I just don't believe it

I have a hard time believing it's almost 2009. I guess at some point I'll update a sort of look-back at the year, what happened and what I would have liked to have happened.

This is mostly for posterity, as I'm the only person reading my own thoughts, but some times it helps clarify things for me, so I guess it's good.

Happy to be back from the in-laws over Christmas. I can honestly say "never again, if I can help it". While it was a nice time and I enjoy the company of the in-laws, it was such a PITA to pack up all of our stuff that I never want to deal with that again. Or at least not until the GCs are older and getting smaller, less annoying presents.

More to come

Later

Lot of stuff

going on for 3 days before Christmas. So I guess, let's get going.....

Honey and the GCs are up at her parents house for Christmas, with me to tag along in a few days. Got call from her yesterday that the GCs are sick again. I don't know what the F$!# is going on, but it seems those poor girls get sick at the drop of a hat, and drop the hat themselves sometimes. I'm beginning to think it's environmental, but if that's true Honey and I should be sick more.

Worked on the Jeep yesterday for a while. Got the brake light switch changed out and removed one of the studs holding the exhaust downpipe on. The other one broke off, so it's off to Sears to get an easy-out to try and remove it. If not, I guess I'll have to drill it out and use a bolt through where the threads were. We'll see how it works. Got some under the hood wiring done also, but not finished. Need to pick up at least one new side marker light and drill the hood for the turn signal/front marker lights so the Jeep can be street legal. Also drove up to FM to pick up parts from a guy up there. Got a new wiper motor, rear view and seat slider for $30, which seems like a good deal to me. Tonight, if I can keep from getting sick, I want to try and finish up the under hood light wiring (turn signals, headlights, marker lights etc....)

On a side note, how the heck is it Christmas already? This year has flown by and I don't know where it went. Looking back, I still wonder if I made the correct decision in staying vs. moving back to Lft. Even if the co. was being sold, I could have worked for a while, then jumped to the distribution company that I interviewed with and potentially never missed a paycheck. Of course this is all 20/20 hindsight and I (we) made the decision based on the best information we had.

Financially, I guess we are going to join the rest of the country in trying to refinance. I'd love to save $200/month if I can. Also our van is paid for in January, so that payment is gone as well. I'm looking forward to trying to save a little money and be prepared if something bad happens.
I'm probably okay, as I stayed in this position for a reason, but it never hurts to be prepared and I want to have options if I need them. All of my bonus money is going into the savings account to be set aside and that leaves me enough to live on for a couple of months.

Later

seriously?

.25 to 0% on the Fed rate?

seriously?

Really, .25 to 0% on the fed rate? That's just insane. I have no idea what's going to happen going forward, but at some point, we are going to just get molested on some of these things.

Crap Update

(With apologies to Dennis Miller!)

I don't want to get off on a rant but.....that's always been one of my favorite intros, and I just wanted to use it. Actually, today, I'm not all that pissed off and I feel good about it. I'll try to keep it short, mostly because there's a lot going on, most of which isn't all that interesting and I need to distill it down.

Finally have gotten a fair amount of work done on the Jeep. Pumped back in all the fluids that I drained out. Of course, the front axle promptly began leaking, so I drained it and applied some more gasket maker to the cover to seal it hopefully. I'm giving it a coupld of days for the silicone to set up, then I'll refill with gear oil and we'll see what happens. The taillights are all hooked up, although the running of the wiring may leave something to be desired. We'll see about that, but for now it's done. Got quite a bit of work done on the dashboard. I can't decide whether to leave the rust spots and just install the dumb thing, or to take it out, really put some effort into cleaning it up and then reinstall. Since my new plan for this jeep is to get it running and then sell it, I think I'll lean towards the faster of the 2 which is to install!

At work it's bonus time and I'm in for one. It's an increase over previous years, which is nice. It's what I thought I would get and not what I wanted. That's the way it goes some days though. At least I'm getting one, so I can't whine too much.

Not sure how many of you out there are done with their Christmas shopping, but I'm not. Hopefully tonight.

Got to run, maybe more fun stuff later.

New Rule

All markets will now only stay open for 5 minutes. That way, all the volatility won't be happening in the last 5 minutes of the market........

Ok, that's a dumb idea, but I really can't get over the jumps in the market.

Now, on to bigger and dumber topics. For example, what is the big deal about social networking.....I'm referring specifically to twitter, facebook, etc. Maybe it's just cuz I'm a little older or whatever, but I don't feel the need to bore my friends and family with an update every 5 seconds, or feel the need to share my embaressing photos with the world. My .02 only, so take it for what it's worth. Not that blogging doesn't expose what's going on in my life to the world, but it doesn' update every 20 minutes either and there are no photos excepts for a few bikini babes I felt obligated to include just because I felt like it.


I need people at work to f-ing listen to me and quit trying to do things just because that's the way that it's been done at our new employer. If their process sucks, why are we changing to it?

Later

December already!!??

This can't be right.....wasn't it just August a couple of weeks ago? Or has time really been going that fast? Time flies when you're having fun I guess. I would have thought I would have had more fun, but maybe not.

Lot of junk going on since last post, so I'll hit the high and low points and move on.

LSU - Football sucks. Basketball looks ok, but too early in the season to really tell.

Vacation - Didn't go to LFT. Really pretty f-ing annoyed about it, but I guess you have to do what's best for the family, so I (we) took one for the team.

Jeep - since I spent my vaca here in sunny SW FL, I got some work done on the Jeep. The tires are all inflated. The wiring at the rear of the Jeep is pretty much done. I went to put oil in the jeep and found out that the pump I bought lied when it says "works on quart sizes"......It doesn't.

Work - tons to do and not much time to get it done. We'll see what happens and I suspect that will be covered in other upcoming posts.

Job search - Bombed out of the fab shop search, they found someone local. Seriously considering the idea of pursuing some of the Houston jobs, but I'm not sure I want to live there. We'll see......

Family - no one is sicker than normal. My honey is "that time of the month", which is never good. The GCs are reasonably healthy, although GC#1 is the reason we couldn't go on vacation and still isn't completely well.

I'm still astounded at the gyrations in the market. I'm seriously considering not reading some of the more negative blogs I usually read just so I can feel better. Seriously, this economy scares the crap out of me and I don't see it coming back for at least a year.

Later

Global Economic Meltdown

Fuck it.....I might as well take all my 401k money and buy beer with it. At least then I could sell all the empties as scrap and get some money back. Plus I'd be really drunk for a long time, which would probably make me feel better. Of course, being drunk, I'd miss a lot of work and probably get fired which would mean I'd need bailing out.

Still not sure what the heck is going on with my vaca, and probably won't know until tomorrow afternoon. Not too f-ing happy about that, but what can you do when the GCs are sick. IF I miss my trip, I"m going to be pissed. Of course, maybe I'll just spend the whole time working on the jeep and actually get something done. Probably not, but you never know.

Later

AM I stupid

or are all the talking heads ignoring one way to save, well not save, but at least stimulate the economy while also potentially strengthening the housing market? My idea is to purchase houses on the open market and begin tearing them down. I don't care how you do it, you could buy foreclosures or REOs or whatever. Then just strip the fuckers bare and tear them down. I don't remember a lot from economics back in college, but I remember supply and demand and our problem right now is we have a ridiculous excess of supply and demand has fallen to historically low levels. This low level of demand is exacerbated by the sudden return to sane underwriting practices and also by the fact that people are scared to buy a house that will instantly be worth less than they paid.

So, then we tear the fucker down, as so eloquently stated above. This does 2 things, the way I see it. It supports the contracting/construction community, which has been pummeled over the last couple of years and has lost hundreds of thousands of jobs. The other is that by reducing the # of homes on the market, you can start to establish a floor under the price of housing and give people some certainty that their house will not be instantly worth less than they paid.

Just a thought, but here are my numbers which are VERY loosely based on some googled numbers and may not reflect reality.

We have 100 million homes in the U.S. give or take.....of that, probably 20% or so are for sale at any given time, so approximately 20 million homes. In the US, per the most recent Case/Shiller numbers, the median price for a home is around $200,000. I'll use $300,000 to make the number more realistic, but I'm also going to say that number includes the cost to tear down. I'll assume no recovery from the stripping of the home of things like fixtures, cabinets, HVAC units etc. I'll assume any recovery covers the cost of stripping it out.

300,000homes x $300,000/home = $90,000,000,000. We still have over $400Billion available in the TARP that our good friend Mr Paulson doesn't want to use at the moment. What better way to support the economy than this? Yes, it's a total writeoff, and that money will have to borrowed. Do you really think that we are going to recover a lot of money from TARP anyway?? Cuz if you do, I need some of what you're smoking.

anyway, that's my thought of the day.

Later

been a while

So it's been like 2 weeks since I posted and I find that I sort of missed it. There's quite a bit going on, so I'll cut to the chase.....

At work, we've been busting hump in budget preparation and meetings for the last week or so. I was traveling last week and got quite a bit done, although not as much as I might have liked. I did get some disturbing (to me) information. It's only really disturbing to me, and mostly because I had high hopes for our new master and commander. I was sitting in the conference room (traveling, remember?) and he comes in and cuts to the chase about how they paid the previous owner for a bunch of items that we were kind of holding in reserve. Now I have no problem with him getting paid. What upsets me is that the other shareholders (oh yeah, those guys) know about it too, and it sounds to me like they aren't going to get paid for the value of them. That's just wrong, and I was sorry to hear NM&C (New Master and Commander) say it.

At home, I need to just insert my house, my family and all my possessions into a bubble and disinfect them. The golden children are sick again, with some really nasty stomach virus that has laid #2 child really low.

