September 2007

Watch This…

rmiles7721September 5, 20071Photography, Technology

…is usually the last thing you hear before a redneck hurts himself doing something stupid. Believe me, I know from personal experience. In this case though I did want you to check it out. I wrote a review on a piece of software at another site this morning and did this with it…

Anna_1.gif
That’s no mean feat for me. I can hack around in Photoshop a little bit but I have never been able to make animated gifs or anything cool like that. I can think of several different bloggers that I may just have to morph… >:

Wednesday Hero

rmiles7721September 5, 2007Site News

I’ve been pretty busy the last couple of weeks and completely forgotton to put up my Wednesday Hero post. Here is the one for this week.

Sgt. Willard T. Partridge
Sgt. Willard T. Partridge
35 years old from Ferriday, Louisiana
170th Military Police Company, 504th Military Police Battalion, 42nd Military Police Brigade
August 20, 2005

Sgt. Partridge was killed by an IED that exploded near his vehicle in Baghdad, Iraq.
There isn’t that much information about Sgt. Partridge so I though I would share some of the memories that his friends and family have of him.
“I remember Partridge from basic training and AIT. He was a very quiet guy who had a good sense of humor. I remember asking him why he joined, and he told me it was so he could take care of his family and give them a better life. I would have deployed with him any day, he was one of the good guys I graduated with. He will not be forgotten. God Bless.”
“Todd was one of the best men I have ever met and I will always have great memories and admiration for him! My thoughts and prayers go out to his family!”
“I will never forget you and those awful eighteen weeks at Fort Leonard Wood. You are in every sense of the term, ‘A HERO'”
“Todd was such a quite, solid person. He never demanded the attention of those around him. I remember him always just smiling while everyone else at our LARGE FAMILY get togethers made noise. I could get a hug from him, but I had to ask for it. He never assumed anything. I loved making him hug me.
Todd was a solid, faithful husband, father and man in every respect. He did what had to be done in all areas of his life. He died doing what he knew to be his job in this life. Not that he wanted to die but he wanted to serve whatever the cost might be. He knew that freedom is not free and wanted to pay his part for that freedom for himself, his wife and girls.
I have nothing but love and respect for Todd’s memory and will always proudly and thankfully count him among my nephews that adore. His memory will always be honored. I thank God that He brought Todd into our family. He left his mark on it just as he did everywhere he went.”

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived
This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. To find out more about Wednesday Hero, you can go here.

Tramp Stamp Tuesday

rmiles7721September 4, 200770Site News

Found this fresh pic just this morning.

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Untitled post

rmiles7721September 4, 2007Site News

This should be an interesting day. All of my managers are out today. I think I have it covered everywhere and I will just end up going from store to store. I won’t be cooking this morning as I didn’t think it was a particularly good idea to be chained in a store productively just in case someone hangs me.

Even with everyone being out I am crossing my fingers and hoping for an early day. This could very easily turn out to be the biggest goatfuck I’ve seen all year.

Mr Turtle, the guy that supposedly lay there for an hour on his back until someone helped him up but only seemed to break a couple of toes still hasn’t called or showed up. I am so damn angry at him right now. He put me in a serious bind this weekend. I just don’t understand how someone could be such a pussy.

Happy Socialists Day!

rmiles7721September 3, 2007Uncategorized

Labor Day has been celebrated on the first Monday in September since the 1880s. According to Wiki Labor Day is celebrated on May 1st in most countries around the world except for the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. I suppose that is our nod to the fact that even though labor day is a Socialist’s holiday we aren’t a socialist country.

Anyway, enjoy your barbecues, picnics and whatever traditional Labor Day festivities you will be attending this year. Some of us have to work…

NOT According to My Plan…

rmiles7721September 3, 2007Site News

Overall the weekend could have been worse. It has been a pretty hard few days, made worse by moving all of that dirt the day before yesterday. I guess the real pisser is that it hasn’t gone according to plan. I like it when everything goes to plan at work and I hire and train employees that believe in the same thing and can help realize that vision. Of ocurse things always happen in the business to upset the apple cart but that’s OK if you have people that are good at what they do because things stay smooth then anyway and we get back on the path pretty quickly. I tried to explain that to one of my managers last night and he just didn’t get it.

