and talked into it, saying: "You mean you can't record like this? What's wrong with this?" looking at me like I was crazy.
It's pointless to try to argue with him: "You can definitely hear it in the background on the recordings, and when I use noise reduction to remove it, it reduces the "h" sounds out of my vocals...I suppose I could change the name of one of my songs to 'My Favorite Orse' and get by..."
"Just make an appointment. It wouldn't be like admitting you're crazy; just have him run through this tests and give you his professional opinion, that's all..."
So, Bobby was in one of those moods. He even charged me full price for a dime of weed, sort of his way of saying that if I preferred to go out and busk using a piece of crap guitar that's all bashed up, rather than a shiny new...well, then he wasn't going to do me any favors by giving me a break on the price of weed.
He is the same way about my laptop.
I have a "refurbished" Lenovo Thinkpad. All the components have been upgraded to state of the art stuff, with a bigger hard drive, better mother board, etc. But it is housed in the old style case, which is heavier and makes the thing look like an old machine, something that has become synonymous with being useless.
"Don't you think it's time you look into a new laptop, I mean this one looks like a piece of crap, how old is it?" he once asked.
I explained the whole refurbishment process.
Then, when I was having trouble with it a few weeks later, he immediately was back on. "Dude, why don't you just break down and buy a new laptop, I mean this one...look at it!!"
But, not to make this a diatribe against Bobby, who has bought me a new guitar and has given me several sets of strings that he had tried and found to be lacking in some way, and has sold me weed at half price, etc. etc.
It is Saturday night, and I should try to follow up the 28 dollar night, made in about 2 hours (18 bucks an hour, eh?) with hopefully at least that amount.
I will have 3 days of recovery from plasma donation to my credit, should I make a Sunday trip out there, to capitalize upon my 7x bonus, for it being my 7 th donation of the month of July. I have until Tuesday to do that.
After that, I would be on the schedule of getting a mere 15 dollars for my next donation, to be followed by 25 bucks for the next one, but only if I return in the same week.
I am with Lilly on that head: "15 bucks, you've got to be kidding me?!?"
They -the plasma people- are hoping that, after that much donating your body has gotten to where it hardly glitches after losing 690 ml of plasma.
I pushed it past a group of 4 individuals who were at the back door of the lobby in the "designated smoking area" of Sacred Heart Apartments.
One of them was none other than Wayne, my next door neighbor, and the guy who had just sent me an e-mail, requesting a "digital resume" from me, in regards to the job that he now does, from his apartment.
"I got your e-mail! I got my laptop in my backpack and I'm going to look at it up at the kava bar," I told Wayne as I was leaving.
"Ok, be careful of your laptop and your bike up there!"
"Yeah, it's...." I was trying to gesture in the direction of the Uxi Duxi indicating that is in the direction of the nicer neighborhoods, and in the opposite direction of the Quarter, where I would have to keep an eye on my bike, and an eye and at least one hand, on my laptop.
A Clue
Just as I had walked up on the group, though, Wayne had been in the middle of skeezing a dollar off of Carlos, who is another of our 4 neighbors on floor 1R.
"I just need some change, so I can get a cold drink," he was saying.
I had a little over 4 dollars in change, and was reaching for it, when Carlos produced a paper dollar from his wallet and handed it to Wayne.
Wayne then asked him if he could just owe him the whole dollar, rather than giving him what change he did have, which was apparently short of the 85 cents needed for a cold drink out of the machine.
Carlos said that it was OK for Wayne to owe him the whole dollar.
Why do I mention this? Is it because I exalt trivia?
No, it is in relation to the pressing matter of whether or not I want to pursue getting the same job as Wayne has.
Sometimes (every time, if you are so inclined to believe) the universe will reveal clues as to its nature to those who are open to it and perceptive enough to notice. ...I can get you a job where I work, and then you can be short 85 cents for a cold drink, too...type of thing.
I never got around to putting the resume together.
I blogged, and I downloaded a couple versions of "Muffin Man," by Frank Zappa (and The Mothers Of Invention, I think) and then, it became late enough so that, it being a Friday night, I felt duty-bound to go out and busk.
I sure would have loved to have stayed in and made recordings, as my mind was teeming with ideas, with "There's A Golf Ball On The Moon," being a title that came to me for a song about the evolution of Man, for example...
 |
| Dealing With Alcohol Vapor Aberration: Photography 101 |
One more day of recovery from plasma donation possible.
