Random Fusion

Well, hopefully you can see the picture I put in the banner at the top of the page. If you can, post a comment stating so, what web browser your using and what operating system your using.

I will be posting here later tonight with a longer post as well as something new and lengthy to Two Fishes.

EDIT: [Wednesday] I took the picture out after a day. The picture itself is very nice, however I just couldn't make it look the way I wanted to (which is perfect) so I took it down for the time being. It may show up again.

Posted by Random Fusion at 5:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Ok.

I spent a massive amount of time today trying to get a lot done on the site today and while it doesn't fully look like I did get a lot done, I think I did. I have added a bunch of buttons in various places, which came from a very cool site (listed in the "Developed With" section) and got the site listed on some Blog Directories.

I messed around with some coding and moved some of the links around. At this point the lay out of the links is the only think I REALLY want to work on with any sort of serious effort. Wait, oh yea. I want to be able to add a picture behind everything and have it locked in place so that the content stuff scrolls down but the picture stays in place. I did this once, I just need to be able to figure out how to do it again here.

End Transmission.

Posted by Random Fusion at 9:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Home from a late night out with friends, I am sitting here finnishing up some link buttons on the site and looking forward to crawling in to be with Shauna.

Every second saturday of the month, as you may or may not know is the night I run a Role Playing game for a large group of people. My friends and I are involved in something called Live Action Role Playing (see some earlier posts for some more indepth discussion about LARP). But now I am home, I have some new stuff on the site working out and I am getting ready to crawl into bed and perhaps watch a little tv before going to sleep.

The cats are running around all crazy like, as usual and I hope they calm down enough for us to get some sleep.

More later.

End transmission.

Posted by Random Fusion at 2:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Spent the better part of my day messing with the look of the site and such.

It may not look too different but its slowly changing. Going to mess with it some more later.

Right now its content time for Two Fishes.

End Transmission.

Posted by Random Fusion at 8:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well, my first full week of working at the bay is almost over and I must say that I am enjoying it. My two bosses Rob and Kim (Rob seems to be the "out on the floor boss" and Kim seems to be the "scheduling and personnel boss") are both very nice and take the time to talk to me when we are out on the floor together. Rob is down to earth kind of person who seems to genuinely want to get along with his employees, which is something that I really like. Kim is very nice and impressed me by being able to put my name to my face on my first day working with her and she always has a "Good Morning Andrew" for me when ever she walks by in the morning. Craig is my direct boss and is in charge of stocking the main shelves, which at this point includes cookies, crackers, soup, spices, cereal and all the other items you can find in those shelves. Once again I got lucky, Craig is a really nice and easy going guy who works me hard but not like a slave driver. He is always willing to help and seems to deal with the customers. Darlene is even with Craig in the store but she is in charge of frozen foods and perishables like milk and bread products. Darlene is very friendly and out going and likes to call Craig "Dangerboy" (which as of yesterday afternoon, she insits I do as well. Tony is like Craig and Darlene and is in charge of the fruits and veggies. Tony and I worked together for the first time yesterday and he seems like a very nice guy. I had to help tony put away his stock that had come in that morning and it was hard work. The meat department has a butcher in charge of three other people whose responsibilites, obviously, are the meat areas. The Bay has a smaller meat department then most but what we do sell is pretty nice.

My days consist mostly of putting stuff on the shelves. In the morning before the store opens we try and put out as much as we possibly can so that the customers wont have to deal with huge pallets or wheelers out in the isles and so that we dont have to deal with customers interrupting us while we work really hard. Stocking shelves really isnt that hard and by my second day, hell, by the middle of my first day, I was stocking shelves alone. When stocking shelves you need to remember to put the newer stuff at the back and the older stuff up front (basic common sense if you ask me), you need to turn the product so the english side of the label is facing outwards and so that everything is as close to the edge of the shelf as possible. Now two of those things make perfect sense, you want people to take the older product first and you want them to be able to see and reach said product. Now, most people I have told about facing to seem to react in about the same way "Really? How odd!", ok well, not everyone has said exactly that, but its been close. Product facing is important because the people buying the product need to be able to quickly see the products name in a few seconds. Name sells a lot. We carry a limited selection of Safeway brand products, but since we arent an actually safeway store, most people are looking for those name brands. The english side faces out because most of the people who shop there speak english (which at some points is debateable).

Next week I will be learning how to work the cash registers and close the store. Stay tuned for those posts, they should be interesting.

Word.

Posted by Random Fusion at 1:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Every once in a while I get the inclination to format, fdisk and clean up my big computer. Last night I began such an undertaking. I moved or saved everything I didnt want to loose (except now that I think about it, I didnt save all the bookmarks I had gathered in the last two days. Once everything was either backed up or saved to another disk or put onto the laptop, again forgetting to save all those cool links and sites I had found.

