I do have a new video to post here.  A couple of years ago I purchased a really nice Cannon HD video camera and over the winter it decided to quit working.  As luck would have it (amazingly), I had purchased a repair plan from Best Buy and so I sent it in hoping that I could at least get it working again.  No luck.  They could not fix it but they did offer to replace it.  This was the FIRST and it will likely be the only time in my life when I have actually used one of those extended warranty plans.  I hesitated to buy it in the first place but I’m sure glad that I did now.  I replaced it with a nice HD Sony Handycam and I’m fully impressed by its abilities.  The Cannon was a much better model however it was, not surprisingly, quite complicated and not very user-friendly.  This Sony is much better and is more to my skill level when it comes to videos.

So here is my latest video on You Tube.  It is a tour through my backyard (in HD if your net connection is worthy).  As you can see, I’ve got my fence installed now and all the trees and plants are finally in bloom.  I’ll try to update more often on this blog but you all will just have to get used to seeing fewer posts from me for a while until things settle down again for the winter months.  Sorry.

It’s been a busy few weeks for me but now things are finally going to calm down for a while.  The Christmas madness is finally over and people really blew their wad this year.  This was my best year ever for sales but that means of course that I have to now work twice as hard this coming year to beat it.  People who work in sales never get a break.  If you do well one year, you are expected to do better the next year.  I’m sure that I will but it is added stress to think about.  Coming up at work now are weeks of re-sets, re-models, and immediate preparation for the coming spring.  In my business there are only 2 seasons.  Christmas and Spring (yes I know Christmas is not a season but it might as well be).  Everything I do right now at work leads up to the spring season when everyone under the sun decides it’s finally warm enough to do something other than sit in front of the TV and get high on whatever it they smoke up here.

So every year now that I’ve kept this blog, I’ve managed to come up with a few resolutions for myself in the new year and this year is no different.  I don’t tend to do very well keeping these New Year Resolutions but it’s interesting anyhow to come up with them and go back and read them later on.  This new year I resolve to:

1 – Put a stop to my almost daily burger habit.  3 days into the new year and I’ve managed to stick to that one by having a salad each day as my main meal.  While I’m at it I should really put a stop to my sugar habit too but that one is a little harder to kick.  I need sweets to survive my job!

2 – I am bound and determined to lose up to 20lbs this year somehow.  I don’t know yet how I’m going to accomplish that other than by just starving myself (which I would really have a hard time doing).  I might try to figure out an exercise routine, or maybe just get a little more into playing the Wii.  This one is in development right now so we’ll see how it turns out in a few months.

3 – With the purchase of my new house comes mountains of new responsibilities and irritations.  I am resolving this year to spend a little money actually doing things around the house that need to be done.  First and foremost will be the installation of a privacy fence in my backyard.  This year I will be spending my work bonus on things that matter rather than spending gobs of money on toys and other random things that I don’t need.

4 – Now that I am within walking distance of Interlochen Arts Academy, I am resolving this year to make an effort to go to some concerts.  Granted, in the summer, I should be able to sit on my deck and listen to a few but since I moved up here I have wanted to enjoy the fact that the talent coming out of the Academy is truly world-class and I need to take advantage of what is right in my back yard.

Thats about all I can think of right now but I’m sure as time goes on I’ll come up with a few more.  It’s hard to get motivated in the winters up here but I’ve got a lot going for me right now and even though I work 50 hours a week at a minimum, I do actually have a fair amount of time in which to accomplish things…so long as I don’t get lazy.

