June 2007 Archives

Updated - ooops. Got the wrong embed from youtube the first time. If you watched it and wondered what was up, it's been fixed.

I changed the encoder I was using so the video is pretty much crap, but I am lazy and don't feel like redoing it.

Next time I will just use my camcorder and then transfer it to the computer. I seem to get the best results doing it this way. It makes it a bit harder to edit (not much) than using the web cam, but the picture is a darn site better.

That's pretty much it for the night. I think I am going to take my happy ass to be and get some sleep. I may post a bit in the morning before I head off to the salt mines...

Technorati : Porncast, Shadowscope

Not like that! Damn. All three of my managers are in today for the first time in eleven days. Thank goodness. If I had to deal with two open stores for another day I was going to scream. It was a pretty short day overall. I didn't get to sleep until around three this morning due to my nap yesterday, and then I slept until about six. That put me at work at ten after seven which was about forty minutes later than I normally go in. I farted around at two of the stores for a couple of hours, checking managers back into their money and food from vacations and off days and then headed over to the other store where I was to cook. It was pretty slow so I caught up a bunch of paperwork for him as well as my own. I might have cooked for a total of about thirty minutes.

After that I headed to the bank and then back to the other two stores where I cooked for awhile. I ended up having to bail out the manager and her THREE cooks at my busiest store. They were just having a hard time working together so I caught them up and headed home about 12:30 or so. Pretty darned early for me on a Saturday. Actually it was DAMNED early for me on ANY day. I am going to attempt to repeat the pattern again tomorrow. I don't get any days off this week so I certainly don't feel guilty about it.

Somehow all of my employees in all three stores managed to get to work tonight as well. I don't know how they managed that one but I won't look a gift horse in the mouth. I have a few more posts I want to get up tonight and then I'm headed for bed. Even with getting now sleep last night I decided NOT to nap today. I would like to get a full night's sleep so that I don't feel; like shit tomorrow.

John Chow, the dude that knows how to make money online, is hosting another contest in conjunction with BlueFur.com who is trying to get the word out that they are hosting Canada by giving away a 24" LG LCD Monitor. Sweet. All you have to do is head on over to johnchow.com, read the rules, and enter the damn contest. How much more simple could it be?

I finally got to sleep somewhere around three this morning. I got up at four, started coffee, and lay back down until a few minutes ago but it damn sure isn't enough. I am pretty much nodding off right now as I sit here. What's bad is that I will try and get out of work a bit early this afternoon and come home to take another nap. As long as I don't sleep too long it should be ok. Between having too much coffee yesterday afternoon and the wife not being here I had a pretty hard time sleeping.

All three of my managers should be back in this moring (keeping my fingers crossed) so today should be nice and easy. Actually with this week starting a holiday week we only get one day off so the only day between now and my vacation that any of them will be off is Tuesday. Originally I was taking Monday off but thought that being off Monday, working two days, then starting vacation was pretty stupid so I am working Monday and am just going to try and get out of the stores by noon the next two days.

All week I have been receiving cell phone pics from the wife and her friend. Here's a couple.

None of them are great photos but hey, they're from a cell phone...

Exactly what I wish I were doing right now...

Hanging out at the pool...

It's like they are taunting me...

It never ceases to amaze me just how much like the Jerry Springer show my job is. I've got people on meth, constant gossip, he said she said crap, entire dysfunctional families all working together, fights in the store, people getting arrested WHILE at work, even people getting the occasional DNA test to see whose kid is whose. One day I'm going to grow up and get a real job and see what being around adults is like.

...or maybe not.

I overslept big time today. I have a couple of minutes while I drink my coffee so I decided to get online for a minute or two. One of the other District's sent me a text message as she is looking for some help today, otherwise I probably would have slept on through until my employees called me in an hour or so. That would have sucked.

The site seems to be running better than it was last night. Maybe I can finish that stuff I was working on when I get home this evening.

I don't have a hell of a lot to post about. I'm still in that sleep fog. Maybe later.

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Here's the latest press release from PhotoFiddle:

...and here are a couple of examples...

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It appears as if my damn site is down again. It's 6:54PM right now, let's see how long it will take before I am back online. Damnitall. I hate when things don't go just the way they are supposed to in my world. It's my frigging Internet and needs to behave properly.

That was weird. I can get to it now, so it was only down for a few minutes. Maybe they had to reboot the server. Weird time to be doing that crap though. It's extremely laggy though.

If you got an error posting a comment, it looks like I couldn't get to the SQL server either for a couple of minutes there.

I just upgraded the site to the latest beta version, so if everything is hosed up that's why :)

Crossposted to all the sites.

Everything comes with a price I suppose. My back is playing tricks on me this morning and my arms and legs are like jelly but I am ready to get back out on the lake. Man, that was a blast.

Today won't be quite as much fun. I still have one on vacation and another off and it's the last day of the fiscal period so I have to spend the day closing numbers and then go put up the delivery truck at the store where she is on vacation. Being so sore that should work out some of the kinks. Somewhere around 150 cases of miscellaneous food and other stuff will come in around noon today.

The wife should get paid today so I think that she and the girls are going to rent a car and drive down to the redneck riviera tomorrow for a couple of days and hang out on the beach. I am jealous, but luckily we will head the other direction at some point next week and go to Hilton Head, Bluffton, and maybe Savannah.

Still have to maybe set something up in Atlanta next week as well. I suck at putting together social crap like that. If it doesn't involve beer and a grill in my backyard I usually defer to other people to set this stuff up, but maybe I will call a couple of folks and see if they still want to get together. There are a couple of unanswered emails in my inbox about that very thing.

...just in case you need a visual aid

Our multi-unit get-together today was a blast. We ended up going to the lake in the gated community where my boss lives. I've a fairly large area, and we were using an island. I got there about 11:30 or so and he came to pick us up at the marina and took us all out to the island. Lots of good food, ribs, hot dogs, plenty of side dishes, and even beer.

I ended up getting on this floating thing and getting pulled behind the boat a couple of times. I was about the only one that didn't get dumped off. It fit up the three or four people, so at one point there were three of us getting pulled. The two of them fell off at which point I went airborne and came back down with a resounding thump as my breath went out of me. By god I held on for dear life though.

I do have a nice little sunburn now and I am sure that when I wake up tomorrow not only will my sunburn be hurting like a bitch but my back is probably going to be killing me as well.

I did let my boss know that I would be late tomorrow as I will end up taking the wife and girls where they need to go prior to coming in. I have a ton of work to do tomorrow. Luckily my manager comes back from vacation on Saturday. Damn I am ready for that.

