Man, my life is boring these days. There isn't anything I can think to blog about.
The blues went out of the playoffs with just a whimper. The cardinals are owning, but it's still early. The draft for the Rams was good but boring, an OT not exactly the most exciting thing in the world. The Raiders are idiots still, so same ol same ol there. Work wore me out the last couple days, but who cares, right?
I have nothing worth talking about. My wife is doing a good job of keeping the house clean and cooking for me, since we moved into our new apartment. That's pretty much the only really good thing going on. That's been nice.
Only 15 more days til we have her court hearing.
Speaking of which I need to get my tickets taken care of soon.
My wife filled out a Fafsa online, I'm guessing she still hasn't heard from that, but they did tell her she should be able to get a federal Pell Grant, for school. That's cool.
At work, I've begun to train my employees more. That will help out in the long run.
Well, I guess I did have something to talk about. It was just some random quips though. An ode to Sunday Stew, perhaps.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Back to the gym... Brace yourself.
Today, being my 2nd day in a row off... which is only the 2nd time I've had that since I got my promotion and the first time I was moving, I decided to hit the gym. Luckily, the gym i go to has one like a mile from my new apt. And today I found out it's open 24 hours, which is pretty sweet.
Anyways, so I hit the eliptical machine for about 40 minutes, burned about 600 cals.
Before I did so, I weighed myself. I've been preparing mentally for what I might see. I was thinking maybe I gained up to 10 pounds back. I look down and laugh when I see the number. I lost two more pounds. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Instant relief.
So, now I've lost 62 pounds since Jan 08. I've lost 16 pounds since joining the gym in February.
It feels pretty good.
I worked 60 hours last week at work. I got out 400 of my new newsletters to residences, by delivering them like newspapers. Sunday night I was whooped. these 2 days off are so much needed. Even though yesterday I had a 4 hour manager meeting and had to go into work for 15 minutes to fix a problem my manager caused.
My managers are driving me nuts. The next few weeks it is my goal to simply get them up to speed on how things need to operate and if they aren't catching on, I need to get new ones in. The meeting yesterday was basically about that. Moving forward and not letting ourselves be taken down by poor employees. I definitely need to work on being more assertive and firm. I know I'll get there though and I have some managers that have been offering me a lot of help, so that's cool. I'm forming relationships with the right people.
Anyways, so I hit the eliptical machine for about 40 minutes, burned about 600 cals.
Before I did so, I weighed myself. I've been preparing mentally for what I might see. I was thinking maybe I gained up to 10 pounds back. I look down and laugh when I see the number. I lost two more pounds. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Instant relief.
So, now I've lost 62 pounds since Jan 08. I've lost 16 pounds since joining the gym in February.
It feels pretty good.
I worked 60 hours last week at work. I got out 400 of my new newsletters to residences, by delivering them like newspapers. Sunday night I was whooped. these 2 days off are so much needed. Even though yesterday I had a 4 hour manager meeting and had to go into work for 15 minutes to fix a problem my manager caused.
My managers are driving me nuts. The next few weeks it is my goal to simply get them up to speed on how things need to operate and if they aren't catching on, I need to get new ones in. The meeting yesterday was basically about that. Moving forward and not letting ourselves be taken down by poor employees. I definitely need to work on being more assertive and firm. I know I'll get there though and I have some managers that have been offering me a lot of help, so that's cool. I'm forming relationships with the right people.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Yay, Internets and Cable
I have the internet and the cable now!
It is now a home, well as soon as I put all these boxes of stuff away, i guess. It feels pretty good to be able to provide this for my wife and I. I feel like we've totally turned our lives around in just under a year and that's not too shabby.
At work it's business as usual. I'm gonna end up with about 55 hours of work this week, maybe more. Unfortunately, too one of my assistant managers who puts in almost 40 hours herself has to have double knee surgery and might be out for a while. It's not so bad, because once summer hits I get to give my shift runner in high school more hours. But there's gonna be a period of about 3 or 4 weeks where things might suck hard for me. I just need to get creative with the schedule I think. I haven't thought about it too much yet. I have so much else going on. Work is definitely a lot of work. (that was for leo).
