Probably one of those team-building things. There’s no “fuck you” in team so this should be a blast. Not.

I need to quit being so grumpy.

Actually in the past the functions I’ve gone to haven’t been all bad. One year we just hung out on the lake and barbecued. It’s nice to see a lot of the people that I only run in to a couple of times a year. One year we spent a day on a scavenger hunt. It was pretty cool even if it was intended to be a team-building thing. I haven’t had the opportunity to go on a multi-day thing but I’m sure it will be fun. A change of pace at the very least.

…

So I mentioned a couple of days ago that we’re having a party/get-together the weekend of August 14th. The wife is graduating from UWG with her EDS, which just kicks ass. She’s killed herself working and with school the last year or so and deserves it. Anyway, the party isn’t supposed to be for her, so we’re calling it a back-to-school thing.

I’ll be sending out emails and facebook/myspace messages to everyone I can think of later this evening but if you don’t get one, don’t feel slighted, just send me a fucking email. I tend to be forgetful and am bound to miss someone. Also, if you receive an invite on more than one service feel free to only respond on one. I’m sure there will be overlap and I’m not sure if people get on Facebook or MySpace more or if they just do email so I’m gonna send it to everyone.

If you are coming from out of town we do have an extra room but you’ll need to contact me first to check and make sure it’s not taken. Also, there are several hotels ranging from decent to nasty within seven miles from here in Bremen and Villa Rica so there is no shortage of lodging.

…

I have to drive to Carrollton on Friday to get tags for the new car. I am toying with the idea of getting a vanity plate and can’t decide if I’m vain enough to do so. Plus all the cool names have been taken. I doubt they would let me get one with profanity on it and even if they did it most likely wouldn’t be a smart thing to do business wise. I suppose I’ll just go with the generic tags again. I did have several ideas though.

Perhaps one of the Sons of Confederate Veterans tags?

Probably not a good idea. Someone will shoot my fat redneck ass before I get home.

Prestige plates can’t exceed seven characters including spaces and can only be letters or numbers. Here are a few I thought of.

A55H0LE

SHDWSCP

SCKCRMS

OBVIOUS (undoubtedly already taken)

CPNOBVS

Any good ideas?

Confused?

It’s the Candy Land game.

WTF?

I guess I’ve seen worse tattoos. At least it was done well. Something to talk about in the retirement home 50 years from now. ‘just follow the candy trail…’

The wife has them. She went climbing around in the woods up at Cloudland Canyon this weekend on a field trip for this class and came home with a shitload of rocks and some unwelcome guests.

If I recall correctly chiggers were even worse than a bad case of poison ivy. Scratch them and it just spreads the larvae around making things worse.

I figured I would get online and look up the best thing for chiggers. Of course there are the old wives tales of kerosene and nail polish but they usually just make things worse. Calamine lotion seems to be the ticket but of course washing well also helps. Good soapy water. As a matter of fact that’s one of the recommendations on several sites I came across. Wash well with soap and water using an exfoliating pad making sure to clean sensitive areas under the knees, armpits, anus, etc…

Of course when I read the paragraph the only two words I saw were exfoliating and anus.

I guess most guys still have a ten-year-old stuck inside.

I know this one does.

Told you I would be back. I really need to post something on the crime blog but I am procrastinating. Actually there are about six stories waiting on me to get it done but I just figured I would stop in here and ramble for a while.

I think I am going to start posting at Shadowscope again. Mostly the weekly memes and photographs that I used to post all the time. Maybe some of the payperpost stuff as well. We'll see. I'm not too interested in writing reviews on shit I haven't used but stuff I like? Yeah, I might do that...or not.

Today seems as if it has been dragging on forever. Got up around 4:45 this morning and chugged down a cup of coffee or three while I was writing a post at Sick Crimes. By the time I was finished I had to get my ass ready for work, which was pretty uneventful.

I spent the day in my 'good' store today. I always like ending my week there. When I say 'good' I mean that I personally had a hand in hiring or training most of the associates or have worked with them for the last decade so they know how to act, they are a team and most of them never call in or come in late. It damn sure makes my day go much smoother.

