As hard as it is to believe, I'm getting CLOSE to being caught up at work!! Yes, I almost had a stroke when I realized it today!! Now the trick is to get 100% there and then STAY caught up!! Speaking of work....my supervisor calls in this morning and announces that he's not going to be at work today because he has PINK EYE!! If you ever find yourself in need to clear out almost an entire office then just let word get around that someone has caught pink eye!! Trust me...it's VERY effective!! The office's cleaning crew had to come and clean and sanitize about 40 desks...it wasn't a fun start to the day! Communicable diseases aside, the rest of the day was actually not too bad...unless of course you take into consideration that I bonked my head on the doorway of my truck, got chased across the parking lot at work by a savage tabby cat, and almost fell down a flight of stairs! My roomie told me this morning that he'd read somewhere on the internet that the REAL reason behind the outrageous gas prices for the last few years is a conspiracy between the auto makers and oil companies. Hmmm...I'm not sure if I 100% believe in that theory, but it most definitely would NOT surprise me if it ever came out that it IS a conspiracy! Could you just IMAGINE the fall out from that sort of thing if it were to end up being true?!! I don't think there would be an oil or auto executive that would be able to get off the planet fast enough to avoid ALL of the people that have been victimized since 2003! Friday is the big day...I'm going to do a little bit more shopping for Christmas. Pray for me. The last time that I was in Wal-mart it was of course packed with screaming children and whining parents from wall to wall!! LUCKILY, I won't have to go down the toy aisle because my nephew's present from Uncle BryM has already been purchased! If I did have to go down that aisle, it's a safe bet that someone would get hurt..and it wouldn't be ME!! Speaking of Wal-mart: I saw the funniest news clipping yesterday...it was about a brand new retail store named "Dollar Palace" opening up in this town way down south somewhere. The reporter did an interview with a lady about the new store and she said that she liked the store because it's convenient and casual. "I don't have to get all dressed up like I'm going to Wal-mart or something." The BAD part about it though is that I actually KNOW people like that!! Going to Wal-mart is high society for them...can you imagine??!! Well, that's all I've got for now! Tomorrow is my FRIDAY!!

I recently had to make a rather heart breaking decision....after more than 20 years, I shaved my mustache completely off. I fought it as long as I could...but after examining every option available to me, it came down to the fact that it just had to go. This evil entity known as an 'ingrown hair' had invaded my top lip and refused to relent until every whisker was completely gone. Damn you infernal ingrown hair!! So it was with great sadness that I finally broke out the razor....and with a few strokes my very trademark was gone. Washed down the sink as though it had never existed. Oh sure, I knew it would grow back. Quite quickly too...but it's those days in between that are almost unbearable! The stares! The comments! The expressions of shock!! And that's just from ME!! You can IMAGINE what OTHER people said!!

So now that almost a full week has passed since I did the deed, the dreaded ingrown hair had FINALLY relented and my famed 'stache has started to come back. I was more than just a little relieved as you can imagine!! In fact, I have to admit that once I realized that it was coming back full force, I had to take a few moments for myself!



And then tragedy struck once again. Yes. It was back! The dreaded ingrown hair!! Curses!! That foul, evil, hideous creature of the night was back FULL FORCE!! It just WON'T go away!! It started out as a slight twinge of pain....perhaps a small zit was forming? Maybe a skeeter bit me?? I had to know...so I ventured into the men's room at work to inspect....once I fought my way past the Honduran girl who seems to spend just a little TOO much time cleaning the urinals, I looked in the mirror and saw that my worst fear had been confirmed. I wept openly. Fillipiddia (the Honduran girl) offered me a square of toilet paper to dry my tears. Yes. The stache is going to have to go AGAIN!! That's twice in this century that I've had to do this!!

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So today was our montly meeting at my office. It's your typical 'meeting'....we go over performance levels, issues, etc. After today I've come to the conclusion that the people in charge of the company are idiots. These 'performance levels' are called 'metrics', which of course are set goals for each little function that is tracked. This is commonplace at most office environments. Today we were going over the 'metrics' for October. It seems that someone calling into our office should not be expected to wait any more than 3 seconds on hold. Now while that may be an admirable concept, the basic truth of the matter is that it's going to be an extremely rare occurance that any calls are answered within those 3 seconds.

