Multiply 365 Day 50 - Nothing shocking

I guess I should write something, just not sure what that something is.  After all, it wasn't a great day, but it wasn't a bad day either, it was just there.  I did get a couple extra hours of sleep today, not crawling out of bed till almost 8am, and after putzing around on the computer for a while and getting dressed I finally went out to greet the day around 9:30 or so.  No big breakfasts or anything on the agenda, just a trip into work and some errands, hardly what would merit a life full of excitement.  

Instead it started with a trip downtown.  First to pay my phone bill and pick up a bus pass, then to go into work and place the order for Monday.  I also wanted to take a look at our Polar Shock machine, which has been acting up recently.  Polar Shock for those not in the know is pretty much the same thing as Slush Puppy, but Pepsi's version of it.  Since we have carried Slush Puppy in the past and are currently carrying Penguin Ice (again a similar product) Pepsi wanted to try selling their product at our location.  Since they were springing for the machine and the work needed to install it we let them throw a machine in our location.  Some of those machines work by mixing a flavored syrup with water and then adding it to the machine, but the Pepsi machine is a little different in that their product comes in boxes, much like their carbonated sodas do for fountain machines, and they tap into an existing waterline so that rather than going through the process of mixing up a batch by hand, when a flavor runs out you just replace the box with a new one.  All of that information has nothing to do with today's story by the way, but I started typing (poorly I might add, you should have seen the errors) and got side tracked.  The Polar Shock machine has two bins, one for each of the flavors we carry and a problem was arising when it came time for the machine to freeze the liquid into the gooey icy stuff kids love so much.  The bin on the right would work fine, it would freeze and everything, but when we kicked on the bin on the left the machine would overheat and in order to protect itself it would go into defrost mode and shut the motor off.  The only clue I had to what was wrong is that a message would be flashed on the display that "filter needs cleaning", which is all well and good, but I don't even know where the hell the filter on the machine is and if I should be cleaning it, or if I have to call in a service tech for that type of job.  I was shown how to clean out the bins and keep those properly maintained, but nobody told me anything about filters.  What little literature I had on my person (yes I am such a geek that I keep a Polar Shock cleaning guide in my bag) did not help me, but I did have a booklet stored away at work that I wanted to look at further.  A quick scan of it didn't tell me anything, but I wanted to take a longer look at it.  Good thing I did, they actually gave about three paragraphs out of a 40 page manual to say "Hey, don't forget to clean the filter".  Luckily it also showed where the filter was, of course it was in the back of the machine so I had to move half a dozen other things on the counter to get to it and then hope I could remove it without breaking it (there were no instructions on how to take it off, let alone how to take it off when you can't even see how it is attached).  But I managed to remove the filter and it was way clogged with dust and other particulate matter, so I took it over to the sink, washed it and then after letting it dry for a bit, reattached it and last I checked it was working okay.  Not great, but okay.  I had frozen beverage on both sides of the machine and it wasn't overheating, though it did try one to jump back into defrost mode.  

I also worked on a couple of side projects while at the store, it seems March 2nd is the day when Ed is coming back from Florida, which means this is the time Brian will get all panicky so that the store doesn't look terrible upon his dad's return.  I could tell Ed was getting antsy in Florida when he faxed me a list of things to see if we needed them a couple of weeks ago, only to fax me a list this week with many of the very same items on it.  And not items we sell a lot of to begin with, rather items like Do Rags and panty hose, things that we have had in the store for literally years and they haven't sold.  I am already getting ready for my tongue lashing that I am sure I will get.  I have done some things to make the store better, getting rid of some things that don't sell, getting others in that either do sell, or I am trying out in hopes that they do sell, redesigning sections of the store, looking for new products (somebody needs to remind me Monday morning to call our grocery provider and ask about Reese Peanut Butter Cup Chips Ahoy cookies, just saw them today while out and they are the bomb).  That being said, I am sure the store will not be perfect in Ed's eyes, and I will take a little grief over it and after a day or so he and I will be on the same page, just like last year.

Other than a brief day at work (only 3 hours) I did manage to finish off another book and start what plans on being a tome of a book.  It is very much in the early stages, I am only about 20 pages in, but I am thinking I may go to breakfast in the morning and take the book with me.  Hopefully tomorrow I will find my flash drive for work.  I have been keeping some information on it and I want to update a couple of files, but for whatever reason I can't seem to locate it.  The last I recall it was in one of my pants pockets, but I haven't located it in better than a week.  So far I have been able to work around not having it, but I would prefer finding it to redoing all of the work that was on it.  Yes,m I am already thinking of doing work at home tomorrow on my alleged day off.  I am indeed the social butterfly.  But for now I think I am just going to call it a night.