The Northwoods Is No Place For A Pink Flamingo
Archive for December, 2008
Wow
Dec 29th
You’ve got to watch this video full screen. Set to music from Pink Floyd. You Tube is addicting. You can watch the low-res version right here on the blog but to get the HD you need to click on the video and you will be directed to the YouTube web site. From there click where it says “Watch in HD” and be amazed.
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Family Gatherings
Dec 29th
It can always be said that if the holidays are good for nothing else, at least there is family.
More pictures in the Christmas Gallery at leelanauphotography.com. Look for more updates in the next few days at leelanauphotography.com. I’ll be uploading a ton of pictures that I’ve scanned as part of my “historical preservation” effort. Lots of pics from ABS and my childhood. It’s a long process but I’m slowly getting all those pictures scanned into digital format. It’s pretty necessary actually, some of the really old ones are turning all shades of red and pink due to age.
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I Was Glad
Dec 28th
OK, I found this in my vast collection of digital choral music the other day and wanted to post it here. This takes me back to my days in the GR Choir of Men and Boys. One of my favorite, loud, obscenely rambunctious British choral masterworks. You can just envision the queen prancing erratically to something like this in one of the ornately decorated cathedrals. I performed this with GRCMB several times (Charles Olegar LOVED these types of pieces) but the one performance that I remember most was at East Congregational Church. There was something unique about performing there that I can’t quite put my finger on right now. We didn’t have the trumpets but their organ is quite good and was able to reproduce some of the effects here. I don’t know who is singing in this recording. It is a british cathedral choir. You’ll need a high speed connection to listen to this, it’s a big file. Click on the link.
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Tough
Dec 28th
Well it seems that my team members won’t be the only ones getting their hours cut this winter. Today was a rotten day at work. We had another storm front go thorough last night that made being out on the roads today extremely dangerous. People in ditches, icy roads, strong wind…the whole nine yards. Bad weather means no shoppers. One of the big problems in my department is that it is made up of experienced team members and that means 2 things. First they are quite expensive, second, they are too comfortable with their jobs. Those are both advantages when the economy is good but when it’s bad (as it is now), it creates a lot of tension when I have to make ends meet for my department. My job is to make money and I have to balance profit with expenses. When there is no money coming in, I have to make cuts and those cuts are always made first to payroll by trimming hours which tends to piss people off. Our general managers must operate in the same way so today it cost less to keep a full time team member there and send me home. I lost 6 hours today and I’m only scheduled for 40 hours this week (normally it’s between 46 and 52 hours). I’ll be able to make up some of the time I lost today but thank God, I have a small reserve of cash right now to help make ends meet. Perhaps it’s time to start looking at my own budget since I’ve not really had to worry about it this year. It’s amazing how being single keeps you financially fluid. It just costs less to live when there isn’t someone else around.
Tomorrow I head out to the cottage after work for a turkey dinner with the folks and Sarah and Brian. Should be a good time and then a day off on Tuesday. There’s a pretty good chance that the Christmas decor will come down on Tuesday. I just don’t see where I will have the extra time to fuss with it on the weekend. The house needs to be cleaned anyhow. Well enough for tonight. Bye.
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Christmas 2008
Dec 26th
Click the picture to visit the gallery on leelanauphotography.com
Hope everyone had a nice holiday. I’m glad it’s over. This has been a challenging year and I’m glad to have made it through this holiday intact. It was great to see Christopher again, at the rate he is going, the next time he is back up here, he should be walking! He’s growing so fast. Gavin had a very good h0liday and was a very good dog around the baby. Even though he is quite energetic, I know he will learn to take it easy around Christopher until (and I know this time will come) Christopher starts to roughhouse with him when he is older. Christopher did not seem to be bothered by the big black dog with the wild tail, hopefully that’s a sign that he’ll be comfortable around dogs in the future.
Thanks to everyone for the gifts and the cards. My refrigerator is now filled with pictures of all the young kids in the family. There seems though to be a lack of girls…You need a princiss now Sarah and Brian. Someone to keep all the boys in line. Soon enough.
It’s back to work tomorrow for another exciting weekend. This now starts the slow period at work and this year promises to be one of the slowest on record. Thank God I have a job, even if it is excrutianatily boring this time of year. The next entry will likely be next week. Cheers!
