October 2007 Archives

I guess this was an anthem for quite a few guys (and ladies) when they turn 18. This is a clip of Alice Cooper and Marilyn Manson doing 18 live.

Pretty nasty is all I have to say.

One of my favorite albums by Alice Cooper is definitely his first, Love it to Death. Back in 1971 the band had not fully gotten into the dark gothic shows that would come along a few years later but you can already see the creepiness starting to show.

This isn't the best video I could find on Youtube but I prefer live Rock & Roll to recorded any day of the week. It's a video of Alice & band performing in Detroit in 1971.

I am still busting a gut to go to Hawaii with the wife at some point in the next couple of years. We've been all over the southeast and I have seen several other areas of the country but I would love to get some Hawaiian vacation information and start saving for the trip. Up until 2005 we had never been anywhere without the kids. Even during our honeymoon the wife was pregnant with out first child so when we took a weekend and flew down to New Orleans it was great. I would love to be able to go to Kauai and spend at least a week just relaxing and taking in the scenery.

The Federal Government along with the State of Hawaii has been making a huge effort over the last few years to clean up the state after millions of tourists and now it's even more beautiful than ever. Hawaiian Beach Rentals has some really good prices on Kauai vacation rentals that are almost a steal.

My only issues with going to Hawaii are the fact that I am not very good at flying and I would probably need a sedative before we left just so that I could fly comfortably. As I get older the fear gets worse, so I can either suck it up and deal with flying or spend a couple of extra weeks driving out west and then taking a cruise to the islands, which is not necessarily a bad thing I suppose. The main thing about that is actually getting the time off of work to spend doing something like that. I would most likely have to take an entire year's worth of vacations all at once in order to do something like that.

I love the dead before they're cold
Their bluing flesh for me to hold
Cadaver eyes upon me see nothing
I love the dead before they rise
No farewells, no goodbyes
I never knew your rotting face
While friends and lovers mourn your silly grave
I have other uses for you, darling
We love the dead
We love the dead, yeah

This is just REALLY CREEPY. Make sure you have watched the first video before watching the news clip

A New Jersey hospital has fired a technician who faces charges of abusing and elderly woman's corpse. No fresh young things there, dude? The man faces 10 years in prison and will undergo a psychological exam.

Happy Halloween , oh by the way!

One of the changes in the new Health Codes for the state of Georgia include not being able to have fingernails, not that it bothers me, as well as wearing no jewelry on your hands or arms other than a plain gold wedding band. It's to help cut down on transmission of food poisoning. Even if you wash your hands regularly germs get on jewelry or can be trapped between watch bands and the skin as well. It kind of sucks because it means I have stopped wearing my watch altogether. I like my Mickey Mouse watch particularly, although lately I have had my eyes on a Lange Sohne like this one.

As often as I work it's almost foolish for me to get another watch now. Luckily I always have my cell phone with me and I can check the time from it.

I posted about the forthcoming suite for Object Desktop subscribers called Magic back in the middle of the month and I just realized that I had not posted anything else. It was released and I switched from my spooky desktop to Magic immediately. I really like the skin. It's bright without being too bright and all of the fonts show up great, which was an issue in the dark Halloween skin I was using at the time. Here's what it looks like on my desktop.

I ended up spending several hours this afternoon in a P&L meeting. Got home about six and had a bit. I have about an hour or so before I go pick up one of my cooks and take him into work. My SVP is going to be in my stores tomorrow and as a result I will most likely be in the nastiest one cleaning until at least midnight. Luckily I am off the next two days so I only have to deal with the preparation and not the actual visit, but I will have to deal with the aftermath.

Time to go out for a smoke. I don't have anything particularly useful to post right now anyway. Being as how I am off the next couple of days I am sure I will have plenty of posts up.

I had every intention of coming home to write tonight but think I am going to glue myself to the TV and then pass out. Cya...

Back in the 1700's Paris cemeteries had gotten so overcrowded that the bodies wouldn't even decompose. The stench in the city was so bad that they moved a lot of them into the catacombs, which had originally been a limestone mine. This is one of the creepiest places on earth and has pretty much been off limits to the public for a long time.

Byrne Reese has released a Podcast plugin that allows you to link to a podcast on the Internet including your own podcasts or just simple MP3 files that may be on your server and has included a freely downloadable flash MP3 player as well. I have been waiting on a decent mp3 player that I could embed in posts and it looks like this might be it. I am extremely happy to see this and might get back into doing an occasional podcast.

I thought that the recent Melting Pot Heavy Metal Addiction podcast would be a good one to test it with.

The game went pretty well tonight. We picked two seniors and both were in the band. Both also missed their kicks so as it stands right now, the girl that made the field goal during the first home game is the only one in the running for the $1000 scholarship. We are going to let two more kick during half-time at the last game of the season and if either of them make it then we will have a kick-off after the game. If neither of them kick the goal then we will go ahead and present her with the check.

I left during half-time, right after the kick and photographs. Villa Rica was getting their asses handed to them. The score was 21-6 at half-time.

Tomorrow is Pete's birthday party, so hopefully my stores will be fully staffed. I need to get out of there by 2pm so that I can get home and get cleaned up.

Other than that it's been a pretty uneventful day, just an extremely long one.

Venomous Kate is hosting a contest over at Electric Venom that's sponsored by a flower delivery place. Write your Haiku about Google, post in the comments and whoever wins gets $80 in flowers sent anywhere in the world. Sweet, no? I'm so frigging cheap that I have to enter contests to send my wife flowers

Here's mine...

seven stinking chimps
flinging poo at each other
we work for google!

google is satan
deliver us from evil
go play outside now

Damn I suck. Post your Haikus in the comments if you dare. It's OK if you make fun of mine because I damn sure am gonna make fun of your's. They don't even have to be about Google if you post them here, they could be about whatever you want.

Sort of a simple list of thirteen, but they are some of my favorite songs.

1. (We're Gonna) Rock Around The Clock - Bill Haley and His Comets. A bit before my time but I love good old rock & roll.
2. 21st Century Schizoid Man - King Crimson - I love the first couple of albums that King Crimson put out with Greg Lake. Their other stuff is also pretty good but I started listening to Emerson, Lake & Palmer as a kid and he is one of my favorite vocalists of all time.
3. Baby Please Don't Go - Willy and the Poor Boys. These Arms of Mine is actually 'our song' but this is one of my favorites off of the album.
4. Beverly Hills - Weezer. I don't know what it is but I really like this song.
5. Blister in the Sun - Violent Femmes.
   
6. Bone Machine - The Pixies. I started listening to the Pixies just this past year and there isn't much that they did that I don't like.
7. Caught in a Dream - Alice Cooper. One of my all time favorite artists.
8. Go to Hell - Alice Cooper. This entire album just rocks.
9. Headhunter - Krokus. An anthem of sorts.
10. Hell's Motel - MD45. The original version with Lee Ving (Fear) rather than the remaster that has Dave Mustaine doing all of the lyrics. The remaster was crap compared to the original.
11. House of the Rising Sun - The Animals
12. In the Evening - Led Zeppelin. Soon to be available on iTunes W00t!
13. Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes.

Nothing spectacular but I love music and each of these really entertains me.

You know, I just did not want to get up this early today. I am still trying to nod off as I sit here and write this. Just a couple more minutes of sleep...

This is the type of day where I would lie back down while waiting for the coffee to brew and then wake up two hours later. The wife is smart and all-knowing though and set it up on a timer. It was waiting for me to get out of bed and have that first cup.

Apparently I fell asleep on the couch last night because I woke up at two and went to crawl in bed then. I must not have slept very well. I don't normally have this much trouble waking up.

I am spending today and tomorrow down in the hole. That's my store with the incompetent manager. It really does sort of sit in a hole back away from everything, thus the nickname.

I've had two of my day shift waitresses give their written notice so far since this woman has taken over the restaurant. Both of them I am transferring to busier stores in order to keep them from quitting. I may be a picky asshole but they are my employees and I don't like losing people unless I plan on letting them go for some reason. This close to Christmas I certainly don't need to be losing any help, not to mention the fact that heavy turnover is never good for business. 90% of my business is repeat business and people like to come in and eat and see the same friendly smiling faces every day. It's hard for people to learn your name when they keep switching.

Thursday is normally our meeting day but apparently my boss and his boss have to drive to Norcross to meet with our senior vice president. The meeting has been moved to Friday. When I reminded my boss that we also have a football game to do tomorrow evening all he said is, 'yep, and we have a football game' which pretty much means a fifteen hour day tomorrow. Not exactly my idea of fun going into the weekend.

We had a pretty good time last night, although it was kind of quiet. We took Pete to O'Charley's for her tenth birthday dinner and let her pick out whatever she wanted. Both of the girls were extremely well behaved, an unlike the Marine she didn't pick out the most expensive thing on the menu. Although I let her order from the normal menu she still looked through the kids menu (and colored on it for a while) and she was extremely impressed with the fact that the kids menu is for 'ten and under'. She made sure to let us know that she won't have to order off of it after next year.

As I mentioned night before last, although we are having her birthday party on Saturday I stopped and picked her up a couple of gifts on the way home from work Tuesday night to wake her up with. One of them was this Technosource Rubik's Revolution...

Both girls have been having a pretty good time with it. Pete decided to share with her little sister RePete and she has had as much fun as her older sibling. It's pretty good for hand-eye coordination and as you play it speeds up. She has been doing pretty good with it.

The other thing I pick up was this i-dog thing. It's a plastic dog-shaped thing that you hook your iPod into via line out/in...

It light's up when the music is playing through it's built-in stereo speaker, taps it's foot, wags it's tail and moves it's head up and down. Oh yeah, it's face lights up too. I made a pretty good choice with this one. Both girls were singing and dancing around the dog (as you do) at six AM yesterday morning. Pretty damn funny actually, but they had a good time.

Although it seems like I have spent more money on gifts than I would, we are kind of toning down the amount of them we are giving out. I want to get a bit more simple, particularly when Christmas comes. The only caveat to that is that my brother and his family normally come down and spend the holidays with us and it sort of sucks to get my kids a couple of gifts and then they get to sit and watch as their cousins open a ton of them. I usually go slightly overboard in compensation.

Just a quick collection of Tasers and news stories about taster incidents for your enjoyment...

When the wife and I got married 19 years ago, we didn't have tons of money and neither did anyone in our family. The reception itself was held in the clubhouse of the condo's where my wife's Aunt lived at the time, and for entertainment we pretty much had ourselves and possibly a country music station. I don't really remember too many details as I had been up extremely late the evening before. I do have lots of pictures though and they help bring the memories back. The one I remember most is the feeling of relief when we got the heck out of that place and drove off to go on our honeymoon.

Hopefully it will be quite some time but when the girls eventually get married I want them to have fond memories of everything that happens on that day and that includes even the Wedding Music because one of the big things that they will remember is the music that is played at the wedding. I can remember times in my life and certain years and decades by the songs and when I hear one it brings back those memories. That's why GIGMasters can be such an integral part of the whole thing.

GIGMasters is the Internet's premiere booking service for entertainment since 1997. The provide entertainments for weddings as well as other special events and have a large database that includes thousands of performers all across the United States and Canada. They will allow you to book a wedding band, DJ or musician in just minutes with access to audio, video and client reviews.

