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Showing posts from May, 2008

Movies I've Missed

Last night, I was working with a couple and the wife tells me that they're about to go see a movie, that she'd convinced her husband to go see one with her. He was embarrassed that he'd agreed to go see a 'chick flick', but it was okay to tell someone he didn't know that he was about to see Sex and the City. It made me think about this one. Why? Because I've never seen a single episode of the show. So, today, I list movies/shows I have never seen and you can laugh at my geekiness! They'll be all across the board, I'm just looking at lists of the most popular movies of the past 10 years Movies I have never seen: Titanic Fast and the Furious Austin Powers (any of them) The Matrix Gladiator Rush Hour (either) Oceans 11 or 12 Signs any of the Spider Man Movies War of the Worlds any of the Bourne Movies By virtue of the fact that I've never seen the tv show, I doubt I'll be seeing Sex and the City:the Movie. TV shows I've never seen. Like

A Pleasant Surprise

It has been years since I've had such a rapport with the majority of my coworkers that I'd want to hang out en masse somewhere. If people from work were hanging out somewhere getting drinks, I wasn't usually part of the 'in' group or just didn't feel that having a drink and driving an hour home was a good idea. Now, I live minutes from work. We've got tons of restaurants within a few minutes of the store (and home). As a result, I mentioned to one of my other team members (we're split into schedule teams) that maybe, just maybe, we could go hang out after work on Friday night. If this were most of the other places I've worked, that would have been the end of it. No, instead, I had a couple of others say tonight "you're going to Outback, right?" Cool. We ended up with a table for eight, a great server and a nice late spring breeze outside. There was a LOT of laughter as we shared stories about work and life. So much laughter that

Grandpa Johnson's Barbeque

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Today, we went to Chef's last cooking class for the year. We've been going non stop since September of 2006 and he wanted a break. His rationale is good-he didn't want cooking class to keep us from doing 'fun stuff' on my day off. On the way home, my plan was to stop at a different location of a BBQ joint we love, First Choice BBQ. We've frequented the one in Brandon for a while, but I saw that there was one in Plant City. The boys were eager and willing to get Que. It's one of those rare meals that you don't have to twist Gameboy's arm to get. In fact, he'll ask for it. We were heading through Plant City and a different BBQ place was in front of me. Grandpa Johnson's. Now, in my travels hither and yon, trying to find exactly where in Lakeland or Plant City we'd find a home (ultimately neither), I must have passed this place at least three dozen times. Each time, I'd either just had something to eat or Mom had tempting vittl

Work Update

It's official: close to 70 hours from Wednesday of last week until Tuesday. Grand Openings can be brutal. Fortunately, for the most part, I'm working with some awesome people. Interesting stuff: The caterers hired to feed us for the first few days brought food in in clear plastic tubs. Uh, guys, have you properly stored that food above 140 degrees? Where's your food handling permits, your National Serv Safe Cards? I thought so. As a result, I brought food in on Sunday. Enough to feed me and 30 or so of my coworkers. The person I had mentioned before and I had a conversation. It was good. She hasn't worked retail before, and hadn't realized protocols and that I'd been with the customer. We're cool. Meanwhile, there's a guy who is purposely 'snaking' sales. Fortunately, the huge one he took away from someone who was off yesterday was credited back to the right salesperson. Seems he didn't count on the fact that the salesperson who

What's For Dinner Wednesday

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Waiter, there is too much pepper on my Paprikash. But I would be proud to partake of your Pecan Pie. This scene from When Harry Met Sally (one of my all time favorite movies) inspired tonight's dinner. Chicken Paprikash, yum! For a while after seeing the movie, I wondered what Paprikash was. Then I found a recipe in a magazine and I had to make it: Chicken, butter, onions, pepper, garlic, paprika, sour cream and noodles? What's not to love? It's been years since I've had to use a recipe to make this meal. It's so simple. Most people I know who make it say it's a good winter dish, because it's so hearty, but the one pan stovetop meal is great for keeping the kitchen cooler in the summer. Ed's happy, because he's got leftovers for work, too. As long as I keep the onions out of their portions, the boys enjoy, too. You want the recipe? 2-3 lbs chicken (I use boneless breast) 4 oz butter or olive oil 3 large sweet onions, slivered 2 cloves garlic,

