Rebate Hell

Well, I'm off today, most likely because they thought I needed to rest up for the Great Paint Sale which begins tomorrow and runs for 6 days.  Wait a minute, let me correct myself.  There is no paint sale.  There's a paint rebate.  And it's a good one.  You just need to take advantage of it.  I did over the Memorial Day Paint Rebate.
There are a lot of people out there who don't like rebates.  In fact, they hate them.  We know this because we started getting phone calls a week ago from customers inquiring about our upcoming sale.  When we inform them we're offering a rebate the response is always the same, a complaint about rebates.  The bottom line is these people want their money up front.  Well, they're not going to get it.
When people complain I let them know that if everybody processed their rebate form, rebates would disappear.  Nobody listens.  They don't understand.  The percentage of people who actually process their rebate forms is in the low 40's.  That's right.  This means that well over 50% of the people who buy a product with a rebate never take advantage.  Retailers love this.  Why facilitate a sale when you can sell the product at full price?  Duh.  They're going to make a lot more money with a rebate then they are with a sale.

There are a lot of interesting stats out there regarding rebates, and the people who process them.  Did you know that most of the people who file a rebate make more than $50K per year?  Wouldn't you think the opposite would be true?  And evidently there's this 'cracker jack' reasoning among certain groups out there, which I'm not even going to try and comprehend, that buying a product with a rebate is practically the same as buying a product which is on sale....  As I said, I'm not even going to try and understand that one.

And in today's world, if you have a computer, filling out a rebate is easy peasy.  I mean, you will need to type in your name and address, and your email address, and, in most cases just your receipt number (it's at the top of your cash register receipt).  That's it.  No UPC numbers, no quantities.  Takes maybe 5 minutes, if you're a slow typist.  Just think, if we could get the percentage of people who file rebates into the mid 80's, sales would probably return and rebates disappear.  Of course, we know that's never going to happen and we're going to be stuck in rebate hell forever.

Human Resources and a Business Decison

Well, it's another early morning.  If I worked a fixed schedule where early mornings were the norm it wouldn't bother me, but they're not.  I have one this week.  Today.  Next week I don't have any.  I do have 3 closings, they wouldn't bother me either if they, too, were the norm.  They're not.  And some times I get mid-shifts, but they don't always start at the same time.  Sometimes I start working at 0900, sometimes 1030, sometimes, like yesterday, I was there at 0800.  Yesterday I had an ' Onboarding.'  Store Managers were transferred back in February, and 'Onboardings' are done, several months after the transfer as way of seeing how lower management is adjusting.  They are always handled by a DHRM or an RHRM.  Yesterday we had a DHRM (District Human Resource Manager), and she did her job well.
Many people get confused with HR.  They believe those individuals are their to help associates, they hire, they fire, and deal with issues.  In reality they do more.  I know, I did HR for a while.  If you are in HR, you are a Company Man / Woman.  One of your main jobs is to manage associate opinions of the Company.  A good HR manager will guide associates and keep them on track and the associates won't even know it.  They'll regard HR as their friend.  They're regard HR as their friend... and that is never really the case.  They are there to enforce company policies.

Back when I worked for xpedx, the distribution subsidiary of International Paper, we had a RHRM named Dave G who was the worst.  I worked with him on a Peer Review Board and he was totally one dimensional.  Associates were nothing to him.  He seemed to enjoy saying, "this is a liability which needs to be taken care."  Yes, he said things like that.  When 37 jobs went to Krakow, Poland, he shrugged and said, "It's a business decision,"without understanding that people were losing their livelihoods.  He was being paid around $300 K a year, which is really good money, to hand you a plate of shit and say "just remember, it's only a business decision."  Isn't it amazing what money can buy?

