So the other night (and also the night before that one, too) we went and took our cards+gifts over to a few of the neighbors around us. Everyone was very nice, but I feel kinda bad honestly...every year, I feel compelled to do/say something to the people who are around us, but I know by the looks on their faces that they were T-O-T-A-L-L-Y not expecting us to do anything for them, and likewise...well, anyway.
Doesn't bother me if none of them do the same in return, I just want to do something to say, "thanks for being our neighbor and not being a jerk when we don't cut our grass often enough." Anyway, I guess you could call our gift-giving selfish, since it makes me feel good and makes some of them feel guilty.
I mean, it's not really even that much...just a card and some candy/treats that Hilary made...stuff we HAD to get rid of anyway, lest my waistline expand too much.
So anyway, we got to one neighbor's house and the wife answered the door (technically, the two boys stared at us through the window for a few moments before mom showed up). As it turns out, her husband is in Kansas preparing to deploy for Iraq right after Christmas for a full 400 days. He'll be back a day or two before Christmas and stay a few days, but then he's gone for OVER A YEAR. Even worse, he already spent a year+ there before. When we moved into the neighborhood a few years ago, it was about a week or so before they had a big homecoming welcome for him coming back from Iraq the first time. A very circumstantial thing for me...I was checking the mail after work, and noticed these flags all over the yard and entrance, with yellow ribbons and all. Then, a few moments later, a car pulls into the driveway, guy gets out and family greets with hugs all around. It was one of those moments where you didn't have to ask a question...you knew IMMEDIATELY what you were witnessing. It was awesome to see that one moment, and feel like you suddenly knew someone better than a handshake introduction could have done.
So he's off again, and that's sad for him to have to do that again. I support the efforts of this war, and definitely the troops, but he's already put in his "time" as a reservist (my opinion) so it seems, hey, let him retire already. I just pray he stays alright, and the mom does okay with the extra load at home.
I can't believe Christmas is only a few days away!!!! It's sad when about 15 seconds after the end of Christmas the total emotion gets sucked out, the music stops and people seem to only remember what they got or didn't get (and even THAT memory is generally fleeting). How cliche to say so, but c'mon...let's try to let spirit of Christmas last a little longer than that.
My grandpa is famous in my family for heralding - if only jokingly - the end of Christmas Day with this quote: "well...another Christmas...shot to heck." He captures the sentiment of thousands and thousands of people with a single line, and we laugh every time.
I'm excited anyway, I love Christmas, and knowing that the end comes soon doesn't curtail my merriment.
Jing-a-ling, dude. Jing-a-ling.
12.21.2007
12.18.2007
It's a small, small world
I was at the accountant today for year-end stuff, and was talking with the accountant about Christmas plans when Your Favorite Town entered the conversation. As it turns out, his wife was part of the first graduating classes at my high school in the early 80's. After talking for a minute, she started talking about where she lived in town there and it was quite literally a couple doors down from Hilary's parents' place. What are the odds of that? I was referred to this accountant by a co-worker in Norcross, for an accountant in Tucker, I live in Dacula...and yet she grew up just down the street from where my wife grew up.
Crazy how you run into people like that sometimes. I picked up a job this year on referral from a friend of a previous contact - pretty far removed. As it turned out, I wasn't very far disconnected there either.
With all the millions of people out there, you'd think that unless you were trying to do so, you'd rarely run into people in this way, but I suppose there are just enough variables in the mix.
How is it that last week I was wearing shorts, and now I'm back to 7 shirts, 3 pairs of pants and 3 jackets just to walk out and get the paper?
Christmas shopping = almost done. I think there might be one more gift, but that's it.
Caleb's bedroom has a crib and a dresser in it now, and the painting is all done. Still plenty of work to do in there, though.
Christmas will be over in a week now, and it barely feels like I've gotten to enjoy it yet.
Crazy how you run into people like that sometimes. I picked up a job this year on referral from a friend of a previous contact - pretty far removed. As it turned out, I wasn't very far disconnected there either.
With all the millions of people out there, you'd think that unless you were trying to do so, you'd rarely run into people in this way, but I suppose there are just enough variables in the mix.
How is it that last week I was wearing shorts, and now I'm back to 7 shirts, 3 pairs of pants and 3 jackets just to walk out and get the paper?
Christmas shopping = almost done. I think there might be one more gift, but that's it.
Caleb's bedroom has a crib and a dresser in it now, and the painting is all done. Still plenty of work to do in there, though.
Christmas will be over in a week now, and it barely feels like I've gotten to enjoy it yet.
12.05.2007
Check the printer
I think it's probably a good idea to check the printer from time to time.
If you work in an office that has a printing room, or just a central printer that everyone sends their documents to be printed, I think it can make your day to just swing by there once in a while and see if there's anything interesting being printed.
