Week in Review

Well, it’s been a full week here, and by full week I mean I had a great deal to do, none of which had anything to do with writing or creativity, unless you include the creative ways I stayed alive driving the freeways of LA and the writing I did while filling out surveys and scribbling siteplans.

Speaking of siteplans, they look something like this, although there are no photo points on this one and so it’s like 85% complete.




Monday Oct 9

Trained a few people down in San Juan Capistrano. They arrived about a little over an hour late so I sat in my car waiting. We trained on two sites and one of them forgot to wear sensible shoes, so she sat down and had the other person I was training yell the measurements across the parking lot to her. Which was not too bad in this instance since it was Columbus day and the banks were closed. Evidently, most Americans, and especially “new” Americans don’t really have a collective conscience of Columbus Day, so there were about 200 people between the two banks that kept walking up to the entrance doors and yanking on them even though there was a bright red sign on one of the doors telling them it was closed for a holiday. They insisted on yanking the door numerous times to confirm that it was indeed locked before they chose to actually read anything. Once they figured it out, there seemed to be only two possible reactions. Some of them laughed at their forgetfulness of the holiday, the others would get really angry and storm off cursing the bank under their breath.

Cities visited: San Juan Capistrano and San Clemente

Tuesday Oct 10

Had the day off, so I wrote a bit and read the news and e-mailed with people.

Wed Oct 11

Switched to the other survey job and did 5 locations. It’s a different deal involving collecting data related to POP shipments for the gas station locations surveyed. One of the major Gas Station chains is converting all of their stores, so once construction is complete, I do these surveys for the marketing company that sends them their ads to post about the inside and outside advertising whatever deals there are or for PSAs about good things like Race for the Cure. These are pretty straight forward and take about an hour with photographs. The problem is that since they are based on conversion completion, the sites have no real relation in distance. So It was over 200 miles of driving to get to the five. A bit of a pain really. The nice thing about doing these is that they all have available restrooms which is the most annoying thing when doing sites like banks, where you have to find a restroom in a mall or a gas station close or something when you feel the need. Plus you can grab a drink or a snack right there when done.

Cities visited: Riverside, Corona, Rancho Cucamonga, La Mirada, Bellflower

Thur Oct 12

This was another training day. I had to go to Bakersfield, which is a little over a two hour drive from LA. It’s up the 5, which is a somewhat winding sort of interstate that gains and loses 1000s of ft of elevation over a few mile stretches. It’s a pretty drive, but there are so many tractor trailers on the road that it gets a little problematic. They have to stay in the right lane and go about 30 miles an hour slower than everyone else incase they lose it on the 6% downgrades. It was a bit ironic that the only place I could smell the left over odor of the Day Fire, one of the largets fires in California History, was for about a two mile stretch before and after the “Smokey Bear Rd.” exit. The mountains in the distance looked like they’d been powdered with charcoal dust and stood out stark and gray against the yellow of the untouched hills and ranges in the foreground.

This training went a little better. The guy and his wife were prepared and it went somewhat smoothly. They’d brought their dog “Grim” who slept in the back of their pick-up while we worked. He was some pit-bull mix. The wife sat in the car after about the first half of the first site. She's a larger gal and I think didn't realize there was as much walking involved as there is. They bailed after two sites so I finished the third one on my own then got back on the road for LA around 4:30 which got me back about 10 til 7:00. So it was a 5/7 day. Five hours on the road and seven in the field, which is about average for the sites on the periphery of my range, which is roughly a 135 mile radius.

Fri Oct 13

Did two more gas station sites in the morning which took 4 hours of field and drive time. I also stopped at Home Depot and picked up a measuring wheel since I have to get building and street frontage for these things. I then came back to the apartment and finished the paper work and knocked out the invoices which took about 2.5 hours.

Cities visited: Aliso Viejo, Costa Mesa

So for the week, working 4 days, I put in about 50 hours all totaled and drove about 600 miles. This is why I didn’t really have time to post. So, now that I’ve bored you with my week I shall leave you with the thought that at least tomorrow I get to watch the third season premiere of Battlestar Galactica on the big screen at the Egyptian Theater with at least one of the cast. Which was the only thing I had to look forward to this week.