Again about the economy. Toll Bros reported today, and the news was uniformly bad. A big mall developer is in serious danger of defaulting. I'm not going to recap the news for anyone, because all you have to do is hit CNN for an update. All I'm pointing out is that the news sucks, and we need something positive to happen to give people a shot in the arm. I used to think this was mostly about confidence, but I've sort of converted to the thought that consumers are just tapped out and couldn't spend if they wanted to. I think the housing bubble just masked it and gave us a few more years because credit was so stupidly easy to get.


I had a phone interview last night with some CPAs that represent a fab shop back in La. They are looking for a CFO and I have an opportunity. I'm not sure about the job, mostly because of the ridiculously rural location, and the fact that I want my daughters to grow up thinking being smart is a good thing. I'm probably going to meet with them the week of Thanksgiving, so we'll see what happens and what the area looks like. Truth be told, if they were to offer to buy me out of my house at no, or minimal loss, I'd jump on this sucker in a heartbeat even with the potentially fucked up location.

More later

From the inside

As you've no doubt noticed if anyone reads this, I work for a construction company and a fairly large one at that. I've gone to some lengths to disguise who it is, mostly because I sometimes discuss internal issues and it's not your business who I work for. The point is that I have a new favorite quote from a CEO. He's not a rock star CEO, but he's in essentially the same business I am, construction.

“I look forward to the day when the majority of our operational highlights no longer consist of our effectiveness in shrinking the company.”

this is from the CEO of Ryland homes, and I feel his pain. I figure we are down by an easy 1/3 and maybe more over the last 15 months revenuewise. At least we are still profitable, although good lord only knows how long that will continue.


Going back to the job search that I discussed briefly in the last post......not a damn thing going on. Not even a bite on the couple of resumes I've sent in to people. It's my opinion that if you are going to recruit on the web, there should be a rule that you have to send a receipt confirmation.

Not a lot else going on. Traveling again next week, and I can't decide if I'm looking forward to it or dreading it. At least we can hopefully get some work done on integrating with our new owners, and maybe get some questions answered.

At home, things are pretty dead. School is going well for all concerned, and only my honey has been sick for the last week or so. I can't bitch too loud cuz she may have picked it up from me and my travel over the last couple of weeks. Halloween tomorrow and the golden children are very excited.

Later

Moving forward

I've decided to just move forward on all fronts, for as long as I can and try to ignore the economy as much as possible. Here at work, I'm busting butt trying to get financial statements, budgets and everything else working correctly and ready to go. At home, I've decided to try and do a little work just to keep the house looking good. On my half-assed job search, I ramped it up a little. I like what I do and who I'm doing it with, but the new owner(s) make me nervous and I like keeping an eye on the market. Maybe something will come of it (and I'll have to change the name of this blog) and maybe nothing will happen.

A few other interesting things going on at work. Heading off to Tulsa next week for visits with our new masters. Not sure exactly what I'm going to do out there, but at least I'll get to meet all the other accounting folks and rack up some frequent flier miles.

We landed several jobs last week for the first time in way too long. Now is not the time to be in construction, and boy does it show. We just picked up about $100MM in backlog and we needed it big time.

Been asked to write a series of articles for an online site. Not sure about this, but I'm going to give it a whirl. If nothing else, it gets my name out there as an expert, assuming I don't fall flat on my face.


My Tigers played Ga last weekend and fell flat on their face. You can read about it at other sites with much more detail than here (I like Bayoubengalblog.com), but you can safely assume they did not play well. I can't decide whether it's coaching and scheme, or if the players are just stupid. Either way, I'm looking for a much higher level of play this week against a Tulane team that really isn't playing that well. I'd like to see a score in the 50 - 3 range, unless Miles plays a bunch of younger players. In that case, I'd be okay winning by only 30 or so.

Didn't do crap on the jeep this weekend....shocking, I know. Planning some work on Thurs night maybe, and definitely some this weekend. I'd like to wrap up a the body mounts and start reattaching hoses and steering linkages and fun stuff like that. If that goes well, maybe get under the hood and start rerunning wiring a little bit so all that's left is the body and dashboard wiring. That's the scary part of the wiring anyway, and coincidentally also the part that requires the most soldering.

Later

Back in town

Got a lot of crap going on, so I'll try to be concise....

tons going on at work, year end financials, budgets, bonus calcs, rates and audits. Working through all of this while trying to get accustomed to the acquisition as well. We seem to be doing pretty well, but I have to get the HMFIC from our buyer to start sharing what he really wants to do. He says stuff that can interpreted different ways, so of course it is by different people.

Sent in an online app to a company in Houma this weekend. Not sure what, if anything, will happen, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Fab company, around $100MM in revenues. we'll see, I haven't had any response yet, so I'm not even sure they received it.

In football, my Tigers play USC (south carolina) last weekend and won. Played well enough to stay in the game in the first half, and played lights out in the second. Got UGA this weekend, finally back in Tiger Stadium. I look for a close game, with the Tigers winning by 3. Hopefully, I'm not kidding myself. On Sunday, the Saints came out and looked bloody awful. There's no other way to say it. I got so mad I quit watching before halftime.

Did absolutely nothing on the Jeep. I might do a little work tonight, or I might go exercise instead. I'll have to wait and see how I feel.

For a couple of weeks now, my honey has been bitching about the speakers sounding funny. I finally got off my lazy butt and went to really check them and found that one of them is complete shot. I don't know if it just fell apart from old age, or is blown or what, but it is destroyed. Looks like it's time for new speakers. Just when you think you've got your spending under control and don't need to buy anything new for a while other than Christmas presents. shit......

I'll finish later.

I'm Baaack

in florida that is. I feel like crap, the trip back was delayed due to weather in Houston, so I sat in the BR airport for most of 8 hours, then finally arrived back in in FM at around 2:45 Wednesday night/Thursday morning. Now I'm freakin sick, or at least very congested and I'm not amused by this at all.

On the road again

Back in the great state of LA for a couple of days. Down here (technically up) for some meetings and then heading back to the 5th circle of hell (AKA SW Florida). I call it that because it's still running in the 90s right now and that's just too damn hot for mid-October. I'm not saying I need some snow or anything, because I wouldn't know what to do with snow if I saw it. I'm just saying it's time for a cool front and get the lows down into the 60s.

My Tigers laid a giant egg on Saturday, losing to the stinking Gaytors by 30 points. If we see that same team next week, this could be a really long season. What worries me is the complete lack of results from the offensive and defensive lines. Hopefully, they will play better against South Carolina (USCe), or this is going to be an ugly game also.

Little disappointed, I had some faint hopes of visiting with one of the girls that used to work for me this evening, but she had a sick member of the family and wasn't in BR as planned. Not that we were going out super partying or anything, but it would have been nice to see her. Might try to catch up with her tomorrow night if I can....

Finally got my lazy ass out into the garage Saturday and Sunday and got a little work done on the jeep. It's now sitting on 4 tires again, and the redneck engineering body mounts have been replaced by some with some real engineering to them. Still have work to do to get it all bolted down, but at least it's some progress. After returning to SWFL, I want to try and get the new oil in and finish the body mounts. After that, electrical. I think I'm putting it off because it scares me, so it's time to man up and get it done. After that the jeep would actually be drivable, at least around the neighborhood for a test run. After than, a bunch more safety stuff like seatbelts. I'm hopeful that I might be able to take a turn around the neighborhood before leaving for LA for Thanksgiving.

I guess I can look at the markets again, now that we're up 1000 point today. I think it's a crock and I don't think it'll last, but man it might be a nice opportunity to sell if someone needed to. I think the bottom is still 6 to 9 months away and we'll just bump along the bottom, kind of like the housing market is doing now in the SW FL market. It's not dropping at 20% a year, but it's not gaining and nothing much is selling unless it's really cheap, in foreclosure or a short sale.

Later

words fail me

(grit teeth) and mumble "Must....stop.....watching.....market"

Seriously, though. this is getting fucking depressing. Today I was doing some work on my 401k and I thought I would try to outsmart the market by picking 3 of the most beat down funds to put my money in from now on. (I didn't move any existing money)

Of course, about 45 minutes after that BOOM goes Wall st. Or should I say CRASH goes Wall St. I'm nervous, but not panicked about my job. I think I'm okay, but we are going to be cutting people before long and that will include the accounting people as well and I HATE laying people off.


Tonight, to try and take my mind off my troubles, I think I'll work on the Jeep. The body mounts came in, so I think I'll try and get some of them installed, plus fix the leaking tire and get it back on so the jeep is back on it's fee again. Will update that later, as I've not had much success with jeep work so far the last month or so.

Later

Stupid

Ass market.

I don't know why I follow this so obsessively anymore, but I do. I guess it's just the fun of knowing that I'll have to explain what it was like to live through these times to the GCs. They'll be reading in a textbook about how the government bought Wall Street, and they'll ask a question and I'll have to try and explain how a bunch or morons borrowed way too much money to lend to people who had no chance of paying it back. Then I'll have to move onto how that burdened the U.S. with an obscene amount of debt and how I hope she has fun paying it back.

Continuing with the bad news, the Saints found a new way to lose last night. In all honesty, it was a crazy game, with a blocked FG for a TD, 2 punt returns by Reggie for TDs, a halfback pass for a TD and a couple of missed FGs. In addition, the Saints committed about 500 penalties, and 3 turnovers. It's amazing they were still in this game at the end actually. To give credit, the defense played much better than I expected them to, it was the offense that couldn't quit shooting itself in the foot.