It occurred to me to spend some time recently just nosing in and seeing what people are putting out in plain view. A visual survey returns these results:
If you work in an office that has a printing room, or just a central printer that everyone sends their documents to be printed, I think it can make your day to just swing by there once in a while and see if there's anything interesting being printed.
It occurred to me to spend some time recently just nosing in and seeing what people are putting out in plain view. A visual survey returns these results:
- personal e-mails (some of them very much so)
- bills/payment receipts (personal finance items...apparently there's a lot of credit card debt here)
- legal documents (sometimes you need to just call a lawyer)
- pictures (really though, most photos look like butt when printed on a B&W laser printer)
- pages and pages of gibberish and/or nothing (someone's got a virus)
- management e-mails about policy changes (heads up!)
- jokes and other e-mail forwards (some good, some old)
- directions (....to just about everywhere)
- talk-behind-the-back e-mails (and you're printing these out because....?)
- product reviews (cliff's notes: everything breaks about a day after the warranty expires - everything)
Totally random assortment, just a little bit of everything. Would bring a smile in the middle of any day.
Of course, if you really want to have a good time, you stick around and see who comes to get some of these things. Ruh-roh!
12.04.2007
Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead!
"Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead!" is apparently what you get if you translate the former Pepsi slogan "Come alive with Pepsi!" into Chinese. This was stated as part of a larger piece on the UK's Telegraph website. Here's a link (may not work after a few days/weeks/whatever):
http://tinyurl.com/27rele
I just laughed very hard when I saw that and couldn't resist sharing it.
http://tinyurl.com/27rele
I just laughed very hard when I saw that and couldn't resist sharing it.
12.03.2007
Fa-la-la-la.....ah,forget it.
In order to maintain the blogger status quo (that is, using a blog primarily to display negative emotional frustrations), I would like to take a moment of your life to talk about poor, poor pitiful....me.
We have a health insurance policy at the studio that is designed around an individual HSA (health savings account). There are monthly payments made into my individual account by the employer that can be used towards medical bills, prescriptions...pretty much any medical purpose large or small. My employer has failed - for over two months now - to make the required deposits. This was discovered some time ago, and brought to the attention of the appropriate managers. The grapevine has provided various explanations for this over the last few weeks, but today I got the real answer.
The boss didn't think anyone would notice.
What? Yes.
We're experiencing some financial issues right now, so one of the steps to "stop the bleeding" is to go ahead and cut benefits. Okay, I'm a big boy, let's talk about that, or let me know at least. It's like that movie Office Space...this one person figured "hey, the problem will just kind of solve itself here. Win-win!" Lame. I'm pissed. I was already upset that it was being forgotten, then to find that it was purposefully secretly withheld...totally l-a-m-e. Unprofessional.
Let's add to that, shall we? Employees at my company receive a little under a dozen paid days off each year, and that's it. No "personal" or "vacation" or "sick" time off, just paid days. Not a big deal, because we typically get a couple of weeks off at the end of the year for Christmas time. That time off has shrunk over the last couple of years, but it was still always a decent justification for the minimal paid time. Well, you probably already guessed where this is going....yes, that's going away. Initially they said "Christmas Day, that's it." Christmas Day is a Tuesday, and so I guess we come in for one day on Monday, but even that went crazy when they said "well, it'll probably only be a half day." Are you seriously telling everyone to come in on a Monday, work for 4 hours and then go home for a day? Seems it would be a little unproductive. All of this is not a big deal except 1) a lot of people already made their Christmas travel plans under the old rules and 2) they're already screwing us one way during Christmas this year, and this isn't a nice second hit to take. I usually use the extra time to do year-end wrap up stuff for TradeWind Productions...guess not this year. Ahhhhhhhhh.....it's just lame to start cutting benefits, WITHOUT prior notice, during Christmas of all times, and acting like it's no big deal.
I'm just about ready to move on...this company got a good chunk of my post-college life already, so maybe it's time to find a new challenge.
That's the end of that, so now I'll move on.
Hey, UGA is in the Sugar Bowl!!! Woooo!!! Seriously, if you told me after our 2nd loss to Tennessee (the first was South Carolina) that we'd be playing in a big New Year's Day bowl, I would have told your mama you were spreading lies. It's a nice end to a pretty good year of UGA football. Would the national championship game have been better? Of course. Could we have beaten Ohio State? I certainly think so. Does LSU deserve to be there playing in that game? Just as much as anyone with 2 losses, I suppose (Oklahoma and Virginia Tech chief among those, along with UGA). But I will side with Mark Richt here...if the voters in the polls weren't happy with UGA being next in line with their previous votes, why didn't they vote someone else ahead of them then? Obviously, Georgia was penalized for not playing in or winning their conference, and I'd agree that should be a component. However, the BCS rules committee has twice voted down a chance to make that a prerequisite, so.....how does UGA fall from 4 to 5 just because of that, not even considering a #2 spot that they would have "mathematically" been bumped to after this weekend?