Another 'metric' that we in the office are scored on is the percentage of appointments that have had ETA adjustments on them from the field. Again, it's a good thing to track stuff like that for quality of service. Having said that though, we in the office have NO power to enforce the 'ETA on Time' rule because we're not riding around with these guys and MAKING them meet their commitments...yet we are still expected to ensure that the ETA's are met. How in the hell can I enforce something like that when I have NO say-so in the matter??!!

Naturally we got no response to that question.

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While I'm sure that you all are relieved that I haven't bitched about Christine the Truck for more than 24 hours, I'm going to have to break my silence. Yes, there's a sequel. ...Christine the Truck IV: THIS Time It's Personal....

Chris' dad and I spent the better part of this past Saturday working on the truck's latest ailment...turns out it was a loose belt that eventually got shredded. So a new belt was bought and installed...no squealing! Praise the LORD!!

I start the truck to warm it up before heading out to work, and sure enough...the squealing is back. Though it's nowhere as long lasting as before, it's still long enough to bug the shit out of me. So I went BACK to Chris' dad's house to troubleshoot and found that it's something EXTREMELY small that is causing this latest problem. The bolt that holds the alternator in position has become stripped and as a result is slowly causing the belt to slip. Yeah...go figure...a freaking BOLT causing me monumental embarrassment and endless stress!!



Well, that's all I've got for now! Hope everyone has a great rest of the week!

As is usually the case (on Mondays especially!) it was a less than thrilling day at work. I think that I am going to have to enroll in some night classes and learn how to speak English. Yes, I know....it seems like I already have a pretty good grasp on the language....considering I've been speaking it all of my life....but apparently I'm just not making myself understood lately. I wonder.....could it be the Southern accent? Whatever it is, I'm getting more than a little discouraged! For the last six weeks, I've been saying the same thing over and over again, and I've said it in several different ways. Yet, I'm STILL getting inquiries as to why so much of my work is really far behind!! Let me try a scenario out on you all out there.....suppose that you got the following email:

"I apologize for the fact that there are so many appointments that haven't been scheduled yet. I was in a mandatory training class for 3 weeks and there was no one covering my area during the whole 3 weeks. Please bear with me while I try to get things caught up! Also, if there are any guys in the field who could try and schedule some of their own appointments, please ask them to do so. Every little bit of help that I can get over the next month or so would be greatly appreciated!"

So, you've gotten the email above and read it. Are there any parts of it in which I switched over to Swahili or Pig Latin? It looks fine to me, but clearly I'm not getting my message across. I've had to use those very same words both in numerous emails and telephone conversations over the last few weeks. Just today I got another round of emails and phone calls asking "WHY??!!" One guy even attempted to rake me over the coals on the phone today. He was pissed because some of his appointments had not been made, and he 'demanded' to know why they weren't! He continued with, "what has changed so much since you took over this job? We never had this sort of problem in the past!" So of course I had to recite my daily speech to him, at which point he said, "oooooh! Well, I wasn't aware of THAT!"

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Now...on to other things...



* I saw the saddest thing on the way home from work today. As I approached the on-ramp to the highway by my office, I saw that as usual the traffic was backed up. What caught my eye though was that I saw the vehicles in the LEFT lane were whizzing by with no problems at all! The right lane was like a parking lot. So when I was FINALLY able to get onto the on-ramp, I saw what the hold up was. Some poor soul had broken down in the middle of the right lane! What's worse is that whomever it was didn't bother to even TRY and get the car out of the middle of the lane....they just left their car sitting there!!



* Have any of you out there seen this show called "Lisa Williams: Life Among the Dead"...?? It is AWESOME!! Lisa Williams is a clairvoyant, and she goes around to these different places and either tells if there is a spirit in someone's house, and then she'll talk to a few people afterwards and speak to their deceased relatives or friends. This show is the ONLY thing on TV that will drag me away from my computer on Friday nights! If you haven't seen it yet, you REALLY should watch. It's on Friday nights at 9:00 on the Lifetime network.

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* I know that Thanksgiving is over with, but I got this in my email today:

Eighteen things you can say on Thanksgiving and get away with:

1. Talk about a huge breast!

2. Tying the legs together keeps the inside moist.

3. It's Cool Whip time!

4. If I don't undo my pants, I'll burst!

5. That's one terrific spread!

6. I'm in the mood for a little dark meat.

7. Are you ready for seconds yet?

8. It's a little dry, do you still want to eat it?

9. Just wait your turn, you'll get some!

10. Don't play with your meat.

11. Just spread the legs open and stuff it in.

12. Do you think you'll be able to handle all these people at once?

13. I didn't expect everyone to come at once!

14. You still have a little bit on your chin.

15. How long will it take after you stick it in?

16. You'll know it's ready when it pops up.

17. Wow, I didn't think I could handle all of that!

18. That's the biggest one I've ever seen!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!



Well, that's all I've got for now! Have a happy Tuesday tomorrow!!