LSU vs. Fl this weekend. I'm getting fired up. Fl is the favorite, but I think the Tigers have a real shot. I've watched the Gators a couple of time this year, and I think we can pound them in the middle with Charles Scott. In fact, I would start with that, and I wouldn't stop until the stopped us cold. Of course, that should open up play action, and I would be looking down the field too a couple of times. I don't think this is the time to try and run end arounds and crap like that, especially considering FL may the fastest team in the SEC right now.

In laws on the way down. I'm hoping to get some Jeep time while they're here occupying the girls. I finally received the new body mounts, and I have a hankering (I love saying that) to get some damn work done.

Later

So here's the question

Should I go ahead and start stocking up on basic foodstocks? Gas? Bullets? I mean WTF is going on here? Dow down 800 at one point today, finally closed down around 300.....I guess that means tomorrow, we'll be up 1,000? then back down the next day.

I'm not really sure, and I hate to be apocalyptic, but I think I'm going to keep a few extra gallons of gas around just in case, and start keeping a little cash handy. Maybe buy a hatchet or axe (or both). Other than that, I have enough hand tools to do most repairs, although I'm a little short of serious woodworking tools. Probably some canned goods, or other food that is well preserved, like some freeze dried stuff or even MRE's. I have a friend that was selling a .45, I my have to revisit the topic with him if he hasn't sold it yet. I realize that this is paranoid, but it could also be construed as "preparedness" and I have the honey and the golden children to think about as well. Plus, most of this stuff qualifies as hurricane supplies also, so it's not going to waste if it goes unused, which hopefully it will.

Anyway, other than all this craziness going on, there isn't much happening. Went to the b-day party on Sat and a good time was had. (by the kids mostly.) For the adults, it was a kids b-day party, but at least there was beer, which made it pretty tolerable.

Got absolutely no jeep work done, but that seems to be normal for the last few weeks. Hopefully with the in-laws coming in, I'll be able to sneak out to the garage for some fun.

Big game tonight, saints vs. Minnesota. Geaux Saints!! I understand several friends and my bro-in-law are going to be there. Hopefully, they have fun and don't get arrested. Although if they do get arrested, I hope they do it early on so I don't go to bed and miss it.

Later

You're Welcome

To all the banks and other financial institutions that I will be bailing out.......Assholes!

When is someone going to write ME a check?

Time to get past it, and move on......so looking forward to a nice weekend. A lot of BS type stuff to take care of, such as some buying some shoes (mine for a change) and maybe some more pants for work, getting a haircut etc. Boring stuff really, what I call maintenance stuff. Maybe a little work on the jeep. I'd like to get the rear axle on the old jeep oil changed, and then change the engine oil in the new jeep, get it all recycled and cleaned up.

Getting really tired of sick kids. I can't decide if GC #2 is just prone to being sick, or if she is just unlucky enough to catch every little bug that comes around. It appears she is working on getting a cold. I'm overjoyed, since she is a joy to be around when she feels bad.

Don't know what got into my honey last night, but after watching Sex and the City (the movie) she had to have a good cry and then offer up sex. Now, I am never upset about being offered sex, unless I can't take it, but I have to admit the whole thought process behind it confuses me. Of course I didn't let that keep me from taking her up on it :)



Nothing special going on at work today, unless you count my giant case of the fuck-its. I'm having to force myself to work, cuz I really don't feel like it for some reason.

Later

I just don't know

what our esteemed congresscritters are thinking. As far as I can tell, they have repackaged the same bill that was called a "bailout" on Monday, wrapped it in some new tax breaks and changed the name to financial rescue, or some crap like that. And now we're supposed to be happy. Look, just write me a check for $275,000 tax free and I'll pay off all my debts. Boom! problems solved, mortgage is made good, car loan is made good and I have no more debt. Everyone is happy.

Other than that, just work and home life as usual. Budget time at work, so been busting ass on that. At home, just time with the golden children and my honey. Spent a lot of time so far this week watching TV. The Mentalist, still hanging in my list for the moment. Fringe was good, if more freaky than previous. I have this vision of being 50 and still not knowing what the f-ing "Pattern" is. If it gets to that point, I'll just quit watching.

My Jeep parts are starting to arrive. The Q-tec order finally shipped, although it won't be here until Monday (of course!). Going to try and finish fixing the flat tire this weekend, finish putting oil in and draining the rear axle, and maybe get some electrical done.

I'd love to say

that I know what's going on, given that I'm a high powered finance guy and all, and have a reasonable idea of how it's going to end up in the financial markets. Unfortunately, I have a policy of not lying to myself, and potentially anyone who stumbles across this blog. In the real world, I haven't got the foggies goddamn idea what's going to happen or how exactly it's going to affect me. What I do know is that I'm going to hunker down, save some money to the extent possible and hope to get through this relatively unscathed. I REALLY wish I'd been a bigger dick to my wife, and forced us to rent for a few more months. C'est la vie....

Tonight is NCIS, the Mentalist and Fringe. NCIS is definitely in, but not sure which of the others are getting watched. I'm thinking probably the Mentalist, given that it's new and I'm still not sure about it. I'll give it this week and maybe next, and if I'm not sold I'm cutting it loose and just watching Fringe.

My jeep parts are still backordered at Quadratec and I'm not happy.

Later

My children

will be reading about this time in their college textbooks. Assuming they go to college, anyway.

Plan #1....begin growing garden in back yard in preparation for Great Depression #2.
Plan #2.....draw down HELOC and all credit cards so as to have cash NOW rather than hope it's available later.
Plan #3.....clear all accounts out of banks and hide money in either mattress or tin cans in back yard.
Plan #4.....purchase large quantities of firearms to protect self (and possibly plan #3) from gangs of looters and rioters after world economy collapses.

Okay, most of the above are a little f-ing out there. But this seems to be the mood of many people, especially many of my brethren in the blogosphere, who actually have readers (unlike myself). Plus I already have firearms, so let 'em come. Just stay the hell out of my garden!!

Later

Geaux Tigers!, WTF in Banking?

First things first.......WTF is going on in banking? Last week it was WaMu, then our esteemed (yeah right) Congress worked all weekend to hammer out a bailout agreement, now Wachovia is selling itself to Citi. As a finance/accounting type, this scares the piss out of me. It's funny how this affects you on a personal level. My birthday present was supposed to be the new HD Tivo that records over 100 hours. Costs around $700 with the network adapter and so forth. I've been waiting to buy it now for almost a month, first because I didn't want to buy a bunch of crap just before possibly moving, and second because I wanted to keep the cash if the markets and economy drop into the crapper.

Now for the fun stuff. Can you say "Geaux Tigers"? Beat Ms State, although it was much more difficult than I anticipated. Couple of my observations from the game.....

• We have got to figure out how to cover backs out of the backfield, either with the linebackers or with safeties.
• Our defensive line, for all the pre-season talk, isn't getting much pressure on opposing QBs.
• Jarrett Lee made some throws during the game that scared me to death. Overall though, he played pretty well.

Finally got a little work on the Jeep done. Took off the flat tire and bought a can of fix a flat for repair purposes. I think I'm going to have to eventually get new tires, as these are pretty dry-rotted, but if they will just hold together until I get this thing running, that would be nice. Also took all the old oil to be recycled. Now need to replace the oil that was drained, and finish the back axle, then take that to be recycled and clean up the pan. Ordered up a new body mount set, which should allow me to get the red neck engineered body lift off and replaced with one that has actual engineering to it. Once that is done, I think I can fix the clutch linkage and get back to the electrical work. My in-laws are coming next week, so that may free up some time for me to work on it.

Same ole, same ole at work. working on budgets for FY 2009, Closing the FY 2008 for the short year after the acquisition, and the other normal stuff. Fun!

Later

Holy Cow!

USC Lost??!! I refused to watch that game last night because the blowjob noises the announcers were making as they talked about USC during College Football Live. Then USC turns around and does what they always seem to do, and lose to a much less talented football team in a surprise fashion. Okay Tigers, you better learn from this example and not get in trouble against a not very good Ms. State team Saturday night!!

In Jeep news, I finally bit the bullet and purchased new body mounts (the rubber ones, not the frame horns). That is the key to getting most of the body alignment and work taken care of and I needed to get it done. Now hopefully, I can move forward this weekend with finishing up the changing of the fluids, plus the recycling, and also maybe convince myself to get some electrical done.

I was going to work on her (the jeep) last night, but had faint hopes of getting laid and delayed until it was hardly worthwhile. Unfortunately, my plan didn't work, so I guess I should have just worked on the jeep.

later

Reviews of my shows

Well, NCIS was pretty good, although I'm disappointed in Gibb's gut that he didn't get the right person......The Mentalist was entertaining, although I was bothered because they never said what he noticed about people and it bugged me.

Criminal minds tonight, and we see what happens.

My sister keeps sending me headlines from this idiot site called "Wonkette". It is proof positive that both "Wonkette" and my sister are idiots.

Just working other than that.

Later

Fixin' to get buried?

I was just listing out some of the "to - do " items here at work and I have a feeling I'm fixin' to get f-ing buried here. I guess the key is to keep focused on the end of the process, and work on upgrading everything in between.

Not lots else to discuss. LSU vs. MSU this weekend, looking forward to it in a big way. Can't decide if we should try to have the girl children sleep over at the babysitters, but it's an option. We should stomp them, but I'm worried about the teams focus after the big game at Auburn and with Florida in 2 weeks.

Not going to work on the Jeep tonight, but I'm targeting Thursday as of right now. Tonight is the premier of "NCIS", which is a fave of mine. I'm also planning on testing out the new show "The Mentalist". I'm a sucker for clever dramas, where people use their brains instead of just punching someone. Of course, I also like the big budget action movies where people just get punched too, so I guess I'm not completely consistent.

