I would post a lot more stuff to this blog but my life just isn't that exciting.  Who wants to read "Today I woke up, went to work, came home, ate, slept."  I know I surely don't want to type anything when that's all I did.

Interesting observation: All this twitter posting has developed the habit of only putting one space after a period, instead of the grammatically correct two spaces I was taught to use in high school english.

I was thinking about my teenage years this morning for some reason.  This lead me to think about first times I did something.  No I'm not talking about sex, you perverts.

The first "secular" music tape (I know, right! Tapes! Be Kind, Rewind!) I owned was the soundtrack to Cocktail.  I literally had no idea why I bought it.  I hadn't heard of many of the artists on it at the time.  I just liked that Beach Boys song "Kokomo."  Even now I have to say it is rather catchy.  I was a thirteen year old socially rejected sheltered young lad so don't judge me.

The first album I bought with a parental advisory on it was Red Hot Chili Peppers Blood Sugar Sex Magik.  There was shit in that album I hadn't even heard of.  That album still marks my thinking as one of the best albums I have ever listened to.  It's certainly the best Chili Peppers album I've ever listened to.  Yes, I know all the lyrics to all the songs on there.

The first R movie I saw was Universal Soldier (and it all went downhill from there).  I went with my Dad to the Plaza Theater in Cortland, NY.  The other movie showing at the time was A League Of Their Own.  I remember enjoying the movie but being scared when Dolf Lundgren (however you spell his name...foreigners) killed that one black guy in the lab with that syringe full of whatever.  Why do they always kill the black guy?  Anyway, back on topic.

The first gun I ever shot was an Ithaca Deerslayer 20 gauge with a scope on it.  I was sixteen I think.  I had always seen people using scoped weapons in movies with their eye up in the scope like it's a pair of binoculars.  Naturally, having no other example this is what I did.  Not the recommended method as my forehead took a sharp blow from the top of the scope when I pulled the trigger.  Betrayed by action movies once again.  I wish my Dad or the man we went shooting with had corrected me, but perhaps they were secretly amused by my misfortune.  I was mildly embarrassed and tried to play it off like it didn't hit me in the face.  Tell me you would have done differently.

I was watching a video of people "exposing" oilfield pollution. The people making the videos have absolutely no idea what they are looking at or talking about. It's just amazing how ignorant they are. "Oh there's brown stuff on the tank must be the tank runs over all the time." No jackass, that's what happens when you run a tape down into the tank to gauge it and bring it back out. It drips a little. Did you notice the dike around the tank battery? Did you see that it's bone dry? Do you know that under that dirt is a thick waterproof liner? Do you actually know anything? Have you ever seen a tank battery run over? It makes one HELL of a mess. The whole tank is stained with crude oil not just one or two small lines of oil that dripped off a tape gauge. Also there tends to be stained dirt and pools of crude oil all over the place. Oil does not evaporate you see. Moron woman really needs to learn something about what she's talking about before she posts videos to You Tube expecting to be taken seriously.

Not to mention that she was trespassing, not wearing any personal protective equipment and was anyone in her entourage smoking? She had absolutely no business being there unless she owns the land. Tank Batteries are not playgrounds. She mentions the oil company that she thinks owns the lease, not realizing that a different company has bought the lease and now operates it.

I'm being deliberately vague with company names. I've done work for both companies on that very location she's standing on. The point isn't who owns what the point is this lady, like many people talking about this subject in the news, has no idea what she is looking at.

So today I was told by my boss that I had been doing the billing paperwork wrong.  It was explained to me what he wanted and I said ok that's the way I'll do it.  It occurred to me afterwards that maybe that was what is called an ass-chewing.

I don't think so.  I spent 3 years in the Army.  I am well aware of the parameters of ass chewing.  An ass chewing consists of a large man yelling at the top of his lungs with his face right in front of your face.  Spit flies, F-words are abundant.  You have no escape.  You must listen.  This was not an ass chewing.  This was a simple correction.  I am easy to correct at work because I know who's in charge.  I know that I'm not in charge.  The way it is is the way it is and I'm powerless to change it.  I understand that if I don't like it I can work somewhere else and no hard feelings.

