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Baby Turtle Pics You Guys
By the time you read this it'll be the last day of September.
I have many hopes for October, but cooler weather tops the list.
Thursday I was up at 7:30 to eat breakfast and prepare for a long work day in the midst of a Hurricane-Sort-Of.
The storm was a Cat 2 but still a long ways from landfall. It was rainy and windy this morning but that's not really a reason for businesses to close, you know? So after breakfast and packing up everything I'd need for the day I trundled off to Disney.
(image thefted from DisneyFood Blog)
The park was more or less fully open and it didn't even rain, it was just blustery. We did two sets and a full parade. I was grateful to get so much playing time :) The only accommodation that we made for the weather was removing the feather plumes from our hats to avoid having them blown off our heads.
I brought all of my transcription stuff and was able to access Disney wifi. I didn't get a lot done but did set up all of my cover pages. This was more of an experiment to see if I COULD do this work here, and I can!
Our third set was canceled because at that point there were wind gusts above 30mph (48kmh) and while the trumpets and trombones can weather that, sousaphones and drums not so much :/ I used the extra time to take a shower under the castle so I'd be somewhat refreshed before my hat shop shift. Hurricane Helene was now a Cat 3, but nothing here in Orlando was closed. It was pretty clear that the storm wouldn't be reaching us, just some of the outer bands.
Today's hat:
I took this picture as I was clocking out to go home. There were a lot more people out and about than I expected in this weather...but who wants to buy a hat during a hurricane? As a result I was sent home early, at 9pm instead of 11pm. So ultimately the hurricane only cost me two hours of a 12-hour work day. Which says a lot about how concerned Central Florida felt about this hurricane (not at all.)
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It was wind and rain all night, but nothing worse than that. In the morning I was up before Jameson and went out on the lanai to see if there were any screens missing. Not only was nothing damaged, even my sad broken banana tree was still standing, complete with fruit.
And then I saw this little fellow clinging to our lanai screen! Finger for scale. Google says he is a baby box turtle, but I think Google is wrong and that it's a striped mud turtle.
More pictures of his face and tummy and shell. He is so cute!!
Not sure how he got up onto the screen. Maybe he was blown by the storm, or climbed to avoid a predator. After admiring him I let him go among some mulch where I thought he'd be well camouflaged while he made his escape. When I went back later to see if he was still there, he was gone. Either he's pretty speedy or a predator got him after all.
I fertilized the petunia and had breakfast, then did transcription for an hour or so. Ate lunch and drove aaaallll the way out to Apple at Millenia Mall to see if they could either fix or replace my phone.
The store was insanely busy. See THIS video to get a taste of what my day was like, and what it's like to shop ANYWHERE in a tourist/hospitality city. The video was taken during "the holidays" but this is exactly how busy it was today.
Anyway, I had to wait for someone to become available in that noisy, crowded store. 30 minutes after my appointment time a young man came around to help me out. Without hesitation he picked up my phone, turned it on it's side, and pointed to the edge where the screen meets the metal body. The screen was bulging outward ever so slightly (like this.) Because my phone is always in it's case, I hadn't even noticed.
"Your battery is swollen," he said.
WOW I felt stupid for not having seen it!
But I also felt angry at Best Buy all over again (see bottom of previous post). This was a problem you could SEE, and those f*ckers hadn't even bothered to look! How they get to call themselves "Apple authorized" is beyond me.
I texted Jameson to say that my phone was in repair and I'd be unreachable, then handed my Literal Connection To All Things In This World to the associate and wandered off into the mall in "analog mode." I hadn't brought any other devices: no extra phone, no smart watch, no ipad or tablet or laptop. Nothing. It was me and my water bottle.
The main thing that shocked me, out here in Analog Mode, was realizing that there are no clocks, anywhere. I did two laps of the mall, both floors, and did not see one public wall clock, not even on the LED directory screens.
The other exasperating realization was that without my phone, I had nothing to DO. I should've at least thought to bring a physical book for f*ck's sake. As I walked I noticed an elderly man reading a real paper newspaper, and felt actively jealous!
But you know what? Other than an occasional pang of anxiety at the thought of someone needing to reach me and being unable to, being without my phone was actually quite nice. I walked at random and looked at stuff. I felt no pressure to post or share. I sat and openly people-watched, because everyone was, of course, on their phones, and so no one NOTICED that I was people-watching.
As an 80's kid, of course I remember growing up without technology. And also the gradual, decades-long timeline of becoming more and more dependent on technology. All the way up to today, when being without my phone for a mere 60 minutes forced me to realize how much I rely on it for REALLY important things, like staying in touch with family or getting directions to or from a place. Or checking the damn time!
