Snow as far as the eye can't see...

Whelp... tis the season to be jolly. Christmas is around the corner and eveyone is filled with holiday joy. Or so would seem. With anoher holiday here I am slightly homesick. I do like the colder weather of New England for Christmas.There is nothing really special going on in Maui for me this Christmas. I am working the day before and after. I am going to miss the big feast with the McGrails. Plus there will be no watching Scott hoard all his presents Christmas morning so he could have the last presents to open.

There are some grumpy people in the world I'll tell you. Also spoiled little brats you wanna just slap and tell to stop their whining. At lately I've been seeing alot of these types. Allow me to recant a few choice stories of what's been going onin hte world of Barnes and Noble.

1. I HAVE to start with this story because it is both disgusting and classic. Tonigh around 9pm I walk into the bathroom after my break. What's the first thing I notice? Yup, someone's taken a dump into the men's urinal. It' jsut right there for everyone to enjoy. Massive one too. Now the biggest issue with this is that the B&N employees are in charge of keeping the bathrooms clean thoughout the day. Each day someone is detailed the duty. I dread looking at the log book, afraid to see my name next to duty box. Thankfully it's not me so I get to go inform another worker, Troy, of the good news for him. Apparently he is not too surpirsed. This is the second nigh in a row this has happened. Either it is a homeless man or some punk kid. I'm told this happens alot. Homeless people will go in there and just trash the bathroom, not caring what they do. Everything from defiling the stalls to shooting up right at the sink. Classy.
2. I'm working for maybe 25 minutes today greeting people and asking them if they'd like to try out the nw Nook Color. I'm a pretty cheery person, smiling, polite, funny. Most people will look at it or say no thanks. But their polite. Some will just ignore me shaking their head. A few will be downright rude, assholes if you will. This one person walks in not even looking angry. I do my usual routine and am cut short halfway through it with "I'm not interested in looking at any damn electronics! Just tell me where the cookbooks are so I can buy my book." I point it out making sure to be extra cheery for him but in my head thinking "I hope the book shelf falls on him." Merry Christmas to him.
3. The best story though came shortly after that. A family comesin and I do a little demo for them. Their 15 year old daughter loves the thing. Right away it's "Oh I want this for Christmas! Get me this!" and her parents are telling her she got all her gifts in money and this trip. But she continues on getting annoyed and then mad that they are not buying her it. The father just wanders off leaving the mother to deal with it. The daughter then uses the fact that her birthday is only a month away and this can be her gift. When that doesn't work what does she say? "Mom! If I don't get this tonight I think I might start flipping out and pulling a tantrum!" Word for word her lines. The mother gets annoyed and still says no so the daughter starts whining. I'm torn. I'm standing there not knowing if I should laugh or simply slap some sense into the daughter. Cause the mother looks like she is about to. Finally the mom just walks out the door, leaving the father to deal with it. Sadly they didn't buy the Nook.
Gotta love our society.

PS: I am sooooooooo over selling these stupid Nooks. I am still like the best seller out there but it is just too boring for me. I stand in this one area for hours saying the same lines over and over. I would love to just walk aroun straightening shelves and whatnot. Chatting with the customers, anything that is not real work. I HATE being so good at my job they only want me doing it. Damn my awesomeness.

Survived my first hitchhiking experience. Had to hitch down to Maui Cycling to try and solve the issue with my bike wheel (more on that later). I walk to the bottom of my street and am standing there for a total of maybe 3 minutes when a guy pulls over and gives me a ride. Why? Cause I'm wearing my sox hat. I throw my bikein the back of his truck and we're off. He turns out to be from just outside Boton so we talk Mass for awhile. After runing errands down in Lahaina and talking bike with Maui Cycle I'm back on the highway thumbing it. This time I have to wait about 8-10 minutes but get picked up by a cyclist. He tells me he never lets a fellow biker stand out there. Apparently there are alot of cyclist hitching rides. We chat fo a bit and it turns out he lives in my area and is looking for people to bike with. His buddy is apparently a hrdcore tri guy so we exchange numbers and Jon and I now have a few guys to train with. Tomorrow I'll be doing the hitch hiking things again. Saves me gas money. That whole 4 bucks it cost to fill my tank.

So it seems like every other person I meet is from New England. I have a lady acros the way from me who lived in both Worcester and Spencer. I work with a lady who lived in Worcester in the 70's for 10 years. My neighbor with the kids that wake me up every morning around 6:30 is from Chester, New Hampshire. He used to go down into Fitchburg all the time. I work with another person who grew up in Gardner and went into Worcester all the time. I get tons of people coming into B&N asking what part of New England I'm from because of my accent. Pretty crazy shit.

So my bike. Tis is super annoying becaue I have been without a bike to ride for too long. I did borrow Jon's once last Monday but it just isn't the same. Too big for me. My front wheel of my bike was damaged when it was shipped over here. Haing insured the whole thing I didn't get too concerned. I figured I would get it looked at, they would see that they are complete idiots and I could get my new wheel. Apparently not how it works. It seems you have to have everything messed up, filed wrong, talk to 10 different offices, get ignored and threaten to take them to court to get things moving. Also, they NEVER return your calls. Never. So right now it's ben almost 3 week and I am maybe 2 steps closer to getting things settled with UPS. Tomorrow I have to call them back (for like the 20th time) and see where things stand. They were supposed to call me Friday but, big surprise, they never got back to me. I want to ride my bike!

Well, I'm almsot out of money. The whole taking forever to get into the sub system (finally in just as all the kids go on a super long XMas break) is catching up. It's not as bad as it seems yet. I am still making just enough to barely get buy. It jsut means living very frugally. I don't go out to bars very often and when I do limit myself to 1 beer. Unless others are buying. I don't buy anything really other than food. Even food I am buying only what I need to get by on. That means rice, pasta, bread, peanut butter and jelly, milk, cereal. Sometimes I'll buy bananas and a few snacks. Once in a while I'll buy meat like chicken when its on sale. Frozen veggies if I have a couple extra dollars. I workd a ton of extra hours this past couple weeks so I was able to do a little christmas shopping. I am really hoping that once the break is over that phone will be ringing for subbing spots. Otherwise it looks like I'll be selling my body for extra cash. I don't even know if there are too many areas like that in Lahaina where I could make money. Though I do seem to hit it off well with the older ladies who come into B&N.

I am enjoying it here nether the less. I love looking out at the ocean from my front lawn. The pineapple fields are awesome to run in. So long as the boars leave me alone. Saw another one today as I was running. It dashed through the tall grass off to my left. It is always perfect weather for anything outdoorsy, except sometimes running can be taxing in the heat. I am really looking forward to getting out there on my bike and exploring the coastline. People keep asking me if this is something I will be doing for multiple years. The more I think about it the more I think I may. If I can become a consistant sub in the sytem or even get a teaching job out here I would really make it a long term routine. There are only a few things in Worcester that would get me to stay there.

Survivor Update: I got an email for the casting guy last week. I have to send in a video by December 28th about myself. Right now I'm scrambling looking for a camcorder to get this done. It's mandatory for anyone who hopes to make it into the casting.

Training is going well. Knee has healed up. Running going well and getting in more ocean swims. All that's missing is the biking. Marathon is just around the corner. Feeling pretty confident right now. Have done a handful of 16-20 milers and felt pretty good on them. Still not too hapy about the 5:45 AM start though.

But I'm tired, it's midnight and I have a day off tomorrow. Thank God. Christmas cards going out tomorrow. Be on the lookout.

Goodnight Everyone and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!