August 2002 Archives

Looks like it's been over 2 weeks since my last post again, huh? That's OK... a LOT has happened!

Number 1 -- I'm an uncle. Early last Sunday morning, Jeremy Blake was brought into the world. He's healthy, his Mom's OK, and his Dad is as proud as they come! Click HERE (link no longer active) to see some pictures: I haven't been able to see him yet, because of Number 2.

Number 2 (appropriately titled?) -- Not counting today, I worked 71 hours this past week. That's in 6 days... that's almost 12 hours a day for 6 days straight. I needed the rest today, instead of being on the road for 6 - 7 hours... probably a safe choice, too. Choices... I'll come back to that in a bit.

Number 3 -- Got to see m'lady Sheryl Crow again. This time in VA Beach. As usual, I was enamored. There is nothing sexier than a hot, petite lady singing and dancing on a piano! I got a souvenir from this show!! I got the guitarist's set list! Would have been cool if I could have gotten in autographed, but oh well.

Number 4 -- College Football is upon us again! I got to see VA Tech absolutely destroy Arkansas State today 63 - 7. Man, I love this time of year... if it'd only cool off some!

Back to the choices. It's been a pretty prevalent theme in the past year, that life is all about choices. I've heard it in therapy. It was brought up in a Leadership Training Seminar. If you think about it, life really is all about choices.

Say you get stuck in traffic and get angry about that. Did the traffic piss you off? Nope. You chose to be angry about it. If the traffic pissed you off, it would happen every time you were stuck in traffic.

Emotions are mostly choices. You have the choice to be happy, sad, frustrated, or whatever. Well, that's not always true... there are some chemical reasons for altered moods. Think about that next time someone has you down, or frustrated. You chose to feel that way. With a little time and thought, you can choose to change that.

That also goes with some other changes. You can choose to change almost anything you'd like. With the exception of some dependencies, you can choose to change bad habits. You can choose to change how you deal with people. You can choose to not have work dominate your life. You can choose to not be passive. You can choose to take control where you feel it's lacking.

Not trying to preach that anything you want can happen, because it's simply not true. You can choose whatever you want, but you also have to face the consequences of your choices. You can choose to rob a bank, but that doesn't make it a smart choice. You can choose to not go to work, but you might get fired.

I believe that once you make good choices, you tend to do it more frequently. And then eventually, good things, or change, or whatever you're looking for can become easier to reach.

As mentioned earlier, this topic was somewhat touched upon in a Leadership Training Session. The real topic was "Courage in Leadership". The courage part comes in when choosing how to make good choices. But what if you have to make a choice, and it's between 2 "right" options... that takes courage... I'll probably try to come back to this topic in a future "Reflection".

For now, I'm off to bed because there's no telling how many hours work will hold for me tomorrow!

Coincidence?
This was a horoscope for Gemini for Saturday, August 10:

Right now you could be in the mood to make a change to your career,
Brian. You could feel a little frustrated or limited by the situation in
which you are working. Maybe you will want to think about sending out
some resumes. Or you could ask some colleagues to keep their ears open
about new opportunities. You'll feel good if you can realize that you do
control your destiny, and you aren't really trapped!

Where's the coincidence? Hmmm... lemme just tell you about my day and my wonderful job!!!

It's that time of year... the beginning of the school year... time for renewal, time for excitement, time for enthusiasm. It's also time when "raises" go out, and to the deserving directors, bonuses as well. I'm not going to lie -- I BUST MY ASS FOR MERIWETHER-GODSEY. I've worked so hard and gotten myself so stressed that I literally got sick. I have spent much of the time at my psychiatrist defending my job as something that I enjoy doing. And I even claim that I have been fairly compensated. But you know what? Today was a CROCK OF SHIT!!!

I can understand the fact that I'm not getting a bonus this year. I didn't quite meet my financial goals. I have some questions about that and how those numbers were reached, but I can accept their determination. But that's for bonus, meaning "above and beyond" -- a reward for exceeding financial goals.

So, how about the yearly raise? How does a 2% increase sound? Sound pretty damned small to you? It sure does to me. We're given a line that CPI was less than 1% and that we're being paid in excess of cost of living differences. First of all, where does this number come from? Does it mean that costs of living are less than 1% different than from a year ago? Does this take into account that Northern VA isn't fucking small ass Chatham, VA? How about this? My rent jumped up a total of 16% this year... Divide that 3 ways, and it's still over 5% increase.

