OK Mark

OK Mark Cuban, I know you are a billionaire and I am not, so I guess I get the idea. I sent an email to you the first of this week and I am still waiting on a reply. You know, I have a wife and 2 boys and a full-time job and I take time out of my day to send you an email and invite you to view my blog. I want you to check out the blog to get a sense of what is going on with the blue-collar people of the world. We don't have caviar and champagne everyday, we have mac and cheese of course. Or in my case, ramen noodles. I know the ramen noodles have gotten a bad reputation as a very cheap source of food, but damnit I love'em. That's all for now guys, I've got to get back to helping my multi-millionaire boss make more money.

Happy

I sure was glad to get plenty of sleep last night, but I already miss baseball. I had sat up late the past 2 nights to watch the Sox pull off their first World Series title in my lifetime. I hope it's not the last. I guess I can take solace in the fact that pitchers and catchers report to spring training in February. ESPN does have 19 straight days of football that started last night. Early November, the NBA starts their regular season, but I miss baseball and I've only gone 1 day without it.

Let's see if we can post a joke for today a little early:

An elderly woman from Brooklyn decided to prepare
her will. She told her rabbi she had two final
requests. First, she wanted to be cremated, and
second, she wanted her ashes scattered over Walmart.
"Walmart!" the rabbi exclaimed. "Why Walmart?"
"Then I'll be sure my daughters visit me twice a
week.

Hello

Hello my children I hope you haven't missed me too much today. It's after 830 pm and I am still up, this almost can qualify as a record for me. Just want you all to know that I have a stupid dog. Yes, Spankie, is one stupid dog. I try to tell my boys that this dog has the brain the size of a walnut and he only uses about 5% of it, so he is stupid. He started out with alot of promise, afterall he is a full blooded boxer and his mom is a great dog that my sister has had for years. But my dog, oh my dog, is not right in the head or any other part of him. I just found him sitting under the kitchen table chewing on a steak knife and before that he got Trevor's watch. I mean, come on, a knife and a watch. We are taking him out to my sister's house to live for a while and maybe his birth mother can help him where his adoptive parents have failed. She will probably end up kicking his ass and I can see him scared to death. Stupid Dog.

I'm going to have to search for a joke of the day, it's one of the new and improved experiences that I have going on for all of my beautiful readers. So the joke o' the day:

A nurse walks into a bank, preparing to endorse a
check. She reaches in her pocket and pulls out a
rectal thermometer and tries to write with it.
She looks up at the teller, pauses for a moment, then
realizing her mistake, she says, "Well that's
great...... just great.....Some asshole's got my pen."

Joke O' The Day

OK here's one for Wednesday:

Baptist Bra

A man walked into the Women's Department of Macy's in
New York City, and
told the saleslady, "I would like a size 36B Baptist
bra for my wife."

With a puzzled look the saleslady asked, "What kind
of bra?"

He repeated, "A Baptist bra... She said to tell you
that she wanted a Baptist Bra, and that you would
know what she wanted."

"Ah, now I remember", said the saleslady. "We don't
get as many requests for them as we used to. Lately,
most of our customers either want
the Catholic bra, or the Salvation Army bra, or the
Presbyterian bra."

Confused and a little flustered, the man asked, "So,
what's the difference?"

The lady responded, "It's all quite simple, really.
The Catholic type supports the masses. The Salvation
Army type lifts up the fallen, and
the Presbyterian type helps keep 'em staunch and
upright."

The man pondered this information for a minute, and
then asked, "So, what does the Baptist type do?"

"They..." she replied, "make mountains out of
molehills."

Reality TV

Hey, I've been asked what kind of reality TV shows I like. I didn't think any until a anonymous comment said they liked American Chopper, Real World, Newlyweds, etc... You know I guess there are some reality TV shows I do like. I really enjoy watching American Chopper and Newlyweds. I realize now that I never had lumped those shows into the Survivor, Fear Factor group. When you start looking at it, reality TV shows are everywhere and almost all programming is reality TV. Enough for the morning it is too early.

A new idea?

OK, here's the new idea, how about a joke of the day or internet joke of the day? I will have to look long and hard to find something that I think is humorous. So here goes today:

I've sure gotten old. I've had 2 By-pass surgeries.
A hip replacement, new knees. Fought prostate
cancer, and diabetes. I'm half blind, can't hear
anything quieter than a jet engine, take 40 different
medications that make me dizzy, winded, and subject
to blackouts. Have bouts with dementia. Have poor
circulation, hardly feel my hands and feet anymore.
Can't remember if I'm 85 or 92. Have lost all my
friends. But.....Thank God, I still have my Florida
driver's license!

