Merry Christmas 2009

Merry Christmas one and all! Miraculously we had a white Christmas this year, as the snow fell overnight. Storybook huh? It isn't much snow .. maybe about an inch? Just looking outside and my car has no snow on it, the driveway is clean, which means no shoveling. Woohoo! We have a turkey in the oven (wife's idea!).

The day went real well here. Anthony and I got Ann a few tops, slipper socks, a skillet (she asked for it!) and the best present of all (in my mind) an Easy Bake Oven. She laughed, but it isn't open yet. I have a feeling it's going into a closet and not seeing the light of day for awhile.

Anthony got an X-Box 360 with most of the trimmings. We got him the wireless connector so he can play on X-Box Live with his friends over the internet. Oh my God, what a disaster that was. Get this crap!! I have a wireless router in my house, and I know for a fact it reaches every room (have laptop, will travel). Well, I get the game system set up in his room, everything plugged in, it all works. Woohoo! OK, now time to set up the internet connector. I plug in the adapter to the system, it blinks, but does not connect. I found out the disc needs to be in to load the software into the system. Long story short (2 hours later) I call X-Box for help. After 20 minutes on hold, I find out the setting for discs was wrong, I reset it, and it worked. STUPID! A 5-minute deal took over 2 hours. What a dolt I felt like!

For me, I got 2 pair of sweats and the George Carlin book. Also, Ann and I bought ourselves a couple of board games that Anthony gave to us so we can enjoy new games as a family. Overall, a great holiday!

Merry Christmas! Now it's time for VACATION!!

What to call this one...

I have one more week of work until vacation! Hopefully the weather is decent. That's the good news in this blog. I hoped to hit a casino but that doesn't look like it will happen. Why, you ask? Well, my 1998 Sunfire, which I bought in August 2007 and gets 28 mpg, and I love, decided to blow a sensor (I don't remember the "technical term" for it) in the transmission and the PART will cost $1,200. That doesn't include labor. The car is not WORTH $1,200. So, it's time to get a new car. I am hoping to get $500 for mine on a trade-in, and that will cover the down payment. Unfortunately still will have to pay the tax on the car. Therefore, the thought of a casino, playing poker, having a good time is out.

Kinda lazy Saturday...

Sitting here watching rasslin' with my son. We tape it and watch it when Mom isn't around. She doesn't watch this one much. Can't much understand why anyone does, but I guess I'm an optimist hoping a show will be decent once. Later on I have to get online for work. Adjustments that I suggested to one of my businesses has been implemented and I have to watch it to make sure everything is right. I'm happy with this one. Now to make sure it's "all good" as the youngins say.

Ann bought me the neck massager last Sunday and I used it as soon as she got home with it. Had it on my neck for about 13 minutes with Shiatzu (sp?) and heat. No pain in my neck since. Migraines have also tapered off some. Best money ever spent! Next is getting my eyes checked. Walmart has a great eye doctor and their prescriptions and frames are not expensive.

Hard to believe Christmas is 2 weeks away. I am excited about it, believe it or not. Possibly because I'm on vacation the week after :) I will monitor emails (otherwise I'll come back to about 700 of them) but that's about it. Plan to be playing some poker, spending some time with Anthony, and making plans for 2010. What plans you ask? Stay tuned. I may tell you. Then again, I may not ;)

Saturday...

Wish it would snow! It's been cold the past few days, and I mean COLD compared to what we are used to. The normal temperature is around 50, and we've been lucky to hit 40. There was a "threat" of snow the other day, calling from anywhere from a dusting to 7 inches (nice way to pinpoint it, huh?). We didn't see a flake in my neck of the woods. The way I figure it, Anthony and I should be outside playing basketball in shorts on Christmas Day like we have a couple of times before.

I have also been suffering from daily migraines. I can't figure out if it's something in my neck (a disk issue) or I need new eyeglasses. My suggestion to you is buy stock in Advil, because I'm popping them like candy. Hoping for Christmas to get a neck massager (would try to spell the brand, but can't so won't). Saw it in Sam's for around $25, thought about buying it then, but figured it would be easier for Ann if I told her to buy it for me. Unfortunately it means I have to wait another 3 weeks. Take the good with the bad right?

Christmas is 20 days away. Hard to believe. This year went WAY fast! I have been tempted to start shopping, but then the migraine kicks and keeps me on my buttocks on the couch rather than in the car going to the store to shop. Cold weather not helping either. I moved south to get AWAY from the cold. In NY it's about 15 degrees warmer than it is here. What's wrong with THIS picture? Global warming? Not in Arkansas!

Work has been busy. Had a bad Thanksgiving work-wise. Screwed up my schedule (was looking at the wrong calendar) and put too many orders in with the wrong ship dates. I consider myself very fortunate that they did not take that role away from me for Christmas, and this time I double and triple checked everything. It better be much smoother, or I could be in deep "doo-doo"...ok, deep shit!

Good thing I type fast because the migraine is getting worse. Take care all!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I thought about making the title of this post a little more "clever" (meaning: stupid!) but decided not to. Sometimes I get tired of trying to be funny, cute ... "clever" ... and just feel like being boring. This week went fairly well at work. Date changes still aplenty, which means I really have to nail Christmas in terms of schedules. Some of the problem, I found out, was not so much I had it wrong, but the warehouses were overloaded with orders. They couldn't keep up and some orders got pushed out.

Want to go to the casino tomorrow morning but can't. Have orders to look for, and have to send them to one of my coworkers as soon as they come in so they can lock down. Unfortunately I know what I have to look for, so can't have anyone do it for me. I don't mind really. I already know there is nothing on sale at Walmart that I want in terms of Black Friday sales, so I can sleep. But there are things I am looking to get so should save so I can afford them. Sounds like a plan, right?

So many changes going on in my office, it's making my head spin. My supervisor got another position, so he's leaving in a month. I lost my chilled/frozen manager, and got another one. Lost my sales analyst for chilled/frozen, losing my analyst for ice cream, and I didn't apply for any of these spots. Why, you ask? Easy. I love what I do right now. Chilled/Frozen takes care of itself easy enough, so I would be able to give that up. But ice cream? That's a different one. I am still learning the category, so many issues we had this past year with capacity at warehouses, figuring out promos and the like, that I do not yet want to leave it. I want another season with it so I can get it down. This way, when a position opens and I apply (and hopefully get it) I can train the new person properly on it, giving them most of the scenarios that could arise and show them how to handle it. In the meantime, I'm not in a rush to go anywhere.

Had a very quiet Thanksgiving here. Just the three of us. We had a great dinner, and now watching Cars on the Disney Channel. OK, I'M watching it. Ann is sitting here with me but dozing off. Anthony is on the computer. I think I'm missing a decent football game, but this is one of my favorite movies. Try to watch it whenever it's on TV. So, I'm gonna go so I can watch the last 15 minutes. Have a good one!

Been a few days...

Right now sitting here "discussing" what to have for dinner with my wife. It looks like I'm having Cocoa Puffs, because by the time we decide on anything, I'm gonna be too hungry to wait.

Have I mentioned I hate holidays? The last couple of days I have had so many issues with warehouses and carriers it's unreal! Next week hopefully will be a little quieter, but I am doubting it. Add to that it's a short week because of Thanksgiving, and wheeeeeee! Shoot me now. Please!

Other than that not much going on. Oh! Won a poker tournament last Saturday. It was a rebuy at Cherokee, and I rebuy a few times, but came out ahead in the end so that worked. Sunday, Ann and I went to Downstream and I played in another tournament. So much for "being ahead in the end" but we had a real good time.

Deciding if I want to go to Walmart on "Black Friday". Not sure what is on sale yet. Will have to see and decide when it gets closer.

November Friday the 13th!!

Ooooh I love Friday the 13ths! For some reason, this date is good for me. I went to work and had a good day with no problems.

My company Christmas party has been set. It's in 4 weeks. I have no intention of going. Today, one of my coworkers asked me why I wouldn't go. First words I said were "In case you haven't noticed, I'm not much of a people person." He looked at me like I was nuts (he's too new to know me that well I guess). Then as we talked for a couple of minutes, I had a revelation. I told him I don't let anyone get too close to me any longer. People close to me leave me, and I'm tired of people leaving me. So, to make my life easier, I don't get close enough to people to let it hurt if/when they leave.

OK, short post. Getting another migraine (first one in 1 1/2 days, that's good huh?)

Happy Birthday Dad

My dad turned 75 today. Unfortunately he died at the ripe old age of 53 (June 5th 1988 .. is 53 right? Don't feel like doing the math). I remember my dad 2 ways. One way as a great father, never letting me want for anything, always made sure I had whatever I asked for and then some. The other way was a sonuvabitch. He constantly cheated on my mom, even at times trying with her close girlfriends (from what I heard from my mom). They divorced when I was in 6th grade (1981 was the year), and while my mom found "happiness" my dad never did. He did try once. There was a woman he, myself, and my cousin Georgie, met at the beach. Three totally different ages of men (I was the youngest, around 14 or 15), hoping to get a second glance. Well, my dad won (she was closest to his age at the time), and they dated for a time. Unfortunately, she dumped him. He worked his ass off, and the tumor in his brain was starting to take its toll, so he slept alot. She wanted to go out, he fell asleep too much.

My dad died (as I said above) on June 5th, 1988, exactly 16 months to the day (February 5th, 1987) he had a stroke caused by the tumor in his lung and his head. I remember that night. Long story short, I went to the hospital and found him in the E.R. and he was fighting. Could see it in his face. I remember standing there with my cousin, Kevin, around 3am or so, looking at this man who was fighting for his life. I told him exactly this: "You have 2 choices. First, you can die - right here, right now - with me standing right the fuck over you saying goodbye. OR, you can keep fighting so that when I come back later, you will be conscious and at least know who the fuck I am." My cousin was shocked. None of us would EVER talk to their dad that way. Well, that wasn't a normal night. The next day, he was awake and knew who I was. He didn't know who anyone ELSE was, but he knew me. He also couldn't talk, and I told the doctor "give him his fucking teeth and he'll be able to talk" and I was right.

I have many memories, good and bad, of my dad. And even after 21 years, I still miss the hell out of him.

Lordy Lordy I'm F***ing Forty!

Yes, you read that correctly. I celebrated my 40th birthday yesterday. Took the day off from work and went to the casino. Spent 6 wonderful hours playing poker and some slots, heard a woman yell "Holy Crap!" right after she discovered she won $12,500, and had a great time. Played in a rebuy poker tournament (finished 10th, paid top 3), played some cash poker, and had a great time. Forced myself to leave because I knew if I didn't, I wasn't going to be home for dinner (or cake).