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Merry, Merry
Dec 25th
Just a quick post to say Happy Christmas to those of you out there who celebrate this holiday. I’ll be back in a few days with more sarcasm, dry wit, and nothing much to say. For now, I must get ready to head out to the folks house for Christmas Day festivities and then prepare for the arrival of the extended family and Baby Christopher this evening. This, being his first Christmas, will be the only one he will have no concept of. Next year, we can all expect to be rattled by wide eyes and hyperactivity so common to children on this holiday. So then with that:
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Santa Claws?
Dec 23rd
Just 2 days left to Christmas. I don’t really have much to post today other than a little factoid I picked up yesterday at work. It seems that the economy has gotten so bad up here that some local retailers are completely shutting down for the week due to lack of business. People are being really cautious with their money this year and while I can’t say I blame them (I am too), as someone that depends on consumer greed, I’d appreciate it if you all got out there and spent just a little money this year on something.
I heard an interesting story on NPR yesterday. It turns out that the “going green” bandwagon this country has jumped on has started to have some negative impacts in this slow economy. As it turns out, one of this country’s largest exports is recycled paper and cardboard. This is the stuff we dump in the recycle bin to keep out of our landfills. The person on NPR said that several years ago this was big business, we shipped this stuff out of the country, mostly to China where they apparently do not have a steady source for this stuff, they break it down and then turn it into all the boxes for all the commodities that we then turn around and import back into this country. As it turns out, because our economy is in the tank, the demand in China (and other countries) for this stuff has fallen off a cliff. We aren’t buying the big screen TV’s and the toys that are packaged in this recycled cardboard and plastic. So, the value of our exports has fallen significantly, barges of this stuff are being refused at foreign ports (because they don’t need it), all because buying activity has come to a screeching halt. It turns out that it is now less expensive and more profitable to simply dump this cardboard into a landfill. Sad.
So, that being said – TRIM SANTA’S CLAWS and go out and buy something today. I thought the cartoon below was appropriate as we prepare as a country to send Bush packing. I’ll be posting more on the political side of things in the future (lots going on) but I’ll wait to interject my opinions until after the holiday.
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On wrapping paper and crowds
Dec 20th
As most of you reading this already know, I’ve spent the last week or so feeling downright lousy. Thank god it wasn’t the flu but a bad head cold is certainly no better. Tonight I’m finally feeling a little better although my head is still rather inflated (as if it wasn’t bad enough already right???) and I figured I would post something here as we get closer to Christmas.
Today I went out to the cottage and loafed around. Not much going on out there (which is fine by me) and it’s nice to be able to just sit around and do nothing. I let Gavin play outside with his doggie friends which he seems to enjoy greatly and he’s now sprawled out on my bed snoring and twitching as he dreams of who knows what. I got back to town tonight around 6 and decided I needed to go out and finish up my Christmas shopping. I’ve done 90% of my shopping this year on-line because there is nothing I hate more than standing in line at stores. People smell, their children are loud and completely out of control, folks are generally just oblivious to everyone around them and most could care less if they ram you with their shopping carts. Working in retail, I have to deal with crowds like that every day and honestly I just get sick of seeing it so this year, rather than waste hours of my time and my life in stores, I did my shopping on line. There are always a few things though that you have to go to the store to get. Toothpaste and shaving cream aside, I made a trip tonight to Walmart and Boarders Books. As usual, Walmart was a zoo and the store was just trashed. Screaming children running around everywhere, frantic parents at their wits end hollering at them, people on their cell phones yelling at the person on the other end…you get the picture. I hate this Walmart because it is just such a trashy store and it generally follows that the store reflects the clientele. Right, where I work is the same dam thing. So I got a couple things, ran into a few co-workers (all out doing the same thing as me, looking for the quickest way out of the store) and then I stood in line for 45 minutes. Blah. Thank god I don’t have to go shopping every day. I think I’d kill someone. Then I went over to Boarders Books. Slightly less insane there but still packed to the gill with last minute shoppers (like me) looking for stuff they don’t carry (like me). Traverse City is nice in a lot of ways but it really sucks in a lot of other ways. This town lacks a store with a decent music section. Boarders has cut in half their CD offerings from what it was just a couple years ago and I’ve yet to find anywhere else in town that has a really broad selection of music! Again, this is why I shop on-line. Anyhow, I got what I needed and left.
Now the fun part. There is one thing I just hate about Christmas and that is wrapping presents. This was a skill I failed to pick up successfully from my mother who, being smarter than me, skips the paper all together and uses bags and tissue paper. I should have followed her example. I spent the better part of 2 hours tonight trying to wrap presents and managed to plow through 3/4 of a roll of wrapping paper doing so (a good wrapper might have used 1/4). Gavin was amused and laid on his back watching me most of the time until he got some ribbon stuck to his fur which kind of freaked him out. So, those of you getting presents from me this year, watch out for the tape. I had to use a fair amount of it to make the packages look decent.
