August 2007

Random Encounters of We

It’s been quite some time since I’ve had the chance to write a review on another blog. Mostly I’ve been hit up for other types of sites, mainly businesses looking for linkage. That’s part of what Random Encounters of We is looking for I am sure, but they also asked for an honest review of the site itself, so here it is. I’ve been trying to decide for several days now what to write. With some of the stuff it’s real easy because I can just say “so and so has a product and it might be a good idea for you to look at” and feel OK because I never said I use it (unless I have) but with another blogger I want to give an honest review and maybe we both can learn something from it.

Bear in mind I know almost nothing about designing blog templates and it was like ripping teeth out of my head to come up with the design I am using and it was just adapted from a normal web site with tables and a bit of embellishment on my part. Not only that but my tastes seem to be a bit different so you have to take it with a grain of salt, but I hate the generic blogger templates, which is what it looks like they are using to me. I don’t like the bright green at all. It makes me want to rip my eyeballs out of my skull, but as I said, this is coming from a guy that has bright orange Halloween text on a black background. Opinions. We all heave ’em, er..have them.

The site has been around for about ten months and obviously judging from the page rank, has some return visitors and a few links to it. I read through about a month’s archives on the front end and on the back end to get a general idea about the blog and who ‘we’ are. They also participate in paid blogging, as I do. One of the things I noticed is what I will do a lot of times when I really don’t have a lot to say and am just trying to make a couple of bucks…

post

paid post

post

paid post.

Some of the most recent entries sound like they are just creating filler. Maybe it takes one to know one because I have days where I will post 20 or 30 entries and maybe one comes from the heart. I only had to go back a couple of pages in the archives though to find a recent entry that sounded like she knew what she was talking about and enjoyed writing it. It’s a post on finances and debt entitled ‘Past, Present and Future of Your Money‘. It was an enjoyable post and I felt like I could learn something reading more of this stuff.

One of the biggest ways to be successful as a blogger (as if I really know this stuff) is to write about what you know and know about what you write. You can always tell when I have enjoyed writing about something here, there is usually plenty of crassness and foul language and gnashing of teeth. Over at Random Encounters of We it’s about money and the family.

They also run a games blog called Random Games as well that you might be interested in checking out.

Anyway, the bottom line is that I like the blog, but I think I would develop more posts about things that make you go hmmm…and redo or have someone else redo the template. There are tons of blogger templates and plugins out there for free that I have seen.


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These Guys Need Something Better To Do With Their Time…

I suppose there is something to be said for extreme sports but I am partial to trying to chug two beers at a time myself. That’s about as extreme as it gets.

Crossing My Fingers…

Hopefully today won’t be a terribly long day. I have one of my managers off today and I am sure it will be busy but I have two pretty decent cooks and as long as they show up I should be able to get out of there in a timely manner. The good thing is that one of the two manager trainees is working and she is having to do her required second shifts which means that she will handle drawer change tonight and I won’t have to worry about that too much as long as everyone shows up.

I was pleased to see when I logged into one of the posting services that I use that I was given a bunch of extra assignments. They aren’t particularly long posts that I have to write, but I do have around 25 spread across three blogs. I will try and get most of them finished this evening. I should be able to do them in about two hours if I’m humping it.

Drug Treatment

One of my employees is this guy that I hired in 1995 or ’96. He was just a kid back then. He has worked for me once or twice over the years and each time I’ve noticed that he has gone farther and farther in his drug use. The fact is it is a pretty rampant problem with quite a few of our employees. This last year he finally came to a couple of us looking for a referral service so that he could get into a drug treatment center and get his act together. We did what we could and he’s back at work for me now and doing a pretty decent job. I’m glad to see that because he has two beautiful children and needs to keep his nose clean in order to be able to see them and spend time with them.

I Hate People…

What is it about people?

I spent about five hours at work today, in a couple of my stores. Since I am working seven days this week I decided to cut this one short but while I was there I went through my waters and waitresses tickets for the last few shifts. Pretty much what I expected. Most of them know their prices or at least take the time to look them up if they don’t know them, but a few of them don’t have a fucking clue. Either their prices are just wrong, which accounts for about 50% of them, or they aren’t writing the tickets correctly and actually have the right prices but I marked them wrong anyway because there is only one way to do things in my organization and those took up the other half of the tickets.

