Friday, October 31, 2014

Kings @ Penguins 10/30/2014

Pittsburgh 3  Los Angeles 0

Chris Kunitz - 2 G, A

Evgeni Malkin recorded his 400th career assist in the win, joining fellow Penguins Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr, Ron Francis and Sidney Crosby as the only Penguins to reach that plateau.


Blogger 365 Day 301 - A lack of structure

      One of the perks of my job, if it can be called that, is that I really don't have a start time.  Sure I almost always put in 8 hour days if not longer, but there is nothing on the schedule that says Matt has to be in by such and such time.  Sure I am technically always "on call" and if needed I have to go in at any time, as evidenced the morning the store was robbed I was the one called in to make sure everything as back up and running as smoothly and quickly as possible, but I still have the ability to come in at pretty much any time, as long as I get my work done.

      So there are days where I sleep in a bit and hurry out the door, and there are days where even though I am technically awake, my movement around the apartment is at a slower pace because I am not in a rush to get anywhere.  There are even days, roughly once a week, where I show up early.

      The dilemma for me is that on the early days I tend to get my work done in a more timely manner.  I don't feel like I am rushing around trying to get things done.  I am not waiting until late in my shift to get the bank run out of the way, or worse doing the bank run and then coming back to finish the sales report, hoping that the numbers actually mesh.  Things just run smoother through the course of my day, and that should be motivation enough for me to just come in early all the time.  Yet it isn't.

     I still find myself laying around my apartment most mornings making deals with myself, justifying getting up 5 minutes later, or 30 minutes later, convinced that no matter what I will get everything done when I get there.  Which is true, I will get things done, there is just an added level of  unnecessary pressure to do so.  and nothing I do can shake that feeling.  I set two alarms to wake me up in the morning, both now are set two hours earlier than I need to get up, because I have already built it into my head I will not do so, even when they go off.  I'll smack the snooze or worse, just shut them off completely, then put my head back done and say I will get up in 5 minutes, which turns into as much as two hours, depending if I fall back asleep.

     I need someone or something to just give me a kick in the ass in the morning.  I am not waking up depressed, I don't dread going into work (even though I sometimes joke that I do) but there is that tipping point in the morning, where things can go smoothly or roughly for me for the rest of the day simply by getting up, and I just can't seem to find the motivation on a regular basis to go for the smoothly option.  Perhaps something is wrong with me and I just don't know it, but the worst thing for me is having the freedom to do whatever I want in the first place.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Blogger 365 Day 300 - The cracking of fall

I suppose this time of year people think thoughts of pumpkins an leaves changing colors.  For me it is a little bit different.  It is around this time of year that, as the air gets colder that my joints start to creak and pop.  The worst sounding of those is my knees, because they tend to pop and crack with the changes in temperature, they are fine as long as I am moving or indoors, but if I go outside and then come in and sit down as I stretch my legs and the joints get warmer it sounds like my bones are snapping to those that are unfamiliar with it. 

I don't want to make too much of it, it isn't like I can't function or anything.  It sounds worse than it actually is, it is just one of those signs of the seasons changing.  I just wish they would do it in a quieter fashion.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Blogger 365 Day 299 - Is this thing on?

      Sitting around a little bored this evening, there are things I could be doing but I am just being too lazy at the present moment.  Instead I opted to take a career test, just to see how far off track I am with my current choice of profession.  The test can be found here and as for my results, well.......


ISTJ - Trustee
 
ISTJs are dependable pillars of strength. They make good boy or girl scouts! 6% of the total population. When their skills at maintaining the structures that they believe hold up society fall short of achieving the security they are striving toward, ISTJ's become tired and weary. If the stress becomes overwhelming, ISTJ's become immobilized and cannot fill the responsibilities that they consider necessary for rightful membership within their community. They become incapacitated by concerns of a bankruptcy. ISTJ's may then further increase their attention on the details of the situation that is causing them stress. This sometimes results in accusations by those around them that the ISTJ is becoming over-demanding, irritable, inflexible, and impatient with others.

Fearing the breakdown of a trustworthy system and dreading becoming an outcast, the ISTJ may feel like energy is being drained from their bodies. Fatigue will set in and it will be exacerbated by a loss of sleep and of appetite. Depleted of their resources, ISTJ's will be unable to meet many of their obligations or fulfill their duties to their work and to others. Not being able to fulfill this basic need, the ISTJ becomes further stressed and almost incapacitated by listlessness —making it all the more difficult be responsive to others.



Careers

This lists represent careers and jobs people of your type tend to enjoy doing. The job requirements are similar to the personality tendencies of your personality type. It is important to remember that this is not a list of all the jobs possible. And it is very important to remember that people can, and frequently do, fill jobs that are dissimilar to their personality... this happens all the time...and sometimes works out quite well.

management
accounting
auditing
efficiency expert
engineer
geologist
bank examiners
organization development
electricians
dentists
pharmacist
school principals
school bus drivers
file clerk
stock broker
legal secretary
computer operator
computer programmer
technical writer
chief information officer
police officer
real estate agent

Devils @ Penguins 10/28/2014

Pittsburgh 8  New Jersey 3

Sidney Crosby - 2 G

Seven different Penguins tallied goals in the win


Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Blogger 365 Day 298 - How the weekend was

     With everything thing going on here it is easy to forget that my fantasy teams play no matter how fucked up life is at the moment.  The results were mixed, it certainly wasn't my best week ever, but it wasn't my worst either.   Like the Oscars, time to grab the envelope and learn the results......


     Fantasy Football
     Swagbucks league - I lost 105.40 - 102.64 dropping my record to 6-2.  So I know have two losses this year by a combined total of less than 6 points.  I remain in first place via the league's tiebreaker (points scored) but of the 10 teams in the league 7 of them have records of at least 4-4 so there still isn't much margin for error.

     Work league - I won 105.04 - 52.02 bring my record back to .500 at 4-4.  The win is my 3rd in a row, but because the tiebreaker is different in this league (head to head record) I am in 5th place, in part because my team has had more points scored against it than any other team in the league thus far.  The closest team to me in that unenviable category is still 50 points back. 

