September 2007 Archives

I have been thinking about stopping smoking for a long time now. The problem is that I occasionally still enjoy it. Most of the time it's just a habit but I fight these things, particularly since everyone in the house wants me to stop. It's a psychological thing I guess.

One of the guys I used to work with has been in the same boat for the last few years. A couple of years back he tried hypnosis and that seemed to work briefly but not for good. Recently he has been trying subliminal messaging and thus far he has been doing a pretty good job at it. I don't work with him anymore and only speak to him on the phone occasionally so I don't actually know if he has stopped or not for real but he does claim he's not smoking at all and attributes it to subliminal CDs that he ordered off of the Internet. What's interesting is that he is creating his own subliminal tapes and subliminal CDs himself using Subliminal Studio.

Subliminal messages are supposed to be pretty powerful stuff. The only reason I haven't done anything like that is because I am always afraid I will wake up barking like a chicken or something ;) Seriously though, I looked around the site after he told me a bit about it and the whole deal looks pretty cool. I do know that a lot of people use subliminal audio to learn languages, refine their thinking so that it's sharper, even get rid of fears. Hey, maybe I should make a tape that will get me over my fear of flying before I have to go anywhere again. I am deathly afraid of flying and it would be pretty cool to get rid of that one.

Apparently he is afraid the Xenu is coming to town to kick our asses and he wants someplace to hide.

...NOT!

I had three legal investigations to participate in yesterday, none against me thank goodness. I can't really go into details, at least not here but suffice it to say that it was a pain in the ass. I was able to basically get nothing finished so that leaves me with double the work this morning. Not much fun (today or yesterday) but it is unfortunately a necessary evil.

Michael Moorcock seriously kicks ass. He wrote this one about the Eternal Champion, but NOT Elric, it was about a much later one. If you have no idea what I am talking about that's OK, just enjoy the video. It certainly takes me back to 1980 or so and that's a scary thought.

One of my favorite songs and one of the top five albums.

I should be getting a new manager in my store today, at least I hope so since I have one of my other guys off. I will have to go in a bit early to make sure that the first store is taken care of and then I have to go in and do audits and inventories and show the new lady around. Hopefully she can help me get everything straightened out and cleaned up to where we can actually make some money out of the place...

With Christmas coming I have already started my shopping and one of the things I do while trying to get it done in the easiest manner possible is to also try and get the same deal. It used to be that all of the best deals were to be had online and that is the way I prefer to shop. With GoGoShopper I was able to get a JCP.com coupon with some really good deals. They also have online coupons for hundreds of other online stores as well such as PetMeds, Danskin, Gevalia, Hallmark, GoDaddy, Shoes.com and Roxi among many others.

One thing I have noticed the last couple of years is that some of the stores are saving their best deals for the folks that actually come in to their stores. I try to stay out of the stores during the holidays, preferring to do most of my shopping online but I will go out if I have to.

GoGo shopper not only has coupons for the places I listed above but they also have coupons for the major department stores as well. I have already mention JC Penney's online store but you can get them for Target.com and WalMart.com as well.

Just playing around with Live Writer and some of the built-in plugins.

There is also a now playing plugin that you manually add, which is good because it's a pain to have it in every single post on a page. Here's what it looks like...

Now Playing: Pixies - Wave of Mutilation - Best of Pixies - Debaser

There is also a "Quote of the Day" Plugin that I may or may not start using if I can remember

Quote of the day:
Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality. - Jules de Gaultier

Thanks to Owen I found out about another offline blog publishing platform that I wanted to check out. Windows Live Writer is what I am using to type this up. I have a few different sites and sometimes it's hard to keep in my head which ones I am posting to.

I don't think that this will particularly solve that problem because mine is more related to the fact that sometimes I will post to several different sites at the same time and that is what confuses me.

So far I like the setup and the options. This is the only blog I have added to it thus far but I will add the rest shortly.

There are options to add ping servers, which are a must and buttons to insert hyperlinks, photos, tables, maps, tags and videos. I will post more about it and maybe a review on my tech site once I have used it for awhile.

I have a ton of writing I need to get finished today and for the last ten minutes or so I have been dozing off in front of my computer. I guess that shake only lasted so long. Time to go make a pot of extra strong coffee. Too bad I ran out of the good Starbucks stuff...

My girls love to dance. I think that's just one of those things that children enjoy. My wife likes to dance as well, although since she has been with me for the last almost twenty years she doesn't get the opportunity to do it all that often. That's because I Just Don't. I dance at our wedding in 1988 and I may have danced once or twice since then but I really can't remember. It's not that I don't like it but I just look stupid. I dance like an ape in heat or so I was once told and that was that.

I wouldn't mind learning ballroom dancing as long as I could keep it quiet, perhaps from someplace like Dance Crazy. If I could use the great tools that they have to offer and really learn how to do it and not look bad at the same time I might even be willing to attend a ballroom dance with the wife. Now THAT would surprise her for our twentieth anniversary next May...

After my breakfast of a couple of handfuls of Turkey breast lunch meat there's not much better than a homemade chocolate shake made with Chocolate ice cream, a touch of milk, and some chocolate syrup. Damn that's good. I've had most of my major food groups now, poultry, dairy, vegetables (chocolate beans), caffeine and tobacco. Good to go.

One of the places I would eventually like to go on vacation and spend some time is Costa Rica. When I wanted to find Costa Rica information of course I used the major search engines as well as the links I already had to see what I could find out about the country, about Costa Rica Travel and Costa Rica Real Estate because that would give me a general idea about the people and the economy down there.

Costa Rica is a constitutional republic in Central America which is bordered by Nicaragua and Panama. It is also the first country in the world to constitutionally abolish it's army. It does have a national police force but no standing army and unlike most of it's neighbors in Central America there has not been a civil war since 1948, the year that the army was abolished. Funny how that works.

Costa Rica is a beautiful place. Although probably a tad bit warmer than what I like I would still love to visit for awhile, and up in the mountains it would not be nearly as hot as the coastal regions.

I would like at least once to go see Volcán Irazú, an active volcano near Cartago.

I am getting ready to lose one of my cooks at the store I don't have a manager, which pretty much sucks. He just went through drug rehabilitation but has not been able to get his community service done in the time allotted and will be spending at least 30 days in jail and maybe 60. I don't understand exactly what it is he's been doing but I guess he must have though he had better things to do. If I still have a slot open when he gets out he will get to keep his job but I am doing my best to go ahead and get it covered as I don't particularly want to be working more than I already am.

A while back we sent a couple of care packages to our nephew in Iraq. He has thus far received one of them and thoroughly enjoyed the contents which ranged from snacks and libations to toothbrushes and stuff. It took right around a month to get to him, which could be worse I suppose. We have sent him another one more recently but he hasn't received it yet. I guess now that my son is in the military we will end up sending quite a few more care packages each month.

As much as I enjoy sending out the care packages it can be a pain to try and get everything together and packaged properly for a long trip. There is a website at CookiesAmore.com that will ship care packages to our soldiers for you. Show Your Support of Our Troops! CookiesAmore has several different type of care packages that include different types of snacks for soldiers with and without a sweet tooth.

Some of theses guys (and ladies) spend a year or more away from their families and friends and even away from people that speak the same language. One of the coolest things that you can do to show your support for the members of our military is to send them a care package.

Now we just need a Santa action figure to fight him...

