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A list of odd jobs I have had:

Lawn Mower: When I was a Jr. high kid, I mowed some lawns for spare spending money. Mostly for my violin teacher.

Newspaper boy: Delivered the Spokane Chronicle when I was in Jr. Hi. Also delivered the Valley Herald. Both of these have been absorbed into other papers.

Janitor: In High School, I worked for a janitorial company cleaning various businesses. The highlight came every other week when I got to sweep the entire floor of a trucking company's warehouse.

Tele-marketer: For 3 or 4 days I worked in a smoke filled room trying to sell coupon books. I think I sold one for 20 bucks over 4 days.

Dishwasher: Back in the early 1990's the airlines used to actually serve lousy food on actual dishes. I washed those dishes for a summer. This job made my shoes really stink!

Sewer-pipe installer. I worked for 4 10 hour days burying sewer pipe for a new mobile home park.

Head hasher: At my fraternity house, I supervised the clean up of the kitchen after meals. I was also responsible for cooking on the weekends. (Noel Bailey made sure that I knew that he ate at McDonalds every day that I cooked)

Plastic bottle maker. Temp job, worked for a couple weeks in a factory that made various plastic bottles... Really neat stuff. I managed to keep all of my fingers. I have made gallon Pickle jars, milk cartons, refillable sport drink containers, honey bear bottles.

Lighting louver assembler. You know those stainless steel reflective louvers above your cubicle? yep, I might have built that one.

Beer drinker. I got paid 10 bucks once to drink a bottle of 'Red Dog' and tell Coors what I thought of it. My wife had just met, and I where co-workers in this venture. We left the tavern with more money than we came in with... (That doesn't happen often does it??)

Wood cutter: I worked for a summer in a cut-stock facility making parts for wooden windows. There where a lot of fun tasks like pulling 20 foot boards off a ripsaw and sorting them by width. For a couple of days I actually had a job cutting the boards. That was by far the most math intensive job I have ever had. You had to look at a 20 foot section of wood, detect all of the defects, and figure out how to cut them out in the most economically beneficial combination. It was very hard. Speaking Vietnamese would have been beneficial, as English was not spoken much on that line..

House measurer: I spent two summers measuring houses. The insurance company wanted to make sure that they had a good understanding of what they had insured, so they hired a bunch of college kids to drive around, take photographs and measurements.

Robot operator. I worked for 22 months in a Clean Room environment operating robotic machines that welded some metal subcomponents for Microprocessors. 12 hour rotating graveyard shifts are fun!

Electronics assembler. I spent 3 years putting together meter reading equipment. For about a year and a half, I built radio devices that fit in electric meters and could send the reading to a hand held computer, a vehicle based computer, or a fixed network. The last half of my career there, I helped assemble computers that mounted on utility poles and read meters for an entire neighborhood.

Cardboard polish remover. I had a temp job once scraping a varnish off of cardboard packaging.. They accidently put the polish where the glue went, so the package wouldn't stay assembled. Worked there for a half day, then they figured out how to do the job with power tools..

Software tester: As an intern, I spent the last year of my college years testing Online banking software.

Trade show busboy: Ran around the convention center collecting trash for a day. My feet still hurt when I think about it. This was temp job I worked for a day between my internship and my real job. I found out I got hired about halfway though my workday.

I am pretty sure I forgot a few... Oh well, doubt anyone cares...

Posted by Josh Reighley at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments ()

I have never been a big fan of IHOP. There food has never been bad, but it has never been outstanding either. My main gripe isn't with the restaurant though, it is with the clientel.

The other day, I took Nathan to "The Pancake Store" (IHOP) because his mom was home sick and his sister was spending the night with her grandparents. We sat down and he began the coloring ritual. We where sitting in a booth.

The booth behind me was occupied by some older folks. The lady was complaining about how some staff at a different restaurant that she shared too much personal information with their patrons. "If they would stop griping and get working, they wouldn't have so many problems" She said.

From the tone of her voice I could guess what was going to happen next. The waitress brought over their order, and once she left, I heard "What is this? The menu said I could pick two items for my omelet. I picked Mushrooms and Green Peppers, but there is cheese all over it!"

A few minutes later, her husband called the waitress over. "Ma'am, My wife didn't want cheese on her omelet, she ordered it with mushrooms and green peppers"

"I am sorry," the waitress kindly replied "All of our omelets come with cheese, but I can ask our cooks to make her one without"

"No, just take it away! I Don't want to discuss it any longer!" The grumpy old lady groused.

About five minutes passed. She scolded her husband. "Next time you are going to call over the staff because of something that is my business, will you at least warn me first?"

"Yes Honey, I am sorry" said the wise old man.

Anyway. IHOP would probably retain a younger clientel if they would set up a grumpy old geezer section. The music isn't loud enough to drown out grousing of the neighboring tables.

Posted by Josh Reighley at 5:25 AM | Permalink | Comments ()

Today I signed up for Via Talk.   So far I am quite happy with it.  I used some other VoIP services earlier, but was not too impressed.  But the benefits of VoIP service make it worth trying again. 

Since I had my own hardware (a Sipura 2100) I signed up for the BYOD service.  If you are shopping for an Analog Telephone adapter, I am not a huge fan of the 2100.  It has an integrated router that is a bit tricky to work with.  I pasted the Username and password into the appropriate places in my sipura's configuration page, and the service came up.

