Vacations…

rmiles7721May 20, 2007Travel

Yeah, this has been an extremely long hard week. All I am thinking about is vacation time. I have had to bump mine from the scheduled week in the middle of June to just after Independence Day. I don’t remember the last time that I actually took a vacation in July. It’s been quite a while though.

Any time that I start looking for a vacation spot I get online and the first thing I do is look at the places I know I can’t afford. Stupid, huh? I have actually found some pretty good deals this way, some of them I CAN actually afford. Before the end of the year the wife and I will have up to date passports, as with the new job I will be able to travel a bit. The trick is to get the extra time off, but with the addition of one ten day vacation each year that pretty much solves the time-off issue as well.

A friend of ours from that we met back in September of last year in Helen lives in Canada. There are always pretty cheap flights to Canada to be found, particularly in the fall and winter. I tend to try and visit places in the non-touristy season because rates are always the best then. There are also some really good rates on flights to Caribbean areas right now as well, even though it’s still pretty busy down there in the summer.

I would really like to get down to the Caribbean at some point, or if not, then at least Key West or the surrounding areas. What would be really cool is to have a blogmeet down there. Get some of the Jawja bloggers down there as well as some of the others that I know from overseas. It would be a blast. They should be able to get decent flights to USA airports at a good rate right now too.

The Peter Principle…AKA…

rmiles7721May 19, 2007Site News

…shit rises to the top. I am very familiar with the Peter Principle as just about anyone that is in any kind of management position is as well. Ron has a quick post up about the Peter Principle that I can completely relate to.

Holidays in the USA

rmiles7721May 19, 2007Travel

Of course since I live here I am a bit biased, but there are so many things to do in the United States on holiday. One of the places that have been to that I think any visitor to the United States should go see is New York. Right now you can get a flight to New York at a pretty decent price. Whether it is something as complicated as a two week vacation or simply a series of New York weekend breaks there is something right for you.

New York is the largest city in the entire United States. Just the city itself has a population of over 8 million people and that doesn’t count the metro and surrounding urban areas.

800px-Central_Park_New_York_City_New_York_23_cropped.jpg

This is a picture taken in Central Park in New York City courtesy of Wiki and is in the public domain. It is a picture of a Gothic arch bridge spanning the bridle path south of the tennis courts. When I was in New York back in 1986 I was able to do a bit of site-seeing but the closest I go to Central Park was the Plaza Hotel.

One of the things that amazed me while I was there was the eclectic mix of architecture. That same mix is also shown in the inhabitants of New York, the true melting pot of United States society.

If you are coming to the U.S. but don’t want to deal with the hassle of the big city there is always the option of getting a cheap flight to Orlando and going to Disney or one of the other big area attractions, or maybe just nap during the day and lie out by the pool in the evenings for a pretty relaxing time.

Five Phone Calls = Three Hours of Sleep

rmiles7721May 19, 20072Site News

People are so damn stupid. Perhaps I will wait until about 11AM today and call everyone on third shift that decided to call me last night just to make sure they are doing OK and getting plenty of sleep. Considering that I was THERE until 10PM they could have asked some of the questions then.

“Why are there three waitresses working tonight?”

It’s Friday night!. One of my three managers actually called at 11:47PM to ask that.

“We dropped most of the money in the safe and don’t have any fives or tens.”

This is the store that sits in the middle of a shopping center, which includes a 24 hour Wal-Mart. I suggested (very nicely) that someone make a trip to Wally World.

I don’t remember what the other three calls were at all. My head is pounding and I almost didn’t get out of bed this morning when the alarm went off.

Full Tilt Poker

rmiles7721May 18, 20073Entertainment

This review is sponsored by Poker-strategy.org.

This is the second Poker site I have reviewed in the last month or two and I found it pretty interesting. It is the highest rakeback that I have seen so far for Full Tilt Poker at 27%. Full Tilt Poker is still accepting players from the United States and they are the most popular poker room that has a rakeback plan in place. Since most sites have blocked players from the United States (or at least their accounts) due to our oppressive laws Full Tilt Poker has become the number one choice for American players.

All you have to do is visit them and download the software, create an account and complete the registration process. It might ask you for a bonus code when you are registering, that is available at the Full Tilt Poker Rakeback page. Once you have gotten all set up and are ready to go, email them with your Full Tilt Poker user name and they will enter you into the Full Tilt Poker Rakeback program and give you the ability to track your daily totals. Do it before you make any kind of a deposit so that you can verify that you are hooked into a real money account.

What’s nice is that the software used was programmed and reviewed by poker players and is very professional and smooth. The color code the rooms so that you know the difference between real money and play money rooms and have professional celebrity players online as well quite often. During Prime Time you can find up to 15,000 players online, which makes Full Tilt one of the largest independent online poker rooms. If you are going to play online you might as well go where the pros do and get a decent Full Tilt Poker Rakeback at the same time.

Damned if you do…

rmiles7721May 18, 2007Site News

I managed to get home from my meetings about 8:30 last night. Pretty long day. Rather than sitting up late as I do sometimes, I hit the sack by ten so that I could get at least a few hours of sleep. All was well until about one this morning when they called me. The police were at my store because the two waitresses had been fighting.

…so much for sleep.

America NOT Founded Upon Christianity…

rmiles7721May 16, 20076Politics

I found this at DRC’s site, who in turn got it from Tammy and she is right in that it does need to be repeated and often.

In a recent Journal & Courier article, an attendee of a local gathering in observance of the National Day of Prayer alleged, “Our nation was founded on biblical principles.”

To the extent that our Founding Fathers had any religious affiliation at all, it was a tepid embracing of the philosophy of deism, a popular system of thought at the time. Jefferson, Franklin, Paine, among many others, held deist, rather than Christian, religious beliefs.

The two documents upon which our country was actually founded — i.e., the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States — contain not a word about Christianity, Christian principles, the Bible or Jesus Christ. Neither is there any mention of the Ten Commandments, heaven, prayer or being saved.

In 1797, the Treaty of Tripoli, negotiated by none other than George Washington, declared that “the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” Congress unanimously approved the text of this treaty, and John Adams signed it.

Mandatory church affiliation, among other factors, led to the establishment of the term a “wall of separation between church and state,” allowing, at each citizen’s discretion, freedom of religion or freedom from religion.

The phrase “under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, and our national motto became “In God We Trust” in 1956 in response to USSRs’ so-called “godless Communists.” It is historically incorrect to claim that America was founded upon Christianity.

Indeed, it was quite the opposite.

Randall S. Smith

Rossville

This Email Will Make Your Dick Bigger!

rmiles7721May 16, 20076Entertainment

Oh my. I saw that in my inbox and had to read. I’m still waiting. Liars.

waiting….

waiting….

asshats…

Enter the Nacho…

rmiles7721May 16, 2007Entertainment

I’m still not sure what to make of the new Dorito’s videos. They have to be about the most ridiculous things I have seen in quite some time, but I darn sure keep going back to watch them all anyway. Check this one out.

This one has the two new Doritos, Wild White Nacho fighting with Smokin’ Cheddar BBQ. I won’t give away the entire video but there are Nunchaku. The premise of the whole thing is to Fight for the flavor. We get to vote for our favorite new flavor of Doritos and only one will survive, with Doritos no longer making the other one. There is an entire storyline through the whole thing, so you have to watch them all to figure out what exactly is going on.

One of the videos I watched had them going at it in the ring with Cheese Knives (my favorite), a battle ax, and even a jackhammer, until one finally picks up the referee and bashes the other with him.

You can check out all of the videos over at Heavy’s Fight for the Flavor page and get to the voting links while you are there. I love Doritos but haven’t tried EITHER of these yet, so now I will have to get them when I go grocery shopping on Friday.

Jerry Falwell is Burning in Hell…

rmiles7721May 16, 2007Site News

…and I just about lost my cookies laughing when I read this post over at the Zero Boss.