Prospector Porn
Meanwhile, waiting for new episodes of "Alone" (*Last episode the Anthropologist released a large salmon back into the wild, she had more than she needed and would need to catch and eat it another day, while the preacher has gone hungry for weeks and is dropping pant sizes, Jose built his canoe and the Sniper climbed the mountain and began moving camp), I've discovered a peculiar sub-niche of youtube. Prospector Porn. Yep, people actually going out and finding stuff. If you metal detect there's easily a dozen channels, one even starring Dirt Digler, if you hunt for arrowheads or native artifacts there are channels there for you, and if you prospect or rockhound, well, there are dozens of channels there for you too...
This is my consolation for too many days trapped indoors...
A few observations. Most of the channels are appalling, poorly put together videos, people ranting at the camera, long boring footage of drives to locations, bad pictures of finds, some of the people are good at finding specific things (ie Gold), others have a good general knowledge and go off on various quests to search for different rocks...
Despite the monkey-cam shakiness and low production values there's a few channels that have provided me an abundance of useful information. Caver461 works out of the Bancroft area of Ontario and finds all sorts of different crystals and minerals, he's pitching his book, which you can only pray is more finished than his videos, but he finds cool stuff. If I end up in Bancroft I'm gonna buy it. There's Dan Hurd, who's got a variety of claims up in BC, mostly gold but he looks for other shit as well. There's Mining America, who's goal seems to be to explore and review every rockhounding spot across the US (a handy guide as the daughter and I will probably hit a few of them on our vacation), There's Liz Kreate, who finds stuff in Australia - Opals, Sapphires, Spinels, Gold, etc, you name it, Australia has it all, and there are guys who climb to the highest points on Mont Blanc to recover fantastic Quartz Crystal Specimens, they seem to have better videos than a lot of the competition.
You don't need to watch too many of these to get the idea, but some are clearly better than others. The better ones introduce the locality, what they're going for, what they hope to find, detail what strata or sediments to look in, show the finding of materials as well as what the materials look like when they're all cleaned up. The best ones will give you a bit of background geology to the area and explain why this area is good for such and such, but every video gives you something, a clue as to what to keep your eyes peeled for, and there's something infectious about the unbridled enthusiasm of the prospectors, it's addictive...
...and think, we live in one of the least populous, least explored places on earth, and the possibilities, well, they're still endless and the days are already wearing shorter and I'm trapped inside...
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West
And the time draws ever nearer. I'm at a bit of a loss, the Italian Waiter leaves end of July, were I to leave then as well it would look like sabotage. It would be, but still amazingly satisfying to stick it to the nephew, throw him in with a bunch of less-than sympathetic new waiters, who'd tire of his bullshit and maybe pay him what he's worth, or walk out. Tell him before the vacation so he could spend the entirety of it stressing out about his return. It would be fair...just...deserved...
...still, it violates my own codes of conduct. Somewhat. It's time to go, I owe them nothing, they've offended me more ways than I can count, still, there is my own integrity, and so I resolve to give notice after the vacation, set departure to September 21, allow time for packing up, moving, ordering locker, ...
There's a lot to be done. A lot of these finds, the Table and Chairs, will have to be sold off, there's no more room in the locker, And while I'm on this Zen binge of reduction I should visit the locker, sell off what I can, make space....I need to start now...
A dozen, or two, adverts on Kijiji, to lighten my load, sell off the extraneous shit, if I'm lucky at a profit but I'd be thrilled to break even, and then it will be time to move. West, to the Enchanted Valley, and in those rare free moments I look for jobs and houses to rent and begin to imagine a better life. Soon...
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The 10 O'Clock Alcoholics
Saturday Morning, 9:45, after all the garage sales fit to peruse I head home up 14th Street. Already, outside the liquor store at the bottom of the hill there's a line up of the usual suspects...
The 14 Street Panhandlers, grown now to practically a community that lives off the medians and by wandering desperately sober into traffic, they're at every intersection, 17th Ave, 12th Ave, 11th Ave, Kensington Road, the roadworks have backed up traffic and increased their captive audience by twofold, triple even...
...and there's a few I recognize from outside the Ship, the locals, there's a few of the early morning bottle pickers who've already filled their bags and redeemed them for cash, they're all outside the liquor store at the bottom of the hill in an orderly line, of sorts, chatting about the night before, waiting for it to open...
The 10 O'Clock Alcoholics.
Up the hill, past my apartment to the liquor store by my place, it's 10:00 AM now, surely, no line but the parking lot is full. I've a bit of a taste, time for a nap before work, inside, the liquor store filled with the more marginally acceptable alcoholics, the ones with cars and a place to live and party, those still carrying on from the night before, whores and tarts still up looking to take the edge off of too many lines, bleary eyed and checking you out, no shit, who's in a liquor store at 10 AM on a Saturday morning?, but we're all in this together...
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The Reprieve
Now it's supposed to be my day off, but it was busy last night and the waiter who was supposed to get Monday off had to work, and we're all on guard, it could happen to us, business has been strange...
...we thought it was Graduation, but only for a couple of the tables, the rest, well, the 7th Wave, the peculiar synchronized arrival of old and new customers, walk-ins, the restaurant filled, some loathsome political figures, some pleasant-enough regulars, an odd night, busy, busier by far than the weekend...
...and tonight, looking busy as well, my evening off is not assured. As if to make certain I'd show the owner tells me he's booked an appointment with me to meet a rep from Open Table, they've been harassing us for our business, he isn't sure. He knew it was my day off, pretends he didn't, I say nothing, I'm counting the days...My job is to get all the information and translate it for him. A couple of things, most of our customers (existing) are way outside of technologies age bracket, and most certainly the owner is. However "Simple" and easy it is to use it's probably not of any use here...
...the Nephew, he invites himself to sit in. Of anyone here, he should be the most technologically savvy, he spends days gaming on end at home, days on end at the restaurant on his cell-phone, and however we implement this he'll be in charge, I have plans, I'm comfortable with this, especially when he hijacks the conversation to ask questions...
I don't have a lot. Costs? $.35 cents per online reservation made through our website, $2.50 per person per online reservation made through their website. No hardware required, other information, unfortunately they can't tell us how many new customers this will bring us (the most important question in my books, otherwise we're paying them to do what we already do well enough ourselves...). I gather everything we need, tell them to get back to us in a couple of days. The nephew continues, talks, asks questions for about 10 more minutes.
When we're done, we're not so busy, I'm going home. I review the information with the owner, the nephew, he has some questions for me. It turns out he didn't listen to, didn't understand a single thing she said. He only understood the $200.00 set up fee (which, like any cable/internet company they said they'd waive, this is the BS "loss leader", the free incentive, like when your cable company says they'll install that cable/internet/satellite dish for free, a regular $1,000,000.00 value, it's all BS), didn't understand they'd waive it, didn't understand how he'd be getting the reservations, didn't understand anything, and he will be the one in charge...He think's it's a good idea. I'm happy and agree...
"We'll implement it in September" I tell him, and he's excited...
Me, I'm leaving, my regular scheduled day off now once again my own, yet I'm feeling somehow that it's a bit of a reprieve...
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