     Fantasy Hockey
     Radio League - I will call it this simply because when I first joined it is was during my radio days and the commissioner of the league is someone who I used to work with at the radio station.  Since it isn't head to head but rather a cumulative point total (and like I said before, I still don't understand it) I will just say that I am in 4th place out of 5 teams, 141.60 points behind first place.  That number may seem big but in truth it really isn't all that bad, on a good night a team can easily score 100+ points depending on the number of teams that are playing.  Consider last year where I finished in last, over 2700 points back and 141 and change isn't that big a deal.

     My league - As for the hockey league I am running, which is head to head, I had a disappointing week going 2-7-2, dropping my overall mark to 9-10-3 which is good enough for 8th place out of 12 teams.  There is still plenty of time to turn things around, but I can't say I am all that happy with that result.


Monday, October 27, 2014

Blogger 365 Day 297 - Welcome back

     Okay, today I was back in the friendly confines of work.  I have to admit that for being gone as long as I had been things weren't too bad.  Sure there were a few things that I had to catch up on, and a couple of things that  am still in the process of fixing but for the most part things were okay.  I guess that is good should I need time off in the future, though Bobby seemed more than happy this morning to give me back my keys. 

     Now I just have to catch up on paperwork and fix a couple of things and all will be as good as new.  All in all I guess things could be worse.

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Blogger 365 Day 296 - These days

 I expect everything I have to write is going to take longer than this particular bus ride but at least I will have a chance to get some things down on paper before I either reach my destination or my iPad runs out of battery life.

Blogger 365 Day 295 - Karaoke Friday - Catching up

     Okay, so I find myself a few days behind in posts, one of which I am currently working on.  Well not currently, currently I am typing this one, but I think you know what I mean.  Still I am thinking how best to get caught up here and of course a relatively easy Karaoke Friday post always helps in that regard.  Besides, I have had this tune in my head off an on for a couple of weeks now.  The only bad thing is I can't find a video for it, at least an official one, so I guess we are stuck with this.  It's singing time.....





Hey
Don't touch kid, sleep with the light, it's on
Touch kid, how you surprise me now
Roll kid, knock your body off
You're something like a phenomena
Something like an astronoma
Roll kid, rock your body off
Something like a phenomena, baby
Something like a phenomena
Something like a phenomena, baby
You're gonna get your body off
Don't fall asleep with the motor on
She'll make you sweat in the water
Don't fall asleep with the motor on
She'll make you sweat in the water
Hot time kid, hot time kid
It's cold under the blanket
They loved it then shot it
The fastest ran and got it
That story that ease my
They hide it up the sleeves, my
They hide it, they hide it
They're never gonna find it
Don't fall asleep with the motor on
She'll make you sweat in the water
Don't fall asleep with the motor on
She'll make you sweat in the water
Something like a phenomena, baby
Something like a phenomena
Something like a phenomena, baby
You're gonna get your body off
Something like a phenomena, baby
Something like a phenomena
Something like a phenomena, baby
You're gonna get your body off
Hot time kid, hot time kid
It's cold under the blanket
Hot time kid, hot time kid
It's cold under the blanket

Penguins @ Predators 10/26/2014

Pittsburgh 3  Nashville 0

Marc-Andre Fleury - 25 SV

Pittsburgh handed Nashville their first loss in regulation this season (5-1-2)


Saturday, October 25, 2014

Blogger 365 Day 294 - For what it's worth

     Just killing some time while here at my mom's place.  I catch a bus back to Pittsburgh in the morning and from there I will try to get this blog back up to it normal pace.  But for now I am just poking around on the internet and I happened to find a link over on Good Stuff's page and thought I would use it over here.  Basically i just calculates how much your information is worth to other companies on the web.  As luck would have it, I ain't worth much.

Anyone else wishing to find out if they are a veritable gold mine, by all means... 


Penguins @ Red Wings 10/23/2014

Detroit 4  Pittsburgh 3  OT

Blake Comeau - 2 A

This is the second time in the first five games the Penguins blew a two goal lead with less than 3 minutes to play


Flyers @ Penguins 10/22/2014

Philadelphia 5  Pittsburgh 3

Nick Spaling - G, A

Philadelphia is 12-2-1 in Pittsburgh since Consol Energy Center opened in 2010.


Monday, October 20, 2014

Blogger 365 Day 293 - Training day

     Today was my first day in training Bobby on some of the things I do at work.  I have two days so I will not get to show him everything, but hopefully he will catch onto enough stuff that things will not be too bad while I am away.  Of course while we were doing very well early on, I had showed him the lottery and the afe combinations, we were actually running ahead of schedule until Ed came in.  Then I gave Ed the sales numbers so he could make his revisions and somehow he mixed up the numbers by, oh, just $2000.  That started a proceeding where I had to figure out where the mistake was, which I am sure made things far more confusing than they had a right to be. 

     That would have been bad enough, but because of the grocery screwup the order was incredibly large today and I had to sort a few orders out of  weeks worth of stuff that came in, so all of that work that was done to get ahead was lost and by the end of the day I was running behind schedule again, getting off of work at 5:30 after starting at 6:30.  Usually I can start at 8:30 and be done by 4 or 4:30. 

     at least one good thing came out of today, both my fantasy football teams ended up winning, I am now 6-1 in the Yahoo league and 3-4 in the work league.  Even the hockey team did good in its first week, I went 7-3-1, it was good enough for the fourth best record to open the season, week #2 sees me play someone who went 9-0-2 in the first week, so it should be interesting.  I think I would have rather gotten a little easier of a matchup two weeks in, something to build momentum off of, but even though I am commissioner, I do not make the schedule, I just get to play the one given to me by Yahoo.

     Anyway I am tired and think I will call it a night, I have a lot to do tomorrow, both at work and getting ready to leave after work.  Not sure what time I will be back tomorrow, though since I have the court hearing Thursday chances are I will be back here at some point tomorrow night, after that it is anybody's guess when I will be back on the page.

