Leelanau Whippersnapper

Today is Thanksgiving and I thought tonight I would share a list of things I am thankful for this year.  There are lots of things that I should mention but I know I’ll leave some out.

1. My Employer – this has been a very difficult year for a lot of people.  With the unemployment rate in Michigan the highest in the nation somewhere near 9.5%, I am thankful that I have a job and I am not in jeopardy of losing it any time soon.  While many people have seen reductions in their income, mine has actually gone up this year.
2. Facebook – this has been a fun year for me catching up with old friends from days gone by that would never have been possible had it not been for the social networking web site Facebook.  I’ve reconnected with people I’ve not seen or spoken with, some in over 20 years and I’ve been able to appreciate more fully the depth of the relationships I have had with many people over the years.
3. My Dog Gavin – this has been a challenging year for both me and my dog.  This is the first holiday season in 10 years that I have not had a significant other by my side.  Gavin has helped me a great deal this year by not leaving my side.  Even though he can’t keep his drooling mouth closed most of the time, and he snores something fierce keeping me up at night sometimes, he is always there for me wagging his tail, satisfied with only a pat on the head.
4. My Sister Sarah and Brother-in-law Brian – their unwavering interest in my well-being and their complete understanding of my inability to pick up the phone to call them is amazing.  Their background presence in my life even though they are some 600 miles away is something that I truly appreciate.
5. My Nephew Christopher – even though he has no concept of me yet, the addition of a new baby to the family is always something to be thankful for, especially when he has no idea yet how spoiled (and lucky) he already is.
6. My Parents – this has been a year of some pretty big changes for me personally and through it all, my parents have kept a watchful eye on me and my mental health.  I don’t thank them often enough but I am thankful that despite what I happen to be going through, I can count on my parents to have my back and I appreciate their willingness to peel me off any brick walls I smack into before I eventually get it right even though sometimes it takes me several times.  Their calm understanding, their incessant quirkiness, and their continued interest in my success are all things that I value tremendously.

There you have it.  My Thanksgiving list for 2008.  As I head now into the Christmas season, I may not have a ton of time to write.  This is the lash hurrah before everyone up here shuts themselves in for the winter and hibernates.  Even with holiday shopping season, the slow down at work this year has been very noticeable, much more than in previous years which makes me wonder just what the hell I’m going to do all winter at work.  I’m looking forward this winter to trying a few new things.  I would like to go skiing again since I’ve not done that in over 10 years and I want to do a little more reading this winter.  I’ve never been a great reader, mainly because I can’t focus my mind on something for that long.  Hopefully I can find a few good books that will interest me enough to actually finish them.  So, until next time…

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For me, the Christmas season starts this week as I’m sure it does for many people.  Tomorrow, the icicle lights go up at the cottage and Mom and Dad already have the tree out and the house decorated.  Tree ornaments are going up on Thanksgiving Day.  All my own decorating will come a little later for me since I will be working quite a bit over the next 2 weeks.  Black Friday is fast approaching and if you want to get a heads up on whats out there this year you can check out www.blackfriday.info to see most of the national advertisements that will be released on Thursday morning.  For years and years, I’ve never been a fan of this mad consumerism dash on Friday.  Some of that though has changed over the years that I’ve been working in retail.  I can more fully appreciate the significance of Black Friday to the survival of many retail stores and other consumer goods businesses.  What I most hate about the day after though is the visual example of pure greed and ME, ME, ME attitudes that people bring with them.  People fighting over shopping carts, pushing, yelling, all that shit is a sight to behold especially when you are not participating in it.  Watching people literally run into the store at full speed so they can be the first person to get whatever the hot item is really is a pathetic sight.  On the flip side, I have to encourage it becuase my job and my income depend on their greedy appetite for “things”.  Oh well, I won’t ever be one of the people who participate in “Buy Nothing Day” which is the counter effort to Black Friday.  I’ll get their money anyway, maybe just a little later when I can charge them more for whatever it is they will eventually buy.

I’m posting a picture below that was taken before we got all this dam snow up here.  I was out to Peterson Park a few weeks ago with Gavin and had a nice time playing around with my camera.  Enjoy.

