Stolen from Angie's blog...



create your own visited states map

So when I say I don't want to live in the south, do you think it's because I've never actually really been there? I followed the same rules she did, only including states I actually visited, not just the ones I drove through or airports I had layovers in.

Leern tu cuuk zee svedeesh vey

That's right. 14 minutes of the greatest muppet ever.



I always liked the swedish chef best. Especially because his ingredients usually got the better of him. The clip includes classics like "Lobster Banditos", "Bananananana Split", "Chocolate Mousse", "Donut Boom." Unfortunately the quality is not so great, but I still laughed pretty hard.

Bork Bork Bork

Soup it up!

By special request for Angie:

Avgolemono Soup*

Ingredients
4 cups chicken broth
4 eggs
4 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 to 1/3 cup rice

Heat chicken broth and rice to boiling. In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs with a wire whisk until light, and beat in the lemon juice. Once rice is done, gradually stir half the broth into the mixing bowl, whisking constantly. Return contents to saucepan and place over low heat until soup is thickened, stirring frequently. Garnish with lemon slices.

*Stolen from "Greek Cooking" by Lou Seibert Papamihalopoulos, Modified by my mother.

I have never been more proud to be a Hawkeye than watching that defenseive line stop Syracuse again and again. THAT is Iowa football.

Have a crazy week

So this week was long. My bosses Ken and Tony were in Cali all week for a meeting, Nicole injured her arm and apparently Loni had a previously scheduled vacation. That left me, Mike, Laurens and Brian to run the store. And this was Brian's... 4th week I think. So really it was me, Mike and Laurens.

My schedule went....
Wednesday: 12 pm to 10 pm
Thursday*: 10 am to 10 pm
Friday**: 3 am to 2 pm
Saturday: 3 am to 2 pm
Sunday***: 3 am to 1 pm

*Thursday I was going to leave early, but then a register went down. As in stopped working. Great. I had to call the Help Desk (Trader Joe's ITS) where they talk to me like a 4 year old until they figure out that I'm actually computer literate. So I ended up staying until after 10 while Dave at the help desk rebooted our server and reset all the registers.

**Friday we met Stan. Of course Stan isn't his real name but I wasn't ok with Shannon continuing to call him the crazy bleeding man. Yes, that's right, the crazy bleeding man. It's 5:30 or so and I'm putting some produce back into the cooler when I here Chuy calling my name. Shannon is apparently at the front door calling for me. I come out of the back and she comes running up and says "there's a crazy bleeding man at the door and he keeps wiping his face then licking the blood off of his hand."

Michael is standing at the door telling him, no he can't come in. So I call 911, Michael continues to try to shout at him and Chuy's got his face pressed up against one of the windows trying to see what's going on. The ambulance comes and he's taken care of, but the whole situation was sketchy.

a) He claims to have fallen while fixing a flat tire across the street at the Red Roof Inn. But why did he not try to get help there?
b) He walked past Max & Benny's restaurant which not only had lights on but had an open door with workers coming and going to instead come to our door.
c) He was mad we called 911 because he'd already used his cell phone to call buddy to help with the car. I'm sorry, cell phone? Why are you at our door?

These are the moments that make me wonder if I'm really ready to be a manager and an adult. I didn't know how to handle that. Shannon and I were shaking like leaves, Chuy was making jokes and Michael was being our big tough protector :D

***Sunday Chuy called in sick, leaving me and Rob as the only people in the store until 7 am. Umm right, yea, I guess you work that half, I'll work this half? Basically Rob and I had to do the work of 5 people on a good day. Sure. Easy.

By the end of this week I was just happy it was over. I sure hope I get a raise and a promotion soon.

Be Thankful

Today was a good day. One of those days where it's easy to remember how great God is and how great this world He made is and how blessed I am to be living in it. It was a day of little things.

Tuesday 10 am:
Woo day off so I slept in! I ate some cereal. Took a shower. It was a perfect late summer day; Sunny, not too warm, blue skies, perfect for driving into the city.