Friday night was a test, in a sense, of my assertion that I make "18 bucks an hour" busking.
This was the figure that I was using in order to determine, through calculation, if I was better off as a busker, or if I wanted to start to devote 40 hours a week working for Concentrix, like Wayne does.
I stopped to see Bobby about some weed. I hadn't smoked hardly any in a whole week.
This is another realm that the universe kind of gave me a hint about, as I found that Bobby was in one of his "moods."
I had taken the strings off the Epiphone and taken out the bridge saddle piece, which is made out of bone, and had asked Bobby, a couple months ago now, if he would file it down some, so the strings would run closer to the frets. This is called "lowering the action" of a guitar.
Bobby has all the required tools to do that particular thing, but I had repeatedly forgotten to bring the little thing of bone to his apartment.
"Where's the guitar I bought for you?!?" he asked.
"I have it apart right now, waiting to have you file the bridge saddle down, remember?"
Bobby remembered and told me that he could do the job the very next morning. That would have been this morning, but, I have let it slip one more day.
"I bought you a nice guitar, and you're not even trying to play it," he said angrily. This is the danger of accepting any kind of gift from someone with "no strings attached," excuse the pun.
I told Bobby that I wanted to just file a bit off of the piece and then put the guitar back together, and then play it for a whole night to see the degree of improvement, if any, I would notice. Then, I might use that as a gauge, before asking him to take it down some more.
The truth is that, I found the Epiphone, even though it was brand new, to not play as well as the Takamine, which is a three times more expensive guitar, when purchased new. The only way I was going to continue using it was if I was able to do some serious "setting up" to it, at least lowering the action on it to make it easier to play.
Bobby's judgment seems to become clouded by appearances. For example, he thought that I was going out and playing using a piece of junk, because the Takamine has a ding on its side, where it had been dropped at some point, and the wood is chipped and frayed a bit at the spot.
He thought that the brand new shiny Epiphone, had upgraded me from a piece of junk to a fabulous guitar, just based upon appearances.
Johnny B. was the same way. After I had played him something on my Takamine, which had new strings and was tuned up and sounded great, and had turned to him with a "what do you think of my playing?" attitude, all he had to say was that, if I were to get some wood putty and fill the hole in and then sand it down, varnish and polish, etc., then "you wouldn't even notice that," referring to the damage that I don't even think about.
"That's not the way you do it!," he fumed.
He was suggesting that the way to do it was to file some off the bridge, put the strings back on the thing, tune it up and then have me play it and make an instant decision over whether it is low enough, or could come down some more.
I know that a lot more playing has to be done on a guitar to make such a determination. There might be one fret that is a hair higher than its neighbors, due to imperfections in the universe, and if one lowers the action to just the point before the strings start buzzing, he might find that when he plays a certain chord, a certain string buzzes.
I wanted to shave a bit off the bone piece and then put it through its paces. Plus, I like to make small tweaks and tiny improvements, refining as I go.
"What are you thinking?!?," he then said, in a tone of voice that I have become familiar with, and which told me that my best course of action was to try to gracefully exit his apartment.
It is the same tone of voice he used after he discovered that I had once taken my air conditioning unit apart and had found a valve that I could shut off which caused the sound of water rushing through a rubber hose to subside to the point where it brought blessed silence by comparison. I could even notice about a 12 decibel difference in the noise that my noise reduction effect was trying to filter out.
Bobby had suggested, as a friend and not trying to be mean, that I consult a psychiatrist, just so he could check me out, just for the hell of it.
"Because this...." he said, looking at the unit with its cover off and its insides exposed.
"This just isn't normal," he said.
He then walked over to my microphone and talked into it, saying: "You mean you can't record like this? What's wrong with this?" looking at me like I was crazy.
It's pointless to try to argue with him: "You can definitely hear it in the background on the recordings, and when I use noise reduction to remove it, it reduces the "h" sounds out of my vocals...I suppose I could change the name of one of my songs to 'My Favorite Orse' and get by..."
"Just make an appointment. It wouldn't be like admitting you're crazy; just have him run through this tests and give you his professional opinion, that's all..."
So, Bobby was in one of those moods. He even charged me full price for a dime of weed, sort of his way of saying that if I preferred to go out and busk using a piece of crap guitar that's all bashed up, rather than a shiny new...well, then he wasn't going to do me any favors by giving me a break on the price of weed.
He is the same way about my laptop.
