Yesterday I was guarding at the city pool again. Yes, the same pool that I quit working at.

Mean Lisa’s boss told me, “If you guard on a one night contract you will get paid a ridiculous amount of money.” So I did it. I signed a paper that said I would get paid a ridiculous amount of money, and all I had to do was show up. The contract did not tell me what I was expected to do if someone started drowning though, so I figured it couldn’t hurt me too much.

A couple other guards were contracted to work, and they were all good guards that knew their job well. It wasn’t half bad. Mean Lisa’s boss even fed us.

Earlier in the summer, me and a couple other people discussed putting an ad in the classifides that would say we were available for hire to guard private pool parties. Think about it: if you were hosting a big party and you had a pool (granted, everyone in Arizona does), you won’t want to watch the kids in the pool. No one wants to be the adult out at the pool with the kids. If you had the option to hire a certified lifeguard for around $10 per hour, wouldn’t you do it? For a mere $30 plus travel expenses, you could get rid of a lot of stress. We never placed the ad, but a couple people did end up getting hired for a certain influential family’s private pool party.

I’ll work on a contract any day. It’s a good deal all around.

Say Anything - Alive With the Glory of Love

I wanted this photoset to be a little rough around the edges, because that’s how the skaters were. However, any sort of trick on ice is amazing to me (mostly because I can’t do it, and I can’t tell one type of jump from another). I also wanted it to be reminiscent of hand-tinted photographs from the early 1900’s. I remember reading a book when I was younger about Princess Anastasia Romanov, and in the back there were some pictures of her family that she had taken and hand-tinted. I think that was the first time that I learned you could do something like that.

Title | Artist in Training, i
Camera | Pentax Optio WP
Exposure | 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture | f/4
Focal Length | 18.9 mm
ISO Speed | 200

Title | Artist in Training, ii
Camera | Pentax Optio WP
Exposure | 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture | f/4
Focal Length | 18.9 mm
ISO Speed | 200

Title | Artist in Training, iii
Camera | Pentax Optio WP
Exposure | 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture | f/4
Focal Length | 18.9 mm
ISO Speed | 200

Last Monday (August 14th) I got a shiny, new MacBook in the mail. 1.83GHz, 80GB hard drive, and 1GB of RAM.

Quite a few people have asked me, “Was it hard to make the switch, or are Macs pretty easy to use?”

I usually tell them that making the switch was natural. The MacBook (whom I named Staplin) runs like a computer should run.

A computer should be ready to use out-of-the-box.

A computer should boot up in 30 seconds or less.

A computer should be able to be used without you having to worry that it will freeze up, restart, or shut down whenever it feels like it.

A computer should have accessories that plug in via USB 2.0 ports and be ready to use without finding drivers, registering, and restarting.

A computer should allow applications to be installed in under 20 seconds.

A computer should let you see all of the files that are on it without a hassle…it is your computer after all.

A computer should be a logical machine, so it’s only logical that it will keep all of its files organized in a logical manner.

A computer should be able to boot anything you want it to.

A computer should meet all of your standards, and more.

So yeah, I’d suggest that you should get a mac.

Bel Auburn is my new favorite Indie Band. They’re from Ohio. There isn’t much else to say about them, except they’ve been playing together for about 3 years. To quote from their biography:

“We love music, and love people who love music. We try to write good songs, and then play out as much as we can and sing them for good people. No frills, no ego, no hyperbole. Just a show and some songs that we hope you enjoy.”

Well, I’ve enjoyed their music, and I’m sure you will too.

Lullabies in A & C
Lullaby in A
Metropolitan (Watercolor)
Blind Ward
Good Night
Roses
Lullaby in C
Metropolitan (Oil)
Burn Unit
Just Love

“I don’t want you going out like there’s no tomorrow and then coming back the next day.”

–Jack (assistant swim coach), to the team on how he wants us to swim our races

Freshmen. We’ve all seen one. We’ve all acted like one. We’ve all been one. We’ve all treated one like trash. Now that we are no longer one, we needn’t act like one. If you are currently a Freshmen, allow yourself to be enlightened.

1. Don’t act like a sheep. Freshmen are sheep. They need a leader, they don’t know where they are going, their primary mode of defense is to scream and hope someone helps them. Freshmen, like sheep, always look dazed and confused. If you act like a sheep, non-Freshmen will treat you like a sheep. Which brings me to my next tip.

2. Don’t look dazed and confused. Close your mouth, don’t cock your head to the side, and remember to blink once in a while. Don’t walk around with your head down, shuffling your feet. If you are lost, stand up tall, look someone in the eye and ask for help. A sure sign of a Freshman is a mumble and a hanging head.

3. Don’t mention Myspace in real life. Ever. No one cares how many “friends” you have, what your profile looks like, or how many comments you have. No one even cares that you added another photo that is grainy and taken on your camera phone. Just don’t even think about Myspace when you are out in public. The only possibly acceptable mention of Myspace would be if Google was mentioned first. If you are a Freshman, you wouldn’t know about that anyways.

