The Inmates Run the Asylum

So, yeah, if you'd like to order Rejected through Lulu, you can save 25% by using the code BUYMYBOOK305.

In related news, after I posted my book links on Facebook yesterday (individual post for each link because if Facebook lets you do more than one link in a post, I don't know how to do it), someone on my friends list posted that the people "selling stuff on here" need to take it somewhere else.

So you know I just HAD to post a fresh link with this coupon offer today.

My apologies. I don't have the drama or Jesus preaching to post on my Facebook. I've just got to work with what I have.

I've thought about creating my own page on Facebook, but at this point I don't see it being worth my while. For now I think I'll just stick to broadcasting on LJ, Twitter, and pissing off my Facebook friends.

Maybe if they bought my stuff, I'd shut up. I bet they never thought of that.

I wouldn't shut up. But they still never thought of it.

Another driver bailed on us, leaving us scrambling to cover his loads for the week. I've got another driver nearly a day late because a) he broke down on the way home Friday and b) his load was done wrong and someone had to fix it (a reocurring problem at this particular plant).

So, I'm making late calls while fielding the typical It's Monday Where's My Stuff calls while trying to get last minute information to drivers on the road. And then there's the pile of regular phone calls that need to be made.

And the driver trip sheets that I have to review.

And the violations sheets that I have to compile even though I'm pretty sure that Chad doesn't look at them.

And the board needs updated.

And we've hired someone new, Crystal, to help us in the office. She spent the afternoon watching me make phone calls and explaining my job. Not that there's a lot to it, but she's sitting in my cube so I feel compelled to say something. She's going to be handling our drivers once we get her trained up. I imagine she'll be doing other things, too, but that's her main gig.

Starting next week, I'll be working 8-5 taking an hour lunch. Right now I'm working 7-4:30 taking a half hour lunch. I'm already hitting 5 o'clock a couple of days a week now. I look forward to hitting 5:30. Because I can't seem to get it all done in one shift.

They need to go back to that temp service and get someone to replace me. I can't hack this gig.

It's been an eventful two days at the day job. You'd think a short week would be easy, but no. Not in this world.

Yesterday, three of our five trucks on the East Coast broke down. Problem, we still had three runs that needed to be done today. Did I mention that one driver took his truck to the shop without telling us and another driver's truck has been broken FOR A WEEK, but he neglected to mention it? Yeah. Like that. Thankfully, they were able to do a quick patch job on one of the trucks and get the guy going.

There was also the small matter of a guy finishing his run early, but taking his time getting back to the yard. Unfortunately, he had a surprise random drug test waiting for him, which put him behind on getting started on his next run. He's going to cut it close making it home tonight.

Then today, one of my favorite drivers, Sonny, was down by St. Louis picking up coils. He was secured the straps on the load, went to get off of the trailer, and fell. An ambulance was called and Sonny told Albert that he thought he dislocated his hip.

With him on his way to the hospital, we had to figure out how to get the coils back. At first it was decided to have Stephen go from his last stop in Indiana to St. Louis because he had a rider, new guy Mark, with him. Mark could drive the coil truck home. It set up huge problems for us for the next week with Stephen's hours of service and whatnot, but it'd get the job done.

However, Mike showed up and it was decided that Chad would drive Mike down to there and he could pick up the coils with no problems. Albert calls Stephen to let him know he can come home and...Stephen's truck is dead.

All of this took place before lunch.

So, a plan was hatched to retrieve Stephen, Mark, and the broken truck with the use of a tow truck. It would take our spare truck out to Indiana and then tow the broken truck home. Stephen and Mark would drive the spare truck home.

Yeah, that was at noon. At three, the tow truck that was supposed to take the guys and the broken truck from the side of the road to a truck stop still hadn't shown up. When I left a little after 4:30, the tow truck was just leaving for Indiana, a little over two hours away. The boys might be getting home right around now.

Also over the course afternoon, we found out that Sonny had broken his hip and was going to have surgery. He's going to be out for a couple of months at least. This led us to scrambling to adjust the runs next week to account for Sonny's absence.

Needless to say, it's been a clusterfuck for the past two days and I really think we all need a three day weekend just to recover from it.

Bleh.

Beer me.

I am behind on my credit card bill because I am broke. I paid what I could when the bill was due last month and I'm working on getting the rest of it.

However, the credit card company calls me today to ask if they can take the 400 bucks I owe out of my bank account to pay for it.

Uh, no. I don't have 400 dollars. That's what I'm trying to get for you people. Did you think that I just forgot to pay the bill? Did you think that I just that I didn't want to give you any money? Did you think that I was not aware I had 400 dollars in the bank?

I want to pay your bill, people. I am financially unable to at the moment. As soon as I can, I will. You repeatedly asking me when will I have the money and can you arrange to take it out of my account on that day does not improve my mood and further more IT WILL NOT HAPPEN. I will pay you in my customary way and you will like it.

After 10 years of being a good account holder, you're just going to have to cut me a little slack.

If I have to deal, so do you.

In one of the freakest and most unusual baseball injuries, Cubs rookie outfielder Tyler Colvin got stabbed just below the collarbone by a piece of flying broken bat as he ran from third to home (he scored, btw; walked off the field under his own power). After some tense innings of hearsay and whatnot, it was confirmed that he went to the hospital, got stitched up, and because the bat did puncture the chest wall, they put in a chest tube to make sure his lung didn't collapse (he never experienced any trouble breathing). He'll be in a hospital in Miami for 2 to 3 days and is expected to be just fine. His season, however, is over.

I'm glad to hear he'll be okay. He's been a dynamo for us this year and he's had a hell of a season. It's a shame his season had to end in such a bizarre way.

