It is 8:00PM and I am sitting in my car in front of the place I work, leeching off the internet while I wait for someone.

I'm so freakin' tired, too. Today was a long day with a lot of time spent on the road. I just want to go home and sleep.

On my way back home this afternoon, I stopped in at the local Chinese restaurant to get some carry-out food. When I walked in, there was an old man standing at the counter, ordering. After he placed his order, he said something along the lines of, "So I hear China is going to war with the U.S. Or is the U.S. going to war with China?"

Puzzled, the guy behind the counter said, "I don't know what you're talking about. I've not heard about any war." The old man began talking about the Chinese government being involved with Iran, and the U.S. fighting Iran, and the U.S. being dependant on the Chinese economic system, and so on...

The guy behind the counter, who was Chinese himself, handled it very professionally. When the old guy was leaving, the cashier said, "I suggest you not talk about such things next time without thinking about what you are saying and who you are saying it to." Not once did he argue with the old guy, nor did he raise his voice.

So yeah, that old guy needs to be flogged. That would be like me walking up to him and saying something like, "So you're going to die soon..."

I took a trip to the big city of Lafayette today, just to get out and relax. While I was there, I went to the mall and got my glasses adjusted and new nose pads put on. On my way back to the car, I was strolling through the mall behind a lady in a wheelchair.

This lady had a baby in her lap, and was taking care of it as she rolled along. There was nothing wrong with the picture, as the baby was happy and content, and the mother appeard to not be struggling.

Something was very disturbing about the scene though. As we walked along, there were people everywhere. They would strain their necks to stare and gawk at the woman as she made her way through the mall. What was so out of place that made them stare?! Last I checked, it's normal for a human female to be tending to a baby, and last I knew it was called mothering.

I realize that it may be impressive to some people, to see a person with such an obvious disadvantage to the "Game of Life", completing a task most would deem as normal. But for every person to stop what they're doing and follow the woman with their eyes as she strolled past?

Had I followed much longer, I would have probably said something to these people, but I was at the exit and the woman was rolling farther on.

Okay, yeah, I know I don't drink. The title is fitting though.

I worked at the Winfield shop today, doing some computer work. I got a good portion of it done, but I'm far from finished. I had to pull 2 100 foot runs of Cat5e by myself, I had to set up and configure a new laser printer, I had to work with a software vendor on the phone to get the software to play nice with the new printer, and I had to figure out WTF I'm going to do for the network once I get it started.

I started at 9:00 this morning and had to call it a day around 4:45, load up my car with oil supplies for the shops down this way, and make it to both shops before 6:00PM with paychecks.

The shop policy is that paychecks are delivered at 6:00PM, every other Friday. Employees are responsible for cashing their checks or depositing them in a bank account. Because most everyone has a bank account, it's not a big issue. However, there is one employee who does not have a bank account, and he feels that it should be our responsibility, as management, to either modify the schedule to allow him to cash his check during business hours, or cash it for him.

First off, the schedule is the schedule. Sure, at the Rensselaer shop, I allow the guys to go cash their checks, but only because they all bank right there in town. The time they take out of the day to go cash their checks is minimal, and we have no shortage of staffing to allow them to do so. In Wheatfield, it's a bit of a different story.

What everyone has done is they've established a checking account, and they just drop their checks off at the bank in the night drop. Others have done all of that, but they have a family member drop the check off for them. This one employee hasn't done so, even after being told by the president of the company, the lady that signs his paycheck, that he is required to establish a checking account and that we cannot work around him cashing his check any longer.

This morning I got a phone call from him, asking me to cash his check for him or show up at the shop early enough that he can leave and take care of it. Problem 1: I can't sign his check and cash it for him. Problem 2: I had to go from the Wheatfield shop to the Rensselaer shop to deliver their checks before 6:00, so I wouldn't have been able to stick around in his place. I told him that I couldn't make him any promises, but I would see what I could work out. Well, what I worked out after talking with the boss is that he was responsible for getting his check cashed or deposited in his bank account on his own time. When I showed up at the shop, he was complaining that I was too late and that he didn't have money for gas in his car, yadda yadda yadda...

Here's how I feel: It's not my problem.

He has had ample time to open a bank account, and has even been told by the corporate president that he is required to and that we would not work around him to take care of it. For him to ask me today to take care of it for him took a lot of gall. I'm the manager, yes, and I take care of my staff, yes, but I don't baby anyone. He knows that, too. Every time I have been responsible for training someone, I've thrown them in head-first, and they have turned out to learn a lot and become very self-sufficient, which is the goal. Unfortunately, I've not had much part in training him, so he's not turned out that way.

Don't get me wrong, I will help my guys out when they're in trouble, but for something so repetitive like this, something so small, even when he claims he has no money for gas, is just like a gong - it means nothing to me. Heck, it's almost like him spitting in my face, asking me to do this for him. He has a day off in the middle of the week. He has a car. He has his own time to do things. Why the heck has he not done anything about this yet?!

That rant aside, I think I'm going to head to bed early or something. I'm worn out and I'm bored out of my mind.

Okay, so this guy that quit back in May, or whenever it was, filed for unemployment.

