Unruly Behavior

It has been a very odd week around here. Some things and places are very normal, some places look like the hurricane hit yesterday. And there is no rhyme or reason to the patterns. The Wal-Mart on my end of town is business as usual. The Wal-Mart at the other end of town still does not have full power or perishable groceries.

After a week like last week, you begin to notice the odd things you missed. Speed Racer The Movie came out on DVD last Tuesday. I didn't get to take advantage of the release week Sale Price becuase no stores were open to sell it to me, and none of them would have had stock anyway I think. Wonder why they didn't extend sale prices on things like this for their customers. Oh well, I'll have to wait till it goes on sale to see Christina Ricci as Trixie again I guess.



Meanwhile, I've had my first visit from a Nationwide Insurance adjuster. Spent less than five minutes at my house, taking pictures and then just left, didn't say bye, didn't leave a business card. Nice. Called Nationwide just to be sure he was really one of their employees. Nationwide has been nearly worthless in this experience. I've been passed around by adjusters, then told I had to file my own claim with the Texas Wind Insurance Agency. Contacted them, they said my agent had to file. My agent doesn't answer his phone, and his voice mail box is full. The 800 claims number from Nationwide couldn't help me, the adjustor couldn't help me, I finally had to push and file with TWIA on my own. I'm thinking I should find a Homeowners/Windstorm/Flood insurance agent far from here, say San Antonio or Dallas. Somewhere that if I have a problem, they aren't likely to have the same problem or worse. Next time you hear that commercial that says "Nationwide is on your side", be glad. I can't imagine what they would be doing to me if they were not on my side.

Things at work are sort of back to normal. Last week while we were on generator power, we had to rig up some workstations with Extension cords and power strips. One of our genius users unplugged a working system, re-wired it, then called us when it was not working. The picture is below. Yep, they plugged one power strip into another, then a thrid daisy chained off the loop. Wondered why they had no power to the devices on these strips. No kidding, true story.



Those of us that worked the hurricane got a $1000 bonus today. About $800 after taxes. I took $100 of it to the Spec's Liquor Warehouse and got a 750ml bottle of Don Juilo Tequila for shooting. A 1.75L bottle of Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville Tequila for making drinks. And a 24 pack of Red Stripe for my wife, who sent me text saying, "Don't come home without Red Stripe beer or I will kill you." At least she knows how to negoiate. Also saw the funniest brand of Tequila ever, "Don Nacho". Would someone actually buy this, thinking Nacho is good? Sure, Nacho makes a great Cheese, but Tequila?

One of Jamica's finest exports. And a good way to keep the wife from killing me...

Labels: beer, dvd, hurricane, speed racer, stupid users, tequila

Ok, so I'm at Kroger on Friday night. Getting some beer and other important supplies on the way home. When I spot perhaps the worst sounding product, ever:

Thats Clamato & Budweiser with a twist of lime. Or, if you are watching your figure, Bud Light.

Tomato Juice & Beer. Yetch, that has to be the worst sounding drink I could think of outside of what they make folks drink on Fear Factor.

Labels: bad product, beer

My father-in-law is having his birthday party tonight. He said come over, we're having pork. Man, he was not kidding! Oh, he got me a six pack of Miller High Life Tallboys. He is a great father-in-law!

Labels: beer, birthday, dining, in-laws

My father in law was nice enough to take our oldest to Austin this weekend to see a bunch of family that was in from out of state. Reports are that they are having a really teriffic time. So, with only the twins left in the house, my wife and I decided to have ourselves a steak night.



Got some incredible Angus Certified Sirloins. Got some Spicy Montreol Steak Seasoning. Couple of big potatoes in the oven and grilled up some zuchinni and squash. It was incredibly good!



Now I'm catching up on things around the house, we get a lot more done when it is just us and the twins.

Labels: beer, dining, family, steak

Burned out before lunch today, so I left the office around 4 and went drinking with the old men.



It was a little warm outside, but otherwise a very nice day. I was there for 2 dice rolls and went out on the last roll for both, so I haven't bought a drink in the past two trips.



Life is good!

Labels: beer, old men

Took off early from work on Wednesday to go drinking with the old men again. It was a perfect afternoon, 78 degrees on the porch with ok humidity. The beer was cold, and I outted on both dice rolls I was there for, so it only cost me $1 for three beers and some snacks. A good day over all.



This Wednesday they are having boiled crawfish, think I might have to sneak out early again.

Labels: beer, old men

My last three jobs all promised "Comp Time". You know, you work extra today, we'll give you some time off in the future. First one laide me off with about 40 hours of comp time never given. Second one I got my comp time only by going into a coma. Last one I got one of the Comp days I was promised, but left with about a week of comp time due.

Now, at my new job I've been working 50-70 hours per week since day one. No promise of comp time, just doing what needed to be done.

My boss made me take today off as a comp day becuase I have been working so hard. That's right, made me stay home and do nothing today. And I have done nothing!

Well, I did answer some surveys over at Gaming Lagoon to get some points towrds free stuff, but I didn't do much else. Played some XBOX and browsed on the internet. Overall a a great day.

Now it is time to go drink some beers with some friends and eat some seafood. Boiled Crawfish are in season! Yum!

Labels: beer, boss, cubefarm, dining, freebie, work, xbox

Every year my boss' wife goes to Las Vegas to see her parents. Why he doesn't go to Vegas is beyond my comprehension, but he takes a few days off by himself when she goes. So last night he had the house to himself, and he had the whole IT Department over for beers and pizza. It was a great time, here is a view from his back porch, he over looks Clear Lake, which is on Galveston Bay here just south of Houston.