Andee has been talking quite a bit with her Sister in Eugene lately.  Our phone bills have started to escalate drastically, and I am quite certain that her sister's have as well.   So when I ordered my service, I got a Eugene telephone number.  Now we can call her and she can call us, and there is no additional charge for either party.  If we choose, we can also get phone numbers in other cities that people tend to call us from, cutting long distance bills.  I subscribed to the unlimited plan, so we can call anywhere in the country and there is only the 22.00 per month fee.  The phone line comes with Caller ID, call waiting, voice mail and a whole bunch of extras that would cost me a fortune if I ordered them through Qwest, my local phone company. 

I am thinking that I will pack up my Sipura and take it with us when we go to Hawaii.  The place we are staying has a High speed internet connection, so I can plug it in, and make and take calls just like at home.

ViaTalk supports E911, which is an important feature to my wife, who is a former 911 operator. 

Simultaneous ringing is also a handy feature.   I can go into the viatalk website and configure it so that whenever somebody calls our VoIP phone number, our home phone rings at the same time.  Today I was talking on the VoIP line, and I heard my call waiting beep.  At the same time I heard our other phone ring.  Andee was able to pick up the incoming call on our VoIP line using our regular phone, and we where both able to continue our conversations without interruption.  If I choose to leave my VoIP gear at home on vacation I can always log onto the website and set the simultaneous ring to the phone that is in place that we are renting.

So far, I am pretty happy with the quality of the calls and the service.  The only complaint I have is that I have not been able to set up any speed dials.  The old service I used had these easily programmable from the website.    I don't see this feature advertised at all on the Viatalk website.  Not a huge deal, as my phone has memory dialing.

If it works well, I may go ahead and port over my land line.   I have always wanted caller ID and other features, but didn't want to shell out the big bucks.   ViaTalk is cheaper than my entire phone bill with Qwest, has more features, and Unlimited long distance.  That deal is hard to beat!

Posted by Josh Reighley at 1:34 AM | Permalink | Comments ()

A few years ago, I tried a Sensory Deprivation Tank.

The concept is pretty neat. Basically it is a tub about 1 foot deep. 8 or so feel long and 5 or so feet wide. The tank is full of water that has been saturated with 800 pounds of Epsom salts. As a result, this water is considerably denser than normal water, and when you lay on it, you float.

The water is heated to 93.5 degrees, which is the approximate temperature of your skin. When you close the door on the tank, it is totally dark. The idea is that you lay suspended in the saltwater solution with nothing to see, hear, smell, taste or feel.

This sounds scary, but it really isn't too bad. The tank is pretty big, so claustrophobia really isn't an issue. I could reach both walls if I spread my arms, but I couldn't reach the ceiling. Once the lights go out and you relax a bit the space seems infinitely big.

There is all kinds of propaganda on the benefits of floating. I was pretty hyped up about it before I tried, and I figure that my expectations interfered a bit with my experience. My friend who went with me, did it just for kicks, and he thought it was the coolest thing ever. He really hadn't built up a lot of anticipation.

There are quite a few companies that manufacture sensory deprivation tanks or "Float Tanks". They seem to range from 5-20k in price. I have seen one guy who sells float tank plans. He claims that you can build your own for about 1000 dollars. I purchased his product, and it doesn't look too bad, although I would likely take a different approach if I where to build my own.

In many cities, there are places you can go to rent an hour or two of time in a float tank. Floatation.com has a pretty comprehensive list. I did my floating in Seattle at Floatzone.

Overall, I found the float tank experience to be quite relaxing. I spent an hour in there, and it was not long enough. I suspect that 1 hour would be enough most of the time, but on my first time, I spent the first 15 or 20 minutes observing what could be observed and watching my brain to see if it felt weird yet. After the initial curiosity wore off, It was relaxing in a way that I don't think can be emulated any other way. There where absolutely no external distractions.

While the float tanks are quite a rage among the new-agers, I don't think that their use is inappropriate for those of us with more traditional faiths. It is a quiet place.

I have been wanting to go back, but I rarely get to Seattle, and I have yet to find one in Spokane or North Idaho. I see that there are a few in the Portland area, so next time I am over there I might see if I can schedule an appointment. I would love to have one in my house, so I could get some compressed rest on some of the days when I don't get enough sleep.

Posted by Josh Reighley at 2:14 AM | Permalink | Comments ()

So, I have been sleeping on a Buckwheat pillow for about 10 years now. I don't particularly love it, but pillows are a hard habit to break.

The nice thing about the buckwheat pillow is that it is fairly moldable. You can kinda dig in it with your head, and when you stop digging it keeps it's shape.

The pillow is rather hard to the touch, but it is plenty comfortable when you head is resting on it. It makes a funny noise when you shift around. My cats have absolutely no interest in sleeping on it, which makes me happy.

My head never gets hot when It is on the buckwheat pillow. There is a lot of space between each buckwheat hull, so the heat circulates pretty easy.

I have been using my buckwheat pillow for about 9 years, and it has held up well. Originally my wife bought a couple Sobakawa pillows off an infomercial.. They where way too small. I called them Sock-it-to-me pillows. I liked the concept enough that I ran out to the store and bought a regular sized pillow.

Posted by Josh Reighley at 11:07 PM | Permalink | Comments ()