Some people don't understand authority.  The worst kind of person to have a misunderstanding of authority is someone in charge.  They think it's like a pack of dogs where you have to constantly posture and look tough otherwise the other dogs won't respect you.  I find this behavior weak minded and overflowing with insecurity.  If you're the boss you had ought to know that fact pretty well.  Let your every thought be infused with "I'm in charge of this situation."  There is no need to yell when you're in charge.  All you have to do is say, "This is what needs to get done today and this is who's going to do it.  If you have questions just ask."  It's so much easier to work for you if this is how you manage.  Be well organized and execute your plan.  Use your people to get this plan done and work alongside them to accomplish it.  Thank them for their efforts.  Always be polite.

If your employees don't do what you say or give you a bunch of attitude there is no need to get angry.  You don't get angry because you are in charge.  They have no power over you.  They can go work somewhere else.  I don't know why you'd want someone working for you who constantly breaks the rules or treats you with contempt.  This person needs to be fired before he/she hurts themselves or someone else.  People can't give the person in charge attitude unless they allow it.

Please, if you're a manager be honest with your employees.  Always mean what you say and never make promises you can't guarantee.  This advice works outside the work place as well.  Give it a try.

Today I searched google for "What percentage of Americans don't drive?" It was inspired by this article which I got from following Major Nelson on twitter (more on that article later). The third link from the top said "Only 42% of Americans believe Barak Obama is an American Citizen." I know I typed the word American in the search and so google had to bring me every link that mentions American in it but maybe it could try actually answering the damned question. I never did get an answer either.

It makes me feel Microsoft is justified in those Bing commercials. I haven't noticed their search necessarily answering my questions more accurately or should I say understand my questions more accurately, but they make a point. At no point did I mention Obama. At no point did I mention citizen. At no point should either one of these things appear in the page when I search for "What percentage of Americans don't drive?"

If I were in school (shudder) and on the test I saw a question that said, "Jimmy is on a train traveling at 60mph and arrives at his destination in 3 days 41 minutes 30 seconds. How far did he travel assuming the train did not stop or slow down?" I would get the answer wrong if I said "Save money on travel to Cork!" or "Register to win the train that crashed in The Fugitive." I might amuse the teacher but would fail the course.

I would be more interested (as with all surveys) in what demographic of Americans were polled to come up with that 42%. I'm not weighing in on whether our leader is legally allowed to be our leader but I don't believe any poll I read no matter where I read it. Unless you can say you polled 100% of all Americans during that survey in which case I don't remember you calling me.

This is the later part. The article I linked says that 21% of American Adults don't use the internet. It then goes on to say "that's like not using the telephone." As Darth Vader would say "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed." Not using the internet is not remotely like not using the phone. The internet is hardly necessary to people who don't care about it. I will never starve or be late for work or run out of gas because I didn't use the internet. I'll never get divorced or miss a house payment because I didn't use the internet. It's not remotely necessary for humans to function. Get over yourself. It's a convenience not a necessity.

I searched for Americans who don't drive because I would find that much more perplexing if you had never driven and had never wanted to drive. I would tell such a person to get out of the city for a few weeks without buying any tickets from anyone at all. Just go. No one knows where you went or how fast you got there unless you told them. You could go right this second with your car, dependent on no one.

I'm not even sure who I was defending here but I hope they feel better.

I did something terrible today. I placed my phone in my pocket. I know right? Who does that these days? If I had known that this horrifying war crime would have resulted in the death of my touch screen phone I probably still would have done it because where the hell else am I supposed to put it? I don't carry a purse because I'm a man.

Oh, "put it in a holster" you say. Sure that works for maybe a week. Then the strap that holds it to my belt breaks and the phone suffers at least a three foot fall. Devastating!

What do you "never lifted an object that weighs more than 10 pounds before" office people do to keep your phone working for the entire two year contract? Oh that's right, you don't actually do work with your body. You type. You think. You bitch about your boss but you don't lift anything except yourself.

So distressing to be forced to buy a Samsung bulletproof Rugby phone in order to keep a phone for more than 6 months. No one makes an internet ready large screened actually durable phone. The only durable phones are ugly and have tiny screens. I guess us working folks are destined to have to use them though.

