I’m still here, but have been really busy at work. I tried to post short message last night, but got run off the computer to take a shower and go to bed. I’ve been spending quite a bit of time on the computer, and my mom has decided I now have a computer curfew of 11:00. (Of course, I don’t really agree, but rules are rules, and arguing wont accomplish anything but making me sorry I tried. I don’t mean that in a bad way, just that if I decide I’m exempt from a rule, I’d probably lose several things, like free time, gas money, or free food, which are worth more than computer use after 11:00.) Besides, only two more months ’till college.

I’m working almost 40 hours a week, and am finally getting the hang of checking. I remember how to do just about everything, and my only real problem is the produce codes, and silly things like WIC checks.
(Apparently, low income parents can get vouchers for child food, like cereal and milk, which I then have to validate. However, the bank is rather picky about redeeming them, and the store threatens that if you take a check that the bank refuses, then you pay it out of your paycheck. A good motive to do it right, I’d say!)

I want to add a “Long Stories” section to my website, and now just need to write up the stories. The idea is rather than just say “I am 18 years old (unless I’m in Calculus again)”, I link to the page where I explain what that is all about. I’ just put that story up, here.

Yahoo! News – US Charges AOL Worker Sold Customer List for Spam

So that’s why AOL had so much spam, eh?

The feds think this guy sold 92 million (92,000,000) subscriber’s names and e-mail addresses to spammers, for $52,000. Until today, I had just assumed the spammers had to work to build their lists, not just buy them. I hope they give this guy the maximum penalty (5yrs/$250k). And I wonder how many other people have been doing similar schemes…

“I know what most to fhte m do”
Funny how tangled up ones fingers can get while typing. That should read “most of them do”

I am possibly the worst typinst I have ever met. At least for accuracy. As for speed, I’ve seen some regular tortises.

A quick summary: I fifth grade, we sent time capsules to ourselves to be opened after we graduated. I have the ones from people who moved away.

Mrs. Frenter gave me several time capsules last week, as somehow they had been delivered to her. It turns out (Sarah), that after they were handed out at walkthrough on Thurs, the people’s who moved away were sent to her, and she gave them to me. I am trying to track them down, but the school records didn’t have anything for people who moved a long time ago. If anyone is in contact with the people on the following list, please contact me yourself, or have them contact me. The best way to reach me is e-mail: nathan@nathanoliver.net.  (That address gets a lot of spam, so if I don’t respond, just leave a comment here.)

[Updated 8/25/2005]

If you know any more than I do, please contact me, via e-mail (nathan@nathanoliver.net), comment on this blog, or via my cell– 503 334 7998. I may be optimistic, but I would like to return all of them.

Today was my first day as a checker at A&J select, and now whenever I look at a tomato, I think “520”. (We have codes for the produce, that’s the large tomato code.) Other than that, the experience wasn’t all that bad. I goofed up one transaction really bad, but Lorraine was able to fix it in a few minutes. Luckily, most people are pretty nice about trainees.

The most intimidating part of the job is actually calling for more checkers/courtesies. I never feel like it is important enough to call a courtesy, but I guess it is faster with one. I just don’t want to irritate them too much. I remember how annoyed I got when I was called up for a sequence of small courtesies.

(To those unfamiliar with the lingo, a Courtesy Clerk is the one who bags groceries, among other tasks. When you get a call, it is like “Courtesy to 3 please”. Thus, the calls and the bagging jobs are collectively referred to as courtesies.)

Tomorrow, I learn the rest of the job, and Lorraine said she will be a little further away, so I get to see how much I still remember, and how much I have yet to learn.

More on this topic then
–Nathan

I am trying to see if I can e-post from Yahoo! e-mail.

As long as I’ve got a box open, I may as well write for a while. My website is in need of some more work, I just noticed (and fixed) today that my Governor’s Ball gallery page didn’t have any pictures on it, because of a coding error. And I thought it was because I hadn’t loaded all the pictures to my new server. It took all of three miutes of troubleshooting to get the gallery online, and another five to transfer most of the pics.

