This Is Disturbing But True

I mean it when I say this is disturbing. This is how most American's look at the world especially King George II. Most American's probably wouldn't even be able to pass the test that you have to take to become a citizen.....now that's sad.

Let's Talk Racing...

So a few posts back I mentioned that I'm a huge NASCAR fan. Well I haven't really said much more about it but that all changes today.


Tonight the boys race the short track in Richmond VA. It's the last race of the season before "The Chase" starts. The Chase Is NASCAR's attempt at some kind of playoff situation. In my humble opinion it doesn't work and they should get rid of it, but for some reason the president of NASCAR isn't returning my calls (that bastard). Here is how it works: first of all the racers get points for everything - leading laps - showing up - wearing a cute fire suit. Ok maybe not for everything but NASCAR has a ridiculously complicated scoring system that I haven't even begun to try to figure out. So anyway the season has 38 races and goes from Feb - Dec. After 28 races the top 12 in the points are admitted into what is called "The Chase" and those guys basically race for the championship. Everyone else still races but they have no chance of winning the big prize. So if you are having a late season surge there is absolutely no chance of you winning it all or if you are having a tough late couple of races you could fall right out of the top 12.

The one thing this format does do is to allow the non-chase racers to really screw with the chase guys. Last year Tony Stewart did not make the Chase and then went on to win either 2 or 3 of the chase races which keeps the other guys from getting points toward the championship. It was funny because you could tell he was having a hell of a time doing it because everyone knows that Tony just likes fucking with people.

So that brings us to today. It's the last race and my driver although technically not eliminated has to have a lot of things happen to make it (side note this is not why I don't like this format). Both Kurt Bush and Kevin Harvick have to have bad races and that's almost impossible at this point. Kurt Bush especially can do no wrong - his car is running well and as a few races ago he has a new crew chief and that has made a huge difference. I'd rather see Harvick not finish - he and Juan Montoya have a good little on track battle going on. I'm hoping Montoya pulls one of his bonehead moves and takes at least Harvick out. Juan - if you are reading you are in no way going to make The Chase so any damage you can do it either guy today would be greatly appreciated.

There area bunch or scenarios that would get Junior into The Chase but I'm not going to go into them here. He does well at Richmond and has won there 3 times. He didn't qualify well and will start in the 21st spot but that doesn't stop him from moving to the front of the field pretty quickly when he has the right car.

I can't wait for next season when Junior no longer drives for DEI (Dale Ernhardt Inc - the company his father started) and he goes to Hendricks Motor Sports. He'll be racing with Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Casey Mears. If you are a Junior fan you HATE those guys. But I like to think I'm smart enough to see that this is a great move for his career for lots of different reasons. Hendricks is not tight with the purse strings like his current owner step-mother Theresa Ernhardt. The bottom line is you have to have the cash flow and good equiptments. DEI doesn't always have that, Hendricks always does. So even if he doesn't make it we have next season. I would of course like to see all fo the stars align and have Juinior make the Chase this year - he's worked really hard and well, he's my favorite dammit.

I'm FRENCH??

***Your Inner European is French!***


Smart and sophisticated.
You have the best of everything - at least, *you* think so.

Does this mean I have to get rid of my shamrock tattoo??


Who's Your Inner European?
http://www.blogthings.com/whosyourinnereuropeanquiz/

Ha Ha Bitch - Caught Ya

I live in a building that has 30 "condos" in it. Lets be real they are apartments. Anyway we have a mix of people who live here who own like me and people who rent. Unfortunately the renters here are living up to every stereotype out there in terms of them not giving a shit about the building - but that's not the point of this post.

We have a dumpster - its incredibly handy to have this. We recently got a fence around it - it's the law in MA and it took a year and a letter from my attorney (I park right next to the dumpster )- but we finally got it.

So our condo association right now is one guy, it's a strange situation but basically he is the attorney for the guy who owned the building and was selling off the units. It's in our condo docs that the building has to be 100% sold before he will turn over the association to the owners even though according to Mass state law the building has to only be 75% sold. It's annoying as hell because nothing gets done and he is constantly "getting quotes" for things that need to be done. Whatever - again not the point of this post.

