Site News

For the last week or so we’ve had flyers up in my restaurant for missing Alabama teen Benjamin Stanford, who was last seen in Anniston, Alabama on the 5th. His Jeep Cherokee turned up in the town where my three stores are located, just about seven miles from my house and they have been searching the area ever since.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday there have been choppers flying all over the area as well as a pretty hefty police presence. As a matter of fact, although it’s completely unrelated, when I arrived at my meeting Monday afternoon at one of my restaurants, there were about eight officers with weapons drawn in the parking lot of the motel that sits behind it. I went inside pretty quickly although I was torn between staying outside and shooting some photos and actually going in to the meeting. Apparently it was a drug bust in one of the rooms but with all of the cops I saw yesterday it made me think about it.

I had to go to the Home Depot yesterday shortly before lunch to get some paint (which I have spent the last two days using in my stores) and as I was leaving I went out the back way up a road alongside a car dealership. There must have been 20 or 30 police cars from several different jurisdictions as well as news crews all hanging around. I kind of figured that they must have found the boy and sure enough they did.

According to the Carroll County Coroner, Sammy Eady, he had a gunshot wound consistent with suicide, but the Sheriff’s department is investigating anyway. His body was found about a 1000 feet from where his jeep turned up a few days ago.

Lot’s of excitement for my small but growing area and certainly not the kind of excitement anybody particularly wants. I feel bad for his family, regardless of whether Stanford killed himself or if there was foul play involved. Losing a child has got to be one of the most awful things that a parent can go through.

Just received a tweet on my phone whilst taking a lovely dump and what fitting news to get while on the crapper. O.J. is going to have to stand trial for Conspiracy, Kidnapping, Robbery, Burglary, Coercion and assault with a deadly weapon.

Bwahaha. Couldn’t have happened to a better guy.

I can remember back when he was arrested for murder back in the ’90s. I was still BBSing at that point online, and doing the same thing at work as I am doing now. I used to chat with my buddy Nightfalcon, who I think is in Tallahassee or some place right now. Anyway, we would talk about OJ and I was sure that bastard was going to be convicted.

Things are a bit different in Vegas than they are in Los Angeles though, particularly in the demographics of the area. He has pled not guilty to 12 criminal counts, which if convicted could get him sent to prison for life. One can only hope…

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. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your blog, you can go here.

Took this while the youngest was still singing last night prior to recording both of them.

Just a quick early week open track-back post. If you have something interesting that you want others to see, please feel free to send me a ping on this entry and your link will show up here. Please be aware that quite often Movabletype catches trackbacks as spam and it can sometimes sit in my spam folder up to 24 hours. Normally I will check them when I wake up and before I go to bed and I will get them published as soon as possible. For more information on Open Track-backs, please visit Linkfest Haven Deluxe at the link below.

What Is It About People…

That makes them gluttons for the punishment that I am gleefully going to distribute to the assholes tomorrow?

I should be abed currently. In bed. Whatever. Fucking asleep.

I asked one of my managers to get my sales and staffing this evening and to call them in to my boss at shift change tonight, about twenty minutes ago. When I stopped at the store I am running this evening after my Monday meeting I explained this to the employees there and told them I was going to attempt to get something called sleep. You know, the cheap caffeine substitute. I think I am coming down with something and either because of that or maybe because I’ve had about nine hours of sleep since Saturday evening I feel pretty damn wasted. Not good wasted either. Shitty wasted like I want to bite the heads off of small furry animals and spit them on people kind of wasted. That’s bad.

I told them the place had better be burning down for them to call me.

An aside before I go on…Since we started taking credit cards about a year and a half ago it has been a nice change. My bank deposits are smaller, which makes security issues easier, the people who pay via credit card normally tip higher averages than those who don’t, and everyone is happy. The waitresses get their tips at the end of the shift from the manager on duty unless they are just counting down the till with the next shift (about three or four nights a week) and then they have to leave them. I or one of my managers count up the credit card tips and stick them in envelopes the next day when we come in, for the waitresses to pick up at their convenience.

Convenience is a funny fucking word in this context.

So why is it that I am still awake sitting here eating chocolate bars and thinking about ripping Shrek’s guts out?

Because she fucking called me. Five minutes ago.

Was one of my restaurants burning to the ground?

Nope.

Perhaps I had been robbed?

Not this fine evening.

Had my manager not called and gotten sales?

No, he called, everyone is at work.

Perhaps the police came in and arrested one of my crack-whores?

Nope, all of the third shift is at work.

Shrek wanted her money.

