Dec 16
Something has been bugging me for a very long time. How long it has been bugging me is what I do not know. I want to say it started in the Fall of 2007 when I started back to school. Every Fall semester since then, there’s always been an article in the school newspaper about the amount of parking spaces available. There should be a parking garage built, they exclaim! The “close” parking spaces fill up around 9am by all the early morning commuters, present company included. There are three very large parking lots for premium parking. These are for those that don’t want to park at the football stadium and ride the bus to class. The two closest lots fill up fast. However, the third sits almost empty everyday. Why? Because it’s a couple blocks over from where people want to be.
The same thing happens at work. “Oh we need a parking garage because there’s not enough parking spaces!” Actually there are more than necessary if you’d take a second to go look.
So I came up with this theory: People’s laziness can be directly linked to the amount of time they will spend driving around a parking lot looking for a spot close to the entrance.
Too many times I’ve seen people driving around a parking lot for 10 minutes hoping a spot opens up really, really close. Why not go to an area you know there will be open spots and park there? The ten minutes you just wasted, you could have spent 5 walking to the door and saved the other 5 minutes. Oh wait! That makes too much sense, doesn’t it? So why do you drive around and around instead of parking in the first spot you see available? It’s because you are LAZY!!
The other day upon departing Wal-Mart as I was heading toward my car I saw an SUV following me so that they could get my parking spot when I left since I had parked on the side of the building, fairly close. (Here’s a tip: Park on the side of the building. There’s usually almost always a spot open.) So this SUV goes down to the end of the row and makes a u-turn to wait on me to leave. In the process of heading back my way, they passed an OPEN parking spot about 10 spots down from me. That’s right, roughly 20-30 yards away from me. (Another tip: don’t wait on me to take my parking spot. I will intentionally go as slow as possible due to this theory of mine.) Lucky for this person that I didn’t take very long as it was a bit cold. But I did take my time walking the cart back to the ‘Cart Corral’. Total time wasted for this person had to be at least 5 minutes. These fools could have parked 10 spots away and already been shopping. But no. Let’s waste our time and our gas.
Makes sense to me!
Oct 24
Read it and then read it again in reverse.
Lost Generation by Jonathan Reed
I am part of a lost generation
and I refuse to believe that
I can change the world
I realize this may be a shock but
“Happiness comes from within.”
is a lie, and
“Money will make me happy.”
So in 30 years I will tell my children
they are not the most important thing in my life
My employer will know that
I have my priorities straight because
work
is more important than
family
I tell you this
Once upon a time
Families stayed together
but this will not be true in my era
This is a quick fix society
Experts tell me
30 years from now, I will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of my divorce
I do not concede that
I will live in a country of my own making
In the future
Environmental destruction will be the norm
No longer can it be said that
My peers and I care about this earth
It will be evident that
My generation is apathetic and lethargic
It is foolish to presume that
There is hope.
And all of this will come true unless we choose to reverse it .
Sep 20
I’m convinced there are a few industries/companies/villians all in cahoots with each other.
- Toymakers / Battery companies – All of my daughter’s toys that produce sound have a “one last goodbye” sound on them. If she hasn’t touched the toy in about 45-75 seconds, it will produce a “Thanks for playing…” or “giggle giggle GoodBye!”. All in hopes she will remember she was playing with that toy and should come back for a few more noises so that the batteries drain a little more.
- Security Software / (hackers) – I placed hackers in italics and parentheses because I believe there are no true individuals out there that create malicious code to threaten our computers on their own. These people are paid a lump sum by the software company to create/release the code. Heck maybe even McAfee or Norton make the code but make someone else release it. All so that they can stay in business. Anyone else find it funny that a “fix” can be downloaded within a few hours of the malicious attack??
What groups do you think act in the same way?
Jul 19
Torie just rubbed her eyes like she does when she’s sleepy. Then she saw me looking at her. She laughed and smiled really big and said “Screw this. I’m not sleepy after all.”
I enjoy moments like that.
Aug 21
This is from 2004, so almost 4 years ago. I was re-reading some old blog postings and this made me laugh and remember it oh so vividly.
December 3rd after coming back from the company Christmas Dinner at the Elks Lodge, I stopped at the Kwik Chek to get some gas and a lotto ticket here in HG. I walk in and 2 cashier girls we behind the counter. I told em I had gas and wanted a lotto ticket. The girl that wasn’t assisting me asked if I wanted to donate a dollar to some horseshoe for hope stuff and I said no.
She said “Well can I tell you something?”
“Sure”
“I hope your legs never fall off”
“Ok THANKS!”
That kinda irked me a bit. I went in the next Saturday to get another lotto ticket and lo and behold guess who is working. You guessed it! That same girl.
“I need a lotto ticket, quick pick, cash option”
“Ok, would you like to donate a …”
“No, and I don’t want my legs to fall off either!”
“Huh, what are you talking about?”
“I came in here last weekend and I didn’t want to donate $1 and you told me you hoped my legs didn’t fall off and I didn’t appreciate that!”
“No I didn’t”
“Yeah you did”
“I must have been playing around..”
“No you weren’t and I didn’t like you saying that anyways. You’re lucky I didn’t come talk to your manager cause I’m pretty sure you need your job”
“Uh…”
And I walked out the door as it looked like she was about to cry. So Mission Accomplished. Yeah I know I was a bit harsh but geez, don’t tell someone that!
May 27
I’ve been absent for awhile. I have had the ideas to blog about but the desire to type those ideas into a blog have not been present.
I’ve enjoyed 4 weeks off from school. I managed somehow to pull a B in both of my classes in the Spring semester. I fully expected a B in Economics but was really sweating just passing Calculus. It was a very good thing that our instructor handed out effort points on our tests.
Summer classes start next week. I’m taking one class in June and one in July. Then I’ll have another month off to relax, if that’s even possible.
The weekend after school ended, we headed up to Branson for a vacation club “seminar” that we bought earlier in the year. It was good to get away, but unless you’re old or incredibly redneck, Branson, Missouri is not the city for you. It’s beautiful country to drive through, but the actual driving is a pain.
People have been complaining about gas prices a lot. I don’t like them either, but please understand this: it’s appropriately priced. We can bitch and moan about the oil companies making record profits all we want, but if you had your own business you would want to milk your customers for all you could too. It’s simple supply and demand people. Once demand goes up, price goes up. I don’t know if there’s a so-called shortage, but until we figure out a way to reduce our consumption, it’s going to keep going up. So get over it.