Wife and I are going to the casino in a couple of weeks. Can't wait!

Thirsty Thursday...

Yeah, I know. I'm back on the wagon, so why is it a "thirsty Thursday"? Because tomorrow is PAYDAY for both Ann and myself. I actually hate that. It is easier for me to budget when we are on separate schedules for paychecks, and that isn't going to happen for a few more weeks. This means have to be a bit more careful, but that's OK. I am just glad I didn't have to touch the savings account. There isn't a whole lot in there, but it's better than nothing. My goal is to save enough to take my wife on a cruise next year for her birthday.

Shhh! It Happens

Good day all. What a week it's been! Last weekend, Ann and I decided to make Christmas come a little early, and bought Anthony a new television for his room. He's had the same one since we moved in. We bought it for the house the day we moved in because the movers were not going to have ours here for a couple of days, and we needed something. It's a simple 13" TV, and fit well in there. Well, we had been saying for Christmas we'd get him a 21" flat panel. After talking last Sunday, we found we could get it now, so we don't buy everything in December. Yeah, I know, I could have waited a couple of more weeks for the holiday sales. But, think about it, the sales are on the BIG stuff. You are not finding many deals on a smaller TV. So, we went to Sam's and bought it.

Now, you know the saying "an ounce of pleasure for a pound of pain"? Well, it's continuing to be the motto for my life. Tuesday night, my wife went to shut down the home computer and it was beeping. A long, annoying beep, followed by a small bit of quiet, then another long beep. OK, this is bad. Shut it down, waited a few minutes, turned it back on, same thing. Shut it down again. Next morning, turned it on, same stupid beeping. Alrighty then, time for a new one. I could have brought this one in for repair, but it's old and I had a feeling the repair cost would be as much as a new one. So, during lunch on Wednesday, went out and bought a new one. That afternoon it was fairly quiet at work, and I started getting another of my regular daily migraines (one looming on the horizon now as a matter of fact), so I left at 3pm, knowing I would be back online from home at 3:30. At 3:45pm, I lost my internet at home. What the hell happened? So, I decided to disconnect EVERYTHING, hook up the new computer, let the modem and Linksys cool down, and have it all working in about 1/2 hour or so. That plan failed miserably. I got the wireless to work, but no phone (I have Vonage). Then I got the phone to work, but no internet. Then I lost everything again. After about 2 hours I called Vonage. Turned out my modem was fine, but the Linksys IP address reset to 0.0.0.0 and would not allow anything else to communicate. This also reset my Vonage modem. The guy who helped me was fantastic, and VERY knowledgeable. Needless to say, I was out for 3 hours.

Work on the other hand has been VERY busy, which I enjoy. The only BAD thing is, I am never sure what I'm not doing because I'm working on something else. Turns out my fears are for naught, because everything is taken care of. Did have an "interesting" conversation with my supervisor though. He was a little upset because of something I said to HIS boss, and I am now under the impression that my company is no longer "open door" because God forbid you say something that is on your mind, you are a bad person. OH WELL! I was also told that the manager we used to have, who was my ally, is gone and I no longer have any allies at work. Let me clear something up right now. The manager who left was not my ally, at least not in my eyes. He was my mentor, and I considered him a friend. And for those of you who know me, I call VERY FEW people my friend. And I miss having my friend in the office. But, you know what? He is a fantastic person, the smartest business person I believe I have ever met, and the move is fantastic for him and a wonderful way to provide for his family. Good for him, bad for us (ounce to pound right?).

Anyway, everything is still good. I am not worried about my job. I am learning (sometimes the hard way) that I am currently in an office that I have to watch every word I say because it will come flying back at me, and that's fine. I talk to few, now it will be fewer. Most, if not all, will get a "good morning" and that's about it. *SMILE*

Woooo Pig Soo -- oops! :(

The Arkansas Razorbacks played the #1 ranked team in college football, the Florida Gators. Arkansas was a 25-point underdog. 25 points!! This, after we beat Texas Tech in Dallas, and then beat #19 ranked Auburn at home. OK, so we were in Florida. OK, so they have (arguably) the best quarterback in all of college football. We put on a helluva game. Final score 23-20 Florida. We didn't even let them score the 25 points they were favored by!! Our one screw up? Tejada missed yet another field goal. Then we allowed Florida to take it down the field and score one of their own with 9 seconds left. What confuses me is why after we took the kickoff and got decent field position did we not let Mallett throw the hail mary 60 yards (he's capable of throwing it 70 yards in the air) and hope for a miracle catch or a pass interference call. No, we decided to try the "throw the ball backwards forever until someone tackles us" routine. That is so played out! Hell, we threw it backwards two or three times, then got tackled from BEHIND! How stupid did that turn out? Well, I'll say what everyone else will probably say about this loss...it was a great game, our defense played well, and we'll use this game to build on the rest of our season and next season. Been there, heard that. Unfortunately, it's yet to work!

Also, today my son ran the Chile Pepper 5k in Fayetteville. I decided to go, even though I knew my knee (still cracked) would be reminding me later that the walk between the car and the race (back and forth is about the same as what they ran!) would hurt. Well, I walked, and it does. Anyway...I found Anthony near the start line about 1/2 hour before the race. He, however, did not find me until about 10 minutes before the race. LOL! He was doing warm-ups with the rest of the team, and I was not about to interfere. I talked to him a little before the race, helping to boost his confidence. He is SO capable of running under 7 minutes for a mile. And yes, this one is 3.1 miles, rather than the 2 mile runs he is used to. But it's a good course, he's done it before. I told him, you can do this in 21, and I'd like to see it. BUT, if you finish in under 22 minutes, you can pick where we go for dinner tonight. "Really?!" he asked. "Really!" I replied. I also told him, if you pass a marker (1 or 2 miles) and hear a time OVER 7 or 14 minutes, you're running too slow, and pick up the pace. The gun went off, and off they went. I was able to see him run a couple of times, as they pass by so you can applaud, yell encouragement or times, and yelled for him to pick up the pace and such. He got to the straight run towards the end in 20 minutes and high change, and then had a double turn and the stretch to the finish. I hoped like hell he would make the 22 or less, and yelled to him he's got 1 minute to finish. Blue! Red! Blue! (You yell the colors in front of them, and they know it means to pass them). I got to the finish line a moment before he did, and watched as he crossed the line. He wasn't able to see me, and I wasn't able to yell encouragement, but I think one of his coaches were there, so that was good. He crossed in 21 minutes 55 (or 56 -- it's up for debate) seconds! YESSS! He beat his best time in a 5k run by almost 2 full minutes (previous best 23:44)!

Ten days from now, they have their final race of the season. It's in Rogers (next town over) and last year, while he ran 2k in 16 minutes or worse every race, this race he did in 14 minutes and some. Everyone says it's the easiest course there is. Well, Van Buren was easy this year and he did it in 14:37, which sucked! But after this, he's got all the confidence in the world. And I know the coaches will not ease up on them this week because there is still one meet left. I am fully expecting him to finish that race in UNDER 13 minutes (hey! one can dream right?). Will let you know how it turns out.

I'm a touch UPSET!!

Being a parent is not easy, this much I am learning. Yeah, there were issues when Anthony was younger, but not due to anything he did. It was due to unforeseen circumstances which caused me to just not give a damn. Well, that's in the past, and now I consider myself to be a decent father. I try to give my son everything he wants (within reason of course), fair but firm. Hell, I drove 80 miles ONE WAY to watch him run his Cross Country meet this weekend.

Well, tomorrow and Thursday he wanted to attend the tryouts for the bowling team. This means I have to leave work early, pick him up at school, then take him to the bowling alley while he does his thing, and I have to wait there for an hour. Thursday would be his mom's turn. I decided to look at his grades today to see what updates from the weekend there were by the teachers. It not only didn't get better, but one grade got FAR worse. Needless to say, now I'm pissed. I've already told him forget the bowling team. I'm real close to emailing his XC coaches and telling them he will not be running the final 2 meets of the season because of his grades. Right now I'm holding off, because I don't want to take everything away without giving myself a chance to calm down.

I did give him the "what for" about it. Fortunately for him, I did not raise my hands (for those of you who read this that think it's wrong for me to spank a child as discipline when it's WELL deserved, I dare you to say or do something about it, and then God help you!!), but I did yell alot. And LOUD too.

Oh well, I'm done pissing now. Thank you for listening.

In case of...

Yeah, I normally don't post this close together, but the way I felt when I woke up this morning made me think to post, just in case. I had a migraine to beat all hell, a pain in my neck which I don't know if is tight muscles, a pinch nerve, or a bad disc in my neck, plus a sharp shooting pain that felt like it was going THROUGH my brain into my eyes, rather than up the back of my head and into my eyes. The most fun part of this all was when the bridge I was driving on to get to my office(which is under construction by the way) went from 2 lanes to one. It didn't in reality, but in my eyes, YES IT DID! I left work around 11ish, got home alive (somehow) and went straight to my room. That's where I spent the next 2 1/2 hours, under the covers, and I mean UNDER the covers (head to toe) and tried to get rid of the pain. It left, I ate lunch, and now I'm supposed to be starting dinner. Nope! I feel everything coming back, and that means I am not getting up for fear I'll fall down again.

Anthony is running XC this weekend. His grades are improving, and he's working with the teachers to make up as much work as he can. So I am letting him run. However, the run is in Van Buren, which is down by Fort Smith and an 80 mile drive one way from us. I may or may not go. Next weekend is the Chili Pepper Festival 5k run and I'm definitely going to that one, provided I don't have other plans like my own funeral.

Played poker last night. I was thinking about it most of the morning yesterday, then Ann got a call to go into work. So, I decided I wasn't going to go. Then a friend of mine posted on Facebook that he was going, so off I went. We met up, chatted a few minutes, had a quick beer (so much for sobriety LOL!) and went to play. I think he was out early, because I didn't see him around at the break. I wound up finishing in 9th out of a field of 60 which wasn't bad, but they only paid top 6. I hate A-10, suited or not. Overall, it was fun though.

Well, that's about it. Keep an eye on the obits page. If you find my name, let me know ok?

Manic Monday

Last week I was out of the office for 2 1/2 days. No vacation, just a couple of days of training and then a half day working with Habitat for Humanity. Now, it's a new week, and it did not start out as well as I had hoped. Everything today seemed very rushed, and nothing seemed to fall into place. I hope the rest of the week gets better.