So I’ve got one thing I want to bitch about tonight and I’ve written about it before.  Michigan is really a fucked up state.  The reason I’ve been working 60 hours a week for the past 3 weeks is because of an archaic law called the Michigan Consumer Protection Act which was passed with very little explanation some years ago to “protect” consumers from companies who might try to rip them off, primarily retailers.  Michigan is the ONLY state in my company’s region that has to deal with this law, no other states have (or will ever) even consider it.  It consists of 2 parts.  The first part deals with price discrepancies.  If a consumer exits the store and then identifies a price sticker that disagrees with the price rung up on his receipt, he is entitled to return to the store to receive back the difference times 10.  That means, if you buy a candy bar and that candy bar has a price sticker for $1.00 but the cash register rings it up for $1.10, you are entitled to come in and the store must pay you 10 times the difference up to $5.00.  In this case you would receive back $0.10 x 10 = $1.00.  The rule is that before that is paid out, the transaction must be complete and you must have left the store and returned with your receipt and the item in question showing the incorrect price sticker.  People routinely take advantage of this law and as a result, stores pay out.  The second part of this law has to do with price stickers themselves.  In Michigan, EVERYTHING that is for sale in a retail establishment (with some exceptions) must have a price sticker affixed to the product in addition to signs indicating what the price is on the shelf.  We are the ONLY state that requires this of retailers and really, it does nothing other than prove that consumers are incapable of basic observation.  If a shelf sticker below a can of soup says that can of soup of whatever flavor is $1.00, than that can of soup is $1.00!  Really quite simple to look at the tag, look at the soup, and reach a logical conclusion that it is in fact that price.  If you are paying attention at the cash register and find a problem, no retailer is going to ignore you, they are going to fix it and adjust the price right there to match the tag on the shelf.  MOST stores in the country price sticker their products.  This is a GOOD BUSINESS PRACTICE and I don’t disagree with doing it.  HOWEVER, I  must inform you that this practice is extremely expensive to the retailer which in turns makes YOUR products more expensive.  EVERY DAY when I go into work, I spend the first 2 hours of my day doing price changes.  These changes are necessary because the price of EVERYTHING is fluid.  Need I remind you that you do NOT pay the same for gas today as you did 10 years ago!  Because we price sticker items, and because prices can and do change very often, I spend a great deal of money paying my employees to remove old price stickers, put new ones on and then make new signs.  I’m not talking about 1 or 2 changes a day.  I can have over 200 a day depending on the products that change when the market changes.  THIS is the concept that consumers do not understand and this RESULTS in the payouts described in part one.  Things get missed, signs don’t get updated quick enough etc. etc.

So what am I getting at.  This law sucks for retailers and does very little to enhance or benefit the consumer.  REALLY, what are you planning to do with that extra 5 cents?  When you sell 6 million items in a store, humans miss things and there are really very few retailers interested in taking advantage of consumers.  Whats in it for the retailer to do so?  Why would we want to willingly piss off a potential customer?  I’m sorry folks but THINGS COST MONEY.  I’m sorry that you have to pay for your goods and services and I’m sorry that prices go up and down on a regular basis but thats how life works.  Why not do YOUR part and simply pay attention when you are shopping?  Why is it that EVERY OTHER STATE is permitted to simply use proper signs and shelf tags to sell their products and you don’t hear about issues with pricing in those states?  Why are we paying out money to someone who happened to pick up one product in a bucket of 50 items where the price sticker has fallen off, and how is it that we must pay out because of DISHONEST customers who ROUTINELY peel off price stickers and replace them with stickers for a lesser price?  Think this doesn’t happen?  Think again.  I see people do it on a regular basis, they will sit there in the aisle, remove price stickers and drop them on the floor and then go find a cheaper product and put that sticker on the item they want.  Who’s being taken advantage of here?

OK, thats enough.  In the end folks, this is a law I can’t change but just like you can bitch about stuff not being priced, I can bitch about those of you who find it perfectly acceptable to take advantage of the law and I can bitch about those you too simply to lazy or incapable of being and observant shopper.

Sometime this summer I will write a bit more about some different subjects if I can every get my ass out of work for any length of time.  I WANT THIS SIGN for my store.  Get OFF your fucking phone if you want my attention.

In some areas of the country, well I won’t even continue.  Just read the article.