I have a few minutes before my ride gets here, so I decided to put up a couple of posts. After having changed the battery I needed a shower anyway, so I have cleaned up and am now relaxing sipping that Shiner Bock that was so needed.

I don't know when the hell everything is going to settle down at work but damn some days are stressful. The money is getting a little better judging from my last paycheck but I damn sure hope this promotion has been worth it in the long run. I know it is or will be but I sure do let myself get overly stressed out at times. Part of that is that I care about my stores and have fairly high standards, so that when shit start heading south I am not at all pleased. The last guy that had my position just came and went whenever he wanted and if his stores weren't staffed, or were dirty it didn't matter. He would leave waitresses with no cooks all night and shit like that.

Speaking of no cooks I got a call about 1AM Sunday night. My cook at the store where the manager is on vacation had left. His wife had gotten pulled over or was in an accident so the second waitress took him to a nearby town to pick her up. That left one girl working and she waited for 45 minutes when she had a full house before damn calling me to let me know what the situation was.

I ended up getting about three quarters of the way there before they called me back to let me know that the errant waitress and cook had returned. I just went home at that point knowing that if I went in I would nd up sending the lot of the stupid fuckers home and work it. Needless to say I was not impressed.

Yesterday being my day off my boss and a manager trainee ran the shop. NOTHING was done. No damn paperwork, no nothing. I have a few words for my boss when I get to the cookout this afternoon but they have given me about an extra three hours of paperwork to do tomorrow. Asshats.

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You can also pre-book your parking at their website to guarantee a space when you arrive, pay online, and then just present your voucher at the car park. There is free transportation supplied to the airport terminal.

This post is sponsored by Advance Parking.

...by god. Considering that I have been up now for six hours it might as well be five pm here. Thus the tasty drink I am having trying to relax...

Damn, it's only 9:50 and this has been one shitty day. I'm sitting back at home right now, at least for the next hour.

The car acted like it didn't want to start this morning, but it caught and turned over so I went ahead on into one of my stores. I still have a manager on vacation and another one is off today. For the most part everyone showed up at those two stores today but at my third one nobody but the manager showed up. It took me awhile but I finally got him covered. We are having that multi-unit manager meeting/cookout today so I was planning on visiting each store for about 30-40 minutes then head home to get some shorts on. When I went to crank my car at the first one it wouldn't start. I am damn sure not a mechanic so I assumed it was the battery. I borrowed a waitress's car, went to the Wal-Mart and got myself a new battery. It sounded funny but cranked right up. I made it to the bank and when I came out it wouldn't start again. It smells funny, like a burning belt smell. I don't know but I am assuming my alternator has gone out.

I called for a tow ($50 damn dollars) to the shop that does all of my automotive work, and the wife came to pick me up and bring me home. I have one of the other district's coming to pick me up for the cookout. Glenn, the guy that does all of my work said that he was pretty slammed so it may be a couple of days before he even looks at the car. I'm damn sure not going to drive the gas-guzzling van. I will just go in a bit late tomorrow, and I think that the girls are going to Panama City Thursday, so I will have the blue car for a couple of days.

My entire week has been like this. Nothing seriously major, but just entirely too stressful. Most of it is because I have one of my managers on vacation so several days I am trying to run two stores at once. It is expensive because instead of me cooking and running a store as I normally do when a manager is off, since I have to take care of two I am paying two cooks. I can't let myself be productive on the floor in case there is a problem at one of the other ones.

Just wanted to put a quick post up. I'm going to shower and change into some shorts for this thing.

Now that I have finished my brother's book I am going to start reading the other one he brought me, The Children of Húrin. There is a reason he brought it with him though. He said it is boring as hell. I love Tolkien. He was one of the first fantasy authors I ever read as a child, but when Christopher Tolkien released the Silmarillion after his father's death, I never did make it through the book. It is boring, dry and reads like a boring, dry history text written to put people to sleep.

I will attempt to make it through this one. My tastes have matured since then, but if my brother didn't like it I don't hold out much hope for the book.

Technorati : The Children of Hurin, Tolkien

We had a pretty good time at the Braves game tonight. They were playing the Nationals and overall is was a pretty boring game, at least during the first few innings. One thing I noticed is that attendance is way down over the last time I was at a game a couple of years ago. We were supposed to go have Mexican before the game but my boss decided that we didn't have enough time so he brought pizza and snacks to one of my stores and we hung out in the back and ate until it was time to go. Don't get me wrong, I like pizza but this was the third night in a row. I'm done with Pizza for a few days.

The three district managers all rode together and a couple of store manager rode with us. I guess we are all the old folks that like to get sleep and show up for work on time, so we left my boss and the other younger guys there at the top of the 8th. The score was 4-1 Braves when we left. I haven't checked to see what the final score was but it turned out to be a pretty good game after all.

It was Bat night, so I brought home an Andruw Jones bat for Pete. She loves it. What was really funny is that they check you for weapons and shit right at the gate, you go in 20 feet and they hand you baseball bats. What the fuck is up with that? I told the other districts that we would use them to beat the shit out of the homeless guy that was asking for money when we left. They just got this shocked look when I said it. Had to be there I suppose...

I should have been up 45 minutes ago. That's one of the reasons I get up so early. It gives me a bit of cushion should I need to sleep in a bit. I tossed and turned and had a pretty hard time sleeping last night. I suppose I shouldn't have had that darned nap yesterday afternoon.

I never have understood how people can regularly show up late for work. As a manager I generally cured that of 99% of my employees. The ones that can't get to work on time just didn't get the good hours and I eventually replace them. When people know upfront what you expect and you send them home once or twice for being late, either they find another job or show up on time.

It's a bit more difficult since these folks have a set of managers between myself and them. I have sent several home already but it hasn't fixed the problem so far, although a couple of them seem to have gotten the message. I will just keep on harping on them until they get it right. Being late is just one of those things that irritate the hell out of me. I've already had a couple of the folks that are consistently late come to me asking for raises and they were genuinely offended when I told them that I wouldn't even consider going to bat for them when they can't get to work on time. There are other issues involved as well, such as being lazy as hell, but showing up when they are supposed to is a bit part of it.

Something along the lines of this...

You Can Always Tell...

...when I am trying to just find some filler or it's been a slow day in the old thought factory because I start posting news blurbs. Actually I have always done that but with the newsroom stuff like the immigration raid story I get a tiny but per read. Not much, but it pays like Google Adsense does. I just wish I could customize the display a little bit more, say to a black background. They fit in well at my tech site but not as much here.