I tend to do this little bit of cleaning up every once in a while as a hold over from the old Windows 98 days when you almost HAD to do some cleaning every couple of months because the computer had become so choked with crap. I do it now partly because I like to know how much free space I have, that everything is in its right place and that things are working smoothly. Formatting everything once every 4 months or so, makes sure that I dont have any lingering files that I dont want or need and that any little gifts from spammers or websites are now gone.

Right now, as I type this into note pad on the laptop (I dont have the link to my moveable type stuff on this computer for some reason) Linux is being installed on my computer. I am going to do a dual boot configuration with Mandrake 8.2 and Windows xp (eventually changing this up to Mandrake 9.2). I really want to learn how to use linux variants as well as I know how to use Windows operating software. Learning how to use a completely new operating system is pretty damn hard, espcially when the new one is so different then everything else you have worked with.

I really want to get some sort of grip on Linux. With so many people learning how to use the alternative operating system, I begin to feel less and less like a geek. Little kids are learning how to use Linux operating systems as they learn how to do long division and spell correctly. Larger companies, looking to save money, are looking into using linux in their offices and even the American Government is looking into using linux. And so here I sit and I only know one operating system and really only one platform. So I am going to install Mandrake 8.2 and then 9.1 one on the bigger computer and then download and install Red Hat onto the laptop here.

Look over in the New Two Fishes for further information about Mandrake and Red Hat.

Posted by Random Fusion at 1:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"One thing, leads to another, One little shot in the dark"

Changes happened today! Well, nothing so huge as you would go holy moly when you come here, but enough to make me feel like I accomplished something. I added a table to the blog so that it didnt seem so spread out.

I have some more to write, but for the moment, I am going to leave it at this. I am off to my grandparents place for some dinner with my family to celebrate my dad's upcoming birthday.

I will be writing for Two Fishes tonight as well. So, two possible long posts tonight.

Posted by Random Fusion at 4:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Weel, the first shift is over and done with and I am now officially a working stiff again.

I got up at about 5:40am (I had intended on getting up at 5am and walking to work, but it didnt happen that way) and after a few moments of panic and terror, I realized I hadn't slept in too late. I got up, poked around aimlessly for a moment or two in a post-slumber and pre-awake daze. Once the land of awake people was within my grasp, I did the usual routine morning crap before I left for work.

Now it's been a couple months since I did this and it felt weird somehow, strange in a disjointed manner. I brushed my teeth and washed my face and in the quiet darkness of the apartment, I felt small and young again. Nothing makes you feel like a little kid, then the first day of a new job. It's a lot like your first day at school when your a little kid, you dont know anyone, you dont know the rules and you hope it doesnt suck.

Well, it didnt suck. It was hard work and it was work, but it didn't suck. As an employee of The Bay DOH

THE LINK

As I was saying, as an employee of The Bay I get to go into all those places that say "Employees Only" that you wonder about. Its in the back areas where you get to see the older store, the one from 30, 50 and even 70 years ago. There are very old door handels in some places, there are a couple friehgt elevators that have got to be at least 50 years old at the least. You can, if you look hard enough, see history in the holes in the walls, the peeling layers of cheesy paint they put up in the 1960s and in the tiles on the floors in the back basement.

I hope I get a chance to explore where I work before I have to go.

Posted by Random Fusion at 5:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, Friday morning is my first day at my new job.

At 7am on Friday morning, I will begin to learn how to stock shelves in The Bay's grocery store. Working for The Bay has always been something I have wanted, even as a little kid. Now dont get me wrong, I haven't always wanted to work as a stock boy, but I have always had a fascination with The Bay.

For me the store has always represented a lot of things to me. When the store first put out its christmas display on the 5th floor, THEN and only then was it christmas for me. The paddle wheel restaurant on the 6th floor was something special to me (not something I can full explain as to why, it just was) and shopping there has always been a pleasure.

The Hudson Bay Company, is the oldest company in Canada and was originally a trading company. The store was founded in England not too long after the vast wealth of the new world was finally beginning to be comprehended in the Old World. The company tranded furs and items from Canada to Europe and brought supplies to its stores in Canada that could only be found in Europe at that time.

The Hudson Bay Company employed many people at its hieght as well as owning all of Canada west from Ontario. Then the land was referred to as Ruperts Land and was in a sense owned by the Bay.

I can't help but get the feeling that I am now part of something large and important. Something I never got while I was working at my previous job.

I'm looking forward to it.