Sometimes I really despise living in the state of North Carolina! If taxes, a crooked governor, & an exploding illegal immigrant population isn't enough, the weather SUCKS!! This time of the year is particularly bad because we'll be in the 70 degree mark one day, then back to 40 the following day, and then back up to 80 the day after THAT!!

I decided to go into town to get a few things and when I walked out the front door, it was as though an iceberg had fallen and hit me on the head!! It's freakin' COLD out there today!! I don't think we even got above 50 today, and tomorrow is going to be 70!! I'm going to die of pneumonia before this is over with!!

So after I went to town and did my thing, I came back home and started doing some work on my new website. Things were going along fine until I realized that there was something wrong in the code that was making the pages look like shit! I monkey'd around with it for a while and then decided to just chuck the whole site. I started looking around for a new server and FINALLY found one that's worth a damn. So I've spent the better part of the day and evening working on that. It's actually coming along quite well. I'll have the link posted over on the menu to the right of my entries.

Next week is going to be another long one. I'm not working Friday, so you just KNOW it is going to take FOREVER for Friday to arrive!! Ugh! I hate being so impatient!!

Well, that's about all for tonight! I hope everyone has a good week ahead! And be sure to check my site out and let me know what you think!

Today was one of those strange days for me. I slept later today than I have in a VERY long time!! Seriously….it was AFTER noon before I even thought about waking up!! It has literally been YEARS since I have slept THAT late on a day off!! Of course the fact that I stayed up until after 3:30 in the morning might have had something to do with that!!

So after I finally dragged my lazy ass out of bed, I came into the kitchen and groaned when I realized that I’d forgotten to clean up after making dinner last night….which, by the way, was excellent….I made chili for the first time in quite a while! Anyway, I started cleaning up and found that I had quite a burst of energy. Before I knew it, I had not only cleaned the kitchen so well that it SHINED, but I’d also cleaned the living room, dining room, AND the den!! Trust me when I tell you, it’s a rare thing for me to clean THAT much of my house in a single day!! This place is actually quite large when you start cleaning it….even though it’s only 1900 square feet. Maybe it’s because it’s so open?? I don’t know, but it’s a pain in the ass that I generally don’t get cleaned in a single day.

Once Chris got home, we headed outside to hang the Christmas wreaths on the windows. We ran into a bit of trouble when we realized that the windows are a bit higher off the ground in some spots. Of course, being the genius that I am, I came up with a brilliant idea….for the windows that we couldn’t reach, I simply backed my truck up and Chris stood on the tailgate to reach the windows! Yes, I am quite the genius at times!

Cindy came home today after being at her place at the beach for the week. She said that she had a great time down there, except for when she realized that someone had made off with a full tank of propane she uses for the stove there!! Yeah, I’d be a bit miffed myself…..especially when you consider the cost of fuel these days!! Other than that, she had a good trip, but did say that it’ll be a while before she goes back down there since it’s now getting colder.

In other news:

>>I’m still in the midst of doing my Christmas shopping. I heard about something recently that I thought was pretty unusual. It’s called the “Flying Alarm Clock”….. This brilliant technological innovation is the ultimate gift for anybody who has trouble getting out of bed in the morning. This is an alarm clock with a propeller on top. When the alarm sounds, the propeller takes off and flies around the room. The only way to make the alarm go off is to get out of bed, find the propeller, and put it back into the clock. It's brilliant! And it's foolproof! Unless of course the sleeper happens to be a sportsperson:
ALARM: BUZZZZZ
SHOTGUN: BLAM!
I’m figuring that I won’t be getting that for anyone that I know, because most of them actually DO own firearms! Of course, I’m not as worried about the fact that they’d blow away their alarm clock as much as I am that they’d blow ME away for giving it to them!!
>>Just when I thought it was safe to drive Christine the Truck again….the awful squealing is back. Note there’s not shocked smiley inserted there. I’m not at all surprised. Of course, this could turn out to be a good thing because this latest stunt by the evil truck could actually lead to my finally getting another vehicle!!
Well, that’s about it for now. Hope everyone enjoys their Sunday tomorrow! It’s going to be cold and rainy here….ugh!