My Working Life

For the vast majority of my working life, I have spent my days in the retail industry, primarily the retail food industry.  My very first job was in a convenience store when I was 15 years old.  I started a couple months before my 16th birthday in order to earn money towards a car.  Through high school and college, I worked in the retail stores at night and attending school during the day.

After I graduated from college, I worked in the stores for another year or so.  At one point, I considered a retail management career, but I really wanted to have a regular Monday-Friday, 9-5 job with weekends and holidays off.  Eventually, I was able to land a job backstage in the buying department of the grocer chain that I was working for at the time.

I spent the next 18 years with that company working my way up to a management position within the buying and merchandising department.  My last position with them was to be in charge of the promotion and sales of our store branded product.  Things were going great for me up until the time that our corporate office decided to centralize the bulk of our merchandising functions to the corporate office in another state.

After losing a job that I had for 21 years, I had a difficult time finding work.  It took me over a year to find a full time job again, and that was in the days when you only got 26 weeks of unemployment, not 99.  After spending my career on the buyer side of the desk, I decided to try my hand on the sales side of the desk.

My first sales job was selling insurance/benefit packages to small businesses.  I spent a great deal of time making telephone calls trying to reach business owners or benefit managers to make my pitch.  I also spent a lot of time on business databases on the internet trying to find names and phone numbers.  It was not something I was very good at.  I might have been able to do a better job had I had access to an email list of decision makers in the businesses I was targeting.

My next sales job was back in the field where I had spent the majority of my career. This time, I was calling on buyers of grocery store chains selling them a retail dry ice program. At least it was something that I knew something about.  I knew what buyers were looking for, and I knew how to tailor my sales pitch to be able to benefit retailers.  Still, it was not something that I was happy doing on a daily basis.

Eventually, I got back into the buying side of the retail world.  I had one position where I managed a program for a distributor selling to retail customers.  After that business failed, I landed where I am today as a buyer for a chain of convenience type stores.  My current company is on good solid ground and I hope to be there for quite a while into the future.

A Case of Mistaken Identity

I am sure everyone has had the experience of answering the telephone and having it been a wrong number. Most of the time you don't get a return call, but every now and then you run across somebody who is convinced they have the correct number. No matter how hard you try, you just can't convince them they are wrong.

Well with all of the various forms of communication, there are so many more ways for this to happen. Yesterday, I was sitting in my office when I felt my Blackberry Storm vibrate and signal I had a text message. I did not recognize the number, but responded in case it was somebody I did know. Here is the exchange of text verbatim:

Txt: Come back

Me: Where?

Txt: Room

Me: who is this?

Txt: Jamie

Me: I do not know a Jamie

Txt: Bitch stop playing

At this point I did not respond and received no other text messages from this person. I thought they finally figured out that I was not the person they thought I was. I was wrong. This morning I received the following texts:

Txt: Where u at

Txt: U got to come get me

Txt: Txt me now

Me: You got the wrong number

Txt: This is jamie bitch

Txt: This is jamie bithch

Txt: Young get the fuck up and come 2 super 8 an get me

Txt: What the fuck u going i need u 2 come now asap

Me: Dude u r shit outta luck cuz I don't know who the fuck u r

Txt: Bitch its jamie stop the dum shit young what the fuck

Txt: Bitch its jamie stop the dum shit young what the fuck

Me: Look you dumb fuck. I keep telling u that I don't know who the fuck you are but you are just too stupid to get it. I am not who u think I am

That was a little over an hour ago, and I have not gotten another text from Jamie. I can only surmise that Jamie and this mystery person were in the Super 8 yesterday and probably had some sort of disagreement. Mystery person left and poor Jamie is stranded at the Super 8. Let's hope that Jamie finally got a clue and was able to get in touch with the right person.

My New Blog

I have decided to start a second blog. The current blog that you are reading will continue to be my main vehicle in the blogging world. It covers a much wider range of subject matter than my new blog.

My new blog, Libertarian Dad, will be more focused on news and politics. I hope that you will visit it and leave some comments.

Feeling Old

The first time that I ever felt "old" was the first time that I looked at a Playboy Centerfold and noticed that her data sheet showed that she was born after I graduated from high school.

Well tonight was another one of those "feel old" moments. Tonight was opening night of the 2009 season for my Bowie Baysox. My family was in attendance and fortunately the Baysox were victorious.

The great thing about minor league baseball (or at least as far as the Baysox are concerned) is that they give us free programs at each game. While looking through tonight's program, I noticed that nearly half of the players on the Baysox roster were born after I graduated from college.

Unfortunately those "feeling old" moments seem to occur with a lot more frequency these day.

Being A Dad

On Saturday, a jewelry store in my neighborhood was having a precious metal dealer in the store paying cash for gold and other precious metals. I had a few items on my dresser that I no longer needed; a couple broken chains and a couple rings that no longer fit. Just for grins, I decided to see how much money they would offer me for these useless pieces of metal. I walked out of the store with $160 of "found money."

It is rare that I have the opportunity to splurge on something for myself. For the rest of the weekend, I contemplated about what goodies I could get for myself. I considered using the money to buy a Flip video recorder. There are a number of books I would like to check out, so I considered going on a little shopping spree at the local Barnes & Noble. There was nothing though that left a burning desire in my mind, so I decided to hold on to the money until I found something I had to have.