I have a "refurbished" Lenovo Thinkpad. All the components have been upgraded to state of the art stuff, with a bigger hard drive, better mother board, etc. But it is housed in the old style case, which is heavier and makes the thing look like an old machine, something that has become synonymous with being useless.
"Don't you think it's time you look into a new laptop, I mean this one looks like a piece of crap, how old is it?" he once asked.
I explained the whole refurbishment process.
Then, when I was having trouble with it a few weeks later, he immediately was back on. "Dude, why don't you just break down and buy a new laptop, I mean this one...look at it!!"
But, not to make this a diatribe against Bobby, who has bought me a new guitar and has given me several sets of strings that he had tried and found to be lacking in some way, and has sold me weed at half price, etc. etc.
It is Saturday night, and I should try to follow up the 28 dollar night, made in about 2 hours (18 bucks an hour, eh?) with hopefully at least that amount.
I will have 3 days of recovery from plasma donation to my credit, should I make a Sunday trip out there, to capitalize upon my 7x bonus, for it being my 7 th donation of the month of July. I have until Tuesday to do that.
After that, I would be on the schedule of getting a mere 15 dollars for my next donation, to be followed by 25 bucks for the next one, but only if I return in the same week.
I am with Lilly on that head: "15 bucks, you've got to be kidding me?!?"
They -the plasma people- are hoping that, after that much donating your body has gotten to where it hardly glitches after losing 690 ml of plasma.
Concentrix on Glassdoor:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Concentrix-Reviews-E31549.htm
I could probably do well working for a company like Concentrix; I've done phone work going back into high school age, I type fairly fast and know a bit about computers. Living in a lower cost of living area especially, that $13 an hour could be good.
Even here, not having to have a car, renting a room or just working out of a small office I rent for $200-$300 a month, it could work fine. I even know where to get nice Apple hardware cheap (hint: it's everywhere out here).
But, as I always keep coming back to, for myself personally, do I want to just slot myself back into a workaday job?
I just sent off ... almost $1500 dollars to the IRS and for one medical bill ... but I'm trying to save up money so if push comes to shove I can rent the office, buy the hardware and get the internet set up, and then contact Concentrix if I have to.
OK be on the lookout for a small package about the size of two decks of cards side by side; it's got the tuners in it along with those pin things for holding the strings on, and a plastic bridge. At least you'll have a few emergency replacement tuners.
ReplyDeleteWow, thanks in advance, if you even get these comments; Bobby would love, I'm sure, to help me put the tuners on the Epiphone, and I could play it off as if I was just waiting for them to arrive and that's why I haven't been playing the thing; plus, they actually might turn it from a hundred dollar guitar into a "three hundred dollar" one, as that is the weak link in the chain.
ReplyDeleteThe Epiphone came with a pamphlet describing the technology that went into -how they were able to make a guitar that cheaply, that plays like, I don't know, a much more expensive instrument/
Being "slotted in" is not a good feeling. It's always "they've got you" doing this or that, not you are doing this or that; if that makes sense.
My most recent thought, that hit me as I was walking into the building last night was: How many people in a random group of a hundred can do what I do with the guitar and harmonica, etc?
Even if there were five people who were musicians in that sample; there would certainly be about seventy that could do the Concentrix gig.
And a lot of the remainder wouldn't do it because they would be trying to do something "better" like start their own company.
If I don't take advantage of what I can do that only five out of a hundred people other people can, but instead do something that seventy out of a hundred can, then it stands to reason that I would be squandering an opportunity.
Another way of looking at it is; if they have ground beef on sale for 3 bucks a pound, then instead of grabbing a half pound one, which will only be a buck and a half, I will grab the biggest one there -The more I buy, the more I save...
So, applying that same reasoning, I should be trying to busk for the largest amount of hours that I can, rather than trying to replace those hours with ones that will net me six dollars and fifty cents.
Plus, the fact that this will seem to be such bad news to Wayne, who seems to be desperately trying to get the recruitment bonus, is another sign.
He is behind on his rent, so he somehow has to report his income to Sacred Heart because of that, though I don't quite understand why. But he has been a fixture in the smoking area with his phone plugged into an outside outlet; maybe he's behind on his electric bill, too.
He said that the most they could charge me for rent was five hundred and eighty one bucks, and this is twice the amount that I calculated as being feasible and making getting the job worthwhile.
That being said, I wouldn't mind a part time job, or one like Travis Blaine has where he could work around the clock if he wanted to, making twenty four times seven bucks an hour, type of thing...