In July, my friend Albert told me the Ford dealership he works at was looking for a shop cleanup person. It didn’t sound like very exciting work, but it paid more than minimum wage, and it offered convenient hours and a location close by. I decided to take the job, expecting to get around 10 hours per week. Instead, they have me working 20 hours a week, which is good for the money situation, but not so good for the time-and-social-life situation.

I now work Tuesday to Thursday from 7:30am to 4:30pm at my day job, then from 5pm to 9pm at the shop. Those are some long days. I also work Saturdays from 8am to 4pm, which isn’t very fun.

The job itself isn’t too bad. It’s dirty, though. I empty garbage cans into the dumpster, crush up boxes, clean up oil spills, scrub the floors and generally clean up whatever’s messy. I work with good people, there’s no stress and it’s physical labour, which means I get a bit of exercise. The issue is I don’t have nearly as much free time as I used to. Tuesday to Thursday is basically a write-off, because I’m working from 7:30 in the morning to 9 at night. Friday nights are affected because I have to get up early to work on Saturday.

I know it sounds like I’m complaining, but in reality, I think this is good for me. I’m hoping it’s only for the short term, since my day job hopes to have everyone back at 100% by the end of the year.

Update! Just yesterday, my company notified us that they are doing better financially and are bringing everyone back to 100% pay and hours. I put in my two week’s notice today at Ford, so starting in October, I’ll have normal weekends again, not to mention more time during the week. Yay!

The original email was addressed to me by name, and I actually do some IT support for people from time to time, so I didn’t think it was some sort of spam or scam. But it was odd. So after a few emails back and forth, he realized he made a mistake:

My apologies!! Wrong spelling of Mader….

Strangely enough, there’s a guy named Rob Mader who also is an IT guy. Except he’s in Nevada. After a bit of googling, I found his website, www.irobmader.com.

What a weird and confusing coincidence.

PC Chipotle Chicken Quesadillas

It was surprisingly good, and I was left wanting more, but there were none left. So on my drive home, I stopped by the grocery store, picked up a few items and made some quesadillas in my kitchen. They were pretty good, and really easy to make. Simply spread some refried beans and whatever other ingredients you like in there (chicken, onions, peppers, etc) onto a tortilla, top it off with cheese and then fold it in half. Bake it in the oven until the cheese is melty and the tortilla is golden brown, and you’re in business.

Here’s a look at the finished product:

Delicious homemade quesadillas

I have never bought refried beans before, but I found these “Herdez” refried black beans in a can.

Interestingly, on the back of the can, under the ingredients, it says “EXTRA QUALITY”, just kinda randomly thrown in there:

Firstly, I’m not really that motivated to post things with any sort of regularity. I am not trying to be a “blogger”, necessarily. I just like the idea of having a place on the web to post whatever I want. Usually, when I’m inspired to actually write something, it’s about a subject I know a lot about or am very interested in, or some event that recently occurred. I also tend to post things that I think others will be interested in, or will find interesting or amusing in some way.

The other thing is taking the time to actually sit down and type something out. I have notebooks and papers full of ideas, but I don’t often do anything with them. If I stop and think about it, it really doesn’t take too long to type out a few paragraphs. Although in my case, I usually spend a lot of time doing it, treating it like a high school essay, rather than the informal blog post that it is. I really don’t need to do several drafts of something that few people are going to read. Especially since I’m not getting marks or money for it…

To be honest, two things recently inspired me to even write this up. The first is my friend’s girlfriend telling me robmaeder.com is her new homepage. Whether or not that’s actually true doesn’t matter, but the fact is that I have this site up here on the Internet for everyone to see, and I’m not doing anything with it. If it’s just going to sit here idle, I might as well shut it down.

The other ‘recently inspiring event’ is I just finished helping my brother Chris set up his new website, chrismaeder.ca. He’s convinced the Internet is the key to riches, and I’m starting to think he might be onto something. If he’s going to be 2010′s hottest new blogger, I figure I should try to keep up.

I’m not going to make some outrageous promises that I’m going to post every day, or even on any sort of regular schedule. But if I’m going to keep robmaeder.com alive, I’m going to have to post at least a couple times a month.

Eventually, I realized there was no point trying to play server administrator, because the hassles just weren’t worth my time. So back in April, I moved my email hosting to Google Apps. It’s free for personal use, and was fairly easy to get set up. Now all of my robmaeder.com email goes through Google’s servers, which do an incredible job of spam filtering. All my email is read through GMail, which is so much better and easier to use than any other web-based mail software I’ve tried.

Since making the switch, I can recall only seeing 3 or 4 spam messages actually reach my inbox. My spam folder currently has 27,931 emails in it from the past 30 days. That’s getting close to 1000 spams per day. I highly recommend Google Apps for this sort of thing. It’s way easier than rolling your own, and you don’t have to worry about updating software regularly, since it’s all taken care of for you. Thanks to Google, my email is now usable again.

She gave me a bunch of pamphlets and information about Oshawa, coupons for discounts and free offers from local businesses, and some free samples as well. Check it out:

I got a free sample from Mary Kay, a coupon for $10 worth of business services at the UPS Store, a bunch of random coupons, a toothbrush, popcorn, some pens, fridge magnets, a diaper, and a six week old copy of the Oshawa Express newspaper.

The Welcome Wagon has been around since 1930, and does visits for other “lifestyle events” such as brides-to-be, new grandparents and expecting a new baby. It’s basically a way for local businesses to advertise to you, but it is pretty neat, and I did get some interesting and useful things out of it.

For me, owning a home is a lot different than renting or living with your parents. I really notice the little things, like how messy the house gets, repairs that need to be done, and general upkeep that houses require to stay in good condition. I now understand the whole “pride of ownership” thing, because I am the sole person responsible for everything in my house. Even though I live alone, I sometimes find it difficult to keep the place clean. Just a couple of lazy days leads to dishes piling up, floors that need sweeping and vacuuming, and bathrooms that need washing. Plus there’s lawn maintenance, houseplants to be watered and of course, bills to be paid.

It’s been a real learning experience so far. I really enjoy the freedom of living on my own, in my own house. I don’t have to worry about following any rules or how my actions will affect anyone else, since there isn’t anyone else there. If I want to keep my bikes in my family room, I can and nobody will tell me to move them. If I want to play my music loud, I can (as long as it isn’t so loud that the neighbours can hear it, but that’s another story). If I want to cook or do laundry at 3am, nobody is going to object. Plus I can pee with the bathroom door open.

I was recently asked what my favourite thing about living on my own is, and my answer was the freedom. It’s not like I was really oppressed or lacked freedom before, but now I notice all the little things. I can do whatever I want, and I love it.