March 2008 Archives

Getting ready to hit the sack but I wanted to make sure and post before I go to bed. Nothing particularly exciting happened today and I am in a foul mood which is one of the reasons I haven't posted since this morning.

Fortunately the audits came out OK at the one store I mentioned might have some issues today. That's a freaking miracle considering that the waitresses ran the store for 24 hours. Not that I think they are dishonest but too many hands in the pie tend to skew things.

I still haven't smoked and I want one more today than I have all week. I'm just ready to beat someone's ass. I didn't stop and buy a pack although I damn sure wanted to today. When the heck does it start getting easier. 100 hours now. Just over four days since my last cigarette. It's probably a good thing the girls are in another state right now. That worked out pretty well (for them anyway) since I don't have anyone here to pick a fight with.

I'll tell you one thing though, quitting smoking gives you some serious gas. Of course since I severely curtailed the smoking starting about eight weeks ago I have noticed it before but since Friday it's been getting worse. It's fucking rancid too. Smells like something crawled up my ass and died there. Even the dog is staying away from me. I have to keep moving at work so as to not be noticed. That's fine as long as it's silent but once you start getting those noisy walking farts there's just no hiding.

I skipped the gym yesterday so made sure that I went back today. I tried to take it a bit easy on myself today and worked out for a little over half an hour. I am increasing the weights I am lifting with my legs and thighs but haven't been able to do a lot with my upper body yet. It pisses me off because I used to have a lot of upper body strength. Guess that's what I get for 41 sedentary years. I may start doing pushups in the morning as well to help get a bit of strength back in my shoulders and arms.

Did the tanning bed thing again today too. I've only noticed a tiny difference thus far, maybe I need to get them to keep it on longer.

There are some nice benefits to going to the gym. There are quite a few hotties that go as well. Something to look at while I exercise. Just have to make sure to wear the pants with the tent attachment I guess :) Most of them are too damn young but they are nice to look at.

I don't have anything more to bitch about tonight. Now that I napped for two hours this afternoon I'm going to try and get a bit of shut-eye if I can.

I didn't sleep any better last night than the couple before. I guess it's my body craving the nicotine or something. That or I'm just not used to sleeping by myself any more in combination with the other. I tossed and turned and finally managed to get to sleep after midnight. I woke up two or three times and looked at the clock.

I had intended to mention a couple of more things in that post about work but my browser crashed and I ended up publishing just what I had auto-saved at that point.

It's pretty cool. Her (the manager I was writing about last night) is graduating from boot camp the last weekend in April. Good for her. He's in the Navy and although he's a squid I can't disparage him too much for doing what he believes in. We need more young people like him to participate. Anyhow, the weekend he graduates is also Talladega Race weekend. Nothing to be done for it, I have moved her vacation so she can go to graduation. It will be a rough weekend because I have another manager off the very same weekend as well and it will be pretty busy that week. I will also have two of my managers taking back-to-back vacations and that's going to be hard.

The only reason I really don't like it is because I was going to make her take her vacation the week of the Rodeo. She is the owner and one of the organizers for the Waco (Georgia) redoe and always misses several days of work during the rodeo and even when she is at work is even less involved than normal. I know she'll miss at least three days during the weekend of the rodeo in May, so I will just have to make sure she only gets one the week prior and count those days she misses as her days off. I don't know why they just haven't scheduled it that way before anyway. I need to find out the date so I can go ahead and get my itinerary finished and turned in pretty quickly.

It's about time to go to work. Hopefully even with the bullshit today won't be too long of a day. I want to try and work out this afternoon and have a bunch of stuff here at the house that needs to be done as well.

So I ended up doing nothing but lying on the couch attempting to nap and then went back to work this evening. I figured the nap would take my mind off of why I am having trouble sleeping in the first place, which is wanting a cigarette. I would kill for a smoke tonight but I didn't go buy any. I didn't even bum any. Normally one of the first shift waitresses keeps an extra pack in the filing cabinet but it wasn't there tonight. Fucking foiled again!

I skipped the workout today, which is probably not such a great idea but I had originally planned on being productive and getting some work done here. I am behind the eight ball on some stuff. I've got taxes to file, not only for myself but for the Marine as well. He finally sent his W-2s and it struck me as funny for some reason. His Marine Corps W2 comes from Defense Finance and Accounting (listed as the company). I already knew that but for some reason it had slipped my mind and caught me in a minute or something. Rambling...fuck

Anyhow, if I didn't have at least one incompetent under me I don't suppose I would know what to do. One of my managers does whatever the fuck she wants. Literally. She doesn't do her job and the last district manager she had couldn't get her to do it either. MY last district manager before I got promoted, and she is good, so it's not her fault. She has been in the store where she is at four weeks shy of five years. Holy cow, she got it right before I left the corporate office because they were talking about putting me in that store. Doesn't seem like it's been that long.

Anyway, she refuses to cook (part of the manager's job description in a 24-hour diner), she refuses to come back and do shift changes when she is supposed to, she treats people unfairly and is generally pretty much high-maintenance, and needs to be replace. If she would take ownership of her problems and not just the successes and at least show she wants to fix things then the other stuff wouldn't be a big deal but as it is she needs to be replaced. So eventually she will quit or they will get tired of her and offer her a position as a trainee again. Which means I will take her as a loss and lose $500 in retention money. It's not yet worth it, but a couple more months of bullshit and then it will be. She left at 10:30 this morning because she was having an anxiety attack. This is apparently quite common with her. Now before anyone who really seriously suffers from anxiety attacks me, I just don't give a fuck. If she can't because of her physical/psychological makeup handle the job of running a 24 hour restaurant then she needs to find a new fucking career.

Anyhow, like I said, she just up and left at 10:30 this morning. The busiest shift of the week, she just up and leaves. She pulled her hostess off the door and put him in her place on the grill. I'm sure that went over like a lead balloon. No cash or commissary audits. No bank deposits. The waitresses have had the keys all day doing the drawer changes and pulling food to the floor when they needed it. No paperwork done this morning. They even paid themselves. No truck order, which should have gone in this morning. I had to run a $173 shortage on the woman last week as it is, which I really don't like doing and it looks like chances are she's going to eat another one this week. I was going to cook the next two days but I went ahead and called in one of the guys that helps me out now and then to cook tomorrow because I'm not touching any money or food tomorrow until I have had the chance to do a thorough audit of it, along with all of her paperwork.

I was there at 8:30 this morning and she was fine, so at least the paperwork (which should have been done at 7am) could have been done. My visit was probably the reason for her anxiety attack, because I expect her to do her job and have very quickly started being a dick about it. At least I consider it being a dick, I don't yell at folks (often), I just don't give her any alternative to what I want her to do. Her costs are way out of control and we have given her several ways to fix it. She refuses to implement any of them. I told her on Thursday after the meeting that I had to attend on my day off because of her food cost that if she couldn't get it fixed this week that she would have to let someone go and that if she couldn't figure out who was stealing, I would just start firing people randomly. Her biggest thieves are working 1st shift with her anyway, so that should be easy. I'll start by letting the newest folks go and when the food cost drops I know I've gotten the right one. Every single one of them has had more than enough cash register shortages over the last three months to where I have reason to fire them anyway.

There she is, calling me on my cell phone, finally. 9:35pm. That's what fucking voice mail is for.

Did I tell you I needed a cigarette. Just damn. Three days, four hours.

When I went to Las Vegas in 1987 we stayed at the Holiday Inn. I think it was called the Holiday Inn Circus or something along those lines. I don't really remember. We weren't there all that long. We walked up and down the strip but it was late, so the only Las Vegas Casino that we visited was Caesar's Palace. There are a couple of 'iconic' casino/hotels I think of when I'm talking about Vegas. Caesar's Palace of course is one, but the Sahara is another. Remember the TV show Vegas with Robert Urich? Dan Tanna was the man. Of course I was twelve when the show aired, so anything even remotely resembling an action series like that got me all excited. Ocean's Eleven was set there too, at least the original was. I don't remember where the remake was set. Anyhow, the point is that the TV show and movies set in Las Vegas always show glimpses of the familiar landmarks, including the Sahara.