Now I go in search of Wednesday's joke, the above joke could also apply to Alabama, Kentucky or various other surrounding states. Remember I am a Tennessee Vol.

Nothing to do

Just sitting here with both bosses out of the office. Kicking back and surfing the internet for a little while. I will be leaving early today, I've got to go pay some bills. This is the way America works, I get paid every other Tuesday, I go pay the bills on Tuesday afternoon and then wait 2 weeks to do it all over again.

I am 40 years old now, I don't feel like it, but I am completely stressed out. Is that the way it feels to be 40? Not much has changed in my life the past week, I get up go to work, come home watch a little TV and then go to bed. As for Saturday, I get to sleep late and then get up and clean the house.

I've got a couple of new ideas for reality TV shows in my head, but since I have no agent or connection with TV anyway whatsoever, they will just stay in my head. I feel that if I was born in a different place, like LA or NYC, my career would be totally different. I guess just any big city would do. For example, I would love to work for a professional sports team, it doesn't matter who or what sport. Well, I don't think I could enjoy working for a hockey team since the NHL is on strike or lockout or however you want to look at it. I never did hear back from Mark Cuban about the great ideas that I have in my head, that makes me think I'll go over to his blog and see what's going on over there. For all you guys that don't know, Mark Cuban is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks and he also has a ABC show called the Benefactor. I sent an email telling him I had all kinds of ideas for new reality shows that would be better than his. He sent back a reply saying that I had to watch his to have something to compare to. I watched his and told him what I think about it and never heard another word from him. Maybe I should have kissed his butt and told him how great I thought his show and all other reality shows were. Truth be told, I can't stand reality shows, I end up feeling sorry for the poor people that get voted off or the ones that end up looking like total assclowns. Better go for now, I've got a few emails to answer.

Same Ole Thing

Nothing new to tell just more of the same ole thing. I sat around Saturday and watched alot of football that is until the World Series came on. With my oldest son (Trevor) now being a big Red Sox fan I look forward to watching the games with him. Zack couldn't care less about baseball or anything for that matter. I can't believe the Sox are up 2-0 right now. I was the one a few posts back writing about how they would never come back against the Yankees. There I thought I would put a link in there just to prove that I can do it.

Right now at work, I am sitting at a users PC and installing a WindowsXP service pack. We had turned off all the automatic updates on the XP machines because we weren't sure the service pack would work with all the different software we use here at UT, but now we believe it will work fine. So now it's my job to go around to all the XP machines and manually update them all. This is one long update, but at least I'm not in the office under the watchful eye of the boss lady or big boss lady. Enough for now I have to reboot. See ya shortly

Politics

OK, I'm trying to keep up with politics since there happens to be some sort of election this year. I've been reading all about the Crossfire show on CNN, they had Jon Stewart from the Daily Show(on Comedy Central), as their guest. Tucker Carlson the guy with the bowtie got on him pretty good and Stewart went right back at him. Carlson is claiming that he made Stewart look foolish while Stewart has no comment. This little feud got me interested in this CNN show so I guess it's good publicity for them. I searched all the news sites on the internet looking for political stories and I came upon a survey on FOXNEWS, that wanted to know how many Americans believe in GOD. I chose the 75% for my vote and I was with the 68% majority. Then I looked at the bottom of the survey and found that out of 112,133 total votes, 1079 people voted NO OPINION. Why even bother to do the survey, this is crazy.

Bored and Tired

Bored and tired or tired and bored. Whatever. I hate Mondays,especially since my hip and back are both hurting today and my drugs aren't working today. Mondays go so slow and it seems like they will never get over. I thought I would write a little in the blog and try to pass a few minutes. I cannot wait until 5 o'clock. I can't leave early, because I have to work over on Friday and come in on Sunday morning, so I don't want to lose the only overtime that I've gotten this year.

Zack and I did go to Church yesterday so I've got that going for me. Sometimes you do get so low that you think the only thing that can help is help from above. That's the way I feel right now. Trevor just called the office and wanted to know if I could bring him some sunflower seeds home. The boy is hooked on the seeds man. Just like his dad has to have his Grizzly. I try to impress people every now and then by throwing a hyperlink in there. Hyperlink that's some more of that fancy computer talk. I'm gonna put a link on my site for a guy that has a college basketball site. I'll probably be doing that tomorrow. I don't know how but I've always remembered how to spell tomorrow, it can be a tricky word to spell. Kinda like February, but I can't forget February, because that's when Trevors' birthday is.

