L double A and a bunch of BS

Tis the season!

2009-02-27T12:00:00.000-08:00

I do love this time of year!!! Fresh snow that goes away in a couple of days!

The SUN shining longer into the day.

All restaurants serving fish for lent!!!!

and last but not least... the annual Fish Fry trip to New Auburn... a small town of 300 that serves thousands in a day in their firehouse.... Got to love it!!! and some of the experiences we have had..

Oozers... you have to ask Alex about this
bread and butter fish sandwiches... Lowell favorite
3 hour bar hop on the way home... and Jello shots.... oh the memories

Really???

2009-02-14T16:07:00.001-08:00

Ok, So I have watched the previews to Paul Blart, Mall Cop. Kevin James as a Mall officer. I always chuckled when I saw him on the segway! I thought to myself.. How would you run someone down? You going to just run them over or what?

Being as I do not go to malls much, Today the wife and I were at Southdale heading towards the bookstore. I had to do a double take.... Yup, There was a Mall cop on a segway scooting around the Mall... Are you kidding me? Seriously?? What has the world come to?

My question to everyone else... Now I know there is one at Southdale.. Have you seen one at any other malls.

ever ask why?

2009-01-16T09:38:00.000-08:00

As I was browsing the internet.. I found some questions that made me go hmmmm.

If a cow laughed real hard, would milk come out her nose?

If you tied buttered toast to the back of a cat and dropped it from a height, what would happen?
Not that i would do this but it would be interesting as my toast always falls butter to the floor.

Why do they put Braille dots on the keypad of the drive-up ATM? Do we really let blind people drive?

If pro is the opposite of con, is progress the opposite of congress? this just made me chuckle

Why is it called a "near miss" when you don't hit something?

If a man is standing in the middle of the forest speaking and there is no woman around to hear him, is he still wrong? I have always loved this one

What no chicken? aren't you KFC?

2009-01-12T03:31:00.000-08:00

So it's quarter to six last night and we are trying to decide what to have for dinner. We decide KFC not to far and fairly reasonable.

We start to order and wife orders a 2 piece meal "dark meat" original recipe and we hear.
"I am sorry but that will be 13 minutes we ran out of chicken".
So wife asks how about extra crispy.
"Nope we are out of that too.."

so we get to wait 15 minutes for our food. Oh the joy. Fine dining at its best.

How do you run a Kentucky Fried CHICKEN and run out of CHICKEN? I am only posting this since this is the THIRD time this has happened to us at this location.

Then the question is why do we go back?

Ode' to the Oakland Raiders

2008-12-29T10:08:00.000-08:00

Finally!!!

After many years of listening to my brother in law rub it in about the Hawkeyes beating the gophers and even after a dismal performance by the vikings against tampa this year.

All I can say is..... Who is in the playoffs now???? Minnesota.... and Who is not.... Tampa.... and who knocked Tampa out...Oakland??? ( OUCH ) is all I can say...

Well you still have your Hawks in the bowl game and I am sure they will win. Not counting on the gophers or even the vikings winning.

Just had to take my opportunity when it came up. Just a little bit of ribbing coming back at you for a change.

Let it snow let it snow????

2008-12-16T10:17:00.000-08:00

Ok, With my previous post I was reluctant to claim it was time for winter. With yesterdays and todays temperatures not even reaching a whopping zero degrees. Winter is here in its full glory.

Forecast for the next three days... snow and cold... snow and cold... snow and cold.

The snowblower has already been used three times.

The good news is there will be a white christmas this year at our new house!

That first time

2008-12-12T13:27:00.000-08:00

My question is to all you parents out there. What was your first thought when you saw/held your new born child for the first time.

Mine - Man, that little guy relies on me for everything.

It was kind of overwhelming at the time... and that was 15 years ago... I am sure this will seem like the first time all over again....

Let me know your thoughts/ experiences

AC / DC

2008-11-23T21:17:00.000-08:00

Well, back home from the concert. Ears are ringing. But I must say this was one of the best concerts I have seen. ( and I have seen quite a few! ) For being older guys. They sure can put on a show!

I loved the Rock N Roll Train and TNT the best.

It was interesting to see the vast age range of people at this concert. I would have to say from the young age of 7 to 8 years old all the way to 70+

One thing that wasn't the best... ladies in leather after the age of 50... I seriously did not enjoy those sites...

Mixed emotions

2008-11-18T09:45:00.000-08:00

Here we are, the 3rd week in November. What should be an exciting (buying a "new toy" a snow blower) but I have mixed emotions about it.

Yeah, its a new piece of equipment to tinker with.
But this is admitting that winter is close

I am not ready to admit that winter is here yet. All the signs around the area are here. No leaves on the trees, the ponds have a nice layer of ice on them. The shower floor is very cold in the mornings. The sun sets before you eat dinner, Christmas is in all the stores......

I just don't want it to be winter yet!! Where did the summer and fall go... it just disappeared so quickly.. now we are talking about Thanksgiving and Christmas....

I wish winter would move through as quickly as Fall does...

Peace

If you know me this will be hard to believe

2008-11-07T04:41:00.000-08:00

Yesterday afternoon, My wonderful wife decided to take me to what I would call "something about culture" We went and saw the Musical Wicked. Yeah I went to a musical.... didn't know that it was a musical when I agreed to it, I thought it was a play based on the book. I found out hours before the show it was a musical. Oh boy was I surprised!

Well long story short- The Musical was great. The lady that played Elfaba "The wicked witch" was amazing! Galinda being the blonde was hilarious. Yup I would highly recommend this show to everyone. It's even better if you have read the book. The only reason it seemed like 3 hours for the show was the smallness of the chair for me.