I’d rather make myself rich working for myself but for now at least I’m content making a living working for someone else.  It happens to be a big box, but in all, I am currently making more money than I would be had I actually finished school and received that education degree.  I have a LOT less stress and do a LOT less work too (that is of course a matter of opinion to some).  I’m happy having made a decision to work for a company that has provided me with advancement opportunities that do not depend on education but rather on performance.  Many people won’t ever be as lucky as me and sadly, because of the job market that exists, many people are having to lower their expectations of what they can accomplish at least in the short term.  It saddens me that Walmart is trying to capitalize on a huge problem however if those without work are able to put their ego aside and accept a job with an income (any income), Walmart (and many other Big Box stores) can offer a steady income and the potential for growth.  Never in my life did I ever think I would be a person to promote a career in sales, especially retail sales, but just as an example, when I moved up to TC  with Jirar 5 years ago, I had quit my job, I had no savings, and no prospect of a job.   Jirar had a job but it was no way, no how, going to support both of us for any length of time.  My economy sucked in much the same way everyone else’s did with a poor job market and slim opportunities.  It’s a matter of motivation and perspective.  Within a month of moving up here I had a part time job for minimum wage, within another 3 weeks I found a second job.  Within 2 months I was part time at Menards, within 6 months I was full time.  Within 1 year I was an assistant manager, within 1 1/2 years I was the department manager.  I went from an income of less than $100 a week  to a $45K+ a year carer because I was willing to put my ego aside and take a job I didn’t think I would like because I needed an income, ANY income.  I’d do it again too if I had to, and yes, I would work at McDonald’s flipping burgers if that was the difference between having a job and sitting around doing nothing but feeling sorry for myself all day.  Yes, the job market is bad right now but it would not be so bad if people would give up the “i’ll never do that” attitude and actually took a step to better themselves.  ANY income is better than none at all.

On a sad related note, we currently have a “begger’ loitering in our parking lot.  He sits out by the curb all day, every day with a sign asking for money to help pay for a surgery for his daughter.  A sad story indeed but worse, he’s been asked why he’s not yet come into the store and asked for a job application (he’s been out there nearly 2 months now).  We are in fact hiring people.  He needs the money and clearly he can commit himself to something since he’s been sitting on a bucket with a sign now for 2 months.  His response?  He won’t work retail because he’s got an education (spoken with a snotty condescending tone of voice).  Clearly that education is doing him a world of good sitting out there on the corner, in the snow, in the cold.  His problem?  He has too much of an ego, he’s too good to work for a company that takes in billions of dollars a year in profits and is the #1 Home Improvement center choice by consumers in the Midwest.  He won’t “lower” himself by doing work he think’s is beneath him.  Sadly, he’d be making more money with a job than he’ll ever get begging in our parking lot.  A good entrepreneur knows 1 thing.  Location, Location, Location.  Sorry buddy, our parking lot is never going to do it do you.  He ought to know better than to beg from the locals.  It’s the fudgies who have the money up here and they are all vacationing in sunny warm places right now.

So now, after that rather depressing post, I’ve got the weekend off from work and I think I may take a drive up to Northport this weekend with the dog and take some pictures.  I’ll have to see how the weather is.  Hope you are all doing well, sorry I’ve not written much.  I’ve been just too busy and too tired and it’s only going to get more crazy as we head towards spring.

Start with the fact that I got about 4 hours of sleep last night for no apparent reason, about 7:30 this morning, while putting up a new price sign at work, I managed to put all my weight back down on one foot and my body said FUCK YOU and fell out from under me! One big problem that I have at work is that I am on my feet all day long (10-12 hours at a time) and on hard concrete floors. Over the past week or so I’ve been having some mild discomfort in my lower legs which is something that is not terribly unusual for me considering what I do and that I tend to work about 50 hours a week. Well, today my leg just decided to give up on me and I pulled the hell out of my lower calf muscle. The timing could not have been worse.

Right about that time and after limping around the store trying to get my job done whilst being the laughing stock of my peers for being gimpy, it was announced that the head office was on the way to the store and we were going to get a surprise inventory audit. My day just got a LOT longer. Because I’m the manager, I have to be there, but because of my leg, I’m in a LOT of pain. Well, be a man dumbass….so I was (like a dumbass) and stuck it out for the next 4 hours waiting for my turn to be audited. Luckily I passed and the bonus I get from this audit will pay for the bullshit that happened next in my day.

