In the town where I was born lived a man who sailed to sea. Tommy used to work on the docks. Right now he’s probably slow dancing with a bleached-blonde tramp and she’s probably getting frisky. He wore that cowboy hat to cover up his horns. Her name is Noelle. She works way too much for way too little. Breaking rocks in the hot sun. I’ve got a little change in my pocket going "ding-a-ling-a-ling." She’s sun and rain. I’m waitin’ on the sun to set ‘cause yesterday ain’t over yet. I walked in as the sun came up. Well, she seemed all right by dawn’s early light. I walk into a room passing out $100 bills. Walk away if you want to. She turned up her nose as she walked by my Cadillac. She couldn’t keep from crying when she told me goodbye. It’s been a whole lot easier since the (polar’s word) left town. Some men are attracted to a pair of big blue eyes. Well, I ain’t never been the Barbie Doll type. I’m no poet and I know it. All I can say is that my life is pretty plain. I set out on a narrow way many years ago. Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road. Well, I remember every little thing as if it happened only yesterday. A long, long time ago I can still remember how that music used to make me smile. She can kill with a smile. Put on my blue suede shoes as I boarded the plane. You spend an awful lot of time in Massachusetts. It’s the perfect time of year somewhere far away from here. It’s a long way to Richmond rolling north on 95. Baby, what do you say we just get lost? My old friend lives up in the mountains. I thought that dreams belonged to other men. Flowers and wine are what I thought I would find when I came home from working tonight. Can we forget about the things I said when I was drunk? Here I am at 6:00 in the morning still thinking about you. Girl, you’re looking fine tonight. Where it began I can’t begin to knowin’. Well, I don’t know why I came here tonight. Nibblin’ on sponge cake. Oh, I could hide ‘neath the wings of the bluebird as she sings. Father wears his Sunday best. Back and forth I sway with the wind. Well, the crowd is getting restless. Just take those old records off the shelf. This ain’t no disco.

Here’s something that happened on the 18^th. (Names will be either excluded or made up to protect the innocent, as well as a poor attempt at humor.)

I get an e-mail from Steph Person over at our other building:

Thanks for your help!

Steph Person

Now, my first thought is this: There’s no "fault" here to lay on the client or anyone. The teller made a mistake in thinking that all three checks were worth the same amount. The client did not realize that she had received too much at the time, either. It seemed pretty cut and dry that the client needed to give the extra $90.00 back to the bank, because there’s no such thing as free money. I can certainly understand the concerns… if it were me, the money might already have been used to pay off credit card debt before I noticed the error. The bothersome part was the thought that Ms. Person thought that it was OK to let the client keep the money: "Oh, well… it was their error, so they’re out $90.00." The bank would have fought tooth and nail to get their money back, since they already knew it was missing, and TPC would have been the ones hurt by it all with a strained relationship, and who knows what else. I mean, there have been plenty of "cashier errors" in other business sectors. The kid at Mickey D’s screws up your order, or Wally World gives you $20.00 shoes for $10.00 accidentally. Those companies might write that off, but a bank isn’t going to do that…

Anyway, I ended up going to Sue Pavisor to see what her thoughts on the matter were, but she was in a budget meeting (side note: there are days that I really miss the bigwig meetings at the VNA. I mean, there are plenty of Emergency Spoon Days here, but it’s not the same.) at the time. I told Bill Lingai, one of the other accountants about what was going on, and he agreed 100%. He called Steph right up and told her straight up that the client had to return the money. The can of worms that this opened, however, was the fact that all of us had to make sure that all of the accounts were credited and debited properly, since the checks were cut to the client from TPC’s account. You’d think it would just be as easy as having the client walk back across the street and return the cash, but no, there were hoops to be jumped through still, an electronic paper trail to cover everyone’s respective tails.

