| Naruto and computers |
[Aug. 20th, 2007|04:33 pm] |
I spent ALL of Sunday with CR. It was about time. Soon I won't be able to spend any time with him. He'll be working or at school, or in college, grown up, and then married with kids where I'll live in his basement as "crazy old grandpa."
I was right about his workplace; they are unstable. In fact, they keep calling him to come in and work. Various people flake or don't show up for the kind of crisis reasons a majority of retail workers have: low-income, poorly insured, and people who raised themselves as kids who may not have picked up the best worker ethic from their upbringing. I do include myself as one of those during my retail days. When you're an an office where people make $50k on up, rarely to you lose workers to something like people passing out due to lack of eating (done that), constant child care woes (been there), and their ex-boyfriend calling the office collect from jail (had employees do that). We were supposed to spend Sunday together, and he got a call to come in because someone was hospitalized. CR at first accepted, then declined because he had worked almost 6 days straight (including one day where he promised to sub for another worker, who wasn't on the schedule that week, but he had already clocked in before he was made aware of that). So we sat around and watched Naruto, which was our original plan, while I continued to shred, file, and search documents for my e-Trade info.
I also bit the bullet and tossed away some old computer friends after salvaging a few parts I wanted. A moment of respectful silence for:
- Alice: A 486/dx100 with 32mb RAM. A Dell LE that a friend fixed for a customer of his, and the guy vanished.
- Gryphon: A K5 586/133mhz with 64mb RAM. First box I ever built from scratch from assorted used parts.
- Keiichi: A P2/400mhz with 128mb RAM. First box I ever built from scratch out of brand new parts I bought myself.
Soon, also, to be retired to a scrap heap:
- Tweedledum: A dual P2/450 with 512mb RAM. Dell 3200 server. Actually, this was used as parts to fix its twin, Tweedledee, which later was renamed Malice, and that ran punklinux.net until last year when it was replaced by Lilo (Tweedledee is in someone's office right now, as a pet project)
- AtariST 1040. It's time to let go.
- Akira: 8088 XT with 3mb RAM, I think. A Compaq Personal III "luggable" I got at an Evecon computer room freebie table many years ago. The keyboard contacts grow a corrosive skin which prevents a lot of keys from working until you open it up and wipe it clean again.
- Belldandy: a P3/700mhz box with 128mb RAM. |
|
|
| Comments: |
I didn't know any of those Atari STs were still around. Good Lord, I think mine left in 89 or so. :p
*salutes the dead soldiers*
Around here - which admittedly is a totally different environment - there's a lot of market for pet sitters, groomers, carers at boarding facilities, pet shop assistants, and other vaguely vet-related jobs. Has CR considered something like that (in case this place flakes even more)? Something like that on his resume will only add to the history of lifelong dedication to his career, and look great on college and job applications.
He could probably buy himself a car and use it to get to pet-sit jobs during the summers, and make a good amount of money (to pay for the beatermobile, which if he goes to VA Tech might be a good thing to have, plus extra funds). Someone who is vet-trained and can pet-sit for animals with extra needs like weird diets or medications is probably going to do pretty darn well for himself in that field; there are lots of rich folks in that area who have precious pets with weird diets, medications, and so on who need to take a trip but don't want to leave FLuffy and his thyroid medication or IV fluids in a cattery, and would happily pay a lot to have a vet-trained tech come take care of Fluffy in a familiar environment. I have a vet tech friend who has nearly turned pet-sit and nutrition consultations into a full-time business. | |
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}