As soon as my audit was over, I left work. I was given multiple recommendations for what to do about my leg (heat it, ice it, use Epsom salts…), I decided that a doctor might be better equipped to diagnose the problem and recommend appropriate treatment. So, it was off to Urgent Care. After waiting only 45 minutes (must have been a record for an Urgent Care facility), I was able to see a doctor. She was friendly, took my history, felt me up (my leg that is) and recommended that I go get an ultra-sound to make sure it was not a blood clot. Because this injury did not happen all at once in one fell swoop but sort of crept up and then exploded, she was worried that perhaps there was a bigger issue at play here. So off I went then over to the hospital to see the Radiologists. I’m not a big fan of radiologists, not because they are not nice people but because my experience with them in the past has resulted in having to drink nasty fluids. Not so much for an ultra-sound. I was in and out in 20 minutes and (because of my obvious limp and pain) I got to ride around the hospital in wheelchair so I didn’t have to walk. Well, no blood clots. My veins are just fine. I just have a really badly pulled muscle. So after that it was back to Urgent Care and the doctor went over some exercises that I could do. She offered me drugs, I declined and informed her that I could get by on Ibuprofen (also acceptable in her book). I’ve got this thing about taking pain drugs. Certainly there are times when they are needed but there are many undesirable things that can come out of taking them, one of them being dependence and I really don’t want to even go there.  I have a pretty high tolerance for pain and the less medication I have to take the better. So all this consumed about 4 hours of my afternoon.

I was going to write a bit about the Prop 8 trial but at this point I’m tired, still in a bit of pain, and really just looking forward to going to bed and sleeping. I don’t have to do anything tomorrow and I really don’t think I’m going to.

SO, those of you reading this who like to think you are younger than you actually are, DON’T BELIEVE WHAT YOUR HEAD TELLS YOU. Your body is quite a bit meaner than your head and will have no problems seeking revenge on your ass.

I managed to finish wrapping all the Christmas gifts tonight.  I hate wrapping gifts.  I did take my time at it this year though so they look a lot better than in years past.  Tomorrow I head out to the parents house for a nice Christmas dinner and some time out at the lake.  We are getting freezing rain tonight, hopefully that will not cause too many problems on the roads tomorrow.  I know the plows won’t be out at any point tomorrow.  They don’t work unless they absolutely have to up here.  That can be a disadvantage of living up here, you pay all kinds of money for services that are lackluster at best.

I hope everyone has had a good holiday season, the decade is nearly over and it has flown by.  There have been lots of changes in my life over the past decade, in particular the last half of the decade.  It’s hard to believe sometimes where I’ve ended up.  I’ve learned though in life not to have have any regrets.  We all have to make choices about the path we want to follow in life.  If we fail to take risks and make changes every now and then, life can become pretty boring.  Who knows where I’ll be in another 1o years, or 20 years.  Planning that far ahead simply doesn’t allow for opportunities.

As we prepare to close out the year, thanks to all of you who continue to read my blog.  This past year this blog has had about 1500 unique visitors.  Of those, 300 of you have been back here more than 5 times  and 30 of you have been here 20 or more times (amazing what analytical software will tell you).  I don’t know who you all are but the things I write about must be interesting enough to keep you coming back.  I appreciate the fact that you are interested.  I hope everyone has a great “Festivus” and I look forward to continuing this blog and writing about lots of random things for years to come.

Now then please follow this helpful tip:  If you choose to purchase things for me from my wish list and you do not want to buy them through that web site, please let me know so I can remove the item from the list.  If you buy them right through Amazon or by clicking through them on the site, they are taken off automatically (you know like a gift registry).  If you would rather not tell me (and I’d rather not be told what you get me since I like surprises), make sure you hang on to the receipts just in case I end up with duplicate items.  By the way, I purchased everyone’s holiday gifts on line last year, I saved a TON on money and I never had to deal with assholes at the stores or with out of stock problems.  Want to avoid dipshits this holiday season?  SHOP ON LINE.

SO there you go.  DON’T ASK ME WHAT I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS…haha  Surprise me this year with things that I want from my wish list.

Oh, The Temptation from Steve V on Vimeo.

Alright, that’s the most annoying question I get asked 500 times a day.  My rant tonight really has to do with the level of intelligence I see on a daily basis up here in the northwoods. Granted, I’m not highly educated but I do consider the 3rd grade lessons of speaking in complete sentences something that is important in every day life.  I do consider my adolescent years training of knowing how to read, understand, and communicate effectively through appropriate body language something that EVERY person should be able to do.