Donald Le Douche'

Checking out the financial news this morning, I saw that the Pound is still dropping in value and I started to wonder if anybody had told all those Brits who voted to exit the EU this might be a consequence.  I don't think so.  I don't know anybody who actually vote to have their paycheck devalued.
We have the same problem in the US in regard to Trump and especially his Trumplodites.  He shouts "I'll deport the illegal aliens" and they swoon in anticipation.  They don't understand those people are part of our economic footprint.  They always have been.  They are like our little toe.  We don't think much about our toes until something happens to them.  Most people don't know they're little toe helps them maintain their balance when they walk.  People who lose their little toe have to learn how to walk without wobbling.  Sure, they can do it, but it's never quite the same, you know?  Because when you weight on your foot, you realize you've lost a bit of your support.
Were the idiot Trump to deport all of those illegal aliens there would be an immediate vacuum in the labor force and the unemployment rate would rise.  Trumplodites don't understand that those 11 million illegals buy things, like PS 4's, and shoes, and clothing, and Xbox ones, and food.  They pay rent and ride buses and trains.  Trumplodites don't understand how bit a hit to our economy those deportations would be.

Brexit is a lesson for all of those who buy into Donald Trumps bullshit.  Will they listen?  Hell no.  That would mean actually thinking about consequences, and why would they do that?  The idiot Trump actually said that if the Pound drops more people will come to Turnbury... he evidently doesn't understand that if the Pound drops in value no one is going to be able to afford to play golf.  What a douche.

Step, step, stepping in a Trump T-shrit

My schedule for yesterday and today is crap.  I had to close the store last night, which meant I needed to stay until 1130.  Today I'm in at 1030 AM.  The dogs don't understand that.  Sure, they get to eat early, but then they're penned in the house for 11 hours.
Anyway, something funny did happen early last evening.  I was standing at the paint desk when this woman walked by.  And she was wearing a Trump T-shirt.  Now, this woman was in her mid to late 50's.  She had her hair died coal black and was, what my Pa Dutch grandmother would have called 'struvelly,' which means it may have been brushed 2 or 3 days ago.  When she walked, she moved one foot in front of the other foot, and not smoothly, like most people, rather she seemed to be relying on some little trigger mechanism firing in her brain going 'step... step... step.' And I thought to myself, "so, this is what a Trump supporter looks like up close and personal."
About 30 seconds after she had passed, Vinnie, who works in lumber, rushed up and asked "did you see the lady in the Trump shirt?"  As I nodded, he continued "that's the first time I've ever seen one."

This is the one she was wearing

And then one of the cashiers came over to add to the conversation.  Evidently other customers in the store had glared at her.  This is funny because she was what most people think of when it comes to Trumplodites, a group venturing outside the doors of their single-wide into uncharted territory without a compass, which may have been why when she walked she was almost robot like with her 'step... step...step.'

Moody's, Trump & Heels

Well, Brexit is over, my 401k dropped quite a bit yesterday, but it will come back, as will the stock market.  I've been reading a lot of the financial opinions, the bits by Moody's and Bloomberg were interesting.  Evidently those middle class and lower class voters who tipped the scale will be those  most hurt by the decision in the short term.  In the long term evaluations, well, they're lives are not going to change.  Also, it seems, immigration was one of the big topics.  The idiot Trump hits on that one a lot too in regard to his race for president.  He wants to build a wall to keep all those illegal aliens out.  They steal jobs.  In fact, immigrants in general steal jobs, the shit jobs no Trumplodite would even consider doing.  So, I started wondering what would happen if the idiot Trump actually did make it into the Oval Office, what would our financial picture, the job market look like.  As you might suspect, there are a lot of opinions out there.  Those we would deem legitimate are not rosey.  This is what Moody's put out on 6/20.  A loss of 3.5 million jobs in the US under a Trump presidency? Can that be? And you know, those would be shit jobs, no investment bankers being deported in that bunch.  Even if the Republicans and Democrats worked diligently together to fence him in, the economy would only stagnate.  Yippie Skippie!

Anyway, to add some brevity, we had a woman show up at the desk yesterday requesting and odd color match.  She had a shoe bag with her, and inside was a pair of taupe colored satin high heels.  That's right, she wanted us to color match her shoes.  We can't do that.  We can't color match fabrics.  The laser ignores the material and reads the color of what ever is behind.  As far back as we could remember, this was a first.  Shoes, you know?  She said she'd only worn them once and wanted to touch up the scuff marks and one or two places where the satin had been torn.  Right.  If she'd only worn them once, she must have been running the Boston Marathon.  Believe me, they were pretty roughed up.  She did end up picking a taupe color from the Color Wall.  And, of course, we mixed her a Satin Sample.