So, after a year where I busted my ass, trying to make things good or better for myself, I'm given a 2% increase to handle what I'm perceiving as a 5% cost of living increase. Yep, I'm in the hole for the next 12 months, at least.

Where's the incentive there? I feel as though I can just show up at work and sleepwalk through my job and end up losing money! And don't give me this "blame the economy" bullshit!! How do you beat an economic downturn? Through spending and investing. I can't spend because my company isn't investing in my abilities. Maybe it is time that I started to look around again. I've always wanted a computer job. The funny things is... I'm not the only one thinking this way.

It's been over 2 weeks since I've updated AGAIN!!! Shame on me!!!

Here's what's going on wit' me:

I got to see Dave Matthews in concert last week. You probably won't believe this, but I was disappointed!! It wasn't the music that disappointed me. It was Dave!! First of all, Nissan Pavilion was PACKED!! It was probably the first legitimate sell-out I'd been to there. We got there later than I would have liked to, but that worked out to our advantage -- we parked on the curb outside of the parking lot, which allowed for a speedy exit!

There just might be a future in our youth. I believe that there were more teenagers there than the rest of us. That means 2 things: 1) Today's teenagers aren't necessarily "slaves" to the boy-band, MTV-style crap that's on the radio these days. They still listen to and enjoy good ol' rock n' roll, or at least DMB. 2) As we get older, there'll always be hot, attractive young girls to look at and remember how when we were their age, they ignored us. At least we can look at 'em (as long as our vision holds out, that is).

Speaking of hot, the show took place on one of those 95 degree days, and when packing 30,000 (just a guess, wouldn't surprise me to be more) people in a bowl, it gets unbearably hot. After a little bit, I had some problems dealing with the heat and my anxiety. So, to enable myself to enjoy the show, I decide to cut off the physical symptoms of anxiety (the heat), by cooling off with some ice. But guess what -- it wasn't cheap! ARAMARK chooses to sell a cup of ice for $4. That's FOUR FRIGGIN' DOLLARS for frozen water. Hey ARAMARK, nice display of public service. It's no wonder that smaller companies like ours are slowly but surely taking over your accounts. WE LISTEN AND ATTEND TO CUSTOMER's NEEDS!!! Remember that!

So, why did I consider DMB a disappointment? Well he quit playing at 10:30!! I've been going to concerts since I was 16 (that's 14 years to you non-math majors), and not a single concert has ended that early!!! And this is mighty close to Dave's hometown, you'd think he'd put on a special show for the home crowd!!! But no, I guess he's getting so big that he'll take our money, play a couple of hours, and just leave. Guess what, Dave friggin' Matthews? That ain't customer service either!!! We pay our money to buy your CD's, your T-shirts, and your concert tickets. And you decide to cut the show off early? I guess when you get that big, you do whatever you want to do... who cares about us? There'll be no veiled threat that I'll boycott his music or shows or anything, because I really do enjoy his music.... but I surely don't think any more of the man!

The Movies:

I've spent some time in the theater lately, and saw 3 pretty good movies. In order of my preference, they were "Austin Powers 3: Goldmember", "Signs", and "Minority Report". All 3 movies were in the good to excellent range.

"Goldmember" was funny as hell. But if it weren't for all of the cameos, I'm not sure how funny the movie would have been. All I have to say is Danny Devito as Mini-me... that's fucking funny!!!

"Signs" was advertised to be a scary movie. And it was, but it was more than that. It had a moral -- not a "Shallow Hal"-type, be-nice-to-fat-people-moral, but rather a nice, non-preachy (interesting, coincidental choice of words there) moral. It's a film about Faith!

But my favorite of the 3 was "Minority Report". What an exciting, action-filled movie which delivered a somewhat surprising ending. You're led to believe that Tom Cruise's character is being set-up.... and find out that... well, he's being set-up, but differently than expected. Trust me, check out this movie and see for yourself. If you're into the futuristic-type adventure movie, then this is the one to see. I can't wait for it to hit DVD just to see all of the extras!

Hey, I won flight and hotel stay for 3 nights for 2 people to ANY WHERE in the CONTINENTAL USA!! Is that cool or what? I'm racking my brain figuring out where I'd rather go and stay for free... NYC would be cool!! but I'm thinking of somewhere on the left coast side of the country... Vegas, Seattle, San Diego?? All sound pretty good, right? It's OK, I've got until next July to use them, so I've got plenty of time to figure it out!!!

Hopefully, I'll be better about updating this ol' thing!

So, why did DMB disappoint me?