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Today we got a pretty decent amount of snow and it’s DAMM cold up here in the northwoods.  I had another 12 hour work day and it was really somewhat frustrating.  Everyone knows that by the end of October, the tourists are gone and the only people left up here are the locals.  These are locals that live here all the time, have experienced winter many times up here and know exactly what a bitch they can be.  What I don’t understand is why everyone suddenly turns in to raging ASSHOLES when it starts to snow!!!  I get a few every day in the normal course of doing business.  That’s part of the job, it’s my primary job to suck it up and deal with it.  Tonight however I was REALLY done with it.  Part of my job is to operate a fork lift.  I am licensed, I had to take a written test and a driving test and it’s a job that I take seriously.  I am expected to be a safe driver, fully aware of my surroundings etc. etc.  So tonight I am pulling down some pallets of merchandise for my morning crew to work on and have about a 300lb payload dangling in the air.  Getting this pallet down from 30 feet in the air safely is my primary objective.  Out of thin air I hear at an incredible volume “EXCUUUUUUUUUUUSE ME”.  I crank my head, break my concentration and glare at the bitch who clearly could not see the 300lb pallet swinging in the air over her head…or she simply decided not to notice it.  She rambled on about something that she needed RIGHT NOW and it was all I could do to keep from flipping the fork around and dropping the pallet on this Witch.  Calmly but assertively and professionally, I explained to her that if she would wait 2 seconds while I safely put down my payload I could help her.  She wasn’t having it.  “I need help and I need it RIGHT NOW”.  I shot back, that she needed to find it elsewhere and that she had better get out of the way if she wanted to keep her toes.  “YOU NEED TO BACK AWAY FROM THIS MACHINE RIGHT NOW!” I informed her.  She stormed off huffing and puffing.  I’m not really sure if she got what she needed but I really don’t care.

MORAL OF THE STORY:  CUSTOMERS SHOULD NEVER OPERATE UNDER THE PRETENSE THAT THEY SHIT GOLD.  If you are shopping and need help, DON’T ask a person who is clearly trying to accomplish a task without killing someone unless you want to get seriously injured yourself and NEVER – EVER distract the operator of any heavy machinery from completing their task safely.  SIT ON YOUR ASS AND WAIT if you are too lazy to find someone else to help you.  You could easily be killed and there would be very little remorse on behalf of the driver if you were completely unwilling to even consider your own safety.

Now then, the remodel is finally done at work (finished tonight) and now it’s time to prepare for BLACK FRIDAY (another day of the year where people completely go insane).

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Well, with the new look there are going to come some security enhancements to this blog.  My general readership here is up to 18 UNIQUE visitors (yes Dad, you are still here the most) and I’ve added new back-end tracking that lets me see how people are getting to this web site.  About 60% of you come here directly and either read through your RSS readers or directly on the site.  10% are referred here from www.leelanauphotography.com through the link on that page and the rest of you end up here due to a search you did on a search engine like Yahoo, MSN, or Google.  Of those 18 unique visitors, an average of 2 – 5 minutes is spent reading my blog.  Woo-Hoo!

Anyhow, I’ve also been getting a lot of spam registrations and comments left on my blog lately.  This is not uncommon but it can be annoying for me because it can clutter up my comment section on the back end.  I have filters that manage to  catch most of the spam and get rid of it but some of it still gets through and I have to manually delete random text from time to time.

SO, in order to read this blog, you do not need to be a registered user but if you wish to leave a comment on one of my posts (and I encourage you to do so) you must register on my site.  That means providing a valid email address.  When you submit that, my site will automatically send you a password.  When you come to my site and you want to leave a comment, you will be prompted then to enter your user name and password.  This will help me control spam a little better and it will also allow me to moderate comments which can be useful in preventing spammers from filling up the comments sections with garbage.

There may also be a time in the future when I will password protect certain posts that I make.  Registered and Logged-In users will be able to read them but people who are not registered or logged in will not be able to read them.  This will be useful to me if I should need to make a rather direct comment about work or about specific people.  I know how far I can go when I bitch about work but sometimes it’s nice to be able to say whatever I want without fear of repercussions from the general public.  It’s also helpful if I just want to share something with family and not with the general public…since it’s mostly family that would have a reason to register in the first place.

With that said, take a minute to register as a new user on this blog.  Click “REGISTER” over on the right side under my picture and you’ll be asked to provide an email address.  When you hit submit, you’ll get an email from me containing your password.  If anyone has any problems doing this let me know, I’m happy to walk you thorough it.  Again, you DO NOT have to register if you just want to read the blog, only if you want to leave a comment or view any future password protected posts that I might put here.

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I’m at it again.  I was looking over the WordPress web site today and came across this new theme that I’ve now made active.  This theme has more options, a better look and feel, and is more customizable than the previous themes I have used here. I expect sometime in the next 2 months, WordPress will release a final version of their new back end which I will need to upgrade to.  Hopefully this time around I can upgrade the blog and not destroy all the posts that I have.  This platform is evolving quickly and I like how it works so keeping it up to date is important.  I think I’ll be keeping this theme for a while so enjoy!