Just a note on the Brexit thing

When I woke up this morning I had what seemed like thousands of notifications from the news sources I read detailing the UK's decision to leave the EU.  The headlines were amazing in that none of them were positive.  I liked the one about Billions wiped out, which doesn't mean that money is not going to come, it's just that this might not be a good year to retire.
I saw that Trump flew to Scotland and tweeted some sort of nonsense about England making itself great again.  We'll have to wait and see on that, won't we?  He's bad news in the US.  The presumptive Republican nominee for President has poll figures in the cesspool.  Anytime he's speaking, he needs to read from a teleprompter in order to keep from verbally shitting in his pants.  I can only wonder what turds of stupidity will fall from his lips while in Scotland.  The Scots, by the way, voted against Brexit.  They've been pulling away from the UK for years, so this might be the thing which permanently separates them.  Wouldn't it be funny if Scotland broke away from the UK and rejoined the EU.

Anyway, we're in a waiting game right now, not about the global markets, but about the British Pound.  Will the world stomp it into the ground, or will the world let it come back.  Time will tell.

Manhattan Project for Appleheads

Since this is one of my early morning start days, I've only time for a quick 'piss and moan.'  Yesterday morning I saw that there is now a 'virtual tour' of The Manhattan Project which is being distributed by Los Alamos National Park (that's right, it's a park now).  Anyway, the article was really splashy, how there are virtual bread crumbs to lead you on your way, and I thought this might be interesting.  So, I go to download the app and discover... it's only for IOS.  They must think Appleheads are special.  I own a Galaxy phone and a Pro Surface tablet, no Apple products in this house.
Way back, when I bought my first smartphone, I did some research which included asking the clerk at the store what the differences were between Android and Apple.  Her answer was simple "Iphones are easy to use and are made for people who are less tech savvy."  Not being computer illiterate, I bought a Galaxy.  I see people in the store struggling to unlock their Iphones or to show me pictures of paint can lids and I laugh because these are phones designed for people who have difficulty dealing with technology.

So I sent an email to Los Alamos National Park with a complaint.  If you're going to pay to have an app written, you need to be inclusive, not biased or prejudiced against Android or Microsoft.  Apple's market share has been slowly dropping over recent years. Their popularity is waning.  This is how life goes.

That's not a shed, that's a barn

Well, this is my 2nd day off in a row.  I've set myself up in the scheduling system to get sequential days off, every week.  That rarely happens.  The woman who processes the schedules is an idiot, she likes to think she's better then the system.  She isn't.  Whereas in other stores, associates and mgmt set up for sequential days off get 2 days off, in ours they don't.  She's not happy.  She hates the commute.  She hates the store manager.  She constantly complains about the associates.  Hopefully, she'll be gone soon.
Anyway, I had breakfast with my brother yesterday.  His wife likes to do things with wool, include spin it.   Several months ago she bought a $1600 spinning wheel.  That's right, $1600.  And what she really wants is to have a sheep farm.  She, however, calls it a farmette.  They've actually been looking at one with purchasing in mind.  You see she has this overly romanticized picture in her head of how wonderful it would be to raise sheep, and sheer sheep, and spin their wool into thread, and then knit that thread in to scarves, and sweaters.  Oh, and she has a loom as well, so she can make blankets and serapes and, well, I guess anything you might want.
Anyway, he and I were having breakfast and he says, "here, I'll send you the address so you can check it out."  I asked how big it was and he said, "four bedrooms, three baths, and really big shed."  This morning I looked at it on Zillow.  This is the really big shed:

This is a barn

Now, it's only the two of them so 4 bedrooms is a few too many.  They don't need 3 full baths.  And as for this being a farmette?  Give me a break.  This is a farm.  That's not a shed, that's a barn.  And four or five sheep are going to be lonely there, besides, I just cannot picture my sister-in-law wearing her stylish galoshes shoveling out sheep shit.