Here's the circumstances, though:

He was written up once for an issue. He was verbally warned another time for the same thing, and when there was another issue after that, he was given a verbal warning about it and a memo was written to be put in his employee file. The memo was in no way a warning, but it was a means of making sure the employee was aware of the situation and that we had documentation of it.

When this guy was presented with the memo and the verbal warning, he quit on the spot. I received a rather unsettling voicemail message right after he quit, sort of threatening me.

Since then, he's tried to be my friend, and doesn't understand that because of how he treated me at work, when I was just doing my job as a manager, that I don't really care to socialize with him.

Now, he's filed for unemployment, nearly 3 months later, against the company he quit from, even when he failed to follow procedure, was given numerous verbal warnings, and was written up for insubordination.

I really hope he takes the protest that the boss files to court, and I want to go to the trial, just to sit there and laugh in his face.

Stupid work schedule making me get up at stupid 7:00AM to stupid go to stupid work to stupid miss the stupid storm.

Bleh.

There's a "perfect storm", by my definition, heading southeast through the next county over. Since I have to work tomorrow, I can't go out and chase it. Plus, it's getting dark, which makes it kinda hard to see anything other than lightning.

I did get some pictures of a couple storm cells before they passed the area. I'll have to set up a gallery somewhere and post 'em.

Charles, Ryan, Brian, Bill, Mike, Todd, Lisa...

If you guys read this, cool. You guys rock!

I have to say, even with the issues that we're dealing with at the shops, I am very very very pleased with the staff we have now. I mean, I'm not ashamed to use your names up there! That means a lot! We work extremely well as a team, the customers are extremely happy, and the numbers at the end of the day show it.

The way things are going now, I am ready to propose that we expand the business. No, I don't mean a fourth shop, I mean MANY more shops. Talking with the different people I do here on this internet thingy, it's hard to find an honest and friendly oil change place. What are we? Liars and rude? I didn't think so. We have a market to conquer. Are you ready?

Okay, so the name thing... I typically don't use names, because I want to preserve your privacy, but in this case I feel that your privacy has already been usurped thanks to the Quick Hick's website, and that me posting your first names here is doing no more damage. I promise that if I rant about any of you in the future, I'll use a more cryptic name. :P

And with that weird rant, I'm going to bed. Goodnight.

I just took a trip, because I felt like driving and because the weather was nice and because I could.

I logged my trip, if you're interested in seeing where I went. It was a total of 106 miles, spanning two states, covering an area of 258 square miles, for a total length of 2 hours, 24 minutes, and 10 seconds.

I think I'm going to start taking trips on the weekends, just while the weather is nice. I want to pack up and head out on Saturday afternoon, drive until sunset, crash for the night, sleep until about 10:00am Sunday morning, head out and see some sights, then head back home.

Apparently I'm having a bad day.

I was just working on a software project (not GPS), and I had to print something. I've been listening to music through my headphones for the last hour or so, so I had my headphones on when I printed.

As I stood up to retrieve my printout from the printer, above my monitor, the 12-foot cable for my headphones happened to get caught under my right foot. It happened so quick that I couldn't avoid it, but as I continued to stand up, the cable ripped from the volume control and from the earpieces.

I'm not out my $30.00 Koss headphones, cursed to listening to the television in the next room, which is turned to British comedy. I think I'm going to quit coding for the night.

As I previously posted, I went out and bought a GPS unit last weekend. Since then, I've been working on finding or writing some "dashboard" software to run on my laptop for it, since it's really hard to see the 1½" by 3" screen driving down the road.

I just drew the last straw with Microsoft's oh-so-wonderful development suite. That's right, I am not going to use any "Visual" languages ever again, so long as I live.

But now, I'm kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place. There's no software that'll do what I'm looking for, and the languages I've not sworn off aren't really capable of what I'm wanting to do. I was able to read a small chunk from the COM port, using fopen(), passing the name of my port as the filename to open. The problem I'm having, though, is that I can't really parse the NMEA output in realtime with PHP. It's basically impossible.

I'm getting rather frustrated with this coding crap, and I'm really upset that there's no software existing to do what I'm wanting.

I just found myself doing something kinda vile...

I was searching for names of people on MySpace. As vile as that may be in itself, I was searching for the "popular" and "rich" kids that I used to know/hang out with. I was just searching for them in hopes that I might find one that is no longer very good looking, or has all the fancy things in life.

It's kinda like seeing a big time TV personality that everyone always looked up to, being given a prison sentence.

WARNING: This post contains some graphic profanity. If you find it offensive, click here and search for something less profane.

Every year, my sister and her husband take a vacation on the week of their anniversary. Two years ago, they asked me to take care of their dogs and their house while they were gone, as it would give me an opportunity to relax on my own terms.

Last year, I was unable to do this, because I had just started the job I'm at now and I needed the money as equally as my employers needed the reliable staff. This year is different though.

See, last year when I couldn't go over there to take care of things for them, I told my sister that I would this year to use up one of my weeks of paid vacation. I also informed my employers of my plans. This May, when I was eligible for my vacation time, the staff vacation schedule made its way though the shops, and I marked that I wanted one of the last two weeks of September off so that I may go have some time to myself, away from this Hell-hole of a town, and away from work - something that everyone needs.

