Thoughts, Ramblings, & Misunderstandings

Once my friend told me that he had found Jesus. I thought to myself, “WooHoo, we’re rich!” It turns out he meant something different.
- Jack Handey

This is very true

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/09/hurricanes_as_seen_from_orbit.html

This is from 2004, so almost 4 years ago. I was re-reading some old blog postings and this made me laugh and remember it oh so vividly.

December 3rd after coming back from the company Christmas Dinner at the Elks Lodge, I stopped at the Kwik Chek to get some gas and a lotto ticket here in HG. I walk in and 2 cashier girls we behind the counter. I told em I had gas and wanted a lotto ticket. The girl that wasn’t assisting me asked if I wanted to donate a dollar to some horseshoe for hope stuff and I said no.
She said “Well can I tell you something?”
“Sure”
“I hope your legs never fall off”
“Ok THANKS!”

That kinda irked me a bit. I went in the next Saturday to get another lotto ticket and lo and behold guess who is working. You guessed it! That same girl.

“I need a lotto ticket, quick pick, cash option”
“Ok, would you like to donate a …”
“No, and I don’t want my legs to fall off either!”
“Huh, what are you talking about?”
“I came in here last weekend and I didn’t want to donate $1 and you told me you hoped my legs didn’t fall off and I didn’t appreciate that!”
“No I didn’t”
“Yeah you did”
“I must have been playing around..”
“No you weren’t and I didn’t like you saying that anyways. You’re lucky I didn’t come talk to your manager cause I’m pretty sure you need your job”
“Uh…”
And I walked out the door as it looked like she was about to cry. So Mission Accomplished. Yeah I know I was a bit harsh but geez, don’t tell someone that!

One thing that really irks me is people driving as fast as they can or think they should be able to with total disregard for the speed limit. It seems we are all in a rush to get to that next stop light. There is no greater satisfaction while I’m on the road than to get passed by someone speeding and then meet them at the next stop light and pass them. Childish, I know. But oh so gratifying.

I’m an odd duck here in the DFW metroplex, especially on the road. I drive the speed limit of 60 mph around here. I do that for great fear of getting a speeding ticket and because it saves gas, or so they say. I’m a small-town dude that grew up in the slow life so I’m in no rush to get anywhere.

With all this information coming out about saving gas and such, I decided to run some numbers to see just how much time is saved by going x mph over the speed limit. You can pretty much see, its not even worth it.

You save just a few minutes of time as opposed to putting yourself and others at risk.

I assume most trips are approximately 25 miles here in the DFW, but if less then your time savings are even smaller.

The speed limit on most highways around here is 60 mph. Thus a 25 mile trip is going to take you 25 minutes. Most people that speed by are going at least 65 and sometimes more.  Just going 5 mph over the limit saves you an entire 1 minute and 55 seconds. Wouldn’t it be easier to leave 2 minutes early? If you drive 70 mph you don’t even save 4 minutes. Not worth it my friend, not worth it.

A follow-up from the last post on DISD education. I believe it hits the nail on the head.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/localnews/columnists/jfloyd/stories/DN-floyd_17met.ART.State.Bulldog.4d82ff3.html

I came across this story just a few minutes ago and it has infuriated me.

“DISD plan to ease grading standards angers teachers”

For example, the new rules require teachers to accept late work and prevent them from penalizing students for missed deadlines. Homework grades that would drag down a student’s overall average will be thrown out.

School officials said the new guidelines are needed to ensure that all district teachers operate under the same rules and to create a “fair system” for grading students.
Read the rest of this entry »

It seems that the CIA are dominated by people who are mentally ill.  For example, they seem to have the attitude that they will solve the world’s problems with assassinations, weapons, LSD and war.  These are policies I would expect from an angry, 10-year old boy.
- Eric Hufschmid
  http://www.erichufschmid.net/WhatToDoWithTheUSA.html

American’s love to blame someone else for all of their problems. Many times the problem can be seen with a quick look in the mirror.
We’re quick to blame fast food for making us fat. Well, if we weren’t so lazy we wouldn’t be so fat. Next we’ll be blaming Lazy Boy for making the chair too comfortable for us to get out of it.

Took several pictures at the Rangers vs Yankees game Wednesday Aug 6,2008.

Had a program put together the below panoramic picture. Click to enlarge.

Your grandchildren will likely find it incredible, even sinful, that you burned up a gallon of gasoline to fetch a pack of cigarettes!
- Dr. Paul MacCready Jr.

Damn

It’s hot.

Go see that movie. You’ll literally be laughing the entire time. Oh and it’s rated R for a reason… one too many F-bombs… but that doesn’t matter.

Apatow = comedy genius

Ferrell and Reilly work very well together.

I’ve been absent for awhile. I have had the ideas to blog about but the desire to type those ideas into a blog have not been present.

I’ve enjoyed 4 weeks off from school. I managed somehow to pull a B in both of my classes in the Spring semester. I fully expected a B in Economics but was really sweating just passing Calculus. It was a very good thing that our instructor handed out effort points on our tests.

Summer classes start next week. I’m taking one class in June and one in July. Then I’ll have another month off to relax, if that’s even possible.

The weekend after school ended, we headed up to Branson for a vacation club “seminar” that we bought earlier in the year. It was good to get away, but unless you’re old or incredibly redneck, Branson, Missouri is not the city for you. It’s beautiful country to drive through, but the actual driving is a pain.

People have been complaining about gas prices a lot. I don’t like them either, but please understand this: it’s appropriately priced. We can bitch and moan about the oil companies making record profits all we want, but if you had your own business you would want to milk your customers for all you could too. It’s simple supply and demand people. Once demand goes up, price goes up. I don’t know if there’s a so-called shortage, but until we figure out a way to reduce our consumption, it’s going to keep going up. So get over it.

I’m having some issues with domain forwarding… so if you’re looking for a financial website but ended up here, please go here –> www.invademyhead.com/erasingourdebt

I got home almost an hour ago. Approximately 4 hours ago Lost aired. When I get home on Thursdays, I automatically turn on the TV and go to my DVR recordings and watch Lost.

But tonight I didn’t.

What was I thinking?!

Well BossLady and I were told we would be getting our bonuses that we were so conveniently skipped for.

When I arrived to work the Monday after blogging about it, BL asked if I had to talk to the boss about it yet. I told her I was mulling it over and if I thought I should bring it up I would on Tuesday in my weekly meeting. She said forget it let’s do it now. So we both went in there and asked why.

Explanation we were given was that we were still under a different work group even though we were being treated as everyone else. Funny thing is that, as I’ve previously mentioned, the guys that came to us got the same amount of time off as we were entitled to when their old business (the one we’re under now/should have been under all along) has entitles less time to their employees. They weren’t skipped over for that benefit when they came to us. I believe one or two of them even went as far as to use their sick time to schedule a nice week long vacation. That really pissed me off.

A few days later our boss’s boss called us individually into our boss’ office and let us know we would be getting our bonus by the end of the month. He gave the same horse and pony show as to why we didn’t get one. I still won’t beleive that I’m getting one until I see it deposited into my checking account.

My biggest frustration is that had BossLady and I not said anything, nothing would have ever been brought up about it. Management knew we, two of the 5 hardest/smartest workers in the office, wouldn’t be getting this bonus.

And. They. Didn’t. Seem. To. Care.

That really really fucking pisses me off.