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Shit, if I hear “I’m goin huntin ta-nite” one more time, I’m going to strangle myself.  I know I can always look forward to opening day of deer season here in the northwoods.  Most of the jack asses will stay out of the store for a week or so while they sit in a tree and get drunk with a rifle.  It’s a culture thing, I’m a city boy and I always will be.  I held and fired a gun once in my life and that was in my early 20’s when I was at Spring Hill Ranch with the Grand Rapids Boychoir being a counselor.  Shot it once, gave it back and said never again.  I only got that far because the kids wouldn’t allow anything less.  I don’t like guns, I don’t like the imagined feeling of power it gives people (even when hunting) and I don’t think ANYONE holding a case of beer in one hand and a gun in the other should be free to roam around the woods.

Having said that, again, it’s a culture thing.  People hunt.  I get that.  People like it, I get that too.  What I don’t get is why I have to listen to their stories and grunt and grab my crotch to show my manly “understanding” of their world.  Just go and do your thing, thin out the deer population for 2 weeks and then come back to reality…meanwhile, leave me out of it.

We are getting some snow tonight in the northwoods.  Kind of nice being in the city now, I don’t have to fear for my life driving home from work any more.  I don’t miss that and I’m sure this winter will be much better on my sense of well being.  It never ceased to amaze me how crazy people up here drive in the snow…I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at the number of fatal accidents I hear about due to people out of control.

Looking forward to a day off on Tuesday (fingers crossed I don’t get screwed again this week at work).  I’m getting a little tired of covering a certain person’s ass all the time, I may need to flex my manager muscles and take care of the problem in an unpleasant way…if only we can get through the Holiday season first, I don’t have time right now to train new people.  Work is crazy at the moment, a big remodel going on and preparations for Black Friday are encroaching on what little free time I have.

Well off to bed now, another 12 hour day tomorrow…and it’s SUNDAY (again).

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Ripped from here (thanks DIGG) but relevant to a previous post I’ve written regarding the passage of Prop 8 in California.  There is a whole lot of shit going on regarding that issue and it’s all very far from being over.  People all over this country are pissed and while I won’t say it’s another Stonewall because the issues are different this issue has created an unprecedented uprising in the gay community that won’t be silenced soon.

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Well, here we go.  We got our first snow of the season that stuck to the ground last night.  Not much really but the forecast is calling for an inch today and another 2 inches tonight.  I don’t suspect we will get that much at all but the temperature will certainly allow it.  It’s VERY cold outside.  I’m not a big fan of winter up here in the north woods.  This season lasts FOREVER and a day and it’s generally not good for my mental health.  There is nothing I hate more than being stuck inside OR stuck on the side of the road for that matter, it drives me crazy and it makes me lazy.

Speaking of lazy, yesterday was a VERY lazy day.  I didn’t do anything all day long.  I did discover that my ceiling fan in the living room has lights in it and so I did clean that thing all up and get those working but I spent all day either messing around on the computer or watching TV.  Despite how that sounds, I do need days like that where I don’t have to do anything.  Days when I can just sit around and do whatever I want, whenever I want.  It is rare that I get that sort of opportunity so I take full advantage of it when I do.  I decided yesterday that I would also start selling stuff again on eBay.  Looking ahead to Christmas, it would be nice to have a few extra bucks available to spend on gifts this year.  So, we’ll see if I can make any money selling some of the shit I don’t need anymore on eBay.  Even though I cleaned out my entire life during the move last year and I actually donated about 30 bags of stuff to Good Will, I still have tons of stuff that I just don’t need or use.  Why keep it if I’m not ever going to use it, wear it, or look at it???

Today I’m going to go out to the cottage.  I was going to spend the weekend out there but then I got lazy yesterday and never made it out of the house.  I think I’ll take Gavin over to Lake Michigan and maybe go up to Glen Arbor for some coffee.  It’s gonna be COLD today so I’m not sure how long I’ll last but it will be more productive than sitting around here all day.

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Wow, it’s been a long couple of days.  It’s been quite warm up here but it looks like we’ll be getting snow now this weekend.  I’m finally off for another weekend and boy I need the rest.  I think I’ll be sleeping in late tomorrow unless I happen to fall asleep very early tonight which is quite likely.  It’s been a zoo at work.  I’m always amazed at the human condition, especially in these parts.  People put off their projects until the very last second and then they completely overwhelm themselves with the amount of work they have left to do and hardly any time left in the season to do it.  I’ve sold a TON of exterior paints and stains this past week and I’ve had to make sure that me and all my employees were warning customers about what happens if you use these products when it is too cold or wet.  It won’t stop most of them from trying to get their projects done, the products will fail and they will be back next year to blame me for their inability to follow directions.  That’s the one thing that I’ve become very used to over the years working in retail.  It doesn’t matter how much information and education you give a customer, they STILL will not follow directions and it will STILL be MY fault when the product doesn’t work like they think it should.  Ya, you know we retail slaves own all the manufacturing plants of all the products we sell and are personally out there making this shit….it reminds me of my mom’s stories of her preschool age students when she was teaching, they all thought she lived at the school because she was a teacher there.  Children could not separate the profession from the person…much like the people I deal with daily can’t separate the salesman from the manufacturer.  Not much difference there folks.  Don’t be dweebs.