Alright, thats about all I want to say on that for tonight.  I don’t like to rant too much about work because I do like my job.  It’s just the people I can’t stand.

Most of you know I read a LOT of blogs on line that pretty much span the spectrum of intelligent political discussion to crude humour.  I ran across a quote that I thought was interesting on one of the more obscure blogs that I read.

“The so-called Christian nations are the most enlightened and progressive…but in spite of their religion, not because of it. The Church has opposed every innovation and discovery from the day of Galileo down to our own time, when the use of anesthetic in childbirth was regarded as a sin because it avoided the biblical curse pronounced against Eve. And every step in astronomy and geology ever taken has been opposed by bigotry and superstition. The Greeks surpassed us in artistic culture and in architecture five hundred years before Christian religion was born.”
- Mark Twain

Someone said on NPR the other day that Religion today is more important in the lives of people than at any other point in recent history.  I always have a lot to say about religion, especially science and religion.  It’s nice to know that one of the greatest writers in our history also knew of the asshattery of organized religion.

So now it’s off to bed.  Off on Tuesday, hopefully the weather will get better up here.  This pic cracks me up.

So I may or may not write again here until I return in a week.  Hope you all enjoy your work week, I’ll be PARTYING (don’t worry, I’m an adult, I can party without being a dumb ass).  SO, see you in  week!!

By the way, Mom, I’m getting you one of these shirts!!!  Wow!  LOL!

I’m finally off for the weekend!  This is my first weekend off now in nearly a month and it looks like the weather might cooperate a little bit.  Sunday is the fist day of summer (and Father’s Day) and we are still only in the 70′s up here most of the time if not colder.  We’ve had no really hot days yet this summer.  I’m going to be headed out to the lake Sunday for sure but maybe Saturday too.  I’ll have to see how late I end up sleeping and what the weather looks like when I get up.

Now that the blog is finally fixed, I’ll get back into writing again here soon.  My schedule is finally calming down a little bit too so maybe I won’t be so dam tired.  I’m starting to count the days to my vacation in July.  I’ll be headed to Grand Rapids, Chicago, and Indianapolis over a period of about 6 days.  It should be fun.  I’m really looking forward to Chicago since it’s been forever and a day since I’ve been there.  I’ll be staying with some old friends who came to seem me this past summer up here.  Now I just need to watch my spending over the next month so I can have a little spending money.

Not much else to post right now.  I’ll leave you with this picture I found on one of the blogs I read.  June is Gay Pride month.  This year is also the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots which is considered to be the starting point for the gay rights movement.  Lots going on right now in politics, too bad I’m just too tired to write about it right now.  More later.

Teacher Joseph Quigley of Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City, who is also gay, found  himself at a termination hearing recently. School Board Superintendent Karl Springer’s recommended the termination of Quigley, who has been with the school district since 1994, because “he wasn’t following plans for improvement and didn’t obey administrative directives.”

Quigley’s attorneys say otherwise:

“The attempt to fire Mr. Quigley, a career teacher with a stellar record, appears to be driven by some administrators after he advocated for better protections for gay and lesbian students. The legal counsel for OKCPS has relied on trumped up and exaggerated charges to make the case for his dismissal. In fact, Mr. Quigley was the subject of harassment and false charges merely because of his advocacy for gay and lesbian students and/or the fact that he is gay.”

MetroStar News, an Oklahoma LGBT newspaper, reports that Quigley received consistent high marks on his evaluations for a decade — that clearly doesn’t indicate someone was unhappy with his performance in the classroom.What did Quigley “do wrong” in the eyes of the school? Perhaps this sheds some light on the matter:

He stated that the administration “singled him out, applied a double standard, micromanaged him and has instituted a relentless scorched earth policy to get rid of him.” He also pointed out that it wasn’t until after 2007 that his evaluations showed him to be substandard, when Ms. Walling became his evaluator. It was clarified that his evaluations suddenly went down after 2006 , after Joe advocated the inclusion of “sexual orientation” among the groups listed in the Student Handbook to be protected from harassment and bullying.

