31 October 2007

Boo to you!!

MySpace Graphics

Have a spooky day, everyone!!!

30 October 2007

Some things money can't buy...

One jack-o-lantern Halloween candy bucket: $0.99

Buzz Lightyear costume, size 3T: $14.99

Pair of shoes to match costume: $17.99

Extra gas to drive kids to Mom's work for Office Trick-or-Treat Day: $25.00

Watching 4-year old son gang-tackle a well-dressed executive in the 6th-floor hallway, pulling on said executive's arms while shouting, "Look at me! Look at me! I'm Tommy!", realizing that well-dressed executive is actually the
CEO of the company, having a minor coronary event while rushing to rescue Mr. Boss-Man from sugar-amped toddler, yet having the Big Man himself simply laugh, tell the boy he wins "Best Costume," and give him a high five before extracting himself and going on his way with a smile: Priceless

And that's a Halloween story I will probably be telling my grandkids, with any luck.



18 October 2007

Did you know?

Watched this today in a staff meeting. It's being used in focus groups being held by the company in order to promote discussion on how we need to shift our perceptions of the world in order to adapt to a changing society.

Really makes you think. (You might want to mute it, the music gets a little irritating by the 3rd or 4th minute...)






Of course, there are countless skeptics who say all this is either fabricated or greatly embellished. They also say Senator Craig is straight, there's no global warming, the housing market is just fine, and Rudy Guliani would make a GREAT president. Go figure.

17 October 2007

Doggone It

So what's the deal with Ellen DeGeneres and this dog-thing everyone's talking about? I watched the whole display yesterday with her bawling on air about the dog-adoption place taking precious little Iggy away from her hairdresser's family, and I'm thinking, is this really worth getting hysterical over?

Long story short: Ellen and her partner, Portia, adopt a dog from an upscale rescue place (that runs out of a pet boutique store) and sign a contract upon the adoption. They spend $3000 on vet bills (who spends thousands on a neuter?) and the dog won't acclimate to life with their cats. So Ellen ever-so-generously gives the dog to her hairdresser, who has two daughters, ages 11 and 12. They bond with the dog, everything's working out, until the adoption place finds out, at which point they say Ellen violated the adoption contract and they go and retrieve the dog.

Then Ellen has an emotional meltdown on her show, and begs the place to return the dog to the heartbroken little girls. The dog-nazis say NO, because their policy prohibits adoptions by families with children under the age of 14. And so it goes. Ellen dedicated another entire show to the issue today, and the dog people have been getting death-threats from devoted fans who apparently have nothing better to do.

Come ON, people!! It's a dog. The kids had it for a month. They WILL get over it. This is not a child, for pete's sake. Are death threats necessary? Would we really regress so far as to commit murder over a stranger's adoption of a mutt? Honestly.

Now, I admit, this doggie-adoption place has their priorities a little skewed. All over the country, millions of dogs are owned by families with small children, and everything's peachy. It's a little on the stupid side to refuse to let this family (who obviously has money - the mom is Ellen DeGeneres' hairdresser) with no history of animal abuse have this little knappy-haired pooch. And also, if someone had taken away my dog when I was 12, I also would have been heartbroken and wailing. But at that point, my mom would have taken me to a shelter and rescued a mutt off of doggie-Death Row to ease the pain.

I can't see spending thousands of dollars to adopt a dog in the first place, and I certainly would not enter into some legally-binding adoption contract regarding said dog. Once I get it home, I don't want anyone doing "routine home visits" to see if I am feeding it nutrionally acceptable food from an aesthetically-pleasing dish, and checking to make sure I've clipped its toenails to the approved length and washed it with aromatic shampoo in water that measured precisely 72 degrees... or whatever. Bottom line is that it would be MY dog in MY house, so the rest of you can get the hell back.

I think animal abusers should be much more harshly punished than they currently are. (In Texas, while animal abuse is a misdemeanor, it's still legal to kill a pet as long as it belongs to you.) I think the world is a sad place where people can't even treat animals with respect, let alone each other. But this makes a parody out of the process of rescuing animals. To truly rescue an animal, one would think this animal was in danger to begin with. Little Iggy wasn't in any danger of euthanization or abuse. He lived in a boutique and had fancier digs than me.

Ellen, do all of us a favor. Shut up. Then, go rescue a dog from a shelter. Fix it up, and give it to the sobbing little girls. Let Iggy go live with some other rich couple. I guarantee the dog doesn't know the difference.

04 October 2007

Finally a new post!

Yes, yes, I know. I haven't even HAD a blog that long, and already I have let weeks lapse without a single post. Well, I have been updating the little gas thingie off to the side, but that can get depressing. The good news is that, as of this post, crude is back below $80 a barrel.

More good news

I have recently been made a permanent employee here at American. I've been a temp for over three months, so it's a great stride forward to finally be a "real" employee. The temps here are only given six months to find permanent placement before they're booted out the door. You have no benefits or flight privileges, no overtime and no sick leave. And you only get $9.25 an hour, regardless of what you do.

Most temps move from department to department, filling roles in whatever capacity is needed using their limited access to apply for internal jobs. It's the same as pounding the pavement, handing out resumes and getting interviewed, except you are actually working here while applying to various vacancies within the company itself. They try to get you to limit yourself to three applications a week, as you aren't paid for interview time and it takes away from your temp duties to go and vie for positions. It's also very aggressive - there's over a hundred people in the temp pool, and typically about five to ten positions a week accepting applications.

I got lucky, though. There was a spot open the day I came on as a temp, working as a staff assistant for the HR-Finance director and his direct staff. He needed someone to fill the position immediately, but the job hadn't posted yet on the internal network. The director wanted someone to work the position as a provisional until he knew whether or not they fit with himself and the team. It was tricky because if he decided I wasn't what he was looking for in a secretary, he could cut me loose without a warning, sending me back into the ever-shifting currents of the temp pool, and I'd have lost the time I was working for him against my six months, leaving me with less opportunity to find something permanent.

It was nerve-wracking for awhile. I sat here for over 12 weeks with no indication from him as to my future status. Then he finally posted the job, and I applied, one amongst seven others who leapt on the chance to fill this spot. It came down to two after the initial interviews, and the other one bombed her interview (she wore something slinky and suggestive, as potential secretaries sometimes do, thinking to portray herself as eye-candy to the man she'd be working for everyday... but that doesn't work on a man who is, shall we say, deeply committed to his life-partner - she just came off as cheap and sleazy).

So here I am. Making a lot more now than $9.25 an hour, finally eligible for flight privileges and in less than a month, health insurance for the first time in years. You could probably hear my sighs of relief there in (insert your location here).

And hopefully, it won't be three weeks before I post again.

One more thing...

My little boy got glasses! Pictures coming soon. ((I PROMISE!))