Greg Evers - Bullet head

Greg Evers is an asshole, plain and simple.  The NRA loves him, evidently he gets their highest rating.  He is, for all intents and purposes, a bullet head.  He loves his guns.  He loves pulling a trigger, no doubt because it gives him a dopamine orgasm.  How did Orlando effect him?  Well, he's pissed off.  He doesn't really see the shootings at Pulse and a nightmare.  Nope, he sees them as a threat.  You see, if Orlando upsets enough people they may actually pass gun legislation, maybe not on a national level, but at a state level.  And that pisses him off.  In fact, he is so pissed off, he's going to be giving away an AR-15... free.  No background check.  There will be a random drawing.  Some lucky person who 'likes' his Facebook page is going to go home with an assault rifle.  There's nothing worse then a pissed off bullet head.

Greg Evers

If you think he's an asshole, you can send him an email here.  I'm sure he's going to be get a lot of... fan mail, so he may not respond promptly.  Oh, and remember, as a bullet head, he doesn't really care what you think.  That's why the NRA loves him.

Looky looky, Now you see me

That's right, I went to the movies last evening.  "Now You See Me 2" was on the bill.  Hhhmmm, what to say?  Overall I enjoyed it almost as much as I liked the first film in this franchise.  Daniel Radcliffe is in this one and most of the time he's barefooted (for all you Harry Potter foot fetishists out there).  He does a decent job, as does most of the cast.  Where as all of the Four Horsemen get to do their only little solo magic shtick, Lizzy Caplan, as their newest member, gets stuck with this crappy dove trick which is so crappy there's no reveal.  That's right.  All of the other tricks get explained, not hers.  Not good.  And the big reveal at the end?  It goes on for way too long.  When Dave Franco begins to explain away the secrets to "the people of the world," he's not really speaking to them, he's speaking to the movie audience because "the people of the world" have no idea what has been transpiring.  Oh, and did I say, it goes on way too long: five minutes detailing everything that happened, maybe?
Still, I thought that overall the movie was very entertaining, easily worth the price of the ticket.

Here are some quick takeaways:

Either Morgan Freeman is really, really tall, or the rest of the cast is really, really small.

If you ever wanted to see Woody Harrelson with curly hair, this is you chance.

Mark Ruffalo shows you how to make a teary-eyed scene look cheesy.

Jesse Eisenberg actually looks..., well, cute.

The cast, while being racially diverse, is overly dominated by men.

Did I mention Jesse Eisenberg?

The first one made over $375 million worldwide, and Part 2 is over $90 million in it's second week.  What does that mean?  I understand they're already working on Part 3, that's what that means.  Will I go see it?  Probably.

Paul Ryan's skin

Today's Father's Day, a holiday, of sorts, pretty much invented by Hallmark, anything to sell a card, you know?  My Dad died a bit over 12 years ago from lung cancer.  Between the experimental chemo and the radiation treatments it was not a good year, so, rather than wonder down that maudlin path, I thought I'd talk about Paul Ryan instead.  You know who I'm talking about?  He's in politics?  Kind of, sort of, runs the House of Representatives... sometimes?  Well, Paul gave an interview today where he actually said he's supporting Trump because the people voted for him.  Take a deep breath and read that last sentence again.  He is not supporting him because he'd make a great President, nor because he is a fair and open minded individual.  Paul didn't say he was supporting Trump because he'd even be a good President.  Nope.  He didn't highlight any of Trump's qualifications which set him above the rest, not at all.  Instead, Paul dumped this whole thing into the laps of the people.  They were the ones who voted for Trump.  One can only wonder if the Republicans had actually put some thought into their primary process and voted for...oh, say Daffy Duck, would Paul support him as well?  I mean, if Daffy Duck had won the hearts of a majority of the Republican voters would Paul be right behind them.  Would he actually say, "I'm supporting Daffy" because they voted for him?   Hhhmmm me thinks not.
Anyway, Paul looks good shirtless.  Funny thing, it seems as though more people Google 'Paul Ryan Shirtless,' then they do 'Paul Ryan budget,' or Paul Ryan politics, or... well just about anything else to do with Paul Ryan.

cute, eh?