So yesterday I go out the back door to my car and I bring out my trash. When I opened the fence there was a huge flat screen tv box with trash inside it and a bunch of smaller boxes inside. None of the boxes were broken down - we do have cardboard recycling bins and most people use them. When I got home from work the dumpster has been emptied but Waste Mgt. had left the boxes outside of the fence.

So anyway I couldn't stand to look at it so I went out there this afternoon to break them down etc. While I was getting the trash out of the bigger boxes I noticed there was some loose paper. Three of these things had this idiot's name on it. She doesn't live in the building and in fact lives 2 towns over.

So Janice L. Talbot of Norton - you are busted bitch.

The Party's Over

When I went back to school 18 months ago I was having a hard time juggling my job and the load of work. My job is pretty stressful. I'm a single HR person who supports 96-100 people at a manufacturing plant. This means everything from payroll to benefits to employee issues. To add a little spice to it 60 of those guys are Teamsters so that makes it just a little tougher especially around contract time (which is next year). So needless to say I'm pretty busy most days. So, when I started to realized I couldn't do both I started looking around and was going to piece together a couple of part time jobs, bite the bullet and pay for COBRA (health insurance) in order to give myself more study time. At that time I really didn't want to leave my job I had a great boss (the CFO) and we worked really well together. I hadn't had that much fun at a job in a long time. But my degree was important so I thought I needed to do it. He however thought differently an came up with a brilliant idea of us getting a payroll person and me working three days a week. Well we couldn't find a payroll person but I went down to three days. In the meantime our company was up for sale so the amount of work coming through my little one person HR Dept was pretty significant - so I went up to 4 days. I was working Mon-Thurs and getting paid for 4.5 days because on Friday's I would take phone calls and check my email. It's been a great year and half with this schedule. When the school workload wasn't too over the top I would meet friends for lunch - head out of town or just relax. Sometimes I even did some school work.

Well, yesterday I sat down with the President of our company who is my interm boss (my CFO left in January before the sale was over) and told him that I thought it was time I came back 5 days. There are a lot of little things that are slipping through the cracks. This is my last semester of school and I've got the workload thing pretty figured out (I hope). Luckily they are very flexible with me and let me take the time I need. So if I need a day here and there I know its not a big deal.

It was fun while it lasted!

Isn't This The Best?

This is a picture of my friend Kim's baby Lucy. Isn't it just the best? No, I didn't pick the wrong picture (thanks for the tip George) - I just love how her little arms and feet are waving around.

Big Suckass Corporate Banks #2

Well to my shock and awe (see I can use that term too) everything seems to have worked out with B & A. I had emailed customer service (as well as called) and I got this long email back that basically said nothing but did explain that my deposit was "pending" and that there was a hold on it. I still don't understand how they can put a hold on CASH but you know what - I'm over it. My accounts in the black, there are no fees and I'm closing it today. End of story.

I am having such a hard time getting back into my morning routine of walking. I of course didn't walk all weekend (I mostly staggered) and that has thrown me off. I need to get to bed earlier and get my ass out of bed in the morning in enough time to go out and walk 2-3 miles. My body was feeling better when I was doing that. I'm also thinking about joining the YMCA - the other gym in this area wants you to sign a two year contract. What? Are you on crack? My committment issues won't let me sign anything for that long. Last year I signed for both a car loan and a mortgage and I swear I had a series of small strokes.

So anyway that's it for now. I'm off to iron my clothes for the day- only three day workweek (I don't work Fridays for now) so that always makes it better!