By the way, my 40th birthday is this week. Before everyone says it, I know I don't look it. I look damned good for a fat, out of shape, balding, married 14 years, 2 kids, wife outta work, guy. I'll have more to say about the birthday later in the week, just so everyone knows, it's on the 21st(Thursday, to you guys that have problems with calendars).

Saturday

All I wanted to do today was just lay in bed all day. I almost succeeded, I didn't get out of bed until 11am. I don't know if it's depression or what, my wife needs a job so badly. Well at least there is no work to go to today and I can watch alot of football today and some baseball playoffs.

I would have loved to see the Red Sox win the Series this year, but the Yankees already have a 2-0 lead in their series and I don't see them coming back on the Yanks. I know a few people at work who still believe that the Sox can come back and win, but not me, I hope I'm wrong though. As for the National League, I don't think anyone cares one way or another.

It's already 340pm and I still have to wait till 9pm for the UT game. I hate when they play that late at night. But I did sleep till 11, so maybe I can stay awake for most of the game. I saw where the fighting Irish won today, I guess my old buddy Carlo is happy. I went to high school with Carlo and he is a graduate of Notre Dame. I've been able to brag about UT football for the past couple of years because the Irish have been down for a few years. This year though the Irish come to Knoxville to play, so the Vols better pull it out or I will hear about it for a long time. Not that it bothers me so much if the Vols do lose. When you work for UT, you find out that you are only a second class citizen and all that matters to the university and the city of Knoxville is the college football team. The athletes at UT have everything first class while the staff who actually run the whole university behind the scene don't really seem to matter. All we need is a winning football program and everything is OK at UT. Better go check out some football scores now.

Time

I got a little time this afternoon so I think I'll write a few lines. I've been very busy today and I don't like it especially since it's Friday. Friday is supposed to be a happy day, the last day of the work week, we finally made it, thank God it's Friday and so on and so on.

Here's how the day went: dropped the boys off at school this morning. Zack wanted to wear shorts so I told him he could if he wore a sweater or a jacket. It has been very cool all day long, I guess I should have made him wear the jeans, but he would actually wear shorts all winter long if I would let him. Trevor wore jeans but was worried he might get too hot on the walk home from school. I told him he would be fine in jeans all day long. He will only wear his skateboarding shoes I got him, if he has jeans on. They are black and he thinks they look weird with shorts.

I got to work and stopped by the registrars office and answered some questions that a few of the ladies had. When I got back in the office at 5 minutes after 8, my boss wanted to know where I had been. I told her where and what they wanted and she went off on me and got all upset because she had answered their questions yesterday. She said she didn't like people going behind her back like that. I tried to tell her that I told them the same thing that she did, but she ended up calling their supervisor and complaining about the ladies for just asking me the same questions. She doesn't like to be second guessed.

The boss brought bagels from panera bread this morning for boss's day. I didn't get her anything, I told her I was too poor and to just look at me. But we went into the big boss's office and sat around and laughed and talked and ate a bagel a piece. My boss had bought a bakers dozen(13), so we took the others to the break room to share with the rest of the office and they already had their own panera bagels. So I am getting to take the rest of the bagels and cream cheese home with me. When the boss lady came in to get them, I said I was hoping you would forget those, so she says would you like to take them home. In no time the answer came out of my mouth. YES! I think she may have been expecting my to say no.

I just got an email from the wife saying that she got a letter today saying thanks but no thanks for a job that she had an interview for on Wednesday. Damn, when is something going to go right for me and the family. I'm getting so far behind on the bills that it's almost funny if it weren't for the crying. Maybe I should send an email to everyone I work with and ask for donations. Just a dollar or two would really help, as long as everyone contributed. Better go now and check out what's going on in the world of sports and try to look busy for another half hour.

Me Rant?

First of all I was not ranting about finding out the IP address of the anonymous comments. My friend told me I could put a site meter on my blog and it would give me the computer address of the anonymous comments. I have no intention of doing that, remember I am lazy, and another thing I really like the anonymous thing. By the last comments you have really thrown me off. I thought that you worked with me which would make me the computer guy that would be fussing at you for "junking" up the machine. I believe all the users that I work with would know that I wouldn't fuss or complain to anyone about what they do. That gives me job security, by fixing what they mess up.

