Month: October 2005

A couple months ago I stopped at HEB on the way home from work to get groceries for dinner. I made my purchases and loaded the truck. I stuck my key in the ignition and pushed the clutch down with my left foot. At that point I plugged my iPod into the tape adapter and started scrolling through my playlists to find some good driving tunes for the last leg of my commute home.

Still scrolling through playslist I was jarred forward and was startled by a loud boom that reverberated through the truck’s frame. I had no idea what had just happened as the truck wasn’t running and I hadn’t moved. I glanced up and looked in the rear view mirror, thinking that someone hit me from behind. Nothing behind me. Then I looked through the windshield to find that I had rolled four feet forward and hit the parked truck in front of me. I guess my subconcious convinced my appendages that it was necessary to hold in the truck’s clutch in order to operate an iPod.

“Uh… oops!”

I laughed at myself, started the truck and backed up so the two vehicles were no longer kissing and so I could assess any damages. I didn’t get out of my truck. Instead I leaned forward and took a good gaze at the old truck in front of me. The truck I tapped had obviously been around the block a few times and it didn’t look like my little mistake added any damage.

It was then that I saw a lady sitting in her car parked to the right of the truck I hit. She had to have seen what had just happened because our eyes briefly met. So I decided to do the right thing. I made it obvious that I was pulling out a pen and piece of paper. With exaggerated motions I began to write my note and keep a spying eye on my witness. I think she wanted to make sure I was doing the right thing. Once she saw that I was in the process of writing a note to leave on the window, she backed out and started driving away. I watched as my witness turned onto the highway and drove off.

I looked down at my note.

I’ve read and heard that you’re not supposed to write e.g. blog about work. I don’t like being censored, I’m not afraid, I’m still in my-job-doesn’t-define-me training and if you’re my future employer, hello. Not that I’m looking. Awe crap, look what I’ve up and done now.

That being said, I fired my “assistant” on Friday. Her title wasn’t My Assistant, it was actually Marketing Coordinator, or Developer, or Something Or Other. But when “it” need to roll downhill, 98.43% of the time, “it” rolled straight to her. She was my point-person. My #2. I had a year-and-a-half professional investment in her. I trained her one-on-one and she eventually took the majority of the production work off of my plate.

Against advisement I gave her chance after chance after chance. I wholeheartedly wanted her to succeed. She had other plans.

I had a hard time sleeping on Thursday night. It was a hard reality that I had to face. So hard in fact that it was sympathy card worthy by Elise. I came home on Friday night to a reaffirming card in my drawer.

My heart was in my throat all day Friday. I fired her that morning and had heartburn for the rest of the day. I don’t get heartburn often and when I do, it’s self inflicted by either 1) habanero hot wings or 2) firing someone that means something to me.

I think back of the time spent and all of the opportunities there and it just eats at me.

I’m going to go make hot wings.

We decided to spruce up the office a little bit because, well, it needed it. I told the girls that I wanted to put 2″ faux wood blinds in the front end of the office. The girls went out and bought the blinds which left me to install them. Our office is essentially a warehouse and is sturdily constructed. I had to drill through metal to install the blinds. In doing so I broke three drill bits. So I shopped titanium drill bits on Amazon.com this evening to replace my broken bits. How can you not entertain the notion of purchasing drill bits with a “parabolic flute design that improves chip ejection”.

– King crab legs
– Schlotzsky’s smoked turkey and jalapeno pizza
– Apple’s weekly “special events”
– Coheed & Cambria
– Speeding
– Gaining sympathy weight
– Air drums

I’m spending most of my Saturday “cleaning house”. I’m finding stuff that I don’t need and putting it on eBay. One item of which is my desktop Windows PC. I was cleaning the drives and found a video from almost ten years ago. It was a time shortly after I met a girl named Elise.

Click to play

I’ve always heard stories about Jehovah’s Witnesses and how they knock on your door and talk to you for extended periods of time trying to recruit new members.

There was a knock at the door last weekend. I was at home alone while Elise was working. I snuck up to the front door while trying not to step on a part of the hardwood that would make a noise and give away the fact that someone was at home. I eased my face to the peep hole and saw two girls standing outside the front door.

“All right, chicks!”, I thought.

I opened the door and was greeted by my two visitors. After polite introductions, one of the girls immediately started talking about the damage caused by hurricane Katrina and then something about Korea. She asked if she could leave some literature with me. I agreed to the leaving of the literature. I was gaining insight that this was a religious calling. I tried to muster some witty comment about needing to be excused because the goat’s blood on the stove was probably boiling over. I decided against being witty and instead gave them both a pair of these.

She said they would be back at a later time. We said our goodbyes, she handed me some pamphlets and I closed to the door. I looked down at my newly acquired literature to find imformation from The Watchtower Society. I’m not religious by conventional standards so I just threw the papers away.

The girls came back on Wednesday while Elise was home. She didn’t answer the door because she was actually boiling goats blood. Pregnant women have weird cravings. The girls came by two other times that day as well. Elise never answered the door.

So now I can say I’ve had Jehovah’s Witnesses come to my door. Stay tuned for the inevitable Elvis sighting.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about having headshots done. It would come in handy for my AIM account and one day I will change the world and it will be required that I have a headshot on the corporate website.

I was going through my digital photos tonight and all I could come up with was this: