rmiles7721

Aruba Investigation Not Over

rmiles7721December 19, 2007Site News

I had one of the readers send me a link yesterday afternoon that contradicts the story over at CNN that I had mentioned, wherein the lead prosecutor said that they were closing the case and not going to charge the three suspects in the Natalee Holloway case. Somehow I missed it yesterday evening.

According to FOX News, despite the report yesterday in which everyone said the case has been closed, Aruban officials have NOT closed their investigation into the disappearance of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway. The media liaison for Hans Mos dismissed the earlier report and said that a press conference was scheduled for Thursday that will reveal new evidence against the three young men last seen with Holloway.

Damn, they need to make up their minds…Seeing is believing so I guess I will just wait until Thursday and see what there is to see.

Thanks for the link, Loral.

Here is the original report from about 2:45 yesterday afternoon.

I am not sure what time the FOX story was posted at this point in time.

In A Fog…

rmiles7721December 19, 2007Parenting/Family

After I finally crept off the couch from my nap yesterday afternoon the wife and I picked the girls up and went to the Olive Garden for supper. It was pretty good, particularly since she had received a gift certificate for Christmas. Other than the fact that it was somewhat cold in the are we sat in it was pretty good.

I was (and still am) pretty irritable last night and I am not sure why. I’m pretty stressed out due to work right now and I suppose that is the majority of it. Christmas is always pretty hard for me to get through. Part of that is the fact that the family is getting together and the only time off I normally have is after everyone has gone home. I think that this year my brother and his family will be spending a week with us. If so that will be pretty cool. Other than this coming Friday the 30th will be my next day off and it would be nice to see everyone and spend a bit of time together.

Damn, I am groggy this morning. I knew that after that nap I took I would have a hard time getting to sleep last night, so I took a benadryl around nine or so. I finally hit the sack about ten thirty and still have that fog in my brain.

Today and tomorrow are going to be fairly long days. My company’s Christmas party is this evening, in Anniston, Alabama at around six, which puts me back home about nine PM. Tomorrow we are back to business as usual with the multi-unit manager meeting. I normally don’t finish up with that until at least nine. I’m already dreading the next two days.

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Have to start getting ready for work shortly. Luckily except for the last couple of hours I won’t have to cook today. I do have a couple of interviews for hourly’s to do this morning and other than that just paperwork and some prep for Christmas. I have this one guy coming in for an interview that put his application in a couple of weeks ago. The first time he came in I could have sworn he had on golf shoes. I don’t know for sure but they certainly looked like it. No big deal except that he didn’t look like a golfer. Probably picked them up at one of the consignment stores or something.

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I disabled the twitter tweets completely on this site. While I thought they were cool there were some issues with them so the simple solution was to just take them off.

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Received a nice Christmas present from my friend Yabu yesterday. A CD with quite a few pictures from the Blogtoberfest earlier in the fall. There were some pictures from prior to my arrival as well as some from the party Saturday night long after I had stopped taking photographs. Hell, I don’t look as drunk as I was feeling…

Merry Christmas to you and your’s dude!

Wordless Wednesday

rmiles7721December 19, 20072Site News

Ruth's 5th Birthday 148

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Early Day

rmiles7721December 18, 2007Site News

Since I am only getting 3.5 days off during the four weeks around the holiday I shot out of there about 11:30 today. I hate it for them. I am already tired and Christmas isn’t even here yet. I took care of the banking and paperwork and my relief manager is going to take care of the rest of the day for me. I think I will nap for a couple of hours then blog a bit. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to get all of my stuff finished in time to get out of there but sometimes things just work out well.

I’ve already had two calls from work since I arrived home, so we will see just how long I actually get to sleep. I hadn’t planned on posting anything other than this but then I got a CNN alert about Natalee Holloway so I ended up posting that last one.

Hey, oh by the way. See that thing about the Blogger’s Choice awards on my side bar? No, OK here it is again…

My site was nominated for Hottest Daddy Blogger!

Getting an early start this year, so go vote for my sexy ass and then I might shut up for a while.