Still hating the "bailout". See below the e-mail exchange between my sister and I yesterday regarding the bailout, and our potential plan to deal with it. Note that it is newest mails first, so you have to read from the bottom up for it to make sense. Sorry, but I don't have time to cut and paste the oldest on top.....I particularly like the public shaming, the credit counseling and the mandatory attendance at timeshare sales seminars.


Sister: Sweet. I am in. Been reading up on it, sounds like a good pick. I for one, welcome our new Costa Rican overlords.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Rica>>>


Me: I don't think it would take that long. We buy all the classes on credit, then just don't pay the bill when it comes because we've moved to Costa Rica and left no forwarding address. In fact, we sell out homes and don't pay the mortgage, take huge cash advances on credit cards and leave town with as much cash as we can beg, borrow or steal. It's okay, because the bank will go crying to the feds for some of the $700B, and then it will get paid back..just not by us.


Sister: Wow - Timeshares? Now that is just cruel. But I am okay with it.

I thought the credit counseling idea was good, since they added that extra little bit of humiliation in when they "reformed" the bankruptcy law. Another fun little tidbit on the bankruptcy "reform" - used to be that people would come out of bankruptcy and be able to keep their house. Now that it is so much more difficult for people to file and get rid of credit card debt, they are actually walking away from their mortgages so they can pay off all that fun credit card debt that those irresponsible welfare moms ran up. That's making the "mortgage crisis" worse. Anecdotally, according to Dad, most of the individual bankruptcies he filed where not people being stupid, it was people faced with lost jobs and medical crises. Irresponsible losers.

How long do you think it would take to learn the Spanish for the Costa Rica?

Can you tell I am a little irritated about this?


Me: Dang, you are on a roll today. The credit counseling class is also an excellent idea. May I suggest that they be forced to attend a series of "finance 101" seminars put on at various universities? In fact, they could also be forced to attend multiple timeshare sales pitches too, so they can develop a BS detector.


Sister: Old shrimp are quite stinky. I like it. Just for extra fun, I think they should also be made to take a "credit counseling" class, just like the individuals who declare bankruptcy now.

The world really is "confused" right now - liberal advocacy groups mobilize to stop bailout package? Shouldn't that be the other way around?
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/09/22/groups-mobilize-to-stop-bailout-package/


Me: I think I'll use a combination of crabs and shrimp, with possibly some old meatloaf or something, just to keep a little of a Midwestern feel to it. (Since I live in some weird version of the Midwest down here)


Sister: Well duh! Of course! Would you like for me to send you some rotten crawfish heads, or do you think you can find some fish heads/crab remnants that will do? If you get crab remnants, make sure they are good and covered in pepper so they burn.


Me: I have to say I REALLY like the idea of a public shaming..can we put them in stockades?


Sister: I have now also decided that we should bring back the stocks. All corporations buying into the bailout must send their CEO for a public shaming. I plan to throw rotten tomatoes and crawfish heads.

Me: At least you can plant a garden..not very many food plant grow in sand.


Sister: You are right! I better get that victory garden going in the backyard . .

Me: The only problem is they'll probably lay us off before we're 85 so they can outsource the job back to China


Sister: as I was driving back from lunch, I realized exactly how prescient Arte's songwriting was, now if we could only figure out a way to make some money on that:

They changed my adjustable rate mortgage
They changed my adjustable rate mortgage
Payments so high!
Escrow's a lie!
Payments so high!
Escrow's a lie!

We now need a second verse involving something about our 401k's tanking and now we will work for our Chinese overlords until we are 85, the end

Me: What we need, is something like one of the avatars off of Tigerdroppings. It says "I support single moms" and has an outline of a woman dancing on a pole. We need something like that for the banking industry. Maybe "I support banking" with a pic of a banker in a 3-piece pulling Uncle Sam's pants down.
Just a thought.


Sister: I did see that - didn't Saudi princes buy a big chunk of Citigroup? I have actually been paying attention to all this crap. I am now going to start referring to wall street types as "those damn welfare moms constantly with their hands out.

ME: Welcome. Unfortunately, this has been going on for a year.you should also check for the investments by the middle eastern governments. They are selling us the oil, then using the profits to buy Wall Street.



Sister: I would like to welcome our new Japanese and Chinese overlords:

http://www.reuters.com/article/americasMergersNews/idUST13048620080922>>>

ME:
In a nutshell, yes.
I will continue to pay my also responsible mortgage on my larger and newer, but somehow apparently still overpriced house. For once, I find myself with a growing love of stupid and/or impractical proposals being floated by the Dems right now about limiting CEO pay if they take advantage of the lifeline. Screw 'em. I'm about to get populist on their A$$.

I did a little math, and here are some other things that we could do with $700,000,000,000 (damn that's a lot of zeros.) I'm not exactly sure what the population of the US is these days, but I used 300,000,000. Therefore, you could give every person in the US $2,300, which would increase my household wealth by almost $10,000.

You could buy 1,000,000 houses @ an average price of $500,000 for the bargain price of $500,000,000,000. Then you could use the remaining $200,000,000,000 to tear them all down. This would result in thousands of construction jobs in the tear downs alone, plus the reduction in inventory can't help but have a beneficial effect on home pricing (supply and demand, right?) I mean according to the admittedly somewhat squirrelly numbers I just pulled off Google, that's almost 6% of the total for sale homes.

Or, (this is my favorite option) they could just write me a check for $257,000 and I'll pay off my mortgage. Screw everyone else. Okay, I guess they can write you a check too. After that, we'll sit back and fiddle (ancient Rome reference) while the country collapses.

Also, I guess we won't be fixing Social Security this century. I'm thinking of learning Spanish and moving to Costa Rica.



Sister: Me too. I have been doing a lot of reading just trying to understand what exactly the h*ll is going on, cause this is a little complicated for my feeble mind. So basically, I get to continue paying my responsible mortgage on my little tiny 50's ranch house (that I can afford) because a bunch of banks gave sh!tty loans to irresponsible people who they knew couldn't afford to repay them, so now my tax dollars are going to be spent buying said sh!tty loans so the CEO's of the banks and mortgage brokers can continue to fly on their jets, and now I will never live in River Ranch, or something like that?>>> "

Me: In short, I think it's a bad idea. The long answer won't make it past the anti-swearing wall.

Sister: So what do you think About the bailout??

Tremble in fear

bitches!!

Okay, it wasn't that earth shattering of an event, but my Tigers (the REAL Tigers) managed to pull off the win over Auburn, AT Auburn for the first time in about 10 years. Great game, and I bet ESPN is loving it. LSU looked pretty good on both offense and defense, especially after Jarrett Lee came in after Andrew Hatch was hurt. I have to admit, the kid played well, and recovered nicely after throwing a pick six in the first half that looked truly awful.


Decided over the weekend to pull out of the potential job I've been farting around with. I just have no faith in the housing market, and I don't feel like I can afford to lose any money by selling now. I guess I could spend some of their money getting a free flight to LFT, but that just seems like a jerk thing to do. Things are going reasonably well around here at my current job, and it seems maybe I should plan to stay for a while.


Still no action on the Jeep. She developed a flat tire over the last week, which I think is her way of saying "get the heck in here and do some work Monkey Boy!!"

Later

WTF??

I've been watching this whole stock market thing over the course of the week with a sense of dread. First to the bad side, and now just to the WTF side......







I just don't get it. I understand the AIG bailout, it kind of had to be done. That fucker is just too big, and too tied in to all the facets of the economy to be allowed to fail, especially when it's nothing other than a cash flow problem. (and I believe that is the problem)







But I most definitely do not get the failout (not a misspelling) plan that buys all the crap assets and transfers them to my fucking back as a taxpayer. Why have we been bonusing out all those assholes if not to handle crap like that. Just give me a chance to shift my 401k money into cash, then let the failures begin. Someone will step back in eventually.







Dickheads












Quite a bit going on other than that, mostly work/potential job change related...







Work - I had a somewhat nice meeting with the CFO/COO (same guy) of the company that bought us. One of the reasons I've been pushing this LFT job was the lack (in my mind) of direction or attention after the buyout. This makes me feel better that things are still kind of on track and that nothing has changed. Still not sure what to do with the LFT job....I want it, and I like the opportunity, but I think I'm going to bow out politely on Monday due to financial reasons. I just don't see the risk associated with selling the house, plus the reduction in pay as being worth it. This is especially true after getting a little love this morning from the CFO.

I guess all I can do is wait and see. I don't think I did anything to hurt myself with yesterday's phone interview, I just don't think I can afford the job. And that sucks.

Had a nice e-mail conversation with girl who used to work for me yesterday. I used to chase her around the office, although it was all in good fun and she know that I valued her work. She needed a loan of a few hundred, so I decided that I could do that. I hope she's not screwing with me, but she never has before.





Now, just because I like girls in skimpy outfits:







Later bitches

I've outsmarted myself.

Yeah, I know that's a line from Caddyshack. It's one of my favorite movies and I quote it a lot. You don't like, quit reading. (not that I think anyone is reading:)

So previously in this blog (do I sound like an episode of CSI?), I had contacted a company in LFT to discuss employment......I got a phone interview with the PE company that is in the process of buying the company in LFT, and as of right now, I appear to be the leading candidate. Once again, I seem to have outsmarted myself...so what do I do now? I have a second interview tomorrow with another PE type. Do I continue this? I need to really sit down with the honey and go over this whole deal with her. For example: Moving is obviously required in this deal. I believe, based on their commentary, that they will want me at the job ASAFP after I accept. This creates a problem because I don't know if honey and the GC's can get everything taken care of that fast. The obvious solution is for me to head over there and spend a week or 2 finding a house to rent, registering for schools and all the other s$!# that is required to move a family of 4 over 900 miles away. Balance this with my firm belief that my honey will have an absolute shit fit at the thought of dealing with the golden children by herself for 2 or so weeks. I am going to find out tonight. Wish me luck.


