Stolen Cash, a Nasty Crash, and Other Random Notes

On top of the work I described in my last post, there were several other noteworthy happenings this week as I continued my work at the self storage company:

- A trip to recycle a truckload of cardboard revealed such page-turners as "A Guide to the Marks and Symbols on British Silver" and an ancient can of corned beef, which I was not cash-strapped enough yet to claim for my dinner.

- I tried skateboarding for the first time on Wednesday. My American roommate took me out 'boarding and kindly let me use his good quality, newly acquired board, with the one condition that under no circumstances was I to let the board go rolling off towards onrushing traffic. I was quietly impressed at the start I had made, travelling short distances and handling some basic steering. With my confidence rising, I agreed to tackle a slope that was fairly gentle, but rather steep for me considering my skateboarding career was less than 30 minutes old. There was an air of inevitably about what happened next: I got on the board and started moving downhill, my speed quickly increased, I panicked causing me to do something that resulted in my face hurtling towards the ground, my hands instinctively sprung out to prevent an unpleasant mouthful of concrete, the board accelerated off towards the road, I leapt up and sprinted after it in cartoon fashion, a car pulled out from a side street...thankfully it ended well as the car avoided the board, which eventually came to a stop and like myself was unharmed, with the more bipedal of the two being the only one to come away with minor scratches. My fall could have either been taken to mean 'unbalanced twit' or 'you have to take some falls if you want to improve'. I chose the latter.

- On Thursday morning, my boss couldn't find his bag which contained his wallet amongst other things. It soon became clear that it had been stolen the evening before and this was confirmed when he discovered money was being spent on his credit card. The thieves even had some goods delivered to an address, one that was known for drug related problems. There was over 1000 dollars cash in the wallet and he was devastated. It wasn't the money that dispirited him, it was the cruel unfairness of life - he had worked hard for several days for that money and it was snatched in seconds by drug addicts. I really felt for him and didn't really know what to say, or do for that matter - the tasks we had lined up were shunned so he could cancel cards and file police reports.

- I noted that the music in the warehouse was strangely soporific (for example Enrique Iglesias - Hero) for a place where men in hi-vis drive forklifts. Later this was revealed to be the work of Smooth 95.3, and even later it was explained to me that it was chosen with the customers in mind, not the employees.

- On Thursday evening I went for a tremendous run around the peninsula to the south of Cronulla beach. The coast hugging route was a classic that rivalled great world runs such as Boston Charles River and Chicago Lakeside Trail. At the conclusion of the run the sun dipped below the horizon and I dipped into the ocean. Wonderful.