Anonymous

I've had some anonymous comments left on my blog and they also go to my gmail account. Whoever you are, thank you, and don't stop. I would prefer to not know who you are and keep receiving the anonymous comments and emails. I have a few ideas to who it may be but I don't want the game to stop. I hope I can get alot more readers of my blog in the future. I want my words to be heard. What I would really like is for someone with some connections or money to take me away from this miserable existence. Not the life, but the job. You can only take so much and the only thing you have to look forward to is a free lunch once a year and a 3% raise every year if we are lucky. I have tried to find another job but no luck so far. I have to take a test for a new job on November the 5th. I applied for a position through the state of Tennessee website and they sent a letter telling me that the next step in the hiring process is the test. The test starts at 830am, I need to call and see how long it will last. I am taking the whole day off from work, it's on a Friday. I'm not one bit nervous about the test, if I do awful, well I still have this job, unless I get fired before then. I'm always worried that I could get fired from my job, I don't know why, I haven't done anything worth getting fired for, but I have a fear.

Random

Just felt like writing a few lines down. The big boss had me move all the new monitors we have up here to my office/supply room. I don't mind them giving me work but why can't I know anything about the plans that they have. If they would have told me about the monitors I could have gotten them yesterday afternoon or this morning. I should have stayed at the fall festival and played bingo. I really just wanted to come back to the office and have a little time to myself without having to do any work. So what happens when I get back to the office -- I've got an email from a director saying that her NEW printer doesn't work, so I go look at it and recycle it and it works fine. Then the big boss lady comes into the office and tells me to move the monitors, Damn, I should have played bingo.

By the way, I'm not talking about my boss, the big boss is my boss's boss. That's a lot of boss words. The big boss is a lot like my boss, except the big boss is very intelligent, but without a personality whatsoever. I feel like they both try to make me feel like a very small and insignificant person. I am always being criticized for one thing or another and everything that goes on is top secret. They don't tell me until they need me to do something right NOW!

I'm listening to a Norah Jones song right now. I don't like all of her stuff, but I love her voice, and she ain't too hard on the eyes either. I find her very attractive, she reminds me of a girl I knew years ago. As a matter of fact they look identical. That's enough for now, I have to rest my brain.

Fall Festivus

Well I just got back from the fall festival here at work. I had the rocky top sandwich with chips, brownie, potato salad, and 3 ice creams. Yes, 3 ice creams. They were the strawberry shortcake ones at least I think that's what they call them. I also picked up 3 little fm radios that the credit union was giving out. One for me and one a piece for the boys. They actually pick up pretty good especially considering that I am underground here in this building that I work in.

Got an email from the wife and she said she went over to some deli instead of coming to the fall festival. I wasn't going to miss out on FREE food. The rocky top by the way was a hoagie with turkey and roast beef, as I was walking out the door I grabbed a turkey sandwich lunch. I don't know why except that maybe part of me really wants to be a thief or a crook. It seems all the successful people in the world are in some way a crook or a thief. I ended up splitting the sandwich with the one whose name must not be spoken and threw the potato salad away. I've got 2 bags of chips to take home to the boys. That's me, -- always thinking of others before myself. I'm not joking when I say that, I really do think of what other people may want or want to do before I ever consider my feelings.

Why Blog

Someone has asked why and how I got into blogging. My friend here at work, Ashby told me about blogging but I at first thought it was very boring. But he persisted so I thought I would try it. I thought that all I would post would be my thoughts, and yes I do have a few. Most of the time I don't put any links into my blog, for the simple fact that I am too lazy. Ashby also suggested that I put a site meter on this website to monitor traffic and I could also find out the IP address (that's some of that high tech computer lingo that I have to use in my job), for the anonymous comments. Now doesn't that just sound like a lot of work. If you've read a few of my postings you know that I am a lazy person. Well only at work now that I think about it.

I also use this blog as a friend. I hope that doesn't sound too sad or anything, but it just feels good to get some things off your chest sometimes. I don't like confrontation so I release my anger by writing about things. I also didn't want to be too proper with the grammar and punctuation so from now on I'm not going to worry about using commas and double spacing. But I always use the spellchecker, I don't want people to think I'm an idiot.

GW

Ok, my one anonymous fan (Can I call you that?), has asked me what I have against George W. Bush. I have nothing against him. I guess it's not really that simple. I believe it goes all the way back to your parents. My mother especially was a huge democrat as was my grandmother. I always heard how the Republicans were only for the rich and big business and that the Democrats were the only ones who were looking out for the little guys, like me. Now if I was rich and had a few businesses, I can honestly tell you that I may be voting for GW instead.

