Unfortunately for me at least, I have to go back to work now. I managed to get a bite of supper down and that's about it. There is a ton of stuff I need to take care of there anyway so it's not as if I will be standing around with my thumb up my rear end all night. I probably have three to four hours of paperwork alone that needs to be done.
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OK, the wife just asked why the hell I have 100+ new posts showing up in Google Reader. oops. I have disabled Now Playing from sending tweets on everything that gets played. I will just have it update an xml file via ftp server and put it in a sidebar widget or something. I am surprised nobody has beaten the hell out of me for it yet.
This way the only ones that should start showing up are the actual tweets that I send from my cell phone or IM.
Of course they brought the mulch first...
Now I get to spend tomorrow afternoon loading fill dirt on a tarp and dragging the shit AROUND this pile of mulch to the pond area. I have it set up where the pond area is right at the end of the driveway where all of my humongous Elephant Ears are so all I would have needed was a shovel.
Stupid...
I would get to it tonight but with it being a holiday weekend all of the multi-unit managers are working supper supervision tonight which means I go work in one of my stores from six until ten, get home shortly thereafter, write some more, get back up at four thirty and drag my sorry ass in to work. One of the joys of getting promoted is actually working more hours and doing more work.
Boring is not a bad thing...
I have discovered another reason why I like those tweets so much. A lot of times I will be doing something or driving down the road and all of a sudden there is something I want to blog about, whether it's the asshats at work or some SMF driving drunk down the road. Those little one liners remind me when I get home exactly what it is I wanted to write about at the time...
I worked in my slow store today, part of it anyway. As usual the damn place was filthy. No paperwork has been done since I was there last week, there were papers all over the office and back room floor. Three different waitresses approached me for the credit card tips they had not received from the manager this week, so I let them have their tips and now the manager gets to eat a shortage. I've already written him up over not giving them their tips as well as his lousy cash handling procedures and was hoping that would take care of the issue. Apparently not. I am pretty much at a loss as to my next step so I will call our People Director and make him come write the guy up this time so the ball is out of my court. I don't give a shit either way as I can run the store better without a manager than it runs with. I would much prefer to have him stay and start doing his job but if he needs to go so be it. I am hoping he will at least make it through my vacation two weeks from now though. It certainly would be nice anyway.
I spent the great majority of the day going to each of my stores and gathering the weekly paperwork since I took yesterday off and didn't attend the meeting. On my way to pick up one of my employees on one of these trips I got behind someone in a Jeep SUV looking thing and damn they were all over the place. Hopefully the drunk SOB made it wherever he/she was going without incident. Normally I will get behind them and call the tag in to 911 but for some reason I didn't today.
There is a new teller at the bank with the most amazing breasts. Generally I watch pretty closely as they count my deposits and since she was holding the cash and counting it three inches in front of them I was mesmerized. dollar...boobs...dollar...boobs...My two favorite things...I almost started drooling and going into shock but then she finished. Sorry guys, no pics. That would have been too fucking weird "Hey, Hang on a second while I snap a shot". bwahaha. You'll just have to settle for whatever Saturday Boobage comes around tomorrow at Dennys place.
OMFG, I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants when I saw this video.
Update - November 2007: It's amazing that I am still getting hits on this topic. What do you guys think about Wanda Nara and the video? Just curious as to why the search, or are you just looking to find something to whack off too?
What part of people's brains do they leave at home when they get drunk and have sex? "No baby, I would never share this video with anyone else, it's just for my use at home" Bwahaha.
I think I am starting to really like the way that I have the twitters set up as one-liners in between the entries. With the Google News is really was a bit much but a lot of times even when I am at home I get a fleeting thought and it really isn't something I want to waste the time to write an entire blog post about (although that has never stopped me before) but I do want to get it down and share it.
The wife and oldest daughter have dentists appointments today. I know how much fun that is. I haven't had to worry about it in years since I have dentures. I have been seriously considering getting implants though, but I am not sure how much my insurance carrier will cover and the thought of someone jamming metal sticks into my gums and jawbone also lends a flavor of serious fear and loathing to the entire prospect. I'm not sure that is an ordeal that I really want to go to.
Obviously I managed to get today off as well since I am here writing. No scheduled posts, that's the rest of the week. I haven't had two days off in a row in four weeks and was getting pretty damned stressed out about stuff so I need the break. After today I have to go until Saturday the 8th before I get a day off, then I work four more days until my vacation. As I mentioned in the last post I just reserved a car, actually a mini-van for the trip. Since the boy and his gear will be coming home with us we needed to make sure we had plenty of room for him to stretch out. I'm not sure if he will want to spend the trip home eating or sleeping. Probably a combination of both.
...I don't even remember what it was I was watching but there some action flick on last night before I went to bed and the location was down in the Caribbean, which of course got me to thinking about where I want to go on vacation in January or February. My September vacation is locked in already since the boy is graduating from boot camp we will be spending at least half the week in Beaufort, SC. As a matter of fact I just finished reserving a mini-van for the trip this morning and booked rooms last week.
Anyway, after Christmas it's so dreary around here and that makes it the perfect time to go for a vacation in the Caribbean, perhaps in Trinidad. The weather that time of year is great. From what I understand, the temperature ranges from 70-85 degrees in January, neither too hot or too cold.
If you know your history you will know that Columbus discovered the island in 1498 and claimed it for Spain. Since there was no gold as there was in other parts of the Caribbean it wasn't settled immediately. He also sited Tobago (naming it Assumption) but it was pretty much ignored until the 1600s. By the time a few years before the American Revolution there were only 800 inhabitants on the island and spain started offering incentives for people that were Catholic to immigrate there, whether spanish or not. By 1797 when the British took control of the island the population had grown to over 16,000 which included 2100 white Europeans and 4500 free Africans.
Since there were so many non-white land owners in Trinidad Britain granted the island Crown Colony status, which meant that the residents were denied the right to vote and kept them out of the political process. Trinidad finally gained independence from Britain in 1962 and Trinidad and Tobago together formed a republic in 1976. One cool fact about Trinidad is that it was the first country in the world to recognize emancipation from slavery.
Like most of the Caribbean Trinidad and Tobago are blessed with warm blue seas and beautiful sunsets. It is the home of Carnival. Even though it is located just off the tip of Venezuela it is not considered part of the South American continent.
Here is this week's photo. I found this while searching for a picture for the tramp stamp tuesday post but thought it would fit much better today...
This one brings back a lot of memories.
Now that I have gotten rid of the CNN and Google RSS feeds I have added in a connector to Youtube using the MT-Youtube plugin. I figured I would try it out for a couple of weeks and see if I like it or not before I buy it. Basically what it does is to post any new Youtube videos that I upload into an entry. Simple, no?
I am not sure but it may take the ones that are already up and publish them. I already have put most of them up at one point or another, but just to let you know if they pop up tonight, that's why.
Hat tip to engtech over at Internet Duct Tape.
Harold is a Robot #3 - How to Earn a Six Figure Income From Blogging in Two Easy Steps
I am going to take some time this evening with Photoshop and fix that T-Shirt design at Cafepress. I've been so busy with work and working at home when I'm not at work that I have gotten way behind on some things. I owe a T-Shirt to someone and wouldn't mind having one for myself as well. I thought about putting my avatar and URL under it instead of the graphic that is one there and looks so cruddy.
Someone suggested that I make up business cards and custom pens as well. I've been thinking about it but really don't know if I want to make the investment or not.
I was over at Hacking Netflix this morning and responded to a post that was written about bad customer service at Blockbuster. Bad customer service at Blockbuster? Tell me it ain't so!! Anyway, the comment I left dragged on and on and when it got to the third paragraph I decided that it was a bit rude to type a comment like that but I posted it anyway and quickly left :)
Basically the article was pointing to a news story about a Blockbuster manager that cursed at a customer. Hey, it's happened and sometimes it's easy to get carried away but if you let customers push your buttons like that then you are not a good manager and probably don't need to be in customer service at all. Think I'm fullashit? I run three 24 hour restaurants and have been in customer service for almost 21 years now. You JUST DON'T ACT LIKE THAT AS A MANAGER. If you curse at or shout at your customers you are a fuckwit, plain and simple. That's why I blog. This is a place where I can let off a bit of steam. Yeah, some of my customers and employees may know I'm here. I blog under my real name and have been doing it for a couple of days now, so it's not that difficult to find me but it's a bit different blowing off steam after the fact than verbally attacking someone, whether it be an employee or a customer.
I'm not a morning person at all. It's kind of funny considering how long I've been getting up at 4:30 every morning but I am still not a morning person. The reason I get up so early is because it takes me forever to get my shit together and be able to deal with the public successfully. I am fully aware of that fact and that's why I have my morning routine. Last week I walked in to one of my stores around 6:30 AM, checked the bathrooms to make sure they were clean and walked back out into the customer area. Immediately a gentlemen walked up to me and asked if I was one of the district managers. I am and told him so at which point he started griping and bitching about the price he had been charged for his food and about how it's different no matter which restaurant he goes in to. I tried to pin him down on how much he had been charged or what he had eaten but he didn't want to hear any of it. I would have given him a discount or coupon but all he wanted to do was cuss about how much he had been charged for breakfast (around $4) and walked out. I don't deal with that too well first thing in the morning but the important thing is that I was polite to the guy even though he was a flaming asshole.
I did check the ticket and he had been charged correctly so there wasn't a whole hell of a lot I could do about it anyway but that is a common complaint where I work. Too many of the waitresses don't know there prices and they are too damn stupid to look at their price sheet, preferring to pull prices out the thin air. Since I picked up the stores four months ago I have made a bit of headway with that but it's a pretty time consuming process.
The main thing to me is that if you are in customer service or management you can never lose your temper and have to always keep a smile even when they are dead wrong. There has been more than one occasion where I smiled and said please all the way to the point where the police dragged their sorry ass out of my restaurant (customers AND employees). That's what 911 is for. I don't get paid to play bouncer. It's also one of the reasons that I always have people wanting to work for me, including several that I have fired on more than one occasion.
This has also been posted at Miles Business Blog.
It's pretty nice out and I am still planning on getting our shortly to work in the yard but I can't get rid of this headache that I have had since Sunday. I don't know if I have a sinus infection or what is going on but I need some type of headache treatment that's going to work longer than four or five hours. I have taken ibuprofen, Tylenol and aspirin but the darned thing keeps coming back and I can't seem to shake it.