When my internal clock piped up ("It's probably been about an hour, right?") I went back to the Apple store and gave one of their display iPads a poke. It told me that indeed, my internal clock was right and I'd killed 50 minutes. I queued back up with my repair ticket, retrieved my Literal Connection To All Things In This World, and checked my texts. Thus ended 60 minutes of phonelessness.
I stopped by Total Wines to see if they had a certain rum that Jameson likes (they didn't) and had a snack from a nearby Thai place, then drove home through rush hour traffic. The whole thing took about four hours, two of which were the drive. Sigh.
Back home I swept hurricane debris from the driveway, emptied the dishwasher, had dinner, and received an email from NETworks asking me to download a specific app which they use to send ALL tour information. See, SEE how integral phones are? Without my phone/this app, I couldn't see my coworkers' contact info, the rehearsal schedule, the travel schedule, the hotel bookings, and loads of other extremely important information that I need to do my job. Isn't that crazy when you stop to think about it?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday I got up early to get bagels from my favorite shop. While waiting for Jameson to wake up I did a little transcription, then switched to tromboning because it was bugging me that I haven't practiced Elf in like a week. After that back to transcription.
I'd meant to cook dinner but wasn't feeling it, so we had Chuy's taco salads.
After dinner I worked on my Foodie Finds for Elf, now that we've got the hotel info that gives me more context.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, I was up early to do transcription, pack work snacks, and make overnight oats for tomorrow before Jameson was up. Once he was up I'd planned to switch to practicing trombone, but changed my mind and just stuck with transcription for the morning. By noon I had only 30 minutes of the two hours of audio remaining, which I think is good considering the thing isn't due until Saturday. My goal in getting the extra processing time (aside from feeling stressed) was to have time to listen to the WHOLE case a second time and check it for errors. I won't always be able to do that, and figure if I do it at least once I'm bound to learn things and find mistakes which I can try to remember for future cases.
Anyway, lunch and then tromboning and getting dressed for work.
Today's hat will be in the next post since I've got the closing shift at the hat shop tonight.
In closing, have a firefly petunia pic from a few nights ago.
I'm starting to feel stressed about moving it outside, and wish it would just get below 90°F outside ffs!!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday: Finishing the transcription, trombone practice, cooking dinner.
Tuesday: Hopefully reviewing my work + trombone practice + night shift at the hat shop.
Wednesday: Submitting my transcription job + tromboning and getting some kind of exercise I hope.
Thursday: Night shift at the hat shop.
I have many hopes for October, but cooler weather tops the list.
Thursday I was up at 7:30 to eat breakfast and prepare for a long work day in the midst of a Hurricane-Sort-Of.
The storm was a Cat 2 but still a long ways from landfall. It was rainy and windy this morning but that's not really a reason for businesses to close, you know? So after breakfast and packing up everything I'd need for the day I trundled off to Disney.
(image thefted from DisneyFood Blog)
The park was more or less fully open and it didn't even rain, it was just blustery. We did two sets and a full parade. I was grateful to get so much playing time :) The only accommodation that we made for the weather was removing the feather plumes from our hats to avoid having them blown off our heads.
I brought all of my transcription stuff and was able to access Disney wifi. I didn't get a lot done but did set up all of my cover pages. This was more of an experiment to see if I COULD do this work here, and I can!
Our third set was canceled because at that point there were wind gusts above 30mph (48kmh) and while the trumpets and trombones can weather that, sousaphones and drums not so much :/ I used the extra time to take a shower under the castle so I'd be somewhat refreshed before my hat shop shift. Hurricane Helene was now a Cat 3, but nothing here in Orlando was closed. It was pretty clear that the storm wouldn't be reaching us, just some of the outer bands.
Today's hat:
I took this picture as I was clocking out to go home. There were a lot more people out and about than I expected in this weather...but who wants to buy a hat during a hurricane? As a result I was sent home early, at 9pm instead of 11pm. So ultimately the hurricane only cost me two hours of a 12-hour work day. Which says a lot about how concerned Central Florida felt about this hurricane (not at all.)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was wind and rain all night, but nothing worse than that. In the morning I was up before Jameson and went out on the lanai to see if there were any screens missing. Not only was nothing damaged, even my sad broken banana tree was still standing, complete with fruit.
And then I saw this little fellow clinging to our lanai screen! Finger for scale. Google says he is a baby box turtle, but I think Google is wrong and that it's a striped mud turtle.
More pictures of his face and tummy and shell. He is so cute!!
Not sure how he got up onto the screen. Maybe he was blown by the storm, or climbed to avoid a predator. After admiring him I let him go among some mulch where I thought he'd be well camouflaged while he made his escape. When I went back later to see if he was still there, he was gone. Either he's pretty speedy or a predator got him after all.