I'm nervous about seeing how much weight I've gained back. It's been about a month of no gym and honestly my diet has been thrown all to shit. I'm gonna restart monday, when we are able to go grocery shopping. So much transition and time spent on other things is really not good for eating right or excercising. Hopefully i didn't destroy everything I worked hard at before. The good part though is that now I at least know that I can do it and that I will have results. I think when I do start back up, it'll be more hardcore than ever. I now know I can do it.
I attended my first general manager meeting the other day. I felt comfortable and seeing some of the other store managers I felt like I was better than half of them. One of them really impressed me and I think I should try to be in contact with her to pick her brain a bit. She is the only one in the company who got a 5 star on their OER visit, so far. She seemed to know what she was talking about and obviously her store is top notch. 2 of the managers seem like f-ing idiots and it's pretty obvious how the demeanor changes in Candi when she's addressing either of them. Candi can be pretty cold and assertive, I definitely don't want to be on her bad side. So far so good. The other day she told me that I was doing a great job and that Keith (VP of operations) asks about me all the time and she tells him that I'm doing fantastic and that she's happy she picked me as a manager. Of course, I feel like I should be doing more, but that's how I am.
Last nite at work was the first nite I got upset at my team. We had about 5 screw ups in a 30 minute span. We were pretty busy at the time but not busy enough to justify that. I made sure to let my AM know that and it was obvious to them I was upset about it. I think in the end we got all the errors corrected, but it just ruined my evening. I like flawless service and that many mistakes... I think I can honestly say, I've never had more than 1 or 2 mistakes during a rush. I stepped away from the line for a few minutes to grab the ovens, which is supposed to be my post. But, the two managers on the line forgot 2 pizzas and were just causing us to fall way behind. Then the phone guy who should have the phones down pat by now mis takes an order that i have to deal with then he forgets to write down an apt number for another order. It's just silly shit, that shouldn't have happened. I plan on writing something out today in hopes of showing them how serious it was. In the end they are minor, cuz we did fix the problem, but to me those small things are what makes a great store and I want to have a great store. With those mistakes and if we were understaffed, we may have been sunk. Prevention is the key next time I think. My first real bad service and it's been over a month, that's not too bad. When I left we were still top 10 on the leaderboard. Maybe I'm overreacting, I dont know.
Pasta launches next week and I'm hopeful that our daytime lunch business improves. All week I sent out free samples to businesses in hopes of gaining some customers. I also sent out my newsletters to businesses. I still have to get out the ones for residents, I probably will tonite after work. I ended up having to make my own copies. I waited 2 weeks for marketing to do it then finally asked if I could just do it myself. Candi was aggravated with waiting too, so she told me I could. I went and got the delivery bags this morning, so I'm all set. Hope it helps.
It's good to have internet back.
It is now a home, well as soon as I put all these boxes of stuff away, i guess. It feels pretty good to be able to provide this for my wife and I. I feel like we've totally turned our lives around in just under a year and that's not too shabby.
At work it's business as usual. I'm gonna end up with about 55 hours of work this week, maybe more. Unfortunately, too one of my assistant managers who puts in almost 40 hours herself has to have double knee surgery and might be out for a while. It's not so bad, because once summer hits I get to give my shift runner in high school more hours. But there's gonna be a period of about 3 or 4 weeks where things might suck hard for me. I just need to get creative with the schedule I think. I haven't thought about it too much yet. I have so much else going on. Work is definitely a lot of work. (that was for leo).
I'm nervous about seeing how much weight I've gained back. It's been about a month of no gym and honestly my diet has been thrown all to shit. I'm gonna restart monday, when we are able to go grocery shopping. So much transition and time spent on other things is really not good for eating right or excercising. Hopefully i didn't destroy everything I worked hard at before. The good part though is that now I at least know that I can do it and that I will have results. I think when I do start back up, it'll be more hardcore than ever. I now know I can do it.
I attended my first general manager meeting the other day. I felt comfortable and seeing some of the other store managers I felt like I was better than half of them. One of them really impressed me and I think I should try to be in contact with her to pick her brain a bit. She is the only one in the company who got a 5 star on their OER visit, so far. She seemed to know what she was talking about and obviously her store is top notch. 2 of the managers seem like f-ing idiots and it's pretty obvious how the demeanor changes in Candi when she's addressing either of them. Candi can be pretty cold and assertive, I definitely don't want to be on her bad side. So far so good. The other day she told me that I was doing a great job and that Keith (VP of operations) asks about me all the time and she tells him that I'm doing fantastic and that she's happy she picked me as a manager. Of course, I feel like I should be doing more, but that's how I am.
Last nite at work was the first nite I got upset at my team. We had about 5 screw ups in a 30 minute span. We were pretty busy at the time but not busy enough to justify that. I made sure to let my AM know that and it was obvious to them I was upset about it. I think in the end we got all the errors corrected, but it just ruined my evening. I like flawless service and that many mistakes... I think I can honestly say, I've never had more than 1 or 2 mistakes during a rush. I stepped away from the line for a few minutes to grab the ovens, which is supposed to be my post. But, the two managers on the line forgot 2 pizzas and were just causing us to fall way behind. Then the phone guy who should have the phones down pat by now mis takes an order that i have to deal with then he forgets to write down an apt number for another order. It's just silly shit, that shouldn't have happened. I plan on writing something out today in hopes of showing them how serious it was. In the end they are minor, cuz we did fix the problem, but to me those small things are what makes a great store and I want to have a great store. With those mistakes and if we were understaffed, we may have been sunk. Prevention is the key next time I think. My first real bad service and it's been over a month, that's not too bad. When I left we were still top 10 on the leaderboard. Maybe I'm overreacting, I dont know.
Pasta launches next week and I'm hopeful that our daytime lunch business improves. All week I sent out free samples to businesses in hopes of gaining some customers. I also sent out my newsletters to businesses. I still have to get out the ones for residents, I probably will tonite after work. I ended up having to make my own copies. I waited 2 weeks for marketing to do it then finally asked if I could just do it myself. Candi was aggravated with waiting too, so she told me I could. I went and got the delivery bags this morning, so I'm all set. Hope it helps.
It's good to have internet back.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Officially move in today
Okay, so without further ado, we move in today. The electric is on, the gas is on.. charter comes on friday for internet/cable. Tonite, we will be sleeping in out new apartment.
yay!
yay!
Monday, April 13, 2009
No Internets and we moved!
So, last week the internet was shut off where I am/was staying. I say am, because we haven't actually moved in yet. NO one remembered to call the electric company and get that turned on, so we've been having to wait all weekend to call them today. Well, we called them today and its not gonna be turned on til tomorrow. So, all weekend we stayed at my dads and just moved everything into the apartments. So, tomorrow we will be completely moved in.
I haven't had internet cuz the bill didn't get paid. It's back on now, but my comp is at the new apt. I'm on my brothers, so any updates will have to wait until I get mine up and going. I just wanted to check in, so you guys didn't think I died in a horrible pizza oven accident.
tty soon.
I haven't had internet cuz the bill didn't get paid. It's back on now, but my comp is at the new apt. I'm on my brothers, so any updates will have to wait until I get mine up and going. I just wanted to check in, so you guys didn't think I died in a horrible pizza oven accident.
tty soon.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
5 days til we move
Just 5 days and we get to move into our new apartment. It's exciting and also a little scary. Knowing that last time we tried this, things didn't work out very well, makes it a little unsettling. Circumstances are a lot different now though, and we are set up to succeed this time. Also, if my wife is going to win her disability case, well we now know that's only a month after we move in AND we don't have to rely on it anyways. With the other apartment we were naive enough to think that money would be there soon for us. Also, this apartment is cheaper and nicer. I took off of work Friday and Saturday so that we can get fully moved and settled in. My wife is looking at the apartment as a fresh start. We both feel kind of like our life has been on hold a little bit since we began living with my dad. Plus, since she was in the hospital when I picked out our last apartment she says she never felt like that was home for her. It's another big change in our life, but this one is for the better.
