Well.....yikes!

Well folks, it's been decided. Today starts the end of my so-called career at CGi and begins the search for other employment. If it's not one thing, it's three others.

My paycheck was supposed to come yesterday, but I was giving it to today in order for the mail to deliver something late. No go...not there. This has happened before.

I was told that I am one of the 5% of my company that chooses to recieve a "physical check" instead of a direct deposit. Why, I know you're wanting to ask, would I want to do that? It's so much easier to do a direct deposit, it' simple and reliable. You know, I did have direct deposit for over a year with this company. Then through a series of errors, mess ups and chaos we ended up losing an entire paycheck to the bank. Unfortunately these were not OUR mess ups, errors and we were not the authors of the chaos....that I owe to my beloved company and EX-bank. Or I should say bankS. Anyway, it's a long story and to get to the point of it, we decided that we could not afford to have the direct deposit because it was costing us just way too much. I know, you're saying that was an isolated event and doesn't justify the refusal to have direct deposit.....well I simply didn't metion the additional $1200 that the bank ended up, in my opionon, stealing from our account to cover some "supposed" fees, balances and fines that came about from the previous actions and general idiocy of the affor metioned banks.

So now we have our second journey in the adventure of not having the check come when it is supposed to come. Big surprise, no, not really. Why? Well it happened before and according to my company's fictitious policy that they enacted to cover thier own butt and cause enough pain for anyone without direct deposit to want it again, they will do nothing about late checks for eight to ten days AFTER the chek was to be delivered. Yep, they make me wait. It's thier problem, it's thier fault and I get to wait. Did I finally get a check from them, yes. Did I EVERY recieve the original check, NO!!

So here we go again. Unfortunately in the corporate world a person in my position isn't worth anything at all. I am what most corporate executive would call "a dime a dozen".....even though I know of only one other person in the entire comapny that has something close to the capabilities I have. ONE! Yet I am not worth anything to them because I am not doing what they would "prefer" me to do! Is there some rule that says I HAVE to do it - No! Seems to me based on the evidence they are trying to FORCE me to do it, just so I can recieve the pay that I have worked for on time.

I tell you, I am so tired of the nazi-like attitude of the corporation, it makes me sick!

So, I am now out there, beating the street.....well the internet, looking for a new job. I hope I can find one soon. And hopefully we will still have a car come Tuesday morning. .

Have a great day!

Sick of being sick....

Texting and email can be wonderful and accurate tools for tracking and communicating information. They can also be the worst communication tool in the world when applied to important and emotional communication.

I know, I keep using that word....communication. But really that's what email, texting, videos and music really comes down to, right? No one, except for those blasted spammers out there, send any information, whichever way they choose to disseminate it, for no reason. They are trying to communicate. These people are trying to relay information from one place to another.

Now, some....no, unfortunately many, many people out there misconstrue email and texting for an effective tool to be used to communicate information that should only be delivered in person or over the phone. Why? Let's try using Mr. Brain for a change and think before we react, shall we?

I have some news that I know is going to cause an emotional reaction and have a profound impact on the realtionship I have with Mr. X. Now what I should do is pick up my phone and call Mr. X and realy the information in as delacately a fashion as I can listening to the tones of his voice and making sure he understands that what I am saying doesnt need to impact our relationship in any way. But no, what I do is break out the microscopic keyboard on my phone and type with my thumbs a short and sweet message to Mr. X outlining the facts of the situation. I mean no malice on my part, I am simply trying to relay the information. Now I send the message and I wait. Hmmm, this is taking a long time, why hasn't he responded back, what is he thinking? And thus the thinking starts on my end about the situation, playing scenarios of doom in my head so that when his response comes back it hits me like a ton of bricks!

His response is: "Thank you for telling me that.".......that's it? That's all? I see what's happening, he's judging me, he's rejecting me, he doesn't like me anymore.

On the other end of the message Mr. X sits in stunned silence mulling over what this may mean to our realtionship and hopes that it will not adversely effect it. He didn't know how to respond so he responded in as generic a way as he could. He has a lot of emotional baggage he has to wade through and this news has caused a lot of the negative past to rise to show it's ugly head.

Meanwhile I am fuming and feeling guilty so I send another message: "So, I guess this means you're done with me?!" Mr. X responds in kind and we go back and forth....soon there is nothing left but scars that can't be healed and the end of a realtionship, all because I couldn't get off my lazy ass and use my voice for a friggin' change!

I know, you're thinking this is silly, this is stupid, no one would ever do that!

Wise up and start smelling what your shovelling. This has not only happened, it happens every day! Relationships end, fights start, misinterpretations run rampant, and we still insist on using text and email as a viable way to communicate emotion. What a farce!

