Exciting times ahead!

Though I still have yet to make a trip to the lovely city (unlike some people. . .), I had some of the best Louisiana-style food last night, at a place called Jazz. It was great. I had a lot of food. My main dish was crawfish etouffee. This was after the table split some appetizers - fried pickles, and crawfish. And we all did some sharing, I had tastes of blackened shrimp and chicken, fried oysters, a scallop that melted in my mouth, some cheesy grits, and a piece of cauliflower. I liked it a lot.

Things really haven't changed too much. I'll be getting my first paycheck tomorrow, which will be very welcome. The baseball season starts in full over the next few days, so all will be well. On April 10, WHY? is going to be in Lawrence, later on in the month the Kids in the Hall will be performing in KC, then sometime next month They Might Be Giants are going to be in town. I'm kind of impressed with the amount of shows that are coming through here. I just found out that Matt Pond PA was here last night, not that I really would've been able to afford it, but who knows. The Appleseed Cast played here last night, too. Ingrid Michaelson will be here on Tuesday, and The Walkmen will be playing with Spoon on Wednesday. RJD2 is on Wednesday, the 16th. Then the first weekend in May could be an Iowa musician weekend for me. William Elliot Whitmore is playing on the 3rd, Greg Brown will be playing, along with his daughter Pieta.

You know what? I will make the artists of Iowa my recommendation for the week or so.

Here's Whitmore's Daytrotter Session.

Here's a link to Greg Brown's site with some mp3's you can listen to. Check them both out!

I think there may be something that I'm looking forward to even more. At work, a few guys and I have talked about it, and decided to make the 5th month of the year Mutton May. We're going to try to get all of the guys in the Overland Park location to grow mutton chops during the month. Not just normal chops, though. No. We're going for the friendly mutton. I'm not sure how it came about, but a couple of guys were talking about Civil War-era facial hair, and it all just came together. So, at least the men on the 3rd floor have decided to do it, and we're going to try to get the girls to be judges for the best chop. And most of us have decided to start now. I'm going to need the month-long head start to have any chance, but you can be assured that I'll keep a photographic log of how things progress.

A couple of last items. First off, apologies to those up north. From the sounds of it, there's going to be some nasty weather for the next day or two. Secondly, I've been watching the movie Stardust while I've been watching it, and enjoying it very very much. It's an action/adventure movie that doesn't take itself too seriously, has a good-looking Claire Danes, and an enjoyable plot. This, and the surprisingly good Simpson movie that Charczuk and I watched last night, and it's been a good weekend for watching movies.

I hope everyone else's weekend has been as productive and fun and delicious!

One week down

Well, today marks the end of the first week in the KC area. It was a good week. Work is going well, the weather has been pretty nice, and for the weekend, I have the place to myself. I had my first of two fantasy baseball drafts last night, the second is this afternoon. My brackets are doing somewhere between "terrible" and "awful." So things are alright.

Really, I wish I had more stuff to talk about here, but there hasn't been too much. I work 8:20-ish to 4:30-ish, come "home," eat, watch TV (usually as much Law & Order as Charczuk and Rhiannon allow), and start falling asleep around 10. Exciting. I did go out and get my ass handed to me in poker on Thursday night, after spending a few hours after work playing some darts at happy hour. There were only 4 of us at happy hour, and we mostly watched the NCAA tournament, but it was a pretty good time.

For those of you with whom I'm playing Scrabulous, I'm sorry if I take a little while to take my turn. I'm going to avoid logging into Facebook from work, because then I'll really not get anything done, and I don't have my computer set up yet. I do have a couple of laptops to use here, but they're both Macs, so I'm trying to spend as little time as possible on them. (There's only one freaking mouse button!!!! And no task bar!!)

Geez, I thought this could be an entertaining post. But I had an epic fail there. The next one will be better, I hope.

I also hope that everyone has a good Easter, should you celebrate it. Mine's going to be spent watching basketball and umm, that's about it.

A quick post from Kansas, and some music

Things are going well here in Kansas, I've had two days on the job and am enjoying it! I haven't had much of a chance to post much, but I'm liking it here.

Anyways, here's a band that I've heard about a little while ago, listened to again, and didn't know why I didn't recommend it here. Here is Los Campesinos! from England. These guys are "indie pop," meaning whatever you want it to, I guess. Listening to them, I hear hints of New Pornographers, Apples in Stereo, a little Vampire Weekend, with a few other bands thrown in for good measure. So check them out!