Maybe, if Paul really wants people to get behind Donald Trump, he should take more shirtless pictures.  Maybe even holding up a Donald Trump bumper sticker, or maybe a copy of Donald's book.  Come on, Paul, don't you know anything about subliminal messaging?  If you want us to get behind you, and support Donald the same way you do, well, you're going to have to show us a little more skin.

The RDC, Clinton vs Trump

So, where have I been for the past 2 days?  At the RDC (Regional Distribution Center).  Training.  Yep, I've been learning all about Dealing with Conflict in regards to unruly and irate associates and customers.  There were also classes in Team Building and Taking Charge of Your Development, all of which were preparing us for a promotion to a higher pay grade.  Crap.  I'll be honest, the money would be nice, but Crap.  I'd have to give up even more of my life.  Anyway, the RDC distributes most of the product we sell in our stores to around 275 stores in the region, which means it's a hopping place.  Here it is:

Left side

And here, also:

Right side

I have pics I took in the class, but they're... boring.

As a result of driving there and back on Thursday and Friday, I'm a little off in the politics department.  I did, however, see on Facebook where a friend of mine shared a bit about Trump and Clinton.  Evidently there was some article posted somewhere which said many people thought Clinton was going to win in the General Election.  Let me tell you, the Trumplodite comments were hysterical.  For many of them, spelling seems to be some sort of elusive art.  English isn't like German where there are 7 different ways to say 'the.' (you know?  der, dem, den, des, das, and so on and so forth).  These people have lapped up the vilification of Clinton by the Republican party their worlds are going to shatter when Trump loses the election.  They are going to be so disenfranchised with politics they will never, ever vote again.

Goody for the normal people in the United States.

Trump and his Bargain Basement hatred

A long time ago, in Germany, a little man with a squirrelly mustache surfed a wave of antisemitism into power.  Donald Trump is trying to do the same thing, only this time the religion is Islam, not Judaism.  Should he ever become President he might actually attempt a ban on Muslims entering this country.  From what I've read, this would be a fail / fail situation for him, that doesn't mean that he and his Trumplodite base wouldn't try it.  Lucky for the rest of the nation, neither he, nor the sub-group to which he's preaching, understand his bargain basement politics are bound to fail.  His attempt to grandstand the horrific tragedy in Orlando is disgusting... no, nauseating is a much better word.  His attempt to create a tsunami of anti-Muslim sentiment becomes more and more ludicrous as we learn more and more about the shooter.  The picture being developed of Omar Mateen is one of a man seriously conflicted; sexual identity issues juxtaposed against a religion and, importantly, a father whose 'public access' show stridently objected to the Afghanistan government.  Of course, Trump has absolutely no desire to even slightly understand the complications here.  Nope.  He's got his Bargain Basement Politics neon sign flashing.  "Come on down," he's saying, "let me sell you a little Muslim hatred at a really great price."

And that's exactly what his Trumplodites want.  Yepper.  In their little minds they're picturing Trump surfing into office on the crest of a wave of hatred.  They're not about making American great, they're about bringing America down to their level.  They want their racism equalized among all people.  They and their candidate will fail, of course, because America is great.  We are a good country.  When something terrible happens, the vast majority of us don't feed our anger by blaming some one else.  We good Americans examine, we investigate and try to understand what went wrong, and then we try and fix the problem.  Sometimes we're successful, sometimes not, but at least we're walking the good path.  No one is going to sell us a Bargain Basement deal on hatred.

Trump horror, & Big Seig

As I went to work yesterday morning, I knew the news out of Orlando was terrible, I had no idea things would go from unbelievably bad to horrific.  In all of that nightmarish news blurring the Internet, burning scenes into our brains, I have to admit that what stood out for me were the god awful tweets by Donald Trump.  If I were a devout Christian I might seriously consider him to be the Anti-Christ.  He self-congratulated himself without mentioning Pulse was a gay nightclub.  From what I've read, in fact, he evidently only mentioned the LGBT community once.  Maybe it never registered with him that this was the worst hate crime in American history, or maybe he understood that his Trumplodites might not be that upset about 50 gay lives being snubbed out. And you know that crowd is going to making really, really bad jokes.  Everybody else, even Fox News, mentioned who the victims were, but not heartless Donald.  I say we should make American great again by voting Donald Trump back into the cesspool from which he crawled.
Now I'm going to lighten it up a little bit.
As you know, I just painted my bedroom.  And the dogs wanted to help.  But, as everybody knows, dogs can't paint.  And so they were a little disappointed.  I took this picture of big Seig shortly after I told him there was no way he could hold a roller.