My aunt died thursday morning. Great transition, right? I got a call from my brother that our uncle left his phone number for him to call. Well, since my brother has decided that the only family he has is his brothers he didn't want to call. I called my uncle and he told me that she had passed. It was a bit of a shock. I heard a few months ago that she had cancer. I pleaded with my mom to find out more information about her sister, but because of their falling out about a year and a half ago, she decided it was just a ploy to get her to talk to her again. Come to find out it was no ploy. She was really bad sick for about 4 months, then spent her last few days asking for her sister that never made it by her side. It's sad really. Pathetic even. We were all pretty close growing up. My mom and her were best friends. She wasn't a good person. She made a lot of mistakes and treated her own children pretty terrible. Honestly she was one of the biggest mental terrorists I've ever seen, when it came to her kids. Over the last few years she made a lot of choices that further alienated her from her family. She up and left the guy she'd been with for 15+ years and her kids who were at least grown up by then, for a guy in North Carolina that she met on the internet. He booted her out after just a few months. She then went to Florida to be with her daughter who had done the same thing just a year before her. She met a guy down there but, as goes with her it didn't last and she was back to st. louis where they were both homeless and then parted ways.
Then she lived with my mom but refused to pay her rent, instead choosing to blow all her disability money at the casino each week. The lady hardly worked her entire life. She always seemed to find a way for either her kids, her boyfriend/husband, or the government to provide her with an income. Well, my mom kicked her out after a few months and they got into a heated argument and threats were made. She weasled her way back into her oldest sons arms and I don't know much after that. I can only assume he let her get away with whatever she wanted. Well, now she's dead and even with all that, I couldn't imagine finding out my brother had cancer and not being by his side. I called my mom after talking to my uncle and she seemed to not care. I know she will regret it though, if she already isn't. My aunt left no money for a funeral and they decided to simply cremate her and spread her ashes. The cremation happened on friday and the cheap memorial is supposed to happen next week. I don't know my aunt's exact age but she wasn't even 50 years old yet. The only real lesson I get from my aunt is that giving up on life is never an option and that if you alienate those you love, you will die alone. It's a sad life to have lived.
Unfortunately, at this time, my wife's grandmother is in the hospital too. She has been in there all week because of a bad stroke she had. They found something in her brain that's been either a blood clot or a narrowing of the vessels. Either way, they started to perform brain surgery on her the other day but, something failed and they have to try again. Hopefully, nothing happens to her, but I think everyone is mentally preparing for the worst. She's an older woman, 70s i think, still not very old. But, she has never really taken care of herself. She has a lot of support though and it's pretty much the complete opposite of my aunt. Friends and family have been by her side all week. The lady has been told she was going to die if she didn't change her ways for the last dozen years probably. She's a pretty tough woman.
It's been a rough week. I have 3 days off next week. Boy do I need them.
My aunt died thursday morning. Great transition, right? I got a call from my brother that our uncle left his phone number for him to call. Well, since my brother has decided that the only family he has is his brothers he didn't want to call. I called my uncle and he told me that she had passed. It was a bit of a shock. I heard a few months ago that she had cancer. I pleaded with my mom to find out more information about her sister, but because of their falling out about a year and a half ago, she decided it was just a ploy to get her to talk to her again. Come to find out it was no ploy. She was really bad sick for about 4 months, then spent her last few days asking for her sister that never made it by her side. It's sad really. Pathetic even. We were all pretty close growing up. My mom and her were best friends. She wasn't a good person. She made a lot of mistakes and treated her own children pretty terrible. Honestly she was one of the biggest mental terrorists I've ever seen, when it came to her kids. Over the last few years she made a lot of choices that further alienated her from her family. She up and left the guy she'd been with for 15+ years and her kids who were at least grown up by then, for a guy in North Carolina that she met on the internet. He booted her out after just a few months. She then went to Florida to be with her daughter who had done the same thing just a year before her. She met a guy down there but, as goes with her it didn't last and she was back to st. louis where they were both homeless and then parted ways.