Oh, and don't tell Charczuk that I'm posting while I'm sitting right next to him. It might weird him out.

This post took 2 days to write. And it still sucks

We're in the midst of a record-setting winter here in Eastern Iowa, over 60 inches of snow, good enough to crack the top-10 all-time winters. This weekend added in anywhere from 5-8 inches, on top of about an inch of ice. Good good times! Which meant that this Saturday, some of us took part in the age-old sport of drunken ice walking to the bars in the freezing rain. Surprisingly, I was one of the few that didn't totally wipe out, just a few close calls. I'm amazing at that game, I guess. I need to try out for the Drunk Winter Olympics.

So I've been working for the past week, just a temp job at the University hospital in Iowa City. I open boxes, connect devices to computers and check them in. For a long time every day. It's extremely mindless and repetitive, but I get paid extremely well to do it, so it's very easy to tolerate. Especially when I can basically wear whatever I'd like (unfortunately, pants are required, I'm still looking for the perfect job where they aren't), and I can listen to my mp3 player. Alas, the job is drawing to a close soon, so gravy train will be pulling to a stop. I should be finding out the KC job soon, within the next couple of weeks. Here's to hoping everything will come up Flenker!! (edit: I started this post a couple of nights ago, but quit to go to sleep. Turns out we finished everything today, so the job is over. It's nice that I'm home now and can sleep in, but it would've been more than $350 for me if we had stayed until we were supposed to be done. Oh well.)

Anyways, with this recent job, I've been staying at a friend's place, who happens to live just under a mile away from the hospital, so I've been walking. I'd like to think it's because of the exercise I'm getting, but really, it's because I don't want to pay the outrageous $14 a day to park at the ramps. The sidewalks were, you guessed it, covered with ice! There were some parts where it was over an inch thick. Yikes! And the snow on the side is probably up to my knees, but there are some spots where the shoveled snow is over my head. Not in parking lots, either, but just the driveways to people's homes. So we've gotten some snow.

Now that I'm back in CR, there will be some real blog posting coming up. The first one will be later today, sometime. Today being Wednesday. Yeah. That was one nice thing about doing a mindless job, I got to sit around and think about stupid stuff all day. Then you guys get to hear about it! O joy of joys!

Don't tell Charczuk

I'm in Kansas City for a few days, a surprise job interview attacked! It's at 3 this afternoon, and I am ready for it. I'm usually pretty good at interviews, for some reason people sometimes seem to like me. As long as I can keep fooling them, I'm alright.

Charczuk has been kind enough to put me up for the couple of days I'm here, like he had a choice. I think this has been the second time in a month where I've called him and told him that I was going to be staying with him the next night. And, like a trooper, he keeps putting me up. So thanks, duder.

The maintenance guy is here right now, messing with the water heater. I think I just heard him swear, followed by the sound of water hitting carpet. Then some hammering, more swears, then the guy asking if he could use the bathroom for a minute. Seems like they know what they're doing. Although, I don't really remember him coming in with those guitars. Maybe he's working on those, too. Oh, I guess the TV's broken, so he just said he'll have to take that with him. Wow, lots of other maintenance guys showed up, apparently most of the things in here are broken and need immediate attention. I guess I should go help them load everything into their conversion van.

Well, they need to take the laptop now, so it's time for me to go! Wish me luck on the interview!

It's like the song "Two Of Us," only by myself - or - I'm on my way home

So I'm back. Back in Iowa. Yes, Iowa. Things sort of fell apart in Texas, I ended up unemployed and homeless. Basically the place where I worked didn't let me have the days off that I needed for going home over the holidays, and didn't tell me about it until I had already missed a day, which they took as a no call, no show type of thing. Which was awesome. I went and talked with them and explained things, so they got over it. But then I wasn't going to be able to get the days off for my trip that I took this past weekend, so I had enough and just left. The best part is that I told them about both trips when I was hired, they said it wouldn't be a problem. Good business practices. It's no wonder they constantly have signs up looking for new hires. So, that was a determining factor in my move back north. There were other things, too, but not having a job and being really frustrated with things there anyways made up my mind.

I drove back in a couple of days, with a car full of stuff. Lots and lots of stuff.

I stopped along the way a few times. First, this rest-stop to call Captain Crab and tell him my sails were taking me north:

All I know is that this was somewhere in Kansas. I drove through Oklahoma while it was dark, so I didn't have many opportunities to take pictures. I was afraid I had taken a wrong turn when I came across this watertower:

I walked around a while to try to find Jad, but apparently, there's a different Ottawa!

I made it to Kansas City in the afternoon, where I stayed with Charczuk and Rhiannon. There will soon be video evidence of this. Should be exciting stuff!

The next morning I got back on my way, but not before stopping for a delicious breakfast:

And in case you were wondering, yes, that is my passenger seat, full of stuff. The XM Radio reciever, shown in the bottom right corner of the photo, was a life-saver on this trip. I heard so much good music, but that's a post for another time. It saved me the trouble of digging for CDs every hour, especially since the CD cases were somewhere on the passenger side floor area.

I made good time, made it back to the Iowa City area right in time for my mom's shift meeting (a.k.a. a bunch of paramedics get off of work and go get drunk). I stayed a night or two in Muscatine, before heading up to Cedar Rapids, where I'll be staying with my brother for the time being. I knew it was a good place to be when I saw this off of the front porch the first morning I was there:

Such a pretty sight. Then, later in the day, I was searching for something to eat for lunch, when I came across the ultra-rare cabinet dwelling cat!

I only had a few days at home before I left for my trip out east, but it was definitely a huge improvement in attitude (and lattitude, ha!) for me. And my trip was wonderful, but that'll wait for another day. Or later today. We'll see. I think I'll break it into a few parts: NYC/Conan, DC, and food (which includes the best gin and tonic I've ever had). It was a good time.

Yep, seems about right.

Today started off innocuously enough, I was able to sleep in, then lounge around a little while before I had a job interview. I made it there on time, missed the turn the first time but had enough time to loop around and find the place. I was looking like the money, wearing a decent button-down shirt and tie, some slacks and nice shoes. The interview was fine, just the preliminary stage of their hiring process. I'm not sure it's a job that I want, but it would be a start. And who knows, I may not get hired anyways, so whatever.

Anyways, I turned in a couple applications, changing from the shirt and tie to a sweater over the shirt, sans tie. A little more casual, if you will. This fits in later.

I decided to stop by a bookstore, both to turn in an application (because I think working in a bookstore would be amazing), and to buy a new crossword puzzle book. After the transaction, I headed to my car, making plans to stop and get some sushi, kind of enjoying the dapper look I was sporting. Then, much to my chagrin, I realized that my keys were not in my pocket. They were sitting on the passenger's seat. I called everyone that I knew in Austin, and when she didn't answer (get it? I only have one friend here! Ha!), I started walking. Luckily, this place is only about 2 miles from my apartment, so it wasn't too bad. And also, it was a beautiful day, around 77 degrees. Stupidly, I left my sweater on for most of the walk, not realizing that I could take it off and carry it with me. I guess I was too engrossed with my Jamba Juice that I got to cool myself off (with the energy boost, of course) and the copy of The Onion that I had picked up. When a couple drops of sweat hit the paper, I wiped my brow with the sleeve of my sweater, the one I was still wearing, not connecting the two at all.

I made it back to the apartment, got a spare key from the office and got my spare car keys that I miraculously remembered to bring with me to Austin, and made it to the bus stop with perfect timing to catch a ride to the Arboretum, where my car was parked. Why didn't I take the bus to the apartment in the first place? I'm pretty sure it would've taken about the same amount of time, since the bus would have to make almost an entire loop before getting back to my apartment, it just seemed really inefficient to me. Plus, the exercise was nice.

So, this just adds to the past month I've been having: with my bank screwing up one check deposit - not once, but twice; working at a job that I don't really like, not being able to find a job that I do like, having computer issues, and just being in a generally grumpy mood.

As stupid as it sounds, I think the weather is having an adverse effect on me, it's too nice. I see the weather back home getting snowy, and I miss it. I want big flakes of snow to fall here. I want the ice storms. I miss them. And ever since I've gotten here, Austin has had unseasonably warm temperatures. When I first got here, everyone was saying that it was such a mild summer, it never reached 100 degrees. But then, there have been record highs each month that I've been here. And I can't find it now, but I thought that I heard the average temperature for each of the past 3 months (September, October, and November) have all been record highs. Guess when I moved? Yep, early September. I bring the hotness. On the news, they always say how a "huge cold front" is going to be coming through, then the temperatures drop to the mid-60's. Which is almost perfect for me, but people here freak out. Or it misses us entirely. (we have another "front" coming through this weekend) I know all three of my readers, who all happen to be extremely, extremely far north of me, are cursing my audacity to be pissed about warm weather. H has many times, each time that I bitch to her about it being too warm here, when she's wearing gloves while she's inside her office, working.