It's definitely weird to try and write after several beers. Thank goodness for the spell-checking plugin I use with Firefox. We've had a pretty good time a the Marine's going away party. As much as I talk about beer, I am actually pretty much a lightweight. I am on my 6th or 7th beer and am pretty much toast. The only down side to this is that I have to be up at 4:30 tomorrow morning.

I have to call all of the store pretty shortly and hope that they are staffed. I am most certainly not in the condition to drive to work if someone hasn't shown up or calls in, which is unfortunately exactly what will happen if I get hung tonight.

No matter what happens we have had a pretty good time, although I think I might try to hit the sack at a decent time.


Just got off the phone with my stores and they are all staffed. I'm either going out for another beer or I am going to hit the sack...

Only one person hung me today and I have taken her off the rest of the week. Amazingly enough for a Saturday I made it home at a decent time. I even had time to stop and get ice and chips for the party. Right now I am just drinking coffee, although once the Sam Adams Oktoberfest is cold enough I will have to break into that.

Party on...

I have a ton of writing that I want to do but as I sit down at the keyboard I just don't feel like doing any of it. Part of it is that I have had a long week full of long days and I am worn out. I sat down to write a couple of things before I have to go to work but I think that perhaps I will just reset my alarm on the cell phone and go lie back down for another 45 minutes or so...

The party is tonight so although I am sure that I will be posting tweets and the occasional picture, this is about it until tomorrow.

I ordered some parts for my gas grill a couple of days ago and paid for next day air. As a matter of fact I paid more for the damned delivery charges than I did for the parts themselves. I gave them very specific instructions that if they couldn't get the parts for me today then they just need to cancel the order. Get them to me they did. Too bad they sent the wrong parts. I ordered a burner and the two venturi things that hook to the gas lines. The burner that they sent me doesn't even remotely look like the one that I ordered and the venturi pair won't even fit the damn thing. I guess someone must have smoked a bit too much dope before packing the box.

I called and called and called and called and of course they don't answer the phone, so I have emailed clagrills.com and told them that they need to send me an RMA airbill so that I can send these parts back and that as long as they refund my shipping costs they could send me the correct parts. If they can't do that they just need to send me my damn money back. Although for the party tomorrow we are just doing cold cuts and party trays I had planned on grilling steaks for the Marine Sunday night since he has to go back the next day.

I hate it when things don't go the way I think they should go.

Yesterday ended up being a much better day than the previous one was. I didn't get much sleep the night before last so was pretty worn out by the time I hit the sack last night. I no longer have a manager in my store where I have had so many problems. That is a good thing believe it or not. It gives me the opportunity to start trying to fix things there and actually start making some money. It will be at least week before I get a manager in there, which makes it kind of rough since I have one of them off today and tomorrow and another on on Tuesday and Wednesday. As long as everyone shows up for work tomorrow I'm cool.

We are still planning on having our party tomorrow afternoon for the Marine. I am looking forward to it and just wish I were off on Sunday. If all goes well I will sleep in on Sunday morning and head in to work around 8AM. I will just have to wait and see about that one.

I just found out last night that one of the other two district managers is on vacation the same weekend I am supposed to be in Helen, which sucks. I am still planning on attending but I may end up not being able to go. I have really been looking forward to that weekend and am going to make every attempt to get there. I'm going to speak with my boss today and try to work that one out, but changing her vacation date is not going to happen.

It's somewhat funny. Every time someone at work has a computer issue they always end up coming to me. I don't mind answering questions and stuff but I really don't have the time to fool with fixing them anymore and have had to tell several people that. I do have one here that I seem to have had forever that I am almost done with. I am going to have to move it out of the kitchen for the party though.

Apparently one of my waitresses has a Thinkpad because yesterday she asked me where to buy IBM memory for them, as if I had some kind of secret pipeline. I told her that if she could do the upgrade herself to just do a search online, otherwise she needed to take it back where she bought it and talk with them.

When I was growing up I remember my parents had this really cool iron candle holder on the wall. I was sort of a triangle shape with flowers and chains that ran down it to each of the arms. I'm still not sure why but that thing just brings back a lot of good memories. All of my life I have loved iron wall art, particularly sconces and other candle holders like this Bonna Wall Candle Holder.

I like candles in general anyway, so this combines two of the things I like very much. When you turn down the lights and have several candles going it looks and smells wonderful. The way that the flames and shadows dance over the gorgeous metal wall art is pretty cool, almost medieval.

After I found that candle holder I started browsing through the site and found that Wall Decor & and Home Accents has some pretty nice wrought iron decor available besides the candle holder as well as other stuff such as shelves and clocks and other architectural pieces. The old saying about your home being a castle is doubly true when it looks like one :) Perhaps I was just born at the wrong time, but I could sit around and find watching the flames play over this stuff even better than television.

Since I have ditched the Thursday Thongs meme here :) I decided last week that I wanted to try and start participating regularly in the Thursday Thirteen. I was out of town last week and didn't have the time to type up a post for it so this is my Thursday Thirteen edition number one.

Thirteen Reasons I Love My Job 1…. I get to awaken several hours prior to the crack of dawn. 2…. I get to meet all kinds of interesting people. Crackheads, murderers on parole, politicians, etc... 3…. Lots and lots of grease to condition my skin and hair. So thick that I get the chance to breathe it in daily. 4…. I get the chance to work 70+ hour weeks 5…. I get to work on holidays. ALL holidays including Christmas and Thanksgiving. This year I will get to enjoy working from 6 AM until around midnight on Christmas day. 6…. Burn scars make you look tough. 7…. Go to be AFTER all three of my stores are staffed. 8…. Work amazingly flexible hours such as getting home by midnight and back to work by six. 9…. The opportunity to train and develop 100 people that average $6-7 an hour. 10….Learn exotic languages such as ebonics and redneckese all from the same teacher. 11….Listen to country music all day long with the occasional break for Fergalicious. 12….The chance to learn and grow from listening to whiners...and those are just the customers. 13….I get to awaken several hours prior to the crack of dawn (Yes, this one bears repeating). Links to other Thursday Thirteens! (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here but it may take a few hours as I really do work 9-12 hours a day!) 1. Mother of Hana - The Writer 2. Lori - A Cowboy's Wife

This has been one day from hell. I hate coming back from vacation and today just gives me that much more reason to hate it.

I arrived at one of my stores this morning shortly before 7 AM. On of my managers is off today so I was running his store. When I got there I found a note on his desk that basically told me I was going to be short a waitress on every shift today. Considering that is 1/3 of my day shift and 50% of my night shift that's three too many waitresses. Not to mention the fact that he has known since Monday and did nothing to cover it. One of the two waitresses called a couple of minutes after her shift started to let me know she was going to be late (duh...) and the other one just never came in at all. Total goat fuck. I did manage to get it covered but had a pretty hard time with it because this store is so darned slow that it's hard to get anyone to work there. People tend to go where the money is. My head has been pounding since about ten this morning and it just won't let up.

In addition to leaving me with no help he also left me with no money. I mean NO money other than a hundred dollar bill. Normally we have two cash drawers, one out front and another in the safe to swap to for the next shift as well as having a little extra change and ones. Having ones, fives and quarters are a necessity in the restaurant business. I had none of the above and had to scramble around and buy change and bills out of my pocket from the waitresses just to start the day and get through until I could make it to the bank.

