The Northwoods Is No Place For A Pink Flamingo
Baby Christopher was born July 16, not on July 17th like I had said earlier. Seems my days are all running together lately as I’m sure the happy parents days are too with a serious lack of sleep.
I will know today or tomorrow if I got the condo or not. I’m getting ready to dish out some serious bucks here up front so that I can have some overlap between my current lease and the new one. More later, have to head off to work.
Tags: ChristopherWell for those of you who have been hiding under rocks, you can now call me Uncle David! Sarah and Brain are now proud parents of a healthy baby boy - Christopher Wallace Peterson. Both mom and son are doing well and I suspect as I write this my folks are on their way down to Iowa to do a meet and greet. I’m so happy for both Sarah and Brian and wow, I wish them the best of luck as they bring up this child. He will be surrounded by so many wonderful people, it’s hard to imagine what great things he will accomplish in his lifetime. So that’s the big news right now.
In other news, I am still continuing to look at apartments. So far, I’ve seen 2 complete DUMPS that these landlords are trying to pass off as livable places. What a fucking joke. I was told in my pursuits here that I have only a year before I can really afford to buy my own place. I just need to find somewhere that is not infested with roaches and mice to live for a year. I am going to see 3 condo’s this weekend in Traverse, hopefully one of them will be what I am looking for.
On a sad note, the pets are really hurting my chances at finding something worth while. One complex I am looking at is brand new, gorgeous, has all the amenities that I require HOWEVER, they allow only one dog and one cat. I have 2 cats. That place is also the most likely place that I can get into and I hate to say it but if it comes down to choosing an apartment or my cats I have to say at this point I have to choose the apartment. I intend to do everything I can to accommodate my own children but even though I do treat them like my own kids, they are still all pets. They don’t pay the rent (and in fact eat me out of house and home) and I may have to make a choice.
Work is crazy right now. I’ve managed to put in about 55 hours for 2 weeks straight now and next week looks like more of the same. Major re-set’s going on with lots of new product hitting the floor for fall. It’s really keeping me on my toes and lucky for me, my team has sensed my urgency and really started to perform up to my expectations for speed.
Tonight I am painting the vanity in the bathroom so now it’s off to do a second coat. That is the one thing we never finished when we redid the bathroom so I am finishing it now so that it looks like we did what we said we were going to do. Enjoy your weekend!
Well it’s been quite a while since I’ve written here. Suffice to say it’s been crazy busy lately. With all the visitors at the end of last month and just a crazy ass schedule at work, it has been very hard to find the time to write lately. Things are beginning to pick up now to the frenzy level. I need to find an apartment/condo soon so that I can finalize a new lease within the first couple weeks of August. Got an email from the current landlord today, her recent showing of the house was largely good however it looks like Jirar and I will have to rip out the carpet in the basement. It would appear that she was less than impressed by the smell of cat pee coming from the basement. The little one (K.D.) learned a bad habit this past year from a visiting cat I would think and has taken to marking in some areas of the basement. The deal when we moved in here was that the security deposit would be waived but we would be largely responsible for any sort of damage caused by either ourselves or our animals. We were not asked to replace the floor coverings, only get rid of the smelly stuff and wash down the concrete under it to remove the odor. In all, I’m willing to accept the task of doing so but Jirar won’t be let off the hook. It will happen when he is home.
It’s also time to move forward with renting a dumpster quite soon. I will wait until we rip out the carpet but at this point I can easily fill up a dumpster with random crap that can not be donated and that I have to get rid of. I have no idea what the cost will be yet but I would guess it has to be cheaper than hauling the stuff to the dump and paying the tipping fees there which are out of control. I packed up the office with the exception of my computer the other day and managed to whittle down a lot of that shit to a few boxes. It’s just amazing how much shit you accumulate over the years that you use for a while and then shove to the back of the closet. Good to finally go through it I guess. I’m starting a new chapter in my life, it will be nice to do so without all kinds of random baggage hanging on.
I went golfing with Dad the other day. I managed to keep the ball in the air most of the time but it was no use, both of us scored well over par and it was a pretty easy course. That was the first outing that Dad and I will be having this summer, our goal is to play once a month until the season is over. We got off to a late start.
I have posted new pictures to leelanauphotography.com in the past couple weeks and I intend to post more as I can find the time. I had been meaning to post this picture below on the blog but had not found the time to do it. I am posting it full size becuase it makes and excellent background image for your desktop. Click on the picture and it will open full size, once it’s open right click your mouse and select “use as desktop background” and it will magically be put on your desktop! Enjoy!
This has been a rough week at work. This time of year, I always prepare myself for exceptionally busy days, exceptionally rude customers, annoying (and mostly unsupervised) children tearing around the store, and self-professed Do-It-Yourselfers (who should not be doing ANYTHING themselves). I prep myself each day before work and I tell myself not to take shit personally and for the most part I don’t. This year is different. I’ve been up here working in this job now for 4 years. NEVER in those 4 years have I come across SO many people who are SO oblivious to every single other person around them. Today alone, I had no fewer than 5 customers storm up to my desk, cut in to conversations I was having with OTHER customers who were there before them and rudely BARK what they wanted. SO completely oblivious to the fact that there was anyone in front of them in line and so completely unaware that they were doing anything even remotely uncivilized. This sort of behavior is usually reserved to the rich and privileged who have never worked a day in their pretty little lives but this sort of thing is leaching out of every class of person we see and it’s happening MUCH more frequently than at any other time that I can remember. Even the day after Thanksgiving is not this full of arrogant assholes.
OK, usually when people are assholes to me, I will step back, and take a look at my OWN behavior. Maybe I’m the one with the problem here, maybe I have the attitude and my existence is just pissing people off. Once I determine that I’m in reasonably good spirits I look at the bigger picture, what’s my team doing? Is anyone else having these issues. When it turns out that EVERYONE is having the same problems with customers then there is something much bigger going on, something beyond my direct control. That’s where we are folks. EVERY single person I talked to at work is having the same problems with rude, arrogant, and completely oblivious customers. A LOT of these customers come in to the store just pissed off at the world and ready to fight with anyone who even DARES ask them how they are doing.
Reason: Its the economy stupid.
So my rant for today is WAKE UP WORLD. Your lives are ALL way too short to be so pissed off all the time. You WILL NOT automatically get your way by being rude and inconsiderate of everyone around you, in fact, you will likely end up quite embarrassed that you were so foolish to believe you were ANY better or more important than the person in front of you. YOUR behavior is the problem, it’s not my fault that you don’t know what the fuck you are doing, it’s not MY fault that you can’t read directions, it’s not MY fault that you are an impatient bastard. GROW UP FOLKS, love each other…make love not war…
Fucking bastards.
Ok, the 2 are not mutually exclusive but for the sake of argument I’ll separate them for a minute. What a day at work today. I’ve forgotten that it usually takes me about a month or so to make the transition from redneck land to stick up their ass tourist land. I’m convinced only of 2 things. First, 99% of people have apparently never worked in the service industry and have never learned proper…fuck proper…how bout they have just never learned how to be pleasant people. Second, there are only a FEW select people who should do things themselves and there are only a FEW select things those people should ever attempt to do. No, I’m sorry I am not going to tell you that it’s OK to put deck sealer on your roof becuase it’s cheaper than new shingles! Sorry, dweeb, I’m not willing to guarantee this product is going to work if you are TOO FUCKING LAZY and CHEEP to follow the fucking directions and do the job right.
Dad, you’ll like this: From my childhood there is one lesson you taught me at the top of your lungs over the screaming lawnmower and it was a comment you only ever had to say forcefully to me once (although you repeated it many other times throughout my life in various circumstances): If you AREN’T going to do the job RIGHT, than DON’T do it at all!! Certianly your job as a parent was to instill the value of responsibility for doing something well and having a successful end result. It was not exactly something a kid wanted to hear whilst trying to maneuver an out of control self propelled machine that certainly was bigger than me at top speed through loose sand. You made your point and I learned a lesson, that lesson being: when you cut corners you set yourself up for failure. Academics aside, it is a lesson I took into adulthood by becoming a careful and deliberate person in my professional life. I don’t cut corners, my actions are deliberate and planned, and I am successful. There is a reason for everything I do and for everything I say. It is a value I try to impart on my employees and it is something that I must very carefully, everyday, try to impart on customers who come in to my department. “If you are not going to do it right (you lazy fucking redneck), don’t waste your time, try this product instead, it doesn’t require as much work or preparation (I’d love to watch you fail miserably at your project becuase it’s funny but I really don’t want to listen to you when you come back and bitch at me for selling you something you couldn’t figure out how to use becuase you couldn’t be bothered to read the fucking directions).”