Not much else going on. Stupid Saints lost Sunday. I didn't get to watch it in spite of my best attempts to throw money at Comcast to get the game. In the end, it turns out that I would have just been really mad, so not I'm happy they wouldn't take my money.

While I'm bitching about Comcast, let me discuss the LSU game. I carefully called Comcast at about noon on Saturday to order the game. At about 6, I called back to verify that the game would start promptly at 7:00pm, and that there were no problems. At 7:10, I went downstairs to start watching the game only to find out that it had not come on. Somehow the raging idiots at Comcast had lost the order. Stupid shits

This week is LSU @ Auburn. At least this game is on ESPN, so unless the cable suffers an all-out failure, I should be able to watch. I don't know why, but I feel oddly confident about this game. My prediction is LSU 21 - Aub 10.

Still nothing on the project Jeep. Next time I go out there the thing will probably run me over just out of spite :0

Later suckas

Confusion and more confusion

I seem to have this innate ability to confuse myself....like I didn't have enough drama with the whole going to work for WHC thing recently. Now, I contacted another company with a job in LFT to see. I thought the pay was closer to what I am making now, but it turns out to be (base) about 30-35% lower. I mean I can still pay all the bills, but I hate being dependent on the results of the company to see how much my bonus would be. This is especially true in a declining, or what seems to be declining economy. People are talking about the Great Depression, v.2.0 and that worries me. Of course, I'm in the construction biz, which is a plus and a minus. On the minus side, you have to figure new construction work will go into the toilet if we hit a real recession or God forbid some sort of depression. On the plus side, using the original Great Depression as an example, you would think the government will throw some money at construction projecs to shore up the economy. One thing I know is we better be ready to move from buildings to civil/highway construction if needed....

I guess I'll see whats what this afternoon. I have a phone interview with the PE guys running the show for the job in LFT today. If that goes REALLY well, I'll continue on this path. Otherwise, I think I will politely bow out and hope they have a more lucrative opportunity down the road and they think of me when it happens.

Onto other, more cheery topics:
LSU - My tigers are playing N. Texas Sat night. Should be a blowout, and I'm not going to get into any detail because that's not my thing. There are too many other good sites and blogs out there that do that type of thing for me to add one more. All I can say is I hope that P.O.S. Comcast carries the game locally so I can watch it on Tigervision. I'm also hoping that LSU blows them out, mostly so our quarterbacks can get some reps and be ready for Auburn, at Auburn, next week.

Jeep - I have done dick on the Jeep this week and would prefer notto discuss at this point. All I can say is I have to kick myself in the butt this weekend and get a little work done.

Family - Honey is a little stressed out with my interview, but I think she assumes that nothing is going to happen. At least I hope that's what she assumes, since that's what I told/asked her to assume. Hopefully, she hasn't even mentioned it to any family or friends. GC #2 is being a f-ing brat and I hope she snaps out of it a little bit and soon. Seems like it's gotten significantly worse this last 2 weeks or so. I know she is in the "terrible twos" but give me a break.


Finally, and certainly not the least of my worries, my thoughts and prayers are with my friends, family and former co-workers on the Gulf Coast of Tx and La as they prepare for Ike. Good Luck and God Bless!!

Later

So I guess

I had an okay birthday after all....Played in a golf tournament yesterday and had fun.Had to be better than work right? Well, if you had seen my game prior to this one in N.C., you wouldn't have thought so, but I managed to not embaress myself too bad. got home and showered and worked out the afternoon, then went to early dinner at an Italian place across the street. Pretty good, and not ridiculously expensive.
Picked up the GCs from the babysitter and went home for presents and cake. Nothing too crazy on the presents, but picked up a little cash and some gift cards which is always nice. Especially since I have no idea what I wanted.

Going to take some time out this week (at night) to work on the Jeep. This time I swear something will actually get done......Okay, a few things got done last time, but not to where I could actually cross anything off of my list. This time, I really want to cross something off of the list....like maybe the body lift kit. Of course, with the fiberglass body it's much more complicated than it needs to be (of course!)

As of now, I guess the list is the same. Finish the body lift, finish changing out all the fluids, transfer the old oil into containers and take to be recycled, then try to wrap up the electrical.


I think we're back to maybe looking for another job.....my honey has a moderately severe case of homesick.

I'm not sure how I feel about it. I would love to get home and be able to do the things I like to do such as hunt and LSU games and so forth, but I like my job here and I'm making pretty good money too. I guess we'll see what happens, but she is pushing (gently) for me to chase a CFO job back in LFT.


Later!

After the storm

Well, figuratively speaking anyway. Our friend Gustav was kind enough to blow right past us, and I appreciate that. Unfortunately, he kicked the crap out of my home state, but the family is well and little, if any, damage was sustained. Unfortunately, lined up after Gustav are Hanna, Ike and Josephine. For my purposes, and purposes of this blog, Hanna is a non-event. Ike however, could be a major event. I'll update that as it gets a little closer....

My football weekend:
Man, I was excited for the start of college football. LSU is on the tube and I'm fired up for a 4:00 game with drinks and kids at the sitters. Then, Gustav caused LSU to move the game to 11:00 (ET) to avoid the storm and give people a chance to get the hell out of Dodge. Well I can't bitch too loud about that.
Little sister evacuated to SWF from LA to avoid our friend. Unfortunately for here, she evaced directly into a biohazard unit (my house). My honey came down with a virus, and a real nasty one too, Friday night. So anyway, my football weekend is shto to hell, and I'm very annoyed. Ended up DVRing the game and finally got to finish watching it about 5 minutes before I was supposed to leave to pick up little sis from the airport.

On the other hand it was great to see her and we had a decent visit even with all the weather channel and CNN that was watched to see what Gustav was doing in the great state of Louisiana.

Now, thanks to Gustav hitting Baton Rouge directly, LSU's game vs. Troy is cancelled for today and the N. Texas game is in jeopardy thanks to Ike. I freaking hate hurricane season.....

I'd like to update my work on the Jeep, but I haven't done any. I did buy a new Jeep though, trading in the old wrangler for a new one. Now I just need a chance to take it out and get it muddy.


Turning 41 on Monday and somehow that just seems appropriate, turning 41 on f-ing Monday.......I have no excitement for this birthday. I really haven't asked for any presents. I'm thinking about getting a Tivo for the downstairs TV.

Monday

Yeah, I know it's not original, but I can't be perfect all the time. That would be boring. Lot of crap happening, and I don't have much time, so I'll hit a few high points and then maybe catch another update either later tonight or tomorrow.

Jeep - got some work done, but not what I wanted. Bought all the lumber so I could use it to jack up the body and replace the existing body lift. Started working on it and realized that the bolts would just pull through the hole in the bottom of the mount. Said hole looks like it belongs and isn't a rust hole or anything. I'm going to have to fab up something to hold that crap in and it just kind of pisses me off.
I've put darn near everything else on hold until that's done. I've just decided I have to get at least one thing FINISHED before moving on.

Weather - Giant bastard of a hurricane bearing down into the Gulf. I'd be shitting bricks if it were headed our way, instead it's headed back towards the Northern end of the Gulf. Of course, that's directly at my entire family, so it's still not good.

Work - deal has been announced and (mostly) all is well. Nowhere near as much freaking out as I expected.

More later

Jeep work (at last)

2 whole days in a row. That's right, I got off my lazy butt and worked a little on the jeep last night. Didn't get a ton of stuff done, but got the last fuel filler hose disconnected, so the only thing left to remove to work on the body lift is the steering shaft. After that, spent an hour or so farting around with the electrical. Established with certainty that I'm missing at least 1 dash wire. I'm pretty sure it's more than that, but for sure one. I think I'm going to pull the harness out again and see if numb nuts (the PO) clipped the wire off at or near the fuse box.

Tonight I'll push the jeep all the way into the garage (so I can open the hood) and get the steering shaft, the fuse box and the exhaust all fixed (hopefully). Think I'm going to try and transfer some of the used oil from the open container into my collection of milk jugs so I can take it to be recycled this weekend. That'll help with the whole garage cleaning process that I'm also working on. Then I can unpack the hydraulic jack and start engineering some process that will allow it to reach the body so I can get the body up off the frame. Complicated, isn't it?

See ya later

Made it through

Well, Fay was more or less a non-event, which is exactly what you want a tropical storm/hurricane to be when it is near your house. We had a butt load of rain and some wind, but we ended up on the "good" side of the storm (the northwest quadrant) which meant that the east coast of Fl actually got more nasty weather than we did. Which is good, in a personal sense, becasuse we didn't board up or any of that fun stuff. I guess I'm going to have to move impact windows or shutters up on the priority list, because it's a helpless feeling to see that storm coming at you and know you don't have the protection you'd like.

Took advantage of the day off of work to get some stuff done on the Jeep. With all the outside crap packed in, on and around the jeep in the garage, I elected not to try and get the body lift changed out. But, I did get the rear axle gasket ordered and picked up so I can finish the changing of the fluids. I also took over the dining room table to work on the wiring harness so I could trace connections in the book without getting a backache. I have to say that working under actual lights and in the air conditioning is definitely the way to go....
Hoping to get some work done this week during the evenings. The plan stays as before, I need to change the oil in the rear end, swap out the body lift, and start soldering some electrical connections together, then tighten up the exhaust connection from the manifold to the pipe, and it's time to try re-starting this beast! Maybe take some pics to be posted up here.