And any budding webmaster out there, DON’T use GeoCities. I transfered five (admittedly large) pictures from their server, and I maxed out my bandwith for an hour. GeoCities looks good at first, but take the plunge and find a slightly better host. May I recommend aloofhosting? (Look where I’m at.)

[EDIT 11/10/2004: AloofHosting closes its doors Dec 15. Other hosts that seem decent are SiteSled and 100Webspace.]

OKay, enough technical stuff. Now I get to test this darn e-mail system again.

Well, the e-mail bounced back as undeliverable, so I guess I will be posting manually.

I rented Runaway Jury this weekend, and you know what?  I read the book, and I was surprised at the ending.  Why do they feel that when they make a movie, they can change it however they like? Not that the new ending was worse, it was just different.

Oh, wait. If they change the ending on all of Grisham’s films, then they can still the books, and say that you don’t really know what happens. It’s probably all part of some evil profit-making plot. Got to love profit, I guess.

Just some thoughts for today, I guess.

Just getting the hang of this.

Didn’t do all that much today, I slept in till 11:00, and then had breakfast. I skipped lunch :), and spent most of the afternoon fooling around on the computer, learning JavaScript, etc. I want to figure out how to divide my photo galleries into pages automatically, and I have maybe half or so figured out.
Sooner or later, I’d like to change the template to match the rest of my site, but who really cares anyway.

I start working again tomorrow, should be fun as I haven’t worked since early march. I start training as a checker next Monday, and I’m not 100% sure if I want to or not. We’ll see how it goes.

I just got told to go upstairs and help with dinner, so signing off now…

–Nathan

This post is mainly to test the e-mail capabilities of my Blog, and to get something down about graduation.

This has been a very eventful 36 hours. I got up Saturday morning, and helped get ready for our graduation party at my house. I went to school for the ceremony, and they had decided that a 95% chance of clear weather wasn’t enough, and we had graduation INSIDE The ceremony actually went OK, and Mr. Hurley was the speaker. He has several clips of music that he wove right into his address, which certainly made it more interesting.

After graduation, I went home, and talked with everyone at the party at my house. I was there perhaps an hour and a half before I had to leave to attend the Senior All Night Drug and Alcohol Free Party. (Boarding the bus began at 5:00, graduation wasn’t over until 3:30 or so.) We got goodie bags, and they had disposable cameras, so I took several pictures. If I ever get them scanned, I’ll post the best ones.

We went to Seattle, and went laser tagging, Cosmic Bowling, and then to GameWorks, an arcade type place. Laser tagging was fun, this place was better than the other place I’ve gone. I actually did pretty well, placing as high as 3rd in one round. Of course, another round, I placed 14 of 17.  One round, Jessie B. and I were exchanging fire the whole time. That round, you had only 16 lives, and she must have killed me 13 or so times. She told me afterwards that I got her about every time she stuck her gun around the corner, though.

I had a good time, as did most who went (and stayed the whole trip). We had three who decided they were 18, and old enough to do what they wanted, and got off in Seattle. We left them, so they’re on their own for transportation. The Senior Parents had been fundraising all year, so they gave out cash gift-cards and other cool prizes, too.

As soon as we got back, I got a ride down to church, where Tom N. was celebrating his first mass. He was ordained in Seattle on Saturday, and came down here to celebrate the mass. It was a big crowd, and I got there late, so I seating was non-existent. After mass, there was a brunch in the hall, and I had even more food.

Then I went home, and spread my junk out all over the front room, took a nap, watched the news, ate dinner (and actually was hungry) and just basically sat around. Funny, as I write this, I know I should go to bed, but am not yet tired. Well, I should get some sleep anyway.

Good Night……

Well, I have seen lots of other people with blogs, and I thought that it might be an easier way to keep my web-site content fresh. I am trying to get this set up properly, so We’ ll see if this works.