Two of my three managers are back in today, and the other is on vacation so I am back to running just one store as well as the district. One store is pretty easy, but I need to find a way to make it a little less stressful on myself when I have two of them out, like this past Thursday and Friday. I scheduled both of my relief managers to work so that I wouldn't be productive, which makes it a bit easier, but Thursday one of them was sick so I let her go home and cooked lunch myself.

Once or twice a year we have get-togethers or management "care and shares". What a gay name. Monday will be pretty cool though, we are going out for Mexican and then going to the Braves game. The only problem I have with that is that I won't get home until at least midnight and then have to turn around and work part of the morning. Tuesday we have another one, but this is only for the multi-unit managers. Sounds like a barbecue or something. I will definitely have to take beer to that one. Several hours with the multi-unit team on an island in the middle of a lake might just cause me to drink a bit heavily. I have to work the next day as well. I probably could have picked a better day off than Monday but such is luck.

It looks like the Boy will tentatively graduate on September 14th. Since I am going to be taking that weekend off that may put me off the prior weekend, which is supposed to be the blogmeet at Amicalola. I was really looking forward to that, but going to boot camp graduation is more important. Maybe I can make it to Eric's in October. That will probably be the next most likely time for me. I just depends on the other district's and when they have their vacations scheduled.

Dax has a particularly nasty meme up. DON'T visit if you are easily offended. Hell, don't click if it's not so easy to offend. You have been warned. Here's the link. I am tempted to actually answer the meme. I actually have the post half written but don't know if I want to post it or not.

Tuesday is the one year anniversary of Acidman's death. Damn. It doesn't seem like it's been quite that long, and then again it seems longer. Things have changed very drastically for me since then as far as working. I've met some pretty cool people over the last year, as a direct result of going to his funeral. I've written a post, but won't put it up until the 26th.

Elisson's making ice cream. Damn, didja bring enough for the rest of the class.

I really need to get my blogroll fixed. I should have some time on Monday morning. Since I was able to export it to a Word document I can just pull the links from there and add them in to a text file. It's just very tedious because even with cleaning it up there are quite a few links. Maybe I will go back to using blogrolling after all. That's what I have my Techroll hosted on. Search isn't working on my tech site apparently. I just tried to search for the entry over there to link to and got a 500 error. PITA. It's here and I will update the links to it shortly. Will have to fix the search widget as well, but probably not today. Too much to do, too little time.

It's way past time to start getting ready for work so I will leave you with all of the pointless stuff above. Something to do on a lovely Saturday whilst I work.

...or How my government gave me an involuntary PAY CUT.

July 24th the new Federal Minimum Wage goes from 5.15 to 5.85 an hour. At the same time we, like most companies around the united states will be raising our prices to compensate for it. As far as my employees go it indirectly effects them. Nobody that works for us makes minimum wage except during the first week of training but since their (and my) cost of living is about to be jacked up everywhere, they are all effectively taking a pay cut. The folks that make, for instance, $7 an hour certainly aren't getting a pay raise any time soon and now that I have explained how this shit works to most of them they are entirely unhappy with the new law. The truth hurts.

Technorati : Minimum Wage

It's pretty obvious what I have been listening to since I got home. I went ahead and loaded some stuff up on the boy's iPod Nano and while I despise wearing headphones I do have one of those cassette things that you plug into your music player and listen in the car. Much better than the crap that's on the radio. I have 129 songs on my playlist right now but I am sure it will expand.

Wow, I was looking at the calender thing on the sidebar and apparently I posted nothing at all (as opposed to just posting bullshit) on the 11th. I don't remember the last time I didn't get at least one post up in a day.

Gods and Goddesses
[Roman names are given in brackets]

Apollo:
Son of Zeus and Leto; favors the Trojans.
Ares [Mars]:
Son of Zeus; favors the Trojans.
Athena [Minerva]:
Daughter of Zeus; favors Greeks.
Hades:
Son of Cronus; ruler of the underworld of the dead.
Hephaestus [Vulcan]:
Son of Zeus and Hera; favors the Greeks.
Hermes [Mercury]:
Sone of Zeus; favors the Trojans.
Iris:
Messenger of the gods.
Persephone [Proserpina]:
Daughter of Demeter [Ceres] and queen of the underworld.
Poseidon [Neptune]:
Son of Cronus; king of the sea; favors the Greeks.
Zeus [Jupiter, Jove]:
Son of Cronus [Saturn]; king of the gods and ruler of the sky; arbiter of human destiny.

Time to start getting ready for work. Rather than posting a bunch of pointless stuff this morning :) I have just been taking it easy and trying to catch up with a few sites that I haven't been to in a while. Today may very well end up being a long day, but let's hope not.

The Wife has something like five more days of teaching summer school before she's done. I know she will be pretty happy once that is all over and done with. This has been a hard session and may just be the end of her teaching summer school.

Fifteen days and counting. Damn, I will be counting every single day and I am sure they are going to drag. Other than hopefully getting together with some bloggers in Atlanta at some point that week I think we are going to go to Hilton Head. I haven't gone the last few times that the wife and kids have visited but it looks like her friend that lived in Bluffton is getting ready to move to Cyprus before the year is out. It would be nice to see them at least once more before they move.

I am sure that we will hit Savannah at least once so if any of you folks down around that area want to get together for a beer or lunch, let me know. I don't have any definite dates set up yet, just that I start on July 5th and have to be back at work on the 12th. We will probably be down there the 5th through the 8th and then come home that Sunday night or Monday morning.

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I wonder if this is one of the guys that hangs out fornicating in Eric's back yard.

It's been about an hour and a half since I first called Charter so I figured that I would call back. Their computers answer in fucking Spanish now apparently. I don't even get the press one for Spanish press two for english any more. Just some fucking Spanish and then about three minutes of cheesy porn music, then the loop starts again. I swear I am about ready to put my head through the wall before I have to listen to any more of it.

What's with this bullshit anyway. Did Charter get bought out by the Mexicans when I wasn't looking and they just forgot to tell me about it? I'm half tempted to get a land line again just so that I can go back to DSL. The only reason I got rid of it in the first place was because I didn't need the phone any more but they won't let you have DSL without it. If it means I get to speak to someone that actually grew up speaking English and actually lives here I may just do it.

I finally just hung up and called information back to get a different city listing. Yeah, this time I get the English computer. Thank goodness.

I ended up taking the laptop down and after a few resets was able to connect. About fucking time...