I checked Anthony's grades, and they seem to be a little better. I went through every class with him and we found some things that he can still do to make up a couple of grades. I decided that he can run XC this weekend. He also wants to go to Homecoming this Saturday night. There is a girl he wanted to ask, but he apparently asked her out last year and she said she only likes him as a friend.

OK, guys, we've been through this. We like a girl, but they "do not like us in that way" so what do we do? We're men! We move on (after starting rumors about her and the like, right? LMAO!). I'm kidding. We do move on though ... sometimes. I told him he is not going to ask her out again. I mean, what's changed? Did she tell him she likes him? Did he gain 40 pounds of muscle? No and No! I told him to go stag, but be sure a couple of his friends are going stag as well.

Well, that's about it. TTFN!

No X-Country this weekend

Ann has been looking at Anthony's grades online, but I haven't. Today Anthony had homework that he gets off the teacher's website, and for that he has to use my laptop. For some reason, the other computer keeps kicking us off the website. I guess there is a program or something we are missing. Anyway, after he was done, I decided to take a peek at his grades for myself. Well, apparently his mother doesn't tell me anything. It's a great friggin' secret. She said she looked at them last week and "they weren't so bad". I would like to know her definition of "they weren't so bad" because his BEST grade was a middle C. Well, I spoke to Anthony about it, and he knew his grades were bad. Guess what that means? It means he will NOT be running in the Holiday Island meet this weekend. I immediately emailed his coach after talking to him and let her know. I also told him that if I do not see an improvement next week, he will miss the Van Buren meet. He will also be missing the Chili Festival and the Rogers meets if his grades do not improve. If they decide to excuse him from the team, that's fine with me. I told him at the start, if the grades are bad, it's too bad he won't be running.

Well, at least I'll get to sleep this weekend!

OK I napped...

Let's see. I woke up at 6:15, took Anthony to the bus to get to his XC meet today, then went to the meet, came home and relaxed a bit. Then went to get Anthony, came home, he went in the shower, I mowed the front lawn. Came in, showered, started watching the AR/AL football game (we lost, no surprise). Decided about 4pm to go lay down. Woke up at 7:20 when wife came home with food for dinner. I hardly ate. Why do I nap so much better than I sleep at night?

Anyway, I told you last week about Anthony's XC meet and we didn't know the time. Found out earlier this week. 14 minutes 1 second. Where the hell does this kid get it from?? I am very proud of him.

Today, he had another meet in Siloam Springs. The hills on this course are HUGE. They go about 30 degrees up I guess. Please understand, at the pace he's been improving, he should be able to run the last 2 mile course of the season faster than I would be able to drive it! I also didn't tell him, but I knew with this race he was going to hit the wall. There's no way he's going to continually improve at this pace the way he's been the past couple of races. Well, I was "kinda" right. He didn't do better time wise. Today his time was 14 minutes 39.8 seconds (yes POINT 8, I timed it this time). And he was feeling sick to his stomach when he was done. But he still did very well, and finished under 15 minutes.

I remember this course from last year, and it took him well over 16 minutes to finish. He did a fantastic improvement from last year, which is what I hoped for. I also remember last year, we took him home directly after his run, and he was sick then too. The hill is very hard for him to run, but he was fine after resting, doing the cool down run, and having fluids put back into his body.

Well, that's about it for now. Hopefully will sleep before the sun rises. TTFN!

What a day...

As you may remember me telling you in previous posts, Anthony is running Cross-Country with school. Last week he ran his first meet of the season, a 2-mile run, in what is officially 14:57. Not bad at all. His BEST last year (the last race) was 14:22 and that was the EASIEST course of the year. The rest of them he was over 16 minutes in each.

OK, I'm getting a little ahead of myself. Today, Anthony had a meet in Elm Springs, and had to be at the bus by 7:30am. Ann, my wife, worked from 7am until noon. The NW Arkansas Naturals played in Game 4 of the best of 5 series of the Texas League Championship. Game started at 1pm in Springdale. The Arkansas Razorbacks are playing their SEC opener at home against Georgia tonight, and the game started at 6:45pm, nationally televised (thank you!) So here's the plan. Drive Ann to work at 7, come home, pick up Anthony, get gas for the car, get him to the bus for 7:30am. Went to Wal-Mart and walked around for a little bit. Then went home, watched the last episode of Season 3 of Heroes (now I'm ready for Season 4 on Monday), then go to Elm Springs to watch Anthony run.

OK, so Anthony ran. The course is very hilly. Still 2 miles, but decent hills. Going down is easy, going up is a bitch! I didn't time him, and then found there was no "official" clock at the finish line! How in the hell are they supposed to know their time?? So, I will not know how he did until Monday, but I can say he did better than last week, which is exactly what I ask of him. Just improve each week. So far so good. When they were done, they did their cool down thing, he got his stuff, I checked him out and we came home. It's now 11:45am, he goes in the shower, and I relax a few before going to get Ann at work.

I get to her job, and she can't leave. Her coworker is late (naturally!) so she didn't come out until 12:15pm. And, it's drizzling. Great! Get her home, we do a quick "get ready" and head out to Springdale to watch the Naturals play. They are down 2-1 going into this game, they win today and we go back tomorrow. Long story short (12 innings) and we lost 4-2. CRAP! We had a 2-0 lead in the 9th, an error by the pitcher, next hitter 2-run homer. Tied! Twelfth inning, another 2-run homer, we lose, wait until April 8th, 2010 for the start of the next season.

Got home at 6:10, 35 minutes until the football game. Right now we are winning 21-17, 3:14 to go in the first half. We look really good!

When do I get my nap???

We will never forget...

I still remember, 8 years later, that fateful day in 2001. I was driving to work listening ... wait, did I tell this story last year? nope, didn't start blogging until October ... to the radio. It was a station from the city, played top 40, did comedy skits. One of the DJ's stated that there is a report of a plane hitting the World Trade Center. They were just coming out of another skit, so the first thought that crossed my mind was "this is the worst joke they could ever do" but the DJ's kept talking about it. Then I realized they weren't laughing. I listened a couple of more minutes, and decided to change the station to an all news station. They were reporting the same thing. I went back to my regular station, trying to get some comfort from what I was hearing. Familiar voices can do quite a bit. When they began talking about it, they weren't sure what type of plane hit, and for that matter WHY it hit. The day was beautiful and clear, no fog to cause issue with a pilot's vision. As I pulled into the parking lot of my job, at 9:02am, they yelled "Oh My God! Another plane just crashed into the other WTC building! We are under attack!" I sat there for a moment in shock, deciding whether or not to even go into my office or just leave and go home. I decided to go in. My co-workers were listening to a local radio station, and when they saw me, I asked if they heard about the second plane hitting. I got a shocked "NO!" They all heard it from me.

Over the next couple of hours, we were instructed to "try to work" but were not allowed to leave. We worked right across the street from an airport, which also housed a small military facility, and safety said stay in the building. When we finally got to leave, I went to my son's school (he was in 2nd grade) and took him out. We left the school, and were standing in front on the entranceway. I grabbed him, hugged him, and lost it. I mean LOST IT! I was crying worse than a child who had their favorite toy taken away and smashed right in front of them. A woman coming out of the school with her daughter saw this, came over and kneeled with me, holding me while I cried. I never found out her name, I couldn't tell you what she looked like, but I will never forget the compassion she showed me in those few moments.

The balance of that day was spent at home, watching the news, getting as many updates as I could, trying to make sense of it all. At one point in the early afternoon, after the FAA grounded all flights in, out, and around the United States, I heard a plane flying overhead. I ran outside, kept the family in the house, and met my neighbor out there who had the same idea I did. Find out who or what was flying overhead. It was gone by the time we got out, and assumed it was a plane involved with the Armed Forces.

It is now 8 years later, and I still remember that day very clearly. I will never forget. We will never forget.

The end of the summer...

Yep, it's that time. It really didn't even feel much like summer this year. Yeah, there were some days that were rather warm, but not like it has in the past. I saw on the news that in 2000 the record temperature a little south of here hit 109 degrees. Now THAT'S a summer! I don't recall if we had days of 100 degrees here this year, we may have had one or two. Well, we are at the start of September and the temperature is not going higher than 85 if we're lucky.

Anthony seems to be doing well with Cross Country practice. He has no problems getting up at 6:10am. I, however, have some complaints! I'm used to sleeping until 6:30 or 6:45. That 20 minutes is something I could really use back. But it's the weekend now. Hopefully I'll get some of that 20 minutes back. Monday he will be running a 5k race in the morning. Then next Saturday he has his first cross country meet of the season. I'm very proud of him.

Been a few days...

Let's see. Last weekend I played poker on Sunday at Cherokee Casino. It was one of their "special" tournaments..higher than usual buy-ins. I was in a tournament of 77 and finished 34th, beaten by a suckout flush over my made flush on the flop. Part of that was my fault. I bet too little after the flop, and the guy that called couldn't have put me on the flush and had many draws to make a hand. Unfortunately for me, the flush was one of them and he made it on the turn. What can you do. I knew going in if I was going to lose, I was going to take a bad beat to make it happen. Sure enough, it did.

The work week was par for the course. Had quite a few meetings, and actually had to miss one because an earlier one ran over and I had work to catch up on. I didn't miss much though. I was able to be filled in by my CFR, so that was good.

Yesterday, Anthony and I mowed most of the back lawn. It was getting dark and the mower ran out of gas, so we quit for the night. Today, I played in the same type tournament I did last Sunday. This time there were only 34 players, and I finished in 17th place. Caught KK under the gun, raised, got a caller, then someone else went all in. I knew what he had, but called anyway. Sure enough, I was facing AA. There was a 3rd caller and she had K6 suited, so I had one out. Of course, it didn't hit, the AA tripled up, and I was done. Ah well. Such is life. But now poker is out of my system for awhile, so it will keep me from getting bored with something I enjoy doing, but can't do very often due to my limited bankroll. Besides, have too many plans for Christmas shopping, so have to start saving now.

That's about it. TTFN!

Busy weekend...

Came home today after working 9 hours, relaxed a bit then mowed the front lawn. Was going to mow the backyard also, but I'm old! I'm tired! It will wait. Tomorrow morning I have to go into the office. Well, I don't HAVE to go in, but I can do my work easier with 2 monitors and a full keyboard. There is an ice cream promotion shipping next week, and they need ship withs. That's my job. Hopefully it won't take me but a couple of hours. And there's no set time I have to go in, it's whenever I wake up and go. Then I get to come home and relax (maybe mow the back lawn). Anthony has a black/gold student athlete thing at 6pm which I have to take him to, and stay for. Hopefully that gets done early, but I know for a fact it won't. Sunday afternoon I'm playing poker. There is a tournament at a local casino that I'm planning on playing in. Sunday night is WWE Summerslam. Good thing for DVR's because I'm taping it, hoping that I am not home in time for the start. Think about it asshole! If I'm home early, I fucking LOST in the tournament. Is that what you want? Then fuck off! Your opinion obviously means shit to me anyway, so what the fuck do I care what you think?