12 pm: I drove downtown to a store called Fleet Feet Sports to buy some new shoes for work. www.fleetfeet.com This place is great. They measure your feet and watch you walk and send you through this whole process to get you the best possible shoes. I must have tried on 16 different pairs of shoes. In the end it came down to 3 different brands and I was able to pick a pair of adidas I really like. Like Angie said "turns out they're [adidas are] right for you? whew." Which is true, considering 90% of my shoes are already adidas.

1 pm: After leaving the store I figured I would go down to one of the downtown TJ's and visit my friend David who wasn't calling me back. I really wanted to go to the Brewer's game that night and had yet to find anyone. He said he'd go to games anytime, and I knew he had Wednesday off so why wouldn't he just call me back so we could make plans. Of course it's north side Chicago and I get lost. But that's ok, because then I got to explore. I found a bar that had Iowa Hawkeye flags outside of it so I'll have to go back to it to watch a football game sometime. I also made friends with a construction crew when I had to take a detour and ended up sittting at a light for almost 10 minuites. They liked Buck and had all sorts of questions.

Turns out David had opened that morning and I had missed him, so I still never got a hold of him. Which also meant I had no one to go to the Brewer's game with. I really wanted to go to this game because it would be the last one of the season for me. The only home series left is against the Cardinals, so i'm hoping angie and tim will go, but that might not work out. This series was against the Dodgers and the weather was so perfect I couldn't pass up the opprtunity.

4 pm: I get a hold of my cousin Sarah and make plans to go to the game with her and her fiancee Vinnie.

5:30 pm: I drive on up to Wisconsin. I pass one of those fields. Where there's a fog because the air has cooled and the ground is giving up the sun's warmth. But the sun hasn't quite set so everytime there's a break in the trees you get to see the rays.

When I got closer to Milwaukee it was raining and the clouds were doing that cool thing where you can see the rain in the distance and the sun was still shining just enough. It was pretty great.

6:40 pm: I get to the game, pick up tickets from will call and then I went to wait. And then I got harrassed by the cops.

7:15 pm: We were on the Jumbotron. Twice! Woo! We were actually joking with the people in the row in front of us about how they didn't realized they were on the screen and then we were up there! YAY Jumbotron!

10 pm: After the game I detoured up to Kopp's for a little frozen custard and then headed home.

Like I said. I couldn't have asked for a better day.

At first I found it funny but the more I think about it the more I feel mistreated....

So I went to the Brewers game tonight and I had the tickets and was going to meet my cousin Sarah and her fiancee Vinnie at the park. So I get there a little early and walk over to where we planned on meeting. There's this pedestrian bridge connecting the big parking lot and the stadium and everyone knows where it is so that seemed like the best place. I get there at 6:42. We were going to meet at 6:45. So I pick a spot and lean against a post at one end. At 6:48 Sarah calls to say they're running late. So I wander a bit. Looking at the big map, construction pictures, people watch. I walk over to the big windows and look into the park. I call Angie at 6:54 to tell her about the bucket brigade. 7:01 and I'm back to leaning against my post. 7:02 two bicycle cops peddle right at me, like directly at me and stop less than a foot away. The one tells me that they've been watching me and I look suspicious, like I'm trying to resell tickets. I apologize and say no I'm just waiting for my cousin. He says "yea well you've been out here for 45 minutes and we saw you talking to some of our regulars." Both of which are completely untrue. I'd been there 20 minutes maximum. I hadn't talked to a single person, except on my cell phone. He tells me that there's a camera watching me and that they're cracking down on scalping so I should watch out. They both ride off.

At first I just thought this was ridiculous. I look nothing like a scalper. I was standing there in a Brewers t-shirt, hat and jeans. At no point did I try to talk to anyone passing me by. But now I'm feeling a little offended. The cop handled that completely wrong. He was rude and threatening. If I didn't love going to games so much I would seriously consider never going back. I wonder if there's someone I can file a complaint with.

Make a freaking decision

I don't know what this post was supposed to be about. So really it's probably a very appropriate title for a blog entry.

I think I intended to write about moving to a new city. That isn't the only decision I was trying to make when I left the title, but it's the only one I would have probably blogged about and it's the only decision I still haven't made.

If I ask for a transfer it's a 3 year commitment before I'm allowed to ask to move again. This makes it a fairly big decision and at this point it's come down to two leading choices. Minnesota and Seattle. Let's break it down.