On to Babies. When the hell did the baby market explode and why was I not around to make any money on this? I spent several hours tonight looking at some of the plastic baby items that Sarah is going to be getting (or has already received) for her baby shower. Notice the inserted word “plastic”. You know, the huge metal Tonka Trucks that were just fine when I was a kid, why did they switch to plastic? Why are Lincoln Logs now plastic? What happened to Tinker Toys and Light Bright? Why are there batteries in the Etch-A-Sketch? What the hell is a Diaper Genie? Somewhere between 1974 and 2008, Johnny Jumpup become the “Graco Jumpster in Jungle Jubilation”, a wholly unnecessary sentence to describe a pair of oversize shorts sewn on to a couple long elastic straps that provide hours of entertainment to small children who secretly wish to fly. Well Sarah, that’s what your getting for your shower from me. Check your email, I sent you a note about when you’ll get it.
So now I’m off to bed. Tomorrow is another day in do it yourself land.
Tags: babies, dipshit, DYIWell it’s been a little while since I’ve written. What can I say, this is the busy season at work right now. OK, I’ve also had the house to myself and have had nothing to bitch about on that front. Anyhow, I was explaining to an old friend today that we’ve made the transition from red-neck-ville to I’m-better-than-you-ville. Believe it or not, I like the second one better than the first. Finally, people shopping who wear all their clothes and who have all their teeth. They snap, whistle, and whip hostilities through the air but at least I can’t smell them coming a mile away!!! I’ll trade arragonce for meth-head stupidity any day. To say the last work has been CRAZY busy. Sad thing is, it’s only 3/4 as busy as it was this time last year. With gas now at a whopping $4.12 a gallon out here in Leelanau, NOBODY is going anywhere unless they have to. I spend a good 1/3 of my day on the phone with people who are price shopping becuase they only want to drive to one place to get their shit. You know, I hate gas prices too but Jesus Christ, I don’t sit at home all day and make phone calls to plan my shopping visits. I don’t know, I, being a good little consumer, just know where to shop and how to shop. Guess that comes from working in retail. Maybe it comes from being gay.
The personal life has been interesting lately. Seems I’ve been the only one lately with his shit together. Whether it’s regarding money or regarding what to do with my life, I got it going on right now and I’m pretty darn happy with my life. I’m not real happy with some of the things that have gone on in the past year but you know what, I’ll survive and I’ll get over my sorrow about some of the things and people I’ve lost and I’ll move on. There is a HUGE difference in how I am dealing with this vs. how I might have dealt with it 10 years ago. I’m a much happier person now than I was then. I’m also much more sure of myself and my position in life. I guess that comes with age. I had my “mid-life” crisis when I was in my early 20’s. I got it out of the way really fucking early. I’m glad too becuase it’s a LOT easier to enjoy life when you are not carrying around so much fucking angst.
OK, that’s it for now. I’ve got to get some other things done tonight. I’ll leave you with another random picture.
This was a fairly busy weekend. Not at all what it should have been though. Today is mothers day, last year was killer weather and sales were through the roof. This year the weather sucked and we were dead most of the day. It’s getting fairly obnoxious to hear people bitching about the gas prices lately. Like my post yesterday, seems everyone doing the bitching are the people who are driving the big SUV’s and fucking monster trucks 50 miles one way to come and shop in red neck land. We ALL pay the same price for gas folks, I don’t care how far you CHOOSE to drive, you made a choice now just fucking deal with it.
Tomorrow is Monday and what I hope is my “Friday”. If all goes well, I should be out of work at noon and won’t have to go back until 10am on Thursday. I tend to get shit on though when I start to look forward to something so I’m not going to get my hopes up that my plans won’t be shattered by my boss telling all of us we have to work 6 days this week. I don’t normally have much of a problem with this except that I am really tired right now and would like a couple good days to just chill out. We’ll see what happens. The cherry blossoms are nearly out and Tuesday is supposed to be 70 degrees so I’m going for a drive to take pictures. Look for an update on leelanauphotography.com in the next few days.