Wow. Sorry, I didn't mean to make this a diatribe on the weather. But be sure to tune in next week when I bitch about how the Dr Pepper here tastes too good.

Quick edit/addition:

I almost forgot the best part to the whole story!! While I was walking home to get the spare set of keys, I got a call from a place to which I had applied earlier in the week! I explained that she had caught me "out on a walk," but talked with her a little while. It was for an elementary music "permanent sub" position (I think covering maternity leave), which would've been fun. By the time I had gotten home, I had already received an email from her, saying that she had found someone else with more experience. I thought I should throw this in, just to add to the mood.

Nothing like getting drunk with Pops

Like I had mentioned before, I went to Wal-Mart a little before midnight on Monday to get the new Madden game for the Wii. I went probably 15 minutes early, and showed up with a line of 8 people already waiting. So I joined them, and made some idle chit-chat with the other members of the line as it grew. When 12 rolled around (it was actually more like 12:03 or 12:04), the employees started handing out the games. I asked for one for the Wii. The guy said "huh?" And I repeated that I wanted the Wii version of Madden '08. He looked around, then said, "uhh, we don't have it."

I replied, "what? Why not?"

"I don't know. It's supposed to be here right now, but we can't find it."

"Well when do you expect to get it?"

"I don't know. . . Either today or tomorrow."

And with that I walked off. I did pick up a copy of Zelda: The Twilight Princess (after waiting about 20 minutes for someone to find the keys to open the case) and a movie for my mom. I'm hoping that those will be my last purchases ever at a Wal-Mart. I try to avoid them as much as possible, but living in Muscatine for the time being doesn't give me much options. For a town of around 23,000 people could have something else. Guess not. Anyways, I'll go someplace next time I'm in Iowa City or Cedar Rapids and get Madden eventually. But I'm having an awesome time with Zelda.

***

Last night was spent at a going away party for a girl that I used to work with here in town, who was currently a pharmacy tech at Hy-Vee with my dad. (the Hy-Vee I worked at in Muscatine, not to be confused with the Hy-Vee I worked at in Iowa City.) My dad was all excited since the place where the party was held had $3 pitchers of beer until 6, so we had to hurry down, and made it just in time. He ordered two, handed one to me, and took one for himself. Now, a pitcher of beer is no problem for me, but it's probably more beer than I've seen my dad drink, ever. He's not a huge drinker, as far as I know. He'll have the occasional glass of wine, sometimes a cocktail, and a wine cooler every now and then, but I don't know if I've ever seen a can of beer in his fridge. So I finish mine up, and he's a little less than 1/3 of the way through his. So, like any good son would do, I helped him out. I was feeling a little buzz, and I'm pretty sure my dad was too. What a lightweight. It was a good time, I met a guy that's going golfing with a few guys that I used to work and occasionally hang out with here in town, so I may join them. Then I was looking forward to making a drunk post here, but by the time I got home (my dad put off leaving for a little while, I'm pretty sure so he could sober up. But we were having a good time, so why leave?), I was basically sober, but tired. And I needed to play Zelda. So sorry about that. Maybe next time.

Hopefully today it won't rain so I can move my stuff up to my bro's place for storing. If I do go, I'll try to take some pictures of my brother's place, or maybe some more of "Chico", or maybe an updated "Brothers Flenker" photo. Until then, I need to go save Hyrule. (And yes, there will be a post in the future about how much the Legend of Zelda video game franchise means to me.)

Yes, I'm still around

Just thought I'd write a quick note to tell everyone that I'm still alive and well, or as well as I can be with a new haircut that I hate at the time being. (You'd think for $30 they'd be able to get it right.)

Anyways, I'll be back with some pictures of said haircut, as well as some others from the weekend, taken with my fancy new camera! Ok, it's not really fancy, but it's new and it does what I want, so whatever.

But for now, I need to get ready for work. Only 2 days left there!