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Blogger 365 Day 292 - Halftime

     Just watching the Sunday Night Football game.  It is a nice distraction given the goings on these days.  Of course it comes with it's own anxiousness.  In one fantasy league I am trailing by 6.32 points but I have a quarterback (Peyton Manning) and a tight end (Julius Thomas) playing whereas my opponent is done for the week.  It was much different at kickoff, but so far in this game I already have 3 TD passes from Manning which makes the next two quarters of football interesting.  In the other league I just have Thomas left, my opponent is playing the San Francisco defense (which has been the victim of Peyton Manning's first half exploits) and I have a 8.32 point lead in that one.  In neither matchup do any of the teams have someone in the Monday night game, so my week boils down to the next two quarters of football.

     After the game I think I may sneak out and do the late night laundry thing, tomorrow I start training my replacement for when I go away on Wednesday and for who knows how long after that.  I'll be back Thursday for the court hearing about the robbery at work, after that I will either head back up to see my mom in the hospital, or make plans to possibly go home this weekend if she is released.  For that we will see what happens.

     Anyway, the game is just about to come back on, time to see how my teams do.

NY Islanders @ Penguins 10/18/2014

Pittsburgh 3  NY Islanders 1

Patric Hornqvist - 2 G, A

Hornqvist has 8 points (4 G, 4 A) in his first four games with Pittsburgh




Saturday, October 18, 2014

Blogger 365 Day 291 - Morning minus the glory

I can't say that this is an early start to the day, but it is early enough.  I am sitting at the counter at Kelly O's waiting on a roast beef and Swiss cheese omelet.  It is another weekend where I am in Pittsburgh rather than helping out with remodeling but again it is one of those things that couldn't be avoided.

     I usually send in a grocery order on Thursday, and that order is then delivered on Friday as well as any other cigarette orders we get in.  The cigarette orders I call in separately, then I will send the grocery order in electronically via a handheld unit that transmits over the internet.

     Friday I was running late into work, I overslept, and when I got there our grocery order had already come and gone.  Except it hadn't, at least not all of it.  All of the cigarette orders I had called in were there, but the order I sent in via the web wasn't.  I went to the office to see what happened, perhaps that order was mistakenly placed on another truck or something.  It wasn't, instead what I found was a transmission error on the handheld unit.  After I had placed it in the unit and hit send on Thursday I had walked away, the amount of stuff that is popping up on my plate on a daily basis this days is such that once I hit send I really don't have the time to sit there and babysit it, I am off to do something else.  Seeing the error message a day after I sent the order explained a lot, but it left me few ways to fix things.

     I made some phone calls to see if a delivery could be rescheduled that day ( it couldn't, all of the trucks were already out), or if it could be sent on Saturday (Saturday deliveries have been discontinued).  The only option is for Monday delivery.  Given I didn't place an order on Tuesday because I was helping with a freezer delivery and now my Thursday order isn't there means that I will be going a full week between deliveries.  Not very good when selling things is how we make money and the last order I did place was under the notion I would be getting another one two days later and not seven days afterward and it is just another of those things I am left trying to put out after the fact.

      Thus I am headed back to the friendly confines this morning, trying to fix things and get other things caught up.  Ed is planning on coming in at some point today or tonight so I will have to make sure the store looks good for his return including getting our two new freezers merchandised properly and getting about 10 days worth of invoices off of my desk.

     Anyway breakfast is just about over, I need to get this show on the road and pretend like I work or something.

Friday, October 17, 2014

Blogger 365 Day 290 - That's a bunch of Ebologna

     One would think that given the amount of time spent, whether it be air time on TV or radio, or column inches in print that the United States is in the midst of a Ebola epidemic, with people dropping like flies and absolutely no end in sight.  It's far more likely that there is no beginning in sight.

     Anybody who has anything resembling a memory would know that we have all been down this path before with the likes of swine flu and bird flu being two prime examples.  What we learned the it is a path lined with bullshit and little else.

     News flash bulletin, there have been a total of 3 cases of Ebola in the United States, one person who had it and two health care workers who treated him.  Of those three to date only the man who first had the disease has died, the other two cases as of this writing, seem to be resting comfortably while remaining under medical supervision. 

    That is 3 cases in a nation of 319+ million people (thank you Population Clock), or for those that would like to deal in percentages it would look something like this, .000000009404388714733542 % of the population has been infected.  In any given hour of most any given day more people fall down and hurt themselves than are ever going to end up contracting Ebola.  Perhaps we should call gravity an epidemic and see if we can't find knew and innovative ways to keep people upright, lest they skin their knees.

     There are two major reasons why Ebola has become the latest in long line of nonsense stories that are all sound and fury, signifying nothing.  One is politics, as Shep Smith pointed out on Fox News the other day, midterm elections are coming up and the party in power needs to look like they are doing something, while the party that is hoping to gain power looks to paint the other side as either incompetent or uncaring (or both).  In that regard Ebola is the perfect political weapon, one side can grandstand about all they are doing while the other side can argue that they aren't doing enough.

     The second is ratings.  News channels are designed to keep the viewers eyeballs glued to the screen for as long as possible, and preferably through as many commercial breaks as possible (that's how they pay the bills after all) and what better way to do it than by scaring the audience into believing that they must stick around for the latest on this developing story.  The fact that people actually buy this tripe just goes to show how fucking stupid the masses really are.  Don't believe me?  How about CNN and the missing Malaysian flight story.  Do you really think they ran that thing non stop because there were constant and urgent developments in it, or because they found a hook to keep the viewers watching?  Does anyone now give two shits if they actually find that plane or not, besides people who had friends or relatives on board?  The story played itself out, people lost interest and so the network moved on to the next thing that would draw viewers in.  Today it's Ebola, next week it will be a missing white woman, three weeks fro now it will be some congressman boning another man or woman in an airport bathroom.  Anyone who things they are being informed by this shit needs to have their head examined

Stars @ Penguins 10/17/2014

Dallas 3  Pittsburgh 2

Chris Kunitz - G, A

Pittsburgh allowed 2 goals in the final 2 minutes and 57 seconds


Thursday, October 16, 2014

Blogger 365 Day 289 - The timing couldn't be worse

     I haven't looked in my mailbox in a few days.  Not that I actively avoid the mail, just for whatever reason I have missed checking the mail the last couple of days, but on my way home tonight I cracked open the mailbox to see what might be in there.  Not so sure I should have looked.  Inside the mailbox was a letter from the District Court of Allegheny County. 