Perhaps it's not procrastination that's kept me from the other site today. I've been sitting here for the last twenty minutes just staring at the screen, attempting to finish this post. Guess that means I'm done. Perhaps I'll get online later tonight.

Guess what? I don’t have a single fucking thing to talk about tonight, or at least nothing cohesive and coherent.

It’s not often that I plug my crime blog here. As a matter of fact I don’t know if I even have it linked but check out the fucker below…The story is linked from the photo.

Is it just me or does that dude fucking creep you out too? He looks like an extra from Hell Boy or Star Wars or something. Just needs a bit of blue make-up and Captain Kirk woulda been humping that leg…

So the girls are in Oxford, Alabama for the next couple of days. It’s my niece's birthday and they are having an all-day thing tomorrow and then a sleep-over tomorrow night, so they will be at my brother’s house until Saturday evening. It’s eerily quiet here in the Miles casa and I’m not sure if I like it or not. The wife is in class, although she should be arriving home at any time now. Tonight is the last night of class and she graduates with her EDS in about two weeks. Very cool. Congratulations, baby! You deserve it.

I guess that’s about it. I’m going to surf over to a couple of Android sites and see what’s new. I finally managed to root my Droid Incredible last night and the first thing I did was trash three or four of the stock programs that Verizon and HTC jam into the phone that I have no need of. If you have no clue as to what I am talking about, don’t worry about it.

I have also attempted to upgrade the site to MT5 three times over the last couple of days and have been unsuccessful. It just keeps trying to ‘upgrade the database’ and sits there doing nothing. Fuck. I don’t suppose it really matters in the great scheme of things but I get irritated when things don’t go my way.

Oh well. See you next time!

So what’s been up since I posted in February?

Still trying to get my pay cut promotion. I’ve applied twice this year so far. The first time I was put on a development plan. I’m currently waiting on my SVP and AVP to interview me again. Hopefully they’ll put me on the list this time. That doesn’t mean instant promotion but it does mean that should something come open it might be offered to me. There are currently about 25 people company wide that are on the promotable list for that level, so I actually have a good chance. Quite a few of them aren’t willing to move anywhere, which narrows the playing field a bit. While I won’t move across country I am more than happy to take anything within about three hours from the house.

My district has been realigned since February, which means I have different restaurants than I did this time last year. It looks like they’ll move me around again at the end of the summer. Doesn’t mean much in itself.

I did get a new mode of transportation though!

2010 Dodge Challenger SE. Just the base model but I’m damn sure loving it. 3.5L V6, Automatic, black interior. I’ve always loved classic cars but with all the mileage I put on them it doesn’t make sense to have anything that’s not 100% reliable. Not to mention the fact that as long as I have less than 100k miles the company pays my maintenance costs, tires, oil changes, tune-ups, brakes, etc… Can’t fucking argue with that. The RT models have a few bells and whistles that they leave off the SE such as fog lights and wide rims. I’ll add that later. As long as I have the dealer do it they’ll add it into the warranty.

I’ll try and stop back in tomorrow or Friday if I get the chance.

I quit smoking two weeks ago today. It’s been pretty fucking difficult and still is pretty difficult. I know it will get easier but am still waiting.

Right around the time I quit I also got sick as hell with a pretty bad head cold. I thought for a couple of days that I had come down with the flu even though I knew better. I doctored myself up with Zicam, NyQuil, Mucinex and Synutab and muddled through a few days until I thought I was over it. So much for that.

For a few days now I’ve been feeling dizzy and lightheaded. At first I thought it was just from not smoking anymore and then for the last day or two I was afraid that perhaps my blood pressure was fucked. While I have always had great BP, when the wife quit smoking her’s all of a sudden got funky and they had to put her on medication to regulate it.

Thank goodness it wasn’t either of the above, but more on that later.

While I was on vacation I saw the eye doctor who decided it was time for bifocals. The results are now in…

It’s a crappy webcam photo but you get the general idea. I think I look pretty fucking good actually. Now I just have to get used to the got-damned things. I did get the transitions so I won’t have to worry about swapping to sun-glasses when I drive, which will be nice.