Would you believe the Sahara is 55 years old? Holy cow! As a result you know right now you can get a really good Las Vegas deal on a vacation at the Sahara. It's changed immensely over the last 55 years too. Some of the city's coolest rides are at the Sahara, they have great restaurants on site including the NASCAR cafe, and over 1700 rooms and suites to choose from. Check out the Roller Coaster...

That going backwards stuff is enough to make me want to hurl...

Even though I have already made plans for our 20th anniversary it would be kind of cool to plan a Las Vegas wedding and surprise the wife. Not that I would want the kids there or anything, although I suppose if we were going to be that close to the Marine (he's at Twentynine Palms, California) we would have to take them and pay him a visit.

Anyway, the point is it's been a long time since I've been to Las Vegas or anywhere else out west for that matter, and it's high time we went out that way on a vacation.

So I think I mentioned yesterday the Temple PD was out raising money at one of my stores this weekend. Either they must have hit the $5k mark or they just decided to throw in the towel early because they cleared out around 3pm today. If they just decided to shut down I don't blame them. The weather this weekend has been pretty crappy and it's been pretty darned slow this weekend as well.

The girls have left for South Carolina. I spoke with the wife shortly after I left work this afternoon and they had just gotten to Bluffton. I guess they will be back later in the week. I have Friday off so I think they are planning on being back by then.

I unfortunately have to go back to work tonight. I was supposed to be working a double shift today but with the wife and kids leaving town I decided to come home for a while to let the dog out. They are fine anyway and don't need my non-smoking stressed out personage up their butts all evening.

I think I will spend some time surfing a couple of blogs I haven't had the chance to visit in a few days. Speaking of blogs I like to visit, if you go to Parkway Rest Stop on occasion tell the guy with the big hair my fucking IP address is banned and neither myself or my wife can get to his site from here. I need to just get Jim's email from someone else I guess and send him a not but I just haven't had the time.

So the girls are leaving in the morning for Hilton Head. Kind of sucks that I won't get to go because it means that I will never get to see our friends again as they are moving overseas. Some days my job sucks.

I've been pretty busy this weekend as my store in Temple has been hosting the local police department. They are raising money for Special Olympics (in case some of my employees need a second career as a retard) and they sit on the roof until tomorrow night or until they raise $5,000. It's a pretty cool thing to do and they all seem to be having a good time, at least when it's not raining.

I don't know how much fun I am having though. Two of my three stores have gotten a bit out of hand with some of their costs and employees just flat out stealing and in the case of the one in Bremen, the manager just doesn't seem to care less, at least not enough to change anything and fix the problem so I, along with one of the other district managers, have to go in for every single shift change now. That means being out of the house until 10pm every night but still getting back up by 5am, AND I have to work three doubles over the next seven days. I am not all that excited about it, as a matter of fact, combined with the fact that I'm not smoking I have pretty much been a bastard to several people that work for me and unless they fix the shit I don't plan on changing that anytime soon.

Speaking of the smoking it's been 48 hours since my last one. Actually it's more like 53 now. 3,180 minutes. 190,800 seconds. I started writing this post prior to going in for drawer change earlier this evening but I didn't get it finished in time. Even if I had, we had no Internet until a short while ago. Anytime it thunders within 150 miles Charter High Speed goes down and tonight was no exception.

I haven't slept since Wednesday night, even tried to nap today and was unsuccessful until about 15 minutes before the wife came in to wake me up. I guess it's because of the lack of nicotine. This sucks and I really want a smoke, even with the Chantix. It would be much worse without it though. The next few days are going to be the toughest though. With the wife and kids not being at home I won't have any reason to feel guilty if I smoke. Now that I've managed to go two days though I really don't want to screw that up.

I've been trying to keep busy so that I don't think about it but that only works for so long. The working out is part of that. I did make myself go to the gym this afternoon after I went ans spent a hundred bucks on a freaking new tire. I had apparently gotten a nail in it but it was so close to the inside edge that they wouldn't plug it. I made sure that they showed it to me first. The Wal-Mart folks are usually pretty cool about it anyway. They are more than happy to patch or plug a tire if that's all it needs.

I suppose that's about it for today. I am rambling, even more than normal and I thing maybe a hit of nyquil might just do the trick and let me sleep for a while. I have even been dreaming about smoking when I do manage to catch some sleep and I would like to avoid those if at all possible. Anyone have a couple of ludes available? That might just do the trick :) Maybe I just need a new hobby to take my mind off of it. Working out at the gym is only good for an hour a day or so. Perhaps I can take a couple of hours and go down to Fulton Industrial and sodomize winos or something. Any takers?

So the girls are officially on spring break for the next nine days, including the wife. Unfortunately I will only have one of those days off :(

I think they are planning on going to the Atlanta Zoo tomorrow and then Sunday they are driving back down to Hilton Head to spend a few days with our friend Niqui before she moves. I wish that I could go down but I am unfortunately going to be stuck at work all week. As a matter of fact I am going to have to work doubles on Sunday and Thursday. I'm not particularly looking forward to that. I hate working doubles but unfortunately sometimes this business calls for it. My profits haven't been all they could be and I need to make sure I have plenty of money when it comes time to go to Disney, and that's the money I am making now.

...I was looking at the local wally world when I was picking up some supplies for work on Wednesday and I came across a pair of skate shoes. Pete was dying for a pair of these toward the end of the school year last year and I almost got them but I don't know if she wants them anymore. I think I will wait. Don't really want to spend any money right now as it is.

I think I will surf the web for a while and then shower. I want to hit the sack at a decent time tonight. We are doing a benefit

I worked out again for the fifth day in a row. Although it burned a bit I am starting to have a much easier time of it than I was the first day or two. In a few more days I am going to add the elliptical or treadmill to it as well, at least for 20 minutes or so.

I also checked out the tanning bed as well. That was just weird. I've never used a tanning bed and for the most part have considered it pretty stupid. If you want a tan go hang in the sun. I tan very easily but the problem is that I get the one-armed tan from driving so much, or the farmer's tan when I am working in the yard. It's not as if I am going to cut the yard in my speedos, although I wouldn't mind checking out some of my neighbors cutting grass in their lingerie. SOME of them, mind you. The others just need to keep their pants on. Anyhow, I lay in the tanning bed for seven minutes. The dude didn't want me to stay in any longer since I had never used one. I felt like I was getting in an oven and except for the loud buzzing I probably could have taken a nap. I guess you get used to the sound because at least once or twice a year one of my waitresses comes in burned to a crisp because they fell asleep. The ones at the gym I go to are on a timer, I guess that maybe all of them aren't or something.

Anyhow, a couple of the guys up there use the tanning bed after they work out, so I didn't feel so self-conscious about it anymore. Besides, with quitting smoking and working out I have to have something to kill me. Skin cancer is as good as anything :)

Speaking of smoking, I've now gone about 26 hours without one. I know I have been working on it for a couple of months now, but this is the first time I have gone over an entire day without a cigarette. Darn hard too. I an a bit snappy tonight, so am just keeping to myself. I have a bunch of stuff to write about anyway and if I finish that I need to work on taxes.

I am not looking forward to filing this year. I don't know how much but I will end up owing probably several thousand. I though about filing an extension, but the only people that are going to be receiving the rebates are the ones that file. If anything I can file and then work out a payment plan with the IRS. I took about a $20k increase in pay myself this year, not counting the $10k I made online, and none of it taxed. Hopefully with working out of the house more some of my office expenses will cover a bit of it. I think maybe I should move my office back down into the basement. The back room is a MUCH larger area than I have set up right now, and thus the percentage that I can claim of the utilities and mortgage is more. I hate taxes. The IRS is going to own my last month's pay for this year on top of what they already keep. I wish that our politicians would take things seriously and fix the darned tax system.

So I came across this video earlier today about Beer Pong. I am 41 years old and have never seen anyone play Beer Pong in my entire life. I came across a link to a couple of sites earlier and so went looking for videos on YouTube. I found this one.

#1, this is a drinking game so if you don't like beer don't play. The premise is that you get some beers, ping pong balls, one of those beer pong tables and a few willing players. You try to get your balls into your opponent's beer cups and as each plater loses they have to drink the beer.