I fertilized the petunia and had breakfast, then did transcription for an hour or so. Ate lunch and drove aaaallll the way out to Apple at Millenia Mall to see if they could either fix or replace my phone.
The store was insanely busy. See THIS video to get a taste of what my day was like, and what it's like to shop ANYWHERE in a tourist/hospitality city. The video was taken during "the holidays" but this is exactly how busy it was today.
Anyway, I had to wait for someone to become available in that noisy, crowded store. 30 minutes after my appointment time a young man came around to help me out. Without hesitation he picked up my phone, turned it on it's side, and pointed to the edge where the screen meets the metal body. The screen was bulging outward ever so slightly (like this.) Because my phone is always in it's case, I hadn't even noticed.
"Your battery is swollen," he said.
WOW I felt stupid for not having seen it!
But I also felt angry at Best Buy all over again (see bottom of previous post). This was a problem you could SEE, and those f*ckers hadn't even bothered to look! How they get to call themselves "Apple authorized" is beyond me.
I texted Jameson to say that my phone was in repair and I'd be unreachable, then handed my Literal Connection To All Things In This World to the associate and wandered off into the mall in "analog mode." I hadn't brought any other devices: no extra phone, no smart watch, no ipad or tablet or laptop. Nothing. It was me and my water bottle.
The main thing that shocked me, out here in Analog Mode, was realizing that there are no clocks, anywhere. I did two laps of the mall, both floors, and did not see one public wall clock, not even on the LED directory screens.
The other exasperating realization was that without my phone, I had nothing to DO. I should've at least thought to bring a physical book for f*ck's sake. As I walked I noticed an elderly man reading a real paper newspaper, and felt actively jealous!
But you know what? Other than an occasional pang of anxiety at the thought of someone needing to reach me and being unable to, being without my phone was actually quite nice. I walked at random and looked at stuff. I felt no pressure to post or share. I sat and openly people-watched, because everyone was, of course, on their phones, and so no one NOTICED that I was people-watching.
As an 80's kid, of course I remember growing up without technology. And also the gradual, decades-long timeline of becoming more and more dependent on technology. All the way up to today, when being without my phone for a mere 60 minutes forced me to realize how much I rely on it for REALLY important things, like staying in touch with family or getting directions to or from a place. Or checking the damn time!
When my internal clock piped up ("It's probably been about an hour, right?") I went back to the Apple store and gave one of their display iPads a poke. It told me that indeed, my internal clock was right and I'd killed 50 minutes. I queued back up with my repair ticket, retrieved my Literal Connection To All Things In This World, and checked my texts. Thus ended 60 minutes of phonelessness.
I stopped by Total Wines to see if they had a certain rum that Jameson likes (they didn't) and had a snack from a nearby Thai place, then drove home through rush hour traffic. The whole thing took about four hours, two of which were the drive. Sigh.
Back home I swept hurricane debris from the driveway, emptied the dishwasher, had dinner, and received an email from NETworks asking me to download a specific app which they use to send ALL tour information. See, SEE how integral phones are? Without my phone/this app, I couldn't see my coworkers' contact info, the rehearsal schedule, the travel schedule, the hotel bookings, and loads of other extremely important information that I need to do my job. Isn't that crazy when you stop to think about it?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday I got up early to get bagels from my favorite shop. While waiting for Jameson to wake up I did a little transcription, then switched to tromboning because it was bugging me that I haven't practiced Elf in like a week. After that back to transcription.
I'd meant to cook dinner but wasn't feeling it, so we had Chuy's taco salads.
After dinner I worked on my Foodie Finds for Elf, now that we've got the hotel info that gives me more context.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, I was up early to do transcription, pack work snacks, and make overnight oats for tomorrow before Jameson was up. Once he was up I'd planned to switch to practicing trombone, but changed my mind and just stuck with transcription for the morning. By noon I had only 30 minutes of the two hours of audio remaining, which I think is good considering the thing isn't due until Saturday. My goal in getting the extra processing time (aside from feeling stressed) was to have time to listen to the WHOLE case a second time and check it for errors. I won't always be able to do that, and figure if I do it at least once I'm bound to learn things and find mistakes which I can try to remember for future cases.
Anyway, lunch and then tromboning and getting dressed for work.
Today's hat will be in the next post since I've got the closing shift at the hat shop tonight.
In closing, have a firefly petunia pic from a few nights ago.
I'm starting to feel stressed about moving it outside, and wish it would just get below 90°F outside ffs!!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday: Finishing the transcription, trombone practice, cooking dinner.
Tuesday: Hopefully reviewing my work + trombone practice + night shift at the hat shop.