Dysgraphia

Gameboy has a horrible time with writing. AT 12, his handwriting is worse than a kindergartener's. It takes him a very long time to form letters and it is obvious that this is painful for him. We have it stated in his IEP that he needs to use a computer or laptop or dictate his answers to tests. Currently, we're having a conflict with a teacher's aide (if there is a problem, it always seems to be an aide who knows more about our child than us). This aide is butting heads with Gameboy about writing assignments-ones that his IEP says he has to have an alternative method to complete. Ed was in a doctor's office last week and happened to catch an Accent on Health segment that gives a name to what Gameboy is dealing with: Dysgraphia. It is considered a form of dyslexia (really?) and the pain and discomfort is very real. Having a name for it is a start. Now, to contact his psychiatrist and find out how we can have him diagnosed...

The Strangest Compliment

Yesterday, I was showing one of my buddies at work something I was working on. It's a sheet of all the skus for a product line, the cost and our commissions. Dave says to me "I love having you here. It's like having a tree full of owls!" I get the gist of what he was saying, and laughed my butt off at the comment. At the same time, I should have quipped that I poop a lot less!

The Things You Hear While Swimming

I figured it out, that since Wednesday, I have worked nearly 60 hours. It's been fun, but my body has been aching. Tonight, I got home and said we needed to go to the pool. The four of us went over to Ed's moms and took a dip. While there, some funny things were said: -You have a Radioactive Butt, Gameboy (because he was standing in front of the colored pool light). -Radioactive Butt, peace out! (with Richard Nixon victory sign and all, courtesy Chef Jr) -You need to spin me more, I paid two bucks for this ride. (Chef, and the money paid kept going up) -If you're giving me invisible money, I'm giving you invisible spins (me, to chef) -It'll cost you four bucks to grab my butt. (chef) -It'll cost you sixty bucks to grab my radioactive butt. No, my kids aren't warped!

My Stupid Leg (Now with pictures!)

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You've heard about it, you've read about it, you've heard countless complaints. Now, you get to SEE it...my stupid leg. The one that is FRIGGIN ITCHY right now from the RSD and assorted venous issues. This looks tons better than even November, when I came back from disability. If I keep it in the compression stocking, it settles down to a dull roar. As soon as I take that stocking off, though, I am a ticking time bomb until I want to scratch the thing until it bleeds. Use an anti itch ointment, you say? I would, but I seem to be allergic to every darn one manufactured! I think I'm headed out to the garage to find some sandpaper... If you're fascinated and you clicked on the picture to make it bigger, please don't mind the hairs on my leg. First, shaving over the valve is dicey and second, the fact that there is even hair growing is a miracle. Not a miracle I like, but anything that indicates there is *some* sort of healing going on will do, in my book.

Suzanne's Soundtrack Sunday: Soundtracks

For a weekly feature with soundtrack in the title, you think I'd talk about them more. I just went through the 17 prior Soundtrack Sunday entries, and only found one that featured soundtracks. (I spoke about John Williams and his multiple movie compositions.) One of my new coworkers, Jerry, and I were talking last week about movies and music as we attended to a time consuming task. Jerry's a huge movie soundtrack buff, and we shared some of our favorites back and forth. What was cool is that we each had favorites that the other hadn't heard, and both likes some pretty obscure ones that most people would not recognize. It was a great way to pass time. As a result, at least once a day, one of us will ask the other about a soundtrack that we thought the other might like. He's got the benefit of having a daughter in college, so he actually goes out to movies and can find good music in that genre much more readily than I can. Since Tuesday, we've been talking ab

Glad that I'm not "Guilty By Association" on this one

I thought I was done with the DISboards stuff, really I did. However, the hypocricy and racism displayed by Webmaster Pete and others on a memorial show is deplorable. Sadly, all it does is show that the man who died is the only one who has some scruples among the staff. I'm awaiting some You Tube links to the entire unedited podcast and then an edited link to just the racism portion. In the meantime, I'm posting the transcript of the 'tribute' to Bob. These were transcribed by a former DISer for me. Thanks. ************************************************************************************* Here is a link to the DIS' podcast page : http://www.wdwinfo.com/disney-podcast/ (note, the podcast in question has been removed from the web. It was on YouTube for a couple of days and viewed about 1000 times before being shut down) The following is a transcribed portion of the show that was especially upsetting to many. It began around the 1 hour & 3

A diversion for you...