One of my managers called me with his staffing a little while ago (they have to call me at 9pm with sales and staffing every day at the three shift changes) and said that two of the waitresses were angry about me hanging up their mistakes on the wall in the back room. Oh yes, I create a wall of shame for the worst offenders. Normally a couple of days of everyone looking at the tickets corrects them pretty quickly. Anyway, they were mad and said they know their prices and I’m just reading the tickets wrong.

bwahaha. I told him that either their prices are wrong or their tickets are wrong but either way they need to fucking fix the problem. I tend to believe that they don’t know their prices OR how to write tickets otherwise I would have more money going into the cash register based on the amount of food they are using, but that’s a whole different deal there.

Maybe it’s just me but I tend to feel like no matter what you are doing, whether it be designing the tallest building in the world or pouring fucking coffee that you should take a little pride in yourself and do the best job possible and not have to blame everyone else for your mistakes, but since that is what their manager does 99% of the time I can see where they might get that. I don’t tolerate that crap.

I left him a list of stuff to get done this morning before I headed off to my other store, most of the things on it were on the last three lists I have left him. All he had was excuses for why he couldn’t get it done and it invariably was somebody else’s fault or he just did not have enough time. Bear in mind this is the slowest store I have. I wanted to punch the fucker so bad it was all I could do to get out of the store. I am swiftly losing patience with this dude and it tells in my conversations with him now. I just can’t help it. Sooner or later “why don’t you get the lead out of your ass” is going to tumble out of my mouth and I will be jobless.

I know I wasn’t going to post about work much anymore, so I just broke rule number 1.

I think it’s time to surf for awhile, got a blog review to write that I have been avoiding all evening…Perhaps tomorrow.

The Professional Porch Sitters Union

Now this I could do…

Thunder…

Clouds have moved in and I’m getting a lot of thunder. Hopefully a bit of rain will follow. My plants are looking extremely pitiful

The wife called and I think she and the youngest are going out for dinner prior to coming home, which is fine as I have a small bit of writing to take care of. I’ve got what’s left of a wonderful Calzone from an Italian place in town to finish anyway. Since I was working on my day off I left at 11:30 and met another one of the district manager’s for lunch. It was great but the damned thing is huge.

Hitchhiker Raped in Douglas County

Damn, this is only about 15 or 20 miles from my house. Apparently the woman ran out of gas and Reggie Brown Hairston picked her up about 5am and raped her. The police have caught him in an industrial area. There haven’t been any other details released as far as I know, so I’m not sure why he wasn’t in his car or what.

String the bastard up if he’s guilty.

Dorsey Finally Admits To Murder

Sidney Dorsey has finally confessed to being behind the slaying of Dekalb County Sheriff-Elect Derwin Brown on December 15th 2000. Basically it was greed and jealousy. His marriage was in trouble, he was facing sexual harassment charges and he was pissed off because he lost the election to Derwin Brown.

European Vacation Guides

A good blogger friend of mine is going to be spending some time in Europe this fall. I am very envious of him. I will eventually get the chance to spend time overseas but until then I can keep writing about it and dreaming.

One of the places I would like to go is the Netherlands. Amsterdam is a beautiful city and the people I have met that call Amsterdam home are extremely nice and polite. I was looking at the Amsterdam Hotel Guide and came across a place called the Holly Hotel Carlton. Just looking at the picture makes me want to visit. In addition to Amsterdam one of the European Cities that I want to visit is London. The pictures in the London Hotel Guide just cannot do it justice.

800px-Tower_bridge_London_Twilight_-_November_2006.jpg

That’s the Tower Bridge, in London. One of the things things that are so different in the U.S. as opposed to most European countries is that they are steeped in centuries of history and it shows in the architecture as well as the stories.

All in all I wouldn’t mind having a couple of months free time to just wander around Europe and site see. Once the kids are gone perhaps the wife and I will really get a chance to grab a Europe Hotels Guide and just hit the road for a few months.

Aside from Amsterdam and London I would eventually like to see Paris, parts of Bavaria, Ireland, and would really like to visit Russia/


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