Maybe being outside for awhile will take care of it. It certainly won't hurt to get away from the computer screen for a couple of hours.
We've been talking about selling the conversion van for quite some time now. Although I own it outright (it's 14 years old) it's just not cost effective to drive anymore. It became cheaper to rent a car for vacations a couple of years ago and it's just been sitting there taking up space in my driveway.
Since I can't participate in the Alzheimer's Walk that I posted about recently, the wife had the bright idea of donating the van to them. The tow truck driver just left with it, so now my driveway is clear and I get a tax write-off as well. Sweet deal. Hopefully they can sell it and get a bit of money to help out. It's about a $2500 van even being that old so maybe someone will get a bit of use out of it.
I had all kinds of nasty things to say about the disgraced senator but being as how I am such a sensitive guy I will let you make up your own punchlines.
Yeah, it's a bit later than I usually post it and I have a lot of catching up to do but for those two of you that follow this every week, here is this weeks photo from Malingering.
I don't know for sure but I did manage to ghost my hard drive over to a new one. This one is about a hundred gigs smaller than the other but I had it partitioned in half anyway and just backed up all the crap that was on the second partition. It was kind of a pain in the ass as I had to do a repair on my boot image in order to boot up.
I am also trying Readyboost, which is a utility built in to Vista (at least the ultimate version) that basically creates a ram drive on my 2GB USB drive and is supposed to spedd things up a bit. The jury is still out on that one. I can't tell right now since my system was moving at a crawl before I swapped out hard drives anyway.
Hopefully I will be back online this afternoon at some point. I have moved my music and stuff over to another hard drive, just need to burn Ghost to a CD. I used to have a couple of floppies with it but unfortunately they are gone so I installed the latest version last night and just need to use it :)
I have known for several days that I had a hard drive going out so it shouldn't be a surprise but it certainly is killing me. Back to the irregular programming very soon...
Normally Friday is Pizza Day here at the house. It's usually a pretty busy day for me at work and leads into the weekend which is always extremely busy for me. The wife is tired from working all week and neither of us wants to cook. We used to order from Domino's but for some reason they quit delivering on this side of town and now we get our pizza from Papa John's. It's still pretty good but definitely different. One thing about getting pizza is that it's a bit expensive to have delivered. The nice thing is that I can order online and not having to deal with the phone at all. The only thing missing that I like about Domino's is coupons. Looking around I found a place to get free online coupons that I can use with Papa John's. Sweet. Just go to the Papa John's Coupons page and find the coupon code you need and when you check out from the website enter the code. That's about as easy as you can get and as lazy as I am some days easy is where it's at!
They also have coupons for plenty of other places as well, everything from consumer electronics and software to clothing and furniture.
Even with the meeting I made it home at a decent time today, right around 4 PM or so and only that late because I picked the girls up from school. I really need to make sure and go to bed at a decent time tonight. I felt like I was sleepwalking through the entire day. The fact that I go to bed at 11:30 and get up at 4:30 might have a little to do with it.
My head has been freaking pounding off and on for the last three days and today is no exception. I don't know if I am getting a sinus infection or what but something is going to have to give here before I start pounding my head on the keyboard in hopes of relieving the pressure.
The meeting we were supposed to be having today was to include seven of the nine manager in the division, all of whom have food costs expenditures higher than they should. Mondays are food cost meeting day. If their food cost is high we spend a couple of hours checking tickets from the past week that they should have already checked but obviously haven't been. Out of the seven, the only ones that showed up were my two that had to attend. I called the other district managers and let them know that they would get to hold their own meetings tomorrow and that I was on the way home. I stuck around about 20 minutes later than the meeting was to start and then left. Fuck them if they can't get places in a timely manner. One of the managers from a store that is about 30 minutes from me was still in his store trying to get his paperwork together half an hour after we started. I just don't have the time or patience for people that can't get places on time anymore.
To aggravate matters my Internet connection is down again for the second time in a week. I am going to refrain from calling Charter as long as possible. It's not like I can't type this up offline anyway. I got home shortly before 4 and it was down when I got here, so there is no telling when they will get it back on, the asshats. That's OK, I have to burn some stuff to DVD as well in order to get all of my stuff off of the HD and ready to ghost. I did come up with a 160 GB hard drive, but the one I need to ghost is 250 GB. Half the stuff on here is junk anyway.
Hey, looks like my connection just came back on. Very nice timing...
Another weekend has come to a close. For me it means heading into the slow part of the week and a chance to get some cleaning done at work and catch up my paperwork. I am sort of winding down a bit. Although I was off this past Friday, since I have only had one day off the last two weeks straight I think I am going to try and take Wednesday and Thursday off if I can get the store covered. After that I don't have myself scheduled off until September 9th so i could use a couple of days off in a row. Besides, I really need to get the area for the second pond finished and one day has just not been enough rest lately. I am exhausted.
One thing I do need to try and get done on my off day is to see if I have an extra hard drive in the basement. I believe one of mine is getting ready to crap out and I need to ghost everything over onto a new one before losing all of my data.. That would not be a good thing.
I have to go ahead and start getting ready for work this morning but just wanted to write for a few minutes before I go in. Unfortunately there is no chance of an early day as we have a meeting this afternoon and with me running the thing it would be slightly difficult to get out of.
No letters from the boy today but hopefully today or tomorrow...
The weather is amazing sometimes. All three of my restaurants are within 12 miles of the house. Today I worked at the one that is farthest away and when I finally finished with my paperwork this evening or at least the stuff that I didn't put off until tomorrow, it was pouring the proverbial cats and dogs. The wind was blowing so hard that the rain was coming down sideway, thunder was crashing and the lightning just kept on doing it's thing.
I waited awhile for the storm to abate before driving home and when I did, rather than going the back way up Hwy 78 like I normally do I went the expressway. About halfway home there was an accident off to the side that looked like it had involved a tractor trailer and at least one car. Several fire trucks were there as well as an ambulance and police.
By the time I was within two miles of the house everything was bone dry. Not a drop had fallen on my poor dying vegetables today. If the sky was going to open up the least it could have done is dumped a bit of moisture at my place.
Work itself was kind of a drag today. it certainly wasn't my worst day but it wasn't my best either. Speaking of my worst day there are several to choose from.
The first year I was working for the company I actually waited tables most of the time. It was eight or nine months before I ever started cooking. Basically the manager had fired his night shift cook and I decided that I was tired of dealing with assholes and told him I wanted the job. He gives me this training manual and say "OK, you are the cook, read that and be here to cook the shift tomorrow night". It was interesting at first because I had to train myself. I think I did a damn good job of it.
Anyway, I had been cooking for a couple of weeks and Halloween rolled around. Being the Heavy Metal babe magnet that I am (or thought I was 20 years ago) I along with my girlfriend at the time (she worked with me as well) decided to dress up for Halloween even though we had to work that night. In my infinite wisdom (that all 20 year olds have) I dressed up as Alice Cooper, heavy duty make-up and all. Damn, I kicked ass. That costume looked great. Unfortunately for me it is extremely hot cooking in a restaurant for some reason and it was busy that night. It didn't take long before all of that makeup started rolling down my face, along with the rest of my body. It was nasty, and I spent several hours in the weeds just trying to keep up. It certainly wasn't my worst day ever either but it's damn sure one of the funniest I can remember.
So what was your worst day at work?
Actually I don't have that problem and if I did I would invent some sort of extension to grab ahold such as a girlfriend or a wife. Oh, wait. That's right, I am married. See, even if both of my arms get chopped off in a freakish waffle iron incident I am good to go.
The wife sent me a link to this earlier, over at Nataliedee.
Since I have several sponsors and I do the paid posting thing I get around to different businesses sites and check out their blogs as well as the sites themselves. More often than not they are pretty cut and dried if not boooring. Not that I don't find a wealth of information, it's just that some days I have a hard time keeping my head from hitting the desk and having drool start forming. I am one of the unfortunate ones that used to occasionally have that happen to in school, normally in science or math class.
Anyway, I was over at JR Dunn Jewelers earlier (this is the part where I plug them). JR Dunn is a premier Jewelry showroom with two stores in South Florida. Their reputation for integrity and fine diamonds precedes them and as a family owned business instead of being one of the huge conglomerations you know you are going to get personal service whether you are shopping for a new engagement ring or looking for a diamonds for your 20th anniversary (OK, end the plug).
Here's the good part. While I was there I stopped by J.R.Dunn's Jewelry Blog and found the post referred to in MY title, Top Ten Hints Your Engagement is Doomed, which derives from real life examples if things that they have actually heard in their stores. My favorite is #5, "You asked out the sales lady who was helping you with your engagement ring purchase". Man, I can relate to that. Running restaurants, I have seen on more than one occasion, a lady get up to use the restroom and just as soon as she is gone the gentleman starts to hit on his waitress. It's hilarious but kind of sad all at the same time. I always feel sorry for his companion and I am sure that they feel the same way. Why on the world would you go shopping for an engagement ring and then hit on the salesperson? Save your money dude because you are going to need it for the divorce later.
Are more guys like that? I can't say I don't look but I certainly don't ask other women out. That's just not right, not to mention the fact that my wife would probably kill me if I did and she found out. Over the last 41 years I have come to value my life for some strange reason.
I also like #3 in the list as well, almost as much as #5. #3 is "You offered to pay for breast augmentation instead of a ring." Now THAT I can understand...
One other place that I want to go at some point is Australia. Some of the flora and fauna there is so different than what I am used to as to be almost alien to me, which is part of the attraction I suppose. It's also a very beautiful place, although parts of Australia can be pretty unforgiving. Most likely I would stick to the cities for the most part anyway and visit Melbourne and Sydney and perhaps Brisbane.
Since Melbourne experienced a huge Gold Rush shortly after it was settled it grew very quickly and the wealth in the area allowed for beautiful architecture which still remains such as the Royal Exhibition Building...
Hotels in Melbourne are pretty reasonable so once you get past the airfare it's pretty easy to have a wonderful time on a budget. There are all kinds of museums and guided tours of the city and it's surroundings that are easily accessible. Being a sort of a history buff I would love to go check out the Old Melbourne Gaol, which is one of the oldest buildings in Melbourne.
