Now I Want To Pop Some

Today, I learned that “Bubble Wrap” is copyrighted  

Well that's a thing.  Is popping it a violation?  That would spell trouble for just about everybody.

So, true story: some time ago, I spent some time working at a home improvement store which, for strictly Blag purposes, we'll call "High's Home Improvement."  During that time, one of the things that I ended up working on was the display of doors.  This involved putting up a few new models which had been shipped to the store.  When they were shipped, they were packaged securely with Bubble Wrap (or a similar product produced by a supplier other than the copyright owner, Sealed Air Corporation), so the first step in our project was to unpackage the doors.  This created a giant pile of bubble wrap approximately 8 feet tall in the middle of the aisle of the store.  Since we were doing this work during the day, there was the occasional customer that came along, and the occasional worker as well.  Every last person who passed this giant pile grabbed a handful of the bubble wrap and popped it.  It was pretty fun to watch, and if I'm being 100% honest, it was pretty fun to pop as well.  

All of this is tangential to the story here.  

What's important is that I keep my eye on various little-known holidays from time to time in case I find myself in need of something to celebrate.  In doing my research for this, I learned that Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day was held earlier this week, and I am totally Not Making That Up.  What stood out in that was the fact that there was a little trademark symbol every time the site made mention of Bubble Wrap.   So, I dug a little further.

As it turns out, Bubble Wrap was invented in 1957 by two guys in New Jersey who were trying to invent a new style of wallpaper by gluing two shower curtains together.  I'm not making that up, either...maybe there's something weird in the water in New Jersey.  The name Bubble Wrap was trademarked in 1960 by Sealed Air Corporation, and the product's first commercial use was packaging and shipping IBM computers in 1961.  

And there you have it...more information than you thought you were going to learn today about Bubble Wrap.  Enjoy! 

Remember That Richard Pryor Movie?

Moving boxes are the perfect size to not be able to fit anything into  

So, it's Moving Day for Jeremy.  A day when he's going to be able to accomplish very little because he has to unpack all of his stuff into his new office because...I guess...confidential stuff or something.  

Like many workplaces, we protect our intellectual property, and on occasion, I generate some of it.  I also have sensitive personal information like supplier contact names and phone numbers that we would rather not have leak out to the general public.  It's pretty standard business practice these days, even if it's a little dated in the digital age.  

As such, we have a "clean desk" policy, which really only means that I can't leave any of this type of information out in the open office landscape when I leave my desk.  Since I leave my desk many times each day, this basically means all the time.  

So, when it comes time to pack up my entire office and schlep it to a new location, all of those boxes of random crap have to be put away before I can leave.  Technically...exceptions are probably made for moving day, but I'm not taking any chances.  All of my books, notebooks, papers, files, hockey pucks, cables, Oxford Commas, and assorted gubbins are locked safely behind flimsy file cabinet locks which can be picked by anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of how locks work.  Security!  

Anyway, the important thing to note here is just how many boxes it took to move all of my junk over here.  See, the boxes we were provided with were of a strange size.  They were big enough to hold most of my stuff, but not big enough to hold two of anything.  So, two stacks of file folders...two boxes.  Two plastic cases to hold tea bags, two boxes.  There was seemingly no good way to organize this stuff in the moving boxes to make moving at all efficient.  If they had given me smaller boxes, I still could have managed, but would have used more.  If the boxes were bigger, I could have consolidated.  As it was, I used more boxes than I thought would have been necessary for moving, and there was a non-optimized amount of empty space included.  There need to be better engineers involved in this whole moving process. 

Look, Kids! Big Ben...Parliament!

Do we really need 4 auto parts stores within 10 miles on the same road?  

Well, if your car breaks down, how far do you really want to walk to get to an auto parts store?  This actually seems a little sparse if you look at it that way.  

So, most of you know by now that I work as an engineer.  Many people misunderstand what this means.  They think I can build anything, understand all things mechanical, and can fix anything that happens to break.  Most of this is not true.  I'm only mildly competent at building things (ask me how my circular tchotchke stand is coming together), I have a rudimentary understanding of machines, and can fix a number of things that I would consider slightly above average.  These things are not what engineering is all about.  That said, one of the things that I roughly never fix by myself is my car.  

I know how to take the wheels off, to change a tire or whatnot, I can find and fill a majority of the consumable fluids, I can take the wiper blades off, and I'm pretty sure I've changed a headlight, but that's about it.  Because of this, I have precious little use for auto parts stores.  I'm not the target market for them.

So, the fact that there is an auto parts store within a mile of my house is all but lost on me.  I've bought things there, to be sure...some cleaning products, the aforementioned wiper blades, and a new battery when the one I had died (they installed it for me...but I probably could have done that myself if need be).  But overall, my shadow does not spend an awful lot of time darkening the door of that particular location.  This is not because the location is inconvenient.  

It was announced not long ago that a segment of land not far from my house was going to be developed for business.  Often, this is a very exciting time, as some new store or restaurant will be joining the local economy and offering me new places to buy stuff and/or have dinner.  It was significantly less exciting when it was announced that the businesses that would be setting up shop in that locale were going to be a franchise location of a chain of low-priced buffet style restaurants (which we'll refer to, for strictly Blag purposes as "Aurelian Paddock"), and an auto parts store.  Seriously?  It's less than two miles from the existing auto parts store.  

Less than 8 miles in the other direction from the original auto parts store, on the exact same road as the aforementioned auto parts stores, there is an auto parts store.  We are now entering overkill country.  

All that having been said...I was driving along this particular stretch of road (In between the two southernmost auto parts stores) and I passed a plaza that I have passed many times.  A dance club at the end of the plaza was closed and demolished a couple years ago, and has been a dirt patch ever since, but recently had started to see some construction-type action.  This time around, I saw a "Coming Soon" sign, telling me what exciting new business opportunity was being added to the location.  And guess what is about to be coming to the site!  

An auto parts store.  

There you have it.  Within 10 miles on a single stretch of road in the Greater Jeremy Area, there will soon be no fewer than 4 auto parts stores...and I'm pretty sure at least two of them are from the same chain.  

In case you're wondering, this is, in fact, the same stretch of road that has no fewer than 6 (and I think it's actually 8 now) Doughnut Franchises in roughly the same distance.