I managed to get the other shifts covered and actually got out of there shortly after two this afternoon, which was a pleasant surprise but things only got worse this evening. When I called to check on my staffing and sales at shift change (about 9 PM) the waitress that was there let me know that she had just gotten called and her grandchild was being born. At least in my eyes that is a bit more important than being at work. Although she said she would stay I told her to get the heck out of there. I think the only reason she told me she would stay is that she was just afraid I might fire her for leaving. I don't do stupid crap like that. I think I finally got the shift covered about 9:40 or so and will be hitting the sack soon. I already have an extra coming in tomorrow morning, so whoever gets there last gets to go home, they just don't know it yet. Damned waitresses can't get to work on time anyway so one of them is bound to get sent home. If by some fluke they do show up the girl that didn't call me today gets sent home.

Hopefully tomorrow will go a bit smoother than today did. I need to get out of there at a decent time tomorrow. I have a meeting at 3 and the funeral for Mike Hardegree is at 4 or 4:30 so I will have to leave the meeting early to pick up the girls.

One of the things that our friend in Bluffton has that I am really envious of is a huge projection television. Eventually I want to get a really nice projector but that will really only be good for movies and stuff. During normal day to day watching television I need to use a nice HDTV or projection television. I've been pricing some of the projection televisions on the market and over the last couple of years they've fallen in price quite a bit. At some point over the next year or two I will end up moving the TV we are currently using to the play room and replace it with something bigger.

I just finished writing about a contest over at my Home Theater Blog and of course it got me to thinking about neat stuff that I want for my Home Theater. Obviously I want to upgrade to a faster computer and I am in the process of slowly gathering equipment to build a new one. Some other things I want are a nice projector to replace my television, at least for the movie room and I also want to pick up some nice home theater furniture to fit in with the motif. Along with some theater seating it would be cool to set up some lit up movie posters behind glass as well as a couple of LED signs for the wall.

Snapstream is working on the next version of BeyondTV, as a matter of fact I am testing the beta version right now. That along with TheaterTek for my movies and DVDs and something to play music are about all of the software that I need for it.

Technorati : Wordless Wednesday

Apparently my other girlfriend, Jessica Alba is house hunting in Venice.

Technorati : Jessica Alba

My Aunt is an artist. In addition to painting and photography she also teaches in her studio when she has the time. Last year as gifts she painted pillows for all of the ladies and the gifts were very well received. Ours is great and it's sitting on the couch right now. A couple of years back I made my Great Aunt a T-shirt with photographs of my children on it as a Christmas gift as well. People don't have to receive $1000 gifts to be amazed. I know I am more appreciative of the personalized gifts that I have received from my family and children than any others that I have gotten. They are keepsakes to be treasured.

One of the things that I thought when the wife received the painted throw pillow was that it would be pretty cool if I could get a few of them with photographs on. Apparently there are a couple of different places to get personalized photo gifts like that and I wasn't even aware of it until a few days ago. VisionBedding has some really neat photo gifts such as Photo Blankets and Pillows. Blankets!

Just got a text message from CNN that prosecutors have filed formal charges against O.J. Simpson, the former NFL star as well as three others after an alleged armed robbery.

Once I get a bit of time I will head on over and post some more information.

Technorati : CNN, NFL, O.J., OJ Simpson

I really liked this shot. The only bad part about trying to catch a sunset when you are on the east coast is that you are facing the wrong direction to get the full impact of the sun going down. There was a bit of rain moving in and the air was great. The first couple of days that I was out of town was extremely hot in Beaufort but once I got to Bluffton and Hilton Head on Saturday it had started to cool down quite a bit.

It's really pleasant at home now. I have the windows open to let the breeze in and haven't needed the air conditioning at all, which is a huge change from what it was here before I left town last week.

Everyone loves a good party including myself. As a matter of fact we are having one this weekend in honor of my son who is shipping out to Camp LeJeune on Monday morning. I'll talk about that a bit more later but this is about something that is at the same time almost as important to me and more important to everyone else. World Alzheimer's Day is the 21st of September (this Friday) and all through the month of September concerned people the world over are holding Purple Parties to raise funds for the Alzheimer's Association. You will remember that I have posted a couple of times about the Alzheimer's Association over the last couple of months. While I am seriously against government involvement in charitable organizations and welfare I am all for the involvement of private citizens including myself. I donated a van to the Alzheimer's Association a couple of weeks ago, and yes it was operational. Hopefully they can sell it for a decent amount and use the funds for something important. I checked the Blue Book value before I called them and it should go for quite a bit.

Here's a couple of photos I took while in Beaufort and Parris Island...

That first one is just a tree (duh) full of Spanish Moss right outside the All Weather Training Facility on Parris Island.

This was shot while leaving Parris Island on Thursday. Quite a bit of the area around the barrier islands in South Carolina is marsh and swamp. Looks like there was some kind of picnic area. If I had not been on such a tight schedule (and with kids) I would have stopped at several of these and taken a bunch more photographs.

This is a shot of the Bay in Beaufort from the waterfront area. As I had mentioned in an earlier post, after Labor Day it seems to turn into a ghost town and we had the entire area pretty much to ourselves.

A couple of pictures I took of the girls on Family Day on Parris Island.

With all of the writing I do on occasion about destinations I've been to, want to go to or only wish I could get to, I hit the occasional travel blog to see what other peoples experiences have been. RealTravel travel blog is a fairly informative blog that I like to go to. They have some well written pieces about all sorts of destinations and I enjoy visiting occasionally.

One of the first things that I usually look for after checking out a couple of photographs is how long the site has been around. I want to know that these folks really have an interest in what they are writing about and with RealTravel travel blog there are several hundred posts which means that they just didn't throw up a website with a couple of posts and a few ads to make a quick buck. They are in it for the long haul and WANT me to read about these places.

What do I like reading most over there? The Florida Keys and Hawaii of course :) That's pretty much a no-brainer if you've been reading here for any amount of time. I have started setting a bit of money aside this time. I REALLY want to go down to the keys in January or February and when our 20th anniversary rolls around Memorial Day weekend next year I am planning a trip to Hawaii finally. Actually it will be a couple of weeks after Memorial Day because school won't be out until after that, or at least the teachers won't and I of course never have holidays off. Anyway, I will probably be doing quite a bit of reading at the travel blog as well as other sites between now and then. I only wish I could DRIVE to Hawaii as I hate flying with a passion.

She was damn sure right about that one. Would that I could tap my heels together three times and be there. We ARE home now. Rental car is unloaded, clothes are washing and coffee is making by god. It didn't take too terribly long to clean up after the feline-type critters either, although the must have finished the food yesterday or this morning. Most of them were pretty darned hungry, although a couple of them just wanted to get the hell out.

I'm in the process of pulling pics from my SD card right now. 517, of which there are probably 5 good ones I am sure. Somewhere around 250 the first day so all told I took 750 photos in three and a half days. The way I figure it is that if I shoot enough there are bound to be some really good ones and then I will end up deleting at least 15% of them as crap.

Here's one from the graduation...


My boy is in the family (row) to the right of the Senior Drill Instructor, just behind his left shoulder. Can't see him in this photo of course, but I know he's there.

Took this one shortly after graduation...

It's one of my favorite shots right now...

I took this last one Friday night. This is the waterfront in Beaufort, South Carolina.

It was really strange. I know that it's after Labor Day and most of the seaside town slow down but it was really slow down there for a Friday evening. There just wasn't a whole lot going on.