I’ve been doing some scanning lately and have added several new pictures from my boychoir days to the historical preservation albums on leelanauphotography.com. Those albums are in the Family folder for those of you who care. The one below was taken when I was in 8th grade in front of St. Cecilia Music Society in Grand Rapids. It was the only time we made it to GR when I was in the choir. This was in the middle of winter, take a look at that sweater I’ve got on. I would LOVE to find a sweater like that today, we all had one and they were all hand made Icelandic sweaters that had been donated to the school years back. I have no idea if the school still has them but if anyone knows where I can find similar sweaters let me know.
As I’m sure you can tell from the picture, it was quite important to us that we looked good, hence the reason the stocking caps are barely clinging to our heads and our pea coats are not buttoned up even though it’s freezing cold outside. I loved that time in my life but good lord I would never want to grow up again…
Tags: boychoir, cold, pictures, workThe following has been stolen from Wally’s Joke Mail and reposted here without permission. I did not write these but I’m not sure Wally did either since I’ve seen these same things posted elsewhere. Pay attention to the highlighted ones. These are statements I find particularly disturbing and true in my neck of the woods. Traverse City is not by definition a conservative area in the same way that Grand Rapids is but some of the back woods boys up here would sure like you to believe it’s all about American Flags and guns!
1. You have to be against abortion, but support capital punishment on demand.
2. You have to believe that governments create oppression and businesses create prosperity.
3. You have to believe that the man wearing a turban in the airport is more of a terrorist than the white man carrying a concealed gun.
4. You have to believe that federal funding is a handout and that disadvantaged people should be able to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” just like you and your daddy and his daddy before him.
5. You have to believe that someone made up global warming to scare you into not driving that gas-guzzling SUV.
6. You have to believe that being sexually confused is an abomination that God hates.
7. You have to believe that the people advocating those afflicted with AIDS should “stop whining.”
8. You have to believe that if schools don’t provide sex education and/or condoms, then kids just won’t think about sex and it will all just go away.
9. You have to believe that animal rights activists aren’t doing “what God intended,” but hunters are.
10. You have to believe that if someone has fallen on hard times it is their own fault and they should be given no help.
11. You have to believe that God lives in your own little box and that He hates all the same things and people you do.
12. You have to believe that the ACLU is bad because it supports certain parts of the Constitution, while the NRA is good because it supports certain parts of the Constitution.
13. You have to believe that the tax on your yacht is too high and that the homeless man isn’t being taxed enough.
14. You have to believe that the contributions to American history made by Caucasian men are more important than those made by women and African-Americans.
15. You have to believe that Black History Month is reverse racism, but the Confederate flag is just a historical symbol.
16. You have to believe that any war we fight is for a good reason, because the president said so.
17. You have to believe that God loves everyone, except for gay people.
18. You have to believe that this message is part of a crazy, left-wing revolution.
Some people are just irritating. Others are just plain stupid.
The population is beginning to change now up here for the summer. Today I pulled into The Coffee Bean to grab a cup of coffee on my way home from work and I had to park next to what I think was the BIGGEST SUV I’ve ever seen in my life. It was the size of a small school bus, it was BRIGHT white (I hate white cars) and it was clearly driven by someone who cares nothing about how that vehicle makes them look when gas is now at $4.00 a gallon up here. I would venture to say that the owner of that car has been made rich by the stupidity of others and is now showing off his ego. The only thing missing from this truck was a set of bulls balls for the hitch. (I don’t know who the woman is below, this is just to show you what bulls balls are).
Summer time up here brings with it some pretty crazy people. Some even more so than the back woods meth-heads that populate the area in the winter. These people have money, love to show it off, and care about nobody but themselves. To the locals these people who come up here only on the weekends and then somehow think they live here are known as Fudgies…a horrendously bad nickname in the first place. These are the folks who whistle at me at work in order to try and get my attention to help them. Guess what folks, I don’t stop for people who whistle at me. I’ll loose a sale before I am treated like that. I’m not a dog, I don’t have a tail. If you want to treat me like you would a dog than you had better have a treat for me in that fucking bag of yours or I’m going to jump on you, bite you and give you rabies you stupid fucks. Pardon me, will you help me?.. works much better.
