Brats

Apparently I don't get sick of brats, to my amazement I could eat them almost everyday.

we did grocery shopping yesterday and planned out our meals for the week, one of them was taco.....Got trumped tonight by brats

durning the daytime I get to test brats also....Beer brats, German brats, Italian brats, Italian sweet brats, Cheddar brats...And don't get me started on the breakfast sausages cuz I get those too.

I am sure that at some time the brats are going to get old but for now "ALL HAIL THE ALMIGHTY BRAT"

I would like to thank the academy...

After the graduation ceremony we all went to dinner. Jen and my Mom and Dad, Dominic and Tommy and even Becky, who is very special to both Jen and I and especially the boys.

Well anyway, my mom had kind of joked that I should make a speech but being in a public place I sort side stepped the issue.

But there are lots of people that helped me along the way and without them I could not have finished what I started 13 years ago.

First I would like to thank my previous employer's, who without thinking that I was not a good fit for their company or by paying me so little for my job I would not have had the thought of completing in the first place.

Second I would like to thank both my mom and dad, who without their support, in more ways than one, I never would have been able to make it through.

And lastly I would like to thank Jen, who over the last 14 years never questioned what I was doing or what I wanted to achieve, rather she supported without question having nothing but faith in that I was going to achieve whatever I put my mind to. She gave up being a stay at home mom, time away from the kids, summers, late nights working and never once did she ever make complain about the decision of me not working.

Through out this last two years she is my hero, my support and my best friend. I think that we laugh more together now than in the past, I think that we love stronger than we have in the past and I think that we understand each other more than we have in the past.

So for all the worrisome nights for what seemed like taking forever for me to complete here's to you!

The Big Day

I spotted them right away sitting to my left about half way up the arena. It was my dad first, only because he was wear a solid red shirt and you couldn't miss him. Then we had Dominic, Jen, and then my mom.

I could see Dominic struggle with finding me, the pain in his face was obvious, so I stood up in the sea of black so he could find me. As his eyes lit up he waved enthusiastically and gave me the thumbs up. My phone rang and I got to talk to him, I know my Dad is going to write something about the use of cell phones so I won't go into the significance of them yesterday but between talking to Dominic and Jen it was very cool. As the ceremony started to get long Jen and I texted messaged each other.

I got to sit next to one of only 7 students that achieved a 4.0 throughout their college career. She was really nice but after I found that I out I wanted to kick the shit out of her, she was the reason the grade curve wasn't better. I gave her some shit about it too.

Then it was time, get up, follow the line, give them the card, your name is read, handed your diploma cover, shake three peoples hands and then down off the stage, walk back and it was over.

it only took me 13 years of college to get a 4 year degree and in a matter of five minutes it was over and I was done.

I have this feeling of "now what?" although tired of school and the feeling of "is it done yet" I know that it will only take a couple of weeks before feeling restless. I plan to continue to learn web design with the help of my Sis, that is if she ever gets me that copy of photoshop that I have been bugging her about for about a year now.

I do plan to go back and get my Masters degree, if only for letting Tommy attend a graduation of mine since he didn't get to go to yesterdays. Why not right? What else am I going to do?

When it is good....It is good.

I love to hear the birds chirping in the morning...I got to sleep in until 5:30am...Man that was awesome.

As I got in the shower I started to plan my day, golf in the morning with Perry, then lunch, then nap, then start to get ready to go out tonight.

But something happened this morning...After a pretty good round of 47 I got in the car and the phone started ringing before my door was closed.

"ummm Paul?"
"no"
"but you don't know what I am going to say?"
"doesn't matter"
"well I found a dishwasher at a garage sale"
"so"
"it's 25 bucks"
"what kind of condition?"
"very good"
"it's up to you, I trust your judgment"

The best part is that I looked at Perry and asked if he wanted to help me get in my new dishwasher. We got home, went and picked up the new dishwasher and by the time we got home, removed the old one, put the new one in and had it running by 11:00am. And it worked!...

so I got a new dishwasher, played golf, and fried out with a nap in the horizon.

That's it, it's all done!

Well I took my last exam last night. Yep, all done. what more can I say?

So this weekend is going to consist of more studing...no not for school but for work. Yep now work has me doing online courses...I don't mind that I have to do them but I have to have all of them done by tonight...yep tonight. Well they are just going to have to wait until next week....better to ask for forgiveness than permission I guess.

