Surfin USA

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Jizaboz
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Re: Surfin USA

Post by Jizaboz »

It was such a blur of a week I forgot to share a picture of the pizza!



Just a few more weeks left to milk the season pass to the waterpark..
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Jizaboz
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Re: Surfin USA

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Put my name in the hat for 3rd shift "substitute security" at the local waterpark next year. 20$ an hour with mad benefits (heh) as long as you don't care about health insurance.

Going back to Salty Shores shortly after the tourists clear out for some surfing and fishing. September is the most consistent month for both in the Emerald Isle / Morehead City area! We also only get one month of legal flounder fishing this year; this month.
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Jizaboz
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Re: Surfin USA

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No waves yet again. But the glass-like water allowed for some good kayaking and excellent ocean-swimming. It's mullet season. Mullet fish out in the deep ocean coming out the size of a fat man's forearm. I was too busy floating and swimming to fish.. (and napped most of the day Wednesday after I ran some errands) so I picked up another 2 pounds of big ass fresh shrimp for 9$ a pound. I'll be back in a couple of weeks but may have to buy a wetsuit to catch any waves before Xmas.. not enough hurricanes!



Went out to the left into the channel on the 2nd kayak trip. That was a nice little cruise. Nice long canal that is lined with rich peoples boat and jet ski lifts. A yuppie lady smiled and waved to me from her elaborate house and what I thought was a snake scared the shit out of me (it was a black water bird that was submerged). I hear about a lot of people moving to Florida to retire and die.. my plan is to make enough money to one day permanently move and die out here; a four hour drive from my current main house. I do enjoy the trailer park life out there, but eventually once the last of my immediate family is gone I'll probably leave this place to live there permanently in a real house within a half-hour drive to the beach.

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Jizaboz
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Re: Surfin USA

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Last "official" trip this year. Going out there this weekend and turning off the Internet until April or so afterwards. Will probably go out there on my own between now and then but with fone-tethered Internet and putting up with coldness. Finally doing a "Dude Trip" this weekend! GF is staying behind, 2 friends meeting me out there to stay in the trailer a couple nights and also 2 more of my friends will already be out in the area in a hotel.

DnD there Saturday night!
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Jizaboz
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Re: Surfin USA

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Ah man just looking at the water in that last pic is making me really look forward to sloshing around a bit in the kayak tomorrow. And to my surprise.. the surf conditions look to be picking up for Sunday! All I got to do is dodge sharks if it works out (heh).
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Re: Surfin USA

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Dolphins! Water and air definitely colder out here now, but not too bad.
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Re: Surfin USA

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A little more detail on running into the dolphins..

So I paddled out to what I call "Pelican Island" which is basically a small sandbar island that is mostly submerged at full tide. Tons of pelicans and other birds hang out on the one end that submerges the soonest; shitting all over it. I was digging for some clams (away from the bird crap) and casting a few times seeing if anything was out and things seemed pretty lame. Nothing "popping" as they say. The wind had picked up quite a bit so I knew getting back was gonna be a bitch and decided to paddle back to my trailer after about 30 minutes on the island.

Not real happy about my progress. The moment I stop paddling I'm moving backwards.. well, damn. So I start to pace myself a bit so I don't wear out too soon and then I see a fin! I dunno why but still every time I freak out thinking it's a shark until I get a better look when I first spot a fin haha. That made me feel a little more energetic as I said something stupid like "Oh hey buddy!" and enjoying the little trip despite nothing to catch. Then, I see he's got 2 friends with him. They are just cruising maybe 40-50 feet away the same direction as me. Then I glance to my right and there's a larger group of em! A bit further away, but distinctly another family (pod) of them. At this point I'm pretty ecstatic like "Wow! Look at all these dolphins! What a wonderful da... OH FUCK"

I hear "whirrr click click" as yet another dolphin arcs out of the water only 5 feet from me and it startled the hell out of me! He also went off in the same direction with a couple of his friends following him. So close you could see the scratches on his side facing me! A little bit closer and I could have reached out and touched it! It was fucking amazing, man. I was out there with more dolphins than people pay to see at Seaward in a tank. I really should get some kind of waterproof camera to show me out doing this stuff. I don't trust those water-proof bags for cellphones and while fone is water resistant, that really doesn't matter when you drop it in 4 feet+ of running slightly murky water.