However, the flailing done by the fans on Twitter just got on my nerves. Not the concern (except by the little girls upset that their woobie was hurt; that will always grate on me and I'm not afraid to say so), but the overall blowing up of the drama brought on by people who clearly don't watch enough accurate medical shows.

It's a chest tube, not a traech tube. He's not breathing through it. It's in to make sure what little air that got in the lung cavity gets out and the pressure remains stable so his lung doesn't collapse. His lung never collapsed and he never had trouble breathing, according to several reports.

He wasn't impaled, he was punctured. Impaled implies that the bat was still in him. It wasn't (though I don't doubt that he didn't have some splinters removed). Even though his chest wall was punctured, the hole was pretty small. It's not like he had a gaping wound.

(To be honest, the cynical part of me thinks that if he didn't have insurance, they probably wouldn't have put the chest tube in. They probably would have watched him overnight and if all was well in the morning, they would have discharged him and sent his bill to collections.)

And finally, he can still be a vampire because in order to kill a vampire you have to stake him through the heart! Seriously people. A vampire doesn't keel over if he gets a splinter. There's a certain amount of strategy and technique required to killing one.

Yes, that last one did come up repeatedly.

Seriously, Cubs fans. Settle your teakettles (thanks for that saying, luchalibrarian). It was a bizarre accident. It was scary, but it's over now. Colvin was never on death's door. He's going to be fine.

And probably always remembered for this.

I know this means nothing to any of you, but to even begin to broach this on Twitter (and as you can see, 140 characters could in no way contain this rant) would be like spitting in the ocean.

But at least I got it out of my system. I feel better now.

If you follow me on Twitter, then you know I pretty much submerged myself in baseball when I lost my Internet for a month and I did not surface once the Internet came back, and have been abusing my followers by subjecting them to my running commentary of the games.

Yeah, sorry about that. I'm going to try to cut down on that. It's already been made pretty clear in the house that my baseball affliction this year has reached critical annoying levels and I know it's bleeding like a severed femoral artery into my Twitter stream. It's kept me amused the past month or so, but it's time to start backing off.

More importantly, I need to stop reading what other fans are writing. I forgot what assholes sports fans can really be, and I'm not just talking about fans of opposing teams, either (though there are some real dicks out there). They say Cubs fans are the greates fans on Earth and that might be true, but none of them are showing up in my Twitter feed or on the boards I read. It's like wall-to-wall jackassery out there and it's doing nothing for my state of mind.

You know what? The Cubs lose. That's what they do. That's what they've done all year. On paper, this team should be in the playoffs and in reality, they're not. Plain and simple. Find a way to enjoy the rest of the season and give up on this "wait til next year" crap. Going in expecting your team to go the World Series, especially when they haven't been in a lifeteam or so, is a sure way to get disappointed, particularly when your team doesn't have to win to keep its fans.

Baseball shouldn't be disappointing. Yeah, it sucks when your team loses (ask Cubs fans or Astros fans or Diamondbacks, Orioles, or Pirates fans). But baseball shouldn't be disappointing. It's a game, a pasttime, a sport. It's supposed to be fun. And there are too many people around me right now that are just sucking the fun right out of it.

So, like so many other things, I'm pulling this one enjoyable thing back in and keeping it to myself so I can keep enjoying it.

I just can't have nice things.

( The Internet Saga )
( The Getting a Job Saga )

So that's my world in a nutshell right now. Frustrations and crankiness galore.

I hope you all are well. I miss you terribly. I look forward to the day when we can be together again. /pining

I am just not inclined to like people lately. It seems that multiple times a day people that I associate with say things that make me want to smack them in the forehead to turn their brain on (like my mom used to do to me when I was a kid). And it's not big, important things either. It's petty, petty things that just rub me the wrong way.

As often as I am told how rude I am, how I don't consider other people's feelings, that I don't think before I speak, it AMAZES me at the crap these same offended, delicate little snowflakes will post on the Internet. I don't think people realize how much I DON'T say and how often I DON'T hit the enter button.

I know I'm not well thought of for the most part. There's not a fault you could point out that I don't know about. But, sweet Jesus, at least I can say I've actively made the ATTEMPT not to be a raging jackass for all and sundry.

I still end up being a jackass sometimes, but it's either a conscious decision to be a jackass or I'm not realizing I'm being a jackass until much later, usually when someone else points it out to me. But the point is, at least I'll admit to being a jackass.

And this rant became something I did not intend, but I'm not apologizing for it because, for the most part, it does not pertain to any of my dear flist. Therefore, we can call it venting and move on to happier things.

MayDays begins tonight which means there will be lemon shake-ups (and lemon vodka to go into the shake-ups) in my future.

Yes, I think drinking will improve my mood considerably.

Man, I love Hettie.

Anyway, in today's paper was a special section devoted to a Cutest Kid contest. And there are some damn cute kids in there.

However, out of 307 kids there were:

-5 Cadens/Kadens
-3 Haydens
-2 Braydens
-2 Jaydens
and 1 Aydan.

There were also:

-4 Madisons/Maddisons
-3 Haileys
-3 McKenzies/McKensis
-2 Adelynns
-2 Jaydas/Jayda's (yes, with the apostrophe)
as well as a Jaylin and a Jaylah.

And in the "I feel sorry for those children" category:

-Heaven'Lee
-Quailo
-Treasure
-Linkon

And I get shit for the names I like.

Guess I just ain't trendy.

I miss our old paperguy. He never missed the porch.

The last two we've had don't know seem to know what a porch is.

Wednesday when it snowed, I put on my boots, anticipating have to go out to get the paper. But no. The paper was on the porch right in front of door.

Thursday, it was on the steps.

Today, it was around the corner of the house. Yeah, I had to put my boots on for that.

He built up my spirits and then crushed them.

I hate being in such an unsatisfying relationship.