Back to the grind!

Ugh!  Went back to work today after our trip to Florida.  Even after taking an extra day off to rest up from the trip I wasn't prepared to go back.  Each new day at the post office is an adventure, who shows up, who doesn't, will they have enough to get the mail delivered, etc.

Plus my driver's side car window would not go up last night and of course it rained.  Hasn't rained for a month, but as soon as I cannot get my window up it rains.  Then I dropped it off to be fixed and after work I called to see if it was done, nope.  Had to drive my old route car home.  The hits just keep on comin' boy!

At least I had one of my favorite meals, chicken tenders and taters from a local convenience store, with some zingers for dessert.  That helped, but I will be so happy in about 3 years when I can retire.  I can't wait!

Florida (mini) vacation

Just got back from Florida last night, what a trip.  As I said early in the summer, after the NYC trip, riding or driving that long is just too much, even with the occasional stop to eat or get gas.  My feeling is if you have to travel that far, best to fly, or at least make it a 2 day drive.  I think 6-8 hours a day should be the max for driving, just too stressful otherwise.

Other than the trip down and back, the vacation was great!  The Gulf of Mexico is very nice and most of the people we met in and around Destin, FL were very friendly and helpful.  The house that Autumn rented was very nice and located only a block from the beach.  Despite some minor problems I believe everyone had a great time.

Having said that, I must admit that I am not a fan of the mini vacation, at least one situated so far from home.  The NYC trip was much the same, seemed like more time was spent driving than actually enjoying the time away.  Flying would have made it a bit better, but even then, such a short period of time is not the type of vacation I enjoy.

These types of mini vacations are great if they are in an adjacent state or somewhere within a 6 hour driving time radius, but not so much when you spend a full 24 hour day just getting there and back.  Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't enjoy seeing my family, it's just that I'm getting too old to quickly recover from a long trip such as this without some serious downtime.  At least I planned for this fact by adding a rest day at home before returning to work on Thursday.  That will help a lot!

Are You Stupid? Or Ignorant?

Okay, it's pet peeve time, and this is one of them.  People who use certain words when they really mean something else.  And no, before you ask, I'm not perfect, but I think a lot of us don't really take the time to consider what we are saying before we say it.  I don't know how many times I've heard someone say, "it's just words", but words mean something.  Think before you speak.

Considering most people online are using a computer to get there, it's really surprising the number of misspellings I see also.  Most programs used to communicate on the internet have a built-in spell checker, so you know they know they have made a mistake.  The problem is, they just don't want to take the time to correct it.  Are we really in that big of a hurry?  And while I'm at it, those same people seem to always be the ones who ask the questions which a simple Google search will answer for them.  Hello?  Anyone home?

I don't know, maybe it's me.  I know as I've gotten older, I am less tolerant of people.  Of course 13 years working at the local sheriff's office and 17 years working for the USPS has not helped a lot in that respect.  I think I need to retire.  Note, there is now a donate button on the right, so you can help me with that goal!  JK

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.  My mother still gets on me when I correct her so you might as well too!

My New Home

Welcome to my new home.  I've made the switch to Blogger for a couple of reasons, but mostly because it is easier to use.  Wordpress wasn't bad, but it didn't offer all of the features I wanted and what features it did offer were more difficult to implement.  I use a lot of Google products and like the fact that they make it easy to go from one to the other using the same Google login.

Over the coming weeks I hope to archive all of my old Wordpress posts over to this site, but I will leave my old blog as it is for now, with a link to this one of course.  Hope you enjoy my new site as much as I have making it!

EDIT: That didn't take as long as I thought it would.  I now have all of my blog posts moved over here.  I still need to add my links, etc.  But that shouldn't take too long to do. Let me know what you think about my new home.

That Time Again

Yep, once a year, the sleepy little town I live in becomes a frenzied mass of people and vehicles, all trying to get somewhere.  I suppose the merchants are happy, people in town are what they strive for all year long.  I hope they get their fill.

As for me, it's just a royal PITA!  Not one for going down to the riverfront to partake inthe good times, I just struggle to get from my home to the store to buy some supper or whatever.  I don't recall ever being asked if I wanted this to happen here, but then I don't suspect anyone was ever asked.

In case you haven't figured it out by now, the Swiss Wine Festival starts on Thursday and continues through Sunday.  I'm overjoyed at the prospect.  Overpriced rides and food, more drunks than you've ever seen in one place before, not to mention the Little Swiss Polka Dancers & Edelweiss Dancers.

Odd combination you say?  Drunks and kids?  All depends on how you look at it.  Family entertainment takes on many forms in this country and small town festivals are no different than any other venue used to provide this entertainment.  They strive to keep the drinking away from the children's activities, but with that many people, well...

So come one and all, our town is no different than yours, everyone loves to have fun, some more than others.

I Love My Job

I've heard it said many, many times, men rule the world.  That may or may not be true, but one thing is for certain, women make the world go 'round! This is something I have always suspected, but since my employment with the USPS, I have come to realize, this is a fact.

Keep in mind these statistics are purely unscientific, more like one rural mail carrier's observations, but I've seen it happen time after time after time.  When a woman lives in a household, the mail volume for that box increases significantly.  There are no exceptions, no real differences in each case.

An example would be a man, living alone.  He will get his utility bills, the occasional sports or car  magazine, perhaps an ad or two from Cabela's or Bass Pro Shops, and not much else.  But let a woman move in and bam, the mail volume increases by a factor of 4 times as much at least!

While the difference is mainly due to more ads, even the bills and incidental mail will also be increased.  Credit card statements, overdraft notices, Blockbuster, Netflix, Good Housekeeping, Elle, Oprah, People, Woman's Day, American Baby, parcels, etc.  It just goes on and on!

Just think, if there were no women, there would be no JC Penny, plain and simple.  Using my own route as an example, I would have to say that women account for at least 95+% of the ads that this company sends out, and they are by far the largest mailer using the USPS.

Simply put, if women ever stopped shopping, we would not have to worry about who was in the white house, it wouldn't matter a bit.  The country would cease to function and we would all be standing in the soup line.  So you ladies don't fret, your Kohl's ad will be here before you know it and all will be right with the world once again...

Update To My Three Displays...

I now have a new computer system which is able to access more displays.  I bought an MSI P55-GD80 with an i5 750 CPU.  With the help of a guy (kdawg) on the InsanelyMac forum, I now have it working with it's 3 video cards, each of which is capable of driving dual displays.  IOW, as soon as I can afford it, I will add 3 more monitors on my desk for a total of 6!

Okay, I can hear some of you way in the back asking "Why?"  Of course the standard reply to that would be, "Why not?", but you all know I'm not a standard kind of guy.  No, the reason is simple, more display area equals more productivity.

Computers are task intensive, they thrive on doing more than one thing at a time.  You've already seen how I set my email program on one monitor and web browsers on the other two, well with 3 more displays I can also be doing other things at the same time, all while keeping an eye on what is going on around me.

With this system I could also have Windows 7 running in a window on one of the displays for even more choices of things to do.  Take it from me, more is better and if 3 is good, then 6 is twice as good.

And besides all of that, it's what I want and that is, after all, the bottom line...