Weekends

Americans in paticular look forward to weekends. They see them as a time to relax and recharge. This does not reflect well on our work ethic, dedication the companies that supply our lively hood and finally our social structure. I love my job, there are day where I hate it because I have to deal with people or situations that are difficult but this is life. I tend to use work as practice for life as much as I do the reciprocal.

One of my job functions is to find suppliers of products that we do not use on a consistant basis. This means I have to network well and be able to search quickly and efficently, but it also means that I have to get people to like me in a hurry so that we can get better pricing out of them. I used the old TGIF line one time when I was fishing for a new supplier and the gentleman on the other line ripped my head off saying that I was a disrespect to my company and that if I worked for him that he would fire me for saying something like that. I was using it as an ice breaker but this guy would not drop it. That is a lesson that I have not forgotten, do not assume everyone has the same sense of humor as you. The first rule of a court room lawer is never ask a question that you don't know the answer, this can be applied to all facits of life. Don't assume the weekend means the same to everyone.

Dogs Life

Occasionally I will put pictures of my pups on here to spread their wealth of adorability. This first pic is a favorite of mine, it is of my youngest pup Wendy. She is a Boxer/Lab mix with all the good attributes of a Lab and all the negatives of a Boxer. I am not saying that Boxers are not good dogs in any way but every dog breed has its flaws. For instance we are learning why the clip Boxer pup's tails when they are born, she has no sense of her tail and it is a massive tail. She is great on her back legs but this leads to major issues in the kitchen as she can reach the back of the counter with out any problems.

She is a beast, she weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 70+ lbs and is ALL muscle. I weigh in over 2 bills and she pulls me around on rollerblades like I am not even there. She is a little slow on the social front which is a curiosity to me, she loves to be with her brother and actually cries when they are apart. But when taken to play with other dogs she is shy and snaps when ever another dog gets close.

I will share our adventures together as I am sure there will be many, and I will also eventually introduce you to her brother Hooter.

American Business

I work for a manufacturer of a commercial product that is installed in hospitals, arenas, library, and major retailers. The past 23.5 hours are a blur. We are currently working on a large hospital in the middle of no-where Tennesse that is being designed by an architect in Dallas and we are going to manufacturer our product in Ohio. So Wednesday we flew to Dallas to meet with the construction manager, architect, and owners rep to discuss some changes. The completely odd part to me is that we left Dayton a little after 5pm and arrived back here the next day around 4:30 pm.

So I travelled somewhere close to 1800 miles in 23 hours, had a 3 hour meeting, ate 3 meals, and got little sleep. My wife picked me up at the airport because I car pooled down there and it was on her way home from work. On the way back she was telling me how when she tells people that I am out of town that they think it is "cool". Cool is not the word I use to describe it, I think wasteful is a better word. We are able to distribute our product nationwide because we have great suppliers, great machinery, great engineering, and most important great workers. Because of this we are required to do these little one day trips frequently. Now thanks to email and 3way calling we are able to avoid alot of them, but with any project you are required to visit the site atleast a few times.

This great workforce that we employ that sustains our way of business is drawn from a 90 minute commute radius. The worst part is that everyone drives seperately. We have 60 people working at our one facility and we have 59 cars (2 are brothers that live together). Then next thing you know everyone is complaining about the cost of fuel and how much it costs to get to work. I know for a fact that many of these people either drive past anothers house or share routes for longer than 50 mins. I couldn't stand a 25 min commute because I felt that 50 min of my life was too much per day to be spending in the car so I moved within biking distance. Logisitics were once an afterthought in the bidding process but here soon it will be a key ingredient, will you be ready?

With all due respect

I have nothing but respect for Ran, LAtOC, citymouse/countrymouse, Anthropik Network, and many of the other "Crashologists", but while I feel preparing for the end of civilization is a noble cause and falling of the grid is also admirable, I think that an even more worthwhile task maybe to use the talents all of them have to help shape civilization into a more desirable and sustainable ecosystem. I think that some of these people are no better than the mass media that they despise so much. They are all about the negative and are always picture framing the news to fit into their view of society is ending. I will continue to preach about conservation, green energies, organic and local food, as well as peace, but I will try to do this through a positive light. I am not going to try and make crap smell like a rose but I will balance the good with the bad and try not to picture frame anything. Peace...

Life outside of the Clear Channel

I am no expert in music and if you ask my wife I listen to "crap". BUT, thanks to services such as Napster, Dell Musicplayer, and of course my favorite Yahoo! Unlimited I am able to listen to whatever crap I want. If I want to sit around all day and listen to Massive Attack and Orbital I can. If I am feeling down and need a little up beat techno its all right there. This is not new to anyone who will be reading this blog, but what about this new HD Radio? Why now, why try to saturate a market that you are losing and stand no chance of reclaiming.

They claim that music will be played in higher quality sound, so what, the only time I listen to the radio is during car rides. Well when your doing 80 the road noise on those wonderful new concrete highways pretty much drowns out any semblence of audio clarity. I applaud the advancement of technology but could we please stick to something that will actually improve our lives, say more efficent coffee machines that make perfect one cup serving, oh wait never mind