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[wombat]

Your boss is a genius.

[jay-ell]

I repinned my practice cylinder to five pins today. I haven't been able to crack it yet, but once I can do that I can start practicing on standard door locks.

I've had three people ask me to teach them so far. I kind of want to order a half dozen basic kits just to have around the house and hand out to people who want to learn.* But it would cost me about $20 per kit to provide a set of tools and a practice cylinder, and I can't afford to spend more than $100 on the chance to pass along my strange hobbies.

*I used to do this with knitting -- I got some cheap needles and yarn on clearance and kept gallon-sized ziplock baggies around as "starter kits," complete with patterns and refresher instructions. I could spend an hour teaching someone the basics and then send them away with the materials to continue practicing on their own. But those only cost me about $5 each, so it was more than worthwhile.

[Choop]

anything stopping you from emailing to those interested parties the links through which you acquired your kit? you don't want to give away kits to people who would forget about them in a week.

[side_show]

Your boss is a genius.

Actually it was my suggestion. She just used her boss power to make it so.

[wombat]

Ah, well we already knew you are a genius. But I am still pretty impressed by a boss who would take that suggestion.

[wombat]

Speaking of levelling up, I guess this counts: Today I recorded two humor pieces for a public radio animal show. Apparently for someone who has never done it before, I am good at writing for radio and even at reading for it. Although clearly there is much room for improvement, the pieces didn't need any editing/rewriting except for a word here or there, and we only needed a couple of takes.

This is not too impressive really - you'd think that after several decades of listening to NPR for many hours per day, something about the style ought to have sunk in. But anyway there's another thing to add to the long list of my useless skills that no one will pay me for.

[Doc]

Straight out of home I lived with my best mate from highschool for about three years and by the time we moved out he'd basically stopped doing the dishes. I loved the guy and there was some personal stuff going on that contributed to his overall lack of functioning but I hated the bastard every time I did the dishes by the time I left.

Discuss it with him like an adult? Why would I do that when I have perfectly good simmering resentment right here?

Wombledon: that's rad. Is there podcast type linkage. I really think radio/podcasting is a pretty rad medium right now. I listen to way more podcasts regularly than I watch television shows.

[wombat]

I think the show will be online, although I don't know if you will be able to pick out just those two minutes out of the whole hour. I'll let you know when I find out, it probably won't run for a couple weeks. It's the same show I did an interview for last year when the book came out. If you never listened to that, you should, because it's really funny. I don't think these will ever be as good actually - the interview was great because the host was such a good straight man. There is a link on the front page of my website (for those of you who know my real life name add .com).

[jay-ell]

Wombles, that is awesome, and I'm sure Smells would agree that writing for the stage (or sound stage) is certainly a different skill from writing for the page. I cannot write spoken-word stuff at all, it sounds all stilted and awkward and weird (like the way I talk in real life). So it is awesome that you've discovered that you can.

anything stopping you from emailing to those interested parties the links through which you acquired your kit? you don't want to give away kits to people who would forget about them in a week.

Nothing stopping me, except that I would want to provide the learner with his own picks for the lesson (you get attached to them pretty quickly) and there is some prep involved in stripping down an cylinder for practice that is best done in advance by someone with a bit of experience. And I want to be able to teach it on the spur of the moment, not send someone a link and then have to wait a week for the shipment to come in, y'know?

[pmcd9]

In regard to passive aggressive notes, we have a shared kitchen near our office area, and with the number of folks passing through, it is always a disaster.  Others have tried the passive aggressive note and email thing with no success.  In a pretty fantastic turn, my boss has taken to just throwing the dirty dishes in the garbage.  I like the scorched earth policy.  Although I've genuinely never contributed to the original problem, I've seen the disgusting results.  Now I can wash my breakfast apple in the sink without fear of three day old dirty bowl splash back, and without someone doing the icky Mother Teresa act of washing them.

As for leveling up, I have been working on a special work project that I am really enjoying.  I recruited an entire staff of barbers to join my mentorship program and have been just enjoying the hell out of learning to work with and supervise these totally unique beasts.  They. Are. Rad. 

That was a great feature about the barber shop. I want to show it to my barber shop owning friend. Also, you and your boss are geniuses.

[side_show]

Please do. Apparently the hip social activist barber movement started in the US.  I'll have to ask the guys where again.  I think maybe in LA, but I could be mistaken.