You may be thinking, well obviously you don't have that problem being so articulate like you have been in this article. You seem to have relayed the emotional state you're in pretty well. May be, but you will notice that it has taken me a few more letters than the traditional 160 that you get for texting....by the way, that 160 includes spaces....

Take it from a person who has witnessed this first hand one too many times of late. Use your voice, not your thumbs when communicating important or emotional information. If you're asking what someone is up to, that's pretty safe. If you're telling them that they are no longer going to be hanging out with them, get some balls and use your voice!

Have a nice day! :)

Too short.....

Life is too short and God is too good to take for granted even one moment of the time we are given.

Every second that goes by will never be seen again.

Every moment that is lost, can never be reclaimed.

What do we do with our moments, not our lives, but our moments. That is what life consists of, moments. We don't really have a "lifetime", we only have the moment we live in and the memory of the past. We live with the hope that comes in Christ, the faith that comes from belief, but we must still only live in the moment. Even faith without works, without actions, is nothing.

Sick...

One of the lovely "benefits" to having children is the fact they graciously pass on to you, the parent, any sickness they might decide to pick up along the way. So here I am, trying desperately to work up the energy to do some work from home while my nose runs, my eyes go blurry and my mind fuzzes out on a regular basis....wait, what was I saying? Oh yeah....anyway, I feel terrible!

We did it to ourselves....

I was born in 1968 to my parents who lived in a small suburb of Sacramento here in California. It was a really nice neighborhood with nice people. At the end of our block, literally, was the grade school I would attend through the fifth grade. That year would change our environment forever.

In my neighborhood we had the typical gang of kids that hung out together. We had all sorts of adventures and mishaps around. We thought out street was the world and we never wanted or desired to leave it. There was the trench-like causeway that would carry rainwater that crossed under our street and flowed behind several of the houses, my best friend’s included. Well, my friend and I would on a regular basis climb the fence and go “exploring” for hours in these causeways, much to the chagrin of our parents. We found all sorts of cool things in there, but I am getting off the subject here. What changed everything had to do with those causeways and what we referred to as the neighborhood dog. We didn’t know his name, and we didn’t know where he came from….we really didn’t care. What we did know is that he had stayed in pretty much everyone’s back yard for the night at one point or another and we never did figure out who’s dog he really was. He came back to our houses countless times for a free meal and some play.

It was a normal, sunny day on our street and the “gang” had been out in force playing games up and down the street. We happened to be down by the school where the causeway went under our street and saw the neighborhood dog running down the causeway. We tried to call him but he ignored us and just kept running. Just then a guy appeared around the corner of another street and came walking towards us, at least we thought, and as he approached he pulled out a small revolver. He proceeded to climb the fence to the causeway. As he was climbing we asked him if he was going to shoot the dog and he said he might. We asked him why and he didn’t answer. He dropped into the causeway and disappeared from sight around the bend that it made, going towards where the dog had gone.

Well, we all went home right then, it was dinner time anyway, and told our parents what had happened. My family moved within a couple of weeks. That was the last time I had seen the dog.

The guy with the gun, I found out years later, was “the last straw” to bread the back of a camel that was due to be put down a while earlier. Sacramento and the surrounding areas had been getting worse and worse for some time. My brother had been sent home from his school several times because of riots. This is a middle school we’re talking about, not a high school. Riots at a middle school, what a concept.

Anyway, we moved to a small town in the foothills and started what would be a great time in life for us kids. I really don’t remember much as far as how my parents enjoyed it, but I sure did! With the exception of my insane brother who hated me for reasons that to this day I don’t understand, life was pretty cool. He is my older brother and that’s a place I just don’t want to go here. Maybe some time, but not now.

My point is this, when I was a small kid growing up in a city neighborhood, I was allowed to be out for hours without my parents know where I was or what I was doing and I never died, never maimed myself for life, or even encountered anyone really bad, until the guy with the gun. I would even be out there after dark and still be safe. Kids now don’t get to have the experience anymore. People have a hard enough time trusting their neighbors, much less trusting “friends” parents that who knows what they are like or what their moral belief system is. It’s sad that it is what it is but this is the world we live in because it’s the world we have made for ourselves.

Sometimes it’s appropriate to be harsh, to say it like it is and slap some people in the face verbally, if you know what I mean. It kills me that the same people that complain about the state of things are the same people who are morally bankrupt. I don’t care what you think, believe, what your political view are, whatever, if this country and world continues to adopt a morally “interpretive” societal direction, we are headed for more decay and even greater atrocities than we have seen so far. I’m not talking about war or the battlefield, I am talking about right here, on this street, in my own town. I found out that just recently a man accosted a young woman at the ice cream parlor that’s just around the corner here in broad daylight. He raped her and was found later on, days later. This is in the same strip mall that my two daughters had walked to with their friends around the same time. That bothers me. Guess what my girls are not allowed to do anymore?