My guess is they are either migrating, it's mating season, or both. The water did drop from about 79 to 71 in roughly a week and I definitely noticed it when I stepped into the water.
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Jizaboz
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Re: Surfin USA

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I figured this thread would be good for talking about my new job. As some of you know, I visited a friend of mine at night who works security in huge, local waterpark I have visited off and on since the early 1980s last year. The 2nd time I visited him, he mentioned that the 3rd person that does night shift is leaving. I told him I was interested as at the time I didn't have a steady job yet, only working sporadic contracts. I understood the pay was quite a bit less than I've got for nearly 20 years, but I really dig this location and I'm having a hard time finding more IT work.

Fast-forward to early February. I apply for the position and after a long phase of eh.. "computer glitches" we'll just say due to them using a new employee hiring and tracking system, I basically was only hearing 2nd hand that "You'll probably get it." for nearly a month. Fast-forward to last Thursday. The friendly HR girl calls me and is like "We'd like you here for pre-season duties as I see in the interview you were interested in that. Can you be here Monday?" (It wasn't until the next day I even knew what time but whatever)

This morning I showed up at exactly 9:00am after the 1/2 hour drive. A much younger dude comes in, sees me and says "Yeah he and this other guy are mine." and motions for us to follow him. He proceeds to give us a little tour of the place which.. I surely didn't need aside from the timeclock but kept my mouth shut aside from mentioning I know where the bathrooms are when he asked.

And then, the reality of why I was brought here pre-season sinks in..

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This picture was taken about an hour after I walked up to this area. When I first arrived, there were 2 older Vietnamese dudes up in the "slide" to the right (It's actually the "Rapids" you ride down on a tube) in rubber boots pushing what I can only describe as gutter debris but much smellier and much darker. At it gushes at the end, one of them jumps down and starts pushing this mess towards a drain, so I picked up a broom once one was brought and did the same. After scooping up all the solid gunk into about 4 50 gallon trash cans the area was pressure washed and hit with a leaf blower while a couple of us followed up with brooms. Then, we move on to the Kiddie area!

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I wish I would have taken an earlier "before" picture of this area too, but I wouldn't feel right taking pics before showing I'm working. When I first arrived I figured best to start from the top and I got to walk down all three of these kid slides to sweep em out. I think it was at that moment I thought to myself "Yup, this is it. This is where you belong now." And oh man was it satisfying to see the results of our hard work:

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It was around this time I also realized these 2 Vietnamese dudes are cool to the extreme. One is 69 and one is 73. The latter was climbing in and out of 4 foot + pools rather than using stairs! They both were definitely inspiration. (The other guy in sunglasses pictured was also another new guy that I met at the interview day I was glad to see got hired and showed up.)

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Here is where I came to the realization as to how much freedom I had to make my own decisions as to what to do next without being given specific orders. I overheard this 5th dude that also works in park services say "I'm gonna go sweep X" and I knew exactly where X is because again, I've visited this place so many times as a customer over the years I could draw you map of everything lol. So, I just wandered over there and finished up what he was doing. Not one time did someone bark at me anything like "Hey, what are you doing?!" or "Hey, you are doing that all wrong!". As long as you kept moving and people saw progress, everyone was happy. That same guy I overheard started to lift those heavy trashcans from earlier and rather than watch him struggle or ask for help I grabbed the other end of them to get them into the back of a Gator style vehicle.. and he thanked me! I know it's sort of lame to expect a "thanks" often in the IT world, but it really does go a long way.

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And here is the other new guy and good ol' "Phi" (pronounced "Pee" heh-heh) in the pool of the blue slides that have been there at least in some form since at least 1980 after we gave it a cleaning. I was getting really exhausted and my face is sunburned by now, but I'm still glad to be here.

It feels like I impressed my supervisor day 1. Boss man is a cool surfer veteran that hinted at year-round work for the dedicated and promotions and also understands I have to go to the coast during the week once or twice a month for a few days at a time once "the season" starts.

And now I should be getting to bed soon to wake up at 8:00am and go right back. My god, am I sore. Everything hurts. Looking like I'll be doing it all week and maybe even overtime and then off and on until the actual season starts; and then I will assume the graveyard security shift for a few days a week.