I still have Friday and Saturday's photos in the camera but here are some shots from Family Day...

The 'motivational' run at 7 AM on Family Day

The other Marine...

Ohh-Rah

Looking for a job?

On their way to the All Weater Training Facility...

Sizing up future lodgings...

The terrain around Parris Island...at low tide of course.

I have around 500 photos from the weekend. Once I get the time to cull through them I will post a few. I have to start getting packed up and take a shower now. I will be back online at some point his evening.

When I ran several restaurants back in the late nineties I had my cell phone as well as a land line. The cell phones were a big pain in the ass and as soon as I went to work in our Norcross office I did away with the hand helds. They were a bit more like fricking walie-talkies in the nineties of course, about three times the size of my current phone. Anyway, back in 2002 oe 2003 it became necessary to go ahead and start using a cell again. With a 150 mile round trip commute every day I decided that it wasn't a smart idea to go without one. Now we have three, one for the wife and another for the boy. Although his will sit at home until he is at least finished with MCT school I told him he could stay on the plan. It's cheaper for him and although it's only $10 for the extra line I will gouge him for about $30 a month to cover the cost of the damnable text messages. Of course over the last few months and my conversion to tweeting on occasion I am guilty of that as well.

I did away with our land line a couple of years ago as well. Considering that I am paying close to $200 a month for our mobile phones due to the amount of work usage mine gets it was just senseless to keep using Bellsouth, the worthless lumps of shit they are. Now if they would let me have DSL without making me have basic phone service they would retain some of my business but since they are only interested in fucking me by making me bundle services I don't need they get NONE of my business. Take that you rascally retards. I get my Internet through my cable provider and during the on again off again times I can connect through my cell phone for fucking free. Since I have EVDO in my area while it's not the fastest connection in the world it is somewhat acceptable. I have to use my son's laptop due to the fact that my bluetooth dongle won't work on my desktop, but at least I can get on. I hate it when my dongle don't fit right.

Where the fuck am I going with this boring discussion about cell phone usage? Fuck if I know. I had originally started writing about the fact that my retarded employees call me at all times of the day and night and this has somehow (d)evolved into something else. Anyway, that's what got me so ill. I am on vacation. I have been on vacation for five days now. I have a hundred employees and all should be aware of this fact. They should be calling their managers and not me, at least while I am on vacation. Then again, they are going to act like their managers and considering the fact that at least four of the calls have been from one my store managers I guess I shouldn't expect any fucking respect from them. The calls generally go along the lines of "Hello" "Hey, are you busy right now?" "I'm in South Carolina" "Oh, well this is what I nee..." "There's noting I can do for you while I am on vacation, call your boss" "OK, will you call me when you get back in town?". "Maybe".

That's the bad thing about having gotten rid of the land line. I can't turn my cell phone off for the simple reason that if there really IS an emergency at work, or a family emergency someone will need to get in touch with me. So I am tortured wth the occasional ringing of the phone...

No, I'm not back in town yet but we are at our friend's house in Bluffton and I am sitting here sipping my coffee trying to wake up. We will probably head out at some point this morning or at least by noon and make the trek home. Somewhere in there V-Man and I will cross paths and play chicken. One of us will let you know who wins... 

Picking up from where I left off earlier...

It was OK outside pretty early but it got hot and humid very quickly and the stands were packed so it was extremely uncomfortable. The ceremony last between and hour and an hour and a half all total, which wasn't too bad. They drilled a bit and the band played for a while. The commanding officer gave a speech and they presented a few honor graduates. All in all it was pretty exciting. Once I have my thoughts around me and have a few pictures to look at I may go into more detail tomorrow night or Monday at some point.

My brother and his entire family came down from Carey yesterday for the graduation and that was really cool. We ended up going to Golden Corral for lunch, all eleven of us. The boy pigged out and made himself a bit sick I believe. Once we got back to the hotel we hung out for awhile and my brother and the rest drove back home, as they had a drive of several hours to make. We had dinner at some joint called Luther's on the Beaufort waterfront. It was a bit loud bit the food was good. I got really pissed off at the end though. I normally tip at least 20% and although there were only seven of us they tacked on a 'large party gratuity' of $27 to my check. There went her fucking tip. I can see restaurants adding on if there are fifteen people or more but they can kiss my ass. My check was $150 so her tip would have been a bit more than she actually got.

It stormed pretty for a while last night, enough to wake me up. Normally I can sleep through bad weather so it must have been tundering pretty loudly to wake me.

We slept in a bit this morning and once we finally got moving this morning we cleaned up the room and van, checked out and drove down here to Bluffton. Our friend Niqui will be moving later this year so this was our last chance to see her, at least me and the kids. The wife may drive down before she moves. Hopefully anyhow.

Ate lunch at Golden Corral again and then came back to the house and promptly took a nap. For supper we decided to drive in to Hilton Head and eat at Coligny Plaze, which is right off the beach. Had a great time there. We walked down to the beach as the sun went down and hung out there for a bit before heading back.

I will most likely not put a post up again (other than tweets and the occasional flickr upload) until tomorrow evening. We are going to head out mid-morning and drive back home. It's about a five hour drive for us. Once we get home I am sure that I will have a mess to clean up. Even though we boarded the dog I set the cats up in my bathroom with two litter boxes and several pans of food and water to take care of them. It is going to be awful to clean up I am sure.

We are in Bluffton, SC now. After I got off the computer this morning we had a bit of breakfast, packed up, checked out and drove down here. It's only about 25 minutes from Beaufort so was a nice easy drive.

I think I left off this morning discussing Thursday afternoon. After we took the boy back to the squad bay we drove back to Beaufort and hung out at the hotel for a while. The wife and RePete stayed at the hotel while I went to have coffee with Pete and my parents at this little coffee shop down by the bay. We had a pretty good time and Pete thought she was hot shit getting to go have cheese cake and cream soda with us. It was just pretty nice hanging out with them. We got back pretty early for me on vacation and I was in bed before eleven.

I slept in yesterday and managed to get up at some point after six. Once we got some coffee in us we headed back down to Parris Island. We were in the stands shortly after eight and they were packed. I had to call my parents and make sure that they were on the way as they weren't letting anyone save seats.

Once again they are ready to go. I will get online later this evening. We are heading in to Hilton Head Island to hang out and have some supper. More later...

We've been here for about 30 minutes now and everyone's safely tucked in bed, even the wife. Just as soon as I post this I am at least going to try and hit the sack. We are planning on being up around 5:30 so I need to get at least a little bit of shut-eye. We are staying right on Bay Street and from what I could see in the dark it's beautiful. Planning on taking a bunch of photos tomorrow and if there is time I will upload them tomorrow afternoon. Blogging will be somewhat sparse during the day except for the occasional twitter or maybe if I take a few shots on my cell phone and send them via flickr.

Family Day on the base is tomorrow and we are planning on spending most of the day there. The base opens at 7 AM and we have to leave at 7 PM so unless the girls are complete buttheads we will spend the entire time there. My parents checked in earlier this afternoon and will be with us tomorrow and my brother's family is going to drive down tomorrow night and be at graduation. They are crazy. I am too old for that shit and what little sleep I do actually get I value too much to drive all night, stay awake for something half the day and then drive back home (to Carey North Carolina) right after it's over.