Interesting enough prior to the show we walked a little of downtown Minneapolis and I was able to show my wife some of the older buildings with all the special designs they used to use when building. We came across a little artwork as we walked too.

It was a date with my wife I will always remember!

My favorite part of the musical... When Elfaba was asked whats wrong.. . She states "nothing I just feel wicked"

IF you can get tickets I would rate this as a must see

To vote or not to vote???

2008-11-04T12:05:00.000-08:00

That is the American choice! And I for one am glad we have one!

Today one of my fellow coworkers decided to push there political viewpoints towards me. So being the instigator I am.... I indicated that she was wrong and I did NOT have to vote. My choice. She then proceeded to tell me that because I didn't vote I could personally ruin the results and the country goes to hell when people don't vote. I continued to push her buttons by the time she walked away from me I believe she was completely frustrated with me and my playin the devils advocate.

My responses that completely frustrated her

" the president is just a figurehead they really don't have control of the direction of this country.. congress does"

"If Obama wins its because he is a minority.... if he loses its because he is a minority either way someone is crying fowl"

"Filibuster proof congress is bad for the country as it allows for one side to run their agenda without regulation"

"Why bother our votes really don't count.. its the electoral votes that count"

Other than having my fun playing with "her pushiness" Yup I can be an A$$

I did vote as is my right....

God bless America.....

Interesting conversation

2008-10-30T06:05:00.000-07:00

Have you ever talked to someone and wonder... What did you just say? Did you really say that?

I had one such conversation last night as I went to bed.....

As I opened the door to our bedroom, I noticed the light was still on and my wife sitting in bed with a book propped up on her legs.

I ask "ah you are still up"
response "nope I am sleeping"
I respond "oh really'
response "yup"
I respond " ok "
response " you know what I mean" as she puts the book on the shelf and turns off the lamp

I really enjoyed that conversation. In fact I am still smiling as I am writing this...

Training- ooh the joy

2008-10-23T03:53:00.000-07:00

Having sat through two days of training, and getting ready for a third. I ask myself what have I learned in this time?

I am having a hard time justifying the training time versus actually being in the field and helping my accounts as I watch my inbox go from 37 emails to 121 emails in that time.

Day 1 - 10 of us in the room working on brainstorming ideas on how better to work with the sales department... (sales was not in this meeting) Don't you think we should include their ideas and barriers to this discussion?

Day 2 - Training on a specific software. Great for my peers, having been the implementation manager for this software... bored to death for 3 hours. And to find out my peers still want more training via web ex demonstration.. oh the joy.

Day 2 - Presentation time. I have been elected to present my business plan for FY09. No big deal. 30 minutes and a few tricky questions No problem. Now to watch my peer struggle for 30 minutes because he didn't take the time to prepare... painful

Day 2 - listening for the third year in a row how we are going to focus on training for our employees. Then of all the people in the organization to join us for lunch... our service managers. of whom we never have dealings with. To give you an example of how much fun they are. Their boss stands up and thanks us for the "roughly 14.9 %" of their volume.... really roughly 14.9% wonder if he actually wasn't rounding up how many digits he would have gone out????

The best part of day 2.... and where did these ideas come up from

Team Building.. but I am at a loss as to how these helped.
part 1: we all sit in two rows and pass a box of paper clips one at a time to the end.... oooh the fun
part 2. split into four teams and put a jigsaw puzzle together... As we worked on this the typical people sat back and the others put the puzzle together.... What was my boss thinking on this?

Now as I look at the clock this morning.. to try and get myself motivated for a third day??? Well at least its Thursday and I get to see my nephew on Saturday!!

etiquette?

2008-10-09T13:24:00.000-07:00

Random thought -

What is the right etiquette in these situations?

When you sit down at a table at the restaurant should the female gender be seated first?
If you see a car speeding up to get in front of you when they are merging from the right. Do you speed up or slow down or do you maintain your speed and make them either speed up more or slow down?
You come home and see your spouse has cleaned up the kitchen completely? Is it okay to grab a glass of water and dirty a dish? How long do you wait until it is okay to make something in the kitchen without frustrating your spouse?
If somebody in the house is cleaning and you offer to help and they say "no" but you can sense the frustration. What should you do?
On the other hand you just finished cleaning the kitchen and your spouse immediately makes something and makes a small mess... does this bother you? Why?
Should guys still open doors for ladies? Is it appreciated or even expected?

I ask these questions only because there are so many different viewpoints on this and I am curious about your thoughts on this matter.

When I was growing up and my mother would start cleaning the house. The best and safest course of action was "abandon ship" or "clear the decks". In other words stay out of her way and make yourself unseen or feel the wrath. I jest, of course it wasn't quite that bad, but you get the idea.

Odd isn't it

2008-10-05T16:45:00.000-07:00

As I sit here thinking about the past week a thought or two comes to mind.

The first one is - Am I crazy? Do they really believe that lowering the gas prices really will impact the vote for McCain? Could they realy believe we are all that short sighted? Or is it just cooincidence that as we get closer to the vote that the price per gallon has dropped signifigantly? Not having done my due diligence here has the price per barrel really dropped that much and the impact of "IKE" not affected us like any other hurricane? It just seems odd that there is always a reason to raise the price of gas. Now it goes down without so much of a whisper in the air as to why?

The other thought running through my mind currently is why can't people just let go? I am thinking about a recent event that my wife told me about. During a game of volleyball one player called the other in the net. Instead of just disagreeing they continued to argue.. My wife even commented to the one. Its over you won no big deal... His response. Somebody needs to tell him he is wrong.. cause he is wrong... My thought... who cares the game is over just drop it. But as I watch interactions with people lately I am amazed how some of my coworkers just can't let go of some things. To the point it gets them all worked up and they seem like they are going to pop at any moment

Again random thoughts - as is everything in my head