Peace and Quiet

Finally I think things are starting to settle down. It seems like life has been one non-stop whirlwind for the last month or so. Going back to before my Grandfather passed away, it has been one big drama or stress situation after another. But barring anything new coming down the pipe, I think we are finally back to our version of normal around here.

The kids are ready to head back to school on Tuesday. Well.. they are not READY, but they are prepared. I am READY for them to go back to school. It will be good for them to start putting their brains to use for something other than absorbing radiation from TVs and computer monitors. Both have started training for their fall sports. G is playing soccer in the club league and B is running cross country again this fall.

Work has finally settled down as well. After back to back major projects that we were woefully understaffed for and several VERY long weeks, we are hoping for some downtime around here as well. I finally got caught up on over two weeks of work orders that had to sit while we took care of these projects.

The weather has had a touch of fall already here and we haven't even hit Sept. yet. It has been a beautiful 65ish during the days and the evenings have been quite cool. I'll take this over the desert heat anyday!

Time to get through a Friday and get on with the weekend!

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If only..

If you haven't seen the new GI Joe movie.. well.. don't. It's horrible even if you happen to have nostalgia for the franchise as I did. The story wasn't good .. the choice of actors wasn't good. The dialog was painful in parts. Hell, when one of the Wayans brothers is a lead actor in the movie, that should be a red flag right there. The Baroness played by Sienna Miller was a nice perk, but not enough to save this atrocity of a movie.

The one redeeming quality of this movie however was the modified Hummer they were driving during one of the big chase scenes. One of the Joe's was hanging on to the top of the humvee while they were driving and in an attempt to remove him, they deployed this device from the front of the vehicle which is what I have been saying I want for my car for a long time. These big angled spikes dropped down from the front grill and they basically drove them into the back of the car in front of them and forced the car to flip up and over the top of the humvee. IT.. WAS... AWESOME!

All this came to mind again when I was driving home on the freeway the other day. It's 3 lanes wide where I was .. and the speed limit is 65.. which means we are all doing 74ish in the left lane. As we are cruising along I can see a cop in the median about half a mile ahead. Now I expect the usual "Oh Em Ghee! A Cop! Slow Down!" reaction and so eased off the gas myself. The lady in front of me however was apparently so concerned about her speed that she slowed down to FIFTY FUCKING TWO. 52!?! The speed limit is 65 .. which means he isn't even going to think about wasting his time for anything less than 70. So why the FUCK are you doing 52 in the fast lane on the freeway?

If I had that humvee at the time you would have seen that lady's car flipping over the roof as I spiked her retarded ass. Seriously.. what is wrong with people that they think the cop is suddenly going to disregard the fact that he's already gunned you doing 75 simply because you are now going 52 in the fast lane? If you are going to get pulled over.. then you are. Slamming on your brakes and driving like you are on a residential street suddenly only draws more attention to yourself, not to mention is a dangerous way to drive on the FREEWAY.

I thought about ramming her off the road and introducing her to Señor Shovel. My brother said I shouldn't do that in front of a cop, but given the fact that she was from IL and the fact that she was driving like jacktard, I think he would have either helped me or at the very least looked the other direction.

If you can't drive.. get off the road please. Road rage happens for a reason, and that reason is YOU.

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Busy, Busy

Normally I do my blogging in the quiet of morning at work. I can take a few minutes and knock out a post and it's something I enjoy doing to start the day. Lately however, it seems I am busy the minute I walk in the door. This has a lot to do with being in the middle of a couple of big projects while short 3 staff + one on reduced hours right now and one on FML for the next couple of weeks. That puts us 4-5 people short out of a staff of 13 to cover 18 hours a day x 7 days a week. Kinda thin to support a facility this size.

Why so short? We had one person transfer to another facility. We had one tech spot open from a chain of internal promotions. And then there was .. the incident. You know how you hear about creepy things on the news and you think to yourself 'Glad that is someone else dealing with that'? Well that was us suddenly dealing with it.

I was hesitant to blog about it and am still going to be cautious. Nothing I will put in here however will be not already be public record. You can see the details HERE in the public court document. I should really warn you now though... as a guy at work put it so well...once you read it, you can't unread it. So those of you who would rather not be aware of the sickness of some people, please skip that document.