After several eleven and twelve hour days, I'm having a hard time coming up with witty stuff to write about. I could bore you with the minutiae of my job, but I won't do that. We've been very fortunate in that the best of the bunch from stores around the country are here to help us and share their knowledge. I was helping a young woman last night, backed off for a moment to allow her to fill out a contest entry (which really didn't need my help) and the next thing you know, a colleague was there making goo goo faces at the woman's baby. I thought she just had baby lust. No, she horned in on the customer I'd just spent ten minutes qualifying. Later, the woman came back to me with a question "since you've been so helpful" and I was shot the look of death. Whatever. So, as I said, I'm going to give you a diversion for when the blog isn't meeting your internet surfing needs. Ed's playing it right now. It's from a website in Spai

Day One

The store opened today. We weren't as crazy busy as I expected a grand opening to be, but hey, that's life. Apparently, the trends are for business to build substantially over the day before. Works for me. The VP of the ocmpany came to our store to do the ribbon cutting, even though there were three others opening today. Why us? Because the thought process when they heard about the flooding on Monday was that there was no way in hell the store would be ready. The execs are really impressed by this. Let's hope our number impress them as much as the hard work to get to today does. As for me, I'm enjoying sitting on my butt and going to bed pretty soon. Y'all may have a three day weekend coming up. Me? I've got a long selling weekend ahead! :)

Wheeeeeeeee

Today will be another very long day BECAUSE WE ARE OPENING!!!!!!! On to making some real money. Finally.

Coolness that Happens When You Blog

My last post mentioned having Ed make me a tall lovely beverage. I didn't even have to ask. He made it because he read it on the blog! :) How awesome is that? Thanks, honey! It was gooooooooooooooood.

What's For Dinner Wednesday

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A twelve hour day put the kibosh on my plans of making Eggplant Parmesan. I didn't feel like making much of anything-but we did open the store for four hours! Woohoo. I got to help two couples, but didn't close the deal on either one. Tomorrow will be a different story, woohoo! Tonight's dinner was one of the fall backs for leftover chicken, Chicken Nachos. It was the second time today I had some-but that's because I love them. Especially when I've got lots of cheddar cheese and cholula. Off to soak the itchy friggin leg and have Ed make me another tall Comfort and Ginger Ale.

Cool Jazz

One of my coworkers lives around the corner from me. As a result, he's offered that whenever needed, I can ask him to carpool to work or get a ride home. Pretty neat. Yesterday's cleanup tasks kept me at work until 7-but Ed and the boys had to be at Scouts at 7, so D was kind enough to drop me off. We got into his car, he turns the key and jazz begins blasting out of his radio. Sweet! We spent the short drive home talking all about jazz and artists we like. He'd never seen Tim Eyermann perform, but knew of him and was excited when I offered the loan of my cds. This man is all southern charm, I had no clue that he was into jazz. The best part is that he was able to tell me the three jazz stations in the area and where one could go to check out some good live jazz. Awesome. I am psyched!

Rainy Days and Monkey Wrenches Always Get Me Down

Saturday night, we left the store with a sense of accomplishment. Yes, there was tweaking to be done on Sunday, but most of us were given Sunday off to rest. Monday morning's plans were for a little bit of register training before a soft open of the store. Alas, the GM walked up to the front door to see a FLOOD. The rain that I (and probably most of Central Florida) cheered about last night ended up INSIDE the store. Lousy contractor didn't do a very good job on the roof. The plans for today got changed. Instead, there was a lot of mopping, cleaning and returning the store to the pristine state it was on Saturday night. It's a bummer, because today was going to start us earning commission! Oh well, I guess a monkey wrench is part of the plan. At least everyone had a sense of humor about the whole thing. There were lots of jokes about needing bigger boats, well we are in LAKEland and other amusing stuff. When the going got tough, my coworkers got to joking. Pretty