Sunday...

Fuck family. They ain't worth shit.
Fuck "friends" because they aren't what they say they are.

Yo!

What's up everyone? Haven't "blogged" in a few days so thought I'd put something here. Actually haven't been doing much on the internet lately. Removed over 60 people from my Facebook friends list last week (anyone noticed yet? LOL! nope!) and haven't been doing much at all otherwise. Counting down until August 23rd, when I am planning on playing in a poker tournament at Cherokee in Siloam Springs OK.

Bill Engvall is performing locally here tonight, but we couldn't go. Between Ann working until 6pm and the cheapest seats just a bit more than we would hope to spend, we are home. Tried to win tickets from a local radio station but didn't, so that idea was shot to shit.

Well, that's about it. I'm in a fuck-it-all mood, and I've only concerned myself with my immediate family (wife and son) which is fucking GREAT so I'm more than content. Bye!

Friggin' Friday...

Hey y'all. It was a slow week at work, not much going on right now, all of my reports were up to date including a new one that I just started. All of my orders were in the system by 9:30, which is unusual. So, I decided to take summer hours. Besides, I promised my son we would do something fun if I could get out early. I did, so we did. We went to Fast Lane. It's a place that has Lazer Tag, Go Karts, bowling, and video games. It's a good place. Unfortunately the Go Karts didn't start until 4pm, we were there before 1pm. That stunk. So we played some video games, then went to play Lazer Tag. You can't run in there, as it's dark. That's good for me, because of my knee. And all I did was walk and get shot. I got shot 82 times, I swear! It was nuts. Then, I decided to walk and try to stay away from crossfire. There's a ramp in this one, and I went down the ramp. I took a step with my right foot, then a step with my left foot. That was the end of that. My left knee stabbed with pain, and I screamed. I was done. We had to leave after that. Thankfully my knee feels a bit better, but I have to go easy for a couple of days again. That means I probably won't be able to work on my yard this weekend. Not happy about that.

Today is Andy's last official day in our office. He is moving back north to bigger and better opportunities. I am going to miss that man. He came in while I was at my company as a temp. I was there 6 months, and thinking I was out, when he started. Well, I was fortunate enough to stay an additional 6 months, under Andy's tutilage. He had been the best boss I ever had. I respected him, he showed me the same respect, we grew a friendship, but I always knew he was the boss, which is the way it's supposed to be. After I left in Dec 2007, he told me he'd keep me in mind if something came up. I was hopeful, but doubtful. Well, 2 months later he called, and I have been there as an employee of the U since March 2008. Today marked the last day he would be there with me.

The company had a great lunch spread for his goodbye, and I'm sure there would have been stories and such. I honestly could not stay for it. Over the past couple of months, Andy and I have become somewhat "detached" meaning he's been crazy busy trying to do 2 jobs, get himself and his family ready for the transition, so we didn't share much more than a "Hi how are you" in passing in the mornings. I don't want to remember that. I want to remember, and I always WILL remember, the man who brought me in to the company, played basketball in the office with his workers, and was a great friend and boss. Thank you Andy. I wish you and your family the very best!

Back to work...

Well, vacation is over. Today I went back to work. And I discovered something rather important. I suck! LOL just kidding. Actually, I was afraid of what I'd find when I got back, because nobody REALLY knows my categories. I did manage to check my email over the weekend and there were no big issues, which was good. But I also figured they were "holding back" until I got back today. Luckily, no issues. WOOHOO! Normally, this would upset me. I figured that my company revolved around me, and if I ever left, the company would go belly up inside of a month. I'm KIDDING! It made me feel good, because now I know I can go on vacation (which is planned again in August, hopefully) and know that when I get back there won't be any crisis issues. Thank you to Lisa for doing good on my categories :)

Back and tired...

Wife and I had a great time yesterday and today at the casino. The room was really nice. Had a king-sized bed so there was no chance of us kicking each other during the night, not that there was much chance of that. But we needed to pole vault to get ONTO the bed. Damn thing was almost 3 feet off the ground. Had to make a running leap to get on the bed. Good thing I didn't do that when I went back to the room at 2:30 am, or I think I would have gone out the window. Had a great time though. We wound up losing, but not nearly as much as we figured. I was also able to pay for the room with cash instead of using the debit card, and we still came home with money. One word of advice though. Do NOT eat at the buffet there. It sucked!

Played a poker tournament last night while we were there. I was card dead to say the least. Tried playing a few semi-decent hands, which was not easy because the players at my table were very aggressive, so had to be careful with hand selection. Finally, made the announcement that when I get my FIRST pair of the tourney (yes, cards were THAT bad!) I was going all in. Well, blinds were 100/200, someone raised to 900, and I went all in with 1700. He asked me if I had the pair, I smiled and said YEP! He had to call, he was committed. I had QQ, he had A-7 suited. Survived the flop, but A hit the turn. I knew. I can't win with QQ. I would say it was fun, but how much fun can you have when you can't win, let alone play.

Wife and I went up to the room for a bit, then she went to sleep and I went back down. Played a cash game for awhile, and after 4 hours of play, wound up ahead for that time period...a whole $2. Was alot of fun though.

Overall, great getaway, looking forward to doing it again soon!

It's almost here...

VACATION!!! WOOHOO!!! Three days from now, my wife and I will be on the road to a night of gambling, eating, drinking (yes, I may jump off the wagon for this), and some "adult fun". Work is planned out well too, so I won't have to go into the office Wednesday morning. The ice cream promotion I had to write was done last week, all of the orders are in, ready to go, all I have to do is figure out ship withs and that's easy. I do have a frozen promotion to write, but that will only take me about an hour or so. Tuesday at 4:30pm or so, the laptop goes off, the voicemail message gets changed, and I am GONE until Sunday when I have to report back to work. You have NO idea how much I need this. Wife does too.

10 days to go...

Yes, I'm counting down. To what you may ask my loyal follower(s)? VACATION!! From WORK!! I think it's been about a year since I took a vacation from work (with the exception of a day here and there...yeah that's it, about 2). My wife and I are going away. There is a beautiful casino/resort about an hour away, and the room is only $59 for the night. Ann has to work in the morning, probably, but that's ok. Usually you can't check in before 3 or 4pm anyway, and being it isn't far, it works. Anthony will be fine for the night and we are not far, so it is all good. Ann and I haven't been away together alone for a night since...well, our honeymoon I think. And that trip didn't turn out so well, being I broke my collarbone and was good for shit the rest of the trip.

Had 2 ice cream promotions to write this week. I am happy to say I made it through both. The first one was very tricky due to quantity issues to each location I ship to. Had to change quantities on the orders, then go through each set of orders and try to combine orders to save trucks. I feel great about it though, because I managed to save 3 trucks. It doesn't seem like a lot, but when you take into consideration all of the "picking" of the orders (getting the right quantity of each item), getting carriers to come in on time, getting appointments for delivery, and the like, this works well for me. Monday I will build on to less than truckload orders, which is easy. I also had another one that was a "short lead" promo. They wanted it 6 days from when it was written. Wheeeeeeeee. Writing those were very easy, because they write the orders as full trucks. So I'm satisfied.

This week, I'll catch up on "projects" and then next week is only 2 days in. Or so I think. I have 2 more promotions to write, one frozen and one ice cream. This is going to be not so much fun. I have a feeling I'm going to be working 1/2 day on Wednesday to make sure loose ends are tied. Plus somewhere in the next week and a half I am going to be training a few co-workers on how to do a replenishment report. That will be fun. It's actually easy, but I am hopeful that with this training, all of the reports will be formatted exactly the same, so there are no issues with our company or the company we run these reports for. Know what I mean?

Went to the Naturals game last night. They were losing 4-0 early, then made it 4-3, then were winning 6-5, then down 10-7 after 7, so we left. It was already 10pm at that point. We listened in the car on the way home, and of course we made it 10-9 in the 9th inning when I got in the driveway. Ann and Anthony came in the house, and I stayed in the car to listen. We tied it at 10 and I blazed a trail into the house to turn on the radio. We all listened as the Naturals won 11-10 and of course we weren't there :( Ah well, such is life.

Well, that's about it for now. Time to get my Sunday work done.

Boom go the fireworks...

Happy 4th of July America!

Woot Woot! It's July...

Realized I haven't posted anything for my faithful readers to browse through (basically meaning ME) so I decided to post today. Yes, I am at work at the moment, but have a little "down time" so figure better to take advantage now rather than later when all my thoughts revolve around "what's for dinner and am I getting any before I go to sleep tonight?" That's pretty much my evening in a nutshell. I was debating on playing poker tonight, but I am going to the casino on Friday for a slot tournament, so I'll just stick around tonight. Also, hopefully the back lawn is getting mowed today, and I want to be able to enjoy it for a night before it grows back nuts again.

Ann and I are going away for a night in a few weeks. It's only about an hour from home, but it is the first time just her and I are going away in a LONG time. Can't wait.

Other than that, absolutely NOTHING going on. Knee is still cracked, but today I am walking without the assistance of my crutch. Figure may as well start seeing if I can. So far so good, but tonight I will probably pay for it. Such is life.

Happy 4th if I don't talk to any of ya (again, meaning me!)

nothing in particular...

Haven't said anything in a few days, so I figured what the hell.I didn't go play poker tonight. Thought about it, then remembered my knee STILL hurts. Besides, took a half day off today and went to see Transformers 2. Good movie. Very good actually. Sat a bit close for my liking, but with my crutch by my side, the seat was worth it. No chance of someone trying to come through the aisle and forcing me to move my leg. I used the crutch to prop my leg up, which worked well.

Other than that it's been pretty quiet. Went to Cherokee Friday night, then Downstream Saturday night. Had a MUCH better time Saturday. Was a whim, so nobody knew we were going. Had a blast. It's about an hour drive, but we set the cruise and admired the open area. Much better than NY, or anywhere else I've been. Hate clutter. It sucks! I hate it so much that yesterday coming home from work I took the long way home to enjoy the openness of the area.