I was reading this article over at CNN earlier and was just revolted. Sara Hammon makes a point in her interview with CNN that Warren Jeffs is just a fall guy and that someone else will always be there to take his place and that is very true. I don't really have a problem with people that believe in Polygamy...that's not the issue for me. If you can have a healthy relationship it doesn't matter if it's with one or ten people...The government shouldn't have any say over who is in a relationship with whom. It's just flat out none of their damn business.

For me the issue is all about mind control that is so prevalent in most religions , along with the physical and sexual abuse that goes on in some of them. I'm not leaving the mainstream religions out of it either because although they may be more 'mainstream' and law abiding in the end it's all about brainwashing and control.

Technorati: Mormons,Christianity,Religion

That too but I was mainly referring to yesterday. I ended up not getting home from work until Ten last night. The meeting at the convention center lasted more than two hours yesterday. I think we finally got out of there around Six Thirty last night. About ten of us stopped for supper at this place called Johnny Carino's Country Italian. I've had better Italian but it was pretty good. The waiter was good and handled us very well. Most of the time that you get a large party together like that they have a hard time and end up doing a really good job or they just suck, particularly considering that all ten of us work in the restaurant industry and that makes us a pain in the ass to wait on.

Apparently my VP and another one from out toward Kennesaw were in one of my restaurants yesterday trying to talk one of my managers into moving to a store out that way. It's my guy that I have such a hard time with. The problem is that I did some checking around and the girl they want to replace him with is worse. Crap. I asked both of my other managers to put a bug in his ear that he doesn't want to leave. Lesser of two evils and all that stuff.

I picked up the minivan we have rented for the week yesterday afternoon. I will have to go pay them a visit again this morning. The email I got after reserving the damn thing gave me a quote of just under $300 for the week, but I ended up getting charged just over $400. I did choose the extra insurance this time for some reason but that only adds $8 a day so I don't know how they pulled another $75 out of there ass on this one. Once I wake up a bit more I'll check the contract and see what they charged me.

I think I found exactly what I need to get for the older girl for stocking stuffers this year. She recently got her ears re-pierced and has been doing a pretty good job at taking care of them, so I am sure that we will get her some ear-rings, particularly since she has started looking at jewelry lately. I thought about getting her some animal jewelry. She's not at the age yet where I have to get extremely expensive stuff so that would be perfect for her. I still have a little time before I have to start worrying about it but I do need to shop for her birthday since it's at the end of next month. Ten-years-old. A decade. Sure doesn't seem like that long.

...what little I have left anyway.

Unfortunately I have meetings all afternoon. Once a year we have a big 'town hall' meeting for the management in the Atlanta area. In the past it's been at the Galleria but this year I think they needed a bigger venue are we have to drive down to the Georgia International something or other down near the airport. That sucks. The meetings at Three which means we will get out about six. Just in time to drive back out to the west side in afternoon traffic. That really blows.

I have hooked up with one of the other district manager and will ride with her. I don't particularly feel like driving myself especially since I will be in a rental car. Due to the meeting I had to reschedule the pickup time and have to go get my rental car at noon today, go to the meeting, go back to work and do audits and inventories, write about 30 posts, take the dog to the kennel, pack, throw the cats in the basement, clean the house, then drive to damn South Carolina, all in the next 36 hours. I will need an extra day of vacation just to get over the vacation.

BTW, we had thought about maybe going down to Savannah on Friday instead of hanging out in Beaufort. Any of you guys want to meet up that live in the area?

NEXT Saturday (I think it's the 22nd) we are having a party and anyone that wants to join us at the house can email or call me.

I probably have mentioned it several times but I will be out of town from tomorrow afternoon until Sunday afternoon for my son's boot camp graduation. I have several things scheduled to post so there will still be a bit going on here and I will try and post some photos up there. Hopefully I can look a few people up in the area on Friday afternoon as well. I would kind of like to hang out in the general Beaufort area if there is anything to do. If anything you can look for the nearest bar stools to find me propped against one :)

Not that I particularly want to get or stay drunk but I am so stressed out because of work that I am going to do my best to relax and have a good time.






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I am so going to hell for this but at least I will have company. I've got my gear for Helen, have you got yours?

It's a bit early for me to be thinking about Christmas being as how it's not even Halloween yet but I have been thinking about them the last few days because some of the stores are starting to put decorations out. I went in to the Home Depot the other day to get some of the clear rope light. I needed a couple of strands to go around the new pond and garden and I was thinking about getting it for my daughter's room as well. Since the boy shipped off to boot camp the girls now have their own rooms. We moved one of the beds out from under the bunk and now the youngest girl has a sitting and reading area underneath and we wanted lights for it. I was kind of worried about putting a light within her reach since she's just four but now you can get the LED version. It's a little more expensive but they last much much longer, are cool to the touch and use less energy which means that in the long run I will save more money than I would have otherwise. I went ahead and got the LEDs for the pond area too.

I don't know if I am still suffering the effects of the two benadryl I took last night or if it's just sleep deprivation but I am beat. I have been sitting here trying to type and am nodding off. Just made a fresh pot of coffee so perhaps that will take the edge off. Let's hope so otherwise I might start drooling into the keyboard and electrocute myself. That would not be a pretty site...

I managed to get out of work early enough to get home before anyone else today, thus having a few minutes to write. I did start a load of laundry and as I said before, a pot of coffee. We really need to have all of the laundry done tonight to make it easier to pack tomorrow. I have a ton of stuff to do and now I get to spend most of tomorrow afternoon and evening at a freaking town hall meeting at the Georgia International Meeting Center somewhere near the airport. Damn.

My boss was under the assumption that I was going to start my vacation on Wednesday rather than Thursday and I am really considering going ahead and doing just that. It would certainly make life easier here because the girls could ride the school bus home Wednesday afternoon and we could leave as soon as the wife got home rather than trying to shuffle everyone around and hoping I am staffed at the store I am running Wednesday.

If you've had the chance to come to the house you know that I am somewhat concerned about the way the yard looks. I don't want just a nicely mowed lawn. I love gardens and knickknacks around the yard as well. I have Elephant Ears and Lillies, flowering vines and other neat stuff including two goldfish ponds. That's one of the reasons I have been so concerned about the dry spell we are in. All of my plants are suffering and since my county is under a complete watering ban there isn't much I can do. When it rains I open several coolers that I have on the back deck and let them collect the water for later, but that is usually only enough for one watering.

In addition to the plants that I have growing I like flags and plaques and whirlygigs as well. Anything to brighten the yard. If I had them I would probably have pink flamingos and garden gnomes out there as well just to add color. I really want to stick this sundial out there from MailBox And Beyond...

It's a little over $60 which isn't bad at all. It also comes in weathered bronze and moss green but I like the verdigris that is shown in the picture. This thing would look great above my upper pond. I really need to do something with the area anyway, at least mulch around it. Unfortunately there isn't any grass in that area and everytime it rains anything loose gets washed down.

Mailbox And Beyond mainly sells residential mailboxes but they also have quite a bit of stuff like the sundial as well. There are a couple of really nice mailboxes over there as well, but I will have to wait on any of those for a while.

I've had such a problem sleeping the last few nights that I took a couple of Benadryl last night around eight. It was still after ten when I finally went to sleep and boy do I feel groggy this morning. That is about the strongest medicine I will take and it shows in the way that it effects me. Man I don't want to wake up this morning.