So all this shit going on at work and guess what happened on Thursday morning as I was on my way out the door 20 minutes before I had to be at work (I love living close to work now).  I HAD A FLAT TIRE!!!  As my car gets older I’m starting to lose my tolerance for some of this shit.  I replaced all 4 tires on my car 2 years ago and I’ve had 3 flat tires in since then.  Lucky for me I learned early in my life how to put on a spare tire and I did actually make it to work on time although screaming down the road at 55mph with a tiny spare tire is not exactly a safe thing to do.  Today, I spent 3 hours sitting in the waiting room at Discount Tire after I got out of work while they fixed my car.  I don’t blame all these tire problems direction on Discount Tire.  They have always treated me well and none of my flat tires have cost me a dime to have fixed (due to warranty).  Most of the issues have to do directly with the types of rims on my car which fuck up the tire and cause them to leak…sometimes very slow, sometimes quite quickly…of course I also work at a place the sells nails and screws which routinely end up in the parking lot…go figure.  What I don’t like however is the fact that going to Discount Tire is NEVER a short in and out trip.  Just like shopping at Meijer, I can always count on an excessive amount of time being spent waiting around.  So anyhow, I also had them fix a recall problem specific to my car, rotate my tires and balance them and get them all working correctly.  I should be good now through the winter.  The next project on that car is to have the brakes done.  That’s the other issue with this car, I’ve had the car about 6 or 7 years and I have had at least 4 brake jobs on it….not just brake pads..the whole dam rotors and everything.  Not cheap, I’m not likely to buy a Chevy Malibu again.

Finally a bit of good news before I sign off for the night.  I found out yesterday that I will get 10 paid days off this next year.  I’ve finally been with my company long enough that they feel I deserve 80 hours of vacation (rather than 40) so I get to take several long weekends this coming year and I am also planning another trip to Las Vegas at some point in the early spring (contingent on all the other bills being paid…yes, that means what I owe to you Mom and Dad).

I realize the election is over but I haven’t posted much in the way of offensive jackassery lately so here you go.

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After a tremendous victory for the Democratic party and Obama, change is indeed on the way to Washington.  Unfortunately some types of change were set back in this election cycle.  Gay Americans were defeated in a very important state this year.  California voted by a slim margin to write discrimination into their state constitution to prohibit gay marriage.  This is quite unfortunate for one of the most progressive states in the Union.  Earlier this year, their state Supreme Court ruled that prohibiting Gays from marrying violated their state constitution (a finding that quite a number of state supreme courts have found).  With that ruling, hundreds of thousands of gays and lesbians in California were granted marriage certificates.  With last nights election, those once valid marriages have become null and void.  This is a major set back for gay rights in this country.  Trends are set in California and this defeat sets back the gay rights movement a number of years.  At the same time, Arizona, and Florida both passed similar constitutional amendments defining marriage as between one man and one woman (Michigan already has such an amendment).  Arkansas on the same note, outlawed single people (gays included) from being foster parents or adoptive parents.  Another election cycle done and people once again have been stripped of fundamental freedoms in this country.

I don’t weigh in very much on gay politics in this blog but it seems now that the only hope gays and lesbians will have to win the right to marry will boil down to what will be a very contentious Supreme Court decision which won’t likely happen for several years to come.  Some states have created equivalents to marriage without the name but alas for me, none of those states are close to Michigan and I’m not interested at this time in leaving the state (although the thought has crossed my mind on a number of occasions).  My biggest issue I guess is not that some people seem intent on marginalizing other people (I do that frequently on this blog) but that in respect to basic freedoms, we have so altered the fundamental documents that enshrine those freedoms to ALL people in this country.   State constitutions are so weighted down with amendments that both give and take away rights that they have lost much of their significance as documents of freedom and justice.  Not before the 20th century have constitutions stripped individuals of their rights but in the last 15 years many have done just that.  There are all kinds of arguments on this level, none of which I will get into here.  I’ll end it by saying that while this Democratic victory is significant and important, this country still has a long way to go before it realizes the fundamental principal of freedom to ALL.

I’ll likely live to see the day when gays and lesbians are finally allowed to marry the person they love, my parents won’t, most of the baby boomer generation won’t.  It’s important to note in this defeat in California, the under 35 group overwhelmingly voted against this divisive amendment and that has been the trend all over the country.  Younger people don’t and won’t tolerate discrimination in the way that older Americans do.  Things will change, it will just take time.

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