Thanks.

pWell, another day, another bunch of bullshit. I’m not really going to mention that much but I am going to say that when you get too old to efficiently do your work and you have to blame your lack of work on someone else, maybe its time to get into a less demanding job. /p
pOK? Stop blaming other people because you’re too old to meet the demands of the work place. We don’t enjoy hearing you bitch, and we definitely don’t like hearing it through someone else./p
pDid I mention that I love blogging? You can get so much off your chest!/p

July 13, 2010 • Tags: , , • Posted in: Our Stores • No Comments

Big Lotto Winner in our Belleville Store

Congratulations to the group from Belleville who won the Lotto Max – Maxmillions prize from the Friday June 18th draw!

From what the newspaper says, it was a group of 16 people splitting the prize and that’s really great to hear. Its nice to know that a prize is going to help out a bunch of people instead of all going to one person.

This group joins another big winner we had recently in our Trenton store, Jamie Ogden, who took home half a million from the Daily Keno online game.

Congratulations to all the winners!

Photography

Hey everybody!

I’d like to apologize to those who have been viewing my photos on flickr regularly over the past 5 years or so. During the past 6 to 7 months I’ve been working so much that I haven’t really had a chance to get out and do any photo work. I plan on making time soon to get out and explore more of my passion, and I’m hoping to take my photo work to new heights.

On a good note, a couple of months ago I sold a batch of photos to a major hotel chain in our town. They will be proudly displayed in the guest rooms once the hotel completes their renovation which is happening as I write this.

Its a great feeling to know that some of my work will be displayed where hundreds of people will be able to see them. It’s also great to know that my name will be on the photos so people can contact me if they like what they see.

Back when I was doing wedding photography I didn’t really get any satisfaction from the end result. Nothing that compares to this sale anyway. I don’t mean any disrespect to the people that I did wedding photography for, there were weddings that I quite enjoyed and I had the opportunity to do some destination weddings that were great experiences. What I mean is that the end result didn’t give me the same feeling that this hotel sale did.

I’m hoping that the future will bring more large sales and I’m prepared to approach some other hotels and major businesses with photography proposals in the coming year.

Wish me luck with that! I need some more sales to help pay for our wedding next year!

Incompetence runs rampant!

Working again, big surprise there. I’m going to rant a bit again today about the incompetence of some people.

How many times do you have to train someone before they can start getting things right? Its an absolute pisser coming into work and finding that something hasn’t been done right when you’ve shown the person how to do it properly at least 5 times. I understand that some people have a larger learning curve than others, but simple tasks should be done right after being trained so many times.

I now have an hour of paperwork to try and fix the mistakes from a twenty minute task.

I’ve got an idea though, and it involves someone being jobless as of tomorrow.

I had a discussion with a customer about how hard it is to find dedicated and competent people in a town like this. That’s completely true. It seems like people these days don’t appreciate the value of having a job. How these people expect that they’re going to make it anywhere in life is beyond me, but I guess that’s the way they are.

How can we go about finding competent people though? The simple answer to that is top look in another town. This town is full of people who want everything handed to them in life. We can’t exactly move the store though, so we need to find a more viable option. You wouldn’t believe the show some of these people put on during their interviews and their training days. But because they work alone after training and don’t have someone over their shoulders every minute, you get to see their true work habits very quickly.

You’ll come in to work after one of them has been in to find out that they’ve just half-assed all of their duties. I can think of one person who does so little work that the person relieving them has to do over an hour of extra work just to get caught up before they can start their own work.

How hard is it to get your ass off of the counter and put some bottles in the cooler? How hard is it to refill the milk shelf when its getting empty? If you don’t do that you must spend all your time behind the counter, so please tell me why you can’t keep your lottery counter filled up? Its right there in front of you, just do it!

Its nice to get some of these things off my chest. I hope when Jenn and I are running our own store that we’ll be able to find some people who are trustworthy and actually value the job, understanding that it is a business and every employee contributes to its success or failure.

Random thoughts May 15, 2010

I had a post written up for the 14th, but determined I need to put more thought into it before it goes public. I’m currently at work in the convenience store just sitting here because all of my night duties are done and there’s no customers for at least another hour.

Its funny how you have a lot of time to reflect on life when you’re getting paid to sit and babysit a store through the wee hours of the morning. My thoughts seem to go all over the place. The first thought is how its a little bit lonely here, and I really miss Jenn when we’re not together. She was working the afternoon shift here and still stayed with me until after 2 in the morning. You definitely realize just how much you love someone when your heart breaks every time you’re apart. When she leaves, I wander back inside the store and just look around for a few minutes trying to get past the feeing of her not being here.

My readers may find this pathetic, but this is my daily life. I have never been in a relationship where it was painful to be apart for even a few minutes. I must find something to do in order to take my mind off the fact that I’m missing her so much. Jenn and I have a relationship that ive never seen another couple have. We seldom argue, and if written do, its over in a couple minutes. We’re always able to take things out, which is absolutely amazing.

Some people may not agree with the way that Jenn and I got together just over 2 Years ago, but we don’t let that get to us. We’ve talked about this many times and know that what we did and the way we went about it was right for us. We knew what we were looking for and found it in each other.

I proposed to Jenn on April 10th of this year because I know without a doubt that she’s the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. Between the tears, she said yes and confirmed to me that she felt the same way. It was one of the most amazing moments of my life, standing there, embraced by the woman who I now knew was going to be my Wife.

Working in the convenience store, we get a lot of people who like to talk, but a large majority of them are taking to complain about something in their lives. You’d be surprised by how many grown men come in here and make derogitory statements about their wives. Now, I know that things can change over the years and sometimes people grow apart, but if you’re that miserable, why don’t you do something about it? Sometimes you need to make a huge life change so that you can be happy. Ask either Jenn or myself about this one and we’ll gladly tell you our story.