My stupid dog got mad at being left outside (I guess, she really didn't say) and destroyed a plant we had on the lanai (porch for those of you outside of SW FL). Normally, this would be my honey's problem and not mine, as I have a black thumb and avoid any sort of gardening at all costs. However, this plant was one we took from my grandfathers funeral about 7 years ago and we've kept it alive this long. To have it destroyed by the dumbass puppy just seems like such a colossal waste, and also in some way a severing of a connection between my grandfather and I. I know that's sort of silly since I picked it up at his funeral, but I can't help it. C'est la vie I guess, we're going to try and replant it and see what happens.

Work continues to chug along. No one knows exactly what's happening, and I have to say it's getting annoying. Other than that, just SSDD here at the office.

Later

FANTASTIC!

a Freakin' hurricane headed directly into my backyard. I'm not happy about this, especially since my house has no hurricane shutters. I could put up plywood, but if you've ever tried to carry a 4x8 piece of plywood up an extension ladder, and then hold it up while screwing it into the house, you know it isn't easy.....and I'm just too lazy for that crap, especially for a minimal hurricane. Hopefully, I won't be crying about this decision tomorrow, but I have think it's easier to put up a piece of plywood on the inside of the window and deal with that IF if happens.

the In-laws have left this morning after helping get GC #1 off to first day of kindergarten. Love them to death, but if they don't quit spoiling the GCs, I may have to strangle my MIL.(mother in law)

I got absolutely nothing done over the weekend in terms of Jeep. I had big plans, which were dashed on Saturday by sleeping until 10:30. Sunday, I just got lazy and chickened out in the face of 95 degrees and 90% humidity. It was HOT!!!

Don't think there is too much happening at work. We're still on track for an 8/25 announcement (as far as I know) and just trying to stay focused in spite of all the weather excitement.

Later

Birthdays

GC #1 had her birthday yesterday and the thought occurred to me "when did I get so f-ing old?" I have a kid who needs bike now??

I swear I turned 40 and weird shit started happening. I had my first ever back problem recently, my hair is suddenly thinning a little, etc. I could also swear my metabolism slowed by about 20% the day after the Big 40.

Finally got back to exercising a little this week, keeping it at around 2 miles/morning until I"m sure my back isn't going to act up again. I'll step it up to 3 or more Sat and Sun to see how it goes. Like to try and get back to the 15+ mark next week.

Received the new (for me) wiring harness in the mail on Monday. Coincidentally, we had spaghetti for dinner that night, which is exactly what that box looked like it was full of when I opened it. I've postponed any work until I can get a soldering iron to make the connections. I may change that this evening, as I have the urge to get something done. Last week was a bust for working on the jeep with all the home improvement (insert Tim Allen reference here :) I'm thinking maybe I can get the harness laid out and figure out what I want and what is getting sold/given away later. This weeks/weekends list remains the same.....finish the damn lubricants and get the body lift changed out. In addition, I'd now like to get back to the electrical and make some progress. I'll tentatively say that I'd like to get the light fixture parts marked, cut off of the old harness and soldered into the new one. When combined with the other items, this should be a reasonably full weekend.

In other breaking news, we might get to go see a movie this weekend. At the theater. Without kids. I know, it's weird, but it just might be true.


In my sports news, the saints won their first pre-season game. I'm not sure if this is good or bad. I'm happy they won, yet it's been my experience that when they win in the preseason, they tend to lose in the regular season.

See ya later suckers!

Friday

You may ask yourself why I suddenly felt the need to post a girl in a little tiny bikini. I'm not really sure other than I have a real appreciation for hot girls in bikinis, and it's my blog and my rules.

My sister is an idiot. By that I mean she e-mails me funny shit from the Onion and other places. Today, it's a couple of shots from the Onion, plus her Unitarian Jihad name, which is "Sister Flaming Spear of Fervent Humanitarianism". I don't know what that means exactly, but it's pretty amusing. See yours here at


In work updates, theres not a hell of a lot happening here either. The deal is chugging along, no real updates although due diligence continues. There area couple of the senior people who (I think) are feeling a little insecure about their continued tenure here after it closes. To be perfectly honest, I don't blame them. However, the 2 most likely candidates for layoff were planning on retiring anyway and I'm not sure what the problem is. Working on updating budgets v. actuals and other fun stuff.

I'd love to give a Jeep update, but other than reading about jeeps on the Internet I haven't done anything. Still hoping to get lubrication products changed out and redneck body lift replaced by real body lift this weekend. We'll see what actually transpires. Finally got off my lazy butt and paid for the wiring harness I wanted. Hopefully, I'll hear back from the guy tonight and I didn't just get screwed. With this addition, I should be able to cobble together a complete harness and maybe get gauges and dash lights and everything working.

B-day party for GC#1 this weekend, with her actual birthday next week. I was wondering if she could just stay in the 5 - 6 range for a while. Seems like this world has gotten so fucked up that I'm afraid to let my girls loose in it. I'm hoping that we can raise them to have common sense and an extremely strong sense of who they are so they don't listen to all the idiots and perverts out there.

Saints played last night on ESPN. Other than ESPN doing it's usual job of running WAY too many commercials (do we really need one every 3.25 minutes?) the game was pretty enjoyable and oddly enough the Saints won. I'm still not sold on the offensive or defensive lines, but we were missing 9 starters or key backups and that could have made a big difference.

Thats enough for now

Later

Children - how can they piss me off so bad and still be so cute?

As we've discussed on other rants, I have a couple of kids. GC#1 (Girl-child #1) is about 5 and she can be really good when she wants to be and so incredibly annoying, almost at the same time. GC#2 I'm pretty sure has ADD at the tender age of not quite 3.

It is physically impossible for them to be still, or quiet for longer than 10 seconds. Now that they are getting a little older, it seems their favorite thing to do is fight. I know it's normal, and I try to be patient but I have to admit that I have (on more than one occasion) dreamed of selling them on ebay. Or, if not selling them, at least sending them to their rooms for a week or so. #1 is also just now beginning to try and figure out "attitude" and I know damn well she is getting this crap from watching the idiot shows on the Disney channel. If I get hold of anyone from the Disney channel, I'm kicking them in the nuts or whatever the equivalent is for a woman.

For all of my whining (and it can be considerable) I love them dearly and try to make sure that I'm reading to them and helping #1 learn how to tell time and things like that. Really, I'm trying to be a good Dad and not just be mad all the time.

However, I have to say to all the women in my life......Would it kill you (all of you) to be in a good mood when Dad got home once in a while? And, to my honey, would it kill you to chase ME around the house for once? I can count on the fingers of one hand the # of times we've gotten naked because you wanted to this year.

Anyway, that's it for the ranting and/or whining today. Saints play tonight and maybe I'll chase my girl around the house and not worry about who is chasing who. Maybe she'll even let me catch her?

Later

Finally, it's football season

and other positives and negatives for the month of August.

Kicked off the month in a rousing way by getting a huge pain in the back. Started on Thursday (yes, I know that was July) and I had to go to the Dr. on Friday. He diagnosed as muscular with a reasonable possibility it was pleurisy. I really don't care what it was, but it made me very unhappy. Getting better now, back at work and so forth. Need to start exercising again, but my mileage for this week and last is going to be shot.

Finally, it's football season!! Saints are well into training camp, and the Tigers reported Sunday. I've been looking forward to this basically since last season and I can't believe it's finally here. Watched the HOF game Sunday night on the plasma and it was great!!
Saints tomorrow night, so I may have to crack open a beer on a school night. First college game is the 28th (I think) and the Tigers first game is the 30th.

Nothing has been done on the Jeep in about 3 weeks. As it stands now, I'm buying an old harness from a guy on the Florida Jeepers site, then I'm going to solder it into the Painless harness so I'll have bulbs for the gauges. THe new painless kit is $500 and thats just too much. Maybe later I'll buy one and rewire the Jeep again. Also on the agenda is the body lift removal and replacement. Hope to have that done this weekend, but I'm not going to bet a large quantity of money on it. What I do plan to have done is oil back into all the places I drained a few weeks ago, namely the front axle, transmission and transfer case. Once I find a new gasket for the rear end, I'm going to drain and replace that as well. While I'm at it, I'm going to replace, or at least tighten the bolts on the exhaust. When I had it running a while back, it was really loud and I noticed the bolts from the manifold to the downpipe are loose and there is a huge gap there.

Later

Still Grinding..

Well, not much is going on at the moment. In the real world, got a b-day party to plan for (for a soon to be 5 year old) and a 2.5 year old that at times seems more like a grizzly bear with a sore tooth. My honey is now re-nesting in our house and is (to be overly honest) making me a little crazy. I'm not sure why we need new light fixtures, since the old ones work perfectly well, but apparently we do.

Not much happening on the Jeep. I was a little sick this weekend, some kind of 24/48 hour virus I think and it kept me from getting any work done. I did manage to get up to Pep Boys to get the rest of the necessary gear oil, and try to use up some of my gift card. In fact I was a little annoyed that I somehow missed the fact there was a Pep Boys nearby. I've spent a bunch of money on oil and other consumables that I could have used my gift card on. I think for this week, the goals are (#1) to get new oil into the front axle, tranny and transfer case and change the oil in the rear diff. (#2) will then be to get the redneck body lift out and install the new one. This of course, is more involved than it sounds, although all the bolts on the POS lift currently on it are loose. I mostly have to get the remaining connections loose. The biggest one of these is the steering shaft. Next biggest problem is "how the f$@* do you lift the body off the frame enough to get the old lift out? I'm going to have to rig something up on one of the jacks to get the body up.

Work is the same, still proceeding with the normal month end and other processes, plus finishing up the due diligence for our potential deal. Pretty much everything is hinging on that, so we are really in a holding pattern until this is resolved.

