Blogger 365 Day 280 - Pleasantly unexpected

     I went into today not necessarily in a bad mood, but I had a feeling it was going to be a very long day.  I had my order to do as well as two others, my normal everyday work as manager, try to help the deli along as best I could until we appoint someone manager for that section of the store, and after the bank deposits were done I would then have to go on the floor and stock as many coolers as I could in a few hours since Sammy is off this week, then go to a meeting at Rivers casino for Pennsylvania Lottery retailers concern a new multi-state lottery game that is coming online in a couple of weeks.  Needless to say, I was planning on a pretty long daay going n, but as long as I know what is coming I can get up for it.

     I get into work around 8am, and our GFS order was there, sitting on the floor waiting to be put away. Most of the stuff from GFS comes in cases, and those cases are usually too heavy for the girls in the deli, so I had to run it down to the basement and try to put it in the freezers, but the freezers were all kinds of messed up, so before I could put the new stuff away I had to rearrange what was already down there just to create enough room.  Not exactly the project I wanted to start the day but all in all it wasn't that bad.  I don't mind me some manual labor.

     I go back upstairs, get all of the reports and money out of the safe, reload the lottery machines and am just settling in to get my work started when I get a text message from Brian.  Usually if Brian is testing me it is bad news for me, either he isn't coming in and he wants me to do something or I screwed something up like using the wrong deposit slip and putting money into the wrong account.  But as it would turn out, this was good news.  Apparently the police have caught the guy who robbed our store last week.  Well, I shouldn't say they have caught him, rather what happened was the same man tried robbing the 7-11 in Oakland, a few short blocks from my apartment.  What the robber did not know was that the clerk behind the counter is a Golden Gloves boxers, winning the title once and finishing as runner up three times and is currently training for the US Olympic trials for boxing.  So when our guy decided to brandish a gun and try to rob the store, lets just say he got the shit beat out of him.  Technically the cops did catch the guy, but only because the clerk did all of the work for them.  Now our guy will be arrested, as soon as he gets out of the hospital.  This is another one of those not necessarily justice, but definitely karma moments. 

     The day itself went pretty smoothly in the beginning.  I had my order done, as well as two other cigarette orders, the bank deposits done and all of my paperwork by 2:30pm.  Plus I fixed a cash register, replacing a damaged debit pin pad with a new one I had to order, as two of our 4 cash registers couldn't do debit transactions, now it is just one of 4.  I also managed to get some new products into the register system, stuff that Ed ordered about a week ago that we didn't have cooler space for, nor did we clarification from the vendor on what our cost would be for it.  It is an iced tea product called amusingly enough Long Island Iced Tea, though it has no alcohol in it.  But if we got the pricing we were hoping for we were going to run a special, 1.39 each or 2 for $2, which requires me to not only enter the products but then program a coupon code into the system so the special scans at the point of sale.

     When I got back from the bank Ed asked me what I was doing tonight and I mentioned that I had the lottery thing to go to at the casino, which is where he was going tonight too, but to go play cards.  He asked me what time I would be there and I said the event starts at 6pm, so he asked me to call him when it ended and we would grab dinner, something Ed and I have never done before.  Some Grandview Buffet is always a good thing.

     He leaves and I set about working on coolers, I got 4 different coolers done as well as restocked the 2 liter section, which has been getting pounded because 7 UP/RC Cola is doing a pre priced special where they are selling 2 liter bottles for .99.  Not sure how many other stores have bought into this promotion, but we are kicking ass with it. 

     Around 5:30 I leave the store and walk over to the subway station to go to the casino, less than a 5 minute wait for the subway and I was at the casino in about 15-20, just in time to go to the event, which was pretty boring to tell the truth.  A new multi state game is coming out, Monopoly Millionaires Club (look for it on Oct 19th), they went over how the game works and also talked about the upcoming Christmas scratch off tickets that will be released soon and the fact that starting next year many of the existing state number games will be renamed.    The whole thing took about an hour, and as I was leaving I grabbed my phone to call Ed. he had some things he wanted to do at home and wasn't sure what time he was coming to the casino, if he was coming at all.  I get out of the door of the conference room I was in, phone in hand and there is Ed, standing there already. 

     We end up going over to the buffet and having a nice dinner and what not, talking some shop, and some personal stuff, nothing that needs to be mentioned here and afterward he asked what I was doing and I said probably going back to the store and picking up my laptop and going home.  He was headed off to the high rollers room to play Texas Hold Em.  On my way out I decided to spend whatever free money they gave me this week in free slot play, it turned out to just be $5.  I had like $55 on me, so I put a $10 in a machine just to get my promotional money (you have to spend at least a dollar for it to activate) and lost it in short order, and I lost the free $5 too.  I decide I am going to try and win it back, so I take one of my $20s and put it in the machine and I continue to lose money.  Finally I got a hit that brought me back up to $20, so I cashed out and decided to take my voucher and go play the Iron Man slot machine.

     Iron Man is another one of those misnamed machines in that it is 2cent slot, but there are 50 playlines, so each spin is technically at least a dollar, though you can bet more if you like.  I put my voucher in and did nothing, lost it pretty quickly.  I thought about leaving at that point but decided what the hell, I have $20 left and I get paid on Wednesday, so if I lose it it isn't like I am going grocery shopping or something, I just had a huge buffet dinner.  I slide the last $20 in, and I get one of the bonus features.  For those who have seen Iron Man, the features go with the first movie somewhat, including video clips from the film.  Well I got the Jericho Missile feature, where missiles drop down from the video screen onto the slot reels and give you a number of wild spaces.  Except this time.  Every spot on the reels save for two turned into a wild, and next thing I know I went from $20 to $650.  I kept playing for a bit, cashed out around $630 or so and played some more slots, probably way later than I should have, I didn't leave until almost midnight and when I did I still had $550 in my pocket. 

     Till I caught a subway back to work and grabbed my laptop and the got home it was after 1am, then I had to check on a fantasy hockey draft that I missed and Yahoo auto drafted for me.  Honestly my team looks better than if I would have done it myself, but it is for the league I have been in for a few years now and that I still don't understand.  While I look at my team and think it is nice, there will be some obscure stat that will count in this league that will make my team irrelevant.  I have always been of the opinion that in a fantasy league the scoring should be somewhat reflective of what happens in the game itself, so those players who are having MVP caliber years will also be the most valuable ones in a fantasy league and that doesn't happen in this league.  There is always some schmuck who gets rated highly because he won an inordinate amount of faceoffs or something, but besides that bis nothing more than a two way third liner, yet he will be amongst the leaders like Crosby or Toews.  I try not to think too much about it because it just confuses me.

     Anyway I think we are back up to date, next up is me sleeping.  Work comes in a few hours, after that, who knows?