I have a Rugby phone issued to me by my boss. One time it fell out of it's holster while I was getting out of a truck. I didn't realize it until 30 minutes later after I had moved said truck to do my job. This truck was half loaded with salt water. That's 1500+ gallons of 9-10lb per gallon salt water. I found my phone over by where I had loaded the water. It was in the tire tracks left by the truck. I ran over it with a 25,000 lb vehicle. It still works. This didn't even scratch the screen. If this had been an iphone the damage would have been so great as to break 10 other iphones randomly in other states.

Why can't all phones be like this? Would it be so horribly unprofitable to make a durable product? I can understand that my xbox or tv or computer is not waterproof or impact proof. They don't have to be because they are not portable. If you tell me your device is portable I should be able to put it in my pocket and then go about my rugged, impact ridden, extremely dusty and sweaty day and not have to worry. I shouldn't pull it out of my pocket and find the screen cracked because my car keys were also in my pocket and OH MY GOD I sat down. I sat down. I didn't go bungee jumping or fight a UFC bout or stab myself in the leg with an ice pick right where the phone was. All I did was sit down. The horror.

All this to say you won't be getting a hold of me on my phone for a while because I don't have $300 or more to replace my phone. Maybe Obama can give me a phone or at least promise to. I should be able to send text messages on his promises combined with ATT's 97% of all Americans covered shouldn't I? Makes sense to me.

Finally a new post. Use caution when reading this, there are eff words henceforth.

So, I left this restaurant just a few minutes ago. This place is called The Armadillo Grill. It is affectionately referred to as the Armored Dildo. When you eat here, you will have the best steaks you've had in a long time. The downside of this is that you will be there so long that you may not be able to remember ever not being there. They sat us down, the hostess brought us our drinks and then we waited for 15 minutes for our watress to come take our order. It doesn't take 15 minutes to decide what the fuck you want to eat. Their menu isn't nearly as long as the wait. She finally comes around and gets our order. I already know that it's going to take at least 45 minutes to get the order out to us, so the 15 minute wait to place the order only pissed me off. Then we proceed to wait and drink our drinks. Of course, we're thirsty people, so we finished our drinks. This was a mistake since apparently in bubblehead waitress school they don't teach you to observe empty glasses and refill them. We waited at least 20 minutes for her to refill our drinks, and then she only came over because we flagged her down. Get ready for this one... When she arrived to refill our glasses...

She stuck her finger in my glass to pick it up.

Take a second to mull that one over.

I feel like I'm making too big a deal out of this, but how fucking discourteous do you have to be to pick up a stranger's drinking glass with your index finger the veteran of God knows what inside it? Come on now, would you want my finger inside your glass? Especially if I've been working all day? I'm not at your house eating dinner with your kids. Of course, I don't dare say anything to her about this. I have this concern be it rational or not that they will doctor the food or drink of a "complainer." I will settle for my waited forever for it chinese finger tea because it's bound to be better tasting than the vomit filled bulemia-ized alternative. I don't want Lipton smegma thank you very much. I can only hope that your finger gets about as much action as I do or else I might have trouble sleeping.

A lot has happened since I last posted. I bought a digital camera with the almighty tax return. I bought a 10 gallon aquarium and various accessories with the same tax return. I set it all up and let it run for 3 days, then I added three fish. You can look these up if you're interested; two dwarf gouramis, and one red finned shark. I know I know, fish experts out there are telling me I have no bottom feeders and the shark will outgrow the tank shortly. Stop your whining. If the fish starts to outgrow the tank I'll just put him in the new tank I'm going to buy. How can I afford this you ask?

By quitting Wal-Mart and starting work tomorrow at 7am with a local oil services company. I'll be working at some place called the mud yard, which sounds ominous. I have to go out and buy some jeans to go with my recently acquired steel toed boots, but otherwise I'm ready. I'll be getting my class A CDL out of this too. All for $12/hour. Guess who's not complaining.

In the process of getting my CDL permit I learned from the doctor that I'm morbidly obese and that my blood pressure is 168/108. This is clearly a recipe for death. I've cut the soda completely from my diet over the last two days, so we'll see what that does. I'm also going to have to exercise I know, and I will get to that soon. I look at it like I'm being paid to lose weight and be healthier. Quitting soda is hard though, almost as hard as quitting smoking. The joke of the week has been morbidly obese.


I'll leave you with a sample from the new camera.