A bit of wind

2 tornado warnings in the past 3 days were fun, especially since I was at work. We herded all of the customers to the back room, and handed out cookies and water while we waited for everything to pass over. A friend of mine and I just kind of wandered around the empty store checking things out. Monday was nothing really, just some strong winds and a reported touch-down somewhere, but not much threatening Iowa City. Yesterday, however, was some pretty intense weather, I was outside watching and saw a huge wall cloud come through, and felt the much cooler temperatures and strong winds that came with it. I didn't see any funnel cloud or rotation or anything, but some friends said that they did, but no reports of anything touching down. Still a kind of exciting time. Today, finally, the weather is beautiful, so I'm going to enjoy it tonight as much as I can.

Other than that, nothing has been going on around here of any note. I've been playing a lot of the new NCAA football game, and love it. I had some wonderful sushi today, and have been running/walking almost daily (when I can between the raindrops). This weekend I'm heading to a party I'm co-hosting at my brother's place here in town, but other than that, nothing exciting on the horizon until the Bix on the 28th. I need to get my ass in shape, or at least to a point where I won't want to vomit after running 7 miles.

Anyways, that's about it for now. Just thought I'd let everyone know that I'm still kicking it in Iowa City, just livin the dream.

A couple videos, sandwiched around some words, and love

This video is for Captain Crab, who sent me the link this morning. It's awesome, truly hilarious!



Last night I apparently decided that I wanted to sleep on my futon in the living room. My room just felt too warm, the living room was much more comfortable. But while I was laying there, I really felt like falling asleep watching television, which presents a problem: we don't have cable, and can't receive any channels very well through an antenna. And it's worked out pretty well, there are very rarely any times where I "need" to watch TV, and not having anything to watch made me actually do stuff. If there's ever anything I have to watch (the World Series, Hawkeye away games, etc), I can just go over to my brother's place and watch it on their gigantic plasma-screen TV. There are the times, however, like last night, where having the Food Network or ESPN or the History Channel or the Discovery Channel would've been pretty amazing. Then again, I'd probably have to pay for it, and I'm not sure how I fell about that.

Something else happened last night that may have changed my life. At work, I found out that there is an ice cream flavor (I think Ben & Jerry's) called something like "Cinnamon bun batter" or something similar. This, when added to apple pie, has the power to bring about world peace, I'm convinced. It made me feel like life isn't so bad. I'm pretty sure when I took a bite of the ice cream and pie together, I saw love visualized, appearing before my eyes in the form of colors, and birds, and shooting stars, all on top of a grass-covered hill in the middle of a meadow. This combination made me want to cry. It seriously made me weak in the knees. I can't explain it, you must try it for yourself. Preferably with a warm, homemade Dutch apple pie. But if you fall into a love-(or sugar-) induced coma, don't say I didn't warn you.

And now, for a musical interpretation of love, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Chet Baker!

Oh yeah, that's right

It's night at work like tonight that remind me why I want to get the hell out of here. I won't go into too many details, just that I left 45 minutes late, I had to try to fix a ton of shit, had to run damage control for how a co-worker treated a customer, then typed up a 2-page note to the department manager trying to explain everything.

At least I have the next 3 days off. We'll see if I put on pants at all during that time period. I'd give it a 13% chance. Lower if I decide to keep my phone off the entire time.

Quick post before work

Sorry, my "internet" hasn't been the most reliable lately, so I haven't had much of an opportunity to post. Now that it's working, I only have a short amount of time before work, so these are just going to be some quick notes, and I'll try to post more tomorrow.

• I am extremely jealous of both Marin and Heinricy for this weekend. Marin is seeing Loney, Dear in DC tomorrow night, and Heinricy is seeing WHY? in Austin, also tomorrow. Tomorrow night, I'll most likely be asleep by 10 after working 7-3.
  
• Daren and I had Thai for lunch, it was delicious. Rice noodles are amazing.
• I added another blog link, Bad Wims. I'm pretty sure he's my food soul-mate, he has posts about falafel and sushi (where he mentions his favorite roll is the same as mine, the spicy tuna). So check him out, there's good stuff over there.
• I've forgotten to pay my phone bill for a few days now. Oops. But, they sent me a text message reminding me to pay it, isn't that nice! I guess I'll do that tomorrow.
  
• It's Federer vs Nadal in the French Open final this weekend. I have Sunday off, so I'll need to get somewhere to watch the match. Federer won their last match on clay, just last month, so hopefully he'll complete his career Grand Slam this weekend, on his way to picking up the Grand Slam this season. I love Federer. He's my current man-crush, along with Jim Krasinski from The Office.
• Speaking of Jim Krasinski, he co-wrote the screenplay and is directing and starring in the film adaptation of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, a book I just finished. I'm really looking forward to this!
• The new book I'm reading is Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris. It's awesome so far.