I somehow managed to get home a little while ago even with two managers being out. I'm still not sure how I managed that one but I don't look a gift horse in the mouth. I know one thing, it's frigging hot outside. I let the wife have my car awhile back since it is the one with air and she generally ferries the kids back and forth.

Riding back and forth between the stores is extremely hot in the damn car without air. I am drenched by the time I get home. Once fall gets here (just in time to NOT need air) I will get a new vehicle, but not until then unless my wheels fall off first.

My fucking Internet connection is down again. Goddamn Charter Communication is starting to piss me off. This is the second time this week. It was down for several hours last time so I did what I hate to do and called tech support. I got a gentleman who was very polite but for whom english was apparently a second language. I asked him if we were having a high speed internet outage in my area, so he gets my address and zip, puts me on hold for five minutes and when he comes back he tells me "Yes we have High Speed Internet available in your area as well as phone service and digital cable.

NO NUMBNUTS!

I was pretty pissed off but I stayed nice to the guy. I explained that I have service but my internet isn't working. He got the rest of my info and came back to me. By that time my cable light was solid on the modem so I scurried back upstairs to check my server. About the time I realized that I was finally getting an IP address but that something was wrong between the house and their DNS servers he tells me that something must be wrong with my equipment but he could schedule someone to come to the house. I explained that my equipment was just fine (I use my own modem, not the cable company's) and that THEY had a problem and then he says "Oh, I see a bulletin, we have an outage in your area but now ETA.

Where the fuck do they find these folks? At least he didn't bother to ask me to restart the modem this time. Normally by the time I am desperate enough to call tech support I have already gone through everything possible that I might be able to do here on my end, and THEY have a problem but normally their tech support makes you go through 30 minutes of bullshit before they can be bothered to check HEAT or whatever call center software they are using to see if there are any outage bulletins.

Assholes.

I've been looking for my shades all week, with all of the driving I do now I need them. Just found the sonsabitches in my car.

In between stores, may post more later.

I don't know how I do it sometimes. I had to handle shift change at one of the restaurants last night (I never did get that nap yesterday) so I got home around ten or so. I ended up going to bed after eleven last night but still managed to get up by a quarter to five. I've got a manager starting her ten day vacation today and another one that is off for the next two days, so it's bound to be quite a long day.

Only a couple more weeks until I get a vacation and I am looking forward to it. I start on July 5th and that will be cool in itself because all of my managers will be in that day with it being a holiday so I might actually get to watch fireworks this year.

Anyway, the idea of some kind of Atlanta meet was being bandied around late this month or early next, which would be really cool. I know that Sandy will be in town during that time, actually I think she is probably in the air now, so perhaps something along the lines of a get-together is in order.

I have mentioned a couple of times recently that I am starting to look for a new web host for several different reasons, the first being bandwidth and CPU usage. I still don't know if I am going to switch or not but I have found a couple of different providers that I am looking into one of which is Host Arcadia, who is also sponsoring this review.

Host Arcadia has a couple of really good plans that I am looking at. One of the things that really interests me is that their biggest plan, Zion, has 2.5 times the bandwidth that I currently get from my provider for less than half the price. The also let you pay a yearly rate. At $130 a year for the biggest plan, that's what I pay for five months at my current provider.

The starter plan that they offer which is good for most folks is only $3 a month but you have to pay for that one a year at a time, so it's $36. Not bad at all. In addition to the extra space and bandwidth you get from their hosting plans, Host Arcadia also throws in webmail, unlimited email accounts, unlimited MySQL databases,cpanel, and Fantastico.

They also have a pretty nice affiliate program that I am going to be looking into as well. If you are interested in web hosting or reselling you can get in touch with them at 1-845-784-1614. They are running a pretty nice Grand Opening Reseller Promotion as well at $9.95 a month for 3GB space, 80GB bandwidth, cpanel and Fantastico along with unlimited hosted domains.

I also like the fact that their servers are hosted in Atlanta. Being a southern boy myself I prefer to use things that are "local" although that pretty much doesn't matter now except for the fact that my current provider is either somewhere out west or in the northeast and occasionally I have DNS issues with them.

Still haven't heard from the Boy yet but the Wife spoke with his recruiter today, who told her that sometimes it is a pretty large group and they just run out of time to call parents at the beginning but that he should have time to call later this week. I don't even know what company he's in to get some idea about graduation yet. As soon as I get his mailing address we will be able to write as well. I know the girls miss him terribly, as do I. He is there though, that much we got out of the recruiter but that was about it. Hopefully all is well with him. Thanks to those that have called or sent their best wishes for his success.

That going to bed at three crap coupled with getting back up at five has kicked my ass. I have to be back at work tonight at eightish so unless I just get a bunch of high paying stuff to do it's NAP TIME!

This post is Sponsored by My Solitaire.

I don't do a whole lot of jewelry and my wife doesn't wear a whole lot more. I do know what I like though. Silver, Gold, Aquamarine, and Garnets. I used to wear my father's Marine Corp Rifle Sharpshooter badge on a silver chain for years and years, but it disappeared quite some time ago. I also have a couple of silver Mickey Mouse earrings and a gold Mickey watch that plays the theme to the Mickey Mouse Club that I wear but that is pretty much it. I have a couple of Aquamarine Rings that I wear on occasion as well as some others that I don't wear as often though.

The wife just doesn't wear much jewelry at all unless we are going out for a special occasion. She has her wedding band (mine doesn't fit my fat little fingers any more) as well as her engagement ring, and maybe earrings, but that is about it. My Solitaire does have some pretty cool Aquamarine Earrings that I was looking at though. I don't know if I could get her to wear them or not. She would look great in Aquamarine Jewelry but that's more a matter of taste than anything else.

These Aquamarine Earrings are pretty cool. The run about $365 so are definitely something for a special occasion.

I really like these Aquamarine Pendants that I found. This one in particular has a Peridot, Mandarin Garnet, Aquamarine, Tanzanite, & Pink Tourmaline set in 14K gold and runs around $220. Much more in line with my budget and the way the stones all look together is just very cool.

I'm certainly no expert at picking out or buying jewelry, but you could do a lot worse. That's why I always go to the experts that know what they are talking about when I am buying jewelry.

I don't remember the last time I was at home this early on a weekday when one of my managers was off. Actually I do, it was before I took the promotion. I'm tired as hell and my back hurts to the point where I am getting ready to have a muscle relaxer and a beer, but it's a been a damn good day.