No, probably not but maybe I won’t harass you about voting for a while. Why should you vote for me? Because I am…just a pig. You just have to look at my children to know that I am the coolest, as Alice would say.

Time to nap…

Castro Won't Cling to Office

rmiles7721December 17, 2007Site News

A Cuban television news anchor read a letter on the air today from Fidel Castro that promises not to cling to office or impede the rise of new younger leaders according to this report on CNN.

The letter says that…

“
”
My basic duty is not to cling to office, much less to obstruct the rise of younger people, but to pass on experiences and ideas whose modest value arises from the exceptional era in which I lived
Fidel Castro

What is left unsaid is that if you don’t vote for the man that Fidel wants your ass will be jailed or worse for being a traitor to the regime.

I went to check out my source for anything related to Castro and Cuba, Babalu Blog and all he really has up right now is a link to the FOX News story which doesn’t say a whole hell of a lot either. Right now we are all just left hanging in the wind wondering if this means that he will be retiring, when, and what power he will wield afterward. I just don’t see him handing the reigns of power completely over to anyone that isn’t his puppet.

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Almost Cut My Hair…

rmiles7721December 17, 2007Uncategorized

It’s funny sometimes how things can tie together. I have been listening to Queensryche’s latest album tonight, which consists entirely of cover songs. Right around the time that ‘Almost Cut My Hair’ came on someone sent me an email with a link to the American Hair Loss Association. Why?…

I used to be extremely concerned about going bald and for lot’s of guys it’s a pretty serious subject. It doesn’t really other me much anymore. I let what’s left of it grow out during the winter and then just shave my head the rest of the year. Easier to take care of and I don’t use much shampoo anymore…

Since I’m not doing much of anything else tonight I clicked the link…

The American Hair Loss Association is a non-profit organization that is set up to educate people about hair loss and hopefully help to make the lives of people that are affected by hair loss a bit better. There are so many different home remedies and ‘snake oil’ medicines out there that promise to restore your hair that creating a bit of public awareness about it can really help. It’s a huge deal for some people. When I was younger I was very proud of my hair. I think I recently posted a couple of pics from the late eighties and early nineties when my hair was well below my shoulders. When I realized that my hair line was receding it was extremely depressing. While not as serious or harming as the degeneration of eyesight or arthritis, hair loss IS a medical condition and legitimizing it as such in the eyes of the medical community is a good thing.

With the advent of the World Wide Web it is much easier to find needed information and I would have to tell anyone that I know that might be looking for hair loss remedies to go check out the American Hair Loss Association and see what they have to say about it. Products that are legitimate and recommended by the AHLA display the seal shown on their web site. That’s what you want to look for…

Rest in Peace…Dan Fogelberg

rmiles7721December 16, 20077Entertainment

Dan Fogelberg has passed away at the tender age of 56. He has apparently been battling Prostate Cancer since 2004 and died peacefully at his home in Maine with his wife Jean by his side. He’s not one of the huge names in rock but his music is instantly recognizable such as Leader of the Band…

 

Another Day in Paradise…

rmiles7721December 16, 2007Parenting/Family

It’s been kind of a slow weekend here at the house but too darned busy at work. We are all gearing up for Christmas at work, which means lots of extra preparation to get ready for next week. I get asked all the time why we stay open for Christmas. This is normally by people who assume that nobody goes out to eat on Christmas day. That’s about as far from the truth as you can get. Christmas is by far the busiest day of the year for us out of the entire year. Some stores aren’t that much busier than a normal weekend but in the case of my three my business literally doubles. My slowest store will do about ten times the normal business, which is insane. On a normal Tuesday that store grosses about $500. Christmas Day last year it did $5000. We don’t really make that much more money because we spend so much more money on payroll. Not only that but since it’s busier, the margin of error for pricing mistakes and register errors goes up as well.

The managers are supposed to be starting their thaw and extra prep work today and I have to make sure to go around over the next week and verify it’s getting done as well as get a couple more people working in some of the empty slots that aren’t filled. Everyone works on Christmas Day with no exceptions, and even with that I have several empty slots in two of my stores simply because I can’t just hire and train five or six more people just to let them go on January 2nd, which starts the slowest time of the year for me and the couple of months where I will be really cutting back on expenses.