That's all I have right now... I must get ready for work. Hope everyone has a great day/weekend!!!

As long as I know how to love I know I'll be alive

H just called and sang me a wonderful rendition of "I Will Survive," but not quite as lovely as when I sang it to Bill last September. Like I say, two of the best words in the English language are "Open Bar". Maybe not the best words ever, I could think of some more I'd like hearing, but they're definitely up there.


This weekend in Iowa City is the Arts Festival, an event that takes place the first weekend in June (I think. . . I could be making that part up. It's always around then, though), where art vendors from all over the Midwest set up shop outside, on the closed off streets of downtown. Also, a couple of stages are set up, and live music is performed basically all day. Last year the performers included Ben Lee and Nickel Creek. All for free! This year didn't quite have the name-recognition, but that's a-ok, by me.

What wasn't ok with me was that I worked 9-5 yesterday, then had to work 7-3 today. I was a good boy and didn't go out and do anything last night and was in bed rather early, in spite of the beautiful weather at night and music drifting into my window from the festivities. I probably could have gone out for a little while, but I know that I would have had a hard time leaving. So I stayed in, biding my time until I could go today, after work. Of course it rains today, after work. But not until I'm already out walking around. It was a nice rain, though, not unpleasant to walk through, but still put a damper on some of the fun times. On the bright side, I didn't spend any money on food! Instead I made some black beans and rice burritos, with some Monterrey Jack cheese and a little fresh cilantro. They turned out very well, it's amazing how something so simple can be so delicious. I shared them with Daren, who returned from his tour today. We sat around and chatted a little while, but then I needed to go cheer the Cavaliers onto a victory tonight. Mission accomplished.

Really, it doesn't make for that interesting of a read. But that's how my day was, and I'll be darned if it wasn't fine. Maybe tomorrow I'll feel like writing some more. I actually kind of feel like writing more tonight, but can't seem to focus on any one topic, so I'll just pack it in and try again tomorrow. For now, I'm going to eat some ice cream, watch some episodes of The Office, and eventually try to head to bed. Nighty night folks

Animal Collective

Well I just got off of work, but I'm only stopping in for a quick update. I'll be heading downtown soon to pick up a ticket for the Animal Collective show at the Picador tonight. Things worked out well, I was able to switch hours around and work during the day in order to make it to the show. Now I just need to hope that it's not yet sold out...

Anyways, if you've never heard Animal Collective before, check out their myspace page, and enjoy! I'll try to update afterwards, it's an early show, so I think it should be done by 10. Until then, enjoy your Friday!

Songs to work to

Lately, Don Henley's song "Boys of Summer" has been playing at my workplace, and every time I hear it, I get pumped up. I know not why. I just get really excited, and sing along, even though I only know about 13 words to the song. It's an ok song, I've never been a huge Don Henley/Eagles fan (to borrow a quote from The Big Lebowski, "I hate the fuckin' Eagles, man"). Maybe this song reminds me of baseball, just the phrase "boys of summer" does it for me.

Anyways, this song has gotten added to my list of "Favorite Work Songs," songs that are played over the intercom system at work. Songs that get me going, or that I like to sing along to, or songs that I just flat-out enjoy.

"Ain't Too Proud to Beg" by the Temptations is by far my favorite song on this list. As soon as I hear the opening drum fill, I perk up and start singing and dancing. This is an awesome song outside of work, and to hear it while I'm clocked in makes it even better. (Kind of like how pooping on the clock is awesome. It just feels good to be getting paid while you're doing that. And every time I'm on the john, Bill gets a text message. That's the sort of relationship we have.) It's gotten to the point where co-workers will tell me if they've heard the song recently, because they just associate it with me. Awesome! There's another co-worker of mine who loves the song as I do, and we were working together this past Sunday morning when it came on. We instantly looked at each other and grinned, in an only slightly homo-erotic way.



My second favorite song is Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine." This is just a great soul song with an awesome groove. Also, the first time that I heard this song playing at work, it was at a very appropriate time in my life. So yeah. Almost as importantly, it give me a chance to post this video. Bill Withers is the man. And his drummer is definitely a cool cat.