After drinking way too many beers and eating way too much pizza, I made my way home. As I pulled into the subdivision, I saw someone had just put their Christmas tree out in the trash. Shit, I thought I was lazy.

Labels: beer, boss, christmas, lake, pizza, work

Friday night my wife took the kids to her mom's.

So I came home and ate healthy! MMM... 2 Pound T-Bone steak... And Ranch Style Beans with Jalapenos. Man was it good. Coated it in Lawry's Seasoned Salt, McCormick Hot Shot pepper blend and garlic powder. Cooked it about 4 minutes on each side out on the grill, so it was nice and rare, best meal I'd had in weeks.

Then I played with Clan Easy Frag till about 1 AM and went to bed.

Labels: beer, dining, steak

With twins that are nearly three months old, to say that things around here have gotten crazy would be about as much of an understatement as I could possibly make.

On Wednesday night I put a warm beer in the freezer, with the intention of drinking it after the only cold one left in the fridge. Got up Thursday morning, and the wife is in the kitchen, says, "You forgot a beer in the freezer last night."

So here is my frozen beer, a little colder than even I like.

I haven't been posting as much as I would like, I've been busy both at work and outside of work. Doing as many projects at work that would give me good experience with Microsoft Exchange and Blackberrys. Wanted to pad the resume a little.

Which leads to my big announcement of the day, I'm changing jobs. I'm going into banking! It seems that one of my old banks got bought by Wells Fargo, the owner in turn started a new bank, buying four smaller banks. Two of the banks he bought were my old banks. As a result, when they started looking for someone to come in and work full time on their IT systems, my name came up for the job.

It is really great to have people come to me and say, "We're so happy with your work from the past, we want you full time now for our business." At the same time, I'm a bit intimidated by the task at hand. They have been merging banks, domains and other things for weeks, and there is bound to be a lot of cleanup, fixing and redoing things to get everything ship-shape and running smoothly.

I'm really excited about the challenge. I'm sure I'll be posting more when things settle down.

Labels: beer, blackberry, exchange, family, work

Today was allright. I didn't have much to do for the day, so I mostly played it by ear.

Got up around 8AM. Made a pot of coffee and had a slice of apple pie. Wife was off for the day, so we didn't have to take the boy to school. She was going to her moms for the night, and taking the little dude with her.

10:00 AM - Had an appointment at the Doctor's office. Got re-ups for all my meds. Yeah! They took 4 vials of blood and a urine sample. The urine sample is new, not sure why they took it, but I'm always glad to pee in a cup for nearly complete strangers. It's fun.

Stopped at Home Depot on the way home and got four Crepe Mertyls and a Bradford Pear tree for the back yard. Going to plant them on Sunday.

Then finished up my closet project when I got home. Had an extra long cheese coney, onion rings and blue coconut slush for lunch from Sonic. Keeping up that healthy vacation eating.

About five I had had a shower and started playing XBOX with my friends from Clan Easy Frag. Played till about 1AM and I was falling asleep. Ate a bunch of food while I was playing, finishing off several bags of chips and some Tyson Chicken Nuggets. Washed it all down with a Six of Miller High Life.

Wanna see what I've been up to on my XBOX? It has it's own Blog site now:

Drens XBOX 360 Blog

Labels: beer, dining, family, health, other blogs, xbox

By The Dren:

I'm on summer vacation this week folks. But I'm at that great age now, where I stay home and do stuff around the house. So here is my report, on what I did over my summer vacation. Just in case any little kids are reading my blog, it will help them in August when they have to write their papers in school this fall.

8:00 AM - Woke up. Great thing about getting up at 5:30 AM each day - when you are on vacation, sleeping till 8 is late. Ate some left over muffins and a Coke Zero.

9:00 AM - Started the yardwork for the week. Spread about 8 bags of much, redid the edges out front. Then it started raining about 10:20 - But my dad showed up then to help with a project in the house.

10:20 AM - Cut a hole in the wall between the master bedroom closet and the dead space under our stairs. Adding some storage space. Project went pretty well with dad's help. Even managed not to make any huges messes for the wife to complain about in the closet.

Noon - Dad headed home. Took a break, went to Sonic and got a hamburger, onion rings and orange slush. Health is my main concern here. Then came home and watched a Stargate Atlants from March on the Tivo while I ate, yeah, only a little behind on watching TV.

1:0o PM - Started the wiring in the closet and stairs. Been wanting to add an outlet halfway up the stairs since we moved in three years ago. Had to pull down some existing Romex and rewire most of the closet to get things ready, then figured out I didn't have any light fixtures for the new storage area.

3:45 PM - Took a shower and got ready to go pick up Mister Man and head to the Post Office and Home Depot.

4:15 PM - Stopped at the Post Office and sent of an XBOX memory module for some friends from Clan Easy Frag.

4:45 PM - Stopped by Mom and Dad's and got Mister Man. He was happy to see me.

5:15 PM - Took Mr Man to Home Depot and got a cover plate for the new setup in the closet, and some cheap incandescent light fixtures for the new storage area.

6:45 PM - Cooked a Red Baron Pizza for the family. Drank a couple of beers, ate the pizza.

8:25 PM - Put Mister Man to bed. Going to eat some Apple Pie and play Video Games till my eyeballs hurt.

Almost forgot, I got a book to read this week, I'll read a chapter before I hit the sheets tonight. There is a link to buy this incredible book, "If Chins Could Kill - Confessions Of A B-Movie Actor", it is the autobiography of Bruce Campbell, star of Evil Dead, Bubba Ho Tep, and frequent guest star on Xena and Hercules.

If Chins Could Kill by Bruce Campbell

Labels: beer, dining, entertainment, family, pizza, xbox