I'n not a real huge partier or anything but this looks like it could be a nice addition to this years trip to Helen in October. Substitute Chatham Artillery Punch for the beer and nobody's walking out of there :)

This is the first week in about six that I will actually have two days off in a row and I had really planned to enjoy it. I made an appointment to have my car serviced this morning out off of Thornton Road at around 8:30 or so and I figured once I finally get out of there I would come home and work in the yard, then nap for a while.

Unfortunately my boss has other ideas. I am going to be stuck in a meeting from 3pm until around 5 or 6 tonight. On my day off. Needless to say I'm not particularly happy about having to go to a meeting on my day off but there's nothing to be done for it except to suck it up and go.

Anyway, that's about it for now. Just felt like posting before I have to go.

I was reading this article over at CNN that talks about a new line of greeting cards that this lawyer (figures...) came up with while looking in vain for a birthday card for her brother-in-law while he was incarcerated.

Both the wife and I had a good laugh at some of the cards which include wonderful sentiments such as "You had the choice to be 'naughty or nice.' And you chose ... Now you have to do your time. But, Christmas won't be the same without you here." or "we're all praying for you while you do your time". The first one is actually pretty funny and it got me to thinking.

It hurt, too...

Anyway, while I was sitting here drinking my morning coffee and reading I came up with a couple of greetings for incarcerated loved ones myself.

Congrats on the birth of your child!...It's not your's.

Merry Christmas you fucking loser.

Happy Thanksgiving...We're enjoying a fine repast whilst Bubba stuffs your ass like a turkey.

A bit of Christmas cheer for my favorite dope, and here's to hoping you don't drop the soap.

You guys have any you want to add to the list?

This is my open-trackback post for Wednesday and Thursday March 26th-27th (now that Wednesday is half over :)

I feel as if someone beat me all over with a padded stick. No bruises or anything, just a dull ache.

I was already sore before I ever made it to the gym this afternoon, but I did go for my second trip there. I used several of the weight machines and ended up on the elliptical for awhile to stretch out the leg muscles a bit. I managed to get there at 2:30 today and it was much less crowded than yesterday evening, so that was nice. I am going to try and start going daily, at least three or four times a week. It really just depends on what is going on.

Yesterday I felt like I was going to blow chunks when I got finished. I guess there is all sorts of nasty crap stored up in my fat and muscles that doesn't belong there that's moving around now. Next thing you know I'm going to have to start eating healthy. Fuck that. Maybe later.

Of course as soon as I drove out of the parking lot of the gym I lit up. Last smoke. I had a couple in my car from the other day and what the hell do you need more after a good workout than a hot cup of coffee and a Winston? I've been home for a while now and don't have the slightest urge to go smoke though. That last one as I was driving home wasn't too good. Tasted like dogshit actually.

I have a bit of web surfing to do and then I have to go pick the girls up. I would have gotten them on the way home but today is chorus and I don't think it finishes until 4:30 anyway. Besides, Pete and RePete get angry when I pick them up too early from late stay. The really enjoy hanging out there with their friends.

So I went to the gym finally. Spent about an hour yesterday evening, maybe forty minutes. I'm only slightly sore and I didn't even feel it until I started typing. It was not very crowded which is a good thing. I spoke with the owner for a few minutes and he took me through a walk-through of the place and started me on a regimen of about 10 machines I need to use daily. Fuck.

It's not that I am just lazy, I am the epitome of sloth. Up until this last decade or so I have never been in bad shape. Other than running from police and other sundry authority figures I have never worried about exercise. I've even had people ask if I work out. I was insanely blessed with a fine metabolism and my upper body strength was just fine. Except that now my weight has migrated and now that I am 41 my shoulders are hanging out about my waist. It's hard to diddle myself when I have to reach around my gut...

Anyhow, I enjoyed my workout and plan to go back today just as long as I can get out of work at a decent time. It should be less crowded at 2 p.m. as well. I don't particularly want the fucking audience, although that's just me being self-conscious. Everyone else is there for the same thing too aren't they? You know, to look at the hotties. Anyway, it's time to head off to work.

Sort of an upper body tramp stamp if you will...

I managed to snap this one at the wedding last week.

I never did get to go to the gym today. I had every intention of getting started, I even got there and two women were already there using the equipment I was going to get started on. Rather than hang out as well as being embarrassed because I really don't know what the fuck I am doing I feigned a cell call and beat it.

If I can manage to get my ass out of bed on time in the morning I will try and get there between five and five thirty tomorrow morning, that way I can get a shower in afterward, prior to heading off to work.

Speaking of getting out of bed on time, I didn't wake up until shortly before seven this morning. That's like two hours later than normal. I think part of it is because of my sun burn and the rest is due to the fact that my body is just pooped. I have worked something like six weeks with five days off, maybe six. I am supposed to be off Thursday and Friday this week and had planned on being off two days the next but since one of the other district's and myself seem to be overlapping again I don't think I will get both Friday and Saturday. I have already told her I am willing to give up my Saturday that week but I get the following weekend off. We'll see how it goes I suppose.

That's about it for tonight. I spent a few minutes working on this logo creator thingy that I have to write a review for on another site, that was pretty cool. I'll post some screenshots later. How about some of these taglines...

Shadowscope...better than the bomb

...sleep is just a cheap caffeine substitute (of course I've been using this one for several years anyway).

Shadowscope...better than a fart in a hot tub!

here...

Unfortunately all I had today was candy.

Have you ever made cotton candy? I love cotton candy. I always wanted to know how to make the stuff and I got to find out how the last two days.

I've seen much more complicated setups but the one I used yesterday and this afternoon was pretty simple. Basically it's just a motor with a small bowl with holes in it sitting on top of an axle. Around that goes a big old metal pan to hold the candy. Cotton candy is just plain old sugar with some flavor added, pretty much. You let the bowl heat up (there's a little heater in there) and then turn the wheel on and it starts spinning and out comes the spun sugar which you put your little stick in and twirl it around while going around the bowl in a direction opposite the spinning of the bowl holding the sugar. It's actually pretty neat. No cover or anything but I suppose if you are inside or in a stall at some freakshow that wouldn't be an issue.

Try using it in a field with the wind blowing. Yesterday wasn't a real huge day but today we had a great turnout.

I suppose I should tell you what we were doing and how I got roped into being the cotton candy man.

We had community easter egg hunts at two of our restaurants this weekend. One in Bremen yesterday and the other in Villa Rica this afternoon. Nothing fancy, just the egg hunt, plenty of sugary sweets and cake and cookies along with popcorn and one of those air jump things. The kids loved it. We had them at four p.m. so yesterday wasn't a huge turnout. Four is sort of early for a Friday afternoon what with traffic and school and whatnot but today... today was an entirely different beast. People started arriving at our store 30 minutes before it was to start and we ended up with at least 200-300 people. It's a good fucking thing I like my job. I made fucking cotton candy for an hour and a half solid before I got a break and then they all just sort of melted away. I had so many 'cobwebs' hanging off my arms and back and hair I asked the lady making popcorn next to me to get me a butcher knife so I could be 'cotton candy man'. I'll probably have nightmares about it tonight.

So here I sit eating my healthy dinner of McDonald's, sun burnt and covered with a pink sugary substance.

At least I didn't have to dress up as the easter bunny!

I never want to see any more fucking cotton candy as long as I live.

Shower and a nap. In that order.

While you aren't doing anything of import why don't you do send your condolences to Fat Hairy Bastard, whose father has passed away. Thanks to Holder for letting me know.

So I get this call about 7:30 this morning from one of my managers. Apparently Meredith from the Today show and film crew were at one of my restaurants. Of course the only though going through my mind at that time was 'fuck!'

Apparently they were wanting to interview a truck driver or something. I don't even know what it was about. Obviously since I leave the house by 6:30 every day I don't watch a hell of a lot of daytime TV. I've looked on the web site but haven't found anything there yet.

Anyhow, apparently they showed up around seven this morning or so and of course does my manager call me or my boss or even his boss? Fuck no, she calls the senior vice president. TWICE. Told him she was sorry for calling him but figured she would cut through the red tape and new that before anyone could shoot inside the store she had to get permission from the communications department.