Third up is "Into the Mystic" by Van Morrison. Morrison has got one of the most soulful voices of any white dude. I dig it. And this song is a perfect example of his voice. I love the horn parts in it, but the best feature of this song is just the singing. (sorry about the weird video for it, it was the best thing I could find. But enjoy the song, while watching some neato sea-life!)



I'll just leave it at my Top 3 right now, but I've got a good start on my next Mix CD for another exchange. These are just the cream of the crop, so to speak.

"How much does a 2-cent stamp cost?" - actual question I've heard

The postal rates are going up on May 14th, just a reminder. We have a postal sub-station at the customer service desk where I work, so we get people asking about this constantly. I just tell them that the rate is going up to 41 cents for a letter, and that yes, we will be selling the 2-cent stamps, and we will have the new "Forever Stamps" when the time comes. I didn't realize, however, that the rates are going to be all kinds of confusing for anything other than a regular envelope.

Apparently there are going to be 3 different size qualifications, starting with the letter, which entails anything under a certain measurement and under 3.5 ounces. Then there's some other size bracket, and then finally, everything that doesn't fall under those two go to the "package" category. Exciting stuff, right? Imagine how exciting a nearly 2-hour training session on this was, via conference call no less! Everyone had their packets and sheets, and then two people in some unknown, far-off location guided us through some PowerPoint-type thing. To the man guiding us, every package or form was a "bad boy," as in "When a customer wants to insure their package, fill out this bad boy," or "If the bad boy is over 15 inches, you use your flowchart here," (yes, we were given a flowchart) "and you'll see that it goes into this category." He had to have said it at least 15-20 times. Then there was the postal website, which the man and the woman speaking had to have practiced saying together. It was eerie. Kind of like some infomercial where everyone says the phone number at the same time.

When I wasn't busy text messaging one of my co-workers also getting trained (we both decided that a stiff drink was warranted, even if it was 10 in the morning), I was trying to pay attention, I really was. I mean, I really like flowcharts, honestly. Dan (another co-worker) and I both knew that we were going to be the ones training people back at the store, and fixing their mistakes, so we paid attention to the parts we needed to, like insurance, international, and some priority mail stuff. That being said, we both agreed that there will be some mistakes made. It's a given. So yeah.

Anyways, that's been occupying my time for part of the morning, then school-related stuff, and now a break for blogging. I will try to get my Big Idea stuff worked out to get posted later today or this evening, but if worse comes to worse, It'll be up Saturday afternoon. Sorry, I do have things that will be taking priority over the next day or two. And that includes finishing my "Cinco de Mayo" mini beer tour at Old Chicago. It's something that needs to be done.

Oh, joys of stupid people

Last night at work was kind of fun, as fun as work can be I guess. Since we're a postal sub-station, people kept coming in to get their taxes post-marked with the date, so they wouldn't be late. What people didn't understand was that our last pick up of the day was at 2:30, and after that, we change the date stamps. Some of the customers coming in just couldn't get that fact, and would start arguing that it was still the 17th, that we should still be stamping their mail with that date. Even though their letters would be sitting in the backroom overnight, not getting touched until the 18th. At first I felt a little bad for them, but then I remembered that they had 3-and-a-half months to get their taxes done and sent it, so they lost any sympathy. Everyone was even given an extra day! Nope, I don't feel sorry for you. Did you really think that you could go to a grocery store at 9:59 and get your taxes in the mail? Come on!

Also last night, my co-worker was asked when she was due. As in when she was expecting her baby to be born. She's not pregnant. She doesn't even really look like she would be pregnant. Maybe very early in the term. But either way, that's not something you ask someone when you're not sure, right? I mean, there have been a couple instances where I thought someone was with baby, but I held my tongue until I was sure. You have to have that sort of self-censoring voice in your head in such occasions. Anyways, the girl laughed about it, didn't take it too hard, which was nice. But it got me thinking, is there a similar situation for men? Is there something that someone can say or ask that could potentially offend or upset a guy as much as saying something about a woman's weight? The only things I could come up with were either something about balding ("Hey, when did you start shaving your head?") or maybe either hitting on or making disparaging remarks about a guys wife/girlfriend/sister without knowing their relationship ("Look at that girl, she's got big knockers!""That's my sister." or "Don't look now, but Fido is heading this way.""I'm dating her.") But that would just most likely result in some sort of fistfight, not the shaking of a man's vision of himself. And I don't know if guys are as sensitive about their hair as girls are of their weight. So I'll contemplate this a little while longer. Any input or suggestions would be appreciated!