All three of them make their schedules out willy nilly and expect their employees to work where they put them no matter the days or shift. The figure that the folks work for them and they are supposed to show up when they are scheduled or go somewhere else. My boss agrees with them. I tend to agree with the second part about going elsewhere if you can’t work your schedule, but I think they are all full of shit about the first part. Most people like set schedules. They like knowing week in and week out what days they are off, what shift they work. When they are on the same shift with the same people every day they tend to work more as a team and do a better job than if you just move them around constantly. The customers also like it because they know when the people they like are working. But what the fuck do I know, I’ve only done this 21 years and my retention rates as a manager are much higher than anyone else’s, at least after the initial three months in a restaurant? The first three months are usually worse than anyone else’s because it takes time to get rid of the crust of shit that’s built up and find the right team.

Pigeon Forge

rmiles7721September 2, 2007Travel

A few years back when my parents still lived in Virginia, on one of our vacations we took a little over a week and first went up to Gatlinburg and stayed for a couple of nights, drove to Alexandria and spent the weekend with my parents, and wound up in Hilton Head where we spent a day or two with our friends down there. It was a pretty exhausting vacation really. I needed a vacation just to recover from the vacation. One of the things that we didn’t get to do while we were in Gatlinburg was go to Pigeon Forge. The wife didn’t seem real interested and I didn’t press it.

I have a friend of mine who lives right outside out Gatlinburg and she says that Pigeon Forge is beautiful and that we need to make the trip, particularly in the fall when it’s not so hot. I have been seriously considering getting a Pigeon Forge cabin rental and staying for the weekend to at least check it out. It won’t be this fall as I have already reserved a cabin in Helen Georgia during Oktoberfest (the blog meet) but maybe in the spring before it gets too terrible hot.

Implants

rmiles7721September 2, 2007Parenting/Family

I’ve had false teeth for about 17 years now. At the time the dentist spoke with me about getting dental implants but back in 1990 they were very cost prohibitive and at that time my insurance would only pay so much. As a matter of fact I ended up getting them done right near the end of the year so that the bottoms were done in December and the tops in January. My dentist at the time told me that I would not be able to get implants down the road because of the way that they were implanted into the gums.

Jump forward two decades later and a few months ago I dropped the bottom set. I think I blogged about it as a matter of fact. Anyway, it snapped them in half. I tried one of the repair kits and they felt worse than before. I ended up taking them to the dentist that my wife and kids use. Heck, I haven’t been to the dentist in years. They re-fitted them and then started talking to me about implants and surgery.

Apparently now they anchor a metal pin in the jawbone that mimics the root of a tooth and the teeth snap right on like snap-on tools or something. Very cool looking from what they showed me. They feel and act just like normal teeth and you clean them just like normal and they are easier to eat with than dentures because they are much more stable since they are anchored to your jaw instead of just hanging around the gums. Although if I get them done it will be here at home, I found a bunch of the information from Dental Implants in NY when I was researching it. I think the doctor was offended though when I asked if I could get a set of vampire teeth for Halloween.

Untitled post

rmiles7721September 2, 2007Technology

I suppose it’s time to start getting ready for work. I got up early to write some paid reviews, but ended up surfing the damn web. I wrote a few posts for another site completely unrelated to making money but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

It doesn’t look like my manager with the three broken toes is coming to work until Wednesday at the earliest. Needless to say I am not particularly impressed with the asshat.

I’m starting to look around at the different smartphones in preparation to upgrading at the end of October. That’s when my “new every two” is in effect and I can probably get a deal as well if I go in to the store rather than ordering online as I have done in the past. It looks like the successor to the Verizon XV6700, the XV6800 is supposed to come out in October and I am seriously considering upgrading to it.

The pond is finished, and I will have some photos of it scheduled to post later in the day.

PDA/Cell Page

rmiles7721September 2, 2007Technology

I frequently access my site from my cell phone from work to view new comments. I’ve slimmed down the page a bit, taking out the ability to comment from the phone and some other stuff and just showing the actual posts themselves. Next week I will work on the CSS a bit and get some color in to the page. If you want to access the PDA page click the link.