That's all fine and dandy except that he wouldn't know who to call. As soon as I found out about it I called the person at the corporate office that had to OK it, and he did. Real simple and it could have happened when they showed up if the damned girl had just called me like she was supposed to. Now I have to put up with shit from above with my SVP wanting to know why the managers are calling him. It's about par for the course with this manager though, she's been doing stuff like that to her old district manager for the last five years. Her hearts in the right place but she's just not willing to do the things we pay her to do, the way we pay her to do them.

Let me tell you how it will be
There's one for you, nineteen for me
'cause i'm the taxman, yeah, i'm the taxman
Should five per cent appear too small
Be thankful i don't take it all
'cause i'm the taxman, yeah i'm the taxman
If you drive a car, i'll tax the street,
If you try to sit, i'll tax your seat.
If you get too cold i'll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, i'll tax your feet.
Don't ask me what i want it for
If you don't want to pay some more
'cause i'm the taxman, yeah, i'm the taxman
Now my advice for those who die
Declare the pennies on your eyes
'cause i'm the taxman, yeah, i'm the taxman
And you're working for no one but me

Five percent, yeah right.

The Beatles had it right though.

...smoking that is.

This is really a no-brainer but the article entitled "Smokers encouraged to give up for financial health" really struck a chord with me. It's all about how much money you can save by quitting smoking. It shows how much money you save if you smoke twenty cigarettes a day and quit smoking. Well, I smoke two (or did) two to three packs a day minimum. If you figure it that way, based on forty cigarettes a day at $3.50 a pack that's seven dollars a day, $49 a week, or $2,548 a year. That's a chunk of change. If I were to turn around and put that into, say my mortgage that's like making two extra house payments a year.

I did some reading a few years ago on paying off mortgages early. The example given was to pay half your mortgage every two weeks and by doing so you would end up making ONE extra payment a year and pay it off seven years early. How much earlier would I pay it off by making TWO extra payments a year. Not a bad deal at all, particularly considering that the cost of smokes is just going to keep going up and up until they are taxed out of existence by the Federal government.

I mentioned last night that the wife and girls went and had supper at church with some of our friends. They had a pretty good time. I ended up falling asleep on the couch while they were gone and it was pretty late when I woke back up and started writing more.

The daughter of our friend rides horses. She's been doing it for a few years now and I guess she really enjoys it. Luckily that's one of the things my daughter hasn't asked that she be allowed to do as it is pretty expensive and while I spoil my children that just isn't something that I want to deal with. Horses, stabling, equestrian clothing, you name it, it's a huge expense.

I am rather glad that my oldest daughter just likes sports, art and singing. While it can be pretty time-consuming it's nothing we can't handle.

I hate it when there is something I want to post about but it takes me a few minutes to finish what I am currently working on and by then I forget what little tidbit of information I want to share.

fuck.

Ah, yes. Finally it comes to me.

I went to the gym today.

For those of you not in the know, I am the king of sloth. I am lucky in that I have an extremely fast metabolism and until my mid-thirties (and a desk job) I stayed at an average weight of 140 pounds. Hell, when the wife and I met I weight 128 and wore a size 28. I couldn't get a 28 past my fucking knees now. For 28 years I've smoked two to three packs a day and until i married I survived off of Dr Pepper and Ding Dongs. I'm still pretty partial to Dr Pepper. I eat all kinds of nasty bad for you crap that is oh so good, one of the reasons I have to take Vytorin for my cholesterol now. I can sit and work on my computer for 20 hours straight.

So I am trying to quit smoking. I am down to anywhere from 1 to 15 smokes a day. Some days are better than others. I do want to quit but I can't seem to get over the hump where I can just say 'goddammit I am a non-smoker' and just not pick one up. As alcoholics will tell you, one is too many and a thousand never enough. How fucking true.

The problem with quitting smoking is that I am currently 175 pounds and I am going to look like the fucking Goodyear blimp and I am already out of shape enough to where my fat little self has to wobble around the fucking restaurant. Nobody likes to have a fat guy cooking for them, all sweating bullets into their food. yum. How appetizing.

So I'm going to try working out at the gym.

The wife's been doing it quite successfully, but she's much more hard-headed than i am and once she's decided on something not a fucking thing in the world is going to stop it from happening, right or wrong. I am much less decisive about stuff.

There's a gym right behind one of my stores that's open 24/7 and is only $30 a month. Not too bad. I would check out the one the wife uses, as it would be cheaper to do the family deal, but I am only in that area once or twice a week and it's not terribly convenient for me. The plain old facts are that if it's too fucking hard I'm not going to do it. The one behind my store (100 yards away) is also in the town we live in and one the way home from ALL of my stores. I stand a much better chance of actually stopping there. Not to mention the chick with the really nice ass that walked in right before I did...

I am pretty awful about sending cards when it's time for people's birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, etc...I am much better at sending emails and thank you notes that way. I don't think it's the cards that I have a hard time sending, it's just about anything in an envelope for some reason. I pay 99% of my bills online and the other one or two on the phone before I will mail them. That doesn't mean that I think cards are bogus though. Just look at the custom Photo Greeting Cards that CardsDirect has for instance.

I really like the photo cards. If the picture is well done then sending out photo cards during the holidays is a really cool idea. CardsDirect.com has over 70 different designs of greeting cards to choose from and some of them have really nice designs. I prefer the full color photo without any borders or doo-dads myself.

You can get a box of 100 for a little over $100 and while that may sound like a lot, think about it. When is the last time you printed out $100 photos on your inkjet printer and how many photo cartridges did it take? Not only that but it's not just the photo, it's the whole card, inside and out. The time and money I would save by ordering from CardsDirect make it worth the small expense. Heck, I might even get them in the mail rather than just sitting in a box in the top of my closet like the last Christmas Cards I bought.

Damn. Now that was a good nap.

I hadn't planned on sleeping but it just turned out that way.

The wife and girls went to church for supper tonight. Now before you say it, "Gawrsh, they let the Miles household into church!", the girls particularly enjoy it. The wife isn't exactly church-going and I would rather have my toenails ripped out of my feet with a pair of pliers than have to sit through a sermon. Except for all that God clap-trap and preaching church is OK I guess. I always felt that it was a good place for the kids and the social environment. Unless you go to one of those snake handling places, I guess.

I used to attend church as a kid with my great aunt. Speaking of whom, I don't remember if I have posted this or not but it's me at around 3 and my great aunt.

I see that I must have posted it before, it was already on my server.

Anyway, her health isn't too great. She's eightiy something, has diabetes, glaucoma, heart problems, has broken her hip at least once, is pretty much blind because of the glaucoma and is in generally piss poor health. I really need to drive in to Atlanta and see her soon but I hate too because she has changed so much mentally over the last couple of years. Not for the good either. I actually get two days off next week for the first time since before I went to Nassau in the middle of February, perhaps I will make the trek to Atlanta then.

While Atlanta is on my mind, the Georgia Renaissance Festival is happening soon. The last couple of years we have made it an annual thing and year before last we left the kids with babysitters and had a freaking blast. This past year even Zonker met us down there. Normally I end up going toward the last weekend but this year I am off the weekend of April 12th and 13th. As it stands now I am planning on being at the renaissance festival with beer in hand on Saturday the 12th. If you have a compelling reason why I should change it to Sunday, let me know as I am flexible. It would be pretty cool to get a couple of bloggers down there. This year they have the Royal Lipizan Stallions show and that's supposed to be pretty cool. Photo opps abound!

I thought I had some photos from last years ren fest up on Flickr but apparently not. I have solved that world issue and here are some of the photos from last years jaunt to south of Atlanta. Mind you, some of the pictures were on my phone. I may get around to sending them to flickr one of these days.

Updated - oops, I just pasted the photo link, forgot all about that img src crap...

I told him nobody should drink two at a time, but do you think anyone fucking listens to me? Oh, hell no!