      Now rest assured I am not a fugitive from justice, instead the letter was to indicate that there will be a preliminary hearing in regards to the robbery that recently took place in our store.  I do not know if this letter means I must attend as a potential witness, even though I wasn't, I merely grabbed the surveillance footage from our cameras.  I can answer some questions with regard to what is on the tape, but I did not arrive on the scene until about 45 minutes after everything happened so perhaps this letter is nothing more than a notification.

     I know I am hoping it is, because the timing couldn't possibly be worse, it is the day after my mother's scheduled surgery.  Now based on what I know and what I have been able to look up at this point, it is possible that her surgery could be almost an outpatient procedure.  It boggles my mind because when I think about it, it sounds a lot more serious than that.  You start talking blood flow to the brain and I honestly get incredibly nervous, so the idea that this is a procedure that could be done and the patient could be home the same day is either a wonder of modern medicine or just proof that medical care in this country has gone the way of the restaurant industry where it is all about turning tables, or in this case, beds.  At any given moment leading up to this surgery I could have my mind on either of those trains of thought, if not both.

     But if the procedure does involve a longer stay in the hospital then I may have a problem if this letter means my presence is required for the preliminary hearing.  I see nothing in the letter that says I am a witness or may be called as one, but then again I am not sure why I am being sent a letter if it is not for that reason.  I am not familiar enough with the legal process to know if they just send letters out to everyone who is even tangentially involved with a case to keep them abreast of the proceedings. 

     I asked Ed, though with hi in Florida I am not sure what he can do until at least Saturday when he comes back.  I may fax him a copy of it tomorrow, just so he can look at it.  While he may not know any more than I do, he knows people who know a lot more than I do and sometimes that is just as good.

     Anyway, enough with the bitching and moaning, I need to get up and make myself functional. 

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Blogger 365 Day 288 - Not thinking so much

     I really don't want to spend a lot of time tonight talking about things I am thinking, because there isn't a lot there that is remotely positive to think or write about.  Just lots of fretting and worrying about things that are far beyond my control.    So instead I will talk about my fantasy teams, football and hockey, even though for the hockey teams it is very early in the season to be saying much of anything.

     I'll start with football and the team I have in the league at work where finally I won a game and now have a robust 2-4 record.  That four game losing streak really took the wind out of my sails this season, which sucks because the case could be made that my team isn't that bad.  In fact I have scored the 3rd most points in the league (out of 10 teams) and if I were to play every team in the league each week as opposed to just the one on my schedule I would be 33-21, but some times you just catch the wrong team on the wrong week.  All hope isn't lost, the top four teams qualify for the playoffs and right now 4th place is only a 3-3 record so if I can just keep scoring points at my current pace everything else should balance out in the end. 

    My Yahoo team that I did simply to earn Swagbucks is faring better, they are 5-1 and in first place.  Technically it would be tied for first, one other team is also 5-1 but Yahoo considers points scored for their first tiebreaker and in that league I am also scoring points in bunches, in fact I have almost a 40 point lead on the next closest team in that regard.  My only loss this season was by a 75.44-73.38 score, so I am like three points away from being undefeated to this point.  This week I get the other 5-1 team in a head to head matchup, so I could go all dramatic and say that first place is on the line.  Not too bad considering after the draft Yahoo did projections on how the teams would finish based on their rosters and I was projected to go 0-14.  Just a word to the wise for people who base how they approach fantasy sports on projections and  preseason rankings, they aren't everything, they are just opinions and like assholes, everyone has them.  Unless of course you are a genetic abnormality, but let's not go there.

     Hockey is a little harder, the league I am commissioner in is a head to head league but because the season started on a Wednesday our first head to head contest, which is normally a week long, is a 10 day affair to open the season.  We have 11 categories and each category counts as a game in the standings.  If week 1 ended today I would have went 4-5-2 in the first week.  Not great, not bad, just ho hum middle of the roadish. 

     The other hockey league, where again I have no idea how the scoring works I am 4th out of 5 teams early on.  I know I have complained about this before, I just don't understand how some things are weighted in this league.  Right now the player who leads the NHL in goals (Rick Nash) is only the 7th best player in our scoring format.  Sidney Crosby, who is tied for 2nd place in scoring (3G, 3A) despite only playing two games to this point, is the 22nd best player, behind such luminaries as Tyler Toffoli.  It just boggles my mind and I am better off not thinking about it. 

      There, that was distracting enough. Now I am going to go see what other trouble I can get into.

Blogger 365 Day 287 - Chances are

     Well as good as I have been on this little project of mine there is a chance that I may end up more than a day behind in the coming days.  My mom is going in for surgery next week and I really have no idea how that will affect my schedule here. Obviously that takes precedence over me babbling on a nightly (or daily) basis.  I have to square some things away at work, but I am sure I can get time off if I need it so that isn't a huge issue.  So come next week if I am not around as much you have been warned.


Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Blogger 365 Day 286 - Into every life a little change must fall

     Yes, just a simple change meter update today.  It's overdue too, I haven't done one in 80+ days, in large part because there hasn't been much of a need. Today I add another $1.40 to the total and our new grand total is $509.99.  Easy squeezy lemon peasy.

Monday, October 13, 2014

Blogger 365 Day 285 - Almost on schedule

     Well I did get my trip in today, I ran over to the Waterfront and picked up the things I needed from Office Depot, ink for the office printer, labels for the pricing guns, a dry erase board for the deli and I even got a new backpack for myself.  I broke my old one at work Friday, I got change for the store, including a box of pennies and a box of quarters, and when I went to take it off of my shoulder the one shoulder strap ripped off.  I nearly ended up dropping it, which would have sucked since my iPad was in the front pocket.

      I got home and the Steeler game had already started, not that I wanted to watch it.  By the sounds of things I didn't miss much seeing as how they lost 31-10.  The result did provide for some comic relief in that the post game call in show is always funny after they lose, especially in such convincing fashion.  I still have never understood why a post game show needs to be as long as the game itself, but for three hours there were people calling in all apoplectic about the result of the game, as if a bunch of men that play a game for millions of dollars really give two shits about what Joe from Bumfuck, Egypt thinks of their performance.  It isn't war or famine people, it is just a bad football team.