4. Don’t bring up a crappy television show unless an upperclassman brings it up first. In which case, they are probably talking about how crappy it is and you should agree with them. Examples of crappy television shows are: The O.C., anything on the Disney Channel, anything that involves Paris Hilton (or Hillary Duff or Lindsay Lohan) in any way, My Super Sweet 16, and etc.

5. You never went to any party. Even if you did go to a party that was hosted by an upperclassman, it was probably a crappy party because an underclassman was invited. If you went to a party hosted by someone in your peer group, it was probably a crappy party because someone from your peer group hosted it. It’s not cool to hear “I was so totally wasted, dude,” from an underclassman. If you say that, your hopes of impressing anyone just went out the window.

6. You never hooked up with anyone. Not in the upperclassman sense of the word, anyways. Okay, let’s say you are an underclassman and you really did hook up with an upperclassman. Now you’re a slut. Good going, Froshie.

7. He really isn’t that into you. This one is particularly for girls, but it could very well be “She really isn’t that into you.” Just remember that one, and stop obsessing about him/her. Go home and watch Lizzie Mcguire like you normally do.

8. If you don’t know what is being talked about it, just agree. This goes back to tip number 2–don’t look dazed and confused. If you ask a bunch of questions about the unknown subject, then you look dazed and confused. If you pretend to know about the unknown subject, the other people will recognize that you are a phony and then once again you will look dazed and confused. The best way to respond in this type of situation is to agree. Don’t say why you agree, just agree.

9. So you were a valedictorian/class president/4.0 gpa student in your institute of lesser learning, huh? That’s nice. Please realize that a) this was in an institute of lesser learning, and b) valedictorian/class president/4.0 gpa student translates as brown noser/suck up/no-social-life in your new institute of higher learning.

10. You aren’t that mature, so stop pretending to be. Girls, acting like a snob won’t get you anywhere. Boys, following the popular guys around won’t make you be one.

That about wraps it up. Remember these tips, and have a good school year, bottom feeders.

Tonight at a pool party, a kid had a diarrhea accident while going down the slide.

We got everyone out of the water, closed down the pool and went home.

Most pools are shocked with high amounts of chlorine, and then closed for 24 hours after a diarrheal accident. As found in this chart distributed by the government, a pool should be closed for 6.7 days per 1 ppm (part-per-million) of chlorine after a diarrheal accident.

Our chlorine was at about 7 ppm, so this means we should have been closed for 22.9 hours. Let’s round that up and give us a safe 24.

So when did we let people back in the pool? Less than 16 hours later.

Please, please, someone get a health official to write us up.

“What’s that new movie about the Twin Towers called? Flight Plan? 9/11?”

“I don’t know, but I think it’s good that these movies keep coming out. Some people say it’s too soon, but I think that people need to be reminded why we are fighting a war in Iraq right now.”

That’s right, Genius. Keep telling yourself that. We are fighting a war in Iraq because the Twin Towers were blown up.

775 My Street Name
Casa Grande, Arizona 85222

August 2, 2006

Lisa Borninkhof
Recreation Coordinator
City of Casa Grande
510 E. Florence Blvd.
Casa Grande, Arizona 85222

Dear Ms. Borninkhof:

I would like to personally thank you and the other aquatic staff personnel who have worked with me over the past two summers. I can not even begin to describe how much I learned and matured while working at the Palm Island Family Aquatic Center. Not only did I learn lifesaving skills, but my skills have also improved in the areas of public relations, internal relations, tolerance, and ethics. I have made new friends and grown closer to old ones. You, my co-workers, and the public have all worked together to help form my character. I will be able to use my experiences that I had working at the pool for the rest of my life.

Through no fault of your own, or anyone else’s for that matter, I would like to officially put in my two weeks notice. This will be effective beginning today. Therefore August 16, 2006, will be my last day working at the pool. Initially, at the beginning of the summer, I thought that I would be able to work until the pool closed for the winter. Several things have come up that I did not anticipate, and I will not be able to work that late into the year.

Thank you very much for your time, consideration, and understanding.

Sincerely,

Alisa Wilhelm

I turned in this letter this morning. Mean Lisa was not there (surprise, surprise), so I had the office clerk put it in her inbox.

Mean Lisa is a difficult person, so of course I had to suck up to her in the letter. To tell the truth, I quit because all of the good guards have already or are going to quit. That means that I will be left with the guards who don’t know what they are doing. If an accident ever happened, I would be screwed for the rest of my life (i.e. lawsuit). I am no longer willing to take that risk. This job is stressful enough as it is, and I can’t handle the thought of guarding a whole pool by myself (which is what would basically happen if I stayed). I don’t want to deal with that.

This winter I suppose I’ll work for The Dispatch, The Cactus (a college newspaper), or the college’s pool.

Overall, it was fun while it lasted, but I’m moving on. It’s time to do something else and learn something new.