Still, UGA made good in what was looking like a bad season at first, so kudos to all of the players and coaches. The lesson they learned is a valuable one....don't lose as many games, and people won't be second guessing you so much. Win your conference, and you can legitimately contend for that national championship game. Steve Spurrier is laughing his 6-loss butt off up in Columbia right now for beating UGA in September.
In other news....Christmas is fun, really fun. Especially the kitschy music on the radio stations around town. Decorations are pretty much complete here at the Jolly house, might just grab one more strand for the trees out front, but that's about it.
Getting the nursery ready, first step was cleaning and painting the walls. Next we'll be getting the furniture in from Babies R Us, and then we'll have some semblance of a nursery as we get the various wall hangings and such put up.
I'll be back soon...more posts would be the norm in a perfect world, eh?
We have a health insurance policy at the studio that is designed around an individual HSA (health savings account). There are monthly payments made into my individual account by the employer that can be used towards medical bills, prescriptions...pretty much any medical purpose large or small. My employer has failed - for over two months now - to make the required deposits. This was discovered some time ago, and brought to the attention of the appropriate managers. The grapevine has provided various explanations for this over the last few weeks, but today I got the real answer.
The boss didn't think anyone would notice.
What? Yes.
We're experiencing some financial issues right now, so one of the steps to "stop the bleeding" is to go ahead and cut benefits. Okay, I'm a big boy, let's talk about that, or let me know at least. It's like that movie Office Space...this one person figured "hey, the problem will just kind of solve itself here. Win-win!" Lame. I'm pissed. I was already upset that it was being forgotten, then to find that it was purposefully secretly withheld...totally l-a-m-e. Unprofessional.
Let's add to that, shall we? Employees at my company receive a little under a dozen paid days off each year, and that's it. No "personal" or "vacation" or "sick" time off, just paid days. Not a big deal, because we typically get a couple of weeks off at the end of the year for Christmas time. That time off has shrunk over the last couple of years, but it was still always a decent justification for the minimal paid time. Well, you probably already guessed where this is going....yes, that's going away. Initially they said "Christmas Day, that's it." Christmas Day is a Tuesday, and so I guess we come in for one day on Monday, but even that went crazy when they said "well, it'll probably only be a half day." Are you seriously telling everyone to come in on a Monday, work for 4 hours and then go home for a day? Seems it would be a little unproductive. All of this is not a big deal except 1) a lot of people already made their Christmas travel plans under the old rules and 2) they're already screwing us one way during Christmas this year, and this isn't a nice second hit to take. I usually use the extra time to do year-end wrap up stuff for TradeWind Productions...guess not this year. Ahhhhhhhhh.....it's just lame to start cutting benefits, WITHOUT prior notice, during Christmas of all times, and acting like it's no big deal.
I'm just about ready to move on...this company got a good chunk of my post-college life already, so maybe it's time to find a new challenge.
That's the end of that, so now I'll move on.
Hey, UGA is in the Sugar Bowl!!! Woooo!!! Seriously, if you told me after our 2nd loss to Tennessee (the first was South Carolina) that we'd be playing in a big New Year's Day bowl, I would have told your mama you were spreading lies. It's a nice end to a pretty good year of UGA football. Would the national championship game have been better? Of course. Could we have beaten Ohio State? I certainly think so. Does LSU deserve to be there playing in that game? Just as much as anyone with 2 losses, I suppose (Oklahoma and Virginia Tech chief among those, along with UGA). But I will side with Mark Richt here...if the voters in the polls weren't happy with UGA being next in line with their previous votes, why didn't they vote someone else ahead of them then? Obviously, Georgia was penalized for not playing in or winning their conference, and I'd agree that should be a component. However, the BCS rules committee has twice voted down a chance to make that a prerequisite, so.....how does UGA fall from 4 to 5 just because of that, not even considering a #2 spot that they would have "mathematically" been bumped to after this weekend?
Still, UGA made good in what was looking like a bad season at first, so kudos to all of the players and coaches. The lesson they learned is a valuable one....don't lose as many games, and people won't be second guessing you so much. Win your conference, and you can legitimately contend for that national championship game. Steve Spurrier is laughing his 6-loss butt off up in Columbia right now for beating UGA in September.
In other news....Christmas is fun, really fun. Especially the kitschy music on the radio stations around town. Decorations are pretty much complete here at the Jolly house, might just grab one more strand for the trees out front, but that's about it.
Getting the nursery ready, first step was cleaning and painting the walls. Next we'll be getting the furniture in from Babies R Us, and then we'll have some semblance of a nursery as we get the various wall hangings and such put up.
I'll be back soon...more posts would be the norm in a perfect world, eh?
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