My Things of the World

Nonstop

2012-01-26T18:14:00.000-08:00

The Peak Week we are going through is of course driving me crazy. I was hoping to sit in the Food Court and do some of my writing. Didn't happen had to jump in and start clients two hours before I was supposed to. I just hate it when all I do is work and sleep. There is a little time to eat and play games but I would really like to do some other work.

Seriously underestimated

2012-01-25T07:50:00.000-08:00

OK so in four days I have down more than 60 tax returns. Probably get at least 7 more today. Military W-2s dropped at 1430 EST. Who does that? Drop them at midnight or some off hours time. The middle of the day is weird.

Anyway three of the newbies have quit already. One of our CSPs might quit but she is hanging in there. Any way this is the rough week. It gets so much easier later on.

Today a half day and tomorrow I am supposed to be off so we will see. This is getting a little ridiculous. With the quiting.

Oh and apparently we have to mail in the NY returns for military to get their whole refund back.

The Big Event starts

2012-01-20T06:17:00.000-08:00

Well we were expecting the Active Military W2s to drop today but apparently not. Or maybe they are but I can't see it from home. Anyway I start work today and then have to keep going until next Thursday and then on for another week.

Of course this will only last as long the customer stream continues and with Benning ya just never know. Yesterday's headline was "35,000 less troops to be trained at Benning" which cuts down some of our client base.

Oh well back to time budgeting and getting personal stuff when I can. Hopefully this year will go well. I am hopeful.

Nothing Really New

2012-01-19T05:19:00.000-08:00

Watching CBS Morning show and they are talking about people who are treating dogs like grandkids because their kids are not having kids of their own. But this is supposed to be new news? The comic strip Cathy had this has a running joke back in the 80's.

I agree dogs and cats and other pets are an important part of the family but to say this is something new is just another case of the media finally getting around to it and declaring it new.

Busy Busy

2012-01-18T08:51:00.003-08:00

Well I was just about to post yesterday when some idiot crashed his car and ran away. Nothing like a useless call to waste your time. Today I have been on two medical calls so far and have been asked to come into work for a few hours today. This is really getting to be a matter of organizing my time better.

So off computer and on to work around the house and then work and then beddy by.

Busy Busy

2012-01-18T08:51:00.001-08:00

MLK Day

2012-01-16T08:42:00.000-08:00

Well today is MLK day. A more devisive holiday I do not know. First they had to cancel Lincoln and Washingtons' birthdays and combine them together. Not much there but they we're saying MLK is more important then those two since they only get one day between them and he gets one to himself.

Not everyone wanted it. Seems it is a Federal Holiday but Arizona rejected it and were economically boycotted into accepting it. They voted but got overruled.

Now it is like other Holidays in which people get off and stores run sales but is not really celebrated by most people. Maybe they need to get in the MLK Day gift thing so they can be like Christmas, Easter and Halloween.

Saturday

2012-01-15T13:28:00.000-08:00

Yes I know it's Sunday but today I am talking about Saturday. You see the wife is off on Saturday so it is hard for me to get on. Seems she doesn't like to have me sitting around typing all day instead of doing stuff. So instead of writing and gaming its shopping and wieght watchers meetings and Oh work called me in for a meeting and then over to some friends house to play a trivia game.

In the end just like wieght watchers you can miss a day just get right back on the writing track again. So here's today's thoughts and more tomorrow.

Friday the 13th

2012-01-13T07:44:00.000-08:00

Today is the day they tell us is not lucky. Well I have been on three medical calls today and one of them was for a nonresponsive person. Well he had a bad day.

Personally I take my precautions and try not to do anything that would lead me to think I am being unlucky. Worked so far.

Counting Pennies

2012-01-12T06:06:00.000-08:00

Today I am counting my pennies. Funny thing is I mean that literally. I keep a coin jar like alot of people. Actually I keep one four each coin and a jar for anything past 1965. But today I am counting them to turn in to the bank. Hey you got to do that sometimes. Final count was 615 pennies. Good thing I had $2.00 in Nickels and $10.00 in Quarters or I would have felt silly just turning in $6.00 in pennies. Hope I don't have to write my account number on them that is a real pain.

Book Review II---The New Dead

2012-01-11T05:57:00.000-08:00

Finished another book and here's what I thought of it. The New Dead edited by Christopher Golden. Yes another collection of Zombie stories. This one did not seem to have as much of a theme as the previous book. Guessing it was supposed to be about those recently coming back but the only theme I could find was the Zombies have been around for a while and are accepted or at least have been dealt with. Some of the Main Characters are Zombies and some aren't. One story did not have a Zombie in it at all just a pool hustler getting killed.