If you go east along the coast about 720 miles you can get to Sydney. It seems like a bit of a drive but along the way there are beaches and national parks as well as beautiful lakes and wildlife, not to mention great food. There are several popular resort towns along the route including Merimbula, Batemans Bay and Lakes Entrance. Hotels in Sydney are also easy to find and book but it's better if you do it ahead of time.
Everyone is familiar with the Sydney Opera House in Sydney Harbour. Photo by Matthew Field.
A little farther north in Queensland is Brisbane. Any visit to Australia isn't complete without checking out the sites around Brisbane such as the Windmill, which is the oldest surviving structure in Brisbane.
The Windmill was built by convicts in 1828. It was built for the grinding of grain and as a punishment for the convicts that manually operated the grinding mill. It was also the place where the first TV signals in the southern hemisphere were transmitted from in 1934. The broadcast from the Windmill until World War II.
The CW's Gossip Girl is a new television teen drama set to air on September 19th created by Josh Schwartz, the mind behind The O.C. and Stephanie Savage. It's based upon the series of bestselling books by the same name by author Cecily von Ziegesar .
The premise behind Gossip Girl is a group of upper class young students who live on the Upper East Side in New York City. It is a little bit past the reading age for my oldest daughter but we have looked through he books on the shelves and it's something she is interested in reading once I actually let her purchase them.
Basically the show is narrated by an unseen character, the 'Gossip Girl' who runs a blog about her fellow Upper East Siders which tends to stir the post and keep the rivalries constantly going.
There is also a MySpace Fan Page where you can get updates and leave messages for the Gossip Girl as well. Don't forget to tune in or record the Gossip Girl on September 19th on the CW.
Holder's commenting on the grossest things to come OUT of dogs. I'll have you know that #3 is 100% completely true. You think that stuff that's inside diapers looks nasty when it's wet? Wait till you see it come out of a dogs anus.
Our cable and Internet service have gone down at least twice this week. Saturday while I was at work it was out most of the day. Apparently it had just come back on right before I got home from work. It just went out about 30 minutes ago. No big deal, I thought. Occasionally I have to reset my router and pick up a new IP address. That didn't work, so I checked the TV and sure enough the cable was out as well. Time to call Charter, which I always hate doing with a passion. Their automated system is for stupid people and then techs act the same way.
Call I did anyway. It takes a couple of minutes to navigate through their confusing voice menus before I even get to the automated part. I had to decide whether to talk to High Speed support or Cable TV support. Since the lowest paid goons seem to work for High Speed Support and I don't particularly want to talk to someone that knows less about computers OR tech support than I do I chose Cable TV support. I have never called them and thought that maybe the automated system would be shorter than the Internet support system.
No such fucking luck.
"Welcome to Charter's Automated System. In order to help you properly please describe the problem in one short sentence"
"It doesn't work"
"It sounds like you are having a problem with your Charter Television. Is this correct?"
"Yes"
"Do you see anything on your screen?"
"No"
"Is the picture white, black or null"
"Black" What the hell is null anyway? Is that the fuzzy screen?
"OK, let's check a few things. First, is your TV on?"
"Yes"
"Do you have lights on your cable box?"
"Yes"
"Let's reset your cable converter and refresh your information" (as if that is going to do any good right now. All I want is to speak to a rep and see if their is a fucking outage) "Turn off your cable box and when it is off say Continue"
"Continue"
"Unplug the Cable box and say continue when you are through"
"Continue"
"OK, now plug it back in but don't turn it on. When you have finished this please say continue"
"Continue"
"It may take a few minutes to refresh and you should see either the time or a channel number on the display screen. When you see the time or a channel please say Continue"
I am starting to get stressed at this point.
"Continue"
"OK, turn on the television and when you see the channel please say continue"
"Continue"
"Great! It may take up to 45 minutes for the guide data to be downloaded to your converter but you can continue to watch television at this time. Can you see the screen now?"
"NO!"
"OK, I think you said that you don't have a screen, is this correct?"
"YES!"
"Would you like to speak to a customer service representative?"
No, I just enjoy spending 30 fucking minutes on the phone speaking with a computer. I feel empty inside when I can't interact with a goddam system designed for stupid fucking people.
"Yes".
"Thank you for calling Charter Communications. Please do not hang up as it may take several minutes to connect you"
I wouldn't fucking dream of it.
<brain numbing music...>
"Your approximate hold time is six minutes"
<more brain numbing music>
I walked around outside just to insure that nobody had run down the power pole or inadvertently run a ditch digger through my front yard.
<several more minutes of music so brain numbing that I want to smack my head on the pavement>
Looking around the kitchen for something to eat. Damn, my cell phone is getting hot.
"Thank you for calling Charter Communications, my name is non-english-speaking tech support goon. Can I help you?"
"My Cable TV and High Speed Internet are down, I want to know if you guys are experiencing some sort of outage or something"
"May I have your name"
"Richard Miles"
"...and your address"
"blah blah some place in Temple Georgia"
"...and your phone number"
"770-bit-eme0"
"For security reasons I need to verify the last four digits of your social security number"
Perhaps you would like my cock size and the color of my last bowel movement as well.
"xxxx"
"OK, hold on while I check"
<mind numbing music>
"Who Am I Speaking to?"
?
"Richard Miles"
"Mr. Miles, I am showing that indeed we are experiencing a service problem in your area. The Television problem was reported at 8:30 this morning and the high speed internet loss was at 6:30 this morning. The should be back up any minute"
"Really, I have been working on the Internet all morning. It just went down a few minutes ago"
"Do your neighbors have cable service right now"
Let me stick my fucking head out the window and check
"I have no idea. They are all probably at work and I am working from home"
"You work from home"
I do today. Why, you wanna come over for a reach around kiss or something?
"Yes Ma'am"
"I would also like to review your service while we are on the phone. I see that you are subscribed to our largest cable television package and that you have the 10MG high speed internet service. Perhaps you would like to sign up for our phone package with free long distance for on $14.99 a month for three months and DVR service for a year for free if it's available in your area"
I can't think of anything else that would excite me more than to sign up for a couple of new services when I am calling to bitch about my existing services not FUCKING WORKING!!!!!
"No ma'am, I have three cell phones and disconnected my land line two years ago"
"Is there anything else I can help you with?"
"No ma'am, have a nice day".
It's a fucking conspiracy. Charter techs sit in the office drinking beer (hey, now that's an idea) flipping random switches and laughing their asses off knowing that you are going to call tech support so that they can try to sell you more stuff.
It's five o' clock somewhere, time for a drink.
My Internet is back on. doh.
Here is the desktop I am currently using.
I'm running DesktopX beta. Right now I am not running any widgets, but probably will load some later. I also use DX to set my desktop work area so that it reserves 80px at the top and 32px on the right for my task bar and system tray.
I am also using Objectdock Plus for my three docks. The one at the top is my task bar and shows the currently running programs, the one at the right is just a system tray and the one on the bottom (shown in the first screenshot) are my shortcuts; start menu, my computer, documents, music, pictures, internet, recycle bin, a clock, current weather, Google search and email.
I like all of the widgets and other stuff that I sometimes run but mostly I like a clean empty desktop and this seems to be what I fall back on.
One of the things I had mentioned at another site a bit earlier is the fact that when we eventually retire I might start looking at homes in Florida, perhaps somewhere along the coast. One of the ladies that I work with has family and some property in South Florida and it would be really nice to look at West Palm Beach Real Estate. It's close enough the the Keys to go if I want but an extremely nice area and if I have to get out to go anywhere else it is pretty convenient. I spent a great deal of time in the area when I was younger and really enjoyed it there.
As often as I work y'all get to hear me whining about vacations and days off quite a bit I suppose. With the year starting to wind down I have to go ahead and start planning next year's vacations. With my boss, the other two district managers and three managers of my own each getting three vacations a year I have to get my requests in early because none of us can overlap. That's 18 vacations to schedule in 13 operating periods, or 12 months.
It actually isn't that difficult because I can overlap my managers with the other districts and division but just can't overlap any of them myself. I was looking at Caribbean Cruises a couple of days ago trying to decide if I would be able to find child care for the week and if I even want to.
I love Halloween. It is one of my favorite times of the year. Part of it is the fact that it finally starts cooling down a bit, but it is an extremely fun time and I have quite a few fond memories of Halloween, more so as a teenager and an adult than I did as a child.
There is also the fact that at Halloween all of the nice looking ladies can walk around in public in their sexy lingerie and get away with it, but maybe I am just a pig.
I don't really know what to say except that I am pretty disappointed that she only gets one day. What a load of crap.
I got home around Four this afternoon. It was so hot outside and in that damn car again that I though I was going to pass out or something. I had to drive from Carrollton, which about fifteen miles south of here and with no air it was pretty darn hot. I went ahead and straightened up the living room a bit and vacuumed downstairs as I knew once I sat down I was done for. Apparently more than I though. I lay down for a couple of minutes and they were just able to wake me up a few minutes ago although apparently they had been trying for awhile.
I walked outside and off in the distance it is thundering and lightning pretty heavily. The temperature has dropped at least 25 degrees outside. It's amazing how much change the wind can blow in just a short time.
Unfortunately I have to go back to work in a bit less than an hour. I was hoping to be completely finished at the store I was at today but with the meeting being at One I had to run to another store to put out some fires.
Damn, just got off the phone with one of my managers and my third shift cook is trying to call in on me for tonight. That's gonna cut things short for me online tonight. If I don't end up working the shift I may be back on later.
I almost literally had to drag myself out of bed this morning. I am sore and tired. It's been another long week and I'm glad that today is my last day. This is my seventh day this week and I am off tomorrow. Unfortunately my boss starts vacation today or I would be taking Saturday off as well.
I may be able to get out a bit early if I can get staffed though. Our normal weekly meeting is changing venues. Since it's just myself and the other two district managers and the HR manager we've decided to have it at a local bar in Carrollton at 1 PM this afternoon. It should prove to be a bit livelier than the normal weekly meetings.
Received this via e-mail last night.
FHM Calendar Girl Leah Dizon. I may have worked late at the meeting last night but you know I couldn't forget Thursday Thongs.
