[sic]

This just in from my inbox:

FROM: Rio Hondo College
TO: William Campbell
SUBJECT: Rio Hondo College Police Academy

CONGRATULATIONS! You are invited to join the upcoming Rio Hondo College Police Academy class.

Barring vacations these last couple years, I can’t recall being off my bike for such a span of time. And certainly none so long when I’ve been able and available to ride. Until this morning when I pedaled to work, the last time I was in the saddle was October 31.

Twelve days.

I blamed going bike-less last week on a variety of issues, one of which was my workload. And that certainly didn’t get any better this week. But with the last hurdle overcome this morning, this is pretty much the first day in which sighs of relief are available to me.

One of those sighs of relief was the fact that I still have a job. On top of everything else I’ve absorbed and processed (to varying degrees of success and failure) this last month or so, the doozy came Tuesday when a mandatory all-staff meeting was called.

Historically, there are three things that have happened when we’ve been hastily congregated into the conference room — all usually having something to do with the losing of jobs. Tuesday’s was no different other than it being on a larger scale and driven by the state of the business.

Thankfully, my value as an employee was enough to keep me on the roster — which was cause for an extra sigh of relief for me, if from nothing more than a timing standpoint. See, it will be three years ago this week that the zoo showed me the door and you know damn well I’d be looking to kick November coincidence in the big fat ass if I suddenly became gainlessly unemployed so close to that still-stinging anniversary.

But it got me thinking or perhaps opportunistically rationalizing my somewhat inexplicable extended swap of two wheels for four. With the vibe at work being rather depressing these last couple months, I’m curious if perhaps I sensed a change a-coming and subconsciously wanted to be able to make a quick getaway if the bell tolled for me?

Hard to say.

But the bell didn’t and I’m back in the saddle.

Two good things.

Sigh.

The desk is cleared, the day is done and there’s a bike to ride home. The relief and satisfaction in putting another issue of my magazine to bed is grand. Too bad it only lasts until about tomorrow morning and then it’s back at it.

It’s disgusting that I went into the office yesterday at 2 p.m. to get caught up on work I’d been putting off until the last minute, and didn’t emerge to come home until 6:35 a.m. this morning. That’s right: 16.5 hours. No sleep, unless you count the 45 minute pass-out on the floor of my office because I couldn’t sit in my chair another second.

The good news is I’m decidedly not at all as behind as I was 16.5 hours earlier, and the bright side of all this is that I got home in about 23 minutes because the 405 to the 10 to the 110 to the 101 looked like this  the whole dang way:

FTW!

So the great Silver Lake Reservoir draining is finally complete and the big water bowl is empty… until they get around to refilling it. All of its potentially toxic water has been flushed away through a series of subterranean tubes connecting to the Ballona Creek which pours onward into the Santa Monica Bay where the carcinogenic parts per million of all that bromate-tainted water will be diluted into inert nothingness, or an unexpected complex chemical reaction with the saltwater and the bacteria and the styrofoam and the plastic bags and the shopping carts and the gull shit and the hypodermics will ultimately create the monster for the three-quel to the coming sequel of “Cloverfield” who will then go on a rampage across the city. Could happen.

As the reservoir’s level has slowly lowered over the last 60 days, people have been either hopeful or apprehensive as to what might be revealed rusting and rotting away down there on the bottom, but there hasn’t been anything noted as of yet. Personally I know of one 27-year-old relic that’s down there somewheres, if it didn’t get swept down a pipe at some point in such a long interim. It’s a set of keys on a ring, one which I heaved over the fence into its southeastern waters one very early morning back in 1981.

The keys were to the Swensen’s Ice Cream Shoppe that used to be on Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills, across the street from and in between what used to be Fiorucci’s and RJ’s restaurant. I had worked at Swensen’s for a while during my first and second year at Beverly Hills High School, promoted to night manager before I was fired by the owner’s daughter — Desiree or Dell-something; who badly managed the place for her dad — for not being willing to hold some marijuana for her.

I turned in my keys, cleaned out my locker and collected my final paycheck. I stayed pissed off for awhile not just because I was out of a job, but also because Swensen’s had been the center of my social universe. To have both yanked away so unfairly was a good lesson to learn early but nonetheless a hard one.

A few months later I ended up getting a stockclerk job at the long-gone Hunters Books on Rodeo Drive and Little Santa Monica (they’re calling it Santa Monica South nowadays), but in that unemployed interim I helped my mom, by then a distributor for the Herald Examiner whose territory included Echo Park, Silver Lake and Los Feliz and Franklin Hills. On weekends I’d get up with her at 2 a.m., and together we’d go pick up all the papers at the Herald Examiner plant downtown, then deliver whatever routes were open or down and we’d get home around sunrise. During the week I’d often have to go across town after school on my little Yamaha Champ scooter and help with collections or customer complaints. Sometimes I’d drive the old 1965 Ford Mustang and cover paper routes solo, especially those in the steeper areas of Silver Lake and Echo Park, where paperboys never lasted.

I don’t remember how long it was after I was fired from Swensen’s that I found the spare “just in case” set of Swensen’s keys I’d had made on my own at some point after I’d been promoted to night manager. Maybe it was a couple days later or a couple weeks. However long it was, when I discovered them I immediately saw dollar signs and started plotting a little payback heist. Ultimately I decided to hit the place in the morning on my way to school. Come up Wilshire to the alley between Beverly and Rodeo at something like 7 a.m., enter through the back — it would be easy pickings. There was no alarm and no surveillance system. And knowing exactly where the money was kept after closing, I could be in and out without turning on a light in a minute, tops, and a couple hundred bucks richer. Maybe a little more if sales had been exceptionally good.

(more…)

Holy Moly! My company’s “Driving Traffic 2007″ contest concluded and I finished in third place for the month of December ($100), second place for the fourth quarter ($150), and second place for the year to date ($500).

I’d like to claim it’s because of the strength of my online knowledge sauce but the simple truth is the little blog I produced for my first trade show back in October is what gave my magazine’s site the boost in visitors and page views and subsequently my bank account to the tune of 750 surprise dollars! WOOOOOOT!

You might remember back during the heatwave that baked L.A. at the end of August/beginning of September on a half-assed whim I risked my aged laptop and digital camera putting them up on the roof of the house under the full day’s unrelenting sun and triple digit temps and came away with a pretty cool  timelapse video of the clouds building up out beyond the Verdugos that I posted up on YouTube.

Low and behold, three weeks later I get an email from a senior editor at an international educational publishing company in the UK who tells me that the author of a book and companion interactive CD called “Longman Physics For Caribbean Secondary Schools ” saw the clip and wants to include it on the disc, and if I was interested to include copyright line and fee information at my earliest convenience.

I replied indeed that I would be interests, provided a copyright line and pegged my fee at a negotiable $600 all the while my shields were up and I didn’t really expect a reply or if I did get one that it would devolve into some sort of scam.

I’m skeptical like that.

Well I got a reply pretty quick. And though the editor regretted not being able to cover my admittedly lofty asking price she said the company would be willing to pay me half and I was fine with that figuring half of something is better than all of nothing.

Last I heard from her she’s told me to hang tight and will tell me what she needs from me in order to process payment. I’m still not entirely convinced the other shoe ain’t gonna drop, but when I googled variations of the company’s name and the word  “scam” the only thing that came up was a book slated to be published by the company next year on avoiding scams.

At this point I’m thinking it’s a legit situation, but I could wrong. If so, oh well. And if not, then cool: Aalittle rooftop experiment that I did on a lark and just for fun is bringing me in some entirely unexpected green  and the end result will be used as an international educational tool.