Keeping my vacation in October, but not going to my cousin's daughter's wedding (is the punctuation wrong in that sentence? who gives a shit!? I don't!). Decided no for a couple of reasons...(1) it's not cheap. I have to rent a car, stay in a not so cheap hotel for 2 nights, gas, food, gift. (2) I haven't seen family for over 20 years. I would feel out of place, everyone would try to be nice to me, ask me how everything is, etc, but it would be awkward as hell. So, better off not going. Besides, I really don't have too much interest in seeing most of them. There will be an aunt and uncle there who I would love to see, but when you weigh the "pros vs cons" I made the right decision to say no.

Slow Saturday...

It's one of those days. I am going to stay in the house and rest my knee. Made the mistake yesterday of NOT listening to the doctor and went walking WAY too much without my crutches. Why, you may ask? Because I'm stupid, how's that for a response? Went to the casino last night with my wife, they were giving me free money. Yeah, what a joke that was. Stood in line after line for about an hour to take a frisbee that I apparently wasn't allowed to keep because the girl took it, verified my $49 prize, then put the frisbee out of my reach. What a fucking bitch she was too. Sorry if you don't like your job. You know what? Deal with it or get the fuck out. There are plenty of people who will do it and do it pleasantly. Anyway, had to park REAL far, and walked without my crutch. Halfway through the parking lot, I was already feeling it. Ann was sweet enough to go to the car and get it for me, but the damage was done. I also twisted it twice while sitting (or trying to sit) at a machine. I screamed, people thought I won money, saw the twisted pain in my face, and realized I was hurting so continued to ignore me. I have also learned that this casino SUCKS! Machines do not pay out, dealers at tables laugh at you when THEY win your money, and it was over a 1-hour wait to get on to a poker table. It's a fucking Friday, it's BUSY, and you don't have enough tables AND dealers?? I am going to that casino ONCE MORE in 2 weeks because of a slot tourney, and then I am DONE with them. Missouri casino, congrats. You have just won my business and my money.

Changes comin'...

Got word yesterday that my manager is leaving for another position within the company. After 2 years in Arkansas, he will be going north. I remember when he was announced (and I was a temp then), thoughts around the office were basically "what the hell does a warehouse guy know about sales." When he got to us, we had a small informal meeting for each of us to introduce ourselves and what we do. Well, when he got there, I was a temp, and "short term" at that. So my introduction was "I'm on my way out, so say hi to my ass" (in so many words). I was fortunate enough to work with and around him for almost 6 months, and when a position opened up I was the one he called and helped me get hired. I've now been at the U for 15+ months, and he's leaving. You will be missed sir, even if I am not showing it. Please note our conversation from earlier today...there are those I would like you to take with you, preferably sending them ahead SOON to get used to the area. However, as also stated earlier today, I'll quit the U before taking a transfer north. There isn't enough money to get me back.

Tomorrow is the appointment with the orthopedic. There are those that have been asking what the next step is with this. Will finally have an answer for them. I really don't know. I really believed it was a torn ACL or MCL or one of the CL's, I would have surgery, MAYBE spend the night in the hospital, then come home, get back to work and do therapy. Six weeks later would be fine. Hopefully the recovery from what I have is that quick, and will not require surgery. We'll see.

What a day...

No I'm not bragging, I'm just very proud of myself for what I did. What am I talking about? Read on McDuff..

Today started like any other normal day. Woke up, showered, dressed, went to work. This week has been a very quiet one considering how the rest of the season has been to this point. I have all of my reports caught up, no promotions to concern myself with (writing-wise I mean), and products overall are doing well. So, when I got to work this morning, I decided to put my name down for summer hours. What this means is that if you put in the hours during the week, you can take 1/2 day off on Friday to enjoy the summer and start the weekend a little early. That was the plan. I went out for a cigarette about 10:15 and noticed it was rather dark out. So I hobbled to my car and closed my car windows. They said it may rain, this time they were right. I left work at 11:45, and it was raining out. At 11:46 I was in my car when the tornado sirens went off. OK, this is interesting. I called home to check on Anthony, he was OK. I put the radio on and of course they broke in with the alerts, and all I heard the entire way home was the weather report. I called home 3x and made sure Anthony had the mattress in the hallway just in case. So I got home, and sure enough, there was SEVERE weather all around. Thunder, lightning, all kinds of shit.

A little while after I got home, I start hearing a dog yelping. It sounded hurt, in pain. I looked out and my neighbor's dog was trying to get through the wood gate. I figured he was scared and yelping because he was trying to get out. I looked a couple of minutes later and the dog was laid flat on the ground, still most in part out of the gate. I realized the gate was closing on his neck. So, I stripped off everything metal, including my leg brace, and ran out to try to help. Long story short, I got the owner's son and we got the dog out and he was fine.

I got back in the house, took off the wet clothes, took a Vicodin, and the doctor called with my test results. Well, boys and girls, I do not have any torn ligaments in my knee. I was kinda hoping I did, so they could do surgery and I'd rehab and be fine in a few weeks. NOPE, didn't tell me that. Told me that I have a hairline fracture on the outside of my knee. No cast is needed, but keep the leg stabilizer on and now I need crutches. I am not allowed to put any weight on my knee. This truly sucks!! Next week I will follow up with an orthopedic surgeon and find out what the next step is. Will try to keep you posted, my faithful reader.

MRI

Yesterday is my AWA (alternate work arrangement) day, so I got to work from home. It was the perfect day to do it. Not much going on at work this week in terms of promotions and such, no issues with orders going out, and my knee has been HURTING the past couple of days. I was able to relax, sit on my couch with my leg up when necessary, and enjoyed lunch with my son, where we played Nintendo Wii. Today I had my MRI scheduled for 8:15 and couldn't decide if I was going to start the day working from home and going to the hospital from here, or going to work then going to the hospital (which is 3 minutes from work). I decided to go to work, and what a good decision that was. The only BAD thing was, I brought a change of clothes with me to work because I couldn't have anything metal on. Well, what do you think a zipper is made of, string?? I changed to sweats, no jewelry, no metal. When I got there, I had to change into paper pants and a gown. Oh well, so much for changing. I could have kept on what I had and changed there.

The MRI went great. The x-ray technician was great. She even remembered me from when I went in for my regular x-ray a week and a half ago. So I layed in the bed thing, they put the pads around my knee, gave me earplugs (the MRI is loud!), and in I went. I went right to sleep -- kinda. I zone out, pretty much focus on nothing. The bad thing is when the machine stops making noise and the tech asks "Are you OK in there?" I have to come out of my zone to say "Yes ma'am" then try to go back in before the machine goes loud again. Made it through without any problems though.

Ooooh Jack Russell Hurdle Racing...

Sorry, ADHD kicked in. Where was I? Looking up, my ADHD kicked in at the right time, cuz I was done. Tomorrow is Friday, woohoo! Saturday Anthony is going to a friend's birthday party, Ann will be at work, and I have NO idea what I'm going to do. Normally I would say CASINO but with my knee being fucked up, I doubt that's going to happen. I'll probably come home and watch the College World Series. Arkansas is in, so it would be worth watching, if for no other reason than to keep up with conversations at work next week.

Also, the float trip that I was so looking forward to going on with work, which was scheduled for today but cancelled due to a strong chance of severe weather, was postponed until next week. Makes sense, because today turned out to be nice (at least here anyway). I am not going though. Worried about my knee, so that's keeping me from doing just about everything but walking to the bathroom. Oh, and grocery shopping. I still love doing that.

Knee follow-up...

Went to the doctor today as a follow-up from last week. Doctor read me the x-ray results, and I have absolutely NO idea what he said. The gist of it is there is SOMETHING wrong with my knee, but of course a regular x-ray couldn't tell. So, he is sending me for an MRI, and I go this Thursday at 8:15am. This should prove to be an interesting day, as I am unsure if I am going into the office before (the hospital is 1/4 of a mile away from work) or stay home, and go to work afterwards. I am also supposed to be on a conference call at 9am (not sure if I'll make that one). Then, at 11:30, I am going to lunch with the ice cream team to welcome a new intern to our group. At 2pm (or is it at 3?) I think I have a meeting. Busy busy day. Somewhat looking forward to it. This week is going to be fairly quiet as there are no promotions to write, which makes work sloooooooow. The good thing, though, is I have projects that I am working on, and this gives me plenty of time to get them done quickly as well as efficiently without interruption. This makes the bosses happy, which keeps me from getting yelled at and the like.

1988...

You died 21 years ago today, and the pain is now as it was then.
I miss you Dad!

Knee is still attached...

What a week. I went to work Monday and limped around all morning. I had a doctor appointment at 1:45 so I left work early, hooked up my laptop at home, and worked until it was time to go. Ann was off from work that day, so I let her drive. We went to the doctor, he saw my knee was carrying a bowling ball (for those of you too stupid to understand that statement...my knee was swollen to double the normal size), moved my leg around, pushed on the knee (which I don't mind saying hurt like hell!), and told me to go to the hospital for an x-ray to make sure there were no broken bones. I didn't need an x-ray because I knew nothing was broken, but hey, he wrote the prescription for it. He also gave me an anti-inflammatory (my 3d bottle of the same stuff that STILL doesn't seem to be doing anything), more Vicodin (my new best friends), and a prescription for a leg stabilizer (again, for you stupid people, a brace for my leg that will not allow my knee to bend). So we dropped off the scrips at Wal-Mart, got my x-ray, went to 2 medical supply facilities to find the stabilizer, and THEN had to pick Anthony up at school because he missed the bus. Afterwards, Ann dropped me off, we had dinner, then she went and got my meds. That's all Monday.

Tuesday and Wednesday I had training with work. It was interesting. I think I got something out of it (besides a couple of free lunches - which reminds me, who in the HELL puts mustard in tuna salad?!?!? FUCKIN' YUCK!!). Today was back at work per usual. The good thing is that a promo I wrote last week got all of its ship-withs (product to fill the truck) and there do not seem to be any issues. So, I did my morning reports and then did alot of reports that have been "lagging behind" because of the fact that working 11 hours per day is apparently not long enough for me to get ALL of my work done. Also had 2 meetings today, which the second one made me upset. I was late for it. WHY? Well, I'm glad YOU asked. All I got from the one running the meeting was an attitude of "how dare you be late!" and a dirty look. Well, excuse me for putting my JOB and my CUSTOMER first before a bullshit meeting that doesn't mean anything because the person "running" the meeting is going to TELL you what he wants, regardless of whatever suggestions you may make. I kept my mouth shut, but believe me, you do NOT want to be around when my timer expires.