Just not understanding

Hard to believe he weights in at 108 pounds.

Orlando

The whole Internet is exploding with the news out of Orlando.  There is a lot of conflicting information coming from varied sources.  One website I read names the shooter, others do not.  Some say the shooting began inside, moved outside, and then back inside, others say it started outside.  Me?  I work today, so by the time I get home things will have been cleared up for the most part.  This is a terrible thing to have happened.  My thoughts go out to all of those who died or were injured in Orlando and to their families.  This is heartbreaking.

The bedroom, the dogs, and a loser named David Purdue

Well, the bedroom is finished (except for some trim) and I let the dogs in... actually, they'd come in while I was painting and Lilly stuck nose up against the wall.  Dogs don't know what wet paint is and so she had a Dusty Olive nose for a bit, until I was able to wipe it clean.  From that point on they were exiled to the hallway.  Anyway, Lilly was the first on the bed:

She's so tiny

Followed shortly by Seig.

He's so big

The dogs spend a lot of time on the bed, which is why it's always covered by old sheets.

Yesterday was also the day I packed out my sauerkraut.  That's right, I make my own sauerkraut.  It's the German in me, you know?  My grandmother, on my mother's side, used to make her own sausages every time they butchered (that's right) which would dangle from hooks in the smokehouse.  (that's right, they had a smokehouse).

My sauerkraut

Anyway, I saw was some Krazy Kristian senator, David Purdue, from Georgia, prayed for President Obama's days to be numbered, ie prayed for his death.  Someone needs to tell these Krazies that every time they do this and nothing happens, it's a fail.  This moron doesn't pray for and end to racism, or end to bigotry, or peace, or harmony, no, he prays for the President's days to be numbered.  Someone needs to sit David Purdue down and tell him how totally unchristian his behavior is and why he's an embarrassment to the Faith.  Someone needs to tell him to keep his hatred boxed up.  Instead of praying for death, he should be praying for his own forgiveness.  Of course, that's never going to happen because David Purdue thinks he's special.  In fact, he thinks he's so special he can pass judgement.  What a loser.

Painting, Hillary, Trump, and the Turner Idiots

Well, I had two consecutive days off in a row and accomplished much: yard work, and cleaning, and taking the dogs for a walk in the park (until it started to rain), and painting.  That's right.  I'm painting my bedroom - it's going from brick red to dusty olive.
In those two days lots of things have happened:  Hillary is now the presumptive candidate, Bernie is acquiescing, and Donald read from a teleprompter.  Donald also, evidently, told the RNC there was no need for him to raise $1 billion dollars to finance his campaign since he gets a lot of free publicity.  He has absolutely no idea what's coming.  The attacks have just started.  I suspect that by the time the election rolls around in November he's going to want to build a wall around himself.
There's a lot of ugliness on the Internet about Brock Turner and his idiot father.  Now, I'm not defending him, but he was drunk as a skunk and no where, in any of the complaints about his sentencing, do I see alcohol being mentioned.  This guy is a bad drunk.  Am I the only one who thinks this is a serious issue that needs to be dealt with?  Sure, he's going to be registered as a sex offender, but is anything being done to limit his access to booze?  I would think that would be a top priority.  Is someone going to sit him down and say "hey, Brock, you can't drink anymore because when you drink, one beer leads to two, and two lead three, and when you're drunk you do terrible things."  Jail time is fine for penalizing him, but is anything being done with the root issue?  I doubt it.
Anyway, as I said, I'm painting.  I hate painting.  I've been doing a wall a day, which is about all I can stand.  This will give you an idea of the change taking place:

The old color

Above is what it looked.  The painting is something my grandmother commissioned.. it's not bad for a pastoral scene.