Here we go. More advocates for the beating of LGBT youth, because, of course, in Oklahoma they deserve it — and the advocate, needs to suffer consequences as well. Quigley and his attorneys are considering taking his case to the federal court.What’s really sad is that Oklahoma is in a race to top of the wingnuttery charts. It  was the only state that had no Blue counties in this past election, and voters in that state managed to turn Oklahoma even more Republican. Its LGBT and reality-based citizens pay the price;  this should be a reality check to LGBTs out there who are in deep Blue states with a host of civil rights and the luxury to focus on marriage equality. People in deep Red states are in the bullseye of the bigots with limited support from allies, national orgs (and elected officials practically MIA).

Dr. George Tiller, who remained one of the nation’s few providers of late-term abortions through decades of protests and attacks, was shot and killed Sunday in a church where he was serving as an usher and his wife was in the choir.

…Long a focus of national anti-abortion groups, including a summer-long protest in 1991, Tiller was serving as an usher during Sunday morning services when he was shot in the foyer of Reformation Lutheran Church, Stolz said.

…”We just thought a child had come in with a balloon and it had popped, had gone up and hit the ceiling and popped,” [congregation member Adam] Watkins said.

Another usher came in and told the congregation to remain seated, then escorted Tiller’s wife out. “When she got to the back doors, we heard her scream, and so we knew something bad had happened,” Watkins said.

I’ll have to admit that the name George Tiller was not a name I knew anything about.  You see, being a male, and being gay has put me in a class of people who have very little use for any sort of abortion rights and I’ve never really felt that it was my place to express an opinion about this issue when it is extremely unlikely to ever come into play in my personal life.  As it goes however, I can have an opinion and in the words of others, I believe it should be legal and extremely rare.

Having said that I want to focus more here on the social commentary involved in this incident.  Today a man was assassinated because he was providing a legal service to women who were seeking to terminate their pregnancy.  This practice is not illegal, he was breaking no laws (no matter how controversial it is).  It is the zeal of the assassin that worries me.  It’s been a LONG time since we’ve heard reports of abortion clinic bombings and shootings that were quite common 10 years ago.  There are always protests when Congress is forced to uphold what at this point is considered ‘settled law”, especially when new SCOUTS judges are being considered.  In the blogosphere, pundants are wondering if the political atmosphere is so explosive right now that the fringe groups (who are applauding this shooting) are making themselves known again.  Are the fundamentalists so marginalized now that they do not have the political power which had 10 years ago starting to break into sect like groups who are plotting domestic terrorism?  I don’t know the answer to that but with this issue and of course with the gay marriage debate, it is very clear that there is a small but vocal minority of people in this country who, because they are not getting what they want, have begun to turn towards violence to accomplish their goals and this is where my problem is.  Take just a minute and parallel an abortion provider who provides a legal abortion to a woman with a justice of the peace who provides a legal marriage to a gay couple.  Both are (or may soon be) completely acceptable in terms of the written law, but the services being provided remain deeply divisive in practice and put people at risk.

I have a hard time with violence.  I agree that abortion might be considered murder but I disagree that we should be playing a tit for tat game here.  My blood is deeply anti-violence.  I have a hard time with action movies, because, even while I know they are fiction, there is something unsettling about seeing someone get shot in the face, even if it is Batman.  I read every day in the gay media about gay people who are beaten up, some who are killed, some who, through no fault of their own are victimized over and over again at the hands of people so convinced that their view is the only correct way to solve a problem.  I have a very difficult time understanding why we, as a human species, have yet to learn how to live with the differences among us.  Why must I, as a gay man, be concerned for my own safety because I am part of a target class?  Why must an abortion provider, who is licensed by the state they are practicing in and providing a legal service, have to wear a bullet proof vest just to go to work?