I found yet another little app that I am using. It's a now playing plugin for iTunes that publishes whatever I am listening to on Twitter as well as Facebook. Of course since I'm using the MT-Twitter Plugin that should in turn publish it here as well.
Apparently someone has spent most likely millions to perform a study. The results of this study? The cold virus helps make you obese. Those damn Whopper certainly don't hurt either.
I'm all for furthering science and our collective knowledge and all that but what exactly were they supposed to be studying here that led them to discover this earth-shaking revelation? My problem when reading articles such as this one that involve science and math is that a couple of sentences in I start hearing this dull buzz in my ears and my eyes roll to the back of my head and I start drooling. Just ask the wife, she's a science teacher. She sees the look on occasion.
Not that I don't like science or anything. Give me the fixings of something explosive or disgusting and I will experiment all day. I helped my daughter find a couple of articles the other day on home science projects that she could do. It's just all of that freaking mumbo-jumbo that kills me.
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I'm also looking for a couple of Diggs if you have the time. The link is in the footer of the post.
I have meetings tomorrow afternoon in Oxford, Alabama at 4 PM central time after my normal daily stuff. Normally I don't get home until 9 PM or so on the days that I have my Alabama meetings. That's one thing I am learning to truly hate about having more than one store. Normally I could get out of the meetings as a manager and maybe go to 10 or 12 a year but now it's at least one a week and sometimes two or three. Damn. All the time we spend in meetings we could probably drum up all sorts of business just by hanging out in the stores.
I can't kid myself though. Most of the meetings are held after first shift during the time when I would normally be at home anyway, which is exactly where I would be tomorrow if I didn't have to drive to Alabama.
I received a phone call from one of my managers about Two this morning. Of course I didn't answer but checked my voice mail first thing this morning. Had it been from either of the other two I probably would have picked up the phone but this is from the guy that can't wipe his bum without calling me fifty times today.
Apparently he had been getting calls from his employees all night long and had spent half the night at the store. I honestly think he's lying and just wants to call in on me. For one thing, in the four months that he has worked for me his employees have never been able to get in touch with him before when they need him. He just doesn't bother answer his calls and they normally end up calling me. He left some rambling voice mail about the bathroom door being locked and they didn't know what to do and then he goes on to explain that he didn't know what to do because he didn't know how to handle it.
I didn't even bother to call him, although I will call shortly to make sure his ass is out of bed and on the way to work. Why is common sense so uncommon?
Time to go to work I suppose.
Almost forgot to post this today...
That's usually the last thing you'll hear before one of my redneck buddies does something extremely stupid but this is something to check out if you are concerned about the double standards of the ACLU when it comes to seperation of church and state. As far as the ACLU is concerned it only counts where Christians are concerned. If you are Muslim, it's business as usual.
My personal opinion is that I am all for the separation of church and state. I believe in neither Islam nor Christianity so the point is pretty much moot to me. I don't force my beliefs (or lack thereof) on other people and I respect their faith but also expect them to keep it out of my face. I occasionally go to church for weddings, etc... and encourage my daughter to keep going with her friends if only for the great social and moral implications.
Anyway, the Detroit chapter of the ACLU is trying to step away from the matter that the University of Michigan has recently spent $25000 to retrofit school bathrooms with footbaths to accomadate Muslims who must perform ritual washing as a part of their daily religious observance because they say that everyone can use the footbaths. Heck, exactly what I have been waiting for in the local Wal-Mart...not.
Stop the ACLU has a great post up about this story, go over and read the rest if you get the chance.
Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Right Pundits, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Perri Nelson's Website, Mark My Words, Committees of Correspondence, Rosemary's Thoughts, Right Truth, Big Dog's Weblog, DragonLady's World, Leaning Straight Up, The Amboy Times, The Bullwinkle Blog, Pursuing Holiness, Public Domain Clip Art, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, third world county, Faultline USA, Pirate's Cove, Blue Star Chronicles, Gulf Coast Hurricane Tracker, High Desert Wanderer, Right Voices, The Yankee Sailor, OTB Sports, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
...take a dump that felt so good it was like a mystical experience and tears streamed down your face?
Me either. Just wondering.
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I hate my employees at times. I am at my busier store today and tomorrow and usually the people there are pretty good about showing up for work and on time. Quite a few of the 'veterans' there I have trained over the years or they know how I am about people that are late or don't show up, so they have kind of spread the word.
It's not that I don't doubt that the guy is sick, but as far as I am concerned, you don't call in two hours prior to your shift unless you are on the way to the fricking hospital. 90% of the time that I wake up feeling like crap byt the time I am at work or at the very least halfway through my day I don't feel as bad as I did. I guess that's just the hourly mentality in this guy. "Oh, I can't come in, I have a cold sore wah wah wah".
I've been in a pretty foul mood all weekend and it has sort of carried over to today if you couldn't tell.
I was already pissed off because I had to sit in a meeting until five this evening because the food cost is out of line at two of my stores. I am having a hard time tracking it because my managers aren't doing their job, so I get to sit in this damn thing every Monday for awhile.
I've spent most of the morning working on site templates. No changes here, just tweaking of a few sites and adding in Google sitemaps. I recently started a blog strictly for HTPC enthusiasts and had to add the sitemaps to Google. No real content there, I'll link to it later on.
Hopefully today won't be too terribly long. Unfortunately since a couple of my managers aren't doing everything that they should be I am going to be stuck in a meeting this afternoon for at least an hour after the day shift. I am going to try and wheedle my way out of it though. It's mainly for the folks that aren't doing everything that they need to. Neither of these guys are too happy about having to go but there is a solution for that too.
As we are winding down the summer it's starting to slow down a bit and that will give me a couple of months to work on getting these people trained and getting staffed for the holiday season. Not only that but there are a couple of things going on the next two months that I am looking forward to such as going to the boy's graduation ceremony next month as well as the blogmeet in Helen in October.
By now I am at work, I have to leave the house at 6:15 or so, but wanted to get a couple of posts up and scheduled before I left the house. Cross your fingers that I will get home at a decent time.
The words just won't come tonight so I am going to get a bit of much needed shut eye. Wait for the page to load and then listen to this instead...
21st Century Schizoid Man - King Crimson
I walked outside for a smoke a little while ago and was almost overwhelmed by the sounds. There is a small wooded area between our house and the houses on the next street over that runs the length of the street. The sounds emanating from the trees were a mixture of tree frogs and cicadas. Melodies moved through the trees in waves back and forth as if in a contest to see which group could overpower the other with their strange brand of music.
Normally I can go out and hear them in the evening but never have they been quite so loud as they were tonight.
I was hanging out over at Pointless Drivel and Mr Fabulous put up a post that I commented on that briefly touched on this subject. I wanted to pontificate but it ran too long so I cut it down to a sentence or two and decided to put the rest here where it belongs, in the cesspool that is my brain. Only you get to share in it.
Let's face it. I work in a pretty fast paced environment. There are no set breaks. Big Sally doesn't get to take 15 at 10 AM while I get 30 minutes for lunch at 11. It just doesn't work that way. Everyone has to take turns and when it's busy you just don't get breaks. This brings around the fact that sometimes you have to combine what you are doing in order to get it all in.
I've been known to balance a drink and a sandwich in one hand while holding a smoke in the other hiding outside the building trying to get it all down in about five minutes. I will also occasionally wander into the crapper while eating, although I try to make sure nobody sees me do it. It can be interesting trying to eat while using the bathroom, and zipping back up is a bitch. Good thing I wear that black apron. I could walk around all day with the willie hanging out and you would never be the wiser. Unless of course someone hot walked in. Then there might be pokey issues with the apron that might best be hidden within the folds of the old briefs.
Now when I am at home I will take all sorts of stuff into the toilet with me. Normal accessories include my cell phone. People get pleasantly surprised with grunting and splashing when they talk to me on the phone. If it's one of my 'pains in the asses' that have to call me ten times a shift because they can't find their ink pen I take distinct pleasure in ripping loose a good fart or two and then make sure to flush before we hang up. I also usually take my iPaq and play solitaire when I'm farting around. I tend sneak my smokes in and turn the fan on as well. Not that the wife doesn't know I'm doing it but the mixture of poopy and cigarette smoke is volatile to a non-smoker. If I have coffee I'll take it and a book if there's a good one I'm reading.
I tried taking the laptop, but it gets pretty hot and balancing it on my lap while my pants are down around my ankles is something I only tried once. No singe marks on my dugan!
Eating can be quite a sticky issue. Literally! I have no problem eating while in there. My nether rgions are probably cleaner than my hands anyway, so what's the problem? You just have to be picky what you get. Nothing to terribly hot obviously. I have on occasion spilled a bit of coffee and it's like setting the laptop on there, only in liquid form. No donuts, no PBJ sandwiches. Snack cakes are alright but then you have to deal with the issue of crumbs and explain to the wife why there were crumbs in your pubes. 'Oh, it's OK honey, I was just eating a Ding Dong' just doesn't sound the same when used in that particular context for some stupid reason.
I don't remember where I found the link but go over to Inventor Spot and check out the article.
I think I want to get some of those squirrel nut condoms.
I overslept this morning and didn't get out of bed until almost five but in the time I sat here drinking coffee I managed to bang out about five of those entries I had to do. Most of them were on other blogs anyway. I also have a couple of things scheduled today while I am at work including a new letter from the boy. Finally found out whether he had qualified on the rifle range or not...
It's time to get my ass in gear. back later.
Catchy headline anyway. Here's the deal. Every month (for the time being anyway) PPP is having a contest and giving something away. The contest is the Blog Battle Royale. Details on the contest (and the link to vote) are here. Basically we all wrote and entry about what type of robot we would create, what it would look like, what it would do, how it would be marketed, etc...Of course mine is a bit off-kilter like everything around here. Here is my entry into the contest, the Sooper Dooper SurrogateChild 2000.
There are 36 blogs competing against each other and the five that have the most votes when voting ends at noon on Monday each get an iRobot Roomba, one of those vacuum robots. Pretty sweet, no?
There are some pretty good entries, so go read them and vote for your favorite one. If you don't have time to read them all, that's OK just vote for me because I have the best looking hat AND a drawing of the darn thing (the robot as well as my hat) and if you show up to the blogmeet in Helen in October I will cut you up and feed you to the fishies in the Chattahoochee if you haven't!!
