Party like it's 1999 (while sandblasting)

I'm embarrassed to submit this to the wonderful Loobylu's Friday Archives since everyone's past work is so good!!! But here is a little sketch from one of my many many journals. According to the date, this was drawn on December 13, 1999. I was describing my semi-new job as a Production Manager at a small San Francisco company that produced handmade little glass lucky charms. Each glass "stone" was about the size of a half-dollar and had words like "Peace," "Love," and "Happiness" inscribed upon them.

Part of my job required that I don a helmet and full body suit to sandblast the little stones. Every day, I shuffled into the sandblasting room looking like an astronaut and blasted stones for hours. It was quite soothing actually. I remember talking to myself a lot.

In retrospect, I've had a lot of odd jobs like this. My favorite job to date was a winter holiday stint at Nordstroms when I was in high school. I was the official puffy paint personalizer. Do you remember puffy paint? Did you know you can make your own puffy paint? Anyway, I puffy painted hundreds of names and cute illustrations onto various articles of expensive clothing (mostly baby stuff) and my "work" was so well-received that people were sneaking in items from JC Penney's and other stores in the mall for me to personalize. True story!!