The new color

Nice, huh?

Hillary nabs, Trump stabs, & bats

Well, Hillary evidently has clinched the nomination and Bernie's Bitter Burn face is showing.  The only thing he's clinched is his jaw as he blamed the Media.  He only became a Democrat to run for president, so I now suspect he will now stop being a Democrat.  Sadly, if he does this people will know just how big a phony he is - no loyalty from him.
And I saw this on Bloomburg before I went to bed.  In case anybody is wonder, here we have the real Donald Trump, the angry megalomaniac who wants to be present so the country can celebrate his... idiocy? Just because he has money doesn't mean he isn't a loser, and this whole Trump U thing shows just how big a scam artist he is.  He thinks he's smart.  He's not.  Lucky yes, but now smart.  He doesn't understand he's swimming in a cesspool of bad karma.  And he's going to go down, in a very public way.
And finally, before I head off to work (oh, the idiot who screwed up the paint order was written up) there is this.

I had just climbed into bed last night and was reaching to turn off the light when... something swooped over my head.  The dogs, of course, made a bee line out into the hallway where they stood and watched as I dealt with... a bat.  And a real bat, not some guy in a costume.  I don't kill things, except in video games, so I had to figure a way to get him out of the house safely.  He flew onto the draperies on the side window, so I got a box, and, well, pretty much let him climb into it.  Once inside, I put the lid on and took him downstairs and out onto the front porch from whence he flew away.

Funny, it took the dogs about a half hour before they thought the bedroom safe again.

Grilling Donald

You don't have to spend much time looking at news articles to realize that Republican leaders are beginning growing concerned about... Donald, mostly because Donald's comments are incendiary.  Those in charge are worried.  The party may lose seats in both house and senate, the result of Donald's hate tactics.  A Latino judge is unethical, a Muslim judge could never give Donald a fair trial.  In the late 1920's and 30's similar comments were made in Germany.  They united hatred.  Now, I'm not saying Donald is another Hitler, that would be an automatic fail, he may, however, be emulating his attacks; targeting specific groups to hate.  While Donald's trumplodites jump up and down with glee, both he and they fail to realize all he's doing in marinating himself.  He doesn't understand that come November, he's going to be one of those burgers that falls through the grill.

And his fat is going to sizzle.  And then the grill is going to catch on fire.  More Republican's are going to be burned.  They will lose control in the Senate.  Their power in the House will be severely weakened.  And do you think Donald  cares?  Hell no.  This is all about Donald.  And all of those silly trumplodites who think he's speaking for them?  They're wrong.  He's just using them the same way any dictator uses those loyal to him to stay in control.

And he will be grilled beyond recognition.  This is how things go.  His bad karma is catching up with him.

$2.32 + Kongos = good

The $2.32 is the total amount of money I have left in my First National account - all other funds have been moved to my new Member's First account.  This is the price of bad customer service.  I'm off on Wednesday so sometime in the late morning I'll saunter into the First National and say "where there used to be thousands, now there is $2.32... and I want it now."  And I'll do it pleasantly.  Yelling at them isn't going to change their bad customer relations, more people like me, withdrawing all of their funds will.  Teaching lessons is good.  More people need to take action.  Too many piss and moan and don't do anything; nothing gets changed that way.
On the bright side, I just watched the Kongos new video.  They get big heads.  I like the group.  Very rarely do I listen to the music which was popular when I was younger.  I tell people "I've already lived through that stuff once, I don't need to live through it a second time, or a third time."  This means I don't listen to 'oldies,' at least not on a regular basis.  In fact, the only time I do is when I'm at the store.  Most people don't like new stuff because... well, it's different than what they're used to hearing.  Anyway, here's their new song "Take it from Me."

Their new album comes out on 6/10.