Big Suckass Corporate Banks

It's 6:30 in the am and I'm already pissed off. NOT a good way to start your day. I currently live right next door to a Bank of America. I've used them forever -since they were Fleet and then before that when they were some other poor unsuspecting little bank that got swallowed up. I've heard tons of horror stories about B of A but myself have never had any trouble and was always proud to say so - that is until now. On Friday I went to B of A and made a cash deposit of $270. I had opened another checking account at a credit union that morning so I was going to let my B of A account just sit with a little bit of money in it until I got all of my automatic withdrawal's switched over. So I got out on Saturday morning and do a bunch of things - I spent over $100 on household things at Target - do some clothes shopping just a couple of small things that I needed. So I get back to my condo and I think that I should check my account to see if anything automatic has gone through and I see that I'm in the RED. WTF??? I just made a CASH deposit the day before how the hell can I be in the red. So even though I should be getting on the road I call customer service. I get a nice guy named Jose who was really trying to be helpful with me - but I was pissed and he knew it. So this is the story: When I opened my account a million years ago I opened it in New Hampshire. I didn't even live in New Hampshire - it was where I worked. So now they are saying that because I made the deposit in Mass. the cash is subject to a hold just like a check. WHAT? It's cash and as far as any bank I've ever dealt with cash is immediately available. So my next question was "If the money wasn't available how come the debit transactions went through?" And he tells me that B of A gave me some kind of a temporary credit - when I asked him if I was going to be charged the overdraft fees of $35 each he was unable to give me a difinitive no but he did offer to put a "note" on my account asking them not to charge me. So I checked the account today - STILL in the red and there are 5 transactions that have gone through. That will be $175 in fees if they charge me - I will fight them to the death on this - I live next door and will sit in their bank everyday for hours until they give me a credit. I am beyond pissed off.

The funny thing is I was planning on changing accounts anyway and not because of anything they had done - just because the credit union has much better deals. Oh well - another dissatisfied Bank of America customer.

Mission Accomplished!

I successfully partied like a rock star all weekend. I'm home now and am going to lay on the couch for the remainder of the evening. So in other words I can say "Mission Accomplished" and really mean it. Unlike George W.

It's only 6:30 and I'm already contemplating going to bed........

2 weeks off!

So I've mentioned that I'm in school full time right? Yeah, I thought so. Yesterday at 5:39 pm I passed in my final project (a power point presentation on Theories of Personality), the bibliography, my final bib for the semester and my first stab at my final transcript. And the best part is that none of that was due until TODAY. I was a whole 24+ hours a head of myself.

This means two things - I am now officially a thesis student which in my program is a student in their last semester (more on that in later posts) and more importantly it means that I have TWO WEEKS OFF. Two weeks where I can actually meet friends after work for drinks and food, two weeks where I can not read something school related on my lunch hour, two weeks where I am not scouring the Lesley Library website for journal articles and two weeks where I can come home from work and just lay on the couch and watch tv.

I'm so happy to be done with this semester it was a boring one - with the exception of my first study which was on Chairman Mao and the Cultural Revolution. I'm fascinated by this whole period and by Mao himself. Let me be clear - Mao was a terrible, awful man who may actually be the biggest mass murdered in history (even bigger than Hitler) yet the country still loves him or at least they pretend to. I am just fascinated by the personality of a person who can convince a country of billions to do the things that Mao did. It was a fun but sad paper to write and I got an A which always makes even better. If you are at all interested in this period of time rent the movie "To Live". I know Netflix has it because that's where I got it. It's a bleak portrayal of the cultural revolution and a great movie.

My other two studies were boooorrriiiinnngg. Research Methods for Social Sciences - important for my career and I need to have it on my transcript for grad school but eeeesssshhhh did you ever try to read about research? Yeah, it's as fun as it sounds. In the end it worked out fine and I got an A- which is far above what I thought I would get. The one I passed in yesterday was Theories of Personality - I'm more interested in learining about people's personality and why they act they way they do but this was a totally basic study on some prominent theorist's and theories of personality. Not terribly exciting. I think the work is ok but I would imagine it's only B work. We'll see. As long as my GPA stays above 3.5 for grad school I'm happy.

So anyway, it's Saturday of Labor Day weekend and I'm heading down to a friends house in Jamestown RI. These people like to party and I can finally let go and have a little fun without that voice in my head saying - "shouldn't you be reading?" Some other friends are coming down to and as my friend said "could be ugly". I'm good with that,I have my vodka and I'm ready for an ugly weekend.

Happy Labor Day everyone!