     I passed on doing the breakfast thing and instead ordered dinner in after taking a nap, just some boneless wings from Wings Over Pittsburgh.  I really liked their blackened cajun dry rub they put on wings, it is just way too tasty.  So I noshed a bit, then called my mom.  She had some tests done this past week, and perhaps there is an explanation as to what has been happening, but explanations only go so far, she still has to do what the doctor says for it to matter.  As it is they may end up doing surgery, she has blockages in a couple of arteries and it may be affecting blood flow to her brain.  We talked for about half an hour, she never mentioned anything about her trip to the doctor or anything about the tests, which doesn't surprise me, she can be stubborn that way.

     After the phone call I just laid about, finishing what was left of my wings, occasionally looking up at the Sunday Night football game and just spending my time being useless.  It felt good. 

     Anyway, that was the day and this should almost get me caught up to where I need to be, I am now just a few hours behind on the blog as opposed to a full day.  No I am not going to turn around and grind out a second entry as soon as I finish this one, I think I will wait a few hours for that.  For now I am just going to climb into bed for a couple of zzz's and get back at it manana.

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Penguins @ Maple Leafs 10/11/14

Pittsburgh 5  Toronto 2

Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Cosby - G, 2 A each

Pittsburgh outshot Toronto 41-25


Blogger 365 Day 284 - Up and atom

Sorry, had to steal Radioactive Man's line there, just getting myself ready to greet the day.  I have to grab a shower then it is off to The Waterfront to run errands for work.  We need a dry erase board, labels for pricing guns and a couple of other things and with Ed out of town I could either wait or just do things myself and today I am opting for the second path over the first.  Of course I will add this little sojourn to my hours, I don't give away my time after all, especially on what should be my day off. 

Haven't decided if I want to get breakfast yet.  Heading in a Waterfront-y direction would leave me a few choices, Pamela's, IHOP or Eat N Park.  It's Sunday so I am sure there would be a line at all of them, no matter where I went.  Pamela's is doing caramel apple pancakes, which I am sure is good, but I am not really into a pancake mood this morning.  That would probably rule out IHOP as well, even though both places have other offerings on the menu.  Eat N Park would be good for the breakfast buffet but I don't know, just not really feeling the desire to go there either.  Maybe I will just wait and do something for lunch or dinner instead. 

Whatever I decide, I can't do it by sitting here typing all morning so I best get up and pretend like I am functional, before I come to liking sitting on my ass a little too much.

Blogger 365 Day 283 - Welcome back

     It is hockey season again so expect the page to be littered with more hockey videos as the season progresses.  Just wanted to give everyone a heads up, but given I have posted post game highlights for years now, it really shouldn't come as much of a surprise.  me bing late with aother entry shouldn't be much of a surprise either.  Work got in the way again, I pulled another 10.5 hour shift, I am up to 56.5 for the week and tomorrow I have to run errands for work, so i might end up with 60 hours before the week is over.  I should get used to this, Ed has only been a few days, I still have 6 months to look forward to.  There very well could be lots of 60 hour weeks in the future.



Friday, October 10, 2014

Ducks @ Penguins 10/09/2014

Pittsburgh 6  Anaheim 4

Pascal Dupuis - G, 3 A

 4 different Penguins had at least two points in the win; Dupuis, Sidney Crosby (2 G, A) Patric Hornqvist (G, A), Olli Maatta (3 A)


Blogger 365 Day 282 - Left behind

     I know I am still an entry behind, I hope to get caught up in the next couple of days.  Work has just really been pulling me in all kinds of directions.  Ed left for Florida on Wednesday and I have been flying pretty much solo.  For the most part things have been good, no employee call offs, no real issues to deal with with the staff at all.  It just everything else that is breaking down and there aren't enough hours in the day for me to deal with all of it.  Eve on a day like today, where things were running rather smoothly and I was almost thinking about getting off of work on time, the soda fountain machine breaks. It is just gushing water and will not shut off.  I managed to get a service call in to Pepsi and they responded incredibly quickly, but it was just another one of those things that, even when you think a day is going along nice and easy something just pops up out of the blue.  10 hour days are becoming the norm and not the exception, and with Ed out of town I will have to stick around Pittsburgh again this weekend rather than go check up on my mom, and I am getting so run down that all I want to do most nights when I get home is just fall fast asleep almost as soon as I close the door.

     Luckily  I don't have a specific start time on Saturday, I might try to sleep in a little.  I was hoping t make it till at least 7:30 today but the phone rang at 6:30, work again, they were out of $5 bills for change (actually they weren't, there was $600 worth of them upstairs if they would have looked in the drop box, but que sera, sera) so I had to get up and trudge in to get change that they already had.  Her's hoping the phone doesn't ring tomorrow.

Blogger 365 Day 281 - Yeah, yeah, yeah

     I know, I missed yesterday, chances are I will miss today too because I am doing yesterday's post today.  Ed left for Florida Wednesday after work and Brian being Brian means that most of the work falls on my shoulders.  Especially with Sammy being off, not only am I doing the managing for the store but I am also the de facto stock person.  Thant means that 10 hours days are not out of the question, so far this week I have worked four days and already logged 37.5 hours, with two full days to go yet.  I suppose my paycheck will look good in a few weeks if I make it that far.  Right now though, given I can't even get my blog entries done on time, making it that far is at best wishful thinking.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Blogger 365 Day 280 - Pleasantly unexpected

     I went into today not necessarily in a bad mood, but I had a feeling it was going to be a very long day.  I had my order to do as well as two others, my normal everyday work as manager, try to help the deli along as best I could until we appoint someone manager for that section of the store, and after the bank deposits were done I would then have to go on the floor and stock as many coolers as I could in a few hours since Sammy is off this week, then go to a meeting at Rivers casino for Pennsylvania Lottery retailers concern a new multi-state lottery game that is coming online in a couple of weeks.  Needless to say, I was planning on a pretty long daay going n, but as long as I know what is coming I can get up for it.

     I get into work around 8am, and our GFS order was there, sitting on the floor waiting to be put away. Most of the stuff from GFS comes in cases, and those cases are usually too heavy for the girls in the deli, so I had to run it down to the basement and try to put it in the freezers, but the freezers were all kinds of messed up, so before I could put the new stuff away I had to rearrange what was already down there just to create enough room.  Not exactly the project I wanted to start the day but all in all it wasn't that bad.  I don't mind me some manual labor.