Honeysuckle and Idiots

We had a customer come in while we were having our paint sale;e and purchase 8 five gallon buckets of paint.  When he learned that, being as busy as we were at that time, tinting them would take at least 2 hours he put them on what is known as a 'will call.'  This is when a customer buys a product and gives you a specific date he wants to pick up his purchase.  We do this quite often.  With this customer, however, the clerk at the Service Desk pretty much screwed it all up.
You see, this clerk didn't ask for a specific date, he just keyed this order in for pick up on 6/13.  Even though the customer gave the clerk specific paint chip, no colors were listed on the order.  This past Tuesday, this same clerk, called the customer and told him his paint was ready.  So the customer shows up last night and nobody knows if the paint has been pulled, or, if it was pulled, was it even tinted. And this clerk closed out the order without putting any notes in the system.  Now these 8 five gallon buckets total around $1200, and I didn't want to tint 8 more buckets only to find out the order had already been tinted.  This is really bad customer service.  I ended up tinting 2 of the buckets, the customer will pick the rest up tomorrow.  And this morning, when I go into work, I'm going to have a long talk with this clerk's manager.
On the bright side, the honeysuckle drooping over the back fence is in bloom.

You can see a bit of the fence towards the bottom

I've always liked honeysuckle, of course it does bring bees, but then I have dogs, and the dogs try and eat the bees because... well, they don't know they're bees, just little things floating in the air.

Sophie & Megan goes to rehab

My sister called last night.  She doesn't call often, maybe once a month, and when she does she never talks for longer than 10 minutes.  And it's never to just talk.  Her phone calls are always because she's feeling... distraught.
The first thing she said to me was "Sophie died."  Sophie was their Westie.  She hasn't been well for quite some time.  She'd lost most of her body hair because of a skin disease which made her look a lot like a dog troll.  She was nice, but there are times when you need to bite that expensive Vet bullet.
And without pausing she continued "and we took Megan down to rehab yesterday."
My sister and brother-in-law have 2 children, Little Joe (yeah, really) and Megan.  A number of years ago Megan was in an automobile accident and, as a result, became addicted to prescription meds.  So, I responded by saying "Oh, prescription meds?"  And my sister says "no, the really bad stuff.  The stuff with needles."

Sophie

Now, I'd like to say I was shocked, but I wasn't.  My sister and brother-in-law have never shied away from the use of recreational drugs.  This is what happens when you don't really think about the example you're setting for your kids.  Now Megan's going to spend 28 days in rehab, and she's going to go through some serious shit.  

Anyway, I did make some sort of dark joke about it and laughed.  My sister didn't like that.  She said, "it isn't funny."  But it is.  Their complacency created the atmosphere.  There's a price to pay for everything.  I was actually more sad to hear that Sophie had died.  I really liked that ugly, little dog.

Note on Harambe

By now I suspect everybody knows who Michelle Gregg is, if you don't, she's the mother of Isiah, the toddler who either climbed over, or under, a wire fence and then under about 3 feet of bushes to tumble into the Gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo.  There's a lot of 'mother shaming' going on right now; a lot of hate is being directed at her.  People are saying she's a bad mother.  I don't think that's true at all.  Hundreds of thousands of people have signed petitions blaming her for the death of a Wetlands Silver Back teenage Gorilla named Harambe.  While I'm not as vocal as some, I do agree responsibility needs to be placed on someone's shoulders, and that someone, unfortunately, is Michelle Gregg.  She claims she was distracted by other children.  Had she been driving a car and mowed down a pedestrian because other children had distracted her, well, she'd be responsible.  Those coming to her defense are saying it was a bad accident.  Accidents don't just happen.  They are caused by irresponsible behavior, moments of negligence, and bad judgement.  Ms. Gregg is an administrator at a pre-school.  She is surrounded by children her son's age constantly.  She knows how fast they can move.  This credential alone should have made her more diligent in the supervision of Isiah.  This was not the case at all.  Evidently, after she found out a child had made it through the barrier, she had to ask what color shorts he was wearing in order to determine it was indeed her son.  Do you see where I'm going with this?

She had no idea where her child was.

Is Michelle Gregg a bad parent?  No, I don't think so.  This doesn't mean she's the best parent.  I suspect she does an adequate job.  Is she responsible for the death of this gorilla?  Absolutely.  Accidents like this don't just happen.  There is always human error involved.  Because of her lax judgement an animal on the endangered species list had to be destroyed, and that's a terrible price for not paying attention.