Supposedly my Freedom Keychain GPS device that I picked up last year while I was still using my Samsung i760 will work with the Blackberry Pearl. I know the GPS device does work because I have gotten it to partner with my computer as well as my old cell phone, but for the life of me I can't seem to get it to work with my Blackberry. It's not a hugely important detail in the grand scheme of things, but I have spent several hours off and on over the last week trying to get the thing to sync up and just can't do it. I am at a loss right now and seriously considering getting something else. The idea of having a GPS receiver and being able to use it with mapping programs is just really cool.

Something else that's pretty cool are the devices that Land Air Sea produces. Their GPS Tracking Key is a small device that picks up signals from the DOF GPS satellites and records the location every second. It's pretty cool that it can get your location within about eight feet. Eight Feet!

You download the data by plugging it into the USB port of a computer and using something like Google Earth you can see where someone or something has been. Since it's small it's easily concealable and the magnet is strong enough to be placed under a car. It's also water resistant as well.

Last year the GPS Tracking Key helped to solve a murder. George Ford's wife thought that he was having an affair and placed on in his car. Originally he had been charged with reckless endangerment but after getting the data from the GPS Tracking Key the Chenango County Police charged him with murder.

There's other reasons to have something like this besides cheating husbands. Three words. Teens with cars. That's enough to make me want tracking devices, cameras, all kinds of stuff on a car. I can also see where it would come in handy if you have a fleet of cars or trucks as well. The device records how fast you travel, the directions you are facing, how long you are stationary and the route you travel. Using just those four things you can extrapolate all kinds of other information as well. Pretty cool if you ask me.

Technorati: Wordless Wednesday

I took this one at the wedding reception on Sunday afternoon.

Along with millions of other morons I have a MySpace account. I've had it for quite some time now and every great once in a while I will log on and deny the spammers that want to be my friend and check my email. Even less often I will post a blog over there, sometimes just cross-posting crap I have put up here. That's more than likely what I will do here as well. I also check bulletins every once in a while as well. Not very often because I have more 'friends' that just aren't than are. Of course, some of the folks on my friends list really are. Some are real life friends, some I have met through blogging, a couple are relatives. Most of them are bands or other people I don't know and have no interest in meeting in real life. Thus the fact that I don't read bulletins all that often. If you know me and want me to see something important, you have my email or you know where my blog is, fuck your bulletins.

So I was reading the bulletins and this one chick that works for me (big fucking mistake there) sends me a bulletin. Actually she sent it to all her friends, not just me. Oh, I don't mean it's a mistake that she works for me, I meant that it's a mistake adding one of my employees to my friends list. I don't know what the fuck I was thinking when I slipped up and added her to my friends. It's not that I don't want people to know who I am, for Christ's sake I post all over the Internet with my real name. It's just that 90% of the people that work with/for me are computer illiterate all the way up to the upper management and so I keep my Internet presence pretty low key with the other 10%.

Anyway, the bulletin she sent out for her friends to answer is below. I had fuck all to post tonight until I saw it and judging from the couple of paragraphs above I guess it did give me something to write about after all. The bulletin is pretty much a meme and although I am not tagging anyone, feel free to take the questions and post them on your site. I don't know if I'm going to send this back via email or not (to her) but I did think you just might enjoy it

1.)Q. Are you currently in a serious relationship?
A. Yes

2.)Q. What was your dream growing up?
A. Occasionally I had one about fucking my dog...Oh, that kind of dream. Sorry. I used to dream about being a fantasy/sci-fi author.

3.)Q. What talent do you wish you had?
A. I wish I could suck my own dick. I'd never have to leave the house.

4.)Q. If I bought you a drink what would it be?
A. Sam Adams

5.)Q. Favorite vegetable?
A. Christopher Reeve

6.)Q. What was the last book you read?
A. Fatal Revenant (The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, book II)

7.)Q. What zodiac sign are you?
A. Sagittarius

8.)Q. Any Tattoos and/or Piercings? Explain where.
A. Couple of tattoos, pierced ears.

9.)Q. Worst Habit?
A. Farting in public

10.)Q. If you saw me walking down the street would you offer me a ride?
A. Ass, gas or grass, baby.

11.)Q. What is your favorite sport?
A. Cheerleader mud wrestling

12.)Q. Do you have a Negative or Optimistic attitude?
A. Depends on what day it is

13. )Q. What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?
A. Grease you up like and ride you like a pony.

14.)Q. Worst thing to ever happen to you?
A. dropping out of high school

15.)Q. Tell me one weird fact about you.
A. The above answers weren't enough?

16.)Q. Do you have any pets?
A. Yes. Oh, you want to know what they are? Dog, cat, goldfish in the pond.

17.)Q. What if i showed up at your house unexpectedly?
A. Watch out for the guy with the chainsaw.

18.)Q. What was your first impression of me?
A. Nice tits eyes

19.)Q. Do you think clowns are cute or scary?
A. Scary.

20.)Q. If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
A. Lose the gut that's been growing for the last decade.

21.)Q. Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
A. Neither.

22.)Q. What color eyes do you have?
A. Hazel

23.) Q. Ever been arrested?
A. Yes

24.)Q. Bottle or can soda?
A. Can unless it's in a glass bottle.

25.)Q. If you won $10,000 dollars today, what would you do with it?
A. Use $5k for Disney and the rest in my mutual fund.

26.)Q. If you could, would you date me?
A. Probably. 20 21 years ago when I was single. I was much nicer then.

27.) Q. What 's your favorite place to hang at?
A. My house. Pretty much a homebody. lame and boring.

28.)Q. Do you believe in ghosts?
A. yes

29.)Q. Favorite thing to do in your spare time?
A. kill nuns. jerk off. play on the computer.

30.)Q. Do you swear a lot?
A. fucking constantly.

31.)Q. Biggest pet peeve?
A. People that are fucking stupid.

32.)Q. In one word, how would you describe yourself?
A. Unflinchingly-cool (does a hyphenated word count)

33.)Q. Do you believe/appreciate romance?
A. believe in it, yes. Appreciate it, no. give me a fucking break, I'm a guy.

34.)Q. If you could spend 12 hours with me and ask/do anything you like, what would it be?
A. Got any KY?

35)Q. Do you believe in God?
A. No

36.)Q. Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same for you?
A Yes.

So, like I said, I guess I'll fill this out but perhaps with a few different answers more fit for pubic public consumption. Later dudes.

I have to go to work so I thought I would leave you with a fresh thought for the day. Back in my days of hanging out in strip clubs (a looong time ago) this was one of my favorite tunes.

Another good tune to request was Shooting Star by Bad Company. The dancers hated it because it's just over six minutes and that's a pretty darned long song to be dancing too.

There is some more ugly weather moving in to my area right now so I am going to make this somewhat short as I would like to be able to shower before work with a bit of light in the bathroom so I can wash my balls just right.

Speaking of meat, today is March 15th, which make is International Eat an Animal for Peta Day (IEATAPETA). Make sure and join me today and chow down on some yummy animal flesh, whatever your favorite is OK. Eat plenty.

PETA is full of a bunch of lying hypocrites that live right down the street from the global warming scammers and living-in-the-trees-patchoulis-stinking-hippies so make sure and invite some friends over for that barbecue tonight!

I received a comment on one of my posts recently and it really pissed me off. Although I commented back it irked me enough to want to post it.

Of all the lame-brained fucking ideas, this retard puts the "N" in the N word.

Here's the deal and although I am repeating my reply to this retarded sack of dog turds I have had time for it to sink in and let me think about it for awhile.

According to the article that the commenter linked to in his comment and which I am not, if Eve Carson's family owned slaves and had not paid reparations, they shouldn't feel sorry for her because she was murdered. In other words, it's OK to kill white people that haven't made reparations for the stupid things their ancestor's did that they personally have no control over.

Personally I think it's disgraceful that as a nation of freedom loving people we owned slaves. Thomas Jefferson wrote long and passionately about slavery, yet owned slaves. Thats inexusable. Does that mean that anyone with the name of Jefferson needs to be shot in the head because they haven't made reparations.

Oh, wait. Probably 50% of the U.S. population with the surname Jefferson is black.

Now there's a fucking quandary...

The other argument that this dickwad presented was that Eve Carson was hanging out in front of black people "flaunting her goods".

So what?

I have a couple of waitresses that flaunt their "goods" all the time. That doesn't mean I can bend them over the counter and fuck them up the ass any old time I want.