Tags: bulls balls, conservative, fudgies, Funny, stupid, SummerPart 2! Tonight I decided that it was staying warm enough at night to move my cold frame greenhouse outside on to the deck. I’ll still leave the cover on it especially at night but the grow lights are done now, it’s time for the sun to take over. I’ve had some surprising results with this project. I’ve got a huge planter now of fully blooming flowers just in time for transplanting. Those are on the right side in the picture below. Everything else I have is ready to go into the ground as soon as I feel it is staying warm enough not to kill everything. I should be able to get things in early. I spent the afternoon today digging up and weeding out my 2 garden beds down in the “pit”. I never harvested my carrots last year and they were all over one of the beds. Of course I had to clean out all the fucking cat shit from the roommates cat who has decided that my garden beds are fine places to take a shit. Oh well, I suppose it could be worse. Everything is still REALLY wet right now. Things need to dry out a bit from all the rain we’ve have in the past couple days. I’ve got a near lake in the backyard down in some of the low spots in the woods. I’ve never seen that happen before. I’m waiting for the water lilies to sprout, well actually it’s just going to spawn bugs. Well tomorrow was supposed to be my day off but it’s the busy season. I’ve got to go into work tomorrow to help clean. Everyone is doing 6 day weeks now for the near future so the store stays in shape. I won’t complain, it’s good money and I’ve got nothing going on here yet…it’s still too early to do much outside. It’s the 6 day weeks in late July and August that I hate. That’s MY busy time.
OK, so I will be the first to admit that being single with a full time, well paying job has distinct advantages. I’ll also be the first to say that my bills could be MUCH lower than they are. I have (and likely always will) live well beyond my means. That said, I’ve come a long way in learning how to manage my cash flow. Granted, I still get nailed sometimes with expenses that I’ve not planed for but for the most part, I’ve finally arrived to that point where I’m not running to Mom and Dad every other week for a loan like I was years ago (but thank God they still have the willingness to bail me out once in a while). It’s amazing how much better you can feel about life when you actually have a few months of standard expenses in the bank as a buffer and you aren’t living paycheck to paycheck. This is the only time of year I can enjoy that…I hope that since I am no longer required to share my “wealth” with anyone else, I can maintain that buffer for quite a while now.
That said, I am a tech geek in many ways. I always have to have the latest toys. Jirar told me the other day that he was planning on taking back his iPod. I have grown pretty fond of the little mp3 player since my entire music collection is now in digital form. I don’t have much use for a CD player any more. Well, it is his iPod and it would have been hard for me to just say no so I went out and decided to just buy my own. I looked at a few options and it was a toss up between the 80gig iPod classic which would have been large enough to hold my 20gig music collection as well as video and podcasts -OR- the 8gb iPod Touch which is the latest and greatest thing from Apple with an awesome touch screen, WiFi enabled so I can get on the internet anywhere there is an access point (important now that I’ll be moving into town) and LOTS of other toys that are just fun. The biggest drawback however was that it is 10 times smaller in capacity. There was really no significant price difference between the 2, only a HUGE size difference. The iPod Classic would hold 10 times the number of mp3’s that the iPod Touch would.
Well, I decided to go with the iPod Touch. At best, and at any given time, I only listen to around 2-3gb worth of my mp3 files (about 150 songs). My taste in music fluctuates and these things are accommodating enough that I can just rotate my music collection as my taste evolves and changes. And now I can sit in my living room and watch YouTube videos on my iPod.
This thing also comes as a phone but you have to have AT&T as your provider right now and I can not justify switching cell phone providers, especially after I just got a new cell phone too!
Anyhow, I think my recent spending spree is pretty much over now. The last thing I need to do is get Gavin updated on his shots at the vet but selling off my firewood to Uncle Lou will pay for that. The only other thing I have to invest in now is half the fee of a storage unit that Jirar and I will be sharing starting in July. Beyond that, I’m pretty well up to date for the year.
Writing should be picking up a little although I am going into a stretch now of 3 weeks in a row without a weekend off. My assistant is having surgery so in order to keep things going I’ve had to pick up some slack. Lucky for me, she will be paying me back later this summer by working several days for me so I can have a break (even though she doesn’t know it now). Cheers for now!
Tags: awsome, geek, iPod Touch, TechnologyYou are currently browsing the Leelanau Whippersnapper weblog archives for the work category.