I was in the Teamsters union for over 10 years and almost all unions always support the Democratic nominee. So now I hope you can see that I had no choice except to be a Democrat. It had been programmed into my brain since I was a kid. Now I am a kid about to turn 40 next week and am still a democrat.

My Boss

OK, somebody out there sent me an anonymous email and a comment on who my boss is. I don't know who you are but you are right about my boss. I think even if you didn't know me, you could figure out who my boss is by my constant bitching about her. But, me being who I am, I just smile at her and go along with her all the time, especially when she talks about our idiot PC users. I try not to treat people the way she does and the way her boss does. I want everyone to like me and it really bothers me when someone thinks otherwise about me. I did take the comment off of that little post because I don't want others to know her name. She does have a few friends around here at work and of course at her church.

The boss lady just came in and wants me to get a PC and upgrade it. I love doing that and I've gotten very good at that. I also have to get a couple of our PC's that are running Windows XP and put the XP service pack 2 on them. We have been doing a few at a time, because of concerns that a lot of people were voicing about the service pack even before it was put out. The main problems I have read about it is that the AOL toolbar has some problems. Well, none of our users have this toolbar because they are not allowed to download anything. Everyone is set up as a users and thereby they cannot download anything.

Work

I, of course, am at work. I just returned from lunch with the Tech Team. It was the boss's birthday lunch so we went to Calhoun's. It seems everytime we go there from work with at least 4 or 5 people, the restaurant screws up some way. This time me and another guy order a salad with our lunch. When our lunch shows up, our salads still haven't arrived. I tell the waitress to just take it off my ticket, but the other guy says that you usually eat your salad before your meal comes and bitches a little to the poor little waitress and the little guy helping her. Good Lord -- the guy ordered the soup and salad, most people would assume that when you only order soup and salad for lunch that you would get them both at the same time. Now understand that the guy with our group used to be the big boss around here. He probably makes 3 times the money I do, and God only knows how much more he makes than a waitress and a busboy at a restaurant. This is not the first time that he has been out to lunch with us and treated the help at the restaurant as nothing more than his servants. I know that this man would have loved to have lived 200 years ago, so he could have had a few slaves. Other than all that, my grouper was very good, as were the fries and cole slaw.

I have a fear of going out to eat with certain people because you never know which person will show up. I cannot bring myself to get extremely angry at somebody in a low-paying service job. By the way, when the dude from our office was leaving the restaurant, I checked out the back of his car and there was his W04 sticker in the window.

Blog Advertising

I have started putting my blog address at the bottom of my gmail signature. So far, I have only heard from 1 person. The one person didn't leave a comment here, but sent an email to me, so that was still cool. At least one person in the world is listening to my voice of reason.

Speaking of reason, I sent an email to the local ABC affiliate here in Knoxville (WATE). I was upset with their selection of the 330 Saturday college football game. All week ABC had advertised the big USC/CAL game, so what do we get? OHIO STATE/WISCONSIN!!!!! I told them please no more boring Big 10 games, well I got a reply from the sports director at WATE. Jim Wogan replied that he would have rather seen the USC/CAL game also but there are a lot of Big 10 alumni in this area, so it was either that or usually an ACC game. He also thanked me for my opinion because it would help the station gauge the interest the next time. So maybe I will get to watch a good ole Pac-10 game on ABC one day. I told Wogan how I used to love to watch the Pac-10 game of the week back when I was a kid in the 70's. You would always get a good USC, UCLA, WASHINGTON, OREGON, or even ARIZONA game. I miss those days.

Monday

I have made it past 2 pm on a Monday. Sweeeet. The boss lady is leaving in about 30 minutes, she has a hair appointment. Good luck to the stylist.

Thursday and Friday of this week is the Fall break for the students, which means we have a fall festival for the employees. Once a year, they give us a brown bag lunch and let us play bingo for a couple of hours. It's not much but at least it's something. There will also be door prizes of which I have never won, but this is only my 3rd year. The wife is working temporarily at the library this week so I wonder if they will let her come to the festival. Two chances at a door prize are better than one.

I am so ready for the ALCS, the Red Sox are looking good and I think they are ready for the Yankees. It wouldn't be the same if they would have played the Twins. For the Red Sox season to be a success they have to win the World Series and they have to beat the Yankees in the playoffs to get to the Series.

