October 2007

Posts are up very quickly this way as well…

…at least between blogger and my phone. I can now post by sending an MMS. Very cool.

I sent my web host a trouble ticket because I wasn't able to get all the perl modules installed and hopefully they will get it fixed shortly.

The mobile stuff using go.blogger.com doesn’t seem to be working but I am trying to get Refeed to pull in the RSS feed from here just in case. I was missing the Feed::Find module and just installed it from CPAN, hopefully that will work.

I am working with my old site from blogger.com to see if the mobile blogging is any easier than it is using SharpMT. I should be able to import my RSS feed from here to my main site.

I can always tell when I get toward the last day of the week. Today was my sixth day at work and although I am off the next two days I will have to go in for about three hours tomorrow. Unfortunately my boss is off this weekend (not that I begrudge him that, particularly after last weekend) and we can’t overlap. I will get up at 7 and get my staffing and then roll in and cook with one of my managers from 10 till 1 or so and then head home. At least I hope it works out as planned. I have a small scale mutiny on my hands at my problem store and very shortly I won’t have too many employees left. It is taking all I have just to get the ones I have to stick around.

All of our management works in productive positions on the floor. That’s how we make money by saving it. The managers are supposed to cook every day, I cook a minimum of 35 hours a week and even my boss who has ten stores normally will work a couple of days a week. My manager however, thinks that she gets paid to sit on her rear in the office all day long with the door shut making the waitresses cook their own orders. Of course whenever I show up she’s cooking. I am going to have to start coming in the back way so that I can sneak up on her and catch her sitting in the office when it’s busy one day I guess. I have already had one girl walk out because of it but I put her right back to work.

Weekends are our busiest time. Normally even in slow stores like this one I have a cook and the manager working. For the last four weeks she has left my cook to operate by himself except for maybe an hour, and then she sticks him with the cleanup. The guy is my relief manager, so he works for me, not her. I basically told him a couple of weeks ago that what he needed to do was to get his half of the cleanup done and then just walk the out the door at 2PM. Unfortunately this woman has copped an attitude with almost all of the associates that have been working there for any amount of time and is hiring these pieces of crap to take their places without even checking references or anything. I’ve put a stop to a few but I can’t be there 24/7. Anyway, my guy did exactly as I suggested and finished his stuff and went to leave so this woman gets in his face and started talking shit about writing him up. He told her that we all get paid to do a job and to do whatever it was that she needed to.

He called me pretty upset about it and I reassured him that it wouldn’t go in his permanent file or anything and that he needs to refuse to sign the warning. If it were just this one guy I would chalk it up to a communication problem between the two of them but apparently it is her and EVERYONE in the store. I had a bunch of other stuff here when I originally posted this at one of my other sites but I took most of the profanity and other nasty stuff out since I like my job. Actually I like my paycheck but it’s the same thing.

Although it’s not yet Halloween the major store in my area already has started putting out Christmas decorations. It’s funny. There are a couple of aisles in the center of the store with all of their Halloween stuff and then almost the entire garden center is already set up with Christmas decorations. I love Christmas decorations. Even though Christmas is a hard time of year for me at work because my hours almost double overnight, I still enjoy the holiday. Normally I will take the kids out several times to look at all of the Christmas lights and when I have the time, my house has more lights up than anyone on my street.

One of the things I have noticed this year is that the LED Christmas lights are starting to get a bit cheaper than previously. That’s cool because I prefer the lights. They are much brighter and sharper and really show up nicely, even when it’s not quite dark out. They are also much safer than regular incandescent lights as well because they don’t burn quite as hot. According to a 2003 report from the EPA they estimate that we (the United States) use enough electricity each year with miniature Christmas lights to run 200 homes for an entire year. They also figured that a 20% market switch to LED holiday lights would reduce annual electricity consumption in the U.S. by 400,000 KWh. Since they don’t burn as hot and use less electricity they also reduce MY power bill and that’s a darn good thing when I pay less money.

The Villa Rica vs Haralson County game was pretty good. The wife and kids did end up going, as a matter of fact we all rode together. I set up a table near the concession stand for the seniors to fill out a ticket and then I drew two names shortly before half time. It was kind of slow, I didn’t have a lot of names to draw from but it was enough. They announce the two kids and then during half time we collected them and went out on the field.

The both got to kick from the 10yd line and one of them made the kick, which was great. That means that he, along with the girl from the first home game and anyone that makes it next week get to do the kick off at the Villa Rica vs Carrollton game in two weeks.

Next week is Homecoming so I think I may just pack a sandwich and get there a couple of hours early so that I can get a parking space. It was packed tonight and even getting there an hour early it was hard to find a place to park.

The score when I left during half time was 28-14 visitors, which sucked but even before we left the wife said she thought that we would lose, Haralson County has a pretty good team this year.

I enjoyed the game and although I was in a pretty bad mood earlier I am looking forward to the next couple of Friday nights.

The wife and girls love to attend the High School Football games every year. I have to admit that they are pretty fun, but I am having to attend the home games this year in a work-related capacity.

Our company has gotten together with about five of the local schools and during the home games this year (only four for Villa Rica) we are having the seniors sign up for a drawing. Shortly before half time we draw a couple of names and then find the kids. After the bands play during half time and the clock is set at three minutes we go out out on the field with the folks whose names were drawn and they get to try and kick a field goal. During the first home game one of the girls in the band made it, which was pretty cool.

At the last game of the season everyone who has kicked a field goal is going to have a kick-off and the winner gets a $1000 scholarship to whatever college they are going to attend. It’s a pain in the ass to have to work on a Friday night, but this is a really nice thing to do and I won’t complain about working because of that.

Unfortunately I will end up in the paper tomorrow morning or Monday, which I don’t like, but that’s just part of it I guess.

It pains me to talk about getting air miles as much as I hate flying, but it’s inevitable that I will end up flying again in the next year on at least one of our vacations. Since I already know that the next vacation I book I will have to fly I have been trying to start saving airline miles so that I can go free. Free is always nice. To that end, with some of my Christmas shopping I have been visiting Shop4Miles.com for deals.

Shop4Miles lets you start earning airline miles just for signing up and with each purchase at the online mall you earn more. Buying the Garmin Nuvi is worth 800 miles by itself, while the StreetPilot is worth 1800 miles. They very quickly add up depending on what you are buying. I already get 90% of my gifts and stuff online anyway, so it’s as good a place as any, particularly when I am getting decent incentives back just for shopping with them.

Shop4Miles has everything from Books and Magazines to Computers, toys, BBQ Grills and movies. The prices are really good as well. The cool thing about using Shop4Miles as a comparison shopping site is that the way they make their money from advertisers is that the advertisers only have to pay a commission to them when a purchase is made, and part of that commission is sent back to the purchaser in the form of airline miles. They also transmit everything electronically, so you don’t have to wait months on end for snail mail to bring you a form letter.