I found out last night that I have a meeting in Atlanta on Tuesday afternoon so I am going to have to try and reschedule the time I am picking up that darned rental car. It was supposed to be at three tomorrow afternoon but I have to be in Atlanta by three. Hopefully they will let me pick this thing up by noon tomorrow.

The wife took both girls clothes shopping and then grocery shopping over the weekend. We all have to make sure and wear blue at graduation because blue is the color for Lima company. They picked up a pair of 'sparkly' shoes for the four year old and my wife said that my older girl just stood there with mouth agape staring at the jewelry. That's too darn funny. I guess she is at that age where it is starting to look good to her.

I am so hoping that today will not be a terribly long day. I have several things that I really need to get done this afternoon both online and off and I need to go ahead and finish the laundry and start packing since obviously I won't have a lot of time tomorrow and non at all on Wednesday before I leave.

This is just sick. I stopped over at MyBlogLog to see what my traffic had been today according to them and ran across a link to a site called marryourdaughter.com

I am listing it here but I darn sure won't actually deign to create a link to it. These chicks are 15-17 and basically being sold off. I understand that's how it works in some cultures, but NOT HERE. Holy cow. I am a scumbag but I darn sure wouldn't condone what amounts to child abuse and statutory rape.

Deal Locker is one of those coupon site where you can get Printable Coupons, Free Samples, & Deals. With the holiday season coming up I have started my Christmas shopping and I much prefer to get everything online that I can. I always try to get the best deal that I can and at Deal Locker I can get free online coupon codes for my favorite stores including coupons for Amazon, which is one of the places that I prefer to do as much shopping as possible.

Deal Locker is still in public beta testing but for all intents and purposes the site is fully functional. Everything that I need to use there is accessible and should be for most other people as well.

Taxes are a bitch. I haven't ranted about them recently so it's due for one. That last post about being in the two got me to thinking about it. Did you know that the top 5% of wage earners in the United States pays 55% of the federal income tax? The top 5% earns 31% of the income in the U.S. but pays over half the taxes. That ain't right. Now I am not particularly for increasing anyone's tax burden, least of all the people that can ill afford it but I am for doing away with the federal income tax completely and putting in a consumption tax such as the Fairtax. It wouldn't apply to the purchase of used property, cars, clothing from consignment stores, etc...which is where most of the folks that work for me do their shopping for autos and clothing so it wouldn't hurt them as bad as opponents of the bill like to mouth off. Not only that but everyone in the U.S. would get a prebate check to cover the amount of sales tax they would be paying up to the poverty level, so people in the bottom 5-10% would actually be making MORE money than they are now.

Think about it. If you make $40-60k a year right now you are bringing home considerably less than that. Wouldn't it be nice to bring it ALL home and do with it what you want rather than having the federal government make those choices for you?

What does it mean to live in the top 2% of wage earner in the United States. You hear all the time that 'money can't bring happiness' or 'money isn't everything' The problem with those statements is that it's usually people that are satisfied with what they have or are unable to make that kind of money that are uttering those statements. Money doesn't bring happiness. That very well may be 100% true but being poor certainly doesn't bring happiness and if I had the choice between the two (and I do) I certainly won't choose to be sitting in the kitchen eating dog food after I retire.

Yesterday afternoon I ran out to the local Wal-Mart to get stuff for hamburgers. The girls had company coming for supper and I try to only make them eat dog food when their friends aren't around so as to avoid answering sticky questions. Get them ready for old age a bit early and all that.

Anyway, apparently on the way out the door I dropped my cell phone. I didn't realize it until I was getting in the car and flipped. My damn cell phone has hundreds of numbers related to work as well as personal stuff that I really can't afford to lose. There are several years of history stored in that thing. I checked at the cash register where I was run up and then walked down a couple of aisles. I was pretty much resigned to the fact that I was going to have to go to Verizon and report it lost but decided to check with customer service before I left. Apparently I walked right past it on my way back in to the store because the dude that found it and picked it up was returning it to customer service as I was walking up.

Thank goodness for honest people. I guess I just spend far too much time around these people that I work with because half of the fuckers would have put it in their pockets and left with it.

I've started putting the belt thing back on my belt rather than hooking it into my pocket as I normally do. It will take some getting used to but it does tend to fall out of my pocket a lot.

Man, that Luna moth this morning was cool. The photos were just taken with my phone and sent to Flickr. I think I have one more I need to email myself and then post later this afternoon.

Today was a pretty uneventful day at work. I cooked all day and then hit the door right at the end of the shift. All of my managers are in so they can take care of all the mundane day to day stuff while I sit on my ass here at home and blog for awhile :)

The wife is napping right now and I have the girls set up in the driveway selling lemonade to support my ugly beer habit. All is well in my world today. The boy should be finished/finishing with the Crucible right about now or possibly in the morning. I know that was a tough row to hoe for him but he's tough. I am really looking forward to seeing him for the first time since June, later this week. We are driving up to Beaufort on Wednesday afternoon and will check in to the hotel that evening. Any of you guys on the coast want to get together for a beer or something on Thursday or Friday night give me a call or shoot me an email.

Back to the Crucible. The hardest part for him I am sure will be the ten mile hump they have to take at the end. He'll probably want to sleep for two days straight when he leaves with us Friday afternoon.

Saturday I think we are going to spend the day on Hilton Head. This will probably be the last chance for us to see our friend Niqui before she and her kids move to Cyprus so I know the wife is looking forward to it.

Technorati : Crucible, Parenting, U.S. Marines

That one day off stuff has just kicked my tail. I am exhausted this morning. Both of my alarms were set for an hour ago and I just crawled out of bed long enough ago to start coffee. Yesterday was an extremely lazy day. I spent the morning writing, although not much, and making that video. The wife and girls got home from clothes shopping around noon and I ended up lying down for a nap at 1 and couldn't wake up until 4pm or so. I slept much too long and ended up not getting back to sleep until midnight and that's only because I took a Benadryl to knock myself out.

I had planned on writing quite a bit more but it just ended up working out that way. If I have time this afternoon I will write several entries and schedule them to be posted overnight. Right now my body is trying to tell me to go back to bed but my brain is saying "kill the moron"...Oh wait, that's something else entirely.

All three of my managers are working today so unless a whole boatload of people don't show up for work today I should manage to get home at a decent time this afternoon. I have to get by and check schedules and that sort of stuff this morning and then will most likely spend the morning cooking for one of them to ease payroll a bit.

I called the hotel in Beaufort last night just to confirm my reservations for Wednesday and they are still intact. I also wanted to make sure that it wouldn't be a problem with late check-in and they said that was fine. With leaving Wednesday that won't put me there until sometime around 9pm at the earliest and that's if I can get the wife and girls out by 3pm. It will probably be even later than that unfortunately.

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I've been to New York City one time back in the eighties and had a great time. From what I understand though, the city has really cleaned up and although New York culture will always remain the same I would like to go back and check things out. When I visited we were actually staying across the sound in Connecticut so just took a day trip into the city. We stayed at the Plaza Hotel briefly and had dinner there as well. I would be nice to go back now that 20 years have passed so that I can see what has changed. I would be interested in spending more time and visiting some of the sites that I missed the last time.

Lifehacker has a short post on changing habits and things to do to make getting up early easier. Here's an idea for you: Set your alarm and get your lazy asses out of bed. Life changing, isn't it?

