Before:
Kevin was born on the mossy hills of Scotland and lived for a while in West Lothian before the mores of pre-Thatcher and REALLY pre-Oasis Great Britain sent his family across the ocean to North America. They moved here and there and Kevin did the same when he was old enough. Now he lives in London with his family and a Dog.
Kevin Wardrop is an amateur writer, amateur photographer and professional pain in the ass. He has worked in the PC support business for most of his adult life and has been accustomed to simply answering technical questions as a matter of fiat, it was his career choice after all. Now he herds cats and puppies for a living as well as babysitting the web enterprises at the heart of western industry.
“what’s best for the customer” is short cut away from logic and responsibility for an organization. they think that as long as the “customer” is happy, they have their collective assets covered. this is a fallacy, the organization really has to itself, “what can we do to make the most profit, while still remaining an admired brand and trusted vendor”
this is the challenge a large company faces
After work I was frozen out of my car!!!!
I tried calling Ben for a ride to the store for some lock deicer, but he didn’t answer. Big Steve R gave me his window deicer, but it didn’t work. Eventually I used a small screwdriver to provide more torque to open the passenger side door (along with a full-size screwdriver to break the damn seal around the door itself). Once I got in there, the unlock button failed to loosen the driver-side door. The darn thing was FROZEN SOLID!
Much manual work and grunting got the door open and I drove it home.
I decided that until the air temperature comes up, I will park in my Garage, with my doors unlocked.
Hopefully that will be the end of getting locked out.
well, a half tooth. I had a huge cavity in a front tooth. It was so bad I almost never showed my teeth if I could avoid it. Today I was at Dr. Dunham’s office and got fillings (and half-a-tooth) in the front. I have a bunch more to go later on. It was such a breezy visit, walk in, freezing (no pain and didn’t feel the needles) some drilling and filling (with resin) and out again.
During the drilling they were spraying cold water and air across my teeth, that hurt like hell.
I’m at home today, with a sore throat. It’s not too severe, but at the same time I have a ton of sick time saved, so I need to burn some of it.
I was out with Jason and 007Ben last night, we hit the sushi place and had a good time. Jason was twitchy and excited because he was jacked up on cocaine. Cocaine, being an energy drink that tastes like liquefied lick-m-stix with pepper in it. I drank one, it was an experience; Jason drank three in rapid succession. He may have actually been able to power a small turbine and light up some of New York.
Like I said earlier, we were out for Dinner at Sushi-Domo, in Eugene. A great sushi place that has the “Domo – Boat” a selection of sushi, sashimi and chicken. Usually, these things last at least 30-40 minutes while we eat and talk. This thing might have lasted 20 minutes, maybe. We tore it up.
Jason and I are both big guys, and Ben is a stunt eater, the boat didn’t stand a chance.
We came back to the casa nitemayr and watched “Dirty Work”, I had a great night.
I think NiteGirl drank more than I did over New Years; that’s saying a great deal since she drank about two bottles of wine. She was feeling depressed because her sister brought up her Grandpa, and NiteGirl just can’t seem to get over her Grandpa’s death. (It has been a couple of years now) So she drank, partly to forget, partly to just get her drunk on.
Otherwise it was all quiet for New Years, we rang it in at Midnight EST so that NiteCat could participate and we fired
off some poppers (large and small).
It made a big mess, which is still pretty much hang around today. We fired the majority of the streamer type stuff onto the tree but inevitably some got on the ground and will require a good vacuum to pick it up.
Kodos had an accident with some pipe cleaners over the weekend and needed some first-aid. He will site for me and take some cleaning and anti-biotic cream but struggles if NiteGirl and NiteCat are near (I think he knows I can put up with the biting and scratching better than the girls)
On a cool note, NiteCat was wathcing “The Future is Wild” on Animal Planet and announced that she could tell it was fake animals, because they looked like computer animation.
Proud? I could have burst.
By the way, she DOES believe in Evolution. The Cavemen argument works.
For the past few years I’ve bellyached pretty much all the time about how much I wanted to move home to Canada and near to my old home town. I’m sure I drove a great deal of my co-workers and friends crazy with it. Two things have always kept me from it, the lack of a job to go to and the lack of cash to make the move.
Now, as I’m facing the last 10 months I have on my work visa, I’m facing a more untenable reality, I don’t want to leave yet. I’ve lived here for as long as I have lived any place since leaving Kincardine in 1994. In fact, I think I will have lived in this Townhouse longer than I’ve lived anywhere (excepting my parent’s house in Kincardine where I lived for 8 years.
On top of all that, I’m very comfortable here in Eugene. I mean, look at the views I get!
I know the staff at the local comic shops, by name even. I’ve made a few friends that I really value and I’ve made a real life here.
I’m not saying that I want to go the citizenship route, but I don’t think I’m totally burnt out on Eugene yet.
That being said, if the right job came along and I could live someplace just as picturesque (but still urban enough…) I’d probably move along.
It’s the dilemma I face.
It’s so much of a dilemma I was trying to sell my comics. All six Long Boxes.
C’est La Vie.
In my late teens and early 20s I started hanging around with a “Bad Crowd”(c)6000BC that had these kinds of parties. Full of people and booze and drugs. I was always a DD so I didn’t take part in the drinking/drugs (I was a major dork too) but on occasion, even totally sober, these parties were trippy beyond all reckoning.
I wouldn’t trade any of my memories of those parties for anything, even all the drama and heartache that came from them. I doubt many of the people there would. We all experienced life, and I got to see what I missed when I spent my teen years reading comics and going to “dances”. Sure I had glimpsed “real partying” in my teen years, but this was on a level I never experienced.
I look in on those people from time to time. A great number of them have tried to get as far from their pasts as possible. Some are still there, living in their flop-house lives.
It was gutter-born magic for a while.
It was NiteCat’s birthday, only 3 kids showed up fro her party (of about 30 that got invites). She loved it either way, and they had a blast winning all the prizes for the party games and utterly destroying the pinata.
Got to see Rocky Balboa, I loved it. It was great way to bookend the whole story with Rocky (spoiler) losing his last fight. They did sort of lose the page with the sub-plot, but who cares. It was a great way to close out Rocky. I truly loved the movie and really got into it.
I highly recommend it.