Then she lived with my mom but refused to pay her rent, instead choosing to blow all her disability money at the casino each week. The lady hardly worked her entire life. She always seemed to find a way for either her kids, her boyfriend/husband, or the government to provide her with an income. Well, my mom kicked her out after a few months and they got into a heated argument and threats were made. She weasled her way back into her oldest sons arms and I don't know much after that. I can only assume he let her get away with whatever she wanted. Well, now she's dead and even with all that, I couldn't imagine finding out my brother had cancer and not being by his side. I called my mom after talking to my uncle and she seemed to not care. I know she will regret it though, if she already isn't. My aunt left no money for a funeral and they decided to simply cremate her and spread her ashes. The cremation happened on friday and the cheap memorial is supposed to happen next week. I don't know my aunt's exact age but she wasn't even 50 years old yet. The only real lesson I get from my aunt is that giving up on life is never an option and that if you alienate those you love, you will die alone. It's a sad life to have lived.
Unfortunately, at this time, my wife's grandmother is in the hospital too. She has been in there all week because of a bad stroke she had. They found something in her brain that's been either a blood clot or a narrowing of the vessels. Either way, they started to perform brain surgery on her the other day but, something failed and they have to try again. Hopefully, nothing happens to her, but I think everyone is mentally preparing for the worst. She's an older woman, 70s i think, still not very old. But, she has never really taken care of herself. She has a lot of support though and it's pretty much the complete opposite of my aunt. Friends and family have been by her side all week. The lady has been told she was going to die if she didn't change her ways for the last dozen years probably. She's a pretty tough woman.
It's been a rough week. I have 3 days off next week. Boy do I need them.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
A full day off
and I don't feel like doing shiznit. It's my first full day off since last wednesday.. i think.
I was supposed to have a half day on monday, but because of something that would have cost me 2 seconds to do, it ended up costing me 4 hours. The food order has to be in by Noon on Sunday. Well, i made it and was about to send it on saturday nite. But, I hesitated and went to double check things. Then I forgot about it. All i had to do was click send, two seconds. Instead when the manager working sunday went to do it, she made a whole new order and put it for the future date. So, we didn't get the 47 trays of X-large dough we needed for School lunch. So, I had to call them and go pick up all the dough and extra food in my dads truck on monday. I worked 8 hours and only made a half days pay... it was pretty weak. I was scheduled for 6 days, but 2 of them were half days this week, because of school lunches. So, now all i have assuming something doesnt happen tomorrow is this full day off and tomorrow a half day off. So, it is.. i guess. THe dumbest part is that the person that messed up the food order has been at DOmino's for like 15 years, she should've been smarter. Of course if I had just clicked send we would've avoided the whole thing. Really aggravating.
School lunches are hell. On Monday we do 90 pizzas, tuesday its like 110, but then thursday it's 225. I have to go in 2 hours early and get them all out by 11 am on monday, by 1145 on tuesday and thursday Im going in at 7 am, and I'll be making or taking pizzas out of the oven until 1pm. That's a lot of F-ing pizzas. On thursday we have 6 people doing this. So, it's not a matter of hey, I should get more help. There is plenty of help. Luckily, they are only every other week. I was hoping not to even have to be there this past monday, but the person I wanted to work couldn't.
Anyways.
I made a newsletter for marketing at work. There is one for residents and 1 for businesses. It's basically gonna be part of a marketing pack that we do for each. I found out the other day that we are allowed to go ahead and deliver marketing material like newspapers. Basically, throw them in people's driveways. So, I'm pretty pumped about that. It means it will be really easy to get everything out and it's something I can do by myself, rather than forcing it upon other employees or driving up my labor for it. My boss loved the newsletters and hopefully is mass producing them right now. It's kind of annoying having to wait for other people to get shit done.