Oh by the way, leave me a comment and let me know what you think about the robot!
Track-Posted to Stop the ACLU's Friday Free for All.
Trackposted to Samantha Burns, Blue Star Chronicles, Outside the Beltway, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Perri Nelson's Website, Rosemary's Thoughts, 123beta, Adam's Blog, Webloggin, Leaning Straight Up, The Amboy Times, The Bullwinkle Blog, Public Domain Clip Art, The Uncooperative Radio Show! Special Weekend!, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, Faultline USA, third world county, Right Celebrity, Woman Honor Thyself, Pirate's Cove, The Pink Flamingo, High Desert Wanderer, Right Voices, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
I suppose there is something to be said for extreme sports but I am partial to trying to chug two beers at a time myself. That's about as extreme as it gets.
Hopefully today won't be a terribly long day. I have one of my managers off today and I am sure it will be busy but I have two pretty decent cooks and as long as they show up I should be able to get out of there in a timely manner. The good thing is that one of the two manager trainees is working and she is having to do her required second shifts which means that she will handle drawer change tonight and I won't have to worry about that too much as long as everyone shows up.
I was pleased to see when I logged into one of the posting services that I use that I was given a bunch of extra assignments. They aren't particularly long posts that I have to write, but I do have around 25 spread across three blogs. I will try and get most of them finished this evening. I should be able to do them in about two hours if I'm humping it.
One of my employees is this guy that I hired in 1995 or '96. He was just a kid back then. He has worked for me once or twice over the years and each time I've noticed that he has gone farther and farther in his drug use. The fact is it is a pretty rampant problem with quite a few of our employees. This last year he finally came to a couple of us looking for a referral service so that he could get into a drug treatment center and get his act together. We did what we could and he's back at work for me now and doing a pretty decent job. I'm glad to see that because he has two beautiful children and needs to keep his nose clean in order to be able to see them and spend time with them.
What is it about people?
I spent about five hours at work today, in a couple of my stores. Since I am working seven days this week I decided to cut this one short but while I was there I went through my waters and waitresses tickets for the last few shifts. Pretty much what I expected. Most of them know their prices or at least take the time to look them up if they don't know them, but a few of them don't have a fucking clue. Either their prices are just wrong, which accounts for about 50% of them, or they aren't writing the tickets correctly and actually have the right prices but I marked them wrong anyway because there is only one way to do things in my organization and those took up the other half of the tickets.
One of my managers called me with his staffing a little while ago (they have to call me at 9pm with sales and staffing every day at the three shift changes) and said that two of the waitresses were angry about me hanging up their mistakes on the wall in the back room. Oh yes, I create a wall of shame for the worst offenders. Normally a couple of days of everyone looking at the tickets corrects them pretty quickly. Anyway, they were mad and said they know their prices and I'm just reading the tickets wrong.
bwahaha. I told him that either their prices are wrong or their tickets are wrong but either way they need to fucking fix the problem. I tend to believe that they don't know their prices OR how to write tickets otherwise I would have more money going into the cash register based on the amount of food they are using, but that's a whole different deal there.
Maybe it's just me but I tend to feel like no matter what you are doing, whether it be designing the tallest building in the world or pouring fucking coffee that you should take a little pride in yourself and do the best job possible and not have to blame everyone else for your mistakes, but since that is what their manager does 99% of the time I can see where they might get that. I don't tolerate that crap.
I left him a list of stuff to get done this morning before I headed off to my other store, most of the things on it were on the last three lists I have left him. All he had was excuses for why he couldn't get it done and it invariably was somebody else's fault or he just did not have enough time. Bear in mind this is the slowest store I have. I wanted to punch the fucker so bad it was all I could do to get out of the store. I am swiftly losing patience with this dude and it tells in my conversations with him now. I just can't help it. Sooner or later "why don't you get the lead out of your ass" is going to tumble out of my mouth and I will be jobless.
I know I wasn't going to post about work much anymore, so I just broke rule number 1.
I think it's time to surf for awhile, got a blog review to write that I have been avoiding all evening...Perhaps tomorrow.
Now this I could do...
Clouds have moved in and I'm getting a lot of thunder. Hopefully a bit of rain will follow. My plants are looking extremely pitiful
The wife called and I think she and the youngest are going out for dinner prior to coming home, which is fine as I have a small bit of writing to take care of. I've got what's left of a wonderful Calzone from an Italian place in town to finish anyway. Since I was working on my day off I left at 11:30 and met another one of the district manager's for lunch. It was great but the damned thing is huge.
A good blogger friend of mine is going to be spending some time in Europe this fall. I am very envious of him. I will eventually get the chance to spend time overseas but until then I can keep writing about it and dreaming.
One of the places I would like to go is the Netherlands. Amsterdam is a beautiful city and the people I have met that call Amsterdam home are extremely nice and polite. I was looking at the Amsterdam Hotel Guide and came across a place called the Holly Hotel Carlton. Just looking at the picture makes me want to visit. In addition to Amsterdam one of the European Cities that I want to visit is London. The pictures in the London Hotel Guide just cannot do it justice.
That's the Tower Bridge, in London. One of the things things that are so different in the U.S. as opposed to most European countries is that they are steeped in centuries of history and it shows in the architecture as well as the stories.
All in all I wouldn't mind having a couple of months free time to just wander around Europe and site see. Once the kids are gone perhaps the wife and I will really get a chance to grab a Europe Hotels Guide and just hit the road for a few months.
Aside from Amsterdam and London I would eventually like to see Paris, parts of Bavaria, Ireland, and would really like to visit Russia/
I had to go out this morning and take care of a few things before I really got started at the house. I drove into town and mailed a care package to my nephew in Iraq. Just some stuff, candy, DVDs, Vodka Mouthwash; you know, useful stuff that they don't get a lot of. Dealing with the Postal Service is always fun. Had to fill out some paperwork for customs. I made sure to send it priority so that if it can't get delivered it will come back here instead.
After that I dropped a bunch of paperwork off to a friend of mine who is also a district manager and will be at our weekly meeting today. She was in the same boat that I currently am. A crappy manager, except that her's finally quit so she is running the store as well as the rest of her district. I also dropped by the Elementary School since my daughter had forgotten her lunch today.
Had to make a run to Wal-Mart after that and pick up some lunch stuff for the kids and a scratching post for the other kids and then get a bite to eat at a fast food joint. Nothing beats a couple of good hot burgers and onion rings, washed down with a Dr Pepper.
I was going to work in the yard for awhile when I got home but after three hours of riding around in the car with no fricking air I am done for the day. I still need to straighten the house as well but I have lost any energy I had and all I really want to do right now is take a nap.
This is a test of the emergency broadcasting system...
No, actually I am testing the EntryPost plugin for Movabletype. Check it out if you get a chance...
Editor's Note - Hey, this works great. When you submit an entry it sits and waits until I go in and approve it or edit it and then approve. Very nice. You can also use this as a way to contact me as well iffen you don't want to send an e-mail. I'll just delete the entry if it's used to contact me, and go on about my merry way :)
I was wandering through Wal-Mart looking for strapping tape yesterday when I ran across a bunch of paintball equipment among the sporting good section and it got me to thinking about how much the Boy loved to go out with his buddies and their paintball gear and spend the afternoon just having a good time. The could go through two huge cases of paintballs in one afternoon. I almost broke down then and there and purchased a bunch of paintball guns and paintball gun parts. I would probably be better off ordering through an online paintball store though, which is what kept me from making the purchase. That's one thing I never had the chance to do with him that needs to be rectified soon. He will be home for ten days around the middle of September and prior to me going back to work from my vacation I would like to do a couple of things with him. Maybe now that he has spent the last few weeks at boot camp we could play a couple of games of MilSim paintball.
Man today seemed like the longest day so far this week. I am tired, hot and I hurt. My feet hurt, my head hurts and my back hurts. The wife thinks I'm not drinking enough water which is probably the case. As hot as it has been working inside on the grill certainly isn't any more comfortable even with air conditioning.
I had a couple of people not show up for work today so ended up working a bit later than I normally would have. This being the last day of the week I should have finished quite a bit of paperwork but didn't get a single thing done. I am going to end up having to go in in an hour and a half or so and spend several hours getting my stuff finished. I'm not particularly happy about it, but I have stuff that I just have to get done.
I am not a huge art critic by any means. My idea of fine art is a couple of Norman Rockwell prints, some posters from the Shakespeare festival and an oil painting of my kids. In my living there hangs the aforementioned Shakespeare Festival Poster (framed of course), a picture of Buddha from some art show and a framed photograph of a swamp scene with a dock and a boathouse. It's actually a pretty cool picture. What I don't have are any paintings of the family. We do have plenty of photographs of the kids that hang on the wall in the stairway but nothing large in the living room yet. It's not even the money. It's more a matter of time and getting everyone to sit down at the same time in the same place.
Paint Your Life is a company that will take your photographs and turn them into 100% hand-painted portrait. The paintings are all done by portrait painters that are skilled in wedding portraits, child and pets portraits as well. You can have your photograph turned into an oil painting, watercolor portrait, charcoal drawing or pencil sketch and it's very affordable as well. Paintings start at $99 and the charcoal and pencil sketches start at $69.
That bed sure was comfortable this morning. I had a very hard time getting up and although I am on my second cup of coffee right now I still want to crawl back in the bed and go back to sleep. At least this is my Friday though. I was planning on taking Thursday and Friday off (the real Friday) but I have been having some issues in a couple of the stores and will end up working on Friday and only being able to take one day off now. I'm not particularly happy about it and while I don't have any intentions of making people miserable the folks that are the cause of me having to work on my day off are going to feel my displeasure on Friday when I spend the entire day with them.
People are funny sometimes. You can take a handful of people that don't gamble, enter contests or buy lottery tickets and give them a couple of scratch scratch and win cards and watch them 'go to town' on the things. The stores that I run are fairly busy in the evening, more so than the company average and that means selling more steaks and other supper items. As a result my food cost is higher than the average as well. It's a constant battle to get it down to where I want it. We are actually running a couple of contests for my hourly employees in order to raise awareness and to recognize the associates that are doing a good job. One of them is that whichever store has the most improvement this fiscal period, all of the associates get T-shirts. The other thing we are doing is with smaller stuff like gift cards and scratch off cards with different prizes and monetary amounts. The associates love it.