Suzanne's Soundtrack Sunday

While helping to get the store ready for tomorrow's soft opening, I listened to my iPod a lot. I find the way to get through the tedium of cleaning is to groove to some tunes. One of the mixes I made a few months ago got somewhat heavy play and inspired me to hunt down an artist on You Tube to share for Soundtrack Sunday. About a year after I moved to Hagerstown, I met Judy. Judy was from my ex husband's hometown and we quickly forged a bond, being Long Island girls. We both liked music A LOT. She'd discovered that one of the local restaurants, The New Park Circle, featured live jazz on some Wednesday nights. We made plans to go that Wednesday. Both of us were blown away by the food, but by the musicians. We both liked Jazz, but wow, this group was incredible. The lead musician played at least seven or eight wind instruments over the evening. Mostly his own compositions, with a couple of standards thrown in. The band? Tim Eyermann and East Coast Offering. We expe

Shoot First, Explain Later

Nearly a month after the banning, Webmaster Alex finally offers up an explanation for the mass bannings at the DISboards. Rather than make an announcement that, effective immediately, those participating at the UnDIS will be banned, he opted to ban first then wait A MONTH to tell members why. As your post is in the public domain, Alex, I am sharing it here. Why? So everyone can see your brilliance in action, silly! **************************************************************************************** Explanation We’re aware that many of you are confused over some recent bannings on the DIS and we felt it was overdue that we gave some explanation behind our actions. We’ve been aware for years of other web sites that have formed from groups of people that had been banned from the DIS. Clearly, these sites disagree with our guidelines and how we choose to maintain the site. If that was the extent of this issue, we would have no problem at all with any of these sites. But unfortunate

Twelve Minutes with Keith Olbermann

Normally, I shy away from politics on the blog. Those nearest and dearest to me know my views, as I do share them. However, I don't feel this is the proper forum for my point of view. I felt that others did not share it, that I held a minority opinion. Among my friends, I knew I wasn't. Today, I break my personal rule about politics on the blog. I went to Jessalogic's blog and she pointed me towards another blog that stated a similar opinion to what I have been thinking about the Iraq quagmire we are in. Also on her blog was a twelve minute commentary that expresses frustration with those in White House that I absolutely, 100% agree with: I find it quite interesting that the topics presented and Mr. Olbermann himself were discussed on Wednesday. Maybe my opinion isn't the minority, after all.

Recalling Silliness of the Past

Wednesday, my day off, was spent in the company of another friend. Ed and I ventured over to Tampa to meet up with Richardina while she was here to see the Yankees play. (If I can convince her to guest blog, she can tell a bit about her hobby. It's cool.) We went down to Channelside (a ghost town on weekdays), had coffee in Hyde Park, lunch in Palma Ciea and visited the Hoity Toity mall before departing. It was a lot of fun to just sit and talk. And talk. And talk some more. Of course, this means that there is a lot of laughter, too. After lunch, she and I both needed the rest room before heading over to the hoity toity mall, so we availed ourselves of the one in the restaurant we were in. As we walked into the bathroom, I commented that the last time I was in a rest room with her, there was a strap attached to the back of her pants. Fall, 1993. Ex and I were up on LI for one of our visits to see friends and family. The Saturday night activity was going to see Rich's f

Wiped Out

It was a VERY long day today at work. We unloaded four trucks and spent 11 hours working, working and then working some more. I forgot about this part of a new store opening, because it'd been a while since I've done an opening like this. I did a ton of them with Bath and Body Works, but that's ten years ago now All afternoon, while dealing with the heat of the truck and the fatigue, I kept saying I was going to go over and enjoy the pool at Jane and Mom's. I'm sore and the leg is complaining. However, I sat down on the couch and I just don't want to get up. Not even to go soak in the tub. Tomorrow, we only have one truck. Thank God, because I am not used to this truck thing on such a grand scale. I'm even too tired to go and get some lovely beverages. Some Southern Comfort would go down nicely right now!