Wednesday: Submitting my transcription job + tromboning and getting some kind of exercise I hope.
Thursday: Night shift at the hat shop.
no subject
I'm glad you got your phone fixed. Batteries do swell as they age, but enough to damage the case is a lot...
Glad the hurricane wasn't a problem for you. I should check in with my cousins who live in that area...
no subject
Yes, I was embarrassed that I hadn’t noticed the battery was swelling enough to bulge the case. But when you keep it inside a phone case, I guess sometimes you just don’t notice. Very glad I got it fixed because I know that those can explode or catch fire.
The worst hit areas here were Georgia, Tennessee, and the Carolinas. Not just because of the hurricane winds and rain, but because there was so much rain that it caused failure of several dams which flooded and destroyed towns. There are some towns that were completely wiped out near Asheville North Carolina.
no subject
Awwwww tiny turtle!
no subject
Glad your banana tree survived the wind!
no subject
Airports, I thought it was on the arrivals/departure boards but maybe not!
no subject
no subject
It is amazing how different the world is technology wise versus thirty, twenty, or even ten years ago!
no subject
The two Best Buy dudes glanced at it but neither of them touched it or looked at aside from a glance when I set it down.
Apple guy saw the problem before he'd even sat down, and showed it to me immediately.
If Best Buy didn't want to deal with it that's actually totally cool. I work retail too and I completely get that. If they wanted me gone they could easily have said, "Sorry, you'll have to visit an Apple store for this issue," and I would have been annoyed but would have bopped out the door and that would have been that.
But instead they insisted that my only option was to spend $640 on a new iPhone. No other option available, according to them (OK, "maybe" I could get a refurbished phone "if" they had one in stock, they did mention, how accommodating of them huh)
It's bullshit and it's borderline extortion, and they shouldn't be doing that to ANYONE. Nothing will come of this but it's my fondest wish that Best Buy have their Apple Authorized Service Provider status revoked.
Technology really is amazing!! And how dependent we are on it! I didn't even think about it until my phone was in the shop and I felt NAKED and cut off from the world haha
no subject
I don't understand the appeal of always being on your phone, especially in public places. At malls, or on the bus, etc. I actually prefer people-watching than getting bored of all the ads on social media. (Plus my neck starts to hurt from bad phone-posture...)
I'm happy you weren't more affected by Helene, I'm so sad about seeing all the flooding footage from North Carolina. </3
no subject
I think it's not always "appeal" but simply, phones are where we do MOST tasks now.
As I mentioned in this post, I've just been asked by my new tour employer to download an app which they'll use for ALL tour communications. That means to see any kind of information about my job, or to interact with my coworkers until we're in person, I NEED to use a phone or tablet.
Have you heard of either Sling or Slack? These are work apps. You can chat with coworkers, send files, have meetings, and access work-related documents and projects.
This isn't to say that I believe everyone who is staring at their phone is working that whole time. But imagine that your job uses Slack or Sling apps as the hub for their business, where employees are expected to do work and show that they are active. Or that you are a gig economy worker who does work through Doordash, or Fiverr, or Poplin. You need to be looking at your phone to pick up jobs and earn money. Then if you're between jobs, how do you relax? Read a book or play a game...on your phone. Watch a video, listen to music, or chat with friends...on your phone. Order grocery pickup or dinner delivery...on your phone. Check on your house or your pet...on your phone. Pay your bills and do your banking...on your phone. Make plans for tomorrow...on your phone.
I think it's just...where things ARE, now. I don't think people are using their phones just for social media any more (I certainly am not, two of my three jobs require apps. Yes, the hat shop where I work uses Sling for all scheduling, employee communications, and exchanging shifts!)
no subject
But I get it, you can't really live without a smartphone these days! So many things also require e.g. authentication that you need a mobile device for.
I just don't like doing stuff on my phone when I'm out and about, and I must say I'm rather proud of myself for not feeling like grabbing my phone when I'm bored—it's usually my phone that makes me bored! Social media isn't what it used to be, I mostly use Instagram but it's full of ads, and occasionally open Threads to scroll and tend to get 'stuck' there. And okay, if I want to edit my photos I've found it's easier and more convenient on a mobile app than my computer. But I can definitely say I couldn't live with my phone only for the fun stuff, I prefer actual books to ebooks or audiobooks, and like to do stuff with my hands, so my phone is basically only a tool to document the more substantial things I like to do. :)
no subject
If you're using your phone just for social media, of course scrolling endlessly would get boring after a while. Just like the "channel surfing" of past decades. There's a lot more that people do with their phones, though. To assume that everyone is just mindlessly scrolling social media pages all day long is, I think, a fallacy. There's a whole lot more going on.