Wordless Wednesday

One of the things that I like that seem to be popping up more and more are the comparison shopping sites such as Mpire. Mpire allows you to compare prices and find the best deals available online from major retail web sites as well as the auction sites such as eBay. You can find some of the best deals and coupons around for products from stores such as Best Buy, Target, Eddie Bauer and Dell along with thousands more.

I was able to find prices for the Canon Digital EOS-300D ranging from $450 all the way up to $1200. That's a huge prices different and why Mpire does so well at comparison shopping. They allow me to pick and choose from vendors, give ratings for each store as well as the shipping costs right there on one single easy to read page.

Why would I want to only stick with going to one single place for all of my shopping when I can easily find the best deals over at Mpire. The thing is, there are a few names that I trust on the Internet and I will always buy from them rather than their competitors. The only problem is that sometimes their web sites are so large that finding a great deal can be difficult, and that's where Mpire comes in. They show me the best prices and from what I've seen, my favorite sites are usually in the list and at a lower cost than I found on the original site in the first place.

I'm going in late today. A few weeks ago it was decided that the districts and divisions needed to start working some evening shifts, which is actually a pretty good thing. It allows us to do a bit of training with some folks that don't normally work with us. It also allows me to sleep in a little bit since I have scheduled most of my seconds to come right after my one or two days off. I hate working the evening shift because it means I don't get to see my family but you have to do what you have to do to make money I suppose.

It is still raining off and on here, thank goodness. I know my plants and fish really appreciate it, but that means that we have done no more decorating since the other day when I posted those pictures. Maybe tomorrow afternoon if it is dry we can get a bit done, otherwise there is probably stuff to do inside the house. We have to start getting ready for this weekend. My daughter turns ten tomorrow and her birthday party is Saturday. As usual we are having a Halloween party. That's one of the things she gets to enjoy each year. Since her birthday is so close to Halloween they normally wear costumes and have a bit of creepy fun.

She has already received her big birthday present. The wife took her out and let her get her hair done, now she has colorful streaks in it. Other than that she has asked for some board/DVD combo game from Disney that I need to go out and look for.

Took me a second to find the game on Amazon, but this is what she wants...

I just ordered it for next day delivery but it looks like they won't have it here until Thursday. Plenty of time before the party anyway.

The wife made a comment a few days ago about how she would like to go back to Disney World again at some point in the next couple of years. I'm all for that but I think maybe we will do things differently next time. We did have a blast though...

We took this one right outside of the hotel we stayed at in the park.

It was fairly expensive. I think that all in all we dropped around $5k while we were there and could have spent more. A bit more than my budget could afford but it was certainly worth it.

The next time we go I would like to stay longer but in order to do so we either need to rent a motor home or maybe an Orlando rental home for a couple of weeks. It certainly was nice being able to stay right in the park but the savings we would have by doing something else would make it more likely that we could stay longer.

Remember Poltergeist from 1982? Not too bad for today's standards as far as special effects are concerned, but still pretty scary. The oldest girls and I have spent the evening watching it.

It's pretty funny because she was just asking about the movie last night. She wanted me to rent it from Netflix and I told her that with it being Halloween it was just about guaranteed that it would be on TV in the next week or so. Sure enough it came on at eight tonight and we have been watching it together.

I never did get to see the movie back in the eighties. Even with all of the hype and stuff I was too busy hanging out and partying to go see any movies aside from the stuff that was playing at the midnight movie, like the Rocky Horror Picture Show...

I already posted this over at my tech/entertainment site but then realized that it would fit in well here with Halloween coming up.

Apparently during the last stop on her U.S. reading tour, J.K. Rowling let the cat out of the proverbial bag about one of her main characters from the Harry Potter series, Albus Dumbledore.

Heck, there's even a poll up over at CNN as to whether she should have outed Dumbledore. Pretty overwhelmingly 60% say no and I tend to agree. I could care less about homos and stuff like that, it's just not an issue in my world but I do think that it's going to end up being a bigger deal over the next few weeks than she thinks. The stories stand as they are and should have been left alone. Now she has succeeded in alienating even further possibly millions of fans who will never get to read the wonderful stories, at least until they are adults and can move out of their anti-homo households.

Personally I doubt if my children (who have read the books) ever even noticed the passages that are being referred to and I see no need to point them out and muddy the waters of an already developing sense of sexuality.

My question is are they going to cast the part with a lisp?

I've never been to the Absurdist's site before today but came across her blog from a comment at Fab's site and down the page she has posted the 10 Dumbest Job Interview Moves, taken from an article over at CNN/Money. Being as how I get to interview people constantly I have heard or seen most of these and worse. Here are the top ten:

I commented on here post about it and then realized that I should write a little on it myself and maybe post it here. We have a process where I work to try and weed out some of the really dumb ones. Everyone that comes in has to fill out a 'mini-app'. Basically it is just the pertinent info such as name, number, address, whether you have worked for us before and the hours you are willing to work. There is also a 1-800 number that all applicants have to call and take a short, ten minute 'honesty test'. The questions range from stuff like 'how many days have you missed in the last three months', how many days have you been tardy i the last three months', and 'true or false, most people will steal if given the chance'. If they fail and don't get a confirmation number, the interview stops right there, you are unemployable as far as we are concerned. Anyone stupid enough to answer true to the last question doesn't need to work there and if you are so jaded as to think that most people steal we don't want you either.

We have some real hard-hitters too . My managers aren't supposed to hire anyone without a car or a phone. Duh. It's surprising how many people don't have either and they will damn hire them anyway...

I also have a few personal 'must-haves' when I interview people. Luckily stupidity isn't a protected disability because I have excluded quite a few people. If you can't count back change in your head I won't hire you. If you don't have at least three-quarters of your teeth I won't hire you. If you don't come dressed as if you want a job and bring a pen with you I won't interview you. I may let you borrow one and then keep your application for one of my managers to look at and deal with when they get back but I don't have time for people that don't come prepared because that tells me that you won't come prepared for work.

I generally schedule my interviews for the end of the day, shortly before it's time for me to go home. If you can't get there on time, tough shit, I go home. I don't have time for tardiness. As a matter of fact, when one of my employees is late I generally have the shift covered within ten minutes, unless they have called me ahead of time to tell me they are going to be late. I understand that everyone sleeps late, people run out of gas and get stuck in traffic. I have no problem with that as long as they pick up the phone and let me know.

The last couple of times that I have opened new stores I generally leave a box of applications and pencils OR crayons with the construction superintendent. The applications that are filled out in pen get first consideration.

I had this chick come in to apply for a job once. She had on cut-off short shorts, a halter top and wore this red bandana. She was actually pretty hot but come one, if you really want a job is it necessary to look like you were working in the yard and just decided to drop by and see if I was hiring? Show a bit of pride in your appearance and I will be more likely to interview you. It's one thing if I am applying for a job cutting grass or working in a head shop but it's quite another altogether when I want to go to work in a service position. I at least want to look professional.

I never know what I am going to see when I go visit Mr. Fab. Today there happens to be a video up in honor of the Kentucky-Florida game that you need to go see, unless of course you are a Kentucky fan in which case you might want to go elsewhere...

After writing that post about Lars Vilks drawing Mohammed as a dog I got to thinking about a cartoon that I wanted to do but then I realized how little of an artist I actually am and that I might work on an animated thing for a month and it would still suck...

Thus the fact that there is no cartoon here.

What I wanted to draw was a cage fight. THE CAGE FIGHT OF THE MILLENIUM! Jesus and Mohammed. Think about it for a minute. Mohammed might bring his towelhead self and a big sword but Jesus would have the power of the holy trinity behind him. Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Sort of like religious tag team wrestling. That would be one pay-per-view I would pay to see.

How about George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton? The only problem with that one is that they are so much alike it would end up being a draw as they would keep on cooperating as they already are and get together to come up with a plan to rape the spectators for the rest of their money and control their lives through better government...

Mussolini and Hitler. That would be one I would like to see. Either that or several million Jews against Hitler. 'You think the oven was a bitch, Adolph? Wait there while we collect some stones, bitch!'

Thomas Jefferson and Dick Cheney? Hell, any of the founding fathers and Dick Cheney would work. Maybe that would revolutionize his sense of freedom and propriety, the asshole.

Judge Clarence Thomas and Al Sharpton. I would like to see Clarence Thomas pound the gavel up Sharpton's ass for all of the injustice and pure stupidity he has done for 'his people'. He and the right Reverend Jesse Jackson have set race relations back 100 years with their attitudes of bigotry and hate against all that isn't black. Maybe another tag team. Thomas and Condoleeza Rice against Jackson and Sharpton. That would kick some serious butt. Unfortunately as dirty as the latter pair fight it might be tough to beat them.

Maybe Fab can come up with some Sculpey cage matches for me...If he hasn't used up all of the good will on the Internet I'm sure that Sculpey Jesus and Sculpey Mohammed would do it.

Speaking of which, how about a cage match between Fab and Avitable...

Apparently one of the cable stations is having a Hitchcock weekend right now. The wife was flipping through channels and came across The Birds, one of my favorite movies. Hitchcock was so ahead of his time in movie making it is amazing. He brought terror to new heights with his movies. The Birds is a must see and if you've never watched it you are seriously missing something.

Here's a word from the master himself about The Birds, starring Tippi Hedron and Rod Taylor.

I can always tell when I get toward the last day of the week. Today was my sixth day at work and although I am off the next two days I will have to go in for about three hours tomorrow. Unfortunately my boss is off this weekend (not that I begrudge him that, particularly after last weekend) and we can't overlap. I will get up at 7 and get my staffing and then roll in and cook with one of my managers from 10 till 1 or so and then head home. At least I hope it works out as planned. I have a small scale mutiny on my hands at my problem store and very shortly I won't have too many employees left. It is taking all I have just to get the ones I have to stick around.

All of our management works in productive positions on the floor. That's how we make money by saving it. The managers are supposed to cook every day, I cook a minimum of 35 hours a week and even my boss who has ten stores normally will work a couple of days a week. My manager however, thinks that she gets paid to sit on her rear in the office all day long with the door shut making the waitresses cook their own orders. Of course whenever I show up she's cooking. I am going to have to start coming in the back way so that I can sneak up on her and catch her sitting in the office when it's busy one day I guess. I have already had one girl walk out because of it but I put her right back to work.

Weekends are our busiest time. Normally even in slow stores like this one I have a cook and the manager working. For the last four weeks she has left my cook to operate by himself except for maybe an hour, and then she sticks him with the cleanup. The guy is my relief manager, so he works for me, not her. I basically told him a couple of weeks ago that what he needed to do was to get his half of the cleanup done and then just walk the out the door at 2PM. Unfortunately this woman has copped an attitude with almost all of the associates that have been working there for any amount of time and is hiring these pieces of crap to take their places without even checking references or anything. I've put a stop to a few but I can't be there 24/7. Anyway, my guy did exactly as I suggested and finished his stuff and went to leave so this woman gets in his face and started talking shit about writing him up. He told her that we all get paid to do a job and to do whatever it was that she needed to.

He called me pretty upset about it and I reassured him that it wouldn't go in his permanent file or anything and that he needs to refuse to sign the warning. If it were just this one guy I would chalk it up to a communication problem between the two of them but apparently it is her and EVERYONE in the store. I had a bunch of other stuff here when I originally posted this at one of my other sites but I took most of the profanity and other nasty stuff out since I like my job. Actually I like my paycheck but it's the same thing.