Lime Green Antenna Topper Mania

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I have a collection of antenna toppers. The collection began because my new car came with a vase, and it looked empty. While sitting at the dealership, in my new car, the inspiration struck to purchase some toppers from work. Some of the bouquets over the years: I became known on the DIS for that ever changing display of toppers. The collection grew and grew. I finally had to find something to display them where I could see what I had, like this: This isn't all of my toppers, maybe about half of them. The picture would change with the seasons. Over the years, as soon as I put up a new picture, I'd get messages "Where did you get THAT topper?" On one occasion, I was driving across I4 to meet up with Mom and Jane at WDW and kept leap frogging with an SUV. I noted it, because it had a pink Tink decal and a Mickey Pot of Gold topper. I thought to myself "if that isn't a DIS er, it should be!". When I got home, there was a thread started with my na

Twenty Years Ago

I loaded up a moving van with my belongings, a whole bedroom's worth (and a dining room table) and drove 275 miles southwest. I in the U-Haul, then fiance in the "Lepermobile". We headed for Maryland, land of mountains and oppressive heat. We were such grown ups, heading out to our first apartment and real life. Within the first year, we had a car die, had to find another place to live (mice infestation), got a job in my chosen career field, and gained a bunch of weight. (that was a fun one-got a card congratulating me on my 'impending arrival.' Eeek!) It was a strange and interesting land, the country south of the Manson-Nixon. It was plain and simple culture shock. It took almost four years to really feel like it was 'home'. Fortunately, among those who dismissed me just for where I was raised, there were some great people who liked me for who I was. In the succeeding twenty years, I've lived in two states and six towns, worked in five states

Hello, My Name Is Inigo Montoya...

Prepare to Die! That's what is on the shirt I wore to work today. The Princess Bride is one of my all time favorite movies. As is typical, I cannot pick a favorite, so we'll say it's in the top five, okay? I can't tell you how many comments and conversations were started today because of the shirt. One of the warehouse guys made me stop when I was walking towards him, because the first two hours of work, all he'd seen was the back of my shirt emblazoned with "Prepare to Die" and he was trying to figure out what the heck it was. Afterwards, he came over to me and said "All I ever needed to know about life, I learned from that movie!" So we went over them: Never get involved in a land war in Asia Never get into a battle of wits with a Sicilian when death is on the line If you rush a miracle man, you get lousy miracles Black Masks are very comfortable and will be all the rage Death cannot stop true Love I had several guys recite various Inigo M

Scratch This!

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This weekend was full of homemade goodies. Yesterday, I used my ebelskiver pan and had some fun making filled cakes of pan. Think Dunkin Munchkins in pancake form. The lesson learned: do NOT skimp on the oil! Each time I make these, they look more like what they're supposed to! Gameboy asked for apple, Chef for peanut butter, and mine were strawberry or chocolate. This is Ed's Birthday Cake! Chef Jr and I asked him what kind of cake he'd like for his birthday, and he said he wanted Mango. This is a Mango Vanilla Cake with Mango Cream Cheese Icing. Yum! I replaced the water in the cake mix with mango nectar. The icing was from scratch and again, I added a cup of mango nectar to the icing. (I'm thinking next up is a mango cheesecake) Can I just say I love this stuff? Thanks to this, Ed now enjoys eating THIS: I love pork chops, but he never did. I have never dated/married a guy who liked them (I suspect all their moms over cooked them), so I was relegated to orde

Suzanne's Soundtrack Sunday

Today's SSS takes the lead from a comment last week. One of the people I've come to know through various message boards had a cochlear implant a couple of years ago. For obvious reasons, she's flying blind in the world of music. I can't even imagine spending years of feeling the music to now be able to hear it, too. Janie's comment about how she was enjoying the Soundtrack Sundays as a tool to exploring music inspired me to expand a topic that I've had on the back burner. What was I waiting to write about? The artists that I enjoy that you may not have heard or you've just heard OF them. Admit it, you've got your favorites that others look at you and ask "Who? Whaaaa?" My husband probably has suffered this phenomenon more than anyone else I've ever met. (When he has loaded and reloaded an 80 gig iPod, you get an idea of how much he listens to.) My list will probably cover a couple of weeks to start, lol. For me, the culprit in this

I suppose you can really say I'm a southerner now!

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I'm just a few days shy of living south of the Manson-Nixon for twenty years and I finally tried some fried green tomatoes! They're tasty, especially when served with a horseradish sauce that Bill would say "puts hair on your chest"! Yard sale turnout was pretty good. Ed got his wings. Tomorrow he'll get the requested Mango/Vanilla cake with Mango/Cream Cheese frosting. It's a rough life when you try to make something new and different! ;)

Busy Day Ahead

I'm about to go put up the signs for our yard sale. Wish me luck, because the last one netted about 40 bucks. Today's Ed's birthday. The plan is to take him out for wings for dinner tonight. Woohoo! There's a local place that makes some great wings, and free meal to the birthday boy. What's not to like about that? You got your tax stimulus check, what are you going to do now? Um, if you're Suzanne, you're spending 300 bucks on your son's meds and using the rest to pay the rent. Not exactly what W had in mind! I'm stimulating MY budget, not the rest of the country's. I wonder why it was timed to arrive the day before his daughter's wedding? I wasn't invited!

It's Official

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I am a certified, fully trained salesperson for my employer. Wheeeeeeee! The past two weeks have been an incredible gift. How often do you spend TWO full weeks learning about your job WITH your coworkers? In retail? The training I received as a salesperson exceeds some of my previous employer's management training! Two weeks ago, I knew a little about the product and nothing about the people who'd be working with me. Now, I can say I know a lot about them and feel very confident about selling any product on my side of the store. Today's activities included a sell off, where each of our department's three teams selected a member to get up in front of the whole store and sell to a 'customer' from the other side of the store. My team (and lunch buddies all week) didn't ask, they said "You're doing this, right?" Sure, it's my pleasure, guys. I got the 'couple', where my GM portrayed "Kevina". It was rather funny sel

Reminscing about Retail

I've got about four or five ideas swimming around for an entry today. I decided to tell of the reason why retail is the path I've rarely strayed from. Why, you ask? I saw our local, lame ass mall now has a Macy's. (that's another topic I'll cover soon.) I'd have to say the retail bug started with that first job at Gimbel's, but that's not exactly true. It's all because of the girl scouts. I started selling cookies in the third grade and I was GOOD at it! Really good at it. Somehow, at 8 years old, I'd figured out a sales pitch. Granted the product almost sold itself. It didn't explain why I sold three times as much as fellow troop mates. Then came high school and choir. Our way of raising money for the end of year banquet was to sell citrus fruit. Again, I had a sales pitch and I kept going. Sophomore and junior years, I was the second place seller, but my senior year, I sold the most. I looked forward to that fruit sale each fal

What's For Dinner Wednesday

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In an effort to be different (again), here's my offering on the picture and Wednesday front. Jane made Ed one of the most talked about meals from his youth: Bacon Rings: They are made from homemade stuffing, wrapped in bacon and then baked until the bottoms get hard and crisp. He loves them, but of course, this is his comfort food. I'd probably make them radically different. Until recently, my favorite comfort meal from my youth left him yawning. Now I make it from scratch and I think it's become one of his favorites. It just makes me wonder what each of the boys will claim as the comfort food of their youth!

Maybe They Think Tinky Winky Is Scary?

I wasn't going to write any new posts about my banning from the DisBoards . It's old news-I'm over it. I've been spending more time on the UnDIS and a couple of private boards I'd been invited to join. Part of what got many of us laughing that Saturday night was that if you clicked on a hyperlink on the the UnDIS that brought you back to the DISboards, you instead were redirected to a thread on the UnDIS titled "Get A Life." Ha Ha. However, once the thread was edited by the moderator of the UnDIS, Webmaster Alex probably was quite chagrined that we were mocking him. Plan B came in, and I'm telling you about it because the financial ramifications seriously bother me. Once people began being banned, any links from the UnDIS (Circle of Sarcasm) to the DisBoards now redirect you to PBS's Teletubbies site. I know you're saying "Big Deal!". Well, actually, it IS a big deal. You see, Public Broadcasting exists through the generosi