I have never been happier or looked forward to working again the next day so much for a job that pays less than 20$ an hour in my whole life.
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Tdarcos
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Re: Surfin USA

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Your new job reminds me of something I read about orvanizations that have excellent results, is that the people who know the most about how a job should be done are the people doing it. Good managememt worls to alllow people to do their jobs, stay off their back, and to make sure they have the resources to do their job. I"m sure you know of jobs where management micromanaged the jobs so much their attempts to try to get more work done actually made it harder to get things done. Employees know how to do their jobs, and if you just let them, they will.

When people see that their managers let them get their jobs done, they usually do. The occasoonal jerk off who doesn"t do their job usually won"t last long in places where employees are considered to be professionals, becausr when someone is a slacker, the rest won"t put up with it for long and will complain. It also means that if someone normally is a hard worker, but then is suddenly not performing as well, when they ask why, and find out they have some personal problem, like their friend died and they"re a little sad, people undertand and will often help or cover for them for a short time, because you know once they"re over the bad time they"ll be back to being a team player and carrying their share of the load.

Your example of where you helped the other guy out when you helped out the trashcan guy because yiu saw he was struggling. Nobody asked you to do it, you just realized - possbly unconsiously - someone else who"s doing their job could use some help, and so you did. As you said, all that mattets to managemenyt is you guys get the job done, you all know how, so we"ll just let you.

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pinback
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Re: Surfin USA

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Damn, Jiz, you just got PAULSPLAINED!
I don't have to say anything. I'm a doctor, too.

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Jizaboz
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Re: Surfin USA

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Tdarcos wrote: Mon Mar 20, 2023 11:10 pm Your new job reminds me of something I read about orvanizations that have excellent results, is that the people who know the most about how a job should be done are the people doing it. Good managememt worls to alllow people to do their jobs, stay off their back, and to make sure they have the resources to do their job. I"m sure you know of jobs where management micromanaged the jobs so much their attempts to try to get more work done actually made it harder to get things done. Employees know how to do their jobs, and if you just let them, they will.

When people see that their managers let them get their jobs done, they usually do. The occasoonal jerk off who doesn"t do their job usually won"t last long in places where employees are considered to be professionals, becausr when someone is a slacker, the rest won"t put up with it for long and will complain. It also means that if someone normally is a hard worker, but then is suddenly not performing as well, when they ask why, and find out they have some personal problem, like their friend died and they"re a little sad, people undertand and will often help or cover for them for a short time, because you know once they"re over the bad time they"ll be back to being a team player and carrying their share of the load.

Your example of where you helped the other guy out when you helped out the trashcan guy because yiu saw he was struggling. Nobody asked you to do it, you just realized - possbly unconsiously - someone else who"s doing their job could use some help, and so you did. As you said, all that mattets to managemenyt is you guys get the job done, you all know how, so we"ll just let you.

- - - -
Sent from a mobile phone.
I completely agree with the entire post! And yeah, you are correct on the co-workers thing. If I was slack, they would be all it would take to get me fired.
pinback wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 4:49 am Damn, Jiz, you just got PAULSPLAINED!
I did! At least it wasn't WRONG.
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Re: Surfin USA

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Day 2 (No, I won't be logging EVERY day lol)

It was cold as shit this morning, so much so that ice clogged a hose connected to a bilge pump. Also, the shaded parts of this were iced over. Slipped a few times but didn't fall thankfully! I was really impressed on how pristine this looked after we were done:

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Painting was started today! I did the "cutting" (their term, not mine. Basically doing the trim.) basically painting blue around all the places that wide rollers can't get into. It was so bright that you couldn't even see the old lines without sunglasses on. Believe it or not, they paint this area blue every year and the sun and chlorine ends up bleaching it out by about mid September. Despite the ice in the morning, by this time the sweat shirt had come off and I got completely sunburned by the time I was done painting. I used some sunblock but apparently not enough!

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Last destination was the lazy river for cleaning. This thing is LONG. It takes about 20 minutes to float through due to its length. We were only able to finish roughly 70% of it before 5 o'clock it and it was time to go home. Here is a pic of just one of many, many curves.

