Tag Archives: shirtworks

Bike Fenders and Federal Taxes

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I got to test my new bike stuff this morning. It’s been snowing over the weekend, and last night it was really cold, so there’s snow and ICE all over everything, and I have a 30+ block bike ride to work. I only crashed once, at the first intersection, as I tried to brake too quickly. Lucky for me, there were no cars to run me over. I got to work fine, and I’m glad I bought the fenders, because the sun is out now, melting the ice and leaving a layer of slush and mud all over the streets, which would otherwise have sprayed all over my back.

Also, this morning I found out that my new job does not take federal tax out of my paychecks. What the hell? So now I have to set aside one out of every four paychecks to make sure I don’t owe the government money at the end of the year.

The best part of the deal is that my bosses didn’t even tell me, and I specifically asked if they took tax out. Turns out they meant they remove Social Security and Medicare, but not federal, which would have left me high and dry if not for one of my coworkers casually mentioning it.

Snow and Gaming

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Well, it was snowing the morning, which was cool right up until the point where I had to bike to work. In addition to being cold and wet, I had snow blowing in my eyes, so that I couldn’t see. However, the end result of this is that I bought some cool sunglasses at Bi-Mart. They’re yellow! Now I will be able to see in the snow! Hooray!

I’m all angsty about the election. I won’t get into it, since I’m sick of hearing everyone’s opinions about it.

Tonight is the first weekly Geek Gaming Night! Excellent! Urn emailed all his geeks and we’re all meeting at an unnamed location, where we will proceed to beat the tar out of one another and then go home and consider joining secret terrorist organizations… oh wait, that’s Fight Club… We’ll be playing Quake (and Half Life and Tribes and others).

Job Details

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So my new job is pretty cool. It’s computer stuff, and graphics stuff, and after two months with no hope of a job, it’s about 100 times cooler than I was expecting any job I got to be. My coworkers seem a little strange, but overall pretty cool. Once we’re all more comfortable together, I’m sure it’ll be cool.

The dirty details, for those of you who are interested: I’m making $7.50 an hour to begin with, and they said if they like my work, I’ll be getting a raise soon. I’m working full-time, 8:30 to 5:30 on weekdays. The store is closed on weekends and major holidays. I think she said we get paid vacation days, and after I’ve worked for three months, I’ll qualify for health insurance and two weeks paid vacation!

Also, Annie got a job. She doesn’t know much about it yet, except when she’s working, but even if she’s making minimum wage, the two of us will be pulling in enough to money to live very comfortably. I’ll finally be able to buy some CDs, we can pay off the couch, and we can look into purchasing some technology, like a webcam, DVD player, bigger TV or a digital camera. I’m pretty excited.

Operating System Zealotry

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If there’s one thing that Miles and I can relate on (if not agree on), it’s the frustrating feeling of preferring one Operating System/Platform over the one that is favored by the majority of people in your field. Miles is a programmer/gamer who loves Macintosh, and I’m a graphic designer who loves PCs. We’ve talked about this several times, and both agreed that it was somewhat ironic. As a result, though, I’d like to think that we’ve both shown each other some of the potential of the hated and feared opposing OS.

The result of this is that I applied for a job as a Graphics Production person at a t-shirt shop, and the application said “Mac experience a must.” I have enough training on the Mac that I felt comfortable applying, but it was goofing around on the Macintosh in the tech room with Miles’ help that really made me feel comfortable about it. Sure, anyone can sit down on a computer and open up a program and figure out the basics of how to use it. Computer OS’s aren’t THAT different. The trick is how comfortable you feel working AROUND the beaten paths, and doing things TO the OS, instead of WITH it.

When my boss pointed me at the shiny new G4 (drooooool… just because I prefer PCs doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate how awesome a G4 looks), he said “There’s the computer you’ll be working on. Feel free to customize as you need.” Naturally, I changed the wallpapers and color schemes and stuff, but I also managed to rearrange the hard drive, taking all the programs that were installed in the root directory and placing them in the Applications folder! It’s so nice to know your way around an OS.

On monday, I’m taking in my speakers to hook up to the G4, as well as downloaded copies of all the important software I need (Audion, Kalidascope, etc). Then, the only thing remaining for me to do to make this box into the superior ultimate graphics machine I need is a NEW FUCKING MOUSE!

THE HOCKEY PUCK MOUSE MUST GO! I never used one before. They looked really stupid, so we just hooked up a normal mouse to our G4 in the tech room, and all the other Macs I’ve ever used either had a good mouse, or at the very least, the little shell you slip over it to make it the same shape as a normal mouse. What I’m getting at is that I had no idea how INFURIATING using one of these mice is! They don’t fit in the palm of your hand, as one who is used to Microsoft’s ergonomic mice is used to. And on top of that, they tend to get turned around in your hand, which you don’t notice until the mouse starts moving the wrong way on the screen! It’s completely unusable. So I’m ordering a new mouse. Logitech has a good looking 3-button scroll mouse that’s even made of translucent plastic to match the iMacs. It’s like $15, and I think that purchase will be well worth it to retain my sanity at work. The computer also has the stupid iMac keyboard with the teeny-tiny unusable arrow keys, which luckily, I have very little to do with, so I can live with that.

What’s the point of the story? While Macintosh is more fun than I thought, due to my experiences with Miles, the HOCKEY PUCK MOUSE IS THE WORST THING EVER.

Scott Is Employed!

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Hooray! I had an interview yesterday at ShirtWorks, a local t-shirt printing shop. They’ve been trying to hire a graphics production person for a couple months now, and somehow their ad in the paper never made it to the classified ads on the website at the same time I was checking it out. So last week, I saw the ad for the first time, and went by on the same day that they had given up being able to hire anyone! The interview went great, they seemed excited about me, and everyone knows how desperate for a job I am, so I was radiating excitement, since this was basically my last shot at a computer-related job before I get a job as a Sandwich Artist.

Anyways, to make a long story short, they really dug me. At the beginning of the interview, the woman said she would call me by the end of the week. By the end of the interview, she said she would call me the next day. Sure enough, I got a call this morning asking me to start work tomorrow morning at 8:30! Whoo Hoo!

I’ll post more details about the job when I have them. At the moment, I don’t know anything except it’s full-time with the possibility of benefits!