I'm Gonna Bitch a Bit First......Then to some fun!!!

The last couple weeks have been really hectic, one of my coworkers was fired and another couldn't make it to work over the weekend because his brother was out of town and didn't have a ride. Here's the problem I have with the a fore mentioned scenario, when I couldn't make it to work because of the heavy snow, my boss threw a fit, someone else calls in over the weekend because he doesn't have a ride to work, t hat's O.K. Oh well, what's done is done and being bitter will only cause stress. I ended up working 12 days straight, and that led to a very nice pay check. It was a poor trade off though, the weekend are the only days I have to do thing with my family, so I had to give that up. I mentioned before that I got in some trouble at work because I didn't make sure the gate to our parking was closed and locked. During my extra "time off", I did some thinking, for years I've been coming in early to help out swing shift as there is only one person there from 10-11pm and it can get a bit busy for one person. I thought to myself ", Why am I doing this? Where is it getting me ?" I don't get paid for that extra time I am there, it never got me employee of the month. (which, by the way, is a popularity contest, not a who does their job best contest). Two management positions opened up and I was never so much as asked if I would be interested. No one else comes in early, I get off at 7am, my relief doesn't walk in the door till 6:59 AND I'm there 10-15 min a day doing paper work that I don't get paid for. I sat down and figured it out dollar wise, an hour early a day, 5 days a week. At regular pay that would be 58.25, times 4 weeks, 233.00 a month. That's a payment on a brand new car!!!!, and I have been giving that away. Well, now I have been getting there about 20 min early, early enough to get the trash outside changed and get my till counted down to get swing shift out on time. Things are getting interesting at work now, there have been a couple of guys who stuck six packs of beer in their coats and walked out( How the F@#$ do you miss that?) and a fight that broke out in the store. All situations I could have stopped or prevented had I been there early. My wife and I are enjoying the extra hour I am spending at home, and it's great that we don't have to rush to get stuff done in the evening before I have to leave for work. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I am mad at the boss or don't care about the place. My attitude now is, do my job well, what happens at work, happens and don't get upset over things I cannot change. I am just tired of putting a job at a gas station ahead of my wife and child, it should have never gotten that way, even when I was with my first wife.
I have been really sick for the last week and I mean to the point where Darlene was insisting I call in at work and see a doctor. It was bad, body aches, throwing up, sore throat. I am much better now.
My wife, Darlene has plans for me today, we are going shopping, going to my magic club meeting, and then going to a book store. She wants to have us each pick out a book, then discuss why we chose that book while we have coffee, then to dinner....... Okay... this is new. She wants to try a different type of date each month. I get the feeling she has been reading relationship books. This will be awkward, as we have COMPLETELY different tastes in books....and music.....and movies. I am gonna have a hard time discussing with her why I picked out this months issue of Teen Jugs (just kidding) Really, as for books, I, if I'm gonna read one, tend to lean toward graphic novels.... or magic books. The thing is last night, Andrew was up late and woke up early, I got up with him this morning. By the time we get to the book store, I will be wiped. This still sounds like it may be interesting, we'll see......

Don't Know Where I Am....

It's been a bit since my last post, there has been a lot on my mind lately. We did manage to scrape through the heavy rains with out too much damage, we got about 4 inches of water in the basement. Luckily we put the new washer and dryer on bricks so they didn't get wet, the sump pump just couldn't keep up with all that water coming in.
The company Darlene works for, Community Health Care, had their Christmas party on January 10, yeah it's late, who cares? The employees and their families were treated to dinner at the Ram in Puyallup, nice digs, good food. Darlene talked me into donating a show as a treat for her coworkers. I have always been leary show donation thing, it has been my experience that most people do not appreciate something unless there is a value on it. The crowd was DEAD, and I KNOW I hit all the effects perfect!!!!! There is an effect I do where I make a prediction before anyone arrives and place it under the center piece of a table. The group comes in and I start the show, I write 1,2,3,4 on a sheet of paper and ask some one in the audience to circle a number. He circles #3, I ask him to name a vegetable, he calls out carrot. I ask someone to open the paper under the center piece and read what's on the paper, 3 and carrot. NO !@#@# reaction!!!!!!!! No more donation shows, no money, no magic!!!!
I am beside myself right now, times are hard, money is tight, VERY tight. Darlene told me the other day that because feed prices are so high, that all the farm animals must go. This is giving me some bad flashbacks. My first wife, Cathy had a lot of cats and dogs, and I mean a lot!!! Well to make a long story short, the Humane Society found out and she had to put most of them down. When they went, she sent me on my merry way, as she didn't need my help anymore with the pets. I don't want this to happen again, I can't handle missing another child grow up. I am depressed, I made an appointment with my doctor to up my meds, maybe that will help.