Still some of the stories were really good. The Zombie Who Fell from the Sky by M. B. Homler was constructed well. Ghost Trap by Rick Hautala was predictable but posed some good questions. Weaponized by David Wellington had some interesting Zombies. Twittering from the Circus of the Dead by Joe Hill a story told by narration through twittering. Of course the Max Brooks story Closure was good and kept in his World War Z storyline.

Like most collections read it but if one story does not grab you drop it and go to the next. There will be a better one later.

Birthday

2012-01-10T05:52:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was my Birthday. So many things to say about that but one thing stood out above the rest. The other people who share my birthday with me.

Before it was always just me and President Nixon. Not a bad one but he did have a bad reputation. Now I share my birthday with Kate Middleton the newest princess of England and with one of the guys at the Fire Station. This is more fun since one is more popular and the other is close.

Oh what did I do for my birthday? Not much, hung out, wrote some, went to work which I did not get paid for and than to the Fire meeting which lasted way too long for what we did. Of course Saturday starts the CPR class which is the lead in to the 1st Responder Class and than the real phone starts.

Dead or Not

2012-01-07T04:42:00.000-08:00

Been having a discussion on what makes something which was not alive in the first place dead. We were going on about whether the vinyl record is dead or not. As a format it is dead. No one is producing any more right now. At least not for its intended purpose.

Same goes for Latin. It is still taught, spoken, books written in, radio shows spoken in and used by people for mottos and other sayings but for all regular purposes it is a dead langauge.

Of course all this is going on in the Star Frontiers forum which is dedicated to a dead game. While the fans still support it there is little chance of it coming back as an acceptable popular game so we are discussing dead on a dead game forum. Ironic huh.

Hammer Time

2012-01-06T13:44:00.000-08:00

Fire Department has been getting hammered today. Right now it is around 1800 and we have had 6 medical calls so far today. I love working with the department but it is sometimes just so none stop that you have to sit back and wonder why you do it.

Fortunately others covered the afternoon but come tonight, I will probably be the only one answering. Have to stop the dropped calls.

Ranting now

2012-01-05T19:41:00.000-08:00

OK so I missed yesterday. My car died and had to spend time working on it. Turned out to be another blown 30 amp fuse. This might get serious one day.

I did also write my 1500 word essay for the Fire Department. Was supposed to be a 500 word essay but that is just boring. You can't get into the story in just 500 words. Now to see if anyone reads that.

OK been wanting to mention this one for a while. Why is everyone so upset at Tebowing? You know kneeling to pray thing the quarterback does. I think because it taps into so much of what Americans expect and often don't get from our atheletes. Many have said they are not role models but when one acts like one they don't know how to act.

Also the guy is religious. Most people believe in some sort of God/Goddess they just don't want to be reminded about the fact they don't practice that often or go to church that often or the simple fact that some people can show thier faith while most would rather just have a good time.

Breaks

2012-01-03T15:04:00.000-08:00

Spent the day not soing things for myself. Stayed up late for a medical call and then woke up to one. Then had to do reports and then spent most of the day watching two of the grandkids.

The one thing was once my daughter got back she needed sometime to herself on the computer. I know I spend too much time on it so sometimes just need to let others have a turn.

Anything anyone else spends too much time on that they shouldn't?

Commitments

2012-01-02T15:07:00.000-08:00

Most people call them New Year's Resolutions but in truth they are commitments you make to yourself. Maybe it says something about people in that most people can not keep thiers. Of those that do it are the ones who have told others and have help and watchers making sure they do.

So to anyone listening out there here is my Resolution. I will write something creative every day.

So far so good I at least wrote the blog yesterday and today.

Happy End of World

2012-01-01T08:32:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!!! Of course this is the year predicted for the world to end by the Mayan calendar. So I guess we should start getting ready. Many people are prepping with food and guns and supplies and such. Of course if it is the end of the world then there will be no survivors so why are we getting ready.

Guess it is because everyone thinks that whatever happens it will not affect them. In zombie movies everyone thinks they are the guy with the shotgun and not the zombie. Or in the dungeon scene that they are the one escaping and not the skeleton chained in the corner.

In reality someone has the car accidents and fires and earthquakes and someone wins the lottery. We just never think it is going to be us except for the lottery which we never win. Hope is what we have and hopefully it will never go away.

Forgiveness

2011-12-30T17:51:00.000-08:00

As we move into the New Year and look back at the old one thing we usually strive for is to see who has hurt us and whether we can forgive them and move on. The flip side of this is that we usually only forgive those who we have contact with. Those we do not see to often we just tend to forget and never worry about whether we will forgive them or not. If we truly want to forgive people than we have to dig through alot and find alot of people to ask for and to give forgiveness to. Of course this is a two way street and they have to want to be forgiven or forgive you to make it work.