Now I sit with my leg elevated, a pain in my knee, and WAITING and HOPING for a fight in a Stanley Cup Finals hockey game. Good scoring game though. Pittsburgh JUST went up 3-2 with 9:26 left in the 2nd period. I guess I should pay more attention. And I think I will.

Sunny Sunday...

Time for a new post I guess. I'm sitting here on the couch, bored as hell. I so badly want for Ann and I to go to the casino, I would play in a poker tournament, she would play the slots. It's about a 1-hour drive, and her car has cruise control, so that won't be so bad. The BAD thing is my leg. I played 3 games of softball yesterday, and near the end of the 3rd game, I popped something in my knee. How do I know it popped. It could have been the popping sound I heard when it happened, or it could have been the popping I felt when it happened. Needless to say, my knee is swollen, it's hard to bend at the knee, and it just plain hurts to walk. But walking actually makes it feel a tiny bit better once I get moving. I even stayed and finished the game as catcher. At least there I didn't have to rush. It was a slow-pitch game and there was no stealing allowed. I had Ann take me to the ER when she got home from work last night. She dropped me off in front, and went to park. I walked in, saw at least 8 people waiting, and walked out. Ann picked me up where she dropped me off, and we left. I will see how it is in the next day or two and go to the doctor. Much cheaper ($25 vs $125). Will see what happens I guess.

Let's find out shall we...

Welcome once again to the place that stings you when you least expect it. I'm sitting here, somewhat in the dark. NO, I did NOT forget to pay the electric bill. I'm "going green" and keeping the light off. I am basking in the glow of the laptop screen. And the television. And what's left of the sunlight trying to peek in the front of my house. And the burning end of the cigarette in my mouth. And who the fuck cares??? I'm just babbling. Hey, it's MY blog, I'm allowed!!

Been to more baseball games this month than I've been in a LONG time. Went to 3 so far, and there's another one tomorrow with work. I'm not looking very forward to going. I get to sit with people, some of which I can barely tolerate AT work, for some "team building". Well, I feel horrible for my customers, because you know what? You want the team to grow together? That means I don't do work. Talked to a few of my co-workers and none of them plan to bring their laptops either. I hope nothing "blows up" because it is a 30-minute drive home, not counting how long it would take to get out of the parking lot.

Found out last night that my son will also be at the ballgame tomorrow. He's going with his school. My wife, who has the day off tomorrow, started asking where HER ticket was. Hell, she asked me three times if I bought one for her before I had my coffee when I got home, and you KNOW how much coffee I drink! So, I will be in a "luxury box" which here they call a "suite" with free food and drink. Planning on at least 2 trips down to the food vendor for ice cream. My wife will be sitting alone somewhere behind home plate. She wanted a good seat. I have NO idea where my son will be sitting. He will be with his schoolmates. A couple of his friends are also going, so he's very happy.

He also only has about 2 more weeks of school. I was hoping he would get a summer job at McDonalds, as he is 15-years old and legal to work. There is a McD right on the corner so he could walk to it. But, with the economy the way it is, and so many adults trying to get ANYTHING to help support their families, and the fact that my wife and I are both working and are in decent position, I decided to hold the idea back so someone who really needs a job the opportunity to fill the position. Instead, my son is going to earn money at home. My backyard is still yuck. He will be spending alot of time outdoors.

Well, that's about it for now. Need more coffee, and to find SOMETHING to watch!

Another day...

It's Thursday night, and the Grey's Anatomy season finale just ended. Is Isobel dead? Is George really John Doe, and is he dead? He looked good with his hair thinned out. Isobel always looks great in whatever she wears. Was George just a replacement of Denny in her mind? Now I have to wait. Sunday is the Desperate Housewives season finale. Woohoo. Ann is excited about that one. I can go with or without, but I'll pay attention when it's on anyway.

Work has been decent this week. Anthony was job shadowing me Tuesday and Wednesday. He didn't want to go with me originally because he thought my job was hard. I showed him it isn't, it's just frustrating at times. Just when you think you have all of the questions answered, someone changes the questions. Overall, he seemed very interested, and at times rather enthralled. I was impressed and somewhat excited. He is finally showing an interest in something other than video games, and that got me excited. Hopefully this may give him an idea of what he may want to do in the future, even though we have 4 1/2 years before college.

Thursday...

What a couple of weeks it's been. I had a HUGE ice cream promotion last week, Anthony sprained his wrist, then this week another ice cream promotion, 2 frozen promotions, and all sorts of issues with shipping ice cream. I did learn one thing from all of this. I need to calm the fuck down! All week, as soon as I saw a request for a conference call, or a date change on an order, I would fucking flip. We had a huge meeting on Tuesday at our alternate office, and I was there for about 4 minutes of it. The rest of my time was spent working orders, on conference calls, taking calls from my counterparts up north, and trying to keep my mind off the fact that I didn't have any coffee around. Took care of that though. When I got home, I hit the hard stuff ... GRAPE JUICE! Two big glasses of it! Oh it was GOOOOOOOD! What the fuck do you want for me to say, I hit the bottle of JD? Nope, I quit drinking. Been on the wagon since January 1st. No, I'm not an alcoholic, at least not by the "normal" definition. However, when I DID drink, I would not stop until I passed out or got sick (or in a couple of cases, BOTH!). AND, hearing all of the people I work with going to drink because "school is over" (they apparently graduate 6 times a semester), or because they have to "celebrate making it through the day without yawning" or some bullshit excuse like that. My favorite is "I married a guy who has 3 kids and they are driving me crazy, so I must get drunk every night to tolerate them and my marriage." Well what the fuck did you get married for you stupid fucking twit??? I decided I didn't want to be like any of them. I have a wife and son who need me, they enjoy seeing me sober to spend time with them, to speak coherently to them. My wife likes her spouse, not her souse. So I quit drinking. Now if I can do the same with smoking, I'd kill someone. Ha Ha! Nah, I know I need to quit. I have already started by cutting down 1 to 2 cigarettes per day over a one-week period. I figure in a few months, I should be able to ween (sp?) myself off completely. Will keep you posted.

No sun on Sunday...

What a lousy weather weekend. It's been raining, colder than it should for Arkansas in May, and just overall yuck! Went to the baseball game last night too. Decided to dress almost like it was winter, and was that a good idea. But it was still cold. So I went into the shop and bought a blanket. What a good deal! $30 and this thing covered all 3 of us, and we may have been able to invite a 4th person. That blanket is now on Anthony's bed and fits perfect. It's a simple design, it's Arkansas Red (meaning: Maroon) with the Naturals logo on it. We also got our bobbleheads, so I'm happy about that. I would try to spell the players last name but I can't. His first name is Kila and he is Hawaiian. What a player! Saw him play last year and he got called forward. Such a deserving player. Can't wait to see him play regularly in the majors.

Today it's been a quiet day. Laundry getting done, I had to lay down due to a migraine, which thankfully is better now. We played a Sorry! marathon, which I won again. They can't beat me. I have been playing that game for over 30 years. But we have a great time and alot of laughs. Much better than sitting around in front of the TV doing nothing, although sometimes we will watch a movie or two instead. Just nothing that good on TV today so it was a welcome change.

Back to work tomorrow. Another week from hell coming up. Two more promotions to write, plus two meetings tomorrow. Yuck! I can guaran-damn-tee I will not get everything done without staying until 6pm or MUCH later. But, if I gotta, then I will. I don't mind as long as I have work to do. Oh, I also have to write ship-withs, so just add that to the mix of things to do. What a day it's going to be. I may have to go into work for 6:30 rather than 7:15am like I normally do. And I STILL will probably run out of time or energy or both. Ah well, this is why they pay me the big bucks right?? LOL, yeah, that's why I drive an 11 1/2 year old car. BUT, it's almost paid for. 2 more weekly payments and it's MINE!!

WOOHOO! Dinner's ready. Enjoy the rest of your night.

What a week...

Yesterday was the start of my VERY busy season at work. I have an ice cream promo to accept, and stayed until well after 6pm last night to get half of it done. Today I knew would be a "slower" day, so my plan was to start on it by noon and have it done by 3pm, so then I can check all the orders, move things where I need to move them, and make preparations to have them shipped. Well, when I got to work, I went to say hi to my boss. That took 1/2 hour. My bad! Sometimes, he and I get to talking and I don't know how to shut up and walk away. Oh well, that's OK. I still have my day planned and know I have plenty of time to get it all done. As I started my day, my ice cream boss came to me about some issues. About 1/2 hour later, we figured that out. OK, now an hour is shot, my coffee cup is empty and I need a cigarette. Fill the cup, go for a smoke, realize it's almost 9:00, time for my conference call. Get on the call, there's another 45 minutes. Worked through part of it, but not all of it. OK, this is NOT going well. Now I'm about 2 hours behind. And here come my daily orders. Have to work on those, finish my reports, and hopefully can start on the promo orders by 1:30pm. Start work, get 3 return requests. OK, stop work, take care of those. OK, back to work. Send out a couple of reports. Where did this day go? It's 11:45 already! Damn, I'm way behind. 11:50am, cell rings. Ann calling, Anthony fell in gym, hurt his wrist "bad" and the nurse at school "suggests" getting an x-ray. Definition: Nurse thinks it may be a broken wrist, get here NOW! So, I go running (and I do mean RUNNING) through my office, letting the powers that be know what's going on, pack up the laptop, fly to the school, get to the child. He JUST got his color back when I got there, nurse said he was very pale. I could see he was in ALOT of pain. I looked at the wrist and agreed with the nurse...yep it looks broken. Shit! Get into the car, get to the hospital, it's 12:53pm. Triage takes him about 1:12pm, do the blood pressure, pulse, weight thing, get basic information. OK that's done. About 1:40pm, go for x-rays. OK, I'll wait out here. Call Ann to let her know what's going on. He's back, it's about 2pm. Now I hear that another family who is there, with THEIR son's arm in a sling (Anthony's was too at this point) have been there THREE hours! Oh crap! Now we wait. Tell Ann to please come to the ER after her day is done at work so I can get to work for a short time. She gets there at 4pm, I go into the office. At 4:40pm he finally goes into a room in the ER. I get there about 5:20pm, send Ann home. At about 6:10 doctor looks at the x-ray and says no break, just a BAD sprain. Anthony gets a soft velcro cast, I get to pay $100, and off we go. What a friggin' day! And I got almost NOTHING done at work that I planned to get done. Thank you to my bosses for being understanding, and knowing that I will be in the office tomorrow (provided Anthony is OK enough to go to school) and will be staying all day and late to make sure ALL of my work is caught up.

Great Saturday...