Her credit card tips to be exact. She asked the guy playing my part if she could have them so he lied and told her he would call me and then call her back in five minutes. Twenty minutes later she called me to ask if she could get her five dollars before she left.

Five. Fucking. Dollars.

I get up at 4:30 every morning. I wonder what it would be like for the people on the other end if I just up and decided to call at 4:30 in the morning each and every one of the stupid fuckers that has ever decided that it was OK to call me and wake me up to ask some stupid fucking question that could have waited another eight hours for me to actually arrive at work…

Hasta mañana bitches.

A criminal probe is underway in the cargo ship crash that caused a pretty huge oil spill in the San Francisco Bay. The National Transportation Safety Board is also going to be investigating the incident.

The last couple of years I have been remiss in joining and never put the widget up for Project Valour-IT. This year I made sure to sign up and am on the Marine Corps team in honor of my son who is currently serving at Camp LeJeune.

‘Project Valour-IT, in memory of SFC William V. Ziegenfuss, helps provide voice-controlled and adaptive laptop computers to wounded Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines recovering from hand wounds and other severe injuries at major military medical centers. Operating laptops by speaking into a microphone or using other adaptive technologies, our wounded heroes are able to send and receive messages from friends and loved ones, surf the ‘Net, and communicate with buddies still in the field. The experience of MAJ Charles “Chuck” Ziegenfuss, a partner in the project who suffered serious hand wounds while serving in Iraq, illustrates how important these laptops can be to a wounded service member’s recovery.’

If you are interested in donating OR participating click on the link above and get involved. This is a great cause to be involved in. The 2007 Fundraising competition will run until November 11th, so I will leave this on top until then. I am also making this an open track-back post, which means that anyone that links to it from their site and sends a ping will get listed at the bottom of this entry.

Trackposted to Nuke’s, Perri Nelson’s Website, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, third world county, Right Truth, Blue Star Chronicles, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Big Dog’s Weblog, The Amboy Times, Dumb Ox Daily News, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

This is my weekend open track-back post for November 9th-11th.

Blatantly stolen from Linkfest Haven Deluxe:

When you set up a linkfest on your blog, its a lot of hard work, no doubt about it. However, there are several benefits.
Benefits to Hosts:
1) Visitors to your Blog
2) Links from those linking in
3) Readership for Your Spiels
This last deserves some comment. Over at Third World County, David makes a short commentary before getting to the post. I do this on occasion. I’ve done presidential campaign polls, I’ve had links to my book. You’ve got people at your website, so take advantage of it if you’re a host.
It’s also time consuming for posters to link to Linkfests, but they also get benefits out of this.
1) Exposure
2) Links to their work
3) Hits
The best benefit is that some people take a look at a linkfest, look around a little bit, like what they see and before you know it, you’ve got a regular reader on your hands. This happens to both hosts and guests. I credit linkfests with helping me increase the number of hits and comments I get on my blog.
If you’re new to blogging, linkfests are definitely for you. They’re a way for good bloggers to get ahead and promote their work. In addition, linkfests CAN increase your Technorati and Truth Laid Bear Ecosystem rankings. However, that’s not the primary benefit. The benefit is being read and becoming part of the blogging community.

The last Villa Rica home game was tonight, and we presented the sole kicker a $1,000 check. There was actually some confusion on her part (yes, her) because during the second game one guy did make the kick, but it came out later that he wasn’t a senior and might not even be going to college, so he was disqualified. She came prepared to try and kick another field goal, but was very nervous about it. When we got her up to take pictures and present it to her, she was pleasantly surprised to find out that she was the winner.

The game was pretty cool as well although I didn’t get to see as much of it as I would have liked since I was carrying around a five gallon backpack full of coffee to give out. The first one I had was hot chocolate and it went very quickly, then I got one with coffee and hauled that around until we presented the kicker with a check after the band played during half-time.

Since I had taken Pete with me and needed to get home I managed to avoid the traffic and get out of there during the 3rd Quarter. At that point we were losing 14-7. The Carrollton-Villa Rica rivalry is very long standing and there are always quite a few people at the game, enough to fill all of the parking lots as well as the sides of the road for about a mile in either direction.

There may be some pictures in the paper tomorrow. If so then I will post a couple here. I did manage to find one that I’m NOT in (hehe). I don’t remember what was going on but I didn’t attend the first home game of the season. These are the guys that I directly report to.

The girl pictured is the one who ended up receiving the $1k tonight. It was a pretty cool thing to do, with no strings attached other than she is supposed to use it for school, but either way she will be receiving the actual check later next week. It’s pretty cool to be able to do something like that in the community where I have been working for the better part of the last 28 years.