The Burlingames

Today was a great day. Not only did my long-awaited amp arrive, but I also accepted an upgrade at work to move to full time (I’m currently working part time). I’ve gone back and forth on whether or not I wanted to work full time for several reasons. I’ve greatly enjoyed hanging out with Eli during the day and it’s been good to only have to pay for a couple hours of daycare each day. On the other hand, it’s getting trickier to spend money on making the necessary repairs to the house, not to mention the upgrades we’d like to make when the funds become available.

One interesting thing about being part time at FedEx is I could always say no if they asked me to come in a few hours early or need help during the busy times. As a full time employee, they now own me. If there aren’t enough volunteers to cover extra work (there usually are, so it’s mostly a non-issue), they go down a seniority list and assign people to do things. It’s not a big deal, but something to consider.

Another reason to take this chance is the relative rarity of it, especially given the state of the economy. I’ve been at FedEx for nearly 2.5 years and only in the last several months have any full time positions become available to part-timers. Who knows how long it would be before I got another chance.

I’m glad for the opportunity. I started at FedEx thinking of it as a stopgap job while waiting for another design gig. I’ve been there almost 2.5 years and I’m not in any hurry to go somewhere else. Honestly, I don’t really miss design all that much. Who knows: maybe I’ll work my way up the chain at FedEx and do something besides being a courier with them. They hire almost exclusively from within, so there’s definitely a chance. Perhaps I’ll learn some valuable skills along the way that will help me achieve my ultimate dream of owning a guitar store. We’ll see.

I was driving through Fridley today for work and saw a fire truck ahead of me. It didn’t take long to catch up as the truck was only going about 20 mph. As I closed in on the fire truck, I was a bit confused by what I saw. The truck was a ladder truck that appeared to have small lights all over it. It also looked like there was a person standing on top of it. I couldn’t get close enough to clearly make things out as there were several cars between me and the fire truck.

Finally, the fire truck turned a corner and my suspicions were confirmed; the ladder was decorated with Christmas lights and there was a guy dressed up as Santa standing the bucket of the ladder. He was just standing up there, waving to the oncoming cars. I’m not sure if that’s some sort of rookie hazing or just something weird the Fridley fire department likes to do when it snows. Either way, it was certainly interesting.

To say I’m tired would be a gross understatement. Work was busy today, so I was called in early to help with deliveries. I drove around Shoreview, Lino Lakes and Circle Pines. After my lunch break I did my normal night route in Fridley and Spring Lake Park. I had a lot more stops than usual and definitely a lot more packages. All that added up to me hanging out in my area way too long: long enough that I wouldn’t have made it back to my station in time to get my freight on the truck headed to the airport. So, I headed off directly to the airport.

After off-loading everything I drove back to the station in White Bear Lake. I saw way too much of the metro today: 135 miles of roads. I started this morning about 10:30 and finished this evening around 9:30. And I’m gonna do it again tomorrow. Hopefully I’m not so busy that I need go to the airport again. That’s always so time consuming.