We went through huge changeable in both of our lives so that we could be together. We also learned, at the time, that making a life change can be one of the most difficult things a person will ever do in their lives. But again, we’re living proof that change can be great and that once you’re over that initial hurdle, everything can be smooth-sailing.

I guess what I’m saying is that there can be light in the other side of the tunnel, you just have to be willing to venture through that dark tunnel to get there. Life is what you make of it, and its way too short to live it out being miserable. I jumped head-first into that tunnel and Jenn was the light on the other side.

On another note, I’ll be writing a lot more on the blog these days due to the WordPress application on my SmartPhone. Please bear with my typos and punctution errors, as I’m still getting used to typing on this thing! I’ll be writing up some stuff about my new phone (the Xperia X10 running Android software) in future posts here for anyone who is interested.

Random Thoughts May 13, 2010

I’m sitting at work today while my other half is helping the customers. Its actually pretty neat to sit back and watch her interact with people, seeing their reactions and how she reacts to many different kinds of people.

I do have to say though, that quite a few people seem to have a stick up their ass. Too many people treat you like crap when you’re behind the counter of a convenience store.

Id like to pass on a message to these people straight from the deepest region of my mind.

Hello Convenience Store Customer (or Crustymer as I like to call you when you’re not here),

No, we don’t sell garbage bag tags, but if you’d like, I’ll scream right back at you for the “horrible inconvenience” this has caused you. if you think about it, we’re not the only place in town that is open at night. There are a number of other stores in this town of over 50,000 people and I’m sure one of them will carry your precious garbage bag tags. Or, you could just be like the people on our street who drop their garbage off in our pile so we look like the assholes who didn’t find a store who sells them.

But I have to be somewhat reasonable; at least you’re actually looking to buy some and to put your garbage out legally unlike the people who think our dumpster is for public use. I think next time someone comes into the store and tells me that “there’s a group of old-timers dumping multiple bags in your dumpster “, I’m going to follow the old-timers home and dump my garbage on their lawn. Maybe they’ll learn a lesson, maybe not, but I’ll sure feel better about the whole situation.

Hello customer coming in for milk. I love how you root through all the jugs on the shelf, and it really makes my day when you push them back far enough that they fall off the shelf and explode all over the inside of our cooler. There’s a mop by the back door, you can go back and clean up your own mess considering that all the jugs on the shelf are ALWAYS going to be the same date. But you’re always going to do the same thing, aren’t you? You’re so set in your ways that you have to check those dates every time you come in, even though I’ve told you each time that they’re going to be the same. As my Fiance says, if you want fresher milk, go buy cow.

Hello lottery customer. Did you know there’s a help line you can call and talk to someone about your addiction? You spend more on lottery in a week than i pay for rent in a month. There are people out there who can’t afford to put food on their table, but you spend more on lottery tickets than some country’s whole yearly budget. Jenn and i will make you a deal, next time you come in, just give us $500, we’ll give you back $150 and we’ll cal it a day. You never win any more than that anyway.

Fortunately we have quite a few regulars who come into the store with smiles on their faces. These people bring a little bit of brightness to the day. They treat us like actual people and that’s a nice change.

The job market absolutely sucks these days, and I’m sure there are people who take jobs in convenience stores because that’s all that’s available. Understand this is not the same for everyone. We’re here gaining experience to run our own store. This is something i can see happening in the next year. In this store, our hands are pretty well tied and we have to follow the chain’s policies. In our own store, we’ll make those policies ourselves and i don’t pity the people who try to treat us like they do here.

Well, that’s the end of my rant for now. I’m sure I’ll have more to vent in the near future, but that’s for another day :-)

Corvettes on Flickr!

Recently I was searching around Flickr for Corvette Photos, and here are a few recent ones that really caught my eye!

All Photos are Creative Commons Licensed

Click any Photo or Link above the Photo to go to it’s Flickr Page.

Chevrolet Corvette by SoulRider.222

Chevrolet Corvette at the Belleville Zellers Parking Lot by Robert Scott Photography.ca

Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray motif by exfordy

Who’s #1? by prorallypix

1965 Chevrolet Corvette dragster by geognerd

ALMS – Grand Prix of Mosport 2009 by nivlek_est

Ford F-100 at the Belleville Zellers Parking Lot

My 75th Photo to make it into Flickr’s Explore pages! I haven’t had a Flickr Photo hit Explore since May, so this is kind of a big thing for me!

Can’t wait until this coming Tuesday, I’ll be approaching a few of the Classic Car owners at the Car Meet to see if I can get them out for Private shoots! Wish me Luck!

September 13, 2009 • Tags: , , , , , • Posted in: flickr • No Comments

Orton Effect

Here’s a selection of photographs from Flickr Creative Commons found using the search string “Orton Effect”.

The second photograph in the group is my own, created using the exact steps from my Orton Effect Tutorial.

From Wikipedia: Orton imagery, also called an Orton slide sandwich, is a photography technique which blends two completely different photos of the same scene, resulting in a distinctive mix of high and low detail areas within the same photo. It was originated by photographer Michael Orton.

June 13, 2009 • Tags: , , , , , • Posted in: flickr • No Comments

HDR processed with Noiseware

Hey everyone! I’m building on the success of my tutorial for HDR and thought I would scour the depths of Flickr Creative Commons to find some photographs that have been processed the same way. (Or very close anyway).

Here’s a selection of 10 Creative Commons Photographs from Flickr, found with the search string of “HDR Noiseware”.

For my version of how to complete these, Click Here!

June 12, 2009 • Tags: , , , • Posted in: flickr • No Comments