     I go back upstairs, get all of the reports and money out of the safe, reload the lottery machines and am just settling in to get my work started when I get a text message from Brian.  Usually if Brian is testing me it is bad news for me, either he isn't coming in and he wants me to do something or I screwed something up like using the wrong deposit slip and putting money into the wrong account.  But as it would turn out, this was good news.  Apparently the police have caught the guy who robbed our store last week.  Well, I shouldn't say they have caught him, rather what happened was the same man tried robbing the 7-11 in Oakland, a few short blocks from my apartment.  What the robber did not know was that the clerk behind the counter is a Golden Gloves boxers, winning the title once and finishing as runner up three times and is currently training for the US Olympic trials for boxing.  So when our guy decided to brandish a gun and try to rob the store, lets just say he got the shit beat out of him.  Technically the cops did catch the guy, but only because the clerk did all of the work for them.  Now our guy will be arrested, as soon as he gets out of the hospital.  This is another one of those not necessarily justice, but definitely karma moments. 

     The day itself went pretty smoothly in the beginning.  I had my order done, as well as two other cigarette orders, the bank deposits done and all of my paperwork by 2:30pm.  Plus I fixed a cash register, replacing a damaged debit pin pad with a new one I had to order, as two of our 4 cash registers couldn't do debit transactions, now it is just one of 4.  I also managed to get some new products into the register system, stuff that Ed ordered about a week ago that we didn't have cooler space for, nor did we clarification from the vendor on what our cost would be for it.  It is an iced tea product called amusingly enough Long Island Iced Tea, though it has no alcohol in it.  But if we got the pricing we were hoping for we were going to run a special, 1.39 each or 2 for $2, which requires me to not only enter the products but then program a coupon code into the system so the special scans at the point of sale.

     When I got back from the bank Ed asked me what I was doing tonight and I mentioned that I had the lottery thing to go to at the casino, which is where he was going tonight too, but to go play cards.  He asked me what time I would be there and I said the event starts at 6pm, so he asked me to call him when it ended and we would grab dinner, something Ed and I have never done before.  Some Grandview Buffet is always a good thing.

     He leaves and I set about working on coolers, I got 4 different coolers done as well as restocked the 2 liter section, which has been getting pounded because 7 UP/RC Cola is doing a pre priced special where they are selling 2 liter bottles for .99.  Not sure how many other stores have bought into this promotion, but we are kicking ass with it. 

     Around 5:30 I leave the store and walk over to the subway station to go to the casino, less than a 5 minute wait for the subway and I was at the casino in about 15-20, just in time to go to the event, which was pretty boring to tell the truth.  A new multi state game is coming out, Monopoly Millionaires Club (look for it on Oct 19th), they went over how the game works and also talked about the upcoming Christmas scratch off tickets that will be released soon and the fact that starting next year many of the existing state number games will be renamed.    The whole thing took about an hour, and as I was leaving I grabbed my phone to call Ed. he had some things he wanted to do at home and wasn't sure what time he was coming to the casino, if he was coming at all.  I get out of the door of the conference room I was in, phone in hand and there is Ed, standing there already. 

     We end up going over to the buffet and having a nice dinner and what not, talking some shop, and some personal stuff, nothing that needs to be mentioned here and afterward he asked what I was doing and I said probably going back to the store and picking up my laptop and going home.  He was headed off to the high rollers room to play Texas Hold Em.  On my way out I decided to spend whatever free money they gave me this week in free slot play, it turned out to just be $5.  I had like $55 on me, so I put a $10 in a machine just to get my promotional money (you have to spend at least a dollar for it to activate) and lost it in short order, and I lost the free $5 too.  I decide I am going to try and win it back, so I take one of my $20s and put it in the machine and I continue to lose money.  Finally I got a hit that brought me back up to $20, so I cashed out and decided to take my voucher and go play the Iron Man slot machine.

     Iron Man is another one of those misnamed machines in that it is 2cent slot, but there are 50 playlines, so each spin is technically at least a dollar, though you can bet more if you like.  I put my voucher in and did nothing, lost it pretty quickly.  I thought about leaving at that point but decided what the hell, I have $20 left and I get paid on Wednesday, so if I lose it it isn't like I am going grocery shopping or something, I just had a huge buffet dinner.  I slide the last $20 in, and I get one of the bonus features.  For those who have seen Iron Man, the features go with the first movie somewhat, including video clips from the film.  Well I got the Jericho Missile feature, where missiles drop down from the video screen onto the slot reels and give you a number of wild spaces.  Except this time.  Every spot on the reels save for two turned into a wild, and next thing I know I went from $20 to $650.  I kept playing for a bit, cashed out around $630 or so and played some more slots, probably way later than I should have, I didn't leave until almost midnight and when I did I still had $550 in my pocket. 

     Till I caught a subway back to work and grabbed my laptop and the got home it was after 1am, then I had to check on a fantasy hockey draft that I missed and Yahoo auto drafted for me.  Honestly my team looks better than if I would have done it myself, but it is for the league I have been in for a few years now and that I still don't understand.  While I look at my team and think it is nice, there will be some obscure stat that will count in this league that will make my team irrelevant.  I have always been of the opinion that in a fantasy league the scoring should be somewhat reflective of what happens in the game itself, so those players who are having MVP caliber years will also be the most valuable ones in a fantasy league and that doesn't happen in this league.  There is always some schmuck who gets rated highly because he won an inordinate amount of faceoffs or something, but besides that bis nothing more than a two way third liner, yet he will be amongst the leaders like Crosby or Toews.  I try not to think too much about it because it just confuses me.

     Anyway I think we are back up to date, next up is me sleeping.  Work comes in a few hours, after that, who knows?

Monday, October 6, 2014

Blogger 365 Day 279 - Time to get this party started

     Okay, after weeks of talking about it tonight was the night of the fantasy hockey league draft where I am the commissioner.  Honestly I wasn't even sure it was going to come off, I had a number of people say they were interested but then none of them actually followed through with their interest so as late as Saturday night I was sitting with just two teams.  Yahoo will not even run a league unless at least 4 teams are in it, I ad set mine up for a maximum number of 12, two divisions of 6 teams each. 

     In order to fix that problem I went in to my league setting on Saturday and changed the league from private (only people who had access to the link for the league could join) to public (anyone could join).  Still as I was sitting here Sunday afternoon and nothing was happening I was thinking maybe I am just not going to have a league at all this year.

     Today that started to change.  While I was at work I started getting notifications that a couple other people had joined and by the time I got home from work the league was up to 7 people.  Of course an odd number is not ideal for a head to head league, so while less worried I was still worried nonetheless.  With draft time at 9pm I was hpoing at least one more team would join.

     Then around 8pm the floodgates opened.  I was sitting here on my laptop hen my iPad started beeping every couple of minutes, email notifications that another person had joined and in short order the remaining 5 spots were fill so to steal Bob Johnston's old line, it is a great day for hockey.

     And after a draft that took a little longer than I thought it might (three guys left their teams be auto drafted by Yahoo), here is your 2014 Argonauts fantasy hockey roster

Argonauts
1. (4) Alex Ovechkin (Was - RW)
2. (21) P.K. Subban (Mon - D)
3. (28) Marc-Andre Fleury (Pit - G)
4. (45) Patrick Marleau (SJ - C,LW)
5. (52) Keith Yandle (Ari - D)
6. (69) Marian Hossa (Chi - RW)
7. (76) Joe Thornton (SJ - C)
8. (93) Marian Gaborik (LA - RW)
9. (100) Roberto Luongo (Fla - G)
10. (117) Dan Boyle (NYR - D)
11. (124) Paul Stastny (StL - C)
12. (141) Matt Moulson (Buf - LW)
13. (148) Valtteri Filppula (TB - C,LW)
14. (165) Vladimir Tarasenko (StL - RW)
15. (172) Frederik Andersen (Anh - G)
16. (189) Roman Josi (Nsh - D)
17. (196) Jussi Jokinen (Fla - C,LW)
18. (213) Marek Zidlicky (NJ - D)       

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Blogger 365 Day 278 - Hope springs annually, if not eternally

     So I got in late last night, which I wrote about briefly in my last entry.  What I didn't talk about though was my walk home.  It was memorable because it was cold out.  Not bone chilling cold, the rotating clock at the end of my street had the temperature in the low 40s, I think it said 42 but I can't remember for certain.

     I got to thinking that the first snowfall of the year was getting close, and how cool would it be if it got just cold enough for the first flurries to start flying.  I wasn't wishing for any substantial snowfall, I am much more of a summer guy, but with Sunday being my only day off some morning flurries would mean I would be home for the annual tradition.

     Anyone who has been around the blog for more than a minute knows what happens during the first snowfall, I drop everything and go have a hot chocolate.  It was something Hope and I used to do and even though we lost touch for a while (only in the last year have we gotten back in touch via Facebook), it was something that I continued to do on my own.  It always gets me to a happy place, thoughts of the hot chocolates we did share back in the day.

     So one of the things I did when I got home was to go online and see how cold it was going to get and my hopes were increased as I was checking the hourly forecast, it would be getting down to 33 early in the morning.  All I had to do was get up early, and for this I most certainly would.

     After finishing my blog I went to bed and slept until about 5:30 in the morning.  Almost like a kid on Christmas I wanted to see if even a flurry or two might be flying.  But that wasn't the case, hot chocolate will have to wait.

      Not sure why I was wanting it to happen so much.  I think just with everything that has been happening recently between work and my mom I was hoping maybe I might get a respite, however briefly, and be transported back to a happier time and place but today just wasn't that day.

Blogger 365 Day 277 - Turning in

     Another one of those late posts, but there wasn't much I could have done to avoid it today.  After a 13.5 hour day at work, until I got home and got settled in and indulged in actually feeding myself (I hadn't eaten all day), it was already well past midnight.  So I decided to watch an episode of Shark Tank on Hulu and now that I have finally gotten around to this I am not sure of what to write.

     Perhaps my mental blockage is simply fatigue, not that I did a lot of physical labor today (though I did completely redesign the 2liter/12 pack soda section of the store, but more of a mental one, lots of numbers from changing prices and doing invoices that by the end of the day thinking just isn't that much fun any more.  Or it could be that as the anti-social butterfly that I am, my life just isn't exciting enough to write about today. 

     Whatever the reason, I think I am closer to falling asleep than I am to writing anything remotely funny or entertaining which means I could either submit an application to be a writer for Saturday Night Live, which also isn't funny or entertaining, or I could just go to bed.   I think I choose bed.

Friday, October 3, 2014

Blogger 365 Day 276 - Not so fast

     This was to be my third straight weekend where I spend at least part of it at home, but after everything that has happened the last few days I can't see where that will be happening.  We had one person on vacation this week, and now Sammy goes on vacation next week, so for at least a couple of the days I will be helping out doing some of his work this week.  Plus I have to run some errands for the store this week, I need to make it over to the Allegheny County Health Department and pick up a study guide so we can get some people at work certified to handle food, and I also have a trip to the casino, not for fun and games, but because the Pennsylvania Lottery will be rolling out a new multi-state lottery game in a couple of weeks and that is the local place they are having a class on the new game. Next week looks like it will be jam packed already.

     But what happens next week shouldn't effect this weekend, save that there is plenty I need to do this weekend so that I am not completely buried next week.  I have cigarette prices to change tomorrow, as well as ordering, checking in a lottery order, catching up on invoices, trying to devise a plan for getting the deli to a place where it will run smoothly now that the manager of that section has been let go and with that I am probably just scratching the surface of everything I will need to do tomorrow.  I can see it being at least another 12 hour Saturday, I can't see going home after that only to sleep a little bit and then get back up for more remodeling work at my mom's place, then come back down here and plow into next week with anything resembling a full head of steam.  Plus I really don't want to be out of the area in case the police detectives do call and I am needed for something regarding Thursday mornings robbery. 

     For now though I think I will just relax for a minute and enjoy some red velvet cake ice cream and try not to stress too much over what is yet to come.