Instant Win Productions is a company that specializes in scratch and win games. We've also used the scratch and win cards to give out coupons to customers as well and they handle these types of things as well as huge monetary amounts as well. They have very competitive prices and supply a quality product when you need it.
When I read about this story the first person I thought of in St Augustine was Velociman but this asshat is 23. Then I realized that it was a Catholic Church that he ran into with his Ford F-150 and all was well with the world.
It's a threefer...
...the asshats will play. Maybe it doesn't go exactly like that but in my experience it seems to be that way.
I have three managers. My strongest manager is also the newest so she doesn't have 100% control over her folks yet but they are quickly learning that they need to behave. My most experienced manager is too damn nice, not quite wishy-washy but close. I am fixing that. I trained him a couple three years ago when I was managing so he knows how I am. The store he took over in February was his second one and it happens to be the one that had the perverted camera dude prior to that. Before that manager the one that opened the store about a year ago also had no backbone so these people have gone close to two years with no discipline or direction.
The employees at the other two stores love it when I work with them but these folks hate it because I spend two days being a complete asshole to them because close to 90% of the things they do are the wrong way so it isn't just a matter of gently correcting ands redirecting. I am constantly correcting and in some cases criticizing, which is something I hate to do.
My third store the manager has absolutely no control over his people and they have no respect for him. He's lazy and treats most of them like shit and goes out drinking with the one or two that are his favorites which is a big no-no as a professional. As a matter of fact it's part of our written policy that we don't fraternize with them. That kind of stuff can lead to all kinds of problems.
Either way, when I am spending time at the stores they behave. They also show up for work and on time because they know that if they aren't at least in the parking lot prior to shift change I have no problem calling in replacements. Too many people that want to work to deal with their drama and bullshit.
My managers each work six days on and two off and I generally take one or two of the days in between. That way they eventually each get a weekend. There are some exceptions to it during holidays and race weekends but for the most part I don't mess with their days off and I leave the rotation alone. Occasionally something will come up where one will request a different day off and I generally try to get it done. This was one of those weekends. My new manager is off today and tomorrow and I had promised my most experienced manager the weekend off. Rather than make one of them change I decided to just deal with it. I spent the day at my busiest store and left the other one in the hands of two manager trainees and my relief manager. You would think that with three of the eight employees working being some type of management that shit would get done but you would be oh so fucking wrong.
The waitresses left out of there without doing ANYTHING that they were supposed to. After I finished at the first store I had to go take care of the paperwork and banking at the one I wasn't at today and when I got there it looked like they had been through a damned hurricane.
I have worked with most of the folks at that restaurant and have pretty much decided that most of them are going to have to be replaced, or at least a few key folks. My manager doesn't like getting rid of people or hiring and training new ones so I will just have to run them off myself. I've already started by firing the girl that hung me today.
What I have found interesting is that some of my old employees are starting to come out of the woodwork. The are where I run these three restaurants only had one until 2000 or 2001. I ran that restaurant all through the nineties and at one point it was the busiest one in the state. I have had a lot of people work for me and several of them have been popping back up lately. It's nice because they know how anal I am about cleaning honesty, timeliness, and no drama and stuff like that but they also know it makes them more money as well. I am slowly but surely replacing people with some of them.
Doesn't really show a lot, but here is the trailer to the Batman sequel, coming out next summer.
A while back I had posted about those four girls that died in an SUV crash because the driver had allegedly been texting and driving at the same time. I made some comment about teenagers and retards being the only one who send text message whilst driving. Zonker piped up in my comments and said that he drives and texts while driving. Although I felt bad I made a pithy comment about him needing to make sure that he wears clean underwear while driving (because you never know when you are going to be in an accident.)
So I'm driving down the road and I see this dude with one hand on the wheel and the other sending text messages on his phone. Was he texting his lovely wife? Maybe something horrendous had happened at home! There must have been some unavoidable emergency and he was racing to the scene to render aid... Perhaps he was frantically running from the murderous thugs in the sedan behind him? Nope. None of the above.
He was sending text messages to Twitter. I saw this retard in my rear view mirror and he looked amazingly like me!
Sometimes you just have to eat your fucking words.
Twitter Kills
Although I would enjoy going to Atlanta this evening to get together with some folks I think we are having company at the house for supper. In addition to that I have a manager off today so I need to stick around the general vicinity just in case something happens at work and I need to get there fast.
Even with him being off everything should go well today. I have a cook as well as a manager trainee and my new relief manager going to be there. It should be a cake-walk as long as everyone shows up for work. That's the hard part I suppose.
My old relief manager has pretty much disappeared on me. He has been working two different jobs the last few weeks, and is single and fairly young so spends a bit of time partying when he would otherwise be sleeping if he was smart. He no-showed on me three times the last ten days he is working and I think he is just too embarrassed to come talk to me and apologize. It's not a huge deal with me. I know he's been working his ass off and if he comes back around later wanting a job I will be more than happy to give him one.
I was somewhat interested in joining in on the Alzheimer's Association's Memory Walk this year to raise money and awareness for Alzheimer's disease but apparently it's being held on October 13th, which is the same weekend that the Helen Blogmeet is going on. Damn, I feel selfish. Walk 15 miles - Get drunk with bloggers in Helen. What a choice.
I will just have to donate or something I suppose. Maybe next year.
...not in the individual stores of course but at the corporate office they finally got a decent financial reporting software to work with. It's about time. Including our franchisees we have over 1500 restaurants now and it's much harder to keep track of things once a company starts growing like that. I find that really amazing sometimes because when I started we had just a smidge over 500 stores including all of our franchisees around the country.
Modern Skate & Surf is an action sports store and skate park that has four stores in the Michigan area in Lansing, Royal Oak, Grand Rapids and Novi. They also have an online store that carries just about any type of action sport gear that you can think of, including skateboarding, surfing, snow sports, water sports, ice and roller skating as well as clothes and accessories.
The Surfboard Warehouse is an Orlando company that was founded to cater to the custom surfboard market. The maker of about 90% of foam blanks used in custom surfboards used to be a company named Clarke Foam. The closed for business in 2005, which seriously hurt the custom surfboard business.
The Surfboard Warehouse carries surfboards such as Lost, Cordell, Linden, Cannibal and Lucas in addition to others and also has plenty of surf gear and accessories from all the major names. They are able to ship completely shaped surf boards to customers in four to six weeks and will deliver anywhere, even if you are traveling.
They also carry every fin from the best fin companies in the world including FCS fins and Future Fins. Shipping is free on any fin that you order as well. The Surfboard Warehouse was also featured in ESM - Eastern Surf Magazine in October 2006. If you need a custom surfboard or gear and accessories, go check out the Surfboard Warehouse.
Today was a pretty easy day at work. All of my managers were in, so I spent a little while at each store, did the banking for a couple of them, checked some tickets for pricing and them went to Wal-Mart to get something for supper tonight. Like I said, easy day.
The ride home wasn't quite as nice. It's hot as blazes out there. Somewhere between 100 and 105 and humid as hell. I pulled my little fan out of the Dodge Van that plugs into the lighter socket, but all it does is blow hot air on me. At least it was moving it around I guess. I was pouring sweat by the time I got inside.
The wife and girls still aren't home yet, so I figured that would give me time to get a little posting finished. She should be leaving at some point shortly to get the girls. No cooking tonight. It's going to have to be sandwich night or something.
One other purchase I made while I was there was this nifty little remote controlled dragonfly. It's cool. The girls will love it, right up until they destroy it. I will try to get some pictures up tonight.
Laura posted the link to this video in the comments last night and I just thought I would share it. This guy has a busted air conditioning unit in his car so he rigged one up. It was immediately obvious that he was either a redneck from around these parts, or an engineer. Turns out he's a recent graduate with a BA in civil engineering. I'm only surprised that it's not bigger.
Now that I think about it, I have one of those fans that you plug into your lighter sitting in the back of my van. I think I will pull it out of there this morning and put it in my car.
The wife just called and she will be picking the girls up from school shortly. I'm interested in hearing how their day went. I also ran out of smokes and am going to have to brave riding in the furnace to go get some, as well as possibly dinner although we may just get pizza or Chinese tonight.
Have to go fold laundry now. Back later.
I just went out to get the mail. I only thought it was hot this morning. Damn. I think I need a beer now just to recover from the walk to the mailbox (20 yards from the porch).
aaahhh. Guinness Extra Stout. I always know that there will be beer in the fridge if I by Guinness because I am the only one here that will touch the stuff.
Wanna know just how fucking cheap I really am when it comes to purchasing clothing for myself? Well, a couple of weeks ago my shoes separated from the sole at the toes. A touch of marine contact adhesive fixed that shit right up. Or how about these bad boys?
One would think that Mr Fab had snuck into my house to wear my damned underwear. Actually I just have to make sure the family jewels are protected and there are no nasty skid marks. The rest is all window dressing anyway. It's not as if I wear my damn underwear where you can see it, unlike quite a few young people now.
I must be getting fucking desperate for blog fodder. Where's a good blogmeet when you need one. Maybe I will take that pair instead of disposing of them, and fly them outside my cabin like a flag.
Since I post quite a bit about vacations and different places I want to go, I also frequent a few sites that specialize in that genre. One of the sites that I have come across is the Asia travel blog. Blogasian has Asian news on travel and hotels, and has nice thorough descriptions and some pictures as well, and we all know that I prefer pictures any day. They have several photos accompanying the blog posts which is a must for me. I like to be able to get a visual to go along with what I am reading.
There is everything over there from a guide to Taj Mahal to the Top 5 Ways to Spot Lady Boys in Thailand, one of those skills that you need to have if you ever go spend time in Asia. The Lady Boys post is particularly funny. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Regarding the Taj Mahal post, here is what they have to say
If I recall I may have posted this list a couple of years ago but a reader sent it to me the other day and recycled shit is better than none at all. :)
1. I can see your point, but I still think you're full of sh--.
2. I don't know what your problem is, but I'll bet it's hard to
pronounce.
3. How about never? Is never good for you?
4. I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in
public.
5. I'm really easy to get along with once you people learned to see
it my way.
