March 4, 2007

Growing up with Music

The Carnival of the Posties is coming up, and this weeks theme is music, so this is my submission.

I grew up with music. I think most people do, but I have a particular love for it. I can listen to just about anything that has a beat, and only really dislike a few things. As a kid I did as all children do and listened to whatever my parents happened to have on at the time. That meant a lot of Elton John, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and the like. My father was more into older stuff though. Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper. REAL rock. I love all of it.

As I got into my teens though, I got hooked on Metal, and that has been my love ever since I listened to that first KISS album. I’ve posted a few songs here over the last few years, here are a few of them.

Megadeth – Wake up Dead

I first saw Megadeth at the Metroplex on Marietta Street in Atlanta back in the mid ’80’s. Man, Dave Mustaine kicks some serious butt. I spent the entire show about ten feet from him, just banging my head.

Here are a couple more Megadeth tunes.

Megadeth – In My Darkest Hour – This song was written after Cliff Burton (Metallica) Died.

Megadeth – Countdown to Extinction – By the time this came out, I was married and had a son. It was released at some point while I was in my short-lived college career.

Metallica – Sad but True – The wife likes to joke sometimes that this is our song.

Armored Saint – Aftermath – A hard rocking band. The lead singer ended up joining Anthrax.

Alice Cooper – The Ballad of Dwight Fry – Alice Cooper is great. Love it to Death is probably my all time favorite of his albums. His early years are when he was truly at his best.

King Crimson – 21st Century Schizoid Man – You wouldn’t think that something from the 60’s would fit into my list, but I fell in love with Emerson, Lake & Palmer the first time I heard anything by them, and later on while looking through my dad’s albums, I found this one and once I realized that Greg Lake was doing vocals on their first two albums, had to listen to it. One of my favorites.

Guns N Roses – Used to Love Her – Guns N Roses were pretty good for awhile, but they just blew themselves out of the water with too much drugs, too many good times.

Willie and the Poor Boys – These Arms of Mine – This is also one of my favorite albums. I turned my wife onto this and the song was played at our wedding reception.

Nowadays I mostly listen to the Pixies, Evanescence, and stuff like that, but I always return to the staples that I grew up with. I can’t imagine NOT having it be part of my life.

Sundays…

…at work are a pretty interesting deal. It starts out extremely slow. Sunday is the day when most people sleep in. The folks that ARE up are getting ready for church. They all go about their business, sleeping or churching and then all roll in between 10 and 2. We do about the same amount of business in those four hours that we do all day long on Saturday.

Needless to say, it ends up being a goatfuck about half the time. My staff at the new store has improved, but it’s still pretty rough at times.

They have a tendency to finish up the shift and shoot out of there at 2 PM, whether they are finished with their cleanup and sidework or not. I have the fix for that one today, and they are probably not going to enjoy it. Sunday is also payday. I pay my graveyard shift as soon as they get off work at 7 AM. Normally I will go ahead and pay my day shift at the same time. I saves me 30-40 minutes from the end of the day, and I’m all about getting my stuff done and getting the hell out of dodge. Today I am going to make them wait until after their shift to get paid. Of course, if their sidework isn’t finished, they will wait until it is before I pay them. I have several things to do this afternoon, so I can wait all day if I have to, I don’t really care.

With my boss leaving the company, apparently there are all sorts of organizational changes going on. It is now looking like I may end up with a different immediate boss who is a real fuck-head. He is a piece of work who basically does nothing. Several of my employees have worked for him in the past and I know they don’t particularly want to work for him again. If I do end up with him over me I will end up spending half the time minimizing the damage he does from my days off.

I should start finding out about the changes by Wednesday at the earliest. No sense in worrying about them until they occur, I just hope that my AVP thinks about what he is doing before making them.