Magic Show

This is the Cups and Balls effect I performed for the Affi Shriners in Tacoma, WA

Good Weekend, Bad Weekend, You Decide

Headed home after work Christmas morning, nice to drive home with no traffic. Got home and it was time to open presents. Andrew had a blast, he didn't know what to play with first. I got my wife an I Pod and dock so she can listen to all her favorite music at work, she got me a couple of cool video games for my 360. It was a very pleasant morning.

I did get to bed late, but when I woke up, Darlene had a wonderful dinner waiting. We ate and cleaned up and then it's time to head out to work. I get in and find things the way I expected them to be, the cashiers working felt because it was a holiday, that all they had to do was sit behind the counter. I got stuck with all the clean up, but that's O.K. it made the night go faster. It was a quiet night for the most part.

Decided to take a vacation day on the Friday after Christmas, the plan was to get some sleep and go get the kids, head home and proceed to kid my daughters' ass at Halo on the XBox 360. I got off work at 7ish, did some shopping and headed home. I am 10 minutes from the house when I get a call from work telling me that one of the tow trucks was vandalized, so I turn around and head back to work to check the surveillance and see if anyone had gone through the front gate.(the gate hasn't been closed since the heavy snow started as no one wanted to go back there because of the ice) I fast forwarded through 2 nights of video and saw no one other than employees going in there through the front gate, which means whoever did it hopped over the back and did the deed. As I was checking the back lot, the zipper on my coat got the way of the Titanic. This was a rather expensive coat and I have had it for about 7 years so I guess it was time for a new one. I finish checking things out at work and I head out to R E I to get a coat, found one that suited my needs for about 300.00. I don't screw around when it comes to coats, I hate being cold.

I go get Margaret and Nicholas head home and lay down for a nap. I get a call an hour later from the manager saying the owner is holding me responsible for what happened as I did not make sure the gate was closed. I pointed out to the manager that the video showed no one going back there and the light to the back parking lot has been broken for years, a fact that the owner has known and will not fix. Well long story short, I was fed to the lions and got a 3 day unpaid vacation. Goes to show you that no good deed goes unpunished.

I spent most of the next day and a half taking my frusrtation out on video games, not really speaking to ANYONE. Darlene was rather concerned that on the wrestling game, I was beating my opponents to a bloody pulp instead of playing for fun. She relayed to me how upset she was that I ignored everyone for a day and a half playing games, I told her that I needed to work out some frustration, would she rather I take things out on a C.G.I. person or out on the family.

A Weekend That Was like One Long Date!!!

This was nice, a weekend with no projects that were pending. I did make plans though, we had arraigned for a babysitter to come over and Darlene and I were going out for the evening. That almost fell apart as the sitter called at the last minute to cancel, EERRGG!. That's O.K. ,we had a back up plan. Darlene called Brian and Monica, one set of Andrew's God parents, and asked if they could watch Andrew for a few hours and we were set. We dropped Andrew off and we were outie. Darlene had no idea what I had planned for the evening. Our first stop was the Ram restaurant at Point Defiance where we enjoyed a wonderful dinner with a view of the Puget Sound.

