Caveat: Tree #1829 “On helium”

This tree is a guest tree from my past. I like this tree. I took this picture in April, 2014, walking near my place of work in Goyang City, South Korea. I was only 6 months out from the end of my radiation treatment after my previous cancer surgery. I remember feeling quite terrible, but slogging along with job and life.

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Today was a long, unprofitable day at the gift store. I had to go buy a new tank of helium at Tyler, for our balloon operation. As a side note, a tank of helium is a very heavy thing – not what you’d expect from helium, to be frank.

I learned that our local competitor in helium retailing, the monopoly grocery store, sells their helium at less than half what we do. If they pay the same for a tank of helium that we do (and I’m confident they do – they’re an obvious customer at Tyler, the only place that sells helium on the island), they’re selling at a steep loss. I pondered the economics of being a monopoly grocery store in a small, remote Alaskan town. Maybe there’s some weird philanthropic helium subsidy from some “Keep Rural Alaska Balloony” foundation. Or maybe they’re just incompetent and forgot to raise their prices over the last decade.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo[daily log: walking, 5km; retailing, 9hr; helium-tank-loading-unloading, 10min]

Caveat: Tree #1825 “Alongside our potholy road”

This tree was alongside our potholy road.

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Art and I both had dental exam appointments scheduled this morning, but the the appointments were cancelled because the dentist couldn’t make it to the clinic (he comes from Sitka, he’s not local). They didn’t tell us about this cancellation until we got there, though. So we had a much earlier “shopping day in town” than we normally do, every Thursday.

Then, the moment we got home, around 11 AM, I got a call from the the gift store and had to go back in, to complete a framing project that I had been led to understand was “no hurry” but in fact the customer wanted promptly.

So I did a lot of driving back and forth on our potholy road.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo[daily log: walking, 3km; retailing, 3hr]

Caveat: Tree #1822 “The crooked tree by the ancestor’s grave”

This tree was near an ancestor’s grave in South Korea. I have no idea when I took this picture, but it was before 2014, and it was in Korea.

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I had a very exhausting day. Morning at the dentist (always stressful, and I will always stand by my declaration that fighting mouth cancer is more pleasant than the dentist), then a full day at work, moving around mat board (heavy 32″ x 40″ sheets of cardboard) to rearrange my frame shop area at the store.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo[daily log: walking, 5km; retailing, 9hr]

Caveat: Tree #1821 “Longago snow”

This tree was covered in snow. Note that this is not a recent picture – it’s 3 years old. This year, the local trees haven’t experienced being covered with snow.

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CaveatDumpTruck Logo[daily log: walking, 5.5km; retailing, 5hr]

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