Tomarrow morning is the big day...yep going golfing for the first time all year with parry tomarrow morning. It should be a nice day and I am going to try to keep the ball on the course.

well my eyes are getting heavy now...nap time.

Zone

My Dad wrote about the "zone" a while back. It happens to everyone and the key to the zone is that you can recognize it when you are in it. For me it was Friday, which started off slowly enough at work but I knew it was going to get to the point of total and utter chaos in only a couple of hours. See Friday is payday so everyone comes in for their checks, if I don't have any help in the office then I have to had out 200 checks while still maintaining my normal duties.

I managed the checks well, only handing out the ones that I absolutely had to and sidestepping those that didn't need it right away because they were still working.

I filled all orders with some people left over to fill the regular members that called in. Woo hoo I was such a hero!

Then right before lunch my boss tells me we need to recruit 20 people to work at the other plants...full shifts!.....WTF is this....Ok ok, let see how good I really am shall we? by the time that I was done working the lunch room I had people coming to me and asking to be put on the shifts..it was beautiful. knowing it was to my advantage to work in groups I gather people around, made up a couple of names to put on my list and made it seem like there were only a couple of spots left for the bonus that we were giving. By the time we were all done I had more than the twenty and we could pick and chose who we wanted to work. In less than 30 minutes I might add! right before the last group went back down to the floor, one guy turned to me and said "Paul, you should be in sales".....I just smiled and said that it probably wouldn't be for me.

Oh there is more boys and girls!

Then after lunch as I was getting ready to leave my boss turns to me and said she was going to walk me out....Weird don't ya think? Well the guy that I trained last week needs training for this week and the second shift supervisor...well...sucks. So she will be having me train him and was asking for my input....how cool is that!

I sooooo need a raise though....and I soooo should be hating my job.....dammit!

So I was in a zone, everything that I touched went well...Fantastic really....so I decided to finish up two out my three finals early...ride the wave right?

The count down begins.....in 7 days I will be officially graduated!

Warm fuzzies

I have only been on the job now for a little over 2 months with real "behind the desk" experience for about a month or so. We hired a new guy to do my job at the other plants on second shift, so yesterday they asked me to train him. He got to follow me around, see how I did check in's, relate to the line leads and my employees...and he gave me a great compliment in that I had a great system compared to the other guy he was with for a while.

So this morning he asked to be with me for the whole shift. At about 8am I had someone come upstairs and say that there were a bunch of people all freaked out cuz they thought I was leaving. Then for the next two hours I was answering questions about whether I was leaving, how they finally found someone that was good....

Yeah I know...enough to make you puke isn't it?

Apparently I need to be more of an asshole!

Dude, it's just like water!

Appartently Gateraide is just like water, well according to a co-worker. I told him that I was really thirsty and didn't want to drink soda or the well water out of the bubbler. When my co-worker said "dude get some gateraide, it just like water"....to which my response was "shut up, that may be the stupidest thing I have ever heard".

"no really dude, it just like water with food coloring in it"
"ummm, yeah and the sugar and and other crap that is in it...but it is just like water"
"well...yeah"
"ok then"

so apparently gateraide is just like water.....only different.

I declare

I declare today as "Stupid people day".

Yep May 4th will forever be "Stupid People Day". Why you may ask? Well let me give you one simple example of what was going on today. My boss gets a phone call from a lawyer's office to do a employment verification for one of our employee's. Well we only take them by fax...This wasn't good enough so they argued with her about how she was suppose to give over confidential information over the phone without the person's knowledge....k that was stupid enough from a lawyers office but it gets better.

So she gives them our 800 number to corporate in Chicago along with an extension directly to someone that she can talk to. Five minutes later the phone rings back and the lawyers office accuses her of giving them the wrong number and extension......They actually called her a liar....yep a lier.

So as she hung up the phone and had this stressed out look on her face I told her that I declare today "Stupid People Day". She got a kick out of that.

so to all stupid people out there today is your day....

I love winter

yep thank goodness that winter has finally arrived. We got our first snow fall.......

HEY IT IS MAY DAMMIT.....WHAT THE FUCK!!!

Look I don't mind winter and all but snow, hail and rain all in one day has got to stop......shit I even went outside with an arosal can and aimed it at the sky....and I don't know about any of you but I wish that global warming would hurry the fuck up cuz I am cold now!