Later

Back to the grind I guess

Well, it's not all that bad, but it does feel like some of the excitement of the last few weeks has gone away. Of course, considering the amount of piss-off and stress generated over the last few weeks, that's not a bad thing. Here's whats going on.....

Work: back to the grind as said above. Have I mentioned that the current construction market sucks? The potential purchase is moving forward, and it looks like a done deal, although that's not final yet. We're preparing for the announcement and trying to cover our informational bases so we are prepared for the questions. I believe we'll be okay in this regard. Other than that, we're trying to get back to the daily work and keep everything moving forward.

Jeep: Finally got back to work on the Jeep a little this weekend. Just dropped the front diff cover to change the oil, but at least it was something. My goal for this week is to get all the fluids changed by Friday night. Tonight, we'll get the engine oil and filter changed, then just keep moving back on the Jeep until the rear diff is finished. This weekend, I'd like to get the new body lift on and change out the old redneck engineering lift.

Other stuff. Got a new accounting study book last week, IFRS vs. Gaap. Exciting stuff, I know and I expect anyone out there would love to have this book.(if you have insomnia)

Later!

The more things change.......

the more they stay the same.

Well, after all the drama, and the heartbreak, and heartburn and so forth, we are staying put here in SW FL. Finally made a decision (by 52%/48%) to stay, and called the people in LFT to let them know. When they called me back, he says "well, let me talk to the owner and see what he says". That just about sent me into some sort of frenzy, but I managed to wait it out. When he finally called back, he said they weren't going to budge on their offer, oh and by the way, we are in the midst of some fairly serious negotiations to sell the company. Now I have to say that even with an employment agreement, I would have been very annoyed to have moved over there and found myself out of a job 3 months later. That changed the percentage to about 90%/10%, with only emotion voting for the move.

So, let everyone here know, and they were fairly excited. I was beginning to wonder if the boss man was getting a placement fee or something if I stayed....

Not much else going on other than ridiculous amounts of rainfall. Went to the beach on Saturday for about an hour. That was fun, and an hour is just about right for me. I'm not an all day beach person.

Haven't done crap on the Jeep in the last 2 weeks, guess I have to change that pretty soon. Problem is, I don't want to do too much on the electrical until I decide whether or not I should buy a new wiring harness to replace the new one that asshole previous owner screwed up. I guess I'll try to focus on getting fluids changed, body lift installed and maybe the clutch linkage fixed.

Later

Somebody get me a doctor!

Yeh, I'm shamelessly stealing from my boys, Van Halen, but screw it. Thought I would update my situation after another 24....

Went home last night just bamboozled. I mean I didn't know whether to shit or go blind. Had a couple of drinks and it at least helped. Talked it out with my honey and we still can't make a decision. Since I was meeting with Kevin today, that's okay and here's hoping to something that will allow us to make an easy decision (toast with your glass!)

Met with Kevin today, and it's still not all that easy. He is pretty personable, maybe a little intense. The job COULD be interesting and that's the hell of it. Do I stay, and assume that 1) the sale will go through (I think it will) 2) that I'll get along with Kevin and 3) that I'll like what he has me doing. If any of those things don't turn in my favor over the next 6 months, I'm going to be very upset that I didn't take the job in LFT. If they do go in my favor, I'm sitting in the catbird seat, running most if not all of the accounting dept for a 2Billion (revenues) construction company.

I just don't f-ing know, and I can't decide if the decision is making me crazy, or my inability to reach a fast decision is making me crazy. I rarely have this problem, but I'm stuck between wanting to be back home with family and lifelong friends, but knowing that this job will end over the next few years and we may have to move again vs. staying here and hoping that it works out.

If anyone knows how to get hold of Solomon (yes, the biblical one), please send it my way. I need some high powered help making this decision.

Later

Now f****ing what???

Sometimes, you just want to scream "FUCK!!"

Know what I mean?

Okay, so back in late June, I officially accepted the job offer from the guys in Lft, then headed off on vacation with a song in my heart.Got back from vaca Monday, and suggested to the boss man that we go ahead and let everyone know that I had turned in my resignation. He deferred, saying that I needed to meet with he and fred prior to that to discuss the possibility of traveling back and forth from here to LFT for a while. So I swore to myself, and said "Okay".

Fast forward to Tues morning, about half an hour before the meeting. Sitting with el jefe, and I asked him what he had been working on. Now I had a reasonably good idea that something was going on (that is, something out of the ordinary, so when I asked, he told me. So Fred is getting bought out and we will be working for someone else. Now normally, this would have validated my choice to leave. But then he said that the acquiring company was moving their HQ AND all their accounting and other back office stuff to Naples. They needed someone to handle their accounting and let their current CFO handle other things. Apparently he had said good things about me, so they were disappointed that I was leaving. WEll, now I'm starting to wonder if I fucked up and made a bad decision.

Then we go meet with Fred and he's telling me about the deal also (the boss had sworn me to secrecy, so I didn't tell him I knew) and Fred told me the same things. So to make a long, frustrating and confusing story slightly shorter, I'm meeting with the other company's CFO tomorrow to discuss the deal, the ongoing due diligence plus this gives me a chance to meet the guy. So now, everything is on hold and I'm so conflicted all I can do is walk around and say "FUCK" in a really aggravated tone of voice.

Bottom Line? I wish I knew. I guess we'll see tomorrow afternoon. Going to be some really disappointed people in LFT if we don't follow through though.

Other stuff? Vacation was nice. Nags head is going to get overbuilt if they're not careful (and I'm pretty sure they aren't going to be). Working on the (now potential) move last night and so far the biggest obstacle, at least in the pain in th ass contest, if moving the old Jeep I bought. So far, flat towing is the only option that doesn't appear like it will cost more than I paid for the stupid thing.

Dead time of the year for my Tigers, but football is less than 2 months away and fall practice is even closer than that.

Done Deal

Well, made it official today. Heading back to LFT. Still feel a little weird about it, but it's done so it's time to make my peace with it and move on.

Will start new position somewhere around 08/01. It'll be nice to be near home, especially with the health problems my folks are having. Hated to break news to Phil, I think he's still in shock. Now onto the next hard thing.....have to sell house, here in the land of crap housing markets. Hopefully this will work out without us having to take too big a bath. May have to hit the nearest church and light a candle...

No update on the Jeep, as I haven't done much on it this week with everything else that's been going on. got to figure out how to get it to LFT. Not excited about flat towing it, so I may have to rent a truck and trailer.

Later

New LFT update

LFT: Have been offered the position and am trying to negotiate my way into the job. Problem is, I have no idea what my house is worth, plus it may kill me to have to have that conversation with Phil. I guess we'll see, and to quote my wife, what is meant to be will be.

Jeep: Not much cooking on this front. Seriously considering punting on the idea of restoring the dashboard, since the dildo previous owner (PO), as part of his hacking, cut off all the damned sockets/bulbs out of the dashboard harness. I hadn't realized how that worked until yesterday. No wonder numb nuts wasn't worried about having a dashboard. Options now include ordering a new harness (expensive!) or just using mechanical gauges in the stock dash and ignoring all the rest of the pretty little lights.

LSU: knocked out of the CWS, but we won a game and didn't play bad. I think this team has turned a corner, and could be really good next year if a couple of starting pitchers emerge.

Everything's good with the family, and we're off on vacation next weekend, so later!

Lft update, other goings on

Well, back from LFT and the interview went pretty darn well. Had about an hour and a half talk with the president, then met the owner, then had lunch with the president at a local restraunt. Pretty cool, and I really believe it went well. If they do what I think they are going to do and offer me the job, I'm going to have one hell of a decision to make. And if they don't, well I have a job that I'm really enjoying now. In contrast to leaving Shaw, this job will actually make me think about it.....I have to admit, it would be nice to be back home and able to do some duck hunting, LSU sports etc....

I guess it's time for a jeep update too. Much better news to report on that front, finally. I went back and replaced the brand new solenoid (technically it's a relay), then grounded the mount of the solenoid to the frame, and cleaned off the rest of the grounds I had added and son of the bitch!! I turned the key and the solenoid clicked!! Woo HOO!! Life is good and all that stuff.

I went back in and finished hooking everything up and once again, Woo HOO!! Turn the key and the starter fired right over. It actually scared me, it's been so frustrating that I really didn't expect it to work.

After that, I pulled all the rubber fuel hose and replaced it along with the fuel pump and the fuel filter. Poured a little bit of gas directly into the carb and it actually fired up for about 3 seconds. After that, I did it again, with a little more gas and WOO HOO, it fired up and ran for about 10 seconds. After that, I had regained the use of my faculties and checked the (aftermarket) oil pressure gauge. Since it showed a big fat ZERO, I shut off the motor. Still, it cranked and it fired. Life really is good.

Later

I hate wiring

Wiring project is going into the crapper. So far, I have power to the ignition switch on the column, but no power coming back out.......CRAP!

I'll get it done, but it is really frustrating.

Headed to LFT for an interview on Monday. I feel very conflicted about this, but I'll update more on this later.

Things are moving at work and we are proceeding with the kick-off meetings and prep meetings for the salesforce.com(sfdc) implementation.

Later

Quick hitter from the weekend

spent way too much money on random fasteners and tools and crap like that for the Jeep project. How can I have so many tools and still need stuff?

Wiring project is proceeding at a slower pace than I would like, but it's proceeding. Engine compartment is wired from battery to solenoid to alternator. Headlights are about 90%, front turn signals are at about 10%. Since the Jeep doesn't have front parking lights, I guess they're at about 0%.