6. I'll try being nicer if you'll try being smarter
7. I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message.
8. I don't work here, I'm a consultant.
9. It sounds like English, but I can't understand a word you're
saying.
10. Ahhh... I see the screw-up fairy has visited us again...
11. I like you. You remind me of myself when I was young and stupid.
12. You are validating my inherent mistrust of strangers.
13. I have plenty of talent and vision; I just don't give a damn.
14. I'm already visualizing the duct tape over your mouth.
15. I will always cherish the initial misconceptions I had about
you.
16. Thank you. We're all refreshed and challenged by your unique
point.
17. The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an
artist.
18. Any connection between your reality and mine is purely
coincidental.
19. What am I? Flypaper for freaks!?
20. I'm not being rude. You're just insignificant.
21. It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off.
22. Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely
ceremonial.
23. And your crybaby whiny-assed opinion would be...?
24. Do I look like a people person?
25. This isn't an office; it's Hell with fluorescent lighting.
26. I started out with nothing and still have most of it left.
27. Sarcasm is just one more service we offer.
28. If I throw a stick, will you leave?
29. Errors have been made. Others will be blamed.
30. Whatever kind of look you were going for, you missed.
31. I'm trying to imagine you with a personality.
32. A cubicle is just a padded cell without a door.
33. Can I trade this job for what's behind door #1?
34. Too many freaks, not enough circuses.
35. Nice perfume. Must you marinate in it?
36. Chaos, panic, and disorder --- my work here is done.
37. How do I set a laser printer to stun?
38. I thought I wanted a career; turns out I just wanted a salary.
39. Who lit the fuse on your tampon?
40. Oh I get it... like humor... but different.
Now this would be a really kicking vacation. St. Moritz is the oldest winter resort in the world and is truly a beautiful place.
St. Moritz has several 'sister cities' including Bariloche, Argentina; Kutchan, Japan; and Vail, Colorado. It is a popular site for skiing and hiking as well as the world famous Cresta Run toboggan course. St. Moritz is also the starting point for some of the famous Swiss Train tours such as the Glacier Express. The Glacier Express really isn't an express train. It's not particularly fast at all, but it is a series of stops on several rail lines that travel through the beautiful country of Switzerland.
As an overseas tourist even with a Eurail pass you can only ride the Glacier Express from St. Moritz to Muster without additional Swiss-Pass train tickets. The Swiss Passes give you unlimited travel for whatever length of time you purchase it for on almost all of Switzerland's public transportation systems including buses, trains, and boats. Overall it is a pretty good deal.
From the pictures and videos I have seen of Switzerland and in particular the Glacier Express it is a really beautiful place.
I know it's an hour or so early but I need to get to bed. No sleeping late for me on the first day of school for the girls.
Thong Song
This thing right here
Is lettin' all the ladies know
What guys talk about
You know, the finer things in life
a heh heh heh
Check it Out
Ooh that dress so scandalous
And you know another nigga can't handle it
So you shakin that thang like who's the ish
With a look in yer eyes so devilish
Uh
You like to dance on the hip hop spots
And you cruise to grooves to connect the dots
Not just urban she like the pop
'Cause she was Livin' La Vida Loca
She had dumps like a truck, truck, truck
Thighs like what, what, what
Baby move your butt, butt, butt
I think i'll sing it again
She had dumps like a truck, truck, truck
Thighs like what, what, what
All night long
Let me see that thong
I like it when the beat goes
Duh dun duh
Baby make your booty go
Duh dun duh
Baby I know you wanna show
Duh dun duh
That thong thong thong thong thong
I like it when the beat goes
Duh dun duh
Baby make your booty go
Duh dun duh
Baby I know you wanna show
Duh dun duh
That thong thong thong thong thong
That girl so scandalous
And I know another nigga can't handle it
And she shakin' that thing like who's the ish
With a look in her eyes so devilish
She like to dance on the hip hop spots
And she cruise to the grooves to connect the dots
Not just urban she like the pop
Cause she was Livin La Vida Loca
She had dumps like a truck, truck, truck
Thighs like what, what, what
Baby move your butt, butt, butt
I think i'll sing it again
She had dumps like a truck, truck, truck
Thighs like what, what, what
All night long
Let me see that thong
I like it when the beat goes
Duh dun duh
Baby make your booty go
Duh dun duh
Baby I know you wanna show
Duh dun duh
That thong thong thong thong thong
I like it when the beat goes
Duh dun duh
Baby make your booty go
Duh dun duh
Baby I know you wanna show
Duh dun duh
That thong thong thong thong thong
I like it when the beat goes
Duh dun duh
Baby make your booty go
Duh dun duh
Baby I know you wanna show
Duh dun duh
That thong thong thong thong thong
I like it when the beat goes
Duh dun duh
Baby make your booty go
Duh dun duh
Baby I know you wanna show
Duh dun duh
That thong thong thong thong thong
That dress so scandalous
I swear another nigga couldn't handle it
When you shakin' that thing like whose the ish
With a look in your eyes do devilish
Uh
You like to dance on the hip hop spots
Then you cruise to the grooves to connect the dots
Not just urban you like the pop
Cause she was Livin La Vida Loca
She had dumps like a truck, truck, truck
Thighs like what, what, what
Baby move your butt, butt, butt, uh
I think i'll sing it again
'Cause she had dumps like a truck, truck, truck
Thighs like what, what, what
Baby move your butt, butt, butt, uh
I think i'll sing it again
C'mon
C'mon
C'mon
C'mon
I like it when the beat goes
Duh dun duh
Baby make your booty go
Duh dun duh
Baby I know you wanna show
Duh dun duh
That thong thong thong thong thong
I like it when the beat goes
Duh dun duh
Baby make your booty go
Duh dun duh
Baby I know you wanna show
Duh dun duh
That thong thong thong thong thong
I like it when the beat goes
Duh dun duh
Baby make your booty go
Duh dun duh
Baby I know you wanna show
Duh dun duh
That thong thong thong thong thong
I like it when the beat goes
Duh dun duh
Baby make your booty go
Duh dun duh
Baby I know you wanna show
Duh dun duh
That thong thong thong thong thong
I like it when the beat goes
Duh dun duh
Baby make your booty go
Duh dun duh
Baby I know you wanna show
Duh dun duh
That thong thong thong thong thong
Duh dun duh
Duh dun duh
Duh dun duh
Thong, thong, thong, thong, thong
Duh dun duh
Duh dun duh
Duh dun duh
Thong, thong, thong, thong, thong
I like it when the beat goes
Duh dun duh
Baby make your booty go
Duh dun duh
Baby I know you wanna show
Duh dun duh
That thong thong thong thong thong
I like it when the beat goes
Duh dun duh
Baby make your booty go
Duh dun duh
Baby I know you wanna show
Duh dun duh
That thong thong thong thong thong
I like it when the beat goes
Duh dun duh
Baby make your booty go
Duh dun duh
Baby I know you wanna show
Duh dun duh
That thong thong thong thong thong
Wait for it...Don't click if you are easily offended...
I think I did fairly well considering I've been up for about twenty hours now. Doesn't make me feel any better though. I only wish it would show which ones I got wrong. I missed four out of twenty-five.
Am-I-Dumb.com - Are you dumb?
H/T to Chickie for the link.
The older I get the more I discover that I am starting to like warm places more and more.
I have always like funny, cool T-shirts and apparently my son has inherited my taste for them as well. I used to have some pretty rude ones as a matter of fact, but over the last twenty years they have mostly fallen apart never to be replaced. I still wear the ones that I have occasionally as well as some of them that I snagged from the boy while he is at Boot Camp. I did find a couple of sites on the Internet that sell twisted T-Shirts, one I particularly like is Tees With a Twist.
They have plenty of different shirts but of course the first link I had to click on over there was the Naughty Tees section. They also have political, sexy, whimsical, emo tees, and several other categories to choose from. I guess this one is my favorite for some odd reason...
There are some really cool Sci-Fi and Fantasy shirts over there as well. I haven't really had time to go through them all but I know where I will be spending some of my left-over clothing money next month anyway. There's nothing more comfortable than a t-shirt and a pair of jeans.
That's what time I got out of work this afternoon. It is probably the earliest I managed to get home since I was a store manager. Very nice. The only bad part is that it is right at 100 degrees out so that ride home in my no-air car sucked. I had to go pick the girls up from the baby sitter as we have open house in an hour or so, then the wife has to go back to work for HER open house.
Looks to be a long evening...
I am so ready for fall to get here.
Just need a few beers in a cooler and I would be good to go. Hell, as hot as it has been in that stupid car with no air the last couple of weeks I think I could kick all their asses.
At least lately it is. I have a manager off today but I was still able to get out of there by about a quarter till three. Try as I might to get out the door by two something seems to come up to hold me around. The store was a little better than it has been for the last three months, mainly because I spent so much time there while the dude was on vacation last week. I still had to go in and clean up his nasty mess behind him but it was a slight improvement.
I also spent about half the morning helping out another district manager whose store manager decided to get drunk and not show up for work until ten this morning (four hours late). It could have been worse I suppose. It's one of my old stores so I got some folks in there to take care of the restaurant and made it back to my own little hell hole in time to get some of my stuff finished.
I should have been up about 45 minutes ago. Damn I didn't want to get out of bed this morning. I stayed up too late working last night. Can't do that too often anymore because it is starting to kick my ass. I have two more days until I get a couple of days off and boy am I going to enjoy them this week.
Summer vacation is almost over for the girls. The wife is back to work today and the girls start school on Thursday. RePete starts pre-k this year. I just seems so amazing to me that she is old enough to be starting elementary school. No more amazing than having a son in the Marine Corp though. I don't feel old enough to have a son that's an adult and I damn sure don't act like it most days.
I think I will sit down and write him this afternoon. I am awful about writing letters no matter who they are too. It's just not something that I am very good at but I know he will appreciate it.
Roman Greenberg is the International Boxing Organization's current intercontinental heavyweight champion. He's won all of his professional fights, if I remember correctly it's 25 of them, with 17 being knock-outs. On August 18th 2007 he will be facing veteran boxer Damon Reed at the South Town Exhibition Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. Damon Reed is 10 years older than Roman Greenberg and will most likely be the toughest match for him in his career so far. The Greenberg versus Reed match is the headlining event along with three additional big name matches with other professionals such as David Tua, Joe Mesi and Jeremy Williams.