Seriously, get up between 4 and 5 every day and most of us including myself are much more productive in the morning than later in the day. The hint that is given helps though. Write down why you are getting up and it will help to reinforce the idea in your head. Once you've done it for a month it will be easier because anything you do for 28 days generally becomes a habit. The trick to making it easy is to get up at the same time EVERY DAY. If you get up at 6 Monday through Friday and then sleep until noon all weekend it is going to be much harder.

Engadget is sponsoring a 100 gadget giveaway, with each contest running for six hours. I just entered and they have some pretty cool gadgets to give us. Go check it out, the current one runs until noon.

I stopped by Eric's site earlier in the day before I went to work and finally put up a post. Being as how the last time I was there I crapped all over the place with my poorly executed Photoshop and left the refrigerator door open I though that perhaps I would post something at least resembling writing before things degenerate too much. Of course there is always later in the week...

Hang out over here for any length of time and one cannot help but start reminiscing about past events and childhood. I don't know what it is but Eric just brings out the child in some of us. Maybe it's that poetic prose that lulls me into a numb sleep or maybe it's just that guy lurking in the background with a shovel ready to beat the hell out of. I guess we'll never know. Shovel Boy and the wife should be in Europe by now and I hope they are having a wonderful time. I was pleasantly surprised when he asked me to come back after posting that picture of his manboobs the last time he was on vacation...

One thing I was reminiscing about was my tenth birthday, which is one that I remember with great clarity, or at least enough fondness to retell the story enough times that I won't forget...

We never had a great deal of money growing up. We weren't by any means poor, but sometimes it was a stretch to make ends meet. One year my dad decided to go out with a friend from work and help cut down trees. I don't know if his friend sold firewood or what, but he got paid and got some firewood so it took care of a couple of birds. It so happened that he was going on my tenth birthday and dragged my ten year old self with him.

I do remember that we got up at the crack of dawn, earlier than I was used to at that time, although now it doesn't seem such a big deal since I do it every day.. Before meeting his friend we stopped and had breakfast at a Denny's, just me and the old man. French toast and sausage. I guess the palate holds memories for awhile as well, because I can still remember the smells.

We spent the great majority of the day (or so it seemed to a 10-year-old) out there cutting wood. I carried logs, but mostly rolled them. I am not a huge man by any means and 30 years ago I was most definitely smaller than I am now so I probably rolled most of them. I don't remember if I was really any help at all but at the end of the day I received $10 from my old man and another $10 from his friend for working. Holy crap! Back in 1976 $20 was like a million for a ten-year-old. I don't remember what I spent it on. Most likely candy and other garbage the kids buy, but I remember thinking I was just completely rich and I remember the feeling I got when my dad thanked me and handed me the cash. Appreciated. That was a nice feeling.

I had more to say on it this morning but have run out of words. It's been a hella long week and I have to get ready for work shortly. Luckily I am off tomorrow and may get a bit of nice shut-eye tonight provided everyone shows up for work.

Have you signed up to win $50 in my post contest yet?

Yeah, that's pretty much all I've got this morning. I just woke up a couple of minutes ago and here I am sipping coffee trying to wake up an hour late. The good thing is that I don't have any managers off today so I can roll in right at 7 and it won't be a huge issue.

Taste of Carrollton was busy last night. This is the 4th year that we have participate and there was a pretty sizable crowd last night. Although I don't have the restaurant in Carrollton anymore I still enjoy going and helping out. I did get to see the family at least. The wife brought my girls down and they hung out pretty late, which was really cool since I wasn't able to get home until after 9 o'clock.

The boy should be in the Crucible right about now, most likely for the last 24 hours. When he comes out he will be a Marine. I am so proud of him.

I may have a bit more to post this morning. I need to come up with something to put up at Eric's site and will most likely stick it on here as well.

Have you signed up to win $50 in my post contest yet?

I'm in the process of moving one of my blogs over to Bluehost to try them out. I haven't heard anything but good references for them so far, they are a fifth of what I am currently paying for hosting and offer more bandwidth. I figure I can try them out for awhile and see if the issues I am having are ironed out over there. If not then I will stay where I am at right now and be out $6.95. It's worth $7 if my sites load faster and the commenting stops taking freaking 60+ seconds.

All I know is that there are plenty of blogs out there with more content and more comments and it takes 10% of the time to post a comment than it does here. I can't have screwed up my installation so much that it is all of my sites.

I will ask a few folks to check it out if they get time once the DNS servers have propagated and I move everything over. It will probably be Saturday or so before I do that.

Have you signed up to win $50 in my post contest yet?

...again.

I came home long enough to throw on a pair of shirts and a T-Shirt. The Taste of Carrollton is outside and it is usually pretty hot. Hopefully I will be home before it gets too late and will get a bit of time on the PC before I hit the sack. Only one more day and I get one off. I'm off on a Saturday woo hoo!

Have you signed up to win $50 in my post contest yet?

I've got the Taste of Carrollton to work tonight so unfortunately this will most likely be it until some point this evening. I am hoping to get out of there at a decent time. I didn't sleep worth a crap last night (obviously) and just want to come home and nap.

The big problem with naps is that if they are too long then you can't sleep at night and the merry-go-round continues. In my case it doesn't matter if I nap or not I am going to get 3-5 hours of sleep on the average. Some days that starts to wear on you a bit.

For those of you that are into that sort of thing I actually started a site called Sexy Thongs recently. All of the stuff that I post on Thursday Thongs will be there. I haven't decided for sure but I may also be moving Tramp Stamp Tuesday and Thursday Thongs over to Skullfucking.net. That's my site that I recently started. This will be the one and only time that I will link to it here. Mainly just me bitching. No ads, no paid posts, really no centent whatsoever but who cares, you just want to see the thong anyway.

Without further ado I give you a patriotic thong courtesy of HornDog3 below the fold...

I just woke up from the weirdest dream. I was sitting on my knees in the closet and the kittens were playing at my knees and in between my legs but there were two or three new ones that were much smaller. I looked and one of the cats was munching on the head of a smaller one. Turns out that they were little RATS. Then mama rat started biting my feet that were tucked behind me. That's when I woke up. Damn. I hate rats.

Several years ago we rented this old house that had rats living in the walls. They nested on top of this old breaker box (inside the wall). You could constantly hear them scratching in the walls and on occasion you could see a little tail or two hang down in the cracks over the breaker box.

I have an unhealthy fear of rats now.

I don't know what it is today. I woke up on time and showered but all day long I slept-walked my way through. I felt as if I were inside a bubble and couldn't wake up. Everything else just sort of added to the day.

I had to go out about mid-morning to get some carbon paper. My store that has been having so many problems with the manager and the associates is just getting out of hand. I used to be able to order duplicate copy guest checks from our company but they are no longer available so I decided I would make my own. I went to the Wal-Mart and they had no carbon paper. No big deal, I figured they must just be out. On my way out of the parking lot I was almost hit no less than three times. I'm not one to slow down if I have the right of way but these people just weren't stopping. I had to slam on the brakes twice to avoid an accident.

I went down the street to the Ingles and looked through their school supplies. No carbon paper. I repeated the search at the local CVS pharmacy and they didn't have any so I decided to ask. I stood at the counter for ten minutes while this MANAGER jacked her damn jaws on the phone. She finally hung up as I was on my way out the door and said "I'm off now". Go fuck yourself. I have no time for a business that treats it's customers that way.

