Category Archives: doing it wrong

This post has been partially written for days. Every time I sit down, I get interrupted.

I figured out that, as of this month, I have been in the full time workforce for 40 years. I finally went back and dug out my journal at the time to see if I could figure out the day. Best I can tell it was Monday October 6, 1986.

(Aside: before that I had jobs like fast food and babysitting. I’ve worked in one way or another since I was about 13. Here’s a short post about those jobs.)

My journals are a terrible read. I didn’t write much about what was going on and more about how I was feeling and my head was angsty and insecure and it makes for a torturous read. But I was amused (?) to read that as soon as I started that job, I knew it was terrible. I thought it took me awhile to figure it out. (Somewhere I wrote more about this job but can’t find it right now.)

But back to the 40 years — during that time I have had a few breaks but most of them were involuntary and stressful because I needed money to pay my bills.

When I moved from California to Oregon I think the chain of events was: (1) Quit job in December to go to paralegal school; (2) went to paralegal school from January to June; (3) Couldn’t find a job interview to save my life and spent the summer in Orleans doing odd jobs; (4) Moved to Oregon in September.

Then I did a bunch of temp office jobs until I started what I am doing now in February 1992. I had one 6-week break when I went to Clarion West in 2008.

I like what I do and I’m really good at it. I’d probably hang in a couple years longer but the commute and the long days have worn me down. I keep moving the target date but the plan is to retire next year.

More hilarious raccoon antics.

I have a note that says to write about the scam I am involved in but at this point, I don’t even know which scam that is.

One scam is that a culture reporter from the CBC contacted me for an interview about my book of short stories.

OMG! I thought. I am on fire! This was right after pen name did the book festival. All my hard work is finally paying off.

I did a search for the name and it was a real CBC reporter who covers Indigenous culture. Sure, the email sounded totally written by AI — but maybe the reporter has a busy assistant. Well yeah, the book is about 10 years old and sold maybe 100 copies. But maybe it’s a slow day and they want some lesser known names.

I answered right away. And then did more research.

This is a common scam. Once you agree to the interview they ask for money. Also the email address was a gmail, not CBC.

They responded agreeing to the first interview time I said I was available and said many writers like to make donations to their non-profit.

☹️ I did not follow through with the interview. I did not make a “donation.”

These are all the hangers from Dad’s apartment. Who wants them?

A different scam was when I was trying to sell my dad’s couch on NextDoor. I couldn’t believe it when 4 people (FOUR!) responded minutes after I posted the ad.

I started with the first person who was in a big hurry to pay so her cousin could rush over and pick it up. What luck!

Next was a bunch of back and forth with my paying app which I legit hardly ever use and don’t completely understand. I felt like a dummy so I let the person push me around. They told me that the payment was taken from them but there was a problem with my account that I needed to fix. They told me to check my email to see if there was a notice from the app.

Sure enough, there was an email “from the app” with a number to call.

I dialed, hit call … and immediately disconnected.

I did some research. This was not the support number of the app. This is a common scam. I blocked the person. I changed my password — just for overkill. The “support number” tried to call me. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I blocked that.

I looked at the other people who contacted me and they were all scammers, too. None of them were even in my state.

I nuked my NextDoor account.

The final scam was for penname. Someone talking like AI contacted me 3 times about one of my romance novels to ask about introducing it to some kind of women’s reading group on Goodreads. Yes – this is a common scam. I don’t how they wanted to gank money out of me but this time I never even answered.

The Future Imagined in Albert Robida’s La vie électrique (1890) from thePublic Domain Review.

Have I ever complained about how cold it is on the bus in the summer? I surely have but can’t find a post about that right now.

As soon as the sun comes out and the daily high gets into the 60s, apparently the buses are mandated to crank the air conditioning.

I had this great idea to find a summer coat. I envisioned something very thin but also fleecy so it would be cozy but not a giant thing to haul around on a hot day. Numerous searches yielded nothing I was willing to buy. Anything that was close was too expensive or a weird color or too close to something I already had that I didn’t want to be my summer coat.

Then somehow I got an idea for a summer blanket and after searching around I found: travel blankets! And that cracked the search wide open. I had about 3 that would have worked but I narrowed it down and I bought 2. One for me and one for a friend or to keep in the car or whatever I decided.

I’ve been hauling it around and then the first time it was cold enough that I would want to use it – I was too embarrassed to take it out. I know. What’s wrong with me? I’d rather sit there shivering then get out my travel blanket that I bought specifically for when I’m too cold on the bus. Like all the other passengers would be looking at the weird old lady with her bus blanket.

The second time I was too cold it was morning. This particular type of bus must double as a meat locker when it’s not being used to drive people around. Just sitting in the seat I felt like I was getting freezer burn. I whipped out my blanket and cozied up under it and it was perfect. And I felt so smart and prepared. (This is what I got.)(Not sponsored — I’ve never sponsored anything but just in case you were wondering.)

Last post from the San Francisco trip. My husband wanted to do the tour at Internet Archive. This is about the 10 millionth thing that my husband wanted to do that I never heard of and wasn’t wild about and ended up loving. I don’t even know how he knew they did tours because I can’t find a link for you.

I didn’t take a photo myself but they bought the building they are in partly because it looks like their logo. More info here.

Remember these big fat computer books?

Internet Archive is an incredible organization that, as the name suggests, is creating a digital library of everything it reasonably can. There’s music and software and books. I didn’t take notes, I just listened so any info listed here will be from the website.

Alcove full of servers

A single copy of the Internet Archive library collection occupies 200+ Petabytes of server space and they store at least 2 copies of everything.

Among the many amazing features is the Wayback Machine which has the history of more than 1 trillion web pages on the Internet.

Here is the earliest capture of pamrentz.com on August 15, 2001.

Sample scanning device.

Their main thing is books. They partner with a bookstore and travel all around checking out books from estate sales or wherever.

Our tour guide told a story of being out with one of the founders and coming across a box of books left on a porch. The founder had to stop and go through it to make sure there wasn’t anything there that wasn’t in the archive. There’s an app they use for that. Maybe anyone can.

Look for Tony Vanza at Internet Archive events.

If any of this sounds even a tiny bit interesting to you — check the website. It is an overwhelming source of information.

And they are funded largely by private donations so if you appreciate what they do and have room in your charitable giving there is a link at the website.

Now you’re probably thinking, wait. What are those statues in the alcove photo?

Those are people who work at Archive.Org. The building they are in used to be a church and part of the tour is in the great room and as you walk in you see these statues everywhere. It’s a little creepy until you hear the story. After an employee has been their 3 years, they get a statue.