This post is sponsored by IDrive-E. IDrive-E is a supplier of online backup services. I have been getting interested in online backup suppliers over the last couple of months and have reviewed a couple of them as well. IDrive is one of the leading suppliers and offers free backup space up to 2GB without any kind of bandwidth or file restrictions. This could be pictures, documents, or even music. They also offer the option to upgrade to the paid plan, IDrive-E Pro as well. The pro plan is only $4.95 a month or $49.50 a year and offers unlimited storage space.

I went ahead and signed up for the free plan for the time being so that I could check it out. Sign-up is easy, Name, user name, password, email address, and a captcha gets you started at which point you download the application, which is about 7 megs. The install ran pretty much flawlessly under Windows Vista. During the install you pick an encryption password with which your files will be encrypted, so don't forget it as you won't be able to recover your files without it.

After you have picked the password it will prompt you to restart your computer. It's not required to use the IDrive-E interface but if you want to use mapped drives and Windows Explorer it is. Using the IDrive interface is fairly easy. You just pick the files that you want to backup, and either schedule a backup, or tell it to backup right now. I went ahead and did a manual backup and decided to store some pictures. I am sure that I have more than two gigs of photos on this computer but will store as many as I can. Here's a shot of the main interface.

Once I picked Backup Now it scans the files...

...and then starts the Online Backup. Apparently I did have less than two gigs. I had forgotten that I have not put all of my pictures back on here since I rebuilt my PC earlier in the year...

Overall it is a pretty cool service and a nifty companion app. I am considering signing up for the pro service. I am interested in seeing how well I can access my media files online as I may install this on my media center. I have close to 800Gb of videos and movies and it would be nice to be able to free up some of that space here. If it's fast enough I may just use them via a mapped drive.

...and a nice way to wake up as well.

The Boy is watching Kingdom of Heaven on cable right now. Pretty decent movie. This is the first time that I have seen it but I don't know if I am going to stay up with him to watch much more though. Tomorrow will be a fairly long day and I need to get some sleep whenever this diarrhea of the fingers stops...

I found a site to add to my media center links. The movie collector site is pretty cool. It's called Movie Gatherer and the site is designed for movie collectors and movie lovers. There are useful links and information on hot to store and keep them as well as news about collector's editions of quite a few movies. There are some pretty useful gadgets on there such as this revolving CD rack that holds 100 CD/DVDs. There is also a bit of information about barcode scanners. Barcode scanners are particularly useful because there are a couple of programs that will read the barcodes and pull the movie information off the net. You can usually find fairly cheap barcode scanners online as well.

The program that I use does just this. It pulls in the movie information from the Internet and then adds it to a database that I can use with my media center front end, including the posters and art work, which is very cool using one of the ten foot interfaces.

Not that I post a lot of news about celebrities or anything, but damn thats a nice dress :)

Rather than tell my manager that has time-management issues what to do this morning and then listen to why it didn't get done I forced the issue. Since I have another manager off today I showed up at his store at 6am, changed the drawer, pulled whatever food I thought he would need today, locked him out of the office and store room and took the keys with me. That forced him to stay out in the front of the restaurant rather than doing stuff in the back. I did give him a short list of things to do before I returned, of which NOTHING was done but I think he did get the message.

I am still trying to find some way to motivate him. He likes to be the victim, so money apparently doesn't do it. I know he likes gadgets. Maybe I should offer him my iPaq if he runs the numbers that I need him to. At this point I don't give a fuck. He and I are going to make money out of his store even if I have to force him to.

I'm not a real huge multi-player game fan although I've played my share of death matches, but my son is. As a matter of fact he really enjoys World of Warcraft. One link I sent him recently was to Joana's Horde Leveling Guide. It's pretty cool and there's even a video with commentary that explains the whole deal. I have played in a couple of different MMORPGS and I can tell you that it's hard work to level quickly, but it can be done. The hardest part for me, particularly since I don't play a lot of online RPGs is that I never know who to talk to to find quests, or spend half my time just asking questions about how to do stuff. This guide takes care of those issues.

Technorati : Warcraft

I was watching something on Animal Planet about Great White Sharks. Actually the wife was watching and I found myself glued to it as well. These are some seriously ferocious bastards. They grow up to twenty feet long and move amazingly fast.

(© K. Jost / jostimages.com)

Damn, I'm tuckered out. Worked about 12 hours today, came home, ate dinner, then cut about half the lawn. We are trying to get the house cleaned up a bit for the party and with it being so dry I haven't cut the grass in a month or so. It needed it, or at least the weeds did anyway.

One thing about this new job is that I am on the damn phone constantly. A couple of months ago we went a little bit over our minutes so I bumped them up to 2100. That seems like a lot, but there are three of us on the family plan, and mine doubles as the home phone. I figured that with paying out so much in cell costs it was a waste of money to have a land-line. This past month I apparently went almost a thousand minutes over that 2100. Hell, I used all 2100 myself. I carry my charger with me in my car I am on it so much now.

When I get home I average about 15-20 calls a night, even from the stores where the managers are on duty. What the fuck is up with that? My question most of the time is "what did so-and-so say when you asked them?" That usually ends the conversation then and there, but some of them are pretty persistent, particularly considering that one of them is a fuck up and doesn't answer his own phone most of the time when they call, especially if it's after 9PM.

I keep telling myself it will get easier, and I know it is just a matter of time, but I am growing very impatient.

Damn, yesterday was just too short. That working seven days with one day off stuff sucks. Luckily I just have to work today thru Friday and I am off this weekend for the Boy's going away party. Don't forget if you are coming, shoot me an email at rmiles AT charter DOT net or just leave a comment (although the way the site has been lately you are better off emailing). Anyone that wants to bring anything just bring your favorite side dish and a drink.

We will get started around 4PM or so until whenever. Good folks, good music (debatable) and good food. Good god, this sounds like an advertisement. Now I suppose I'm gonna have to pay myself or some such garbage.

One of the things I am really lousy about doing is sending greeting cards. I've got a box or two of Christmas cards tucked away in the closet that I bought several years ago that just seem to not get sent year after year. The same thing goes for birthdays, anniversaries, etc...What I have taken to doing the last couple of years is just sending online cards. With PictureSandbox Greeting Cards you can send your own "phreeting" (photo + greeting) that you have personalized like these.

Yeah, I have to admit it, I used to watch the show. That's not what this is about, though it ties in a bit. I've been to California a couple of times in my life and it is a beautiful place I must say. Anyway, it's always nice to have a network of professionals and contact phone numbers no matter where I go because you never know what might happen.