Clearly I don’t have answers to those questions but I thought it was time that I weigh in on the issue.  I know I can be overly dramatic and highly verbally critical of groups of people who disagree with my position on gay rights.  A blog like this allows me to be one sided, to share it with the world and pretty much say that if you don’t like it, than fuck you.  My words and my feelings however can never translate into violent acts against other people.  I know I must protect myself from people who might do me harm but why?  Should I just accept that I have to live like that?  I know full well that if hit, I’d never hit back.  I just don’t do that sort of thing even when faced with serious injury I would rather stand and take it knowing that reciprocation of violence perpetuates and increases the problem.  I’d much prefer to have a discussion with you and agree to disagree or work with you to find a compromise or a solution to our problem.  I had this anti-violence condition even as a kid.  Schoolyard scuffles with me were always one sided because I didn’t fight back.  I simply had no use for it.  Thus, I never got into many scuffles because it just was not very rewarding for the other side!    I do fear that when people are marginalized they can become violent.  I do fear that the more gay rights are gained, the more it pisses off those who are against us which may lead to violence.  I do feel that this abortion provider was killed because abortion is considered a non-starter in today’s liberal climate, it’s legal and it’s not likely to change and that pisses some people off.  I fear that gay marriage may soon land in the same camp as abortion rights and that married gay couples (or people who provide marriage licenses to gay couples) will become targets.

This is rhetorical and I’m not looking for your answers personally but what are your feeling on hot button social issues?  Are you a person who solves problems using violence or are you a person who solves problems with communication knowing that the big picture and the fact that regardless of what we each think about an issue we all must continue to live side by side on this planet?  I should have been a Quaker.

It’s been a VERY long weekend and nearly a week since I’ve written in this blog.  I’ve been putting in long days at work lately and while that always pays off with a good paycheck, the damage it’s doing to my body is noticeable.  Standing and walking for 12 hours at a time on a hard concrete floor with only about an hour’s worth of sit-down breaks is wreaking havoc on my feet and my back.  I can only image how bad I would be right now if I had not lost so much weight over the past several years.  I’ve finally reached an “average” weight for a male my height although I find it hard to believe that it’s average.  I still think I need to shed a few pounds.

The folks from downstate or the ‘fudgies’ as they are know to us locals have started to arrive in droves to Traverse City.  It’s cherry blossom time and even though it’s still ridiculously cold outside, the flowers are in full bloom and Memorial Day weekend is this next weekend.  It’s early this year.  With the influx of tourists come all sorts of issues at work.  It’s impossible to gauge how busy we will be at any given time so staffing is a bitch.  It’s also impossible to know what people are going to buy lots of this year vs. last year because there is no consistency.  Shoppers in general are about the most inconsistent people on the planet (myself included of course).  We are all so influenced by the “next big thing” that people simply forget about the things that actually work….and then I get yelled at when the “next big thing” doesn’t perform to expectations…as if I actually have any control over that sort of thing.

This is also the time of year when suddenly people just get stupid.  Today a woman just got hysterical when an employee failed to notice her requests for help.  The employee is deaf, she didn’t bother to re-think her strategy about asking for help from people until I informed her that he could not hear a word she was screaming at him.  Luckily she was overcome with guilt and the expression on her face when I told her was just priceless.  I had several people today ask over and over again where something was when all they had to do was turn around and look right behind them.  People are so unfocused that they simply refuse to actually USE the signs and directional information that my company spends MILLIONS of dollars on each year to help shoppers HELP THEMSELVES.  It’s just too much work for them.  Patience is also a REALLY big problem for people.  Many times today I was helping someone only to be rudely interrupted by someone who could not wait their turn.  It is SO very clear when we are helping people and when we not.  Really folks, I don’t get paid to stand around and shoot the shit with random people, I get paid to SELL STUFF TO PEOPLE.  I could really give a shit about your personal lives.  It is NOT necessary to push your way in front of other people to get me to notice that you need help too.  I’ll get to you…WAIT YOUR FUCKING TURN.

Tomorrow is a short day for me thank God.  Out at noon and then hopefully right home so I can mow my grass and exercise Gavin who has been extra patient with me lately as my hours at work have increased.  He’ll get a good workout at the cottage on Tuesday.

Finally a warning to you parents out there who are too involved in your own existence to notice the terror your children are inflicting on employees at big box stores with smooth concrete floors…which are perfect for those fucking shoes with wheels on the bottom.  Next time your child decides to run me over take note of the sign below: