Blogger 365 Day 3 - Sometimes the cleverness isn't in the title

Hello!!!!  How ya doin?  Just standing at the bus stop here, waiting for the 38 Greentree so I can make a venture out WalMart way.  I got a $50 gift card for Christmas which means it is a grocery run for me.  Of course I would wait until the day that it is frigidly cold outside to do this, the high has been in the teens all day and when the wind does blow the chill feels below zero.  Cold is a state of mind though, of course it is a state of mind that my fingers are unhappily a part of as I type this.  But I still have 10 minutes before my bus so I will suffer in text if not in silence.


Most of this week has been spent interviewing prospective employees, trying to get ourselves fully staffed for the coming year.  Over the last few weeks we have lost at least three people, thankfully we are slow this time of year and one person, Clarence, actually came back for a few weeks over the holidays so our schedule wasn't short staffed, but now that the college kids are coming back and Clarence is heading back to school the trick becomes getting people ready for when we are busier.

So far we have interviewed probably a dozen people or so, three of which we have brought on board, a couple others may yet make the final cut once we establish what our future needs are.  And let's be honest, new hires are what they are, you can't put a ton of faith in them until they earn it; they could find that the job isn't to their liking, they may not be up to our standards (as if we have standards), really any of a number of things could go wrong so I am at best cautiously optimistic that they will work out.  The three we have hired so far have been the best of the ones we have interviewed, I do know that much.

I am on the bus, actually in the middle of the Fort Pitt Tunnel right now, so my fingers are a little happier.  My battery on the iPad is good, so I might have some time to chatter a bit.

I finished my Hitchens book, in case you did not notice it on the right, it was short by his standards, but challenging in the "he is the smartest guy in the room and will now bombard you with literary references aplenty" kind of way.  With some authors there is the chance that you might have to look up a specific word to comprehend what they are trying to say, with Hitchens it is more like volumes.

I should start on a new book, I am debating whether that book will be of the tactile variety or if I will go all ebook on this one.  I had been thinking of purchasing a Kindle, and maybe when I have more disposable income that may yet come to pass, but there is a free Kindle app for the iPad which I just downloaded over Christmas, so I may end up trying the app out rather than going for a hard or paper back book.

My trip home for Christmas was good this year, not long enough, but good anyway.  Just a couple of days de-stressing with the family before coming back to work and dealing with all of the shit that happened while I was away.  At some point I will have to revisit the Christmas list (2013 edition) and compare what I asked for versus what I actually got.  On the ride home for the holiday, we had stopped to eat at Golden Corral, or as my Trek geek friends would call it "The Smorgasborg" (Food will be assimilated!) and while having dinner my mom mentioned that she did not bother to wrap one if my gifts, it was too big and oddly shaped to be wrapped.  Smartass that I can sometimes be, I said "Awesome, you got me the Russian mail order bride I have been asking for."  Sadly there was no female under the tree, so my hopes were raised for nothing.

Before I go any further, an explanation is in order.  I mentioned a couple of days ago that my goal was to blog every day for the entire year, but I know that when Blogger posts it is based on PST (Pacific Standard Time) which is actually three hours behind my time, so the first two posts may be listed as the day before I actually wrote them because I finished them shortly after midnight my time, and if this is going to be my project on my blog based on my rules then I am going to base it on my time zone.

Okay, back to my rambling.  I hopped onto the Weather Channel webpage last night, looking to see what the conditions would be today.  I forget what this storm was called, but then we can't just have weather any more, now we have to have weather events, and it is more marketable to be tuning in for Winter Storm Andrew or some such nonsense then it is to be tuning in to hear "3 to 5 inches of snow and frigid temps".  Of course the pronouncement of Winter Storm Such and Such leads to the subsequent rush on grocery stores to stock up on necessities lest someone not be able to get out.  Milk, eggs, bread, butter, and for some reason, toilet paper.  Perhaps people are worse off than I thought, but are there people who are living on a roll to roll basis.  Honestly I live by myself and even I spring for the four pack at least.  And does an excessive amount of snow really make you shit more?  Really?  I mean, it's snow, not Mexican food.  If we were getting 3 to 5 inches of burritos, that might be a different animal.

Sorry, shopping got in the way.  Managed to pick up a few things, stuff to make lasagna and chili and some snacks, like Reese Peanut Butter Cup Chewy Chips Ahoy cookies.  Just typing that named killed some time on my bus ride back into town.  The trip I made tonight was in the opposite direction of how I would go home, so now I have to go back, change buses in downtown and head back in my normal direction.  I do have one detour to make, I have to stop by Gus Millers and reload the lottery machines, they need at least 7 books of tickets added and I will not be stopping by there in the morning on the way in, I have other plans for bright and early Saturday morning.

Saturday marks the third annual Sundae Saturday, where Sammy and I kick off the new year by going to Deluca's and getting one of their breakfast sundaes, an ice cream sundae served on pancakes or Belgian waffles.  This will be my first trip back there since the Fucking Fickin incident.  (You should note how I labeled that just like the people at the Weather Channel, so run out and buy toilet paper now!). The Fucking Fickin incident was when Sammy and I went for breakfast last time.  I had been getting the country chicken breakfast, grilled or fried chicken served with sausage gravy, as well as eggs, hash browns and toast.  It is a big and pretty hearty breakfast, afterward I am full for the entire day.  Anyway, I get the breakfast and get it with the fried chicken, except when they put the chicken in the fryer, they either used the wrong one or never cleaned the oil, because it tasted like it was fried in the same oil as fish.  Now I will eat lots of things, I am not an overly picky eater (save for slimy sea creatures and Brussel sprouts, those you can have), but of things that do not go together, we can add fish with sausage gravy to the list.  I took a bite of it and Sammy looked at me and asked what was wrong, I proceeded to say that they served me Fuckin Fickin (fish and chicken for those slow on the uptake).  Our walk back into town had me sounding like Yosemite Sam, "Frigging, fragging, fuckin, fickin".   I am hoping our Sundae Saturday is a little less eventful.  Thankfully they do not serve fried ice cream.

Okay, sorry about the delay but I am finally home.  I took a different bus back into town (31 Bridgeville) which ended up being much faster, or I was just too caught up in typing to tell the time.  In any case, I got into town, walked about a block and a half to my next bus stop and didn't have to wait at all, a bus was right there to take me to my next destination.  All hail the 61C McKeesport, at least that was my original thinking until I got on the bus.  Seems that there was a little kid who didn't like the bus as much as I did, she was screaming and wailing like she had just boarded the 61C Abu Ghraib.  My head went to one of those places it didn't need to go, what with four bags of groceries on me I was half tempted to ask if a plastic bag might help, but I but my tongue.  Some things are better left thought than said, aren't they, Ms. Sacco?

Thankfully that was a short bus ride (at least in Port Authority time, which is slightly faster than Postal Speed) and I was off the bus in about 15 minutes.  Not enough time to really add much to this, and after getting off the bus I had lottery machines to contend with.  Now I am just getting settled in, maybe make some dinner and what not.

In case you were wondering, you are new to the program so to speak, not every entry will be this long.  We all have lives to lead after all.  For me that life is going to kick in right about now with some canned ravioli and turkey sandwiches.  It is at times like this I wish there would have been a Russian mail order bride under the tree this year.