Well, yesterday I spent the money. I did not buy any of the things that I originally considered. In fact, I ended up not buying anything for me. Yesterday, my son's Playstation Portable ceased operating. Seeing how upset he was that he could no longer play his favorite games, I spent the whole amount on a new PSP for my son. So, for now, I will be holding off on getting anything for me. I guess that's just part of being a dad. It was money well spent.

A Brief Update

It has been a few days since my last post, but sometimes the real world gets in the way.  Between work and other hobbies like working on my challenges at Pogo.com, I just haven't had as much time do all of my blogging activities.  There are a few things that have happened in the past few days that I will want to make a few, short comments about to try to catch up a bit.  Below is a link to one of the games that I like to play on Pogo.

	I love to play Word Whomp™ Make as many words as you can before time runs out in Word Whomp.
Pogo.com — play hundreds of fun games online!

A Mini Rant

It is pretty disgusting when you enter a stall in the office men's room to answer nature's call, and you discover that the person (and I use that term loosely) failed to flush. It is even more disgusting when you see that there is no toilet tissue among the waste in the bowl. Not only is this cretin an inconsiderate slob, but he is also walking around without having wiped his sorry ass. Sorry for the graphic post, but I had to get that off my chest.

Rewarding Myself

Well, it is nearly 10:30 in the evening on a weeknight, and I am sitting here drinking a cold beer. Normally, I would not be having a beer this late in the evening. After all, I have to get up and make my hour long commute to work in the morning. Tonight, however, I felt like I deserved to reward myself. When I was loading the dishwasher, I heard one of the door springs fly off of the door. Fortunately, I had a replacement handy downstairs. After about 30 minutes (and probably twice that many foul words) I was able to get both springs connected and the door works like new. So, tonight I am feeling rather handy and proud of myself and therefore worthy of a small treat.

Beer Update

As I mentioned last week, I went to the liquor store with the intention of treating myself to a better variety of beer and ended up settling for Bud Light instead of Busch Light. Well tonight, I stopped by to pick something up and ended up splurging on a 12-pack of Samuel Adams Winter Classics. This variety pack features 2 bottles each of 6 different Sam Adams beers; Boston Lager, Winter Lager, Cream Stout, Old Fezziwig Ale, Holiday Porter, and Cranberry Lambic. Tonight I enjoyed the two bottles of Winter Lager. I still like to have those everyday varieties of beer, but it was a real treat to enjoy a really good brew with the much richer flavor.

A Sign of the Times

I like beer. Always have. Ever since my grandfather gave me a Rolling Rock pony (I was way under age, but it was only 7 ounces) I have enjoyed having a cold brew. So Saturday night after working my part time job, I stopped at my favorite liquor store to pick up some beer. I decided that I wanted to treat myself to something a little more special than usual. In the past, that would mean picking up some Molson Golden Ale or maybe some Samuel Adams. As I looked around at the wide variety of brews available in this particular store, I kept going to some of the variety packs of seasonal ales like Sam Adams winter collection. I guess it is a true indication of the times and how tight money is these days when I walk out with a 12-pack of Bud Light and consider that a splurge over the usual 12-pack of Busch Light that I usually purchase. As a tribute to my love of beer, here is Tom T. Hall with his song "I Like Beer."

Happy Thanksgiving

Last night, as I was browsing around YouTube to try to find something cute or funny to use for my Thanksgiving post, it occurred to me that Thanksgiving has become just another holiday that has lost it's original meaning. Thanksgiving originally was a time to celebrate the harvest and to give thanks to God for the harvest and for continuing to sustain us. We continue to have a feast to commemorate Thanksgiving, but it has come to mean a lot of other things: a four day weekend for a lot of people, football, and the start of the Christmas shopping season (speaking of holidays that have lost their original meanings.) Not that there is anything inherently wrong with any of these things, but they do not remind of us the true meaning of the holiday.

So, instead of something funny or cute, I decided to reflect on the true meaning of Thanksgiving and post some of the things that I am truly thankful for.

• My son, who I love more than I ever thought I could love someone and has taught me a lot of valuable lessons about enjoying the moment, which I need to be reminded of more than I care to admit.
• My wife, who frequently thinks of little things that she knows I would enjoy, like the two pumpkin donuts I had for breakfast this morning.
• My family and friends, for being there with their love, advice, and support, both emotionally and financially, during tough times.
• My country, which in spite of her flaws is still the greatest place to live and provides us with a standard of living that is the envy of the world.

So this year, when you are gathered around the table stuffing yourself with stuffing and the rest of the bountiful feast, look around you, enjoy the moment, think about all you have, and truly give thanks. Have a very happy Thanksgiving.

A Shitty Start to the Day

This morning was kind of a shitty start to the day. I probably had too much wine last night before I went to bed (come to think of it, I have probably had too much tonight) so I woke up feeling not so good this morning. The alarm goes off at 5:00 a.m. to head to work. I had just finished getting ready for work, and was washing my hands in the bathroom. The bar of soap slips out of my hand and lands in the toilet. I could not leave the bar in the bowl and it was too big to flush. I had to reach down into the bowl to try to get the soap out of the bowl. It ended up taking me another 15 minutes before I could finally leave for work. Needless to say, that bar of soap ended up in the trash.