The scuttlebutt is that Roman Greenberg is also on a list of possible opponents to face Vitali Klitschko in a come back fight in September. The last time that Klitschko fought was in September 2004 when he fought Danny Williams.
One of Roman Greenberg's biggest sponsors is Backgammon Masters online. They have been sponsoring him since early in his career when the decision was made that Greenberg, although unknown at the time, had great potential and was going to move quickly in his career.
Backgammon Masters is the premier online web resource for backgammon rules and information. With an extensive library of information on backgammon, how to play, links to articles and books, strategies and a thorough glossary, anyone interested in learning or getting better at the game should go check out the site but don't forget to tune in to payperview for the Roman Greenberg v. Damon Reed heavyweight fight on August 18th.
I got home some time between three and four this afternoon. I was completely exhausted. I don't have air in the car so after having ridden in it for half an hour and going to Wal-Mart I was sweating like a pig and probably stinking like one as well. I took a shower and then lay down with the youngest girl for a couple of minutes. I had not planned on napping as I have several hours of work today both for my real job and online, but I woke up at six. No damn caffeine so I am still in a fog. I don't do very well without it to wake up with. I tend to bite people's heads off.
I am getting ready to go back to work but have been waiting on this upgrade for MT to finish before that. I have to chmod some stuff but can't do it until my FTP client finishes uploading.
In the meantime I'm working on my Itinerary for the next three months. I should have had this done 14 days ago but have pretty much just been playing it by ear.
Sometimes it's difficult not to just hit people or cuss them out. I spent fifteen minutes on the phone late last night on my way home from work with someone who wanted to argue semantics with me about something we have to do before they actually got to the point of what was really important. By the time he finally got to the point he had wasted the time of five different people including myself and probably pissed them off just as bad as he did me. Stupid fucker...
I just finished installing Windowblinds 6.0 Beta, here is a screenshot of my current desktop. Nothing major going on right now. Windows Sidebar, 5imple Alpha Windowblinds, animated background.
It's about time for me to start shopping for the holidays in the next couple of weeks. In addition to Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years both of my girls have birthdays as do I. Immediately after Christmas my son and wife have birthdays. Thus the fact that I am in the poor house five months of the year and only a pauper the other seven. I'm going to do the same thing I did last year and use Coupon Chief for most of these purchases, at least the ones online. I have posted about Coupon Chief before and how useful they are. They have up to date coupons and great deals along with excellent customer support. Want some examples of the coupons I found today?
You're getting them anyway.
Normally when I go over there it's looking for computer supplies and deals but I am probably not going to be getting any type of PC equipment for people this year so I went looking at some of the 'normal' stuff.
Target has some pretty good deals at Coupon Chief right now such as $5 off any purchase $50 or more, free shipping when you have more than $25 in shoes and free shipping on orders over $50 in Womens. Not too bad. I hate getting clothes for Christmas or birthdays myself. I consider myself a better judge of what I want to wear than you are for some reason, but clothes are a great gift for my girls. They love them. Thus the fact that I will end up doing some of my shopping at Target. Now if you want to spend a couple hundred bucks and buy me a new leather jacket I might reconsider my opinion of you giving me clothes but that's about it.
Another store, and one that will be good for the wife is the Home Depot. Believe it or not, I want to get the wife and myself some new tools and a new chainsaw. Some tile for the bathroom would be cool too. Coupon Chief has several good deals for Home Depot such as a $250 Home Depot gift card with the purchase of select appliances, free delivery and haul away on appliances $299 and more, and there is an online clearance event going on right now with deals from 20%-50% off.
You get the gist of it. Use Coupon Chief when you are shopping online = save money. Don't use coupon chief = flush it down the toilet why dontcha!
Normally I don't get too involved in the daily lives of my employees but I have known some of these girls for literally most of their lives and one of them asked me for advice on her baby shower decorations. Her mother worked for me for several years and she came to work for me back in October of last year so even though I apply the rule to stay out of their personal business that just means to me that I won't attend but it doesn't stop me from helping them out if I have the chance. Having had three children of my own and going through this already gives me a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn't so I suggested something along the lines of a Winnie the Pooh baby shower.
Parents and kids alike love Pooh. It doesn't matter how old they are. It just brings back happy childhood memories for most of us. When we took the kids to Disney in 2005 one of the prized possessions that the youngest girl brought back was a stuffed Pooh Bear that I got for her.
Anyway, whether I am attending the shower or not is pretty much a moot point because planning is what I am good at, which is why she asked me for help with her baby shower and help picking out decorations for it.
I did give her one other suggestion for her baby shower theme just in case she didn't like Pooh and that was to have a Precious Moments shower theme like the one at Party Pail. They are both fairly inexpensive and include Thank You Cards, a centerpiece, plates, napkins, tableware, a tablecloth, balloons and streamers to decorate the room with.
Now obviously I can't have children but having three of them I know that being pregnant is no picnic so why not have a little fun with the baby shower in the meantime? Not to mention the fact that I just enjoy a good party, even one centered around children. That's one of the reasons we normally have our children's birthday parties at the house rather than someplace else. The other one is because I am just cheap like that.
I haven't been whining as much about work lately as I used to for some really simple reasons. My Area People Director (the head HR honcho in my area) is online and found me via LinkedIn. If he found me there I know he can find me on MySpace, where he does have an account, and that will eventually lead here. I don't particularly care if they see what I am posting and am not particularly afraid of losing my job over it, particularly since I don't use company names and generally don't use anyone from work's name other than calling them whiny assholes on occasion.
Oh, gotta stop that...
Anyway, I am more worried that they will see that I am making money on the side basically as a second job than them seeing I write about work on occasion. They are very controlling like that. As management we aren't "allowed" to work second jobs. Period.
So I will probably keep bitching but I am going to try and start using more generic terms so as to keep myself out of hot water...
I felt the need from manly things...
things...
boobs...
guns...
maybe a bit of whiskey...
...and not necessarily in that order.
As much as I hate it this morning because I seem to be in a posting mood, I have to get going and get ready for work. I have meetings this afternoon but hopefully it won't be such a long day as some of mine last week were. Provided he gets out of bed on time my relief manager is cooking today so at least I will have a semi-easy day.
I think maybe I will take the camera with me today and see if I can get some good stuff. Not likely being at work, but you never know...
The wife has to go back to work pretty shortly. Not sure if she is ready or not. Normally by this time of the year she is ready to get the hell away from our children and get back in front of everyone else's. There is a difference you know. Kids will always act differently in front of others than they do with their own parents.
It's time for me to hit the sack so I am going to go ahead and put this up a bit early.
A little something for you to wake up to...
RePete
Pete
...and Holder
...finally!
When I posted a link to the site a couple of weeks ago they were getting so many hits (obviously not just from me) that they took the site down. I assume that they have upgraded their servers and the application is back online. Here is me after being Simpsonized.
Damn, I can see the resemblance...If you want one, go to Simpsonize Me!
The meeting went fairly well this morning I thought. The guy didn't quit although he looked like he wanted to punch me in the face. Oh well, shit happens. Maybe he will start getting everything done now and make us both some money. That would be the ideal situation. Otherwise someone else can take his place.
With staying up late and getting up pretty early I lay down to take a nap when the wife and older daughter left the house this morning and had planned to sleep for about an hour. They woke me up when they came in three hours later. I really had not planned on sleeping that long. I did get up several times because my other daughter was there, but I don't like leaving her to run around the house that long with minimal supervision. I guess I was pretty beat. The job is getting a little easier but it's still whipping my ass physically because of the amount of hours I am putting in.
I still have to empty my closet out at some point this evening, maybe right after dinner. I also want to cut the grass, although it seemed like the wife wanted to handle that herself.
Thanks to a comment by Matthias I decided to revisit Odiogo and the code that I was using for the link to the audio on each post. They sent me an email about it awhile back and I had forgotten all about it. There is code to add into your sidebar that will insert the player, which works much better than my little javascript. After the page loads entirely a "listen now" button should appear just below the title to each post on the main page. I have not installed it on each individual entry template.
Almost forgot, here is the code itself,
<div class="module-widget module" id="widget-Odiogo_odiogo_listen_button_YOUR_FEED_ID">
<div class="module-content">
<!-- BEGIN ODIOGO LISTEN BUTTON V1.5.4 (TP) -->
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="http://podcasts.odiogo.com/odiogo_js.php?feed_id=YOUR_FEED_ID"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">
<!--
function odg_ScanPageTypePad_YOUR_FEED_ID ()
{
odg_ScanPageTypePad ("YOUR_FEED_ID");
}
odg_AddEvent (odg_ScanPageTypePad_YOUR_FEED_ID);
showOdiogoSubscribeButton ("YOUR_FEED_URL");
// -->
</script>
<!-- END ODIOGO LISTEN BUTTON V1.5.4 (TP) -->
</div>
</div>
You can get the code here as well as email support to get your feed ID if you have lost the email from them that contains it.
Sony Pictures is releasing the new movie Superbad on August 17th. From the minds of the creators behind the 40 Year Old Virgin and Talladega Nights comes Superbad, a tale about coming of age...I can relate to the dorky guys in the movie. That was me and my friends all over.
Sony even has a widget you can post on your social networking site or blog. Check this thing out. You can embed it in the sidebar of your site, or even put it in a post (obviously) like this one.
Sort of cool actually. I already have a ton of stuff in my sidebar, but I may stick it in there at least until the movie comes out.
The premise of the movie is about three guys coming of age and having to go off to college failures with women. They have one night to rectify the situation and are going to do their best. Judging from some of the clips I have seen it looks pretty hilarious. Age verification is required for some of the clips that aren't suitable for children, oh by the way. You can also watch five Superbad videos at Youtube starting today, August 1st. Here is one of them. LMAO.
There are also free wallpapers and other downloadables such as ringtones and buddy icons at Are You Superbad? if you are interested in pimping out your phone or PC with Superbad stuff before everyone else does. You can also add these guys to your friends at Myspace. Here is Evan's Myspace profile. Go check him and the other guys out and add them as friends or you can go over to the Facebook group and join as well. There is enough stuff out about this movie to keep you busy for quite some time to come, so get to it.