4/23/07

I just found out today that both Johnny Hart and Brant Parker passed away this month. Hart was the artist behind the comic "B.C." and both he and Parker collaborated on "The Wizard of Id," both of which I used to enjoy. Parker’s son apparently took over the reins of "Id" a few years ago, so that’s likely to continue on for a while, but I’m going to miss B.C., which was as classic (to me) as Peanuts, Calvin & Hobbes, Garfield, Doonesbury, Dilbert, and the various incarnations of Opus. (I didn’t include Sluggy because it’s a web comic, not newspaper).

I heard something on Leno about how Sheryl Crow wants to fight Global Warming by rationing TP, and it got me thinking… for starters, the idea is "out there," and sounds more like one of the radical solutions that I’d use to solve a problem rather than something that would actually work. Thus I’m going to try to ponder how I’d go about replacing TP and paper napkins in a futile attempt to conserve trees.

I’ll start by going off onto a diaper tangent. Back when I was a diapers (and no, it wasn’t last week), my mom used to use cloth diapers at home, pampers when going out. I’ll come back to this one later, but in the meantime think about how much space would be saved in the landfills if a few more people did this.

On a similar note, think about how many trees could be saved if more restaurants switched to cloth napkins. I’m a very messy eater, and I can go through a number of paper napkins easily during a wing-eating frenzy. But cloth napkins? Just wash and reuse.

As for TP… I remember reading a post from someone who will remain anonymous unless he or she discloses his/herself about how barbaric the use of TP really is, and that if people are really serious about conservation, they’d bring back the whoseywhasie thingamabob that was in the Crocodile Dundee movie that cleans your naughty bits with a spray of water or whatever.

Now, the downside to this seems to be an increase in laundry and the detergents used therein… would it be an even trade-off? You decide.

“People often say that motivation doesn't last.  Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily.”— Zig Ziglar

The Everything Test

There are many different types of tests on the internet today. Personality tests, purity tests, stereotype tests, political tests. But now, there is one test to rule them all.

Traditionally, online tests would ask certain questions about your musical tastes or clothing for a stereotype, your experiences for a purity test, or deep questions for a personality test.We're turning that upside down - all the questions affect all the results, and we've got some innovative results too! Enjoy

Personality You are more logical than emotional, more concerned about self than concerned about others, more atheist than religious, more loner than dependent, more lazy than workaholic, more traditional than rebel, more engineering mind than artistic mind, more idealist than cynical, more leader than follower, and more introverted than extroverted. As for specific personality traits, you are adventurious (100%), religious (80%), artistic (62%), romantic (57%).

Stereotypes Punk Rock 67% Old Geezer 67% Prep 54%

Life Experience Sex 27% Substances 24% Travel 36%

Politics Your political views would best be described as Libertarian, whom you agree with around 95% of the time.

Socioeconomic Your attitude toward life best associates you with Middle Class. You make more than 0% of those who have taken this test, and 35% less than the U.S. average.

If your life was a movie, it would be rated PG-13. By the way, your hottness rank is 45%, hotter than 65% of other test takers.

TAKE THE TEST
brought to you by thatsurveysite

I originally gave this test a 3 out of 5, but after seeing the results, it's obvioulsy skewed, so it really deserved a 2. I mean, God frbid I don't go to Houston, Paris, or London... it doesn't even list Hawaii for crying out loud.

Copycat

Halle-(CS Violation Removed)-lujah!
Current mood: accomplished

It's been eight months and five days since I worked my last day at the Berkshire Cisiting Nurse Association. The following Monday, I had an interview with Temporarily Yours, Inc. in Warwick, and a follow-up with The Providence Center that afternoon. After I returned to Tiverton, I was informed by Temporarily Yours that TPC would like me to start working for them on Wednesday, March 15th, exactly eight months ago today. Eighteen days prior to this, I had informed my landlord that I would be moving out of North Adams by the end of March. This occurred a day after I gave my two weeks' notice to Eileen at the BVNA. Three weeks later, I was on my way to PA with Lisa for the 2006 Red Carnation Ball, which would take place the following night, but we wouldn't arrive at our hotel until verrrry early that morning. Four days earlier, I made an entire day out of moving as much stuff out of my North Adams apartment as I could. It would be another eleven days before I would finally be moved out of North Adams, due to starting working at TPC ten days earlier. The position was originally supposed to last only ninety days, but I was unsure of whether that implied ninety working days or ninety calendar days. The ninetieth calendar day came without incident. 9 calendar days later, my partner in the office interviews for a promotion, which will go into effect 17 business days from then (Independence Day counted as a Holiday). Two calendar days after this would have been my ninetieth working day, completing my contract with Temporarily Yours. Rich's last day 5 days earlier had changed this situation slightly. While the position was still temporary, I would be informed of a position in Facilities that might be of interest to me. This was sometime around V-J Day, which is to Rhode Island what Patriots' Day is to Massachusetts. No developments in this position had been made by Labor Day (or by Rosh Hashanah, even). Still, I had a session with K-Force eleven days after the Jewish New Year regarding interviews, which gave me some very good insights into what to expect. Less than a week later, I interviewed for the same position that had been hinted to me two months prior. The second interview for theis position, however, would not come until the day before the supervisor would actually make his choice, which would be exactly thirty days later. The person he hired instead started two days ago. Of course, by the time the second interview had rolled around, I had been informed of another position in the Finance department, whom I'd done some work with already. Apparently, they had the need for an assistant in their department, and created a position to fill that need. Yesterday, the position was officially approved by the Executive Committee. Eight months to the day I first started workig as a temp, I was officially offered this position, and accepted. I have two more days on the payroll of Temporarily Yours, Inc., and on the following Monday, I begin my new job in the Billing and Finance departments at The Providence Center.

But it'll still be two days till I say "I'm sorry."

(Couldn't resist the BNL refernce...)

Currently Listening Stunt By Barenaked Ladies "One Week" see related

As much as I've been wanting to update and get back to keeping my journals up, apparently it takes something like this to make me actually do it.

One of my TKE brothers passed away.

Up until this morning, I considered myself pretty blessed in the sense that I'd never said those words about someone I really knew... I never knew Bryan "Bison" Yearick (396) despite seeing his name carved into the desk in one of the rooms on the floor. I didn't know Kirby Fenton (230), although I'd seen his paddle, and I might have met him during homecoming '00 when his entire pledge class (or so it seemed) showed up for their 20th reunion. I'd met Richard "Grizzly" Farr (484) at a couple of homecomings and indulged in a beverage he provided (wink wink), but I really knew him better as Jim "Duckbutter" Farr (475)'s dad.

I not only met Corey "Smithers" Garber (543), but I knew him pretty well, considering I'd graduated by the time he was a freshman, never mind pledged. In other words for 5 or so years now. I think he was in the crew at Chiafest '01 whom I helped teach "The Cheer," although my memory's not as good as it used to be.

Back when my subprofile worked, my Life In a Nutshell had an RCB '04 line with the subtitle "Yeah! What? OK!" Basically at the time, Chappelle's show was all the rage, and Corey was one of the brothers quoting it all... RCB... long... Drove me nuts.

A few weeks after the RCB that year, I'd gone back down for Patriots' Day (long weekend that only Massholes celebrate) and at one point during the weekend ended up in B-Ray and Luigi's room. Corey was there with Tara, and Merrick was dating a girl at the time whom Corey was not very fond of (putting it lightly). This girl was a chatterbox, to say the least, and this was emphasised by the fact that she was three sheets to the wind, oblivious to anything he was saying to her. The example that sticks in my mind at this point goes something like this:

Merrick's Ex: Blah, blah, blah, blah... Wow, look I think I can see my door room from here over at Asbury... the light's on, I wonder if my roommate is there?
Corey: (screaming) Why don't you jump out the window and check?
Merrick's Ex: Blah, blah blah, blah, blah... (oblivious)

It's a shock to the system really, and forces one to think about a lot of things.

Rest well, Corey. YITB.