TRY IT

It's almost over

2011-12-28T07:46:00.000-08:00

Well the end of the year is almost here and you know what that means. End of the year lists. You know them and have read a few. Who died and what went away, Best and Worst of everything from trends and fads to cities to be a 20 something in.

Caught one today which is predicting what brands will no longer be around after next year. This list went by:
The major criteria were as follows: (1) a rapid fall-off in sales and steep losses; (2) disclosures by the parent of the brand that it might go out of business; (3) rapidly rising costs that are extremely unlikely to be recouped through higher prices; (4) companies which are sold; (5) companies that go into bankruptcy; (6) firms that have lost the great majority of their customers; or (7) operations with rapidly withering market share. Each of the ten brands on the list suffer from one or more of these problems.

They include Sony pictures, SAAB, A&W Restaurants, American Apparel, Sears/K-mart, Sony Erickson, Kellogg's Corn Pops, MySpace, Soap Opera Digest and Nokia.

Gonna have to check on these. One of them MySpace I predicted myself to go under. It is the trend, first AOL and then MySpace and now Facebook is on top and thinking they are invincible but guess what? They already made the movie and some day it will be replaced. Hope Mark has invested his money well.

Day After Christmas

2011-12-26T12:25:00.000-08:00

Well made it through another one. First fun thing was Tammy and I got each other the same gift. What do you do with two three crock pot heaters? Give one away of course. Spent most of the day hanging out and wasting time. Didn't write but fixing that now. Did make three different kinds of soup so now have something to eat for a few days.

Bummer of the day was when I spent most of the day watching the Doctor Who marathon. Finally got up to the episode I missed due to a fire call and Wham had another one. Well first it was the blackout but that was caused by the SUV taking out the power pole. Confusion for a bit and then boredom as we sat around waiting for the police to investigate. Did have some fun helping the police with traffic control and checking for seat belt compliance. People really need to buckle up would have helped the guys in the accident.

Are you ready?

2011-12-23T18:20:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is the big day. Yes Christmas isn't for two days but tomorrow is Christmas Eve and its a Saturday. The celebrations start tomorrow and then a little more Sunday. Of course the old time Christmas and Saturnella (the original Roman party) lasted 12 days so like everything else we have taken something great and shortened and cheapened it to almost nothing like it was before.

Winter Solstice

2011-12-22T01:10:00.000-08:00

For those of you who were too busy sleeping you just missed the Winter Solstice. This is of course the longest night of the year. From now on the nights will get shorter and the days longer.

Of course for those of us in the Wiccan community it is the Winter Festival time. The day which marks the half way point or the Lord's time. Fall is over and Winter is about to begin. Brace yourselves.

Getting close now

2011-12-20T22:53:00.000-08:00

We are almost at Christmas. Personally I can't wait for it to be over. I go back to work in January and have my birthday and anniversary at the Fire Department and of course a new year to look forward to everything.

Christmas is nice but the pressure to get gifts and have big parties and the non-stop media focus on the holiday just burns me out long before it ever arrives.

Had your flu shot lately?

2011-12-18T05:26:00.000-08:00

Been posting in a forum about how deadly flu is. Seems most people do not realize that the CDC lists flu as the #7 killer of Americans. Time to get out there and get yourself shot.

Book Review I

2011-12-15T15:07:00.000-08:00

Finished reading a book about zombies last night. I know big surprise there. This one is one of those short story collections called Zombiesque containing 16 stories by different authors edited by Stephen L. Antczak, James C. Bassett and Martin H. Goldberg.

The fun part of this book is that all the main characters are Zombies. Now if you only know Zombies from George Romero (all Hail) and The Walking Dead and Return of the Living Dead you will find some of those Zombies here BUT remember people there are alot of Zombies out there and this book gives many a fine example of thinking Zombies like a Vodun Zombie, a Detective Zombie, a meatpacking Zombie a serial killer Zombie and some others.

I do not like to give an overall rating to a short story collection but here goes. On the 1 to 10 scale this one gets a 6. Some stories bored me and other were just a little too weird and one I did not even finish but the good ones brought it back up. So read this one and if a story doesn't grab you skip to the next one. You will find something you like.

Thought of the Day

2011-12-14T01:06:00.000-08:00

The Christmas season is upon us once again. This is the time of merriment and joy and especially gift giving. Because without gift giving apparently the economy will get worse than it already is. So give people give or the Zombie Apocalypse will start.

2011-12-05T10:49:00.000-08:00

New month and doing well writing at least at hour a day sometimes more. Need to work on work.

Here we go

2011-10-23T08:35:00.001-07:00

Four years ago I opened this account to take part in a zombie blogger posting contest. Then I did nothing with it. Now I am restarting it just to give me somewhere to put stuff roaming around my head so they stop taking up room in my brain. Maybe it will go somewhere and maybe it will die in a week.