Kestenbaum, Eisnet & Gorin LLP are Los Angeles Criminal & DUI Lawyers with over 50 years of experience in courtroom defense in all crimes. They are all Bar Certified Specialists that are available seven days a week in case of an emergency.

Next time you're in LA and in need of an experienced criminal defense attorney, don't forget to contact these guys. They are former trial prosecutors who know the business and have a private investigator on staff as well if needed.

I haven't ever had to get in touch with an attorney when on an excursion, but as I said, you never know what might happen. Considering that on the few occasions that I actually get away from my kids on a vacation I stay pretty lit, having a phone number for an attorney is always a good idea. You can contact them at 818-781-1570

With it being my day off I probably would have gotten started much earlier with my posting and some of the yard work I wanted to do, but when I got up this morning my connection was down. Once I got home from the doctor I fooled with it for a couple of hours, got frustrated and took a nap.

I finally got my connection going about three this afternoon and have been fairly busy ever since. Oh well. Hopefully tomorrow will be a fairly short day. I have a ton of stuff to do around the house to prepare for the party this weekend, and I also need to get my site fixed.

Well, maybe one more just for today. This is the last one that I took at the ren fest on June 3rd. Next week I suppose I will have to go back to general ones that I find on the Internet.

I did see something truly unsettling a couple of weeks ago though. Of course kids love the temporary tattoos, but my daughter and perhaps one of her friends gave themselves temp tattoos and my nine year old had a little eagle or something right at the small of her back. doh! I wanted to claw my fucking eyes out.

...breathing a sigh of relief. Good deal. I would have hated to lose my keyboard to a shitty replacement.

...after having spilled coffee on it yesterday morning. I thought I had snatched it off my desk fast enough and gotten everything wiped up but when i got home last night most of the keys on the right side were sticking. A little cleanup later..

The keys are drying right now. Hopefully everything will be slick once I get it back together. I hate the keyboard I am using right now. The keys feel mushy and everything is just slightly different which makes for a ton of freaking typing errors.

According to this article using black Google rather than white Google saves energy. Why's it always got to be about black and white any way? Damn racists... Anyway, that means my web site is saving you money every time you come here. You can send all extra proceeds to my Paypal account.

Another one that I took at the ren fest...

It was actually a decent back pic, but could have used some color. That should be nice in about forty years...

not...

Even though I post quite often about skinning and Windows customization over at my tech site as well as here, one thing I don't talk about much and is one of the oldest ways to customize your desktop, is wallpaper. Just by changing your wallpaper you can change the entire feel of your working environment on the computer.

This review sponsored by vcars.co.uk is a web site where you can find all sorts of wallpapers and screensavers for download. Check out some of the Ford wallpapers and screensavers. This one is a pretty low res picture of the Ford GT40, but the full wallpaper is much better.

They also have plenty of other cars to choose from as well, such as the Mustang and the Iosis. I had never even seen an Iosis before I saw the wallpaper and it looks really sharp. I am hopefully getting a new car this fall, and that or the 'stang with the pony kit would just be too sharp.

As I mentioned before they also have screensavers. Check out this Ford Screensaver that is posted at Youtube.

That's pretty cool. I generally just stick with whatever generic screensaver is installed on my PC at the time, but those are pretty nice.

I have never used cars for my wallpaper before but some of these are pretty sharp. They also have a ton of other sweet makes and models aside from Ford to choose from, including Alfa Romeo, Aston Martin, Lamborghini, Hummers, Porsche, and quite a few more. If you are an auto enthusiast this is the place for you.

This is the Ford Iosis that I mentioned. It looks pretty sharp.

VCars sells Used Cars, and even though I am not currently looking for a used car, I do love the wallpapers. They are a network of 50 manufacturing specific websites that helps you find used cars in your area. They update the car listings daily, so there is always something new to look at.

Anyway, back to the wallpapers. Check out this Mustang wallpaper.

I have loved the Mustang ever since I was a little kid. My mom had one from the late sixties when I was small, and then had a Mustang II back in the seventies. A true muscle car. When I lived with some friends about twenty years ago, one of them had a very old baby blue Mustang convertible that I fell in love with.

That was quite an appropriate ending and considering the amount of bloodshed and drama from the last few years, a very nice one.

Irritating as hell though.

The final show of the Soprano's is coming on. Damn, and one of my cooks isn't there yet...

I spent the day in my most experienced manager's store today and will be there tomorrow. The big problem that I have there is that I have been hung just about every shift that I have been in that store for the last six weeks. I trained the guy two years ago, but unfortunately a lot of the bad habits from his previous boss have rubbed off on him and he seems scared to get rid of the pieces of crap that are currently working for him. Unfortunately part of our money is paid from retention of associates and even though quite a few of these people are hurting his sales and profits, he would rather keep his little $120 bonus and be staffed.

Fuck that shit. Two of his five waitresses didn't bother to show up or call this morning although he apparently knew at least one of them wouldn't be there and did nothing to fix it. I have replaced their asses tomorrow and hired two more for his store. I dislike taking control of the schedules, if someone did it to me as a manager I would be extremely pissed off, but I am so over this crap at his store. I spend 80% of my time there trying to get covered when I should be cleaning or training people.

One of his evening shift waitresses called in and then about an hour ago his night shift cook called in. I've replaced his ass for the rest of the week (three more days). I hope he enjoys his vacation.

My site must have been down today. 26 hits. Very strange..

It was a bit of a longer day than I expected. I am just now starting to relax. I don't normally drink on a work night but I arrived home wanting a drink today for some reason. I have that bottle of Maker's Mark, but I wasn't in the mood for bourbon or whiskey today. What I need is a Tequila Sunrise, or something close since all I have here is Sunny D. Working on my second one and developing a nice little buzz already. It's a good thing that all of my managers are on deck today. Don't have to be back in until tomorrow.

I figured out why I was getting deleted files when I downloaded them through bulletproof ftp. There's a box in the advanced settings that I swear I have never seen before. "Delete files after successful download". Maybe it's just that the config location was moved. I've been using bpftp since win95 and have NEVER seen it before.

Now that I have figured that one out I am currently uploading all the files it has deleted :)

I have also upgraded to MT 4.0 Beta, so be prepared for the entire site to be hosed for awhile.

...A cool album for sure, but it was made even better when I found out exactly what bollocks are. A friend of ours is from England and she told us one year what they are. Of course it's used to mean "nonsense" but as far as I am concerned the definition that she gave me is the one that will forever stick in my head. Balls. Nutsack. Testicles...