Posted by Random Fusion at 12:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I never actually put in the first post a thank you for the guy who is hosting me and putting up with all my annoying questions about this new toy of mine.

Thanks very much Reddz.

This is his site here

Check it out.

Posted by Random Fusion at 9:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well here is the second post of the brand new spanking site. Well, not a spanking sight (sorry to those of you who googled your way in here). Now that the site is up and running, its time to hunker down and master my CSS. I don't quite know how the site will look specifically, but I know I will know I've got it right when I see it. For the moment though. I am happy enough.

I am reading a great new blog I found (the blog isnt new to the world, just new to me) called SF Stories. SF Stories so far is an amazing read. For those people who like to read about other places and the people that live there and for those people in particular who want to read about the City by the Bay, then this is a site for you.

In 1997 I spent a brief (about three months) time there and it was the best time of my life. I met wonderful people, saw amazing and interesting things and did the coolest stuff ever. My trip there was a growing time for me in my life and I hold San Fransisco in a precious place in my life. I will never forget my time there and I am doing what I can to stay in contact with the people I met there.

You can find a link to this site here in this post as well as in the links to the right here, almost near the top. Go in and read. SF is a great city filled with all the things you could want from a big city with the feeling that its actually just a small town.

I'll go back one day.

Posted by Random Fusion at 10:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NEW LOCATION

RANDOM FUSION IS NOW HERE

I'll be putting some refreshers into the blog in a day or so to send you on your way to the new site but for the moment, follow the link.

Laters.

Posted by Random Fusion at 6:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is the first post (that you get to see) on my brand new blog.

Since I began blogging I had been looking at all the different types of blogging software and systems out there and when looking at the sites of the people who used each site, the Moveable Type sites always seemed to look the best. I liked the way that people were able to make them look and some of the things that you could do with them.

So, when I was given the opportunity to have a Moveable Type blog, I jumped at the chance. A friend of my Chris Reddy (or the man known only as - Reddz) offered to host the site for me after a conversation we had in his car one night. I had asked him how much he knew about CSS and PHP and he said "Lots, you cant work without CSS these days." (I agreed whole heartily, since most sites these days are using it almost exclusively.

So, Chris/Reddz says yes and we begin what would turn out to be a fairly large pain in the ass to begin with. In the beginning the MT stuff just wouldn't work and then for some reason it stopped working all together and then it just wouldn't work right and so on and so on.

Today, however, I got it working. I had to alter some permissions to do so, so that MT could create files and such inside the folders I am using. Which rocks.

Well, there will be a Second Post some time later today.

Untill then, enjoy the links.

Posted by Random Fusion at 4:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, I am now employed (or very will soon be officially).

This morning I had a interview with The Bay, a huge Canadian store. They had called me after I had filled in an application there. I went in for about 1-:30 and had an interview with Rob. A nice enough guy who will be one of about four supervisors that I will have. They have asked me to be one of their stock boys.

Th job will pay me way less then what I earned with my previous employer and will mean I have to get a second job. Which I did this afternoon about three hours after I was at the Bay. My second job, which I will be working when I am not at the Bay will be a Shell Gas Station employee.

The $$ at both places is less then what I was getting before, but combined properly, I should be ok.

Posted by Random Fusion at 10:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, had a good day up until about 10:15 tonight.

Woke up this morning at a reasonable hour, got on the computer and played with this site (you can obviously tell that it has, once again, changed), wrote a few emails, did some reading about moveable type and just generally messed around for a couple of hours. Then I got ready, went to a job interview I had downtown. The interview was with a placement firm called (I think) Accutemps, or something. I went in, filled in some of the usual application forms and did a series of skill testing computer stuff. I did wonderfully on all of it and the person who interviewed me when I was done said that I was great and that the position they wanted to put me in was a customer service position at a inbound calling center. She said she would let me know when and if I had the job. I am sure I will hear from her.

When I got home from that, there was a message on the machine from The Bay, asking me to call them. I had dropped a resume off to them on Friday of last week and hadn't really thought that they would give me anything, but lo and behold, it sounds like they want me to work for them. From home, I went to my dad's office to do some computer work for the guy that is sharing space with my dad. The work only took about an hour or so and was fairly routine.

After the computer work, Shauna and I met up at Polo Park to go see a movie. She decided that we would go see Pirates of the Carribean and much to my surprise, the movie was excellent. I had a really good time and I am glad we went.

Unfortunately, upon getting home, there was a message from Wayne at Manitoba Theatre for Young People, saying that the work I was supposed to be going in for tomorrow was cancelled and that he was sorry but the people who were renting the space, had decided not to change anything and thusly putting me out of work (not Wayne's fault, but not a lot of fun). Thankfully, so the end of the night didnt suck ass completely, the Bay had called back and have asked me to come in tomorrow morning for an interview. Go me.