Minnesota:
a) I know people currently living there... Yay Colin!
b) I've visited the city numerous times and know I would probably like living there.
c) Kinsey and Greg are considering moving there.
d) Amy might move there.
e) We will definitely be opening more stores there. So there's room for me to grow and get promoted.
f) It's safe... meaning it's familiar... and not to far from places and people I know.

Seattle:
a) Mountains and the ocean.
b) It rains a lot. And I love rain.
c) I've only ever been to the airport.
d) There are lots of store there already.
e) The only person I know there is Matt. And Marta's in Oregon about and hour and a half away.
f) Matt's buying a house there which would make rent cheaper if I help him fix it up.
g) It's west coast. (well, duh, you're thinking) But in terms of work this is a factor. West Coast has limited growth opportunities. That's why so many people who work here are originally from California. They all moved out here where you can get promoted faster. I know we're starting to grow out there again, but it's a bit of a risk. I could likely get promoted faster if I stay here or move to the south.

Both cities have some important things in common:
Both have baseball teams (YAY! BASEBALL!)
Both offer a greater sense of freedom (aka get me out of my parents house)
Both are fairly major cities and all that goes along with that.

For the moment it's a moot discussion. There's no way I can transfer before January or February 2007. Supposedly our store is set to move and be open in the new location by Halloween. Construciton is underway, but I know we're still waiting for permits to come through. Right now it's looking like that will get pushed back a few weeks. Too long though, and it's the holiday season. That will put everything on hold until January.

So best case scenario we move, it's the holidays and then I'm free. Worst case we move in January and I don't get to leave until spring. Basically my store Captain has told me he won't ok a transfer until after we've moved. He can't afford to lose people he can count on to run the store. (more on this in a later post)

Work on my day off

So my phone rings at 1 am this morning and I check it and the ID says Shannon. Why is she calling? She knows it's my day off. Of course I'm sleeping right now. Grrr. If it's important she'll leave a message.

As it turns out, she's puking and is supposed to be at work at 3 am. What is she supposed to do? I have no idea. The problem here is that only 2 people work at that time. And you're not supposed to go into the store alone. So there's no good way of calling that person and letting them know you're sick. I don't know what to do, but now that I know about the situation I feel like I'm responsible for doing something about it.

So 2:30 rolls around and she's still sick so I volunteer to go in and cover that first hour or whatever until the next employee shows up. Yay light scheduling! means no one else will be in until 530. Great. And I get to work with one of my least favorite coworkers. Oh well. The other opener is one of those people that I just don't get along with. We can work together fine and I have no problem being civil, but I just don't have a lot of respect for her in the work place... for various reasons I don't want to get into here on the off chance that some day someone might read it and it gets me in trouble.

I go in, I work, I leave, I go back to bed. All of a sudden it's 120p and there went most of my day. Not that this is the end of the world or anything. I just had planned on running errands and getting other things done today. Now I'm spending the day lying in bed blogging and watching DVDs. Tragic, I know :D


This gets me thinking... What would you have done? Would you have gone in? I guess I didn't feel like I even had a choice, but I suppose I could have just rolled over and pretended I never got the message until morning. If the call had come from someone I wasn't friends with, would I have still felt obligated to cover?

Go Dancing

I have a dirty little secret to admit. Well it's not so dirty and not really a secret... but I am becoming a Friday night regular at a country line dance bar. Yes that's right. I hear the first step towards getting help is admiting that I have a problem. I blame my new friends. Shannon goes there with Rob and they know all sorts of people there. They actually are regulars.

There's this bar (and if me saying country line dance bar made you think of Swisher you couldn't be more wrong). This place is huge, like a warehouse. There are two giant projection screens showing ESPN behind each bar and in the center is a dance floor fenced off like a roller rink. And the people here can dance. Like really line dance and they look the part. Like a song comes on and everyone just knows what dance to do. It's great. :D

I don't really dance, only the one or two I know. Or if I've had enough to drink, then I'm more willing to make a fool of myself trying to learn a new one. Basically I look forward to going out every friday night because it's always a ton of fun.

If you ever visit and you're here over a friday night, we'll go. You'll see what all the fuss is about.