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I thought I was sore yesterday evening. This evening MUCH more so. My beat-up ankles are killing me to the point where it's hard to even walk around the house right now. Part of it was today I switched to older shoes because I knew I was going to be wading in gutter-smelling muck, the other part I realized when I checked the health app in my iPhone. On a good day such as one that involves a trip to Walmart I average about 2,000 steps. However, the past 2 days have been right around 18,000 (!!)
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Re: Surfin USA

Post by AArdvark »

That looks like a fun park. There's a waterpark where the old Roseland park was in Canandaigua, on one of the Finger lakes, and it looks sorry as hell. Not half as finished as your place. Never knew there was so much upkeep to thise places. Of course I never thought about it either

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Re: Surfin USA

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AArdvark wrote: Wed Mar 22, 2023 2:53 am That looks like a fun park. There's a waterpark where the old Roseland park was in Canandaigua, on one of the Finger lakes, and it looks sorry as hell. Not half as finished as your place. Never knew there was so much upkeep to thise places. Of course I never thought about it either
Yeah man. I feel like I had some idea, but nowhere near to the degree I've seen now. I'll be there's more I didn't realize to come!

Also, I'm sore again but a lot less sore than yesterday evening.
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Re: Surfin USA

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Spent all day painting a pirate ship in one of the biggest pools and around the kiddie pool (shallow but VERY wide) and my sunburn has gone from bad to worse haha. However, today was one of the easiest days as I only had to walk about half as much and wasn't soaked in cold water most the day cleaning pools and such.

I've also been given a new title/nickname by the cool maintainer dude; "Last of the Three". Reason being they tried to bring in 2 other guys to help with what I'm doing. One of them made it 2 days and the other made it 1. I'm now the ONLY new employee doing this pre-season work lol. One guy I can't blame because he had a couple of medical issues to the point where I wasn't sure why he signed up at all. The other was younger and in better shape than me! Work was too hard for him I guess.

One more day til 2 days off and man will I need it.
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Re: Surfin USA

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After purchasing these items I noticed it is supposed to rain most of Monday. This will prevent further painting.. I'm predicting using the rain to help push sludge down the Raging Rapids as at least one task. These boots are going to make Monday much more awesome than bare, freezing feet in old wore-out Vans skate sneakers lol
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Re: Surfin USA

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I should be in bed. I will be soon! Gotta wake up again in 6 hours. I think tomorrow we are painting.

I was 100% correct on moving the sludge out of the rapids earlier today. Despite the smell, it was actually an enjoyable experience. Perhaps it was because I told the supervisor "Yup, bout wrapped up here cleaning the food court kitchen. I'm going to Ragin Rapids to push all the sludge down.. unless you got something else." This approach seems to work well. I seem to finally get this "self-starter" BS we used to be told when we were much younger, or this is just a really cool supervisor who points out quickly who slacks off and who doesn't. I'm leaning towards the latter, but maybe both!
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Re: Surfin USA

Post by AArdvark »

As someone who has the kids* coming up to me at work and asking what they should do now, this is a great attitude!


*a collective term for anyone younger and less skilled in machining, English and attire

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Jizaboz
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Re: Surfin USA

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Rapids clean! (pic showing water is a before pic) Also, 3/4 of the slide that wraps around it.



Only a little painting towards the end of the day.
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Re: Surfin USA

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"Good Friday" was a cold and wet Friday. (Didn't even know I was working on a holiday until some friends were texting me to get on Call of Dookie)Thanked myself again for buying the rubber Roger Wilco janitor boots as I walked between bathrooms due to mad puddles. Learned about all the various supply closets. I suppose this is week 3 knowledge to prevent theft of cleaning supplies lol.

Deep cleaned the hell out of some some stalls and walls. I was thankful that the company had all but one bathroom's heat running. I've never had such pride in doing janitorial work! Was just told by a higher-up that I don't usually talk to to clean bathrooms and I gathered he was OCD. I couldn't find proper things to work with in the area we were talking, but once I wandered around and discovered a couple of stocked janitor closets I was ready to get shit done. Cleaned what was expected plus areas that had been neglected for at least 1 season as far as I could tell.



Looking forward to Monday :) I've made it thru 3 weeks of "Waterpark bootcamp" lol. I've been sore, averaging 5-6 hours sleep, etc but man I love this job :razz:
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