"Your honor, they were flaunting their goods".

The troll came back and posted this reply to my response:

You must be a damned liberal. Just like a liberal to twist my words. Hell, the Republicans aren't much different either I guess, but at least they are the party that stopped slavery, unlike the Democrats who would still love to see people in chains.

I went and read over at digitalmonkeys, the site that the commenter is from and I must say that my first reaction about the person is only partly right. They are definitely racist to the nth degree but fucking sick to boot. Let's see, here are some of their observations from the site:

• Arnold Schwarzhenegger is the new Hitler and a super racist.
• Eve Carson was flaunting her possessions and deserved to be killed, as did Jennifer Ross, who died in 2005.
• Hillary is a racist (probably true) and has been using racist body language.
• God is getting rid of the Ozone layer, it's not being removed through emissions, and the reason he is doing it is to drive white people crazy.
• The 'in' thing for white women is that they now want to be raped, robbed and killed by black men.
• 12-year-old Emily Haddock was asking for it too apparently. (if you click the link there is some really irritating music but just deal with it, it's an online memorial for fucks sake.

It's pretty damned weird over at digitalmonkets. Sort of a cross between Brer Rabbit and the National Enquirer. After having read for a couple of hours I am starting to think maybe it's just some kind of sick joke.

Something I just am not getting enough of.

I have probably posted more today than I have the entire week. It's funny how that ends up working out. I had actually planned on coming home yesterday and spending the majority of the day on the computer but I was at work until about midnight Tuesday and then my half day yesterday turned into me not getting home until 2pm. I was pretty whipped so I worked outside in the yard, knowing that if I came inside I would fall asleep.

Today I have pretty much taken it easy. I managed to get about nine hours of sleep last night, which was much needed but it sure doesn't feel like it fixed my sleep deficit. Maybe in a couple of weeks I can take more than one day off. One can hope...

Pete has a concert tonight for the chorus. I am checking her out of school early this afternoon because they have to be there by three p.m. in order to start practicing. Why they don't just stick the kids on a bus is beyond me. Anyway, we don't have to be there until 6 or 6:30 so I will come home and throw something in the oven that we can eat before we go see them. If it's charged up I may take our video camera as well.

On another note, I hate telemarketers. I generally don't answer the phone on my day off but I got a call this morning and I answered it before I realized I don't know the number. It was some telemarketer trying to sell me a small business phone system. While I might be interested, that's something I will go out and look for. I certainly wouldn't buy it sight unseen over the phone. Jerks. I can do my own research without you having to call me and wake me up.

About a week after we got back from the Bahamas I was emailed a link from the hotel booking site I had used and asked to fill out a survey as well as leave a comment for other folks that might be going through it. We had such a great time I was more than happy to do so. Superclubs all inclusive resorts actually has several of them spread out through the Caribbean including Breezes in Nassau which is where we stayed as well as all inclusive jamaica resorts. I've seen pictures from the places in Jamaica and it really looks like a cool place to visit. Prior to booking the vacation in Disney for June I had toyed with the idea of flying to Jamaica and staying there but we decided on something a little more friendly for our five year old.

That's the view of Breezes Bahamas from the beach at around 7 a.m on Sunday morning before we left to come back home.

The Superclubs all inclusive resorts are just that, all inclusive. That means your hotel room, all food, drinks (including alcohol), gratuities, transportation to and from the airport, sports activities, snorkeling and all kinds of other stuff is included in your booking price. Pretty sweet deal actually. If not for shopping in some of the duty free stores in Nassau I wouldn't have spent a dime there. I do have one recommendation though and that's that anyone that wants to do some site seeing either rent a car or scooter. The low-cost transportation we used was cool but it's always nice to be able to just pick up and go.

There are actually nine all inclusive jamaica resorts that Superclubs runs, ranging from the family friendly to more exclusive adults only resorts.

That's a shot of the fountain at the end of one of the pools, which is just off the beach as well. Behind where I was standing is the main restaurant, which is mostly buffet style but was still pretty darn good. Eat and drink and sleep by the beach, what else could you ask for :)

Holy Cow!

I almost went two days without posting. That is very unlike me. I don't remember the last time I went two entire days without posting, even while on vacation.

Work has been pretty rough (when is it not?). I have been without a manager at one of my stores for almost three weeks now and it appears that they are going to leave me without one until mine comes back to work and that might be months from now if ever. It's worse when my two remaining managers have the day off since I have to run both of the stores. I may get the use of a couple of manager trainees here and there but that's not written in stone yet.

My patience with some of these people is starting to wear thing thin though, I know that. I got back from vacation 19 days ago and I have had two days off since then. I might get lucky and get a day off this week as well as possibly a half day, but I won't know until it happens. That's of course if I don't kill someone between now and then.

I haven't even taken the time to check comments or trackbacks it's been so busy and other than a couple of posts here or there that will be coming up, this is the first time I've sat down at my computer in a couple of days.

Normally as soon as I arrive home in the afternoon I will sit down and blog for awhile but today it was so nice outside that that's where I stayed for a couple of hours. I planted some broccoli in an old sandbox, one of those plastic ones that is shaped liked something, in this case a green turtle. I poked holes in the bottom for drainage and then dumped in some potting soil. As long as I can keep those nasty old green worms off of the stuff I'll be OK. Is Sevin dust OK to put on Broccoli? I also cleared some downed limbs and pulled them up to a pile at the very back of the yard, put down a little bit of gravel in a walkway, hung some new garden lights and tried to decide where to plant some more stuff.

I have quite a bit of stuff to go into the ground this year. Elephant Ears, Cannas, Lillies, Gladiolas, Caladiums, Tomatoes, peas, strawberries, and tons of flower seeds that I am most likely going to just scatter on the hill and hope like hell they grow. I also have some shit to put down that will hopefully scare off the ants. I need to break out the spreader and go to town with that. I was sort of hoping to rent a tiller this year and put new grass down in the back but since I'm pinching pennies for the trip to Disney, that may be out until later on.

Fall Back. Spring Forward.

Or maybe it's spring back and fall forward.

Doh!

I get it. Spring forward and Fall back.

I'm sure I must be brain dead or something. I'm riding home from drawer change tonight and it struck me. Spring Forward. Fall back. As in the seasons. I'm sure I already knew that but for some reason the play on words hit me as if I had just learned something. Working where I work must be steadily retarding my brain or something. Just give me another decade and I'll be a gibbering drooling fool.

Oh wait, I already am.

Can it get any worse?

So here it is about 10:30. Or 8:30. Shit, it's 11:30 and I have to get up at 5 am. So does that mean I'm getting up at 6 or 4? Can't I just call in and forget this shit.

Why can't the government just let Mr. Sun and Mr Earth's rotation take care of time. They seem to have done a pretty fucking good job of it prior to our meddling. Now you have 482 different time zones (unless you are smart and live in Arizona) and they change twice a year. What the fuck?

So I need to be in bed. It's midnight now and I am not going to be worth a crap in the morning.

The girls are in South Carolina tonight. I suppose I'll sleep on the couch as I usually do. If I happen to be off I will sleep in the bed but I am so afraid that I will oversleep when the wife isn't here that I crash in the living room.

On an entirely different note (pun not intended but well used) I love music. I hate earphones though, thus the reason I don't have an iPod. The earbuds are fucking irritating and headphones are almost as bad. That's one of the reasons I gave the Marine my Jabra Bluetooth earpiece. I tried it for a couple of weeks two different times and I just hate it. I love the quality of the music with headphones but I always feel like I'm missing something with them on. I also can't do like the wife does and only keep one in her ear while she's pretending to pay attention with the other one (the deaf one). I am not easily fooled.

Wait a minute. Actually I guess I am, but I digress.

When I bought the Blackberry last month (did I tell you I'm selling my Samsung i760 on eBay?) it came with a set of earbuds. These are kind of nice. They are heavy. Damn, they actually have metal in them and aren't some cheap ass piece of crap plastic junk that I'm going to tear up in two days. I set them aside. Since there's no one in the house but me and I don't want to hear the yipping of the dog as I kick him through the house I figured I would try them out tonight. Very nice. I also like the media player that comes with the Blackberry as well. The only problem I have is that it won't let me hide shit from it, so along with every fucking song on my SD card I also get 2 seconds dings and pings and assorted whoops in between songs. I don't want that shit going off when I'm listening to music. Can't they fix this shit?