I think that I should have some work by the end of the week, but I think the cash situation is going to be uber uber uber uber tight for the next month. Damn.

Posted by Random Fusion at 11:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Playing with Moveable Type now!

I will be creating a blog with this software as the days go along. This blog will continue to exist and I will write here AND there AND Two Fishes as often as I can.

Back to the new stuff! Yay!

Posted by Random Fusion at 2:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Toy!

w.bloggar.

Loving it so far!

Posted by Random Fusion at 3:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Spent a lot of today working on the web site, though why I'm not totally sure. I have most of my links on here and I do most of my work on the blog. I suppose what I really want is my own domain and run moveable type on it. It would then have all of my links, posts, things of note and everything else. Right now it looks like blog postings will continue to go on the blog, longer things I will write will go on the web site.

See the web site here.

Most of the time I spend on the site is mostly spent on trying to figure out how it will look. Content for the site is still something of a mystery. I want to put longer written stuff on there, such as study notes for Windows certifications or thoughts I have about software or hardware. I would say that out of the 7 hours or so I put into the site today, 6 hours of it was playing with style sheets, layers and links. Fonts and colours are tough to choose. I know what I sort of what and how it kind of should look, but getting there is a pain in the ass. The blog isnt entirely where I would like it either, but for the moment its working and looking a little better then it has in the past.

Posted by Random Fusion at 2:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Added the title doohickey thingamabob.

Lets see if it works!

Edit: Nope, didnt work.

Edit Part deux: Removed Title thing. Didnt work. Too tired to mess around with it.

Posted by Random Fusion at 2:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

going to try and see how something looks. the look for my blog text is something similar to www.chewbecca.com. i like the feel of the font she uses (and I think im using the right one.

one thing i notice that she does, or doesnt do, is use capitals in her posts.

just testing to see how close i am with my font here and to see how this looks.

i know it has no capitals.

Posted by Random Fusion at 6:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, its now 10:30 and I have started a regular day. I am working hard on getting the blog here to where I want it (still not totally happy). Today I am working hard on getting the text of the blog the way I want it and so far I aint having much luck.

After working on the text of the blog, I would like to add some images to the blog for colour and "eye catchiness" and to give the site a bit more of a professional look. Images is the one area that I have yet to really learn how to do (Shauna is the wiz at that) and so this will be a good chance to learn how to put images into the site.

I have been playing with Mandrake Linux on my laptop for the past few days and I think I am beginning to get the hang of it (huge lie). So far all I can really do is surf the net, read email, and install a very small number of programs. The only thing I dont like about it at this point is that I cant use a instant messenger program to hook up to the msn messenger service. I have a lot of people on my msn list and I would like to be able to talk to them more often, while using the linux box.

I will post more later today as the blog comes along.

Go, go Gadget shoes!

[Edit] Well, I changed the font of the body of the blog and changed its colour. I like the new look. But I will still work on it. Never done I say!

Posted by Random Fusion at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Testing something.

More Later.

Posted by Random Fusion at 12:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Brand new lay out.

All CSS.

I borrowed the code.

I'll put up a link in the next post.

Things will change again in a bit.

/blog

Posted by Random Fusion at 10:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Trying new things.

Playing around.

More later.

Posted by Random Fusion at 2:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ok, so I never really finnished my story of what happened (and now I can add in some new stuff).

After the guy grabbed my hat and glasses, it was pretty much over. His friends moved behind him and he began to deman my necklace. I told him no a couple of times and he seemed to not care enough to fight me for it. He put up his hands and said "ok man, its all over" and tried to shake my hand. I wasnt sure what the hell to do so I let him shake it and he turned and walked away laughing with his friends.

The rest of the walk home was a bit of a daze. I was REALLY angry, scared and upset. When we got home, I called the non emergency police line and made a complaint at which point two officers came out and took a statement.

They came back the next night and gave me some pictures to look at. I think I was able to point out the guy who hit me and that was about it. The officers thanked us and said that if anything does happen in the next little while, then the crown would call us for more information and statements.

There is a good chance these kids will get caught. I dont think this is the first time they have done this and I doubt it will be the last. They will get caught and then they will get punished.

Yea right.

They will get caught. Get convicted and then get sent home with a "and if you do this again, bad things will happen". At which point the guys are planning their next crime.

Our youth criminal code needs a HUGE kick in the nuts to get it right. I personally belive. That if you are young enough to do the crime, you should damn well fucking do the time.

You assult someone one. Then you should be assulted. Prison style up in Headingly Jail.

End of RANT!!!

Posted by Random Fusion at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)