A Week in the Life 22 - The Story So Far

Ahh, welcome back friends!

Ok here goes.

I applied for a timekeeping position at work a while back. The position didn't necessarily offer more in terms of pay, but it's a back office job which would alleviate my time on the phone processing claims. In addition, it didn't require any weekend work.

So I went ahead and put my name in the hat. I really liked the idea of having a job with weekends off, and there's something to be said for not spending all day on the phone filing insurance claims. It's not a bad job by any means, but it can affect your mood depending on the severity of the claim (i.e. fatalities), or the demeanor of the caller (i.e. total asshole).

So, I was pulled from my desk last Monday the 11th. I had previously sat down with management to discuss the ins and outs of the position a couple of times before, but they went ahead and let me know that I was their second choice. I really had no preference one way or the other, because in this day and age a job's a job, so I returned to my desk to finish out my day.

A couple hours later I was pulled from my desk a second time. This time I was informed that the person chosen for the position had declined, meaning the position was mine for the taking. So as of last Monday I'm the new timekeeper... hooray me. Since then I've been busy training for the job, and my schedule has been shifted to overlap the person moving out of the position. So it's been a busy week and I apologize for my absence, but things are returning to normal so full steam ahead.

Now my day consists of adjusting work schedules, keeping track of employee's missed time, and making sure people get paid correctly for overtime, vacation time, bereavement, etc. It's a whole lot of numbers to crunch working with 200+ employees, but it's right up my alley and I'm enjoying it a great deal.

____________________________________________________________________

In addition, I had the pleasure of spending some time with my old friend Liz Gaylor. Liz was the bees knees of viola players when we played together both at Alamogordo High School and for a time in the Las Cruces Symphony before she moved on to bigger and better things. Through the magic that is Facebook we were able to reconnect, providing us an opportunity to catch up on lost time.

Saturday I played with the New Horizons Orchestra. New Horizons is an organization which oversees the forming of community music groups to cater to adults and senior citizens whom are just learning a new instrument, or may have played before but have been inactive for some time. The purpose is to provide, you guessed it, new horizons for those local educators, casual musicians, would be musicians, and all those who love playing music but never get the chance.

I must say I had a great deal of fun playing with the group. There's something to be said for playing music for the sake of playing music. It has a certain fulfilling quality you don't find when you're playing professionally. Don't get me wrong, I love that I am able to perform at a level that makes people think they have to pay me, but there's a certain gratitude people have for volunteer work that you simply will not find anywhere else. I guess you could say I'm pro pro bono, and I look forward to playing with the group again whenever I'm available.

So, in grand coincidental style, it turns out that Liz's mother performs as the principal flautist with the New Horizons Orchestra, which worked out great in terms of finding a time to get together for a beer. I must say for the record that she hasn't aged a day since we were in high school (a strange phenomenon amongst AHS alumni). We headed over to Farley's for a pitcher of Dos Equis Lager, and Crystal and Caitlyn met us there to shoot the breeze.

On Sunday, the family and I went down to El Paso for the day. Crystal was shopping for a dress to wear to my sister's upcoming wedding, and I was searching for some top notch Chinese buffet action. We were both successful. In addition, we procured some knockoff shades, so when you see Crystal rocking her Coach and Chanel sunglasses, make sure you envy her. But really, it's pretty fucking bright over here, so we bought the first sunglasses we could find. In the evening, Liz and her mother came by the house for a quick final visit before she left back to Fort Collins on Monday.

All in all, a very busy week, and a whole lot of fun.

So, this week I'll be adjusting to my preferred sleeping schedule of staying up late and waking up not as early. Can't wait for the weekend and the drunken stupor that is the Southern New Mexico Wine Festival. Should be, again, a great deal of fun.

Hope you all have a wonderful week and nice talking to you again.

Jimmy

P.S. Thanks for the gas!! (You know who you are.)

WTF - Pretentious Cat Food!

Ok, ladies and gentlemen, birthday week is over. Back to business. And by business I mean bitching about things I have neither the resources nor wherewithal to change.

So here we are in the first of a series of television related rants. I felt the need to split these up seeing as how I can't seem to make enough time in the day to publish a nice long juicy post. Couple that with the fact that each of these little TV nuisances provides me with a full day's worth of frustration, nudging me ever-closer to spending the remainder of my days with just my wife, my baby, and my computer; relinquishing myself from the indentured servitude of commercial and/or pay television. Anyway, on with the show.

FYI, the trademarks (i.e. ™) were gumming up the works, so they're omitted. I'd appreciate it if the two of you still reading this blog would be so kind as to not report my infringement.

Now here's a small test for you.

Which of these delectable meals was manufactured for cats, and which one was manufactured for human consumption.




Answer: The food item on the left is cat food... on the right is risotto primavera.


My point being this, at which point did we decide that our cats should eat better than we do? Are they not prone to tongue-bathing their own asses? Do they not mate like rabid furr-banshees, making noises akin to a stuck pig in salt water? How did the cat go from the preferred "I can leave it home by itself" animal, to the Mooby of pets?
Don't ask him. He doesn't know.

Now I'm all for good pet nutrition. I've bought my fair share of Free Range Organic Hill's Science-Diet where applicable to any given pet. I can appreciate the complexity necessary to balance a diet of hair, white dog shit, and small Peruvian lizards.

But lavish and extravagant vittles for an animal who'd kill it's own mother to grasp laser light? It just doesn't add up.

Why in this day and age is there still a vast global famine, yet we feel compelled to dish up restaurant quality meals for ol' Boots here?

It's not to say that I can't appreciate cats, or the need to spoil them like children. But it all has a sort of Douglas Adams stink to it, in that someday, when it's all said and done and we're on the brink of Armageddon. The cats will leave us with a nice "so long, and thanks for all the fish".

Maybe it's just me, maybe I'm just being jealous.
After all, I eat goddamn Chef Boyardee. No! Scratch that. I eat whatever bastardized version of Chef Boyardee I can afford at Wal-Mart for 97¢ a can. And it sucks. But it's cheap, and you can survive off of it. In fact, it's probably closer to actual cat food than that hoity-toity bullshit pictured above.

Christ, I just can't take it anymore.



The real crotch-kicker here is that I love cats!?!! So the only people left to blame are the money-grubbing bastards at Purina. It's like they're preying on little old ladies who have personified their pets to the point of Waterford Crystal collars and self-scooping robotic litter boxes. So knock it off Purina! Leave the exploitation of the elderly to organized religion, the Hoveround, and CBS.


Jimmy out!

P.S. Next time: The ol' switcheroo! For now, a souffle.




Oh yeah.

That's right.

It's cat food.....