I ended up across the street at the Rite-Aid and they had none either. I don't know what's up. Did they all have this gigantic run on carbon paper, or maybe the carbon paper thief is back in action again trying to clone himself? Anybody else tried to buy carbon paper recently? There is no office supply place in town that I know of so I called one of the other district managers that has one across the street from one of her stores and asked her to pick up a pack for me. We have the Taste of Carrollton to work tomorrow evening so I will pick it up then.

I don't know what it is but I just felt invisible to these people today and by the time I was driving home I was in the mood to run people off the road that got in my way.

Technorati : CVS, Rite-Aid, Wal-Mart

...is usually the last thing you hear before a redneck hurts himself doing something stupid. Believe me, I know from personal experience. In this case though I did want you to check it out. I wrote a review on a piece of software at another site this morning and did this with it...


That's no mean feat for me. I can hack around in Photoshop a little bit but I have never been able to make animated gifs or anything cool like that. I can think of several different bloggers that I may just have to morph... >:

Found this fresh pic just this morning.

This should be an interesting day. All of my managers are out today. I think I have it covered everywhere and I will just end up going from store to store. I won't be cooking this morning as I didn't think it was a particularly good idea to be chained in a store productively just in case someone hangs me.

Even with everyone being out I am crossing my fingers and hoping for an early day. This could very easily turn out to be the biggest goatfuck I've seen all year.

Mr Turtle, the guy that supposedly lay there for an hour on his back until someone helped him up but only seemed to break a couple of toes still hasn't called or showed up. I am so damn angry at him right now. He put me in a serious bind this weekend. I just don't understand how someone could be such a pussy.

Labor Day has been celebrated on the first Monday in September since the 1880s. According to Wiki Labor Day is celebrated on May 1st in most countries around the world except for the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. I suppose that is our nod to the fact that even though labor day is a Socialist's holiday we aren't a socialist country.

Anyway, enjoy your barbecues, picnics and whatever traditional Labor Day festivities you will be attending this year. Some of us have to work...

Overall the weekend could have been worse. It has been a pretty hard few days, made worse by moving all of that dirt the day before yesterday. I guess the real pisser is that it hasn't gone according to plan. I like it when everything goes to plan at work and I hire and train employees that believe in the same thing and can help realize that vision. Of ocurse things always happen in the business to upset the apple cart but that's OK if you have people that are good at what they do because things stay smooth then anyway and we get back on the path pretty quickly. I tried to explain that to one of my managers last night and he just didn't get it.

All three of them make their schedules out willy nilly and expect their employees to work where they put them no matter the days or shift. The figure that the folks work for them and they are supposed to show up when they are scheduled or go somewhere else. My boss agrees with them. I tend to agree with the second part about going elsewhere if you can't work your schedule, but I think they are all full of shit about the first part. Most people like set schedules. They like knowing week in and week out what days they are off, what shift they work. When they are on the same shift with the same people every day they tend to work more as a team and do a better job than if you just move them around constantly. The customers also like it because they know when the people they like are working. But what the fuck do I know, I've only done this 21 years and my retention rates as a manager are much higher than anyone else's, at least after the initial three months in a restaurant? The first three months are usually worse than anyone else's because it takes time to get rid of the crust of shit that's built up and find the right team.

A few years back when my parents still lived in Virginia, on one of our vacations we took a little over a week and first went up to Gatlinburg and stayed for a couple of nights, drove to Alexandria and spent the weekend with my parents, and wound up in Hilton Head where we spent a day or two with our friends down there. It was a pretty exhausting vacation really. I needed a vacation just to recover from the vacation. One of the things that we didn't get to do while we were in Gatlinburg was go to Pigeon Forge. The wife didn't seem real interested and I didn't press it.

I have a friend of mine who lives right outside out Gatlinburg and she says that Pigeon Forge is beautiful and that we need to make the trip, particularly in the fall when it's not so hot. I have been seriously considering getting a Pigeon Forge cabin rental and staying for the weekend to at least check it out. It won't be this fall as I have already reserved a cabin in Helen Georgia during Oktoberfest (the blog meet) but maybe in the spring before it gets too terrible hot.

I've had false teeth for about 17 years now. At the time the dentist spoke with me about getting dental implants but back in 1990 they were very cost prohibitive and at that time my insurance would only pay so much. As a matter of fact I ended up getting them done right near the end of the year so that the bottoms were done in December and the tops in January. My dentist at the time told me that I would not be able to get implants down the road because of the way that they were implanted into the gums.

Jump forward two decades later and a few months ago I dropped the bottom set. I think I blogged about it as a matter of fact. Anyway, it snapped them in half. I tried one of the repair kits and they felt worse than before. I ended up taking them to the dentist that my wife and kids use. Heck, I haven't been to the dentist in years. They re-fitted them and then started talking to me about implants and surgery.

Apparently now they anchor a metal pin in the jawbone that mimics the root of a tooth and the teeth snap right on like snap-on tools or something. Very cool looking from what they showed me. They feel and act just like normal teeth and you clean them just like normal and they are easier to eat with than dentures because they are much more stable since they are anchored to your jaw instead of just hanging around the gums. Although if I get them done it will be here at home, I found a bunch of the information from Dental Implants in NY when I was researching it. I think the doctor was offended though when I asked if I could get a set of vampire teeth for Halloween.

I suppose it's time to start getting ready for work. I got up early to write some paid reviews, but ended up surfing the damn web. I wrote a few posts for another site completely unrelated to making money but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

It doesn't look like my manager with the three broken toes is coming to work until Wednesday at the earliest. Needless to say I am not particularly impressed with the asshat.

I'm starting to look around at the different smartphones in preparation to upgrading at the end of October. That's when my "new every two" is in effect and I can probably get a deal as well if I go in to the store rather than ordering online as I have done in the past. It looks like the successor to the Verizon XV6700, the XV6800 is supposed to come out in October and I am seriously considering upgrading to it.

The pond is finished, and I will have some photos of it scheduled to post later in the day.

I frequently access my site from my cell phone from work to view new comments. I've slimmed down the page a bit, taking out the ability to comment from the phone and some other stuff and just showing the actual posts themselves. Next week I will work on the CSS a bit and get some color in to the page. If you want to access the PDA page click the link.

Have you ever wondered what it was like to work for High Times magazine? Wonder no more after you watch this video that I found over at CollegeHumor.com

Delusion - A fixed false belief that is resistant to reason or confrontation with actual fact.



I came across this site (and the above video) last night and found it pretty interesting. The narrator is like one of those phys ed movies from the fifties that we had to watch in the 70's.

They certainly don't mind starting a bit of shit.

I just realized that I forgot to post the link. I'll try and remember to find it later.

I'm keeping my finger's crossed in any case. All three of my managers are on deck for the next three days which makes them responsible for all the staffing issues. Obviously I am there to help but it pretty much means that at least I get to shoot out the door relatively close to Two this afternoon.

As long as I get out of there at a decent time I am going to come home and work on the pond. It would be really cool if I can get it finished today. Only two more weeks until I go on vacation and the boy graduates from boot camp. He should be finished with the Crucible by now. Haven't received a letter in several days so I know he's pretty busy.

Anyway, although this is being posted at 10 this morning it's almost six and I have to get ready for work.

This weeks PhotoHunt Saturday theme is Dirty. She's not sure if she likes this sand stuff or not...

Technorati: PhotoHunt

This is also my Open Track-Back Post for Labor Day Weekend 2007.