Had the best day yesterday. Went out early to pay my car loan (now only 4 payments to go). Actually went to the location I bought it to make sure they posted as a double payment, so I don't have to go next week. The woman at the counter asked if I was ready to trade in my car. Told her nope! Car gets too good gas mileage, even at 11 years old. Plus, the next car we get is for Ann. I'll be taking her to Car-Mart for one in a few months, after we get mine done and save a few dollars to pay the sales tax. After that I went to Wal-Mart to buy a couple of rain ponchos, as the weather yesterday was not the best, and we had outdoor plans for the evening. When I got home, Ann was at work, so Anthony and I sat and watched a program I DVR every week. Then we had lunch, and he asked to play Sorry! with me. It's a board game I played when I was a kid, and I love being able to share that with him. We have so much fun, and we play it with kind of a twist. Instead of just playing ONE game, we play until someone wins X amount of games. But we don't start over after each win...we just reset our own pawns and start there. The other person still has to get all of their pawns home before THEY can start at the start. Yesterday, we played to 10. I beat him 10-9, but not without some real nail biting moments. And we finished just minutes before Ann got home from work.

We relaxed a little while, and then at 5:30 we left. Time to go to opening weekend of the NWA Naturals baseball game. Had GREAT seats. Third row, just to the left of home plate. Weather was iffy, but there was no rain when the game started. We got there, had dinner, walked around, got some pictures (they are on my Facebook page...wanna see them? Go there!) and found our seats. Amazing! When the game started, there were MAYBE 1,000 people there, and everyone was "spread out" through the stadium, so it made it rather intimate. Kinda like what you see on older TV shows, with a handful of people at minor league games. You could hear almost everything, and almost everyONE. We had 3 people behind us, one of them was also from NY, wearing a Mets jacket. We had the best time chatting with them during the game.

In the 5th inning, down by 2 runs, we tied it up. That's when the umpire FINALLY saw the lightning that had been flashing the past few minutes. I finally got to experience my first rain delay at a game. We walked around some, took some more pictures, and waited it out. The rain stopped fairly quickly but had to wait for the lightning to move out of the area. Total delay was around an hour maybe. Not bad at all. They resumed the game, and we won 5-2. GREAT game. We have the same seats for 3 more games this season. Can't wait!

The drive home was a little more adventurous. I think I started getting a little too tired to drive, because I had a mild "accident" on the way home. Not with another car. With a construction marker on the side of the road. I clipped it with my passenger side mirror. That's now cracked and broken. Yes, BOTH! Thankfully no other damage to the car, and all IN the car are fine. Made it home the rest of the way safely. Mirror still useable I think. If not, I'll get it fixed eventually.

We were going to go to today's game, but everyone is tired, Anthony has a cold (it wasn't a very warm night last night), and the weather is holding doubts of its own. So we're going to stay in and play some 3-player Sorry! instead. Hopefully will be a relaxing day for all to enjoy before we start another week of work and school.

Not the golden child...

Then again, never said I was. Heard others at work call me that, and it wasn't because I am so well tanned. I can't help that I'm good at my job. Customer support is my life, I've been doing this type of work (bank teller, UPS phone rep, receptionist, customer support analyst) for over 20 years. It's a matter of being courteous to your customers, some basic data entry, and LEARNING your job. I never had ANYTHING at ANY job handed to me, I busted my ass for it.

Today, however, I landed on my ass and busted it. Because of the back pain from last week (yeah, I know, it's a lame excuse) and a non-routine email, I neglected a part of my job. And did not even know it until today. Well, the first thing I did was let my team know that I messed up, how it was going to affect business, and what I was doing to correct it. After reviewing this with my supervisor, I let my customer know (not EVERY detail) the issue, and how it would be corrected. Luckily, the customer knows what I do and how well I usually do to service the account. AND, being this was the first error in a LONG time, and knowing how fast it could be corrected rather than letting it "ride out" he understood and let me do what I know to do to correct this.

So, I am not a golden child. I am also, in my opinion, not the best at my job in my office. Some may disagree, but hey! To each his/her own opinion. I'm fine with it. I do know one thing though. The ONE person who I consider to be better than me? Yeah, that person is VERY good at their job, but I am VERY good at their job too. I also know that this person would NOT learn my job or be able to perform it as well as me as quickly as I caught on to it. That's my personal gloat :) Do I know everything about all of my items? Nope. Don't try to. My concern is not the items themselves, but getting the entire order to the customer. THAT'S my concern. I do not worry about an item on rollback, that's not my job right now. My job is to make sure all of my items ON THE ORDER get delivered. I know when I'll need to learn the items, and then I'll turn my attention to that. Right now? Making sure everyone in the U.S. who shop at Wal-Mart are able to purchase their chilled side dishes, their frozen meals for two to enjoy on a romantic eveninig with a loved one, and their ice cream to enjoy on a warm summer day or while sitting as a family enjoying it as a dessert is in the stores for consumers to purchase. I have my goals, I know what they are, but I'm a realist. When it's time for me to move up and/or over, THEN I'll go. Until then, what I already know just may surprise you ;)

Easter Sunday...

Today, unfortunately, has come to mean nothing to me. For me, it's a rainy Sunday. My wife is at work until 5pm, it's raining outside, so my son and I are sitting watching whatever we can find on the TV. Holidays such as this are no longer celebrated in our house. I've lost all religion a long time ago, and through the years, my wife, who remains Catholic, but non-practicing. Friends on Facebook have wished all a Happy Easter (or Passover if you are Jewish), and I just ignore those. I don't respond. I've never been a phony, and I'm not going to start now.

Ann will be home for dinner, we will make our normal Sunday meal, and sit and enjoy the evening in each other's company. Then tomorrow it's back to work. Hopefully I will get the strength to go in tomorrow. I did what I wasn't supposed to do yesterday, and that was clean the backyard.It's what put my back out last week. But now it's done, for the most part. There are some straggling branches out there to cut, but the next big job will be mowing it and bagging it up. Normally I mulch the lawn, but it's just way too much. There are also a lot of weed things that I would like to pull up before mowing. I am also thinking of bringing in a lawn service to have them fertilize the lawn, but it depends on the cost.

Want some good news? OK :) In a few days, I am closing out 2 credit cards. The Lowe's bill, which was never high to begin with, was closed because my credit is bad. Made no sense to me. Yes, my credit sucks, but the limit was only $500, I've been paying over 300% of the minimum every month, always 2 weeks early, yet they don't want my business. Home Depot wins there! Well, that balance is down to nothing, so I'm paying it off and then Lowe's can go fuck themselves, because they will NEVER get any of my business. I go in there to look at their prices, then when they ask if they can help me, I say "Yeah, where is the closest Home Depot, because that's where I'm shopping because Lowe's sucks!" There is also another credit card that I had for years, but unfortunately a while back, didn't pay. They closed the account, put it in collections, and I paid what I could. They were still charging interest though. Well, I made a deal with collections to pay them 3x in equal payments as a settlement. Next week is payment #3. Then that's done. PLUS I have only 6 more car payments (weekly) until THAT'S paid in full.

April and May are looking like good months so far. Now if I can just get rid of the pain in my back, I'd be all set. Eighth day of pain today, and no relief in sight in the immediate future. Ah well, such is life. An ounce of pleasure brings a pound of pain. I listed 3 ounces above, my back pain is the 3 pounds.

But not today...

Today was not my best day. I took Anthony to track practice this morning, then went to the office. From the moment I woke up, I knew there was something going wrong, because my back was bugging me more than it should have when I wake up. Normally, my back doesn't start stiffening up and pinching until I've been up and around about an hour. But not today. I felt it when I got out of bed. I took a nice hot shower, hoping it would help, but no such luck. When I got to my office and to my desk, I was sore as hell. I stayed about an hour before requesting (and granted approval) to go and work from home for the rest of the day. When I got home, I set up in the kitchen, put my pillow behind me on the chair, and took 2 pain pills, not thinking they were going to help. Usually, they do much of nothing. But not today. They hit fast, and they hit hard. Wheeeeee! I don't have an idea of how I made it through the day without my head hitting the keyboard or me hitting the floor. I even stayed on later than usual because there were orders that needed taking care of. Now I'm sitting on the couch, my laptop on my lap (good name for a laptop huh?), watching TV for a little while longer until I start cooking dinner.

Also, I had blood taken yesterday for tests. Called the doctor this morning for the results, and he called me back about 2 hours ago. I was expecting him to find something wrong with me. But not today. Everything came back good. There are no diseases, no infections, and no worries. Now I have to get rid of this back pain.

Lovin' the Vicodin

Howdy folks! What a weekend. Friday, I worked all day at a different office, so I was unable to pay my car loan like I normally do. Saturday, the fun began. I was out at 9am to get grocery shopping done. When I got home, we unpacked everything, and back out I went. Paid the car loan, then had to stop at the office to unpack. We moved desks around, and we were allowed in Saturday to arrange our stuff. Once that was done, I came home and sat around a little while. But, being it was such a beautiful day out, and my backyard still needs some "cleaning" Anthony and I went out to work on it. The job went rather well, considering how windy it was. I even brought out my boombox to listen to my Queen CD while working. I was squatting, cutting limbs up, rockin' out. A little while went by, Ann came home from work for lunch, and I attempted to get up. I say attempted because I didn't succeed. My back went again. Luckily, Ann and Anthony were able to lift me and get me in the house. I sat on the couch and that's pretty much where I stayed. The pain was tremendous, and hasn't been that bad in a long time. I managed to get off the couch, into the bed, and slept the best I could.

Sunday morning, I woke up, turned and heard "POP!" and felt a wondrous pain in my lower back. I screamed loud enough for my friends in New York to hear me. Everyone told me to go to the hospital, but I knew what they would do. They would take me in (seeing I could walk), do a couple of x-rays, tell me "if you could walk in, you could walk out" minus the $100 ER fee. So I layed in my bed with my legs elevated. It seemed to help a little.

Today, I went to the doctor, and he is treating me for tightness and spasm. If it's not better in a few days, then I'll go in for the x-ray and MRI thing. He gave me some great pills that I started taking tonight. Hopefully I can go to work tomorrow. Wish me luck!

The Week from Hell...

What a week. I had an ice cream promotion to write this week, totalling 115 orders. Then, to make matters worse, I had to write MORE to make it all work. Add to that we are introducing new frozen items, and I had to write those orders as well.