Quiet

It's rare that I have the house to myself. Usually, Ed is at home. Evenings, especially, the kids are here and the usual bedtime chaos ensues. Tonight is a little different. Tuesday involves cooking class and Boy Scouts. With gas prices as high as they are, it makes more sense to make one trip over to our old stomping grounds. So, Ed leaves with both boys before I get home from work. Last Tuesday, I met up with a friend over at WDW. Tonight, I've sat in peace and quiet, surfing the web. Eventually, I decided to put on the iPod and do a brisk walk out to the mailbox. Partly to test the waters of doing some light exercising again, partly because the quiet was too much. I'm back home, and the iPod is still playing. I'm just not used to quiet anymore!

Homework

One of the things I had to do for work this past weekend was to shop the competition. I didn't expect much, but heck, I didn't think the experience would be that bad. I went to competitor S. When I got to the department I planned to shop, I was on the cell phone with Rich. I spent the time on the phone completely ignored. Ok, I get that. However, once I got off the phone and walked around looking intently at their merchandise for two circuits of their in store promotional DVD! One salesperson was helping a couple, but there were four other associates in the department and a bunch of customers over by me. Two employees were behind the cash wrap, one was walking with that purposeful "I've got places to go and things to do" walk, but he wasn't doing anything. I was not the only customer he didn't help in the entire time I was there. I don't think he ever helped anyone. The fourth person was the manager who was busy straightening a display. (Sev

7 Random Facts About Me

What the heck, I haven't done a MeMe in a few weeks, and this one was on Grandy's blog. I loves me some Grandy! I wish she'd blog more! She in turn, got it from a new guy, Nofaceberg. What's not to like about a guy who's a Mets fan? If you'd like to do this one, consider yourself tagged. If not, hakuna matata! 1. I'm the 7th of 8 kids, but I'm an oldest, too. This meant Mom was very lenient and Dad? Well, I had to beg for the car to do important stuff like deliver the 120 boxes of citrus fruit that I sold for Choir! Giggles had it much easier a few years later getting that car! 2. I've never been snow skiing, but I have been water skiing. At this stage of the game, I doubt I'll ever get to glide down a mountain, but I'd love to try. 3. I can't stand Minnie Mouse. Thanks to a coworker, I found out the reasons for my dislike: she seems to be stepping out on the Main Mouse. Think about it: you always see her with Goofy! Also, s

Suzanne's Soundtrack Sunday

Have you ever heard a song and said to yourself "I didn't know that XYZ made a new album!", only to find that it wasn't XYZ? Did it surprise you when it was XYZ's relative? That seems to happen a lot in the business of music. Probably one of the more famous examples is the Brothers Gibb. Barry, Robin and Maurice had their careers well established when younger brother Andy came along. They gave him a helping hand, but the gene pool provided Andy with that same falsetto and abilty to harmonize well (thanks to their willingness to back him on that debut album). There are many other examples, both on the grand scale and small scale. The Jackson family also has an overabundance of talented musicians (and crazies, too, but that's not my subject today!). Parents and children also seem to have this gift, though success seems to vary greatly. On the country side, you'd be hard pressed to answer whether Hank Williams or Hank Jr (aka Bocephus) had th

Good friend, good food, good wine

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We have had a low key kind of day around here. Guest's choice, so we went over to Tampa to visit a store she doesn't have at home. Lunch at this awesome German deli/restaurant. However, this is what Donna was jonesing for as part of the dinner: This is what happens when you post pictures of food you prepare on the blog. I'm not mean, so if she wants it, she gets it. In exchange, she brought us the fruits of her trip to Napa last fall for work: (She's a travel agent, so she got to explore Napa on the company. I wanted to hide in her luggage) The wine in question was a gift from the vintner. Each of the TA's on the trip was told they had to share it with loved ones. This bottle was waiting for the next time that we all were together. Here it is, breathing properly before consumption. It was good. Probably a bunch more tannic and oaky than any of us would normally drink. However, drinking something outside your comfort level expands your comfort level. Even