After dinner it was time for part 2 of my surprise, we headed to the Tacoma Dome to watch comedian Bill Engvall.

This was a great show, it is very and I mean VERY rare to go to a comedy show and not have the show contain profanity. Not one curse word was used the entire show, and it was entertaining!!!! We got home just as it started to snow.
Sunday, AAHH, Sunday. We woke to a light dusting of snow, what a sight.

This was the day we set aside to go tree hunting, and a hunting we did.

We found a U cut in Orting that had reasonably priced trees and went to looking. Andrew had a blast running through the tree farm. We found a 5 foot tree that would suit our needs, Andrew and I sawed it down.

Got it home, set it up, and we all decorated it. It is really something to see the wonderment in the eyes of a 2 year old as you do something like this. He knows something special is coming up, but doesn't understand what it is yet.

Over the week, Thursday, I did a show for a banquet. I don't like to do shows during the week because of my work schedule. The way things are and with Christmas coming up, why pass up an easy payday?? The show went GREAT!!!! Cups and Balls slayed them, I did do a Card to Ceiling, however instead of the chosen card sticking to the ceiling, the WHOLE @#$&ing DECK stuck up there!!!!

I just played if off like that was supposed to happen.. HEH, HEH.

By the way, you know it's really cold when you have to put a sweater on a goat!!!!

Things Keep Moving Along

One of these days I will start a post with something other than "It's been a busy weekend". This one was no exception. I got home from work Saturday morning and hit the ground running. We have a new washer and drier coming on Sunday so we had to get the back porch cleared and the railing to the stairs leading to the basement removed as well as getting everything disconnected for the delivery. Darlene also decided to organize the outside shed so we can put away all the stuff that has been accumulating on the back porch. It took us a while but it did get done, I got to bed around 1:30 ish and no sooner than my head hits the pillow, the phone rings. It's Best Buy, they will be delivering the washer and drier between 8:30 and 10:30 am Sunday, COOL.
We sit down for a nice dinner, Darlene gets her animals taken care of and we get Andrew to bed.
Sunday morning I head to Home Depot to pick up some bricks, sometimes some water will accumulate in the basement and we don't want to have the new washer and drier setting in water. I haul tail there, pick up the bricks and haul tail back. I am laying the bricks where I want the washer and drier to be when the delivery guys show up at 8:45!!!! Now their early....ERRRG. Well, they got everything installed and working, it's a nice set up, these things look and act like a friggin' video game. I get cracking on the weeks worth of laundry that has piled up and start getting the porch put back together. It's nice not to have everything so cluttered. After we got all that done it was time to head out to a magic show I had booked for the afternoon. I was worn out and the kids were being rowdy, not one of my best shows, but I got though it. I have a show for a Christmas party on Thursday, it's for adults so it should go well.
I was watching the news tonight and it says that even though you have cable, you still may need a converter box, great. I have expanded basic running though a VCR to my TV, I have decided to upgrade my cable to get a DVR and get rid of the VCRs altogether. It will be hooked up at the end of next month before the digital conversion.
I do have this Saturday to forward to, I have a surprise for Darlene, I managed to get 2 tickets to Bill Engvall at the Tacoma Dome. The plan is to take her some place really nice for dinner, the Ram or the Keg, then head out to the show. Darlene doesn't read blogs, so the secret is safe. We are shooting to get our Christmas tree up and decorated on Sunday, cross your fingers and wish us luck.

It's The Holiday Season......

With the title of this post out there, let me just say, it's MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!The next P.C. jackhole that comes up says "Happy Holidays" to me, I will rip off their head and put some Christmas spirit down their neck!!!! By the way, it's not X-Mas, it's CHRISTMAS!!!! Not hard to spell, and if you are that dumb, computers have SPELL CHECK!!!. Think about that the next time we read about some poor guy getting trampled to death just so some cheap asses can save 50% on a DVD player. I'm sure the money those people saved will be a great consolation to that man's family. I believe they should ban Black Friday sales, too many people have been hurt or killed just to save a couple dollars