Monday...started writing Ice Cream orders (over 6 hours)
Tuesday...finished writing Ice Cream orders (4 more hours)
Wednesday...write frozen orders (15 minutes .. gotta love it!)
Thursday...organize and write ship-withs for Ice Cream orders (2 1/2 hours)
Friday...finished writing ship-withs for Ice Cream orders (forgot to time it)

Add on to all of this my normal duties, meetings, the occassional basketball game (I'm going to miss those!), but 5 skipped lunches, and I did it! The frozen business is now second nature to me. They know what to do, I know what to do, and we do it. That's why it was only a 15 minute process. Ice Cream, on the other hand, is on a learning curve. I know what they expect, they know what to do, but it's finding the right routine to do it. Ship-with's were new to me, and that's why I forgot to time it today. But, next time I'll be ready for it. I also found new ways to write the original promotional orders which will save me time for the next one.

The best of all of this? I love it! I really do. It's challenging, it's exciting, and I'm learning. When work gets "routine" I get A.D.D. ... ok I get MORE of it than I already ... oh that's a funny commercial! Did you see that one where ... oh good, weather report!

Sunday morning...

Welcome to my world. The sun is shining, and you can see for miles. This is a helluva difference from yesterday, when you couldn't see more than 1/4 mile for most of the day. Yes, I said MOST of the day. Why, you ask? It was SNOWING!! At the end of March, and it was friggin' SNOWING!! Ann had to work, so I drove her in and picked her up. She works close to home, but I was out earlier in it, and the roads were not the best. And, because of the snow, my weekend plan of working in the backyard was shot to hell. I couldn't clean up any of the branches (and I'm almost done too!), so I did the laundry. Now that we have a new washer/dryer, it's wonderful! White clothes came out WHITE! Not off white, tan, brown...like they had with the old machine. There was no excess water in the machine, keeping the clothes soaked, like with the old machine. I only had to run the dryer once for a load, not like the old dryer that you had to run 2 or 3 times. Sounds disguisting right? Well it was. And I absolutely hated it. One of the worst feelings in the world is knowing that you are not as clean as you know you should be, whether it's on your body or on your clothing. But, with the help of some very hard work, some sacrifices that had to be made all the way around, we got new. Got a great deal at Home Depot, and I even think the dryer is bigger than what we bought. I can't swear to it though. My memory is swiss cheese, short term worse than long term at times.

Today the sun is shining. Being the inside work is (somewhat) done, I am hoping it will dry out quick enough outside to cut up some branches. If not, being Ann is working today, Anthony and I will watch a movie or play a board game and have some fun.

PS: Wrestlemania 25 in 7 days! Place your order now, don't miss the extravaganza of the year!

Another post...

I am SO hoping everyone enjoys ice cream, because as a customer support analyst (yes, I'm actually an analyst, not an associate), I did not realize how much work goes in to supplying retail stores with products. Ice cream, as you probably know, is a seasonal business for some. People can eat it in the spring/summer, but not so much in the fall and less in the winter. And, as I've heard before, T'is the season. We are introducing new items to Wal-Mart which are shipping this week, we have a large promotion going in over the next couple of weeks, and we have to make sure all of these orders are proper, completely shipped, and work with 8 warehouses to make sure all 43 DCs are stocked to supply over 3,600 Wal-Mart stores. It's friggin' NUTS! But I'm learning alot, and there is still alot more to learn.

Tonight on FB, I posted my list of "5 most hated sports teams". Being from NY, you would think these teams would play their home games outside of the Empire State. Not on my list. The only 2 New York teams I root for are the NY Islanders (NHL) and the Buffalo Bills (NFL - and the only TRUE New York team). Well, this list (so far) is not sitting well with my cousin and an old friend who I have enjoyed reconnecting with the past few weeks. I can't help who I like and dislike in the world of sporting events. But, they appear to hate ME now.

I've posted in the past that I do not care what people think of me. Love me for who I am or don't. It doesn't really matter to me. Until tonight. Their comments got to me. Damned if I know why. Oh well, like a kidney stone, this too shall pass. I just don't know how long it will take.

Monday, Monday...

Was there a song with that in it? Hell, I'm old but not THAT old! Although the way I feel today, I FEEL that old. Worked in the yard yesterday, getting rid of more tree limbs that fell from the ice storm back at the start of February. Yes, I'm slow, but who cares. Nobody but the dog uses the backyard anyway. And she finds plenty of places to shit. I know this because I spent 1/2 hour yesterday finding all the landmines she left. I will bet my left nut I didn't find them all, either. After that was done, Anthony and I were cutting branches, bagging and tagging them. Today, the weather is shitty so I am feeling it. Sore all over. Told Ann if she wants it tonight, she's gonna do all the work, cuz damn I'm hurting. LOL!

Work is busy as hell, but I like it. Two days last week I was there late. Even on a Friday, I was there until 5:45pm. Feels good though, because I am learning alot. Ann was off work at 5, so I wasn't worried about Anthony not having dinner. Plus, I was watching basketball on the computer and the office was empty, so I was able to yell a bunch of shit at the players and not offending anyone in the office. ROFL!

Friday, Ann and I will be celebrating our 16th wedding anniversary. I don't know how she put up with me for so long. Epsecially when I remind her if I killed her rather than married her, at least I'd be out on parole by now. I'm hoping to surprise her with something, but haven't decided what just yet. Yeah, like I'm gonna tell you what I'm going to surprise her with. If you are reading this, you probably know her, or know how to get in touch with her, and will spoil it. Well, tough shit on you, cuz I'm not telling, so you can't spoil it. Neener neener neener!!

Next week I am going to the doctor. I have to..I made a promise! Yes, I'm going to get screened for cancer. I'm almost 40, it runs through my father's side of the family, and I have been smoking for over 25 years. NO, I am NOT getting my prostate checked, thank you. Sticking me with a needle in the arm is enough, sticking me with a finger in the ... well, NO! Someone said it's worse if I actually have it. I told them if they have to go in for it, at least I'll be ASLEEP! Thank you, enough said.

Oh, I'm sorry. Did that offend anyone? Too fucking bad to you. I've had a prostate exam before, thank you. And I've had more people I know DIE from cancer than you've ever met, so don't even go there. Would you like a list? How about multiple aunts and uncles, and one 8-year old boy who did not deserve to die! He was EIGHT fucking years old!! And you think I'M pissed about it? Talk to his mom, dad and sister! How do you think THEY feel? So please, allow me my peace. This is MY blog. Don't like it? Don't care. Close your fucking browser window and leave your pissass thoughts to yourself.

Bracket busting and other random stuff...

Happy Saturday all. It's kinda dreary out right now, been raining. Not hard or bad, but enough to make it "ick". Ann is working today. Anthony and I are flipping channels between A&E and NCAA Basketball. I am in a bracket at work, not doing great, but still have some chances. Finished 3d last year, so I still hope. Plus it makes the games interesting. Otherwise, I have no interest in basketball. Never have been really.

As you may or may not know, I am addicted to Facebook. They recently changed their layout, and personally I think it sucks. But it's a great way to keep up with people I have not spoken to in forever. However ... I have found that some of my "old friends" are not really those I would prefer to hang with as "new friends" at this point. I have different beliefs, different feelings, different ideas than they do. And that's fine. I've said it before ... everyone has an opinion and that doesn't make anyone wrong, just different. So, those that I once knew are back where they belong ... in the past.

Does this make me a bad person? I don't believe so. I didn't make any promises to any of these people that said I would be there forever. They didn't make any promises to me that they would be there for me forever. Let's put it this way. Were ANY of them there when my wife and I lost our 2 children at birth? Did any of them come over, or call, to cry with my wife and myself trying to get us through a very trying time? There is ONE friend on my Facebook friends list who was, and SHE will be my friend forever, no matter what. Yeah, you will say "well I wasn't there. We weren't friends then and I had no idea." Oh well. None of the "friends" I had ever picked up a phone after a couple of years to call my old number and ask my mom "Hey, it's so and so, can you have Nick give me a call". Everyone still remembers the butt ugly green house I lived in, knows exactly where it is, but didn't quite remember the phone number to call or the address to send a note. Nope, they up and left to live their lives and the hell with the short ugly guy that lived on that street nearby.

I have actually heard "friends" say "Oh, I haven't spoken to so and so in years, and I'm SO NERVOUS about calling them". Did any of you mother fuckers ever pick up a phone to call me? My fucking phone number is listed on my Facebook page. So you know what? I'll play the Facebook game. I will be fun, interesting, chat through postings when the mood strikes, but to say we are great friends again? Hell no. I know who the true friends on my list are, and more importantly THEY know who they are, because I indirectly let them know, and they let me know that they feel similar about me. If you don't feel it? Guess where the fuck that leaves you??

Happy Hump Day...

Welcome to Wednesday evening. I don't have much time, as I have to start dinner. Ann is stuck at work so will be a little late, that's why I have the time. Work has been crazy, but good. I enjoy being busy, much better than being bored, right? There are new flavors of B&J, Breyers, and even some Starbucks coming your way soon. Be on the lookout for the bestest ice cream flavors at your local Wal-Mart!

Anthony had his first track meet on Monday. We waited 2 1/2 hours for his run, which lasted less than 3 minutes. So much different than cross country. In X-Ctry, ALL the boys run at the same time. In T&F, there are a multitude of events, so you sit and wait for your child to run, you watch, you cheer, he gets done, you go home! He ran the 800m in 2:44.6, which is fantastic. I believe it's a half-mile, so for him to be able to do that in sub 6 minutes is fantastic. He started great, then got tired on the backstretch of the 2nd lap, but still finished strong. His mom and I are very proud of him.

Next week is Spring Break, so that means no practice. That's what HE thinks! He will be running daily, possibly twice a day. Depends on my mood and how cruel I am. Hey, he wants to succeed, he's gotta work at it.

Bought tickets for the local AA baseball team here. Have tix to 5 games, 4 of them are front row!! Can't wait! Buncha different giveaways, beautiful small stadium, great games and lots of fun. Who knows, maybe this year I'll get to ride the tricycle (will fill you in IF they let me!).

Another Sunday...

And here I am posting again. Sitting here watching Spongebob (not much else on). Ann has to go to work later, and I have some errands to run. New washer/dryer coming on Tuesday so have to clear out the garage so they can get through to the laundry room. I get to work from home that day, which is good and bad. Good because I don't have to put up with a lot of "background noise" from some that I work with, but bad because I am more comfortable at my desk rather than my kitchen table. Ah well, take the good with the bad.

Quiet weekend. Ann worked yesterday, Anthony didn't feel like going anywhere, so we sat and watched some rasslin', a couple of movies, and played some Nintendo. Typical lazy male day. Will make up for that day, just hoping the sun comes out some.