Going to Jail

Well as I was waking up this morning, Martha Stewart had other plans. The article says that she arrived in West "BY GOD" Virginia at 6:15 am. She will also make between 14 and 40 cents an hour to work in the big house. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me, free room and board, a little exercise time, and all those women around. I bet Martha already has a couple of brunettes picked out. I would definitely try to get on Martha's good side and be her friend. If she didn't take care of you when you got out of jail, there would always be the book deal waiting on ya. My Life With Martha. Yeah, that's the title of the book, I'll probably need a ghostwriter. Ashby, are you available?

Gay?

The last post got me thinking, is Jimmy Fallon gay? And what about Queen Latifah? Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I was just wondering. I've tried to find websites that will have a list of gay or not, but I haven't had a lot of luck in finding a good one. I tried for a while the other day to find out about Kevin Spacey, I like everyone else had heard the rumors. He never has actually come out and said if he was gay or not. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Taxi

OK, Jimmy Fallon has a new movie and I don't care. What is up with this guy, it seems like everybody in the world loves him and talks about how great he is. I don't see it. Just to let you know my true feelings, I think he is a little smartass. Some people like that, but I believe that's the way he is in private. I have nothing to prove this except for my excellent judge of character. So Jimmy Fallon is a smartass!

Playoffs

Trevor and I are all excited about the Sox being up 2-0 on the Angels in baseball playoffs. I'm also glad that the Yankees came back and beat the Twins in 12 innings. Don't get me wrong, I'm for the Red Sox till the end, but I want the Red Sox to play and of course beat the Damn Yankees in the ALCS.

In the NL, I believe the Astros are the feel good story right now. They were completely out of it and had even fired their manager after the all-star game. I like Phil Garner, but he has never won all that much as a manager. Some people keep getting chance after chance or maybe he was the best they could do. Well he did a pretty good job. I still remember him playing for the Pirates in the late 70's, now there was a team with the great one, Pops Stargell leading the way. In little league, I copied his batting stance and the little wind-up he used to do during at-bats.

I wouldn't mind seeing the Braves come out of the NL and make it to the WS. I am going to still have to go with the Sox all the way. Hopefully if the Sox play the Yankees in the ALCS, Pedro will become a man and not need his daddy anymore.

More Big Help

After the last post it caused me to remember my first experience with the insurance people here at work. My wife had just lost her job and our family coverage, so I contacted the payroll department and filled out all the insurance papers so there would be no lapse in coverage. On the 1st day of April this year I was covered by the new insurance, but was told I would not receive the insurance cards for a couple of weeks. I inquired with the insurance lady at work what I should do, I needed a prescription filled. She told me to pay the prescription out of pocket and then when I received my cards, I could return to my pharmacy and they would give me a refund of what the insurance company had or would pay. I could not afford to pay for all of this prescription in the way she had layed out for me. So, I contacted John Deere health directly. They told me all I had to do was tell the pharmacy I was covered by John Deere and the pharmacy could look it up that way. I told the pharmacy and was able to pay $5 for a script instead of the way I was told at work. If I had dropped it after talking to the woman (who is in charge of insurance at work), I would have had to pay $73 instead of the 5. Why and how do some people even have jobs.

Big Help

The great university that I work for have what they call, employee assistance program,(EAP). Well, I emailed the woman who is listed on the website. Her name and email address are also listed on numerous mailings that we receive here. She is supposed to help us with a large number of things. For instance = financial, legal, emotional and so on and so on. I told her how my wife had lost her job and now her unemployment checks had run out, told her how I had to borrow money from my parents for groceries.

I received a nice email in return telling me I needed to contact the 800-number listed for employee assistance. My question is why does the university need someone who actually does nothing. I could have contacted the state office myself, but I figured the person who is listed as the contact where I work would have some answers for me, BUT NOOO!

So I tried again, this time calling. I didn't use my name, but told her my kids were needing some counseling. She told me sorry to hear about my troubles, but what I needed to do was call the state 800-number. Why does this university (company), have a person who tells you nothing whatsoever???

Share the Road

First of all, I have no problem sharing the road with bicyclist or is it just cyclist. Whatever. The cyclist should also obey all the rules of the road too. Every day when I go home I pass a sign that says, "Share The Road", with a picture of a bicycle on it. I have been passed by so many cyclist when I am stopped at a red light that I am used to being passed and WHILE the light is red. If I am supposed to look out for the cyclist, it only makes since that they would try and look out for the very large automobiles that they are traveling along side. I was also taught when I was a very young kid that there are turn signals you can use with hand and arm signals.
Why can't the cyclist use these also. It would actually come in handy when they turn to the left or right all of a sudden right in front of my car.

Can't we all just get along?