It starts in the home. I had it drilled into me as a kid, over and over again, “don’t push your beliefs and morals on your kids, they need to figure them out for themselves”….What a load of excrement!

Yes, they have figure out that there are no absolutes, therefore there are no absolute laws, there are no absolute rights, there is no absolute ownership, do what feels good, what feels good is right, what’s right for you may not be right for me and that’s okay, etc., etc. Do you not see where this goes? I mean, look around you, you are witnessing the product of my parents’ and my generational muck of not having the balls to stand up and say, right is right, wrong is wrong, if you don’t like it, tough!

You know I was watching a video online of a pastor talking to his congregation and he made a wonderfully profound statement that made me pause the video and think for quite some time about it. He said; “How one views death and eternity will determine how one lives”. Think about that. If there is no God, no heaven, no hell, then what difference does anything make. If this is all there is, there are going to be a lot of very depressed people.

Home....now what was that again?

You know, when one has shared their home with other people for as long as I have, one forgets what it's like to have MY OWN HOME!!

I have been sharing my home with people for several months now. Before this I was out of a home, we had to leave our house early before our new house was ready to move in to, and my family and I were living with some family members in their home, while they got ready to move out and into their new home......are you starting to see what my family and I have gone through?

Now before we got into our home here, and after we had stayed in the house of some realatives, we needed a place to stay in the meantime. So we moved in with my wife's mother and her husband. This was fine for a short period of time, but then we found out that they were not only moving also, but their new house would not be ready by the time they were ready to move out so they needed a place to stay. They ended up coming to live with us. Fine....are you tired yet?

We ave now been in our home for two months, living with the in-laws and for a bit it was fine. Granted, we arranged our schedules so that they would be able to get ready and get going in the morning when and how they needed to, and granted we gave them the extra bathroom so I would be sharing the master bathroom with three women, my wife and two teen daughters.....you know what that means! And I know that I am being selfish in we completely changed the way we did things because they liked it a heck of lot quieter around the house than us, and they go to bed earlier than us, and wake up earlier than us, and wanted their own food stash, even though they were eating our food and having dinners with us that my wife made, and spending their money on stuff that they wanted and didn't need while contributing as little as they could to our financial burden they gave us while staying here......breath....I know I'm just simply being selfish and sensitive when I would get upset about them complaining that the girls left a plate with some food on it in the sink, or left a towell on the floor or we would forget something, or not do it how they liked it, or they would tell us we were doing our daughters an injustice by homeschooling them, or any of the other complains, comments, etc. that would utter from their mouths!!

But I digress...

Now, to add to the frivolity, we have another one of our freinds staying with us now. Her and her four children. I will say thins, I love them all, but I swear if I have to tell the girls to be quiet again or if the mom comes home and decides to slam doors and be loud after precious mother-in-law has gone to bed, I WILL KILL THEM!!

It's enough to have this many people in the house, it's quite another to have them being as inconsiderate as this. I am so tired of the lack of consideration that goes on. My wife wants to downplay it. I don't because I am the one mother-in-law talked to, I'm the one who knew the moment she walked in the door slamming and yelling that there was going to be at the very least a comment given. This is not their house, it's mine!

I know, I can hear my wife talking to me saying how I just need to suck it up, shut up, ride it out, etc., etc., etc., blah, blah, blah.......

It's just friggin' aggravating!

Getting worse....

I found out this morning that yet another quality employee will be leaving my company. You know it's getting more and more difficult to find reasons to stay. Every time I find another person I enjoy working with, they end up leaving. What's the deal!? My company's retention rate is quickly going to pot!

A Decision....

So here's the thing, I've had to make a few tough decisons, one of which was closing down my MySpace account and also the conclusion that teaching animation is not going to be something that will be happening. I have been coming to terms with that and looking for alternative "dreams". I guess I could figure out how to do some teaching on the side or community work. I just can't seem to be able to figure out how to get my degree with my job, my wife, and my kids.

I was thinking about getting a Mac computer to do some video editing. i just need to figure out exactly what I need to get to accomplish that.

Anyone out there know Macs well enough to tell me? I need to be able to edit both normal and HD content. I don't know what programs are best on Mac. I've always been a PC guy, please don't hold it against me you Mac people out there.

I hate this..

I sit here in a place I don't want to be, doing nothing, I am bored out of my skull!

Greetings!

It's been a while but I am trying to get back into the swing of things again.

Start

Lets get going!