Tonight, when I got home from work, my mother had the audacity to ask, "When were you planning on going over there? Dad and I are trying to work out something so that we can take a trip to South Dakota on the last two weeks of September, and we'll need to you stay here to take care of the animals and the house."

Translated, she said, "I don't give two shits what your plans were for those weeks. You're going to call off and stay here whether you like it or not. I am more important than you."

WHAT THE HELL?!

I have had these plans in the making for the last damned year, and she has the nerve to abolish those plans in favor of her own?!

Rearrange these letters to compose a word that I would like to say, but will not for the sake of the children: K, U, F, C.

It makes me so angry to know that she's doing this. She was well aware that I was making these plans a long time ago, and she's also well aware that I'm going to have to keep working, or take my "vacation" here in the same area I tread every day. She's jealous that I'm going to have my own vacation time away from everything, and she's wanting to out-do me. I know it is, because that's just how she works and that's how she always has worked.

So what are my options now?

Option #1: Stay in the Rensselaer area for my week of paid vacation, doing the same thing I do every day.

Option #2: Take a trip to another town in another state, spend the money on room and board, spend the money on every meal of the day, and spend the money to do anything outside of sit in the hotel room.

Option #3: (This is going to be the most likely scenario) Keep working right through to my 2-year anniversary, not taking any vacation time, and getting even more burned-out on life.

See, the thing is, I love my parents, I love my sisters, I love my job, and I love the people I work with and for. But I need time away from people. I need time to work on my own terms. I need time to sleep in. I need time to ignore the telephone. I need time to do whatever the Hell I want. Now, it's not looking likely that I'll be able to do that.

What a shitty end to what was a nice day.

I had a nice surprise at work today. Another friend that I've not seen in a fairly good span of time (but I've kept in touch with online) stopped by the shop.

The little things like that make me happy. :)

I took today as a sort of personal day. No, I wasn't supposed to work or anything; The shop is closed on Sunday. I just decided that my time was just as important as anyone else's. Therefore, I took the day to sleep in and go spend some time with a couple friends.

I went to Lafayette to eat lunch with my best friend and his fiance. We had fun and got to catch up a little bit on things. After I got done there, I went to the mall to see about getting some new work shoes for one of the guys at the shop. When I found out that "The Finish Line" sucks and that nobody else had what I was looking for, I decided to go do a little shopping for myself.

I ended up at "Barnes & Noble" to look at books about management and motivating staff. The book is titled "151 Quick Ideas to Inspire Your Staff", ISBN #1-56414-829-7. It looks to be something that I should get some good use out of, but I'm really hoping that their ideas work. The bullets under the title say, "Attract the Best and Keep Them", "Build an Eager, Willing, and Driven Team", and "Get Them to Do What You Want because They Want to Do It."

So after I left the bookstore, I headed next door to Best Buy and spent a little time just looking around. I ended up back at the mobile electronics section, where I picked up a Garmin eTrex Legend. I've always wanted a GPS device, and I decided that since I had a little extra money stashed away that I'd go ahead and get one. This is a fairly basic unit that doesn't do a whole lot of fancy stuff, but it does some, and it gives me the information I would need. After I got the thing back to my car, I fought with it to acquire a signal. When I finaly realized that the big parking lot light that towered over my car was blocking any decent signals, I moved to another parking lot and set the unit on my dashboard while I flipped through the manual. Finally, the thing acquired a signal and I was on my way.

From there, I ended up on the Jasper/White county line, on a gravel road, where I stopped at a house that was perfectly round. I spent a little time there, meeting up with another good friend, obtaining a tour of the house that was in progress, and just socializing with her for a little bit. From there, I made my way back to Rensselaer, stopped at the car wash, and got my car cleaned up.

After I got my car washed, I headed back home, did my laundry, then headed back to town for a little bit with Dad. We got back home, which is where I was at the start of this entry. It's actually been about half an hour or so since I started writing this thing, thanks to "Boss Lady" calling, as well as "Friend Dude" calling.

All in all, today was a good day and it gave me that personal time I've been needing for a while. Here in a couple weeks I'll be taking a week of my vacation time to "house-sit" for my sister (MSL) and her husband while they're on their anniversary vacation. Just before that, I'll be getting dressed up to go to my best friend's wedding.

The first chapter in this book can relate to personal time though: If you wait to have time, you'll never get around to it. I'm not waiting.

Sometime last week, Monday I believe, my DVD burner decided it didn't like me anymore. When I put a movie in the drive with the intent of watching it, I heard sounds of plastic breaking apart and scratching the disk up.

That night, I ordered a brand new Samsung LightScribe DVD burner (-, +, DL, R, RW) for less than $40, and I got a pack of DVD+R LightScribe media with it. Well, sometime in the last 2 days the package arrived, and I just got it all set up today. I have to say, aside from the slow rate it burns the label image, it's a very nice drive.

My old Lite-On drive had a tendency to close itself when it shouldn't if you so much as thought about closing it. You could look at the stupid thing sideways and it would close. This new drive doesn't even think about it!