Although it's not yet Halloween the major store in my area already has started putting out Christmas decorations. It's funny. There are a couple of aisles in the center of the store with all of their Halloween stuff and then almost the entire garden center is already set up with Christmas decorations. I love Christmas decorations. Even though Christmas is a hard time of year for me at work because my hours almost double overnight, I still enjoy the holiday. Normally I will take the kids out several times to look at all of the Christmas lights and when I have the time, my house has more lights up than anyone on my street.

One of the things I have noticed this year is that the LED Christmas lights are starting to get a bit cheaper than previously. That's cool because I prefer the lights. They are much brighter and sharper and really show up nicely, even when it's not quite dark out. They are also much safer than regular incandescent lights as well because they don't burn quite as hot. According to a 2003 report from the EPA they estimate that we (the United States) use enough electricity each year with miniature Christmas lights to run 200 homes for an entire year. They also figured that a 20% market switch to LED holiday lights would reduce annual electricity consumption in the U.S. by 400,000 KWh. Since they don't burn as hot and use less electricity they also reduce MY power bill and that's a darn good thing when I pay less money.

The Villa Rica vs Haralson County game was pretty good. The wife and kids did end up going, as a matter of fact we all rode together. I set up a table near the concession stand for the seniors to fill out a ticket and then I drew two names shortly before half time. It was kind of slow, I didn't have a lot of names to draw from but it was enough. They announce the two kids and then during half time we collected them and went out on the field.

The both got to kick from the 10yd line and one of them made the kick, which was great. That means that he, along with the girl from the first home game and anyone that makes it next week get to do the kick off at the Villa Rica vs Carrollton game in two weeks.

Next week is Homecoming so I think I may just pack a sandwich and get there a couple of hours early so that I can get a parking space. It was packed tonight and even getting there an hour early it was hard to find a place to park.

The score when I left during half time was 28-14 visitors, which sucked but even before we left the wife said she thought that we would lose, Haralson County has a pretty good team this year.

I enjoyed the game and although I was in a pretty bad mood earlier I am looking forward to the next couple of Friday nights.

The wife and girls love to attend the High School Football games every year. I have to admit that they are pretty fun, but I am having to attend the home games this year in a work-related capacity.

Our company has gotten together with about five of the local schools and during the home games this year (only four for Villa Rica) we are having the seniors sign up for a drawing. Shortly before half time we draw a couple of names and then find the kids. After the bands play during half time and the clock is set at three minutes we go out out on the field with the folks whose names were drawn and they get to try and kick a field goal. During the first home game one of the girls in the band made it, which was pretty cool.

At the last game of the season everyone who has kicked a field goal is going to have a kick-off and the winner gets a $1000 scholarship to whatever college they are going to attend. It's a pain in the ass to have to work on a Friday night, but this is a really nice thing to do and I won't complain about working because of that.

Unfortunately I will end up in the paper tomorrow morning or Monday, which I don't like, but that's just part of it I guess.

It pains me to talk about getting air miles as much as I hate flying, but it's inevitable that I will end up flying again in the next year on at least one of our vacations. Since I already know that the next vacation I book I will have to fly I have been trying to start saving airline miles so that I can go free. Free is always nice. To that end, with some of my Christmas shopping I have been visiting Shop4Miles.com for deals.

Shop4Miles lets you start earning airline miles just for signing up and with each purchase at the online mall you earn more. Buying the Garmin Nuvi is worth 800 miles by itself, while the StreetPilot is worth 1800 miles. They very quickly add up depending on what you are buying. I already get 90% of my gifts and stuff online anyway, so it's as good a place as any, particularly when I am getting decent incentives back just for shopping with them.

Shop4Miles has everything from Books and Magazines to Computers, toys, BBQ Grills and movies. The prices are really good as well. The cool thing about using Shop4Miles as a comparison shopping site is that the way they make their money from advertisers is that the advertisers only have to pay a commission to them when a purchase is made, and part of that commission is sent back to the purchaser in the form of airline miles. They also transmit everything electronically, so you don't have to wait months on end for snail mail to bring you a form letter.

I don't know what it is but for some reason today has just seemed really rough. I got to work late, which didn't help. I got stuck for 15 minutes at a railroad crossing and finally ended up going a mile down the road to a bridge because the darned train was just sitting there. I spent most of the day on the grill and finally got off in time to go pick up a cook for another store and then rushed back to get everything finished at mine.

My managers get a couple hundred bucks a month just for making their bank deposits on time. The can be late four times out of 28 and still get the bonus. One of the things that they are supposed to do is to make sure that they attend their 9PM shift change on the day before their day off. The store where I am at today and tomorrow, the manager elected not to come in last night. The problem with that is that he left the damn deposit from yesterday for me to make and since I was busy with other stuff it didn't go in until after 2PM. Late. Had he come to work like he was supposed to he would have had enough to make the deposit so he just shot himself in the foot and me as well because I also earn a banking bonus, except that all three of my stores have to have their deposits in on time.

This is right on the heels of losing $1900 off of my next paycheck. I am extremely not impressed and have fired three people the past week because of it and if they don't get their shit together they are only the first. That's 2/3 of my check two weeks from now and my fucking Christmas money as well.

I think I will end up working a boatload of hours over the next month or so until the holidays anyway, so this just makes it worse.

Have I told you how much I hate my job today?

Queensryche has released a cover of Pink Floyd's Welcome to the Machine that is surprisingly good. It's not that I am surprised that Queensryche is good, I already know that, but quite often a really good band will release a cover and it will suck.

It's available on iTunes, I don't know about Amazon yet but will find out later this afternoon when I get home from work. Click the album cover for the link to the song at the iTunes store.

Since I have been participating in the Thursday Thirteen for about a month now I figured it was high time to join the blogroll. You can access it in the extended entry in this post, as well as from my Other Blogrolls page which is linked from the sidebar.

"The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!"

If for some reason Mr. Linky DOES NOT pick up your link or you aren't using JavaScript in your browser, upgrade your browser. No, actually let me know by leaving a comment and I will add you manually. Please be aware that I generally work 8-15 hours a day so the link may not appear until late in the evening or possibly the next morning.

As always, Trackbacks will appear in the body of the post automatically and I use Mr Linky in the Thursday Thirteen Meme so that you can add your link after you comment. At the end of the week I export the script to HTML and permanently add the links into the post as you can see from my Thursday Thirteen Category page.

1…. Don't plan on working through a weekend when there is a blogmeet

2…. Take plenty of Aspirin and Alka Seltzer

3…. Bathroom floors are just as uncomfortable now as they were 20 years ago.

4…. Monkeys might REALLY fly

5…. Alligators left in the river DON'T stay long...

6…. Watch out for flying half-rubbers and duck when V-Man throws...You might get a fat lip

7…. Take an extra two days off. One before and one after...

8…. Don't drink for 14 hours straight

9…. Most definitely don't drink Chocolate Vodka on top of Chatham Artillery Punch and Sam Adams Oktoberfest.

10…. V-Man looks great in a Dress. No Photoshopping needed.

11…. Don't sit right next to the stage and don't plan on getting your food too fast.

12…. Bring TWO sheep next year

13…. And last but not least, get a hotel room and party in someone ELSE'S cabin. If I know I have to walk back I tend to drink less :)


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Although I probably have a few more months before I start looking at new cars again, driving that rental this weekend got me to thinking about them. I am still pretty much up in the air as to what I want to get when I finally break down and get another car. I do know that it needs to be big enough to carry all of my work stuff as well as the girls if need be. I have been thinking about the Chrysler 300.

That's one bad boy car. The Chrysler 300 started out in 1955 and has had a long illustrious history since then. The latest line of the 300 is a full size luxury sedan that was introduced as a 2005 model in 2004. Of course the one to get is the 300c which has a 5.7 liter Hemi V8. It has a five speed transmission and comes with standard 18 inch chrome-clad allow wheels, Chrysler's Information/Entertainment system, SIRIUS Satellite Radio and backseat television. One sharp car. Add in a nice Chrysler 300 accessory such as this California Walnut Wood Dash Kit and maybe some more automation controls and you've got it made.

The whole thing will set me back a pretty penny though, so it may be awhile before I can spring for this whole package unless I happen to win the lottery all of a sudden.

When I was thinking last week about gift for the holidays and/or our upcoming 20th anniversary I started thinking about pearls for some reason. One thing led to another and the fact that I was looking at a pearl necklace online got me to thinking about the classic ZZ Top song by the same name and I just couldn't stop laughing. At that point I just had to kind of lay off of the 'window' shopping (online) and go to work doing something else more constructive.

They are one of my favorite classic rock bands and they are still going strong, you just don't hear about them quite as often as some of the others.

Remember the artist in Denmark that drew Mohammed that received death threats from all over the world and prompted some publications to pull it and apologize? Swedish artist Lars Vilks has done basically the same thing but is taking a stand for his artistic expression, but he's making sure to look under his car for bombs now since Al Qaeda has put a $100,000 price on his head and offered an extra $50,000 for anyone that murders him by slitting his throat. That's one high-priced cartoon. His website is at http://www.vilks.net. Unfortunately it's all in Swedish and I haven't bothered to run it through babelfish yet so am getting most of this secondhand. He does have some depictions of Mohammed over there as well as other religious figures if you are interested in checking them out.

Vilks has been a controversial artist in Sweden for more than thirty years and his crude sketched caricature of Mohammed as a dog was a calculated move and he wanted to get a reaction. That he has certainly gotten. He receives constant death threats, and although he still works at home during the day he has to go to a safe house at night. Police have asked him to abandon his home completely to protect him from people such as the Swedish woman known as Amatullah who says that she hopes she can make good on the Al Qaeda threat and slaughter Vilks like a lamb. She has apparently already been fined for making death threats and claims that she will never stop taunting him.

I guess Lars Vilks should be glad he's not living in Bangladesh where they have detained a cartoonist for offending Islam by drawing a caricature of Mohammed as a cat. I have to tell you, my cat is extremely offended and thinks that his eyes should be clawed out for offending catkind everywhere.

You can see the drawing he did of Mohammed's head on a dog's body. Since Muslim's view dogs as being unclean I can see why they might be slightly aghast. Big hairy deal. If you don't like it, don't look at it. There are plenty of offensive things that we see every day, from stuff like the infamous Piss Christ to caricatures of the Pope along with plenty of political commentary.

Stuff like that get's everyone's panties in a twist and there is plenty of banter thrown around but the only time I ever hear of hundreds and thousands of death threats are when Muslims are involved, which just goes to show how truly primitive and barbaric the mainstream religion is. If it were just far removed wings of the religion we wouldn't see such impact but since the rest of Islam accepts their control that makes them the mainstream.

What I find really interesting is that most of us laugh and think just as I have said "God, what barbarians" and we go about our daily business thinking we are above those assholes. If that were the case then why under Chapter 272 of it's general laws is section 36 "Whoever wilfully blasphemes the holy name of God by denying, cursing or contumeliously reproaching God, his creation, government or final judging of the world, or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching Jesus Christ or the Holy Ghost, or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching or exposing to contempt and ridicule, the holy word of God contained in the holy scriptures shall be punished by imprisonment in jail for not more than one year or by a fine of not more than three hundred dollars, and may also be bound to good behavior." Perhaps Muslims aren't the only intolerant ones...

I was always a big fan of martial arts as I was growing up but more of an armchair fan than anything I suppose. I have always loved Seven Samurai and any other type of martial arts movies up to and including stuff with Chuck Norris and some of the other more recent stars like Jackie Chan. I even incorporated Oriental elements into role playing games I was involved in from the late 70's up until about ten years ago. Even our guest bathroom is decorated in an Oriental motif.

Anyway, although my fascination is much more laid-back, my son took a much more direct approach. From the time he was six or seven he was very involved in martial arts. He took classes for several years, eventually distinguishing himself as a second degree black belt in Choi Kwan Do. It was interesting in that during boot camp most of the guys that had taken any martial arts prior to joining to service were asked to lay off a bit and not use any of their training. I guess it's just not really possible when working with all of those guys to keep them seperated and perhaps develop what they already know into something else.

I thought that I had some pictures online of the Marine when he was 11 or 12 in his uniform but I can't seem to lay my hands on any currently. Oh well, just means I need to start scanning all the old photos like I have been wanting to for quite some time.

My fascination with Oriental culture and martial arts doesn't actually stop at the TV for me. I like all sorts of Japanese weapons and armor as well. I would love to get a hold of a Samurai sword like this one.

This is a Tachi Katana, traditionally forged and folded. It's got a bigger curve than the katana and was generally used from horseback. The blade itself has a mirror polish finish that's a beauty to look at. Most of the time a family crest is on the laquered saya . Swordmaking in the Orient was and remains an exceptionally arduous task and every sword holds it's own personality unlike most of the European swords we are familiar with. One of the biggest differences is the hardening process. After the blade is forged and finished in it's final basic shape it's coated in a mixture of water, clay and ash along with whatever special ingredients the sword smith decides to use.

They apply the clay mixture over the surface of the sword, thcker along the spine. It acts as sort of an insulating during the cooling process, and the thicker part of the spine cools more slowly. After that they apply thin strips of clay over the surface of the blade. They also provide insulation during the quenching process and form small sections of softer material in the hardened edge.  It gives the blade the ability to prevent cracks in it under hard use and high pressure.

All in all I felt like crap on Sunday morning. Nay..I felt like hammered dogshit as Rob would say. I was really looking forward to getting up, packing up, checking out and going to breakfast with the rest of the bloggers prior to heading back to Atlanta.

What I actually did was lie in a coma as the wife and Michelle packed up the cabin and stayed there until it was time to go. I belted myself into the truck while they checked out and said goodbye to everyone. A few brave souls came over to say goodbye, at east until I decided it was time to exit the truck and go blow chunks by the Chattahoochee. That must have been an interesting site for the mid-morning old people taking their morning constitutional walks. At least the monkey hat was off my head.

Luckily that was the end of the nausea but I did spend the entire day sleeping and whining about how awful I felt. Hell, I am still dehydrated :)

No phone calls, no dealing with work. Thank goodness there wasn't any major emergency at work that required my attention.

I am still pissed off that I felt so crappy on Sunday morning. What a freaking lightweight I have become in my old age...

This is when it started getting really ugly. Actually it was a blast and didn't get rough for me until most of the folks had already retired for the evening. Somehow it was decided by a general concensus well ahead of time (like before I arrived) that the party would be at my cabin on Saturday evening. Oh shit...

It was also voted that we would be having a cook-out for supper rather than everyone invading a restaurant on Saturday night, so a boatload of people walked to the store and bought steaks, vegetables and other goodies. Luckily I was not the one that had to prepare dinner for a change.

It took a while to prepare half a cow and involved stealing a grill and loading it into the back of my pickup truck which I was in no shape to drive, so I handed over the keys and allowed the hooligans to take it. Good steaks were had by all but I think I will grill them next time. Mine was a crispy critter, but then again it could have been the liquor clouding my judgement. I have never had a steak doused with garlic butter though, and I must say that it is a wondrous thing. Thanks, Elisson. Good stuff there.

After we ate there was plenty of entertainment in which I remember nothing in any particular order but we had Robert Service by way of Eric, a great ghost story from Joan (the bearer of flying monkeys) and mucho singing and guitar playing from the elderly brothers as well as several others. RSM has impeccable timing and showed up prior to dinner being served, as did Kelly and the Senior Chief whom I haven't seen since last year's yellin' in Helen.

I think my downfall was the fact that I joined in a couple of Chocolate Vodka toasts on top of all the punch and beer. Man that stuff is good.

Getting Denny the Grouchy Old Cripple up the stairs was quite interesting but not nearly as much fun as bearing him back down the stairs in his wheelchair. He is a much braver man than I as I would have crapped my pants having us drunks carry me down stairs like that.

The party had pretty much died down with a few diehard exceptions when I finally decided I needed to make my exit. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) the party was in my cabin so it was difficult to make my way up to the second floor so that I could blow chunks in privacy. I ended up spending half the night on the bathroom floor so that I could be as close as possibly to the porcelain altar in case I needed to pray. Once I started feeling as if I didn't need to throw up anymore I moved back to the bed, but on the side closest to the bathroom.

Apparently Zonker and Michelle needed to continue the party so they joined our neighbors in the cabin next door. I don't know the specific details but it had something to do with this chick who was there with her ex-husband and current boyfriend, all of whom were sleeping together. Surreal. I understand that it started moving in the direction of the macabre for awhile. I did manage to get something out of it though, as she actually allowed them to take a photo for this weeks edition of...

(don't click if you get offended easily)

One of the things that the Marine did while he was at home this last time was to splurge and go out and purchase an Xbox 360. I have been meaning to move it downstairs and give it a try but just don't seem to have the time to devote to any type of gaming lately. The xbox is pretty cool though. Apparently it works pretty well with Vista and I can broadcast multimedia from my PC to it from Windows Media Player. It looks like I might even be able to get BeyondTV to work with it as well as a client. That would be pretty cool since my Media Center is still down.

I don't want to get too used to the new toy though since he will eventually be taking it with him. One thing I might do though is to load a couple of software mods onto his old xbox and start using that as my media center, at least in my bedroom. We need to move the big TV back down from the playroom into my room anyway.

Although I have been with the same company for almost 21 years I have had several other jobs over the years. Grocery clerk, Landscaping construction, lawn maintenance, Photographer's assistant, ISP tech support, IT Desktop support, carpet layer and roofer are just a few. I have also worked at quite a few different restaurants, which makes sense considering that I run them for a living.

I spent a couple of months back in the early nineties working in a Mexican/Latin joint. That was OK. The food was good and I already knew the owners. They are a couple of really nice guys from Puerto Rico and have done very well for themselves here.

Anyway, one of the owners grew his own vegetables for the restaurant, at least the spices and fresh peppers. One day he brought in some Jabeneros and one of them bet me that I could not eat the entire thing without spitting it out. Of course when I went home from work that day my wallet was $10 heavier (which was a big deal at that time) and I was shitting fire for two days after that. Holy crap. They don't call it the hottest pepper in the world for nothing.

This Post is Sponsored by PMbuzz.com

It's interesting how many different social networking sites there are now. All but a few of them really seem more directed to gaining web traffic to your site rather than doing any type of actual social networking. One that I have come across recently is PMbuzz.com. PMBuzz is a social networking site for the New York City community. All of the content is user driven and includes photographs, blogs and other multimedia and gives a glimpse into some of the best things that New York City has available.

The site itself is still in Beta but like a lot of sites is an open beta that is more of a full release that will evolve and change. It's funny how many sites call themselves beta at first, sort of like a cool buzz word.

The site itself is fairly attractive without being too flashy. Right on the front page there are listings for the most popular clubs as picked by the users, photographs, blogs and most importantly people. The site was created for the night life community, for the folks that are out late hanging at the clubs. It's for the people that go there as well as the entertainers and DJs.

There are lists to sign up for to get notified of events at your favorite clubs so that you can make plans ahead of time, which is always a good thing and you can send messages to your friends on the service so that they will know when and where to meet you. MySpace does this sort of thing but it is so huge and spammy now, whereas something like PMBuzz allows you to be part of a much more local community of people with the same interests in the same area.

Being blog of the day when there's a big old Love Ewe on the top of the page. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.

...Just saw the wife and girls off to work and school. I am working an evening shift once a week now in order to improve the business and training. Although I like being at home with the girls in the evening it's nice to be able to sleep in on a work day. Except for a few days like today where it falls smack in the middle of my work week I have set up my second shifts to coincide with the day after my day(s) off so that I get one or two off and then come in late on my first day back. Considering that I always stay up too late blogging when I am off that will work out nicely.

As last year, we spent most of Saturday afternoon parked outside by the river. It didn't take long before a crowd gathered and the implements of destruction started to come out.

I think that I started out with Sam Adams Oktoberfest around 11AM or so. Quite fitting for the Blogtoberfest it was indeed. Georgia brought the Love Ewe down to the river to keep us company and we found out that it was she who kept the Love Ewe company Friday night. At least someone had a bit of fun

After a bit of introspection Elisson found directions on the sheep's ass. What he was doing with the sheep's ass I didn't bother asking. Just saying, that's all. I did manage to get a bit of video of the poetic reading as a matter of fact. It's a pretty crappy video but what the hell do you expect from my cell phone anyway, miracles?

After the bit of reading some more quite interesting things came out such as Flying Monkeys and the Headless Cock.

I am still not sure who enjoyed stroking the cock more...     

The flying monkeys kicked ass though. Key shows us how they work. I think this was shortly after V-Man beaned with in the lip with a half-rubber. That fucker is still swollen.

My girls got the booty when I arrived home so that is most likely the last I will see of the flying monkey, at least until it swoops down upon my unsuspecting head.

Of course maybe I shouldn't have given them the monkey, particularly after catfish inserted it into the Ewe...

Throughout the afternoon various items found their way into the back end of the Love Ewe. I can only show you those safe for family viewing however

Sam demonstrates the proper placement of Shiner. This was right around the time that some new arrivals showed up. John Cox paid us a visit after Sam and Zonker drove to Atlanta and kidnapped him at gunpoint. Art will never be the same again. Eric and Fiona also arrived shortly after the sheep shenanigans as well.

The punch arrived...

Ah, the punch...Much can be said about Chatham Artillery Punch. Mixed with several hours of drinking beer and washed down with Chocolate Vodka...It's no wonder that I woke up dead Sunday morning.

Georgia shows us her Headless Cock impersonation...

Quite a likeness...

And the amazing swelling reptile was brought out. Not that one, a real fake reptile.

This bad boy when immersed in water is supposed to swell up to three feet long within seven days...It disappeared at some point prior to Sunday morning...

A bit of Half-Rubber was finally played. The Kristy decided to park cars where we played last year, so we moved the deal over behind our cabins. Less bother for the normal people I am sure, what with all of the fun going on.

"If you don't throw the ball right this time I am going to beat you to death with a shovel!"

That was right around the end of my picture taking for the weekend. I shot a couple hundred pictures. Some were pretty good and some were shit. I will be posting them eventually and if you want, shoot me an email and I will ftp them somewhere or I can probably burn a CD.

Anyway, around four or so several of us decided that we were getting hungry. Being as how I am such a lightweight drinker I thought that food might be a good thing to have. Zonker knew of a barbecue place and several of us made the trek. It was pretty good but I still haven't decided if the half mile walk to the place was worth it or not. It did manage to negate the effects of the alcohol that I had imbibed thus far, or at least push them into the background for awhile.

Shortly after getting back to the area I returned to my comfy chair and started in on the punch again. It was about that time that I said fuck it and called my senior manager and informed him that he was in charge for the rest of the evening and the next morning and that I would be turning my phone off until I arrived home. That may have been a mistake...

John did a few caricatures while he was there, and has them up at his site as well. Luckily I was fortunate enough not to have been drawn. I was pretty much a walking caricature with my zeebus T-shirt and monkey on the head anyway. Forgot to tell you about that part...perhaps later, when I return to talk about the rest of Saturday night and Sunday morning.

So we get up Saturday morning. I was up pretty early originally. I woke up around four and reset the alarm for six so that I could make sure that everyone was going to show up for work. I called the stores when I got back, made sure that my six o'clock girls were there and called all of my cooks to make sure they were all up and on the way. At seven I called the stores back to speak to the managers and get their sales numbers. Amazingly everyone showed up for work Saturday. It took that one manager 40 minutes to count the damned drawer and finally get her numbers to me though. I don't know what the heck takes her so damn long but it's like pulling teeth to get it done.

Once she finally gave me what I needed I called my boss and told him who was in each store and so on...at which point he asks:

"where are you at today"

"I'm sort of off, but I'll be taking care of staffing"

"That's what I thought. Talk to you later"

Bwahaha

At this point I went back to bed until nine or so. I wanted to try and sleep later but it just wasn't happening.

We decided to go find people and maybe go eat some breakfast, as the bagel I had eaten just wasn't going to do it. V-Man and Key had just driven back up to their cabin after having waited forty minutes somewhere and never getting fed. They had to check out of their cabin and needed to get cleaned up, but V-Man was still hunting something to eat. The previous year we had  eaten at a pretty nice buffet off the beaten path called the Farmer's Market Cafe so we decided to go there. The wife and I, Elisson and SWMBO, and V-Man wandered down there. No wait and the food was good. It's really not that far from the main road so I don't know why they weren't that crowded. Luckily they were nice too. I left my travel mug and the waitress chased us down to return it. My favorite on too (the mug, not the waitress)

After breakfast we wandered back down to the Chalet Kristy and found some of the reprobates already hanging out in front of their rooms. Erica was up pretty early considering how long she had been awake the night before. I don't know how late everyone had stayed up since I was in bed around eleven or so.

After we had made our greetings and all of that happy shit we decided to gather down by the river.

That's the view of the Chattahoochee from the swings outside of the Chalet Kristy. The place is a dive but it's the only one that will let us come back year after year. It's also a family-owned type place so we are giving our business to locals rather than some corporate conglomeration, which is kind of cool.

I have to go get ready for work but will post more pics and whatnot once I get home this afternoon provided everything goes well at work today. I have to return the rental and then go to a three o'clock meeting but that's about it as far as I know.

Against my better judgement I pretty much skipped out on work this weekend and drove to Helen with the wife and a friend of ours. I have been wrestling with it all week because I don't particularly want to hassle with my boss. So much for that.

Friday we cooked breakfast for 150 teachers at my wife's high school. I went in around 5AM or so and got everything started and we made it to the school around 8:30 or so and got out of there by 11. I had planned on getting the girls from the wife and shooting out of work early but the stores got a bit busy so I helped until almost two before I was able to leave. I was hoping to get the hell out of Temple and through Atlanta before Friday afternoon traffic but no such luck. I took almost four hours to make the two hour drive.

As we drove into the parking lot I knew it would be an interesting evening. Most of the bloggers were standing around the parking lot of the Kristy sampling Chatham Artillery Punch and meeting folks they hadn't met before or greeting old friends. Let's see if I can remember who was there. Elisson and SWMBO, Sam left his evil twin at home but did bring the wife, Zonker, Catfish, Recondo32 and Georgia, GuyK, Erica, Jimbo and the bodyguard, Joan of Argghh and the Jolly Roger, The Grouchy Old Cripple, Key and V-Man, Leslie, and shortly after we got there, Dax Montana himself.

Once everyone had been greeted I checked in to my cabin. The last thing I had eaten had been several hours prior and I was starved. We unloaded the truck (rental) and walked up to the "strip". The Chalet Kristy is right on the Chattahoochee smack dab in the middle of town so there was no a long walk. I don't drive once I start drinking somewhere which is one of the reasons I like having the blogmeet right in town.

The restaurant/bar we went to was full of bikers and other tourists. The atmosphere was pretty cool but it took fucking forever to get my food and by that time the live band 20 feet behind me had started blasting out rock & roll tunes. Pretty good stuff until they got to Van Morrison, which spoiled the mood. I ran outside at 9PM so that I could get sales and staffing for my stores. All I had until that point was soft drinks as I was really afraid I would have to drive back to work and didn't want to attempt it even with one beer.

We got back to the hotel and rather than partying in one of the cabins we all ended up in/around Erica's room and overflowing into the parking lot. I hung out there for awhile but after a couple of beer I was damn tired and retired to the cabin to get some much needed sleep. Prior to going to bed though, Sam and I picked up Elisson's date...

Thanks to GuyK for the photograph. I had the camera with me (I think) but was so busy laughing that I forgot to take any pictures. The sheep is a "gotta be there" thing. Elisson put up a post a few months back about being in one of those stores that sell interesting things such as the Love Ewe and he was wondering what kind of self-respecting guy couldn't get a date with a real sheep...I immediately went online and found one for him.

Somewhere there are pictures of me blowing the sheep, or rather, inflating the sheep. I am sure they will come out sooner or later.

Apparently RSM showed up Friday evening as well. I missed him until the next night. It's nice to see that he is doing well. I got out of the habit of going over to When the Smoke Clears while he was in basic training. I need to rectify that and go visit more often as he is a pretty talented and descriptive author.

Tomorrow I will try and post about Saturday. It's going to be a long day and I have to deal with the fall-out of ignoring work entirely after Saturday afternoon (I will get to that later). All I know is that it might get ugly. It is time for my beauty sleep now. After all of the alcohol I consumed this weekend I need plenty of it.

...and maybe even a word or two. I've been home about six hours now but I have just recently crawled out of bed. Chocolate Vodka kicks ass...

Did you ever have the nasty runny shits that make you race to the toilet and almost before you get properly seated and a smoke lit it comes spewing out of your anal sphincter to splash the toilet water so violently as to get your entire backside wet?

Me either, just wondering.

I have finally gotten my stores staffed not that it's 2:35pm and I am heading to Helen. I may end up having to come back at some point this weekend but it just depends on my staffing. It will really suck to get shitfaced and then have to drive four hours to work.

That's pretty much as plain as I can put it. I suppose it could have been worse. I knew it was going to be an extremely long day and since all of my managers are in place the next three days I came in a bit late. I had to run to Carrollton to buy a toner for one of the printers and stopped to see a friend of mine at my old store. It was her last day there. It will be sad to see her go but she's got a great job working for the Red Cross and I am happy for her.

It was meeting day so I spent most of the day gathering paperwork and putting it together and then sat at the meeting until around five this evening. Pretty uneventful actually. One of my cooks didn't show up tonight, so I had to find someone else. There goes overtime $ down the drain, the asshat.

For those of you that aren''t aware, Savatage was the precursor of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra

...or thirteen places I have. Nothing too terribly exotic here but there are cool stories behind each.

1. Los Angeles - in 1987 my friend Chris that passed away last year was home on leave and wanted to take his pickup truck back to L.A. with him but didn't want to drive by himself. I've posted about the trip but long story short is that I drove him out there in three days, hung out in L.A. and flew back home and ended up getting a date with this hot girl on the flight back to Atlanta.
2. Las Vegas - This was a very SHORT stay. We stopped in Vegas on the way to L.A. in '87 overnight and since I wasn't yet 18 I got thrown out of Caesar's Palace.
3. New Orleans - I've been to New Orleans many times over the years, starting with road trips with my friends when I was 17 and most recently in 2005 with the wife. THAT one was a blast and the only one when I have been drinking. It brought a whole new atmosphere to the place.
4. Naples (Florida) - One of my friends and I rode his Goldwing down to Naples to a convention about 23 years ago. LONG trip on a bike. We stopped with my Great Aunt just north of Tampa and what I remember the most about the trip was going over the Sunshine Skyway. Portions of it are just metal grid. The bike slipped and slid the entire way across and you could see the ocean underneath your feet. Very unsettling but in a pretty cool way. Not that I want to do that again.
5. Miami - Just across Alligator alley from Naples. We drove down the same year as Naples. One of my ex-girlfriends was living down there and really had nothing to do with our trip down but certainly made it uncomfortable to be there. On the ride back we drove across Alligator Alley and then came up 75. Alligator Alley is pretty cool. Nothing but miles and miles of road, it's a rather difficult drive.
6. Daytona Beach - drove down there for another convention. A friend of mine had moved from Atlanta a few years earlier and worked as an aircraft mechanic. He had an apartment right on the beach and we hung with him on one of our many trips to Florida.
7. New York City. I drove up to Westbrook, Connecticut for a week and during that trip we got to pull up lobster traps and eat what we caught, and made a day trip into NYC. My friend's dad treated us to dinner at Trader Vic's. That's the first time I ever had swordfish and I have loved it ever since.
8. Natchez, Mississippi - This is a small town and doesn't seem really worth mentioning but it is one of the friendliest most beautiful places I have ever been. I was a history major during my short-lived college career and history has also intrigued me, so naturally I fell in love with Natchez.
9. Gatlinburg, Tennessee - This is a small town and pretty much a tourist trap. One one of our vacations to see my parents we stopped in Gatlinburg for the weekend and hung out. It was pretty fun but I would love to go back when there is snow on the ground, around Christmas. It's supposed to be very nice that time of year. It was pretty damned hot when we went and that always puts a damper on things.
10. Panama City Florida. The Redneck Riviera. I have been down to P.C. Beach many times. One November about 24 years ago, in November, a group of about ten of us decided that we wanted raw oysters and nothing would do but to make a drive to Panama City. This is when the great Car Wars happened. I can't find the link to THAT post so I guess I need to write about it some time soon.
11. The Grand Canyon - When I drove out to L.A. we decided that we couldn't make the trip without stopping at the Grand Canyon. We were both pretty whipped form non-stop driving so we got there, took a couple of pictures at an overlook, had a smoke and got back in the car and drove away I would love to go back eventually so that I could actually see the place.
12. Washington D.C. - My parents lived in the Arlington area for about ten years after my dad got transferred by MCI into Crystal City. We have made several trips up there, by car, plane and train and I always had a pretty good time there. I flew up by myself back in '92 and spent the week with my parents. I literally walked most of the city. Walking the entire length of the Mall will kick your butt.
13. Hilton Head, SC. Can't forget about this one. I love the coast of Georgia and South Carolina. I've been down to the low country countless times but always seem to find something new and cool.

Obviously I am not a world-traveler or anything, but I do like going to see new places with new people. Hopefully I will have thirteen more to post about in a couple of years.


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...is part of what I have been listening to today.

Now Playing: Savatage - Edge of Thorns - Labyrinths [Instrumental]

Although I hate flying with a passion, when I do I always try to get the cheapest flight. At one point in time that meant that I would book flights through Airtran, and the last few years I have used online booking sites such as Hotwire and some of the others to try and make sure that I get a great deal. CheapoAir is one I had never heard of until last week and they have some great deals.

I searched for several different destinations to see what kind of deals I could get and was able to find some really good ones. A flight from Atlanta to Key West in two weeks on American Airlines would run me about $172 with one plane switch. That is an amazing deal to Key West, particularly since this month starts the tourist season down there.

About half of the flying I've done over the last few years has been for business, and although work pays for that stuff, in the end it hits my P&L and eventually my stock. What that means is that any kind of flight that I have to take, I make sure that I am saving money. I wouldn't throw my own money away so why would I throw away my company's money? After all, I plan to retire eventually and every penny I save makes that a little closer. One Click or Call Does It All, Call Customer Support 24/7 at 212-478-0335. If you are REALLY interested in saving money go check these guys out at CheapoAir.

I had originally planned on being home shortly after eight but unfortunately it didn't work out as planned. I had to finish putting up the truck that came in earlier with the weekly food delivery, do the weekly paperwork for the week, finish the paperwork that my manager had not done for three days, and then clean her darned office. I was not particularly happy with her by the time I finished. I still didn't get everything done that I had planned on today so I ended up leaving her with a long list of stuff to take care of before she can leave tomorrow afternoon.

I'm all about getting the hell out of there as early as possible but the fact is that we aren't supposed to leave until certain key things are done and she just doesn't seem to care. Hopefully I can get her motivated enough to start doing things the right way pretty shortly because if not one of us is going to be gone by Christmas and it damn sure isn't going to be me.

Now Playing: Savatage - Edge of Thorns - Skraggy's Tomb

RePete wasn't feeling very well today apparently. The wife called me at 11 and asked me if I could go pick her up from school. She seems fine to me but she normally doesn't complain and spent most of the morning in the teacher's lap. We have just sort of hung out today. We came home and she ate lunch and then we napped (it was worth picking her up just for that) and she's been hanging out coloring for quite some time.

There is a down side and that is the fact that if we have to miss any work for something like this we have to make up the hours, so as soon as the wife gets home I have to go back in for a few hours. That's OK, I have a bunch of paperwork I need to get finished anyway. I am still going to try and be home by eightish as it would be nice to see the rest of my family for a little while before they go to bed.

Appropriate for Blogtoberfest 2007 here are some shots from last year. Enough with the words, let's get with the wordless.

Technorati: Wordless Wednesday

We had a pretty good time last night. All of the usual suspects were there, and I got the chance to meet Blackfive as well. Guess I need to update the sidebar again but I think I shall wait until after this weekend. I will get to that shortly.

Line of the evening:

"Am I in the right fucking church?"

It's been at least fifteen years or so since I have been in the area where we ended up last night and boy has it changed. Actually I have been to a couple of concerts prior to the Omni getting torn down but that was normally a case of riding the train in, going straight into the Omni and watching the show. It is amazing how different Marietta Street has changed since the days of the Metroplex.

I arrived a little early and took a walk around Centennial Park since I have never been there. Shot a couple of photos with my new phone mainly just to try it out. Noting worth posting, but the pictures are pretty darn good.

I finally wandered down to the Embassy Suites where we were to meet up. Elisson and Shovel Boy arrived shortly after and we went on in to Ruth's Chris Steak House for a drink and to await the others. It wasn't long before Blackfive arrived and we all sat around and chatted for awhile awaiting the rest of the group. Three beers later (for me anyway, I was the light-weight since I had to get up early today) and everyone else arrived.

Rather than spend a small fortune we got a cab ride a few blocks away. According to the information desk whom Blackfive had to threaten with bodily injury (maybe not) to get the information out of, there was an Indian restaurant four blocks away. It was more like eight, at least driving it. Had we walked it might have been four or five taking shortcuts.

I had some kind of shrimp dish, which was pretty good, particularly after adding a wee bit of this spicy mango stuff. Indian food looks so damned nasty, yet is pretty good. I couldn't eat it every night as some folks can, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I enjoyed the conversation, although as usual I was pretty quiet and just took it all in. It is interesting to note that although people are slightly different than their blog personas you can usually tell who is who because their stories sound just like their blogs. The more entertaining and popular ones are usually also the entertaining and 'popular' conversationalists as well.

At one point in the evening we did have to steer clear of the shovel fiasco and go back to the 'safe' topics of religion and politics, but Eric had to make clear what had happened last October. It was nice hearing it from his side, which actually closely mirrored what I have heard from other bloggers, minus the wide-eyed fear What is interesting is that he is having us back (not that I was able to make it last year). I doubt if I can get the time off and I think that may even be the weekend of Pete's birthday party, but I will damn sure try, particularly since I may or may not end up skipping out on this weekend.

That brings me to my conundrum. I am really torn about this coming weekend. I am extremely angry with my boss and work right now, as I am on duty this weekend. I have four choices at present. Either I skip the weekend entirely and go to work while the wife and our friend attend, or I attend as planned and commute home Saturday and Sunday morning. The big problem is that I don't particularly want to drive three and a half hours at four in the morning, particularly after a night of heavy drinking. My other choice is to go, and then drive home Friday night, go to work Saturday, drive back up there and drive back home Sunday morning. That choice entails not drinking at all because as I said before, I am a lightweight. I just don't drive after drinking. I had three beers in all last night, and although I was nowhere even close to buzzing when we finally left the restaurant last night, I was ready to take a damned nap and those last few miles home were done with the air and radio blasting and the windows open. My last choice is just to say "fuck you" and go, take care of business over the phone and deal with being in trouble when I get home. They won't fire me or anything, I am about 99.9% sure of that, but it doesn't mean that they will make my life any easier. At some point between now and then I guess I will make up my mind.

Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia and is the second most populated city in Spain at the present. It's located on the southeastern coast of Spain, on the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the major shipping ports in Europe as well. Although the city dates to three or four hundred years prior, it was a Roman colony around 15BC and you can still see the effects of the Romans in some of the architecture and in plenty of ruins there.

One of the really cool things about Barcelona is that there are 68 municipal parks ranging from fairly small to pretyt large recreational areas. They cover right around 10% of the city itself, which makes it a pretty green place to visit. There are also several beaches in Barcelona, just under three miles of coastline, making it a pretty popular destination for holiday in Europe. Hotels in Barcelona or as they say there, Hoteles en Barcelona, are easy to find, and like anywhere else, the earlier you book the cheaper they are.

As with many of the older cities in Europe, Barcelona sports many theaters and halls for live music, including the world-famous Gran Teatre de Liceu opera theater. Barcelona plays host to several music festivals throughout the year and also hosts the Catalonia Symphonic Orchestra as well.

Madrid on the other hand is well inland and sits right in the middle of Spain. Fittingly, it is the capital of Spain and really the financial capital as well. You can really see the difference from Barcelona, particularly from the Muslim influence that has been there since the 9th century.

Madrid is a pretty large city and thus boats entertainment and things to do 24 hours a day. Hotels in Madrid are pretty easy to find as the population of Madrid is so great. There are quite a few museums and music halls in Madrid as well, and the night life is very active particularly on the weekends when the younger people will stay out all night dancing and leave only to go to work the next morning. That type of stuff was great for me twenty years ago but I don't see me dancing the night away any time soon.

This is probably old news but I haven't been to Representative Westmoreland's homepage in quite some time. The last time I visited there was nothing definite at all concerning the Fairtax but now his statement on taxes is thus:

You've got my vote again dude.

I have to start getting ready to head in to Atlanta. There are a few bloggers meeting up around Centennial park someplace and I plan to be there. I am running way behind today because of my stupid cell phone dying a painful death. It's been acting up quite a bit lately and just turns itself off, drains the battery or reboots randomly in the middle of a call. I bought a brand new battery for it yesterday and the damn thing was drained by today and wouldn't turn back on.

I went to Verizon this morning and ended up getting a Moto Q 9m, not exactly the phone that I wanted but it is pretty cool thus far. I have 30 days I think if I want to switch so if the XV6800 comes out before then I may just have to get it instead.

The main thing I don't like about it is that it is somewhat laggy and slow to respond. Haven't tried it blogging yet but I did take a photo and try to send it to Flickr unsuccessfully. Maybe I will have more time to play with it later and see what the problem is.

Another meme I am trying out for Tuesdays. I kind of like this one because it makes you think and damn does that hurt sometimes :)

Anyway here is what Topical Tuesday is all about...

I loved comics as a kid and still do to some extent although I don't buy them very often. There are two that are near and dear to my heart and they are Spiderman and Batman. I guess to me though, the Batman is the greatest superhero. Batman is a haunted soul with quite a bit of darkness in him that is his main motivation. Although in the last few years Spiderman developed a bit of a dark side I think that Batman had it all along. It was even more apparent just how dark he could be in Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. This is one of my all time favorite graphic novels. My copy was unfortunately destroyed a few years back but sooner or later I will get my hands on another original copy. Until then Batman will always be in my head.

I know this is a short entry this week but I wrote this last night and was up much too late. Didn't get home from work until after ten.

Technorati: Topical Tuesday

I've been hunting for a silly meme to take the place of Tramp Stamp Tuesday since I have moved it to my nameless blog that's somewhere else :) and came across TMI Tuesday last night. With TMI Tuesday I ask some questions and if you dare you answer in the comments or link to your blog with the answers.

So here are your questions for this week...

If you want to see other people's TMI Tuesday posts or participate go check out the home for TMI Tuesday.

I only thought today was a long day. I ended up getting home around five or so, sat down and had dinner with the girls, spoke with Eric and Zonker for a brief moment and now I am getting ready to go back in...

I am having issues at a couple of my stores that my presence for a few hours should solve. I don't intend on staying too terribly late but do have a couple of things to take care of.

I did manage to take tomorrow off so will head to Atlanta mid-afternoon to meet up with a couple of folks.

I may have some time to get online later this evening...

Need I say more?

108 hours from now I will be here...

The Troll Tavern, Helen Georgia

What sucks is that as it stands now I still have to show up for work three hours away Saturday and Sunday morning.

* Sponsored By http://www.sourcetix.com/

I don't get to enjoy going to concerts quite as much as I used to but when I do I generally do the same thing that I do with movie tickets, order them online. When I was twenty camping out for days to get primo seats was great. I loved it. Now that I'm 40 I just don't see it happening now. I much prefer the convenience of my own living room to get tickets.

SourceTix is an easy to navigate site to buy concert tickets online. I've been there once or twice and the setup has been redone somewhat recently (at least since the last time I stopped by to price tickets) and is quite attractive now. Of course I don't go there to look at the site templates but it certainly doesn't hurt to have an attractive setup.

I DO go to price/buy concert tickets. Right on the front page (currently) is a link to purchase tickets for the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, one of my favorite bands no matter what time of year it is. Founded by members of Savatage the Trans-Siberian Orchestra takes heavy metal one step further into a classical/pop/metal mixture that will blow you way. They are going to be in Atlanta on November 8th and I would certainly like to go see them.

Along with concerts, SourceTix also provides tickets to sporting events as well as the theater. They also take their service very seriously, offering a guarantee that the tickets are authentic, they will be shipped to you prior to the show and that they will refund your money if the event is canceled and not rescheduled for another date. Some venders offer no guarantee at all. What you see is what you get. Head on over to SourceTix.com the next time you are looking for concert tickets.

Ronnie James Dio is one of the more powerful voices in Rock & Roll, specifically Heavy Metal.

I loved Dio with Rainbow (the origin of this song) as well as with Black Sabbath. His solo stuff is pretty good. His first album, Holy Diver, kicked serious ass and the second one was pretty good. Successive releases found me getting bored with him. Normally he would have a good song or two but all of the rest of his stuff sounded just like everything else he did. No evolution of his music at all.

Queensryche recorded one of the songs off of their last album with him and he did some shows with them as well, and it was pretty good. He didn't perform The Chase with them when I saw the show in 2006, but it was still pretty good.

I am really looking forward to this weekend. I didn't have a conversation that never happened earlier today and it got me to thinking about the weekend to come. Apparently I am the only one that has got a cabin so methinks that there might be a bit of partying going on there. That should be interesting considering that I may end up having to drive back home both Saturday and Sunday morning to work. Yeah, it blows but there may be nothing I can do about it. Don't worry though, if I do I will throw your drunk asses out when I need to go to sleep.

I haven't had the chance to get out and read everyone else's site and Zonker ain't saying anything lately, so who all is coming this year anyway?

Thanks to Jimi I got stuck at his site for quite awhile fooling around with this. Warning, it is addictive...

We already know from his record as Mayor of New York that he supports illegal aliens, why should I be surprised at that?

I don't get to RedState very often. Like the seriously left wing sites such as KOS 90% of the stuff there is bullshit and extremely one-sided. I can judge the issues for myself without having it spoon fed to me like most of the extremely political sites like to do. Just watch. 90% of the people that hang out on a regular basis at Daily KOS, Redstate or Michelle Malkin's site for instance will just regurgitate verbatim what they have read and hear without bothering to listen to opposing arguments. That's cool, but arguing with those people is useless and pointless.

Anyway, the article I came across wasn't even about Rudy Giuliani. It was really just a short blurb stating the fact that the Flat Tax has four sponsors in congress, whereas the Fairtax has 57. That makes sense to me because the Fairtax taxes everyone including illegal income generated by drug dealers, criminals, and illegal aliens. The Flat Tax only taxes those that are already paying taxes which includes none of the above.

What I found more interesting that the article itself is the comments. They are very polarized on the issue but there are some really good points made. Go check them out and if you are sick of paying taxes visit Fairtax.org as well.

No, I'm not channeling Catfish...Just fooling around instead of doing something meaningful, interesting, or hell even just trying to make a buck.

I love the Internet...

Call it a mini-porncast if you will.

I hear that Michael Vick finally landed himself a pretty good new job where he can put his many and varied talents to use. He's the new head coach for Georgia Tech...

...wait for it

I was over at T1G's place doing something I haven't had opportunity to do in quite some time, actually visit friends and comment. One of my favorite things to do that got me involved in blogging is just reading their stuff and generally lurking about, you know, like a stalker with an occasional comment. Here lately it seems that the only thing I do is work, come home and try to make some money online, work some more, post more paid crap, go back to work and maybe get three hours of sleep. Fucked up.

Anyway, the wife and girls are at a friend's house this evening. I am supposed to go back to work tonight but I think I am going to skip it. I have called my relief manager and let him know that he needs to do drawer change tonight and the manager trainee is going to do the other one. I need some check-out time.

What I was actually going to do was comment on his post in which he put the B-52's Rock Lobster. I love that song. Hell, I love most of their stuff. I am not sure what it is. 99% of what I listen to is heavy metal, you know 'death to false metal' and all of that crap, and classic rock. There are a few bands though that for some reason I just like. One is the B-52s. Here's the video he posted.

I don't know what it is. I think it must be the raw energy that they put forth. Their later stuff was kind of lame and didn't capture that energy.

One more from back in the 80's that doesn't fit into anything I like is Bauhaus. I have two or three of their early albums and one of my favorite songs is Bela Lugosi's Dead. This is Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails and Peter Murphy from Bauhaus performing the song.

Happy Halloween!! Well, almost. It certainly feels like it with my current desktop. Stardock has updated their R.I.P. desktop with the newest features from the skinned components included in the theme and release it for free for Wincustomize subscribers as well as with any purchase of a premium skin from the store. Most of the premium skins run less than $10 so you are getting two for the price of one. Here's what mine looks like right now.

This is one kick-ass theme. The little ghost on top of the start menu is animated and moves back and forth from the tombstone to the right edge.

There are more screen-shots at Wincustomize to look at as well. As you can see I finally changed my user icon in Windows to match the avatar I've been using on most of my web sites as well.

Some of the goodies included in the theme are:

• WB6 Animated skin for Vista & XP
• Icon Package for Vista & XP
• Wallpaper in 3 Resolutions
• Clock Gadget
• Calendar Gadget
• Weather Gadget

One more thing that they have done is to release a Dream as well. Dream Scenes are animated desktops that work under Windows Vista Ultimate. It's the same background, only animated. You can download it for free here if you have Vista Ultimate Extras installed. It's one of the very few extras that Microsoft has actually released since May and is very cool particularly when it is extended with Stardock's Deskcapes

Cross-Posted from TheAppDotNet

This is the third Manowar tune I ever heard. I can't find the videos for the first couple, Warlord (not Return of the Warlord) and one off of the Battle Hymn album whose name escapes me right this second.

This is a pretty darned good one. A tribute to the victims of Reverend Jim Jones...

...that I took the time last night to schedule those posts for today because after working all day and then sitting in meetings until 6:30 tonight I am tired as hell. This is the only thing I will actually post about today. It's getting worse at work and I am seriously stressed.

This is race weekend (Talledega) and I have no idea how busy I will be at work over the next four days. I am going to hit the sack soon and I will try and schedule some posts for tomorrow when I wake up in the morning, provided I get up at a decent time.

1. Pickled Snake Heads
2. Salmon Candy
3. Cow Lung
4. Giant Water Bug
5. Crab Spawn Cakes
6. Mountain Oysters
7. Cobra Blood (supposed to make you hard)
8. Snake Wine (from China, has a small snake in it. I prefer mine to be a worm :)
9. Deep Fried Monkey Toes
10. Squirrel Brain (might turn me into a Squirrel Zombie)
11. Scrapple
12. Rat
13. Calf's Head

Manowar has always been one of my favorite bands even with their kitschy costumes and 'death to false metal' attitude.

I have been using CouponChief since I found out about them a few months back and as I am seriously frugal at times finding coupons and deals are a wondrous thing. Obviously it doesn't take much to impress me. Anyway, the last few days I have been trying to make out Christmas lists for people. There's my wife and two girls and they should be easy to shop for. Now my son, that will be a little difficult. Whatever he gets has to be extremely portable and he has to be able to carry it onto a military base. I am thus far clueless. Then there's my parents and quite a few extended family members, probably 20 of them or so.

Most likely for the girls I will get them a couple of books, but I was looking at some of the KBToys deals available last week and there are a couple of things I want to get them there. I figured I could see if Coupon Chief had any moreonline coupons for them. They have a couple of offers but they also have a coupon for free shipping on over 800 items. Very nice. I get paid Friday and will go ahead and get started with my shopping then.

One thing we normally do is to make sure to get Riley the dog and KC the cat gifts as well, since they ARE part of the family. Usually for the cats it will be something to play with containing catnip and for the dog something to chew on, even if he is getting older and not chewing quite as much stuff up. CouponChief has several different PetCo Coupons including one for 15% off all cat furniture. If I could get the cats to quit clawing my furniture and mess up some of their own, that would be great.

For the wife it's easy. Any type of Home Depot Deals and Coupon Chief has a ton of online coupons for Home Depot. 20% off, 40-60% off, 50% off, free shipping, free gift cards, you name it, they have it.

I guess I will just keep on being cheap. I has allowed me to save a bit of money while doing cool things as well.

I had a waitress walk out mid-day at the store with the new manager. The manager refused to come out on the floor and help her, leaving her by herself to cook and wait tables when there should have been FOUR people out there including the manager. I can already tell that this is going to be a long holiday season...

Not much to say for this one except that she was glad to see her boy...

Took this one on Family Day when we drove up to Parris Island

I don't know what the heck I have done but for some reason during the last month Windows Explorer crashes on me at random times when the computer is getting serious usage. Right now I have Firefox open with eight or nine tabs going, three more firefox windows open for posts to different sites, two windows of Windows Live Writer, Outlook, Windows Task Manager to kill Firefox when it starts using too much memory, BeyondTV, Windowblinds and various other background tasks. It's no more or less than I normally have open but for some reason it has just decided that now is the time to start screwing up. Oh well, I will look at it later I suppose if it doesn't resolve itself.

I guess it's time to go crash. Unfortunately tomorrow is another day at work. I am not looking forward to it for reasons I explained the other day. I will go spend some time over at the store with my new manager and explain some things to her about how we do things and maybe she will get it. I don't know but I do know that I am getting more phone calls from the employees complaining about stuff than I ever did before she got the store including when the dumbass ran it.

Thursday is meeting day and this coming weekend is the big race at the Talledega raceway. Should prove to be interesting to say the least particularly since one of my guys starts vacation tomorrow and the others are off Friday through Monday. I think I have plenty of help scheduled but I'll just have to wait and see.

I know this guy that I used to work with and we used to be pretty good friends. He has kind of gone off the deep end but I think he's starting to get it back together again. I wouldn't mind looking him up and seeing how he's doing. Anyway, I worked with him off and on for the last 17 years and at one point in time we have both left the company. For a while he decided he wanted to be a real estate agent and after a year he decided to come back to work with us. That was a few years back. Right before Christmas this past year he started freaking out and stuff and ended up getting treated for being Manic Depressive (bipolar) which is something I know quite a bit about from personal experience. He finally burned all of his bridges with us and now he is a massage therapist. I hear he likes it. Nothing against massage therapy, I have another friend that has done it for a couple of decades now, but this guy just doesn't seem like the type to stick with that for a long period of time.

Back in August we went and did the yearly thing spending a small fortune on school supplies. Pens, pencils, paper and notebooks and as usual we had to send all of it in at one time. This is supposed to be the supplies for the entire year.

Jump forward to today, two months later. I get this email from one of her teachers:

???

Ask them if they need notebook paper, pencils, or a red pen? What the fuck happened to all of the stuff I sent in two and a half months ago. Oh, hell no. If I am supplying stuff for the kids whose parents are too damned lazy or cheap to send stuff in then they need to come right out and say so, otherwise I may just start keeping the shit at home next year and dole it out as I see fit. I don't have a problem donating stuff if they let me know exactly what it's going to be used for but if I recall we sent in plenty of stuff.

It's funny how the girls are. Last year I bought one of them this mat that sits on the floor and includes a pen filled with water that you draw on the mat with. The year before that it was magna-doodle and the year before that was some type of rainbow thing. I can get them the weirdest as seen on TV gift and they love the darned things. Certainly makes it easy to shop for them anyway.

Christine Anne Piesyk has gotten hold of the list of the 100 top banned books in schools and libraries in America and there is some discussion going on at Clarksville Online. So what's on the list? It's not just the usual suspects like Catcher in the Rye, although that's on there. Mark Twain, J.K. Rowling, RONALD DAHL, Judy Blume. All have books on the list. As a matter of fact Judy Blume has the distinction of having three on the list. Go check out the article and then come back, the list is in the extended entry here.

Which ones have you read? Are there any that you wouldn't want your children to read? My parents always had the unwritten policy that if I could understand it I could read it, which is one of the reasons I have been reading since prior to turning four.

Darn. You know, here I am trying to write in Windows Live Writer and I don't know how to make an extended entry. Guess I can put in the HTML and hope it works.

Viagogo is an online partner selling Konzert tickets to the hottest shows in Deutschland (Germany) such as Nine Inch Nails and Gwen Stefani. Neither band currently has a tour in Germany coming up but there are several really good bands playing currently or getting ready to such as the Kaiser Chiefs who are on tour in Germany starting at the end of October and on into November. It would be really nice to be able to get tickets and see the Kaiser Chiefs in Germany. They are playing in Bremen on November 12th at Pier 2.

In addition to concert tickets, theater tickets are also available for musicals, several comedy shows, the Cirque Du Soleil as well as the Opera. One of the things I regret not having done when we went to Disney a couple of years ago was not going to see the Cirque Du Soleil while we were there.  They are doing three shows at the SAP Arena in Mannheim next week as well as three more later in the month at the Olympiahalle München in München.

Be aware that the site is in Deutsch so if you cannot read German you might want to go to the U.S. site at Viagogo.com

Just got an email from Simon and Schuster about The Mist. The Stephen King movie based on his short story is due to be released in theaters next month. I am looking forward to going to see it as this is one of my favorites.

The email had some kind of contest going on where if I forward it to five of my friends I get entered into some kind of contest to get a $50 gift card for online downloads. I'm not particularly interested, at least this morning but if you are here is the link.

I think the wife and I have two different viewpoints about what we are going to do for our 20th anniversary next May. She wants to redo the entire bedroom. New furniture, paint, all that good stuff, and I want to spend the money on a trip to the Caribbean. Originally I was thinking Hawaii but just the thought of spending the greater part of the day in a flying coffin makes me want to hurl. Since I am the man in this household what I say goes...

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As I was saying, we are getting a new bedroom suite for our anniversary next May, and I have looked at around 100+ different web sites and types of furniture trying to decide what I want. Or at least what the wife wants that I can live with.

Home & Bedroom furniture online has all different types of stuff to look at for the bedroom including Hillsdale Furniture. What's nice is that they have all sorts of discount bedroom furniture and for me, anything that's on discount is worth looking at.

Regardless of the type of bed that we get I do know that I want a big old armoire for my stuff. I don't have a ton of things that I really have to hang up aside from my work uniforms and it would be nice to have them all accessible right there together. As far as beds go I have been thinking about a nice big poster bed although Canopy beds are pretty cool as well.

Either way I will bow to she who must be obeyed and just go about my business as usual. It may be that we can do both, go on a nice vacation in the Caribbean AND get a new bedroom suite if I play my cards right and do what I am told...

Man, I was sleeping good this morning. I didn't want to get out of bed today, that's for sure but I told the girls last night that they could wake me up if they wanted. They decided that they wanted to ride the bus to school and then back home today, which is fine by me except that one of them has chorus this afternoon, so they need to stay at the afterschool program.

The school won't take transportation instructions over the phone any more, so I actually have to go in and speak to them and give them written instructions at some point before noon. That's kind of a pain in the ass but it keeps the kids safer I suppose. The only problem I see with that is that sometimes in emergencies you CAN'T get there or fax them anything and that might cause a problem.

...

I haven't received any work calls yet this morning to ignore, which is a good thing. I finally received my last one around nine last night. This shit is getting ridiculous.

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Our baby sitter for the weekend of Helen has canceled so I don't know what the heck we are going to do now. I do know that I have to work part of the weekend at least but I had at least planned on having the wife and a friend go and then I was just going to drive up there after work on Friday and Saturday afternoons.

I am still going to get up there for at least a while but I may have to cancel my reservations. I need to speak with my boss first and see how feasible it's going to be for me to get the weekend off since one of the other district managers is on vacation. I am seriously pissed about the whole thing right now and it makes me want to tell them to go fuck themselves. Gotta work though so that's not happening...

I'm such a chicken about flying that I have been seriously considering going to Puerto Rico next summer rather than trying to get up the guts to try and fly to Hawaii. Either way I am going to try and book everything early. I've been doing some reading on Puerto Rico and figured I would share some of it here (of course.)

I have an acquaintance that I also used to work for that grew up in Puerto Rico and whenever he talks about the place it was mostly in glowing terms.

One of the really cool things I like about Puerto Rico is the fact that there are so many different types of terrain there. I enjoy going up into the mountains but I also love the beach. The wife and I have had discussions about retirement before and sometimes I want to live at the beach and other days it's the mountains. Puerto Rico has both. Puerto Rico also has the only tropical rainforest in the United States National Forest System, El Yunque National Forest.

One of the other nice things is that the year round temperature is generally around 80 degrees and there really isn't that much of a change between summer and winter. Of course between June and November you have to deal with Hurricane season but other than that the weather is perfect.

Unless things have changed recently, since Puerto Rico is a United States territory you don't have to have a passport or visa to visit unlike the rest of the Caribbean, although it's probably a good idea to call the State Department just to make sure. I've also found several different places on the Internet to get information about the Caribbean as well.

I have gotten several calls from one of my stores tonight. My "new" manager is apparently cutting costs and trying to save money by just not pulling food to the floor. You know, unimportant stuff like coffee and mayo. Fuck. She's actually been with us over six months now and should know her job and when she took the store we discussed the amount of food that should be out there on a given day but apparently she has decided that she knows better and just leaves them without the stuff that they need to operate for a shift, much less for an entire day.

I wish my lazy guy was back 'cause I really don't know how to handle this girl. Unlike most of our management team I am not particularly afraid of them investigating me for racial discrimination because I treat everyone the same way, but even this early into the deal I can see it headed that way because I am going to have to go in and be an asshole to get things done the right way. Not only that but I have been investigated several times and the entire legal team knows me as a result and knows that after a certain point I just quit walking on eggshells.

All I know is that if I get another call on my day off because they are out of something and she won't answer the phone I'm just going to go ahead and go bust the locks off the storage area and she can deal with it later. It's bad enough I am having to deal with this bullshit after midnight on my work days but calling me on my off day is a big no-no.

Apparently the health department is starting to crack down on some things with restaurants. December 1st a bunch of new regulations go into effect and we are having a huge meeting about in on Thursday. Some of the stuff really makes sense but some of it is really stupid and is severely going to slow down my production.

One of the good things is that they are going to be requiring at least one person on every shift in every restaurant to be Serve-Safe certified. Serve Safe is a nationally recognized food safety certification that deals with food safety issues. I am certified and think that more people with knowledge about food safety is a good thing.

Now Playing: Butthole Surfers - Double Live Bootleg - Disc 1 - Rocky

After that first glass of iced coffee I decided it wasn't quite sweet enough so rather than taking a spoon and stirring it up I decided to shake it up. It's got a lid, right? That was a damn mistake. Just finished cleaning up the mess but I am fairly hyped on caffeine today so it doesn't matter.

The girls get home in an hour and a half so I need to go ahead and finish up what posting I am planning on getting done.

I needed a break from blogging and since I had to go pick up that Avon stuff (in a minute...) I decided to head down to about the only place in town where I can actually sit down and have breakfast, the Waffle House. Yeah, what the hell am I doing there on my day off? It's not mine and everyone in town including myself has been waiting for this place to open up for years now so it's nice to have.

Scrambled eggs, sausage, biscuits and gravy. I am very satisfied now and feel much better that I have eaten. There are some days that I will get so busy on the computer or working that I just forget to eat and then spend the day feeling like crap so it's a good thing to take care of myself even if I could feel my arteries hardening at every bite.

About the Avon thing...One of the ladies that works there sells Avon on the side and I will usually get part of my Christmas shopping done through here. I picked up a Dora the Explorer shower curtain and bath rug set for RePete and a Tinkerbell inflatable backrest pillow for Pete. And there you though I was getting all limp wristed and shit. Personally I prefer the Disney Princesses for my shower set.

One of the things that was really nice when I worked in our IT department in Norcross is that I had access to some cool stuff. I was normally able to access the PCs in my house from work and vice versa. I was really nice to be able to control everything (including my lights) from work and work from home on the weekends when it was my turn. It certainly made it easier than having to make that 150 mile round trip on Saturdays and Sundays.

RemotePC is one of the biggest remote access solutions for personal computers. You can access your work and home computer from just about anywhere that has Internet access for under $5 a month. They have several different plans that are really affordable and it also costs less than gotomypc, one of their leading competitors.

I've tried using other solutions that are built in to Windows but have had varied results. The best type of remote access I have found has always been that of a dedicated solution such as RemotePC. It's compatible with Windows Vista, which meets my needs and runs seamlessly and is very quick.

One of the things I like about RemotePC is the fact that it's easy to setup a temporary license key and log into someone's computer that is having problems and called me for help. I don't have the luxury anymore of having a lot of free time to go to people's houses and fix computers but I can usually manage enough time to fix it over the phone. This makes things even faster for me.

What a name for a site. Shoplift.com

Surprisingly enough I found out that it's not a site with tips to get a five finger discount but Shoplift.com IS one of the Internet leaders to get brand name merchandise at great low clearance prices. They can help you to find great deals at 30-90% off all day, every day. All the items offered are brand new from the factory and include the full manufacturers warranty as well, unlike some of the overstocked web sites that give you deals. I always try to get a decent deal when I am shopping, particularly at Christmas when I am spending such a large amount of money but nobody likes to receive a gift that stops working after a couple of months. It makes me look as cheap as I am...

Shoplift.com has deals on digital cameras and accessories, car stereos, children's play equipment, laptops, printers, clothing, home and garden accessories and just about anything else you can think of that you might want to buy somebody for Christmas.

Go check out the site and you will see what I am talking about for great deals. They've got stuff that I didn't even know existed and now I have TV envy. All that talk about shopping for Christmas and I found something for myself. Isn't that just the way.

They have this SunBrite Outdoor 46" LCD television that you can watch rain or shine for just under $5k. Check this out:

1366 x 768 WXGA
Super-bright 800 nits screen
All-weather powder-coated aluminum enclosure protects the internal components from harsh outdoor elements.
Conformal coating protects the internal electronics from humidity-related corrosion damage.
A contrast-enhancing, anti-glare and scratch-resistant window protects the LCD screen from rain, dirt and the elements.
The user-friendly operator controls are also sealed against rain.
Baffled and filtered, dual-fan airflow system quietly keeps the unit cool in all climates and keeps rain, dust and insects from entering the enclosure.
An innovative watertight cable entry system allows the use of standard AV cables. The pass-through design makes hook-up quick and easy.
Compatible with almost all video sources, including off-the-air antenna, cable TV, satellite TV, DVD players and PCs Standard VESA 75/100 mounting hole pattern.
IR control window allows integrating the unit into high-end home theater systems using centralized control themes.
Internal thermostatically-controlled heater that activates automatically when internal temperature sensor reads 32o F. or lower.
Dimensions: 44.6"W x 27.16H x 6.85

A cooler of beer or coffee thermos next to the hammock and I would never leave the back yard!

I had a friend a few years back and his purpose in life was to save enough money so that he could retire, move to Amsterdam and live out his life in the land of clogs and coffee houses. I don't know a lot about that but I do know that it's a pretty beautiful place and I would like to visit eventually.

EasyToBook.com has plenty of deals on vacation destinations in Amsterdam. Right around this time of year prices on flights start to get much cheaper than the warm months and EasyToBook has some great prices on hotels in Amsterdam.

In addition to Amsterdam they also have deals for hotels in Barcelona as well as Prague hotels and vacations and information on the locations themselves. There are links to different tourist attractions and important stuff such as landmarks, restaurants and shopping. You can search for hotels specifically by location or near the attractions to make it easy. Nobody likes to book a hotel only to find out that it's an hour drive to whatever it is that they want to see.