Food for thought.

This review is sponsored by BarterBee.com - The Free Way to Get Movies, Music, and Games.

Remember when used book stores and video stores were still a real big thing. When I was a kid there was a really big one near us and quite a few weekends we would go to the trade-a-book place to get new books. After a few years they started offering videos and later still, games.

That trade-a-book place is no longer there, but the idea still remains. BarterBee is a free way online to get movies, music and games. The way it works is that you sell your existing CDs, games, and movies through BarterBee and earn points. Heck, just by signing up for the service you already get 5 points to buy with. As you sell your items you collect more points and use them to get what you want.

Just browsing through the movies I see that they are currently selling for anywhere from 5-21 points, so just by signing up you are half-way to getting one that you haven't seen before, some of them you can go ahead and get right away.

It's like a huge yard sale on the Internet. That's one of the things that I look for when I browse yard sales aside from computer equipment. People always want to sell their existing multimedia and sometimes you can find a really great deal that way. Barterbee allows you to do all of that but never leave the comfort of your home to deal with the traffic and the summer heat. If you have a couple of minutes, go check out BarterBee.com - The Free Way to Get Movies, Music, and Games.

I hired a girl for one of my stores the other day and interviewed another one and left her app for the manager to look over. I sent the first girl to one particular store where I have my newest manager. It's also the busiest store so it's in my best interest to make sure it gets staffed first with quality people. The other manager I guess decided to claim that girl and told the other manager to call the one whose app I had left.

It ends up being that the first girl is all over BOTH schedules now and the other one isn't working yet. My new manager is off today and of course I am hung because this girl is on the schedule for evening shift, but she worked graveyard at the other store last night and is working it again tonight.

I won't normally call my managers on their off days as they are definitely sacred and I can handle any problems that arise, but I did call her today and let her know that she and the other manager were going to have to get this worked out as I was not going to get stuck waiting damn tables on their days off.

I finally figure out what woke me up last night/this morning. It was the Boy hollering at the laptop on some game he was playing. I remember calling him and telling him to go to bed now, but by that time I was up and stayed that way for awhile.

I got to work a little after the usual time this morning, and had a cook come in because I knew I was going to be busy. It's a good thing because one of my managers didn't show up for work until 8:15 this morning. We are supposed the be in the stores by 6:30 every morning at the latest. He overslept. by. two. fucking. hours. I'm not particularly happy with that right now as it's the second time this week and has been a constant thing since I picked up his store. I'm probably going to have to go a bit further than just talking to him this time.

Since this was paperwork and payroll closeout day I normally pick that stuff up on Wednesday mornings but I was way behind because of the late guy. I told my managers to bring me their paperwork by 3:30 this afternoon so that I could go through the books at home tonight. four fucking forty five rolls around and I left without that one guy's stuff, called and told him to leave it at the store I would be at in the morning and I would go through it then.

I can understand being disorganized and being poor at time management. I resemble all of the above, so there are things that I do habitually to negate the fact that I get caught up doing other stuff. I'm still not sure if this is a case of time management or just lazy don't give a shit instead. Either way I will give it my best shot at helping to fix the problem, but it lost me $1150 of income over the last four weeks and I won't put up with that garbage very much longer before I become a real asshole. I could run better numbers with no manager than are being run right now. Just too much money on the line to put up with bullshit.

I'm finished ranting for the evening I suppose. Tomorrow is another day and another chance to fix the problem.

Asheville, North Carolina has become one of the nicer places to invest in property over the last few years for several different reasons. Set to the backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains it is beautiful all of the time. The weather is mild compared to other areas in the south, yet the winters are without the freezing cold that you would expect in a mountainous area. Here's a view of downtown Asheville.

Asheville is the largest city in western North Carolina with a population that hovers around 70,000. Big enough to be considered a city, yet small enough to know your neighbors and actually meet friendly people.

One of the more popular attractions in the area is Biltmore Estates, which attracts hundreds of thousands of people each year. Partly because of this, Asheville has quite a few of the conveniences of larger cities and a very high quality of living, without all of the mess and crime of bigger metropolitan areas. The Blue Ridge Parkway also runs through the area. I've ridden the parkway and it is particularly beautiful in the fall.

Webfooted.net offers the thoroughness of MLS property search integrated with Google Maps to make your search for property in the Asheville area a breeze. Here is an example of one of the locations on the map.

Pretty cool, wouldn't you say. One of the things that I think is so cool about all of the technologies in use on the Internet is how they are being mashed together to create useful tools such as this one in use by Webfooted.net. It makes it easier to locate available properties and if you are looking for luxury homes Asheville is the place.

I just want to bang on the drums all day...

For some reason I woke up about two this morning and was up for an hour and a half before I could gt back to sleep again. That sucks. I had the hardest time when it really was time to get up. I have to get my rear end ready and get going in a couple of minutes but wanted to get online for a couple of minutes beforehand.

I still seem to be having problems with MT and FastCGI particularly in the evening when the site is busiest. I keep getting errors with it as well as with the MySQL server depending on what I am doing. Tech support for my provider keeps suggesting that it is a problem with my spam protection or the fact that I am getting a pretty hard hit with spam. I am thinking that it is somehow something wrong in the configuration.

It's even to the point where I am having trouble posting entries or comments when it's busy, which sucks. I don't have any problems on my other two sites, but of course they have less than 10% of the entries or comments in the database that this one has.

I have stuck about an hour's worth of errors from my site log in the extended entry if anyone familiar with MT and FastCGI has any idea what the problem may be please let me know.

Suuweet!!! Everyone knows that I limit myself to just a few TV shows and that I only go to see a couple of movies a year. Most of the time they are something cool that I can see with my son. I do have one love though, and that is of horror movies. The creepier the better. If it keeps me up late with bad dreams, those are the best! Couple that with my love of the author Stephen King and you've got a match made in heaven. Although I have my own little collection of horror flicks that I like to watch at home, there are quite a few that I have gone to the theater to see, including films like Maximum Overdrive (from the story Trucks), Cat's Eye, and The Night Flier to name a few.

There's a NEW Stephen King movie coming out starring John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson called 1408! I've read the story and it IS pretty scary. With those two playing in the 1408 movie it will probably be even creepier than the story. Rather than explaining the story for those that might not have had the opportunity to read it yet (the spoiler is below the trailer), check out the trailer for the movie.

