Pennsylvania Politics

 We've had over 24 hours of rain.  The forecasters are not calling for it to end until early this afternoon, about the time I head off to work.  At that point, the sun is going to slowly appear, the temps will slowly creep up, and the grass will begin to grow like hell.

Today is also the first day of Kids Workshop, and, as I said, it's raining.  I have no idea how many parents show up with their kids, prior to Covid it was not unusual to get between 250 and 300.  That place is going to be a mess, which is why I'm no longer available to work before 1 PM on Saturdays.

Because yesterday was rainy, I found myself doing very little... other than snacking my way through the day.  Not a good thing.  I didn't step on the treadmill, didn't climb aboard the bike.  Instead, I puttered around trying to take selfies with the dogs.  If I'm standing up, they listen.  If I'm sitting on the floor, they do not.  With that being said, here's a very rare photo of me and Biggie.  Word of warning, this might burn out a lot of pixels in you monitor.

Evidently the Orange Anus had a rally yesterday out near Pittsburgh... in the rain, for Dr. Oz.  The cultists were not enthusiastic.  The local police were supposed to help with security, but that got canned.  Usually they will run the metal detectors, however his team wanted them to actually be security, however their attorney axed that fast.

It was supposed to help Dr. Oz. who's not too popular among the MAGA base being that he's a Muslim on top of being an alien, well, not quite an alien, he has dual citizenship.  It seems as though the Republicans are grating themselves to pieces in Pennsylvania.  Good.

One on the speakers yesterday was JD Vance, the Trump backed, hillbilly author, who just won the Republican nomination for senator in Ohio.  People pointed out that it was Trump's candidate that won, but those people should probably hit the brake pedal.  Vance ended up with a little over 340,000 votes, however, over 680,000 Republican voters in the state of Ohio cast their ballot for someone else.  Someone needs to tell the Republicans Vance did not have a stunning victory.

And, finally, yesterday Clarence Thomas said that Americans need to stop bullying government intuitions.  This makes him look like a hypocritical piece of shit after his fat wife tried to bully Congress into decertifying the election.  Isn't it time we flushed this turd?

I get to work with Santa

Review time has arrived and, even though this is supposed to be one of my days off this week, I have been busy trying to be fair and unbiased.  When I worked for IP we actually reviewed our associate's performance over the last year.  This is not the case with my current employer.  The process has devolved into little more then a pat on the back.  We are not permitted to point out any weaknesses or missteps, instead we are supposed to tactfully provide positive "game plans."  So, if during last year's review cycle I assigned an associate a particular task, and during the past year needed to remind that person several times to do that assigned task, I'm not allowed to mention it during this year's review.  Instead I'm supposed to point out the things that were done well, give them a pat on the back as well as another strong "game plan."  Right.

Not that I really have any issues with my associates, it's actually one of the best teams in the store.  I took a selfie with some of them, so here they are, in case you're wondering what they look like.

The first thing people say when they see this pic is "oh, you work with Santa Claus."  Yes, it's true, I work with Santa.  Actually, I'm Santa's boss.  And you always thought it was Mrs. Claus.  He takes off the month of December and dons his Santa garb and visits schools and hospitals and such.  He's a very nice man.

In fact, every one of my associates is nice, as long as you over look certain issues.  One of them has a serious problem with those customers who speak English as a second language.  One of them works the time-clock to the tune of about an hour and a half each week.  Hey, nobody's perfect.  I have one associate who does quite well with a part-time cake decorating business, but takes orders while working.  In the scheme of things, these are small problems, not the sort of things I would consider mentioning on a review.  And I do get to work with Santa.  Now you got to admit that's pretty neat.