I picked them up after my meeting this evening and then paid a visit to the local doc in the box to get looked at for the dizziness.

As the wife suspected, I have an ear infection. They prescribed a 10-day course of antibiotics and the doctor also offered to jump start it with a shot. What the hell, I figured. Anything to get rid of this a bit faster. How wrong I was.

A short while later the nurse comes back in with TWO syringes and says, “did doctor say you would be getting two shots?”

One shot, two shots, what’s the difference anyway.

I pull up my shirt sleeve and the nurse just shakes her head at me. Those things were meant for my ass apparently.

I followed her directions and dropped trou, leaning up against the bed thing whilst she jabbed me once in each hip, telling me during the first one “don’t scrunch, it only hurts more.”

I’m sorry but I am here to tell you that when you get pointy things near my ass I’m all about getting all scrunchy and flexy so as to protect the old poop chute.

So here I sit on my sore ass. I’ll be heading to bed soon if I can’t find any degenerates to post about at the crime site.

Whatever it is, I hate spam and spammers. At least they make it easy to tell real comments from spam. I suppose it could be much worse.

I'm pretty testy(cal) today. Comes from working four weeks straight with one day off in each. I'm glad the holidays are over now. Only thing I'm concentrating on now at work is fixing a few things and trying to get put on the "selectable" list for promotion.

Both of the other district managers out here that I am friends with put in their applications at the same time I did and while I most likely did much better on the deductive reasoning portion of the test one of them has been a district for ten years. I figure she and I will end up being put on the list, not sure about the other. That doesn't guarantee promotion though. The levels down from me are pretty much promoted using the FIFO method. Whoever has been on the promotable list the longest gets offered the position first. If they for some reason turn it down it goes to the next.

Once you get up to my level it is strictly based on ability (or in some cases brown nosing). I'm not very good at brown nosing but I have mucho experience and ability so hopefully will be able to pick up another six or so stores at some point in 2010. I am relatively certain now that it won't be this month though. I am pretty sure that the next guy that will be taking the position is just going to be a lateral move.

While all that promotion stuff would be gravy on the cake all I really want now are my days off :) which start tomorrow.

mañana

I stopped by Scissorhands the week of Christmas to get my normal trim. The hair has been getting a bit shaggy lately and even with the extending forehead my hair still grows at a tremendous rate.

Just not all over.

Anyway, the girl that was there either didn't understand what I wanted or was just tired and I wasn't paying attention. I keep it very short on the sides and back and a bit longer on the top. When I got home we noticed that it was longer on the back than the sides. Sort of like a retarded mullet or mohawk. Not only that but the back wasn't even either. The left side was slightly longer than the right.

I dealt with it for a couple of days and it was Monday before I had any time to spare. By the time I made it over there they had already closed, dangit.

I chose the next best solution and asked the wife to just buzz the shit, which she gladly did (with a bit of glee in her eyes as a matter of fact). All went well except for the part about shaving OBAMA into my pubic regions. That's where I draw the fucking line. Oh, yeah. I forgot about that part didn't I?

I hate getting all of that hair on me and always hop right into the shower after I shave my head. It's worse when all that crap gets all over my clothes and stuff, so when we went in I stripped and got a nekked haircut. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

My kids have some sort of radar for where we are. Neither the wife or myself can leave the room for more than 3.5 minutes without a child looking for us. For what you ask? It doesn't fucking matter. They just want to know where we are. The Marine is no different. Almost 21, been in the Corps for two and a half years but damn if you leave the room, he's sure to follow shortly after.

You see where this is going now?

About halfway through the haircut in walks the Marine, who says "Oh Wow" and beats a hasty retreat due to the magnificence. Either that or the pasty white of my ass cheeks scared the bejeesus out of him.

It was quite a while before the wife and I could stop laughing and continue the haircut but damn it sure was worth it. One more year of counseling for the children...

Anyway, here's to hoping you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I'll spend the greater part of the day working unfortunately but should get a bit of family time later this afternoon.