The 1408 Movie REALLY looks cool. It's due to be released in theaters June 22nd, just in time for my vacation right after the holiday. By that time most of the crowds will have died down (maybe?) and I will be able to check it out in comfort. I may even post a review of it here on on one of my other sites.

OK, now that I have said I won't tell you about the story here it is!

The Horror novelist Mike Enslin played by John Cusack has been looking for a REAL paranormal even for years. He only believes what he can actually see and touch. Nothing else. His latest novel is "Ten Nights in Haunted Hotel Rooms" in which he has discredited several already and plans on doing the same at the Dolphin Hotel where he checks into suite 1408. 56 people have died in the room and Enslin is the first person to stay there in years. No one has lasted longer than an hour in room 1408 but Enslin plans on trying...

Don't know if my site is down or not but I damn sure can't get to it right now. My connection went out completely but after a couple of refreshes and a reboot of my router I seem to be able to get back on, but can't access my site. What a pisser.

Still having some issues with it, but I seem to be able to get to my site now. It may be a problem with my DNS server.

One of my most favorite Police songs that is included on the new Police CD is 1978's Roxanne. It was also the first song that I can remember hearing by them. During a time when I was listening to Rush and other pretty heavy bands, The Police blew a breath of fresh air into music for me. It was very different. Not quite New Wave, not quite Punk, but still not Pop.

Win a New York fly-away to see The Police live.

Even though The Police marketed themselves as a Rock band with New Wave and Punk influences, they are at heart a trio of Jazz influenced musicians, and it shows even in the very popular tunes. The songs that are included on the Police CD are all really good examples of excellent musicianship and song writing which is one of the reasons that they became so popular in the '80s.

It took awhile, but Rolling Stone Magazine finally recognized The Police in 2004 by naming them #70 on the list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. It's hard to say how many musicians that The Police have influenced over the years, but I know of at least eight or nine tribute albums that have been released over the years.

Something really cool they are doing right now is promoting a contest to win a trip to see the Police live at Madison Square Garden by visiting the page linked by that picture above. That's the Grand Prize of course. 10 other winners are also going to get a signed copy of The Police, the brand new CD that was just released in the U.S. today!

Technorati : Sting, The Police

What the hell are you waiting for? Get it now.

I'll have you know I seriously put myself in danger to get this picture with which to entertain you with whilst at ye old ren fest...

El Dude with the skull on the back of his shirt might have crushed my skull with his lame hat had I not been so quick and stealthy. Not to mention fairly toasty. We all know I am invincible man after four or five beers, particularly with my trusty new hat...

Oh and yes, I realize that it is Monday night but as usual lately I am going to bed at a half decent time so that I can awaken refresh, bright eyed and bushy tailed. I will at least be awake anyway.

...seems to be seriously dragging tonight. I know it certainly is taking my sidebar forever to load because Twitter is hanging. It's a cool little app but like blogcatalog also hangs sometimes I may end up dumping both if they don't increase their bandwidth.

A few months ago I posted a couple of pictures from when I went to New York. One of the things that my friends dad looked at doing when we went there to visit was possibly getting baseball tickets from a New York ticket broker. He ended up not being able to and we went to dinner at the Plaza instead, but I was sor of looking forward to it either way. One of my more memorable road trips.

Yeah, I know. Booorrrinnggg.

One thing I did install in the kitchen a couple of years ago was some temporary lighting on the top of my kitchen cabinets and hooked them to an X10 appliance module that would turn them on whenever it was dark and motion was detected in the kitchen. I know...pretty geeky stuff.

I do want to install some decent quality under cabinet lighting now though. I normally get up at 4:30 in the morning, and even with the accent lighting on top of my cabinets, that isn't enough and I generally have to turn on all of the lights in the kitchen just to make coffee. Some decent lighting underneath the cabinet (where the coffee maker is) should solve that.

I haven't had much of an opportunity lately to work on any of my home automation projects, but the next thing I want to do is start looking at Chandeliers for the dining room. I already have a bit of the kitchen/dining are wired up and right now I have a ceiling fan in there, but I am seriously considering replacing it with something I can control with my HA software. It may just have to wait until we get a new house, since the kitchen area and dining room are one big room and it gets pretty hot in there occasionally when we cook so I really need the fan some evenings.

...in restaurant coolers.

About a year after I started working for my company, I worked for a manager that needed to get a bit mellow before work. I cooked on the graveyard shift and every morning before work she and the entire day shift would all go back out on the back porch and burn themselves one. She would leave the keys with me at night, and once I found her stash. She kept them rolled up in the freezer in her commissary. Very weird.

I occasionally will keep a six pack of Dr Pepper in the cooler as that is what I prefer to drink. Last week I finally got around to cleaning and organizing the food storage areas in my restaurants and in one of the really nasty ones I found three gallons of ice cream in the freezer. Since old dude spends way too much time sitting in the office and eating ice cream rather than doing things like his job, I got rid of it.

One of the others had a six pack of some kind of Energy Drink in her cooler. I left it alone. She is very driven and organized and even though I probably should have gotten rid of it as well, I decided that it was the least of my worries.

This one scared me...

A friend of mine, whom I am not allowed to link to had a post up recently with an Amy Winehouse video. It was pretty good, so I thought "Hey, that was pretty good" :)

I found several more videos over at Youtube and I really like her stuff. I don't know anything else about her music or if it's available on iTunes yet, but I will certainly check it out. Here's my favorite so far...

Why am I still awake anyway?

One of the unfortunate side effects of working so many hours is no meals at home. I have eaten at McDonald's a couple of times this week, and a couple of PB&J sandwiches at 11pm as I crawled home, but mostly at work. I have developed the worst case of farts that I have had in quite some time. Deadly. Nasty farts. I will probably end up sleeping with the dog tonight they are so disgusting.

I finally got home a few minutes ago, another 17 hour day. I am thoroughly enjoying a Sam Adams Summer Ale. It is wonderful, and what is even neater is the fact that not only will I get to entertain everyone at the Ren Fest tomorrow with my deadly wind, but I will be adding beer to the mix as well.

Damn, this was a long day. I left the house about a quarter till five this morning and just got home a few minutes ago. I spent the greater part of the day cleaning that one store that I have been having the most problems with and doing a little bit of training.

One more day and it doesn't look as if it is going to be any shorter. I am seriously looking forward to a bit of down time, although Sunday we will spend running around the Renaissance Festival. Come on down and hook up with us if you get a chance. It's the last day of the fest so should be pretty cool.

I am pretty much physically exhausted right now. That has it's ups and downs. It's almost a good feeling sometimes though, because I know I have worked hard today.