It looks like we will be doing our Christmas on the 24th after all this year. As a store manager I would typically get two days off the week prior and Santa would visit the kids then but this year Carroll County is starting their Christmas break four days prior to Christmas and I just won’t have any time off. Not only that but my brother won’t be in town until around the 23rd. I think that most of the family is going to be here for it, which will be nice.

Once the holidays are over I need to get back down in the basement again and get some cleaning done. It is getting full and unorganized again and the perfect time to do some straightening up will be when we go to store the Christmas lights. I at least wouldn’t mind organizing the back room. All of the Marine’s stuff is stored in there as well as old furniture and decorations. I would kind of like to move some of my computer equipment out of the garage and into the back room, such as my wireless router and cable modem as well as my home automation equipment.

I am going to try and get out of the stores by four this afternoon. While I was just off on Thursday I spent seven hours in meetings and am tired. I want to spend some time at home with the girls, even if it’s just watching them play and fooling around on the computer. It all depends on my staffing. I guess it’s just that time of the year but I have had about eight people call out in my district over the last two days. Part of that is because the manager’s put up with it.

It’s time to start getting ready for work now, I will hopefully be back later this afternoon.

Late Night at Work

rmiles7721December 15, 2007Site News

For awhile there it looked as if I was going to have to work the graveyard shift last night and I was, needless to say, not very happy about it. I had one of my managers off yesterday so I was running his store and at the end of the shift yesterday morning the cook let me know that she had given him her two weeks notice, that she was moving and needed to transfer but that she would work through the holidays. For the most part I believe her as she knows that I can keep her from working for us at all if she doesn’t work through the end of the month. I already called the Division manager where she wants to go and we made this very clear. Then she asks for an advance on her paycheck because she is having to move.

I have this cool deal with the local bank. They don’t lend cook fucking waffles and I don’t lend money. It’s a sweet deal and keeps me out of trouble. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve given out five or ten bucks in gas money and there are a couple of long-term employees that I have even made personal loans to but those have always come out of my pocket. The last thing I am going to do is lend my company’s money to some crack-addled bitch that is getting thrown out of her house. I would end up being out the money and endanger my job. It’s just not my money to lend. Of course I didn’t go into all of that, I just told her no. Then I started looking for a cook because at 7 am yesterday morning I knew she was going to hang me.

Nobody had an extra cook but one of the waitresses is married to a guy that works at one of my other stores and he agree about 3 PM to do it for me. Along comes 8 PM last night and someone else calls in for her, I call the dude and he’s too drunk to work. Asshole.

I eventually found someone form a neighboring town and just had to come off with some gas money. Heck, the guy won’t even be any overtime. I think I made it home by ten last night so it could have been much worse than it was.

Christmas week is about to start for me and I am certainly not looking forward to it. I was going to have the additional help of a couple of manager trainees but since another manager quit from the store I opened last fall they are going to end up taking one of my trainees. So much for that.

Some days I just wake up and wonder if the promotion was worth it. I certainly think so on payday but it’s damn harder than I thought it was going to be. I am under much more scrutiny than I ever was as a store manager. As a manager they pretty much left me alone since I have done it so long. The only thing I really had to bitch about then was the crack-heads…

Thursday Thirteen #9 – Thirteen Reasons This Wasn’t Posted on Thursday!

rmiles7721December 14, 20072Site News

Like I said in the last post, I am a bit behind this week. I arrived home from meetings around 9:15 last night and while I posted some news and pictures I darn sure didn’t feel like thinking…


Thirteen Reasons This Wasn’t Posted on Thursday

1…. Uh…My Dog ate my homework?
2…. No, No…My dog ate my keyboard!
3…. My dick fell off?
4…. My wife grounded me…
5…. For a month!
6…. I was busy winning the Megamillions
7…. The I lost it!
8…. I ran out of gas
9…. I had to walk up hill to get to my computer…
10…. Both ways!
11…. I overslept
12…. Ran out of coffee? (we all know sleep is just a cheap caffeine substitute)
13…. I’m a slacker…

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