Tonight we are due for yet another big snow storm. This has been a crazy winter so far for snow. My hope is that this means we will get an early spring and a nice long summer. Wishful thinking I know but I can dream right? Sarah and Brain made it to Michigan without incident and are down state right now with Brian’s family. They’ll be up here on Christmas day. I’ll leave you with the following advice:
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Naughty Dog
Dec 13th
I’m thinking Gavin needs some lovin…or some running, or both. This has been a tough week for him. He had a great time at Mom and Dad’s house while I was in Wisconsin but in addition to me being gone out of state for 2 days, I’ve also put in an additional 48 hours at work this week (bringing the weekly total to 64.5 hours worked this week). I came home today looking forward to relaxing but when I came in I found a Tupperware container on the floor and all my Christmas Cookies GONE! About a week ago, Mom and I made Christmas cookies and she sent me home with about 2 dozen frosted sugar cookies. Gavin managed to scarf down at least 10 of them….I suspect within 5 minutes too. Anyhow, no sickness from him (he has an iron stomach) but dam, I wanted to cookie tonight!! Oh well, he does these naughty things from time to time when I don’t give him enough attention. I can’t say I blame him, I suppose I’d do something to get my caretakers attention too if I was being left alone for long periods of time on a daily basis. He’ll get over it (in fact I’m sure he already has since dog’s only live in the present) and I’ll take him out to the cottage on Tuesday and let him play.
We are approaching the end of the year at work and all in all, it’s been a good year for me. Despite the massive turn down in the economy, my company continues to grow (13 new stores will open next year in 6 states) and our competitors continue to slide into the shitter (layoffs and store closings all over the country forecast for Home Desperate and Lowe(s) Life). That bodes well for my career and it speaks well for my company, that we are able to continue growing even with the economic crisis in full swing. I guess I played my cards right deciding to grow with them. That said, today was without a doubt one of the SLOWEST Saturday’s I can remember in a very long time. Sales sucked, and the shoppers weren’t much better. There are a LOT of people out of work up here, many of the people in the store are there just for something to do at this point. I suppose you can only sit around and do nothing for so long before you start going crazy. Nobody is buying anything, “just looking” they all tell me. I hope to God things improve in the months ahead. Traverse City is already a SLOW town, I’m going to go crazy if things don’t pick up pace….I need that rush, that constant activity to keep my head on. Without it, I get depressed.
Well I’m off to bed now, I’ve got some catch up to do.
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Upgrade Complete!
Dec 11th
Amazing. I’ve successfully upgraded to WordPress 2.7 and I didn’t crash the blog at all! If you happen to notice anything out of place, please let me know but I think that things are all in order and I’ve got a new back end to play with that is far more user friendly. I know I’m a geek but I enjoy this sort of thing.
I made it back today after 2 days of intensive training with my company over in Wisconsin. I’m exhausted and I have to work all weekend too. I likely won’t write again until next week but you never know, I may be inspired by something so just stay tuned.
I found this graphic the other day and think it’s worth uploading due to the screaming the wing-nuts are up to lately. If you have not been following, gays are now being blamed for being pissed off with the largely religious voting base that in my opinion (and many others who know a LOT more than me) has illegally stripped a suspect class of a fundamental right. Say what you will about “constitutional” rights and activist judges HOWEVER, the CA judiciary determined that gays were a suspect class AND that marriage was a right they were entitled to (just like everyone else). There are 3 parts to this government and in these cases the checks and balances ALL WORK exactly like they are supposed to work, it is simply that a vocal population disagrees with the judicial outcome and simply does not understand the decisions (but they sure do when judges agree with THEM now don’t they…). A predominantly religious base did not agree with that CA decision and successfully (through ballot initiative) wrote specific discrimination into the CA constitution. The legal arguments out there will draw this out for likely a couple of years but the outcome is pretty well decided and it is again, an outcome that God fearing bigots will not like. In America in 2008 it is unacceptable for a majority to oppress a RECOGNIZED minority from obtaining and realizing their constitutional rights. This is not an argument you can win with scripture and I will do my bloody best to resist being a second class citizen of this country. Ya, OK you can have my soap box now but I intend to push you off of it again.
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