How this all went down though was the interesting part of the story. It's not every day that you have armed officers from the County, State Dept. of Justice personell and Dept. of Homeland Security officals all show up to your place of work. We didn't have any details. All we knew is who they were talking too as he was isolated in an office and they were going through his office. Eventually we were given only the briefest of details that were required to take care of the security issues that we needed to as well as assist the invesitigators.

After the story hit the local papers and the charges became avail, we got a real picture of what was going on. It's quite disturbing to find out someone you have worked with for 5+ years is now being held on those kinds of charges. This guy was never my favorite person and I found his constant use of phrases like 'Hi Smiley', 'Welcome to my nightmare' and 'Are we having fun yet?' shovel worthy. Despite that, I never got that severely creepy vibe from him. I am not going to look back and be one of those people that will say they just KNEW something was not quite right about that guy.

We had a guy that used to work here that I was convinced was a mass murderer or possibly kept women in a pit in the basement of his house to make a skin suit or lampshades out of, but never have I had a suspicion that a coworker was a pedophile on a very disturbing level. Not that there is an acceptable level for that kind of thing, but lets just say that he was not oogling pics of high school chicks about to turn 18 or anything. If you want the full picture then read that document, just head my warning above.

So we have interviews today for techs, but even if we hire to fill the spots today, they won't start for a bit and then its at least 6 weeks to get them up to speed to where they can really contribute on their own here. So for the immediate future anyway, things will be very crazy around here and my posting will be sporadic.

Just as a warning to those of you who are not computer savvy.. they can and will find you if you are doing something stupid like that and those people DON'T fuck around. Hell this guy was in computers for a living and still got busted. Just don't go there.

So that this doesn't end up being a total downer post.. here are some more gems from the TFLN site:

(323): Don't be mad at me. I know peeing in your drawer is 1 thing and peeing on you while you're sleeping is another, but im sorry..i love you

(602): Tonight was fucked up. First my mom called me and told me I had to go to the bar to pick up my dad 'cause he was drunk. Then when I got there my dad was doing a body shot from this lady who happened to be my 1st grade teacher. By far the most awkward car ride home. Idk if I should tell my mom or not.

(513): The guy dancing on me has three visible teeth. WHERE ARE YOU?

(864): Dude, no matter how drunk you are, it's not okay to hug every other guy at a strip club. Mainly because boners are far too common.

(860): I just changed her number in my phone to "You Wouldn't If You were Sober"

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It's one of those times...

I know I have been lax on the blogging lately. Not for lack of things to blog about by any means, more like an overwhelming list of things to blog about and just not the time or energy to do it.

Since I have last blogged I have driven to NY and back with my brother and sister-in-law to be with my family for my Grandfather's funeral. We left on a Friday morning and arrived on Saturday midday. We had enough time to get changed and have some lunch before the first viewing that afternoon. Sunday we had two more viewings and then the funeral was Monday morning with a reception afterwards. In between all the activity going on, we spent as much time together as a family as possible. I got to see and catch up with family that I haven't seen for many years as well as some that I get to see more often. The circumstances for the meeting were not great, but it was nice to see everyone again.

As if that were not enough to deal with, there have been a number of other things that have come up in the last couple of weeks. My ex's dog went missing while the boys were in AZ. She came home and the gate was open and her new puppy was gone. So the boys had to deal with that when they got back from the funeral. My parent's / brother's dog Timber had to be put down when they got back from the funeral in NY as well. My SO's father is having to have back surgery to deal with pain problems he is suffering from and that is causing her stress and worry. And most recently one of my closest friends is undergoing tests to try and get some answers to scary medical questions.

All in all.. I could use a week without anything major going on, but that will probably be a bit yet. On a positive note though, my brother-in-law is flying in on Thursday and as long as the weather is good, we are doing a guys trip to six flags on Friday and then we are going to relax and enjoy the weekend, probably catching the UFC fight on Saturday.

I have a blog topic I have yet to touch too involving a former PC tech where I work getting escorted from the property by several different branches of law enforcement including Dept. of Homeland Security. That is for another post though.

I hope this post finds the rest of you relatively drama free and happy. Hopefully things settle down for my family and friends soon too. Much Love all around.

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