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Blogger 365 Day 275 - We wuz robbed

     Literally that was what I almost woke up to this morning.  I say almost because I had in fact already woke up, I had thrown some Cream of Wheat in the microwave and had just finished eating it and had reached that point in the morning where I was stuck between should I stay up and go to work since it was so early (it was almost 5am), or do I risk laying down for another hour or so where I could fall asleep and end up oversleeping and being late for work.  Part of the joy of being one of those people who wake up half a dozen times a night.

     I had thought about it and figured another hour of sleep wouldn't hurt when my phone went off.  Not my cell phone but rather the house phone.  Any time a call is coming in before 5am, it is almost always bad news.  Who calls that early just to say hi?  I started thinking of all the problems my mom had been having recently which was more than enough encouragement to pick up the phone.  But the call wasn't from home, there wasn't any family emergency, rather Ed was calling me.  That seemed a tad odd, Ed never calls my apartment, on those rare instances where he is calling me at all it is on my cell phone.  My mind began to relax a little, I am thinking since it is Ed probably the worst that it is about is someone called off or one of the registers was down, or the lottery machine was jammed or some such silliness.  But it wasn't silliness, instead it was a phone call that the store had just been held up at gun point, and how quickly could I get in to pull tbe taps from our camera system for the police.

     I quickly threw on some clothes and walked up the street to the bus stop.  All thing considered I made pretty good time, I was in the store before 5:30 am and in the office reviewing security camera footage.  I was thinking that it would be a race between Ed and myself to see who could get in first, I didn't expect Brian to come in early but thought that Ed would be in in relatively short order.  By 6am I had already spoken to the police once on the phone, giving them a pretty good description of the robber and I had pulled security footage of him from 4 different cameras and burnt it to DVD. 

     With nothing else to do, pending  a visit from the burglary detectives, I went ahead and started my work day, pulling reports and reloading lottery machines.  Around 7:30 I had gotten the number of money orders we had sold the day before, money that goes to Western Union.  I texted Brian the total so he could transfer it from our main bank account to the Western Union account.  He texted back, asking if I realized what time it was, and what did I do, sleep at the store?  So I clued him on what was happening, apparently Ed didn't call him yet, though even if he had Brian lives a good probably 45 minutes away by car, he wouldn't have been able to rush right down to the store and if his son's were staying with him he would have to get them off to school before anything else. 

     Still it came as a surprise when Brian did get in the store early, or at least early for him. After a couple of texts back and forth and one phone conversation where I relayed what I knew based on the camera footage, Brian made pretty good time in getting to the store around 9am.  He even beat the robbery detectives to the store.  I can't say the same for Ed, who really didn't come in any sooner than he normally would which meany yours truly was left to deal with all of the nonsense regarding the police and trying to figure out what was taken and how much.  All in all just an incredibly hectic morning, made even better when once again our deli manager decided that she didn't want to work.  I am not even sure what the excuse was this time, she came in, was in the store for maybe 5 minutes and then said she had to leave.  I would like to say that this is an isolated incident with her, but it is just par for the course, she is good for one call of a week.  How she remains employed is something that Ed would have to explain, because if I were truly allowed to call the shots I would have ended that nonsense months ago.  I think even Ed has finally reached his breaking point on that front and if so good, let's make a move and get someone in who wants to work and be there and we will move forward. 

     The results for me was that today ended up turning into another 12 hour day and even as I sat down to bang out this blog entry after a nap my phone rang again from the store, there are issues with one of the registers once again.  Looks like I may be going back in again.  But for now I  just want to grab a shower and wash today off before I get back at it.

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Blogger 365 Day 274 - Even so far

     Honestly I am not much into blogging this evening, I keep checking back on the baseball game to see how it is going.  The Pirates are playing the San Francisco Giants here in Pittsburgh, the winner of the one game wild card game goes on to play the Washington Nationals in one of the two National League Division Series (the other is St. Louis and Los Angeles).  Who would have thunk that when I first started blogging and the Pirates were in the middle of a streak that would see them miss the post season for 20 straight years that now they would be laying playoff baseball for the last two in a row.

     Of course there is always the financial aspect of the games for me, since I am the guy who is in charge of selling the season tickets at work for the playoff games.  I get a nice finders fee for doing the legwork, for tonight's game we had 4 tickets and I managed to sell them for $650, which earned me $100 for my time which wasn't all that much, I only had to post an ad on Craigslist and the rest was easy but since Ed is completely computer illiterate once again in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king.  Ed made out on the deal as well though, he made over $300 for my efforts.  It could be argued that I should have made more since I did the actual work, but if Ed or the store doesn't buy the tickets, which is a sizable investment then nobody makes anything. 

     Which means I am hoping the Pirates win tonight for a couple of reasons, the first being they are the hometown team and second because if they win I have a chance of making more money by selling more tickets.  I would like to ride this here gravy train for as long as possible.

     Speaking of sports, I haven't talked much about my fantasy football teams in this blog recently.  Right now the season is 4 weeks old and n the Yahoo league I signed up for (and didn't care about, I did it for 25 Swagbucks) I am 3-1.  Not too shabby.  Too bad the league I do care about, with some coworkers, I am just 1-3.  Yikes.  And I play one of my coworkers this week and he is 3-1.  If I don't win this week I may have just dug myself too deep a hole to ever get out of this year. 

     The fantasy hockey league I set up is looking t be a dud so far.  All of the people who originally said they wanted to be in it haven't signed up yet, though the draft isn't until Monday night so there is still time.  God forbid anyone who is reading this and is interested, the link to join is https://yho.com/nhl?l=13722&k=bfc61cd5c9ac9b44 .  Bonus points for anyone who actually knows what Vinegar Strokes are.

     Well, time to go check in on the game again, then maybe try to get to bed at a decent hour without the assistance of alcohol.  I have been having more strange dreams recently, so maybe going to bed isn't the wisest course of action, but I do need my beauty rest after all.

Blogger 365 Day 273 - Wash, rinse, repeat

Not going t stick around for long tonight, already fell asleep once and ready to get back at that.  Second day in a row where I didn't get out of work until late, not sure if that process will continue or not, but I am just worn down already so I am going back to sleep before I am up too much and sleep starts eluding me.

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