Speaking of eBay, the auction on my phone should have been complete several days ago but they killed the first one. AND charged me $27 bucks for it. "KEYWORD SPAMMING" Here's a keyword for you. Two, actually. FUCK YOU.

I had it listed as a Samsung i760, almost new. Hell, I have used eBay for about seven years now, but I am not on there very often and I don't know anything about keyword spamming. It IS almost new you bunch of shitheads. They fucking waited until six days into the auction when it was up to at least the amount I really want for the phone, THEN they cancel the fucking thing. Bullshit. So I have about three bids right now and it's only going for $250 right now. If'n you are looking for a Windows Mobile 6 phone, head your happy ass on over and bid. Just because I hate the fucking thing doesn't mean that you will. I understand it's supposed to be a pretty good phone but after three months of usage I hate it.

Now the Blackberry Pearl this thing's the shit. It had better be for $450. It's not the perfect phone by any means but it's pretty cool. I think someone needs to ship me their iPhone and let me use it for a couple of months so that I can see if I like it or not. You go into the Verizon place (or wherever the fuck you shop) and they have these stickers on the screens and very few working models around so you can't really tell how much of a pain in the ass it is going to be to use or if you are going to like it or not. And these geeks that write the call phone reviews are all fucking retards anyway. What the fuck do they know and how many times have they had to try and cover two different shifts with people that have called in in three different stores while they are driving somewhere anyway. With a cup of coffee in one hand and a smoke in the other. Now THAT's the test of a goddamned phone! If I can call out and answer while playing with myself at 80mph that's the phone I need and don't give me any of that hands free bullshit. The same thing applies to hands free devices that does to earbuds and head phones and retards that look like they are talking to themselves in the car need to be run off the road anyway.

Well, now that it really is late I have to hit the sack.

I keep a filing cabinet worth of stuff in my car for work. Although I do have a corner of the living room as my home office, since I am in my restaurants 10-12 hours a day my office extends to my car. I have simple stuff such as pen and paper, printer paper, extra uniforms, to other stuff such as steam tables (moved it to my basement last night), silverware, batteries and a DYMO label maker for name tags. I bought it about a year and a half ago, when I was opening the new store in Temple and I have been using it since then. Coomes in pretty handy too for labeling other stuff as well.

When I first started running restaurants about all you could get without buying a huge professional setup was those hand-held clicking label makers. I used one for quite a long time but as technology improves so does the equipment that I get to use as well.

DYMO also has some pretty cool stuff besides the hand-held label makers. They have label makers that you can hook up via a USB connection for your label printing as well as several other products.

The DYMO LabelWriter 400 Turbo is pretty cool. It prints out at an average speed of 55 labels each minute including the online stamps. That's what I really like about it. I have been using Stamps.Com for a few years now, but I generally have to print and purchase an entire sheet of stamps at a time. The software from the USPS allows you to print them one (or more) at a time, but with a deskjet and stickers it's a bit unwieldy and they will curl and sometimes get stuck inside the printer. That's one of the reasons I like the LabelWriter 400 Turbo so much. It just makes printing stamps, or any other label for that matter, easy and simple. You don't need to buy any ink or toner either!

With the DYMO stamps there's no monthly fee like there is using the USPS service. As I mentioned before, it's a thermal printer so the expense of ink cartridges is gone as well. If you print a lot of postage and other labels this will cover the cost of the printer in months. It also has add-ins for Outlook, Word and Quickbooks not to mention several other popular Mac and PC programs. Yep, it'll work with your Mac as well.

If you are in the market for a decent printer for postage and other labels you just might want to check out the quality of DYMO's products.

Normally I'm the only one up on a Saturday morning this early. I have to start getting ready for work shortly myself, but the wife and girls are driving back to Hilton Head for the weekend to see our friend Niqui. This may be the last chance they have to go visit before she moves. Of course if there is time at the end of the school year I'm sure they will go visit then but I think she plans on moving as soon as the year is up.

It's some pretty cruddy weather out to drive in, that's for sure. I grilled out last night and it was in the mid to high sixties. Now it's raining and in the mid thirties. I love the spring time but the part I don't like is when you are still at that stage where it's too cold out in the morning. I still haven't put my plants outside. I pulled them out of the basement too early last year and almost killed several of them due to a late freeze and I don't want that to happen this year.

Speaking of grilling out, we had a couple of dinner guests last night. Supergurl stopped in on her way to Atlanta and a friend of the wife's from work came over. I managed to get out of working last night when my boss and all of the other district managers were working 5-9p. Unfortunately I will have to make up the time and work this evening.

I am still having a hard time not smoking. I'm down to anywhere from one to five cigarettes a day and just cannot seem to get over that hump. I need to call our friend Michelle up. She was taking Chantix and didn't like it, so I need to buy hers. I only have five days left. Man, time flies when you're having fun. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this has got to be the hardest thing I have ever done. If I could only go through addiction treatment for it or something and get the initial few weeks over with without being exposed I am sure I could get past it. Unfortunately although my health insurance company frowns upon my smoking and jacks up my rates because of it, they wouldn't dream of actually paying for any type of smoking cessation program even if it would save them millions of dollars a year. They aren't in the market to save money, they are in the market to charge exorbitant rates to unhealthy people.

That's about it for this morning. I'm just sitting here sipping my morning cup of coffee and balancing the checkbook before I go to work. That's something that seems to have lessened as well. I don't seem to be drinking quite as much coffee since I have cut my nicotine intake either.

So apparently an animal rights group wants the PGA Tour to take some kind of punitive action against golfer Tripp Isenhour. He's facing charges for hitting a hawk with a golf shot because it was making noise as he videotaped a TV show.

He hit a frigging hawk? Dude, I can't even hit the fucking windmill when I'm playing, much less get the thing in the hole. Shit, that's some amazing accuracy. I can think of several people I'd like to bean in the forehead with a well-placed golf ball. I wonder if the guy is available for lessons...

This week's Thursday Thongs is definitely not safe for work.

I love the Indiana Jones movies and although Harrison Ford is getting pretty long in the tooth I've been looking forward to the new Indiana Jones movie due out in May of this year. If you haven't seen any of the previews yet, this might interest you.

I'm looking forward to the movie. This may be one of the only ones that I will actually go to the theater to see. I much prefer to wait for DVDs so as to avoid the cost and the crowds but if this is any good it will be well worth it.

So I just made reservations for lunch at the Rainforest Cafe at Disney World on the last full day of our vacation. Most of the dining choices are actually owned by Disney and the wife made reservations for quite a few of our meals last night, but the Rainforest Cafe is separate and although they have a couple of locations at Disney, you have to call them directly.

We are all looking forward to the trip. It seems like lately all I do is whine about work, whine about not smoking, or talk about my next vacation. Hey, nothing wrong with that I suppose.

I also need to set a date for our trip to the Ren Fest again this year. Zonker met us there last year and I'm hoping to get some other bloggers to attend as well. Hey, you can't go wrong. Alcohol and funny people to look at!

I had mentioned a few weeks ago that I had thought about going to the Midwest for vacation this summer, but I decided that although it will make things tight this month (and next) I wanted to go ahead and take the girls to Florida. I guess visiting some Branson property will have to wait until next time.

Just got home a little while ago. RePete was feeling a bit under the weather today so I picked her up from school early and then we took a drive so that I could drive through puddles. It has been raining pretty hard most of the day and now that it has stopped the wind is still blowing pretty hard.

I was hoping for a bit of nice weather on my one day off but it doesn't appear that we are going to get it this week.

This is the one and only tramp stamp shot I got while I was down in Nassau. Had I been trying I could have taken a ton more, but I was having too much of a good time to worry about it.

A fire in Washington state that destroyed three unoccupied luxury homes used for demonstrating green building practices is believed to be the work of eco-terrorists CBS is reporting.

The fire has caused at least seven million dollars in damage and the fringe tree hugging patchouli smelling morons that started the fire will most likely not enjoy getting fucked in the ass in a federal penitentiary once they are caught.