Pulled the steering wheel and lock plate, so I can get at the turn signal switch and/or ignition if need be. Found that the wires hanging down off the steering column belong to the brake switch, which means that even if everything was running, I have no brake lights. Got to figure out tonight how to wire them back into the turn signal wiring harness. I can't believe the ASS-CLOWN previous owner screwed up the brake lights!!!!! MORON!!

Can't do much on the rest of the interior until the dashboard arrives. I could work on the seats and get the brackets installed for the drivers side, but why bother until the wiring is done? I may get the bracket out of the box and test fit it to make sure there are no little oddities with the fiberglass body.

I'd like to get the wiring mostly buttoned up before I mess with the fuel system, but I may go ahead and drop the fuel tank to drain it before finishing the wiring. I kind of want to see what the wires sticking out of the top of the tank are anyway. I may also change the fuel filter up by the engine and possibly the rubber fuel hose. I'm not going to mess with the hardlines unless they are actively leaking. The fuel filler hose and other random parts that I bought off the Jeep site should be here either tomorrow or Wed. This means once I drop the tank, I can re-assemble completely with no waiting around for parts.

Hoping to at least get it turning over by simply turning the ignition switch by this weekend.


LSU:
How about my Tiger Baseball Team!!!!!! Dramatic comeback in the 9th to force a Game 3 with Cal-Irvine. Hopefully, we'll get some good pitching from whoever starts tonight, and be able to hit the UCI pitcher early and often. I don't think LSU has played really well over the last 2 games and it shows. I' m not going to describe the comeback in detail, but suffice to say it was the most excited I've been about an LSU sporting event since they took the lead in the BCS National Championship game earlier this year.

(Edit) I had bitched previously about the dance recital. I have to say (to be fair) that the idiot teacher kept things moving right along and ALL the classes (11 of them) were done in approximately 1 hour. Apologies to her for my underestimating her show. Since it was tolerably short, it ended up being kind of cute.

People are stupid

People are stupid!

come on, say it with me. It seems that the majority of "the people", aka the great unwashed masses, or the ugly americans or whatever are just not that freaking bright. I don't know if it's the strain on the educational systems, or new math or what, but they're just dumb.

I posted a while back that we had been raided by our good friends from ICE. Okay, fine, they caught us with one guy whose papers didn't check out. Out of over 300 employees, I don't think that's too bad. But one of our subs had 24 illegals picked up and everyone on the planet is writing and posting online about how "we" had 25 illegal alien employees picked up. It's just not true and it pisses me off. I'm pretty damn sure that most of the are just stirring up shit, or are seeing if they can screw up our next bid.

Assholes!

End of bitch session on this topic......

ON to the weekend. Dance recital tonight. Excited about seeing my daughter dance. NOT EXCITED about seeing the other 9 classes this idiot woman teaches dance over a 3 hour period on a Friday night. Why not break it up by age group and then let me exit stage left after an hour or so???

Honey-bunny (and the kids and the dog) are leaving Sat. I have to say that while I'll miss them, I am also loving the alone time. Serious Jeep work coming up, plus maybe a little yard work and some cooking.

Later

Now what (part 2)

Continuing the previous update....

Boxes of jeep parts continue to arrive. Expecting 2 more before the end of the week with possibly another one or 2 to come. Working on the purchase of a dashboard and some fuel system stuff.

No update on the LFT job. With that possibility in mind, I checked some comparables in the Estero/Bonita area to see how the value of our house was holding up. Just a guess, but I think that we are losing ground, but still not less than our downpayment. Of course that depends on what happens with the housing markets, costs of mortgages and so forth.

personal?
My child bride is heading up to the panhandle this weekend for a week or so. Going to be awful quiet in the house, but I plan to use the time to work on my new toy, exercise, and try to catch up on some of the magazines and books I've been not reading. Kids are not sick, which is kind of weird feeling, but I like it. My oldest has suddenly decided that swimming is not the devils work after all, and that it might even be fun. Definitely time to get that child some swimming lessons.

Work:
Lot of good stuff happening at work right now. I'm feeling energized and have started moving forward on several projects we have been playing around with.
#1. We have begun an implementation of salesforce.com. I have every belief that this is going to provide us with an immediate and impactful increase in efficiency for tracking job chases, job leads and jobs currently in pre-con.
#2. We are trying out sub-jobs in our (relatively) new accounting software. This could be either a real boon or a real pain and we won't know for a couple of months. But at least we are trying it and growing in our project management.
#3. P-Card....moving forward with this.
Other work stuff happening too, but these are the big ones for this week.

Not much else happening this week. My oldest graduates from pre-k (seriously, a cap and gown for a 5 year old?) and has a dance recital.

Peace

Now What? (part one)

Been a lot of "stuff" (substitute in your favorite cuss word as needed) going on since the last post, so I thought I would update for posterity.

Changes? As posted in a previous entry, I had found a pretty cool looking job back in the home town. As my Dad, and now sister are starting to have health problems, I thought that would be good. I'd like to add that I had initially planned to stay here in my current position for quite a while, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered to move 900 miles to get here. Anyway, I called the recruiter and had a brief discussion with her about the job, was it still open, etc.... Turns out the job is still open so I send in my resume. She leaves on vacation, so I don't hear back until Wed of last week, when I called her to confirm she had received the information. Friday she calls to say the company is interested and can we talk sometime. Now we are in a holding pattern until the current president can clear time in his schedule. Still, progress has been made and I feel both good and bad about it. Feel good because I would love to get back home and still be making the kind of money I am now. Feel bad because I have a commitment to my current employer and I'll actually hate to leave them.

Jeep:
Had the Jeep towed up to the house on the 24th, and have been working like a wild man on the jeep, and I'm just so happy I could shit. So far, I have torn out all the wiring, fixed the leaking tires so they hold air, confirmed the identity of the transmission and transfer case and bought a crapload of parts and tools. Wife is out of town starting this weekend, so I hope to have the electrical and fuel systems wrapped up by the time she returns. That leaves the 4" body lift made out of thin wall pipe, the screwy homemade shackles and the clutch to fix. Plus, I'd like to put POR 15 on some if not all the frame and hit the inside of the body with herculiner. I guess we'll see how many of those projects actually get done. As always, updates will be forthcoming, hopefully with pics.

Part II later,

Peace

Success!

Updates!

Jeep-deal is done. $1,500 and it's mine all mine. Delivery this weekend by tow truck, since it doesn't run. My logic for that is "I can part it out and get my money back". I'll post pics after delivery and when I have a chance to figure out how to do it. I'll also be posting periodically on projects that I'm working on to fix/repair/upgrade the jeep. First projects include changing out ALL fluids and filters, probably the spark plugs and possibly everything under the distributor cap as well.

In-laws have finally got their RV back from the wreck it was involved in. For the record, it takes an incredibly long time to repair these stupid things.....almost exactly 5 months from the date of the accident!

Not too much to update at work. We are continuing to aggressively chase problems in the accounting software, rather than passively wait for someone to tell us how to fix, or that we need to fix. In addition, we are prototyping the sub-job functionality so we can see if this is something we really want to do.
Will also be signing the Salesforce.com agreement soon, so we can start that implementation project. Need to force our implementation consultants to cut their rates and get more reasonable.

Family is well, I was sick for the first time, so apparently the girls finally managed to come home with something I hadn't had yet. Actually, I'm still sick, but I'm gutting it out at work for the day.

That's all for the day

peace

another update!?

Wow, bad weather in the old home town last night. Looked like a freakin hurricane went thru. Current speculation is that a mini tornado went right thru the oil center and that area, ripping down trees, power lines, roofs etc. My parents lost power for most of the day. Everybody is okay and that's the good news.

Rough day at work yesterday. Our good friends at ICE raided one of the job sites and busted 25 people. I have no problem with this, but the media frenzy surrounding it and some of the idiot commentary accompanying it irritates me. To be clear, I am personally against illegal immigration and also against all of the current amnesty programs floating around out there. That being said, I fail to see how it is the General Contractors responsibility that everyone on the job is legal. Only one of our employees was pulled in, and our paperwork for him indicates he is in fact legal. All of the others worked for subcontractos, and therein lies my irritation. We (as a company) have no control over the subs or their hiring practices. We have written into the subcontracts that they subs must follow the required hiring practices to prove that each employee is legal to work in the U.S.
Anyway, it just bugs me that we could be held responsible for something that we have no control over.
On a positive work note, I have approval to run with the salesforce.com project. Finally, just when I'd given up hope that a decision could be made in this company. I've called our contact at SF.com and I'm waiting on pricing. We'll revisit this issue later.


No update on my Jeep project. He called me, then I called him and I'm back in a waiting pattern. Hopefully, numb nuts checks his voice mail this weekend and picks up the phone. We'll see and I'll certainly update if he does. Hell, I may even post a picture if I can figure out how.


LSU baseball is going insane! Winners of 14 straight and pushing for #1 in the SEC West. We win one more, or Bama loses one and we're in. Won at Auburn last night and playing tonight and again tomorrow.
Perrilloux update: signed with Jacksonville State. Contrary to what it sounds, the school is in Alabama not Florida.


Last but certainly not least....I was screwing off the other night surfing the net and decided to visit the hometown paper for a sports update. After that, I said "WTF" and hit on the classifieds just to see what was percolating. Lo and behold, up pops a CFO job that pays about what I make now (if not a wee bit more) and it's only a couple of weeks old. After some soul searching, I talked with my hunny bunny and then decided to visit with the recruiter. After a 5 minute call with her, I sent my resume in this morning. Obviously, no word yet, but this is going to be interested. My original (longer term) plan was to stay here for another 2-5 years and then work to get more into the Gulf South, a little closer to home. I have no idea what I will tell the senior people here if this happens. I'm going to have to think about that......

Peace