Besides work, we were supposed to have our Fantasy baseball draft this past monday. The league I commish is a keeper league. Well yahoo has keeper options now, but i didnt realize there was a 45 min before draft cut off time and so i couldn't add most of the leagues keepers. Well, we tried to draft without taking the keepers from other teams, but we had 1 or two idiots and so that F-ed it all up. We decided to try again tonite. My keepers are Dan haren in the 9th, Chad Billingsley in the 9th, and Chase Utley in the 2nd. I'm pretty happy with those guys. There is tremendous value in the two pitchers and Utley is a stud at 2nd base. I have the 3rd overall pick in the draft so, I should get a pretty good hitter there too. Of course the draft is only a small part of an entire baseball season, so I need to keep focus all year. Usually what happens is I get bored and end up making trades just to make trades. My team is never the same as when I started the year. It's such a long season, it's hard to maintain. Basically you coast for 5 months, make sure your in the top 6 and then the last month its a mad dash to the waiver wire each week, trying to pick up the hottest player going into the playoffs. At that point it's all about who's hot right now and not who has the best team on paper. I've never won our league, so it would be nice to do that this year.
I need to try and work on my brakes today, so I'm gonna go read on how to do that.
I was supposed to have a half day on monday, but because of something that would have cost me 2 seconds to do, it ended up costing me 4 hours. The food order has to be in by Noon on Sunday. Well, i made it and was about to send it on saturday nite. But, I hesitated and went to double check things. Then I forgot about it. All i had to do was click send, two seconds. Instead when the manager working sunday went to do it, she made a whole new order and put it for the future date. So, we didn't get the 47 trays of X-large dough we needed for School lunch. So, I had to call them and go pick up all the dough and extra food in my dads truck on monday. I worked 8 hours and only made a half days pay... it was pretty weak. I was scheduled for 6 days, but 2 of them were half days this week, because of school lunches. So, now all i have assuming something doesnt happen tomorrow is this full day off and tomorrow a half day off. So, it is.. i guess. THe dumbest part is that the person that messed up the food order has been at DOmino's for like 15 years, she should've been smarter. Of course if I had just clicked send we would've avoided the whole thing. Really aggravating.
School lunches are hell. On Monday we do 90 pizzas, tuesday its like 110, but then thursday it's 225. I have to go in 2 hours early and get them all out by 11 am on monday, by 1145 on tuesday and thursday Im going in at 7 am, and I'll be making or taking pizzas out of the oven until 1pm. That's a lot of F-ing pizzas. On thursday we have 6 people doing this. So, it's not a matter of hey, I should get more help. There is plenty of help. Luckily, they are only every other week. I was hoping not to even have to be there this past monday, but the person I wanted to work couldn't.
Anyways.
I made a newsletter for marketing at work. There is one for residents and 1 for businesses. It's basically gonna be part of a marketing pack that we do for each. I found out the other day that we are allowed to go ahead and deliver marketing material like newspapers. Basically, throw them in people's driveways. So, I'm pretty pumped about that. It means it will be really easy to get everything out and it's something I can do by myself, rather than forcing it upon other employees or driving up my labor for it. My boss loved the newsletters and hopefully is mass producing them right now. It's kind of annoying having to wait for other people to get shit done.
Besides work, we were supposed to have our Fantasy baseball draft this past monday. The league I commish is a keeper league. Well yahoo has keeper options now, but i didnt realize there was a 45 min before draft cut off time and so i couldn't add most of the leagues keepers. Well, we tried to draft without taking the keepers from other teams, but we had 1 or two idiots and so that F-ed it all up. We decided to try again tonite. My keepers are Dan haren in the 9th, Chad Billingsley in the 9th, and Chase Utley in the 2nd. I'm pretty happy with those guys. There is tremendous value in the two pitchers and Utley is a stud at 2nd base. I have the 3rd overall pick in the draft so, I should get a pretty good hitter there too. Of course the draft is only a small part of an entire baseball season, so I need to keep focus all year. Usually what happens is I get bored and end up making trades just to make trades. My team is never the same as when I started the year. It's such a long season, it's hard to maintain. Basically you coast for 5 months, make sure your in the top 6 and then the last month its a mad dash to the waiver wire each week, trying to pick up the hottest player going into the playoffs. At that point it's all about who's hot right now and not who has the best team on paper. I've never won our league, so it would be nice to do that this year.
I need to try and work on my brakes today, so I'm gonna go read on how to do that.
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