Damned hippy morons. Why can't they burn something they need to, like those other fools living in trees in San Francisco?

The wife was telling me a story last night before I went back to work about one of the guys at the gym where she's been working out. Yep, that's right. She's been working out. I think she's gotten tired of my mouth and wants to be able to really kick my tail if she needs to...

Anyway, apparently one of the guys that works there, or maybe he just works out there, likes energy drinks. The one that he prefers is packed full of sugar and doesn't have a lot of the things that make good energy drinks good. I can't mention the name, but it's NOT the one I linked to. So she told him, 'hey, that stuff isn't good for you, you shouldn't be drinking it'.

So she goes back in the next day and apparently he is trying to quit drinking that particular brand now. She apologized to him and told him it was none of her business but he said 'no, I needed to hear it'. The guys has one kidney and has had a heart attack or two, which is one of the reasons he's trying to stay healthy by working out.

I don't know about all of that working out stuff yet. I am still struggling with trying to quit smoking. Yesterday was not a particularly good day. Early on it went OK. I bummed a smoke from one of my employees around 11am and that was it until I finished the day. Around three I had to drive to another town and open a safe for one of the district managers. For some reason I was stressed out and angry the entire drive there. I bummed another smoke from one of her waitresses. That makes two for the day, which is what I have been smoking for the last three or four days. While not QUIT completely, two cigarettes is a grand improvement for me.

Anyhow, I had to go back to work last night and do shift change as well as some paperwork. I stopped and bought a pack of smokes. I don't even have an explanation for it, I just did. I smoked two on the way to work, two after I left at eleven last night, and then I tucked one lone cigarette away in my dashboard 'just in case'. I threw the pack of smokes in the dumpster though (at work) knowing I had screwed up.

It's like that old saying about alcoholics. One drink is too many and a thousand never enough. Too true.

I smoked that lone 'just in case' cigarette right after I woke up about two and a half hours ago. I am a bit uncomfortable right now but I am not going to go buy any more. I want to be a non-smoker, if only so that I can be a jerk and give smokers a hard time. You know, throw them out of my car and stuff, preferably while moving :)

Anyway, I do want to quit and maybe start being healthy. I am starting to think about retirement now as I am closer to it than the other end and there are so many different things I want to do, I would like to be able to enjoy them.

I don't know how the heck I got from energy drinks and gyms to smoking but it all sort of goes together I suppose.

Damned if I didn't want to get out of bed this morning. I was up until after 11:30 last night working, so am dragging a bit today. I must have forgotten to take my Chantix last night as well because boy was I jonesing for a smoke when I woke up.

Today is my Friday, which is good. I see tonight and tomorrow being busy days anyway, although just as soon as I can get out of work and pick up the girls a nap may be in order this afternoon. The wife is working out at the gym most afternoons now so I have been trying to get them after school, except on Thursdays, which is meeting day.

I was going to post several things this morning but I ended up mainly just surfing the web.

Oh, BTW, anyone interested in bidding on my Samsung i760 on eBay head on over. It's still pretty cheap. I think right now there are only a couple of bids. I switched to a Blackberry Pearl and like this phone much better than the PocketPC phone.

Guess that's about it, I need to get ready for work even if I don't want to...

Already?

I just got back from one and am already making plans for the next :)

I have to because of my job. I already have the dates for the entire year laid out for my whole organization simply because it's too difficult to set up at the last minute.

Anyhow, I have broken down and made reservations for Disney World again. Six nights, seven days at the Polynesian resort. They let you pay in installments, which is a good damn thing because I am going to be working my ass off over the next six weeks to do it, both at my real job as well as online.

I'm looking forward to it and the girls are all excited about it. This trip will be slightly longer than the last one in 2005, which will be cool. The Marine is going to see if he can get any leave while we are there and fly down to hang with us as well.

We are going the last week of May, first week of June and while it will be pretty hot, I spent a lot of summers in Florida and June is actually not too bad. August and September are the worst.

Last time we went we stayed int he contemporary resort, so this will be a nice change. Also pretty convenient to the Magic Kingdom and Epcot since the Monorail runs through the resort.

Now that RePete is five, she should enjoy it a bit more than last time. Not that she didn't have a great time, but some of the stuff was a bit over her head.

I tend to get worried when I am sitting at my desk and I hear the TV talking about penile amputation and making vaginas out of left over parts and whatnot.

Holy cow, the wife is watching this.

I consider myself pretty open-minded but there were a couple of mutants that just flashed across the screen.

yuck.

how do they go pee?

Why would they want to lose the ability to pee standing up anyway?

What's the meaning of life?

Heck, they don't need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for that transgender surgery shit. Come on over to doctor richard's basement and I'll fix you right up with my rusty garden implements on the cheap. I might even hit you in the head with a hammer if you are in need of a pain killer.

Dude, if you are born as a man or woman, you need to stay that way. Fooling around with that stuff is just freaky.

My biggest Christmas present this past year was a new leather jacket. I love my jackets. My friends and a girlfriend chipped in and bought my first one for my 18th birthday. I still have it. Well, the Marine does anyway. I can't zip it up around my gut anymore unfortunately. 23 years ago I had that washboard gut look, now it's a bit more warped, thus the new coat. I've always like bikes if you couldn't tell from pictures. As a matter of fact, here's one of the Marine and myself about 18 years ago.

Makes me feel kind of old, actually.

If you're interested in finding a decent leather supplier you might want to check out The Bazaar Online. They have leather motorcycle jackets as well as just about anything else you might want including chaps and pants, vests, boots, gloves, wallets, purses and packs. The've also got a selection of novelty helmets and DOT approved helmets as well. Go check out the catalog if you are interested. I like the fact that they process orders the same day and offer the lowest price guarantee around.

Just remember, I don't have a vest that fits anymore, and I need a pair of boots. Father's day is coming and I wear size 10...

Today was actually a pretty decent day. I was a bit stressed out but only had one smoke this morning. I may be getting the hang of this thing after all.

I really haven't done a heck of a lot this evening since I got off work. I stopped to wash the car, guess that was the highlight of excitement on this spring-like evening. It was around 60 when I left work and I was able to ride with the windows down and the sunroof open. Very nice.

Mr Stretchy Cat has been allowing Pete to drag him around the house in a laundry basket this evening. It's hilarious. There is a heart shaped red balloon tied to the basket by a string which is what the cat wants and why he is allowing the indignity.

Although the wife is watching TV I have been going back and forth between watching and surfing the web, mainly news sites. I am also back at scanning photographs as well. A couple of them here.

This one was taken 21 years ago. I have posted about driving my friend Chris back to California at the end of his leave. This was shot at an overlook at the Grand Canyon as we passed through the area. Couldn't very well be near the Grand Canyon and not stop to at least take a picture, now could we?

I hate that this one has faded a bit. The exposure was off and using a cheap camera as well I am sure. This is Pete and the boys washing my 1972 Duster. This picture is probably eight or nine years old I suppse.

Going to keep on scanning, maybe it will give me something to post tomorrow :)

I enjoy what I do on the web but make no mistake about it. I don't consider myself a serious writer. I suppose if I were to take the time to reteach myself the rules of grammar and then find something that would catch the audience's (YOUR!) attention, then I might be able to write something a bit worthwhile. There are a few bloggers that are actually worth reading though. I have links for two of them here.

One is Eric. If you haven't been to Straight White Guy and read a few of posts then go check it out. Definitely worth the time spent and you may even get caught up reading and wonder where the time has gone. Apparently he's had a piece published in A Southern Journal. That was a story I had not heard yet so it was fresh for the mind when I came across it last night.

Earlier this week my brother sent me a link and I have been remiss in posting it here. If you haven't read his book, Republic, you are missing something. He is in the midst of writing the sequel and the first three chapters are online. Bear in mind that they are a work in progress, and as so some of the details may change and they still have to be edited for grammar and spelling. He also sent me a couple of links to the podcasts as well.

You can check it out at YouTube or subscribe through iTunes.

Podcasts are OK but I much prefer reading for myself and so spent the other evening reading all three chapters when I should have been writing about them instead :)