This one will be short and sweet. I'm beginning week 5 of 9 of both my classes, (algebra 1b and my 2nd hospitality class). The hospitality class is going well, with a high b or low A so far. The algebra class so far is slightly better than the last, but still just trying to keep a passing grade in the class. If I can get through algebra, i should be ok for a while.
So right now, things are ok, the bills are payed up for the most part until the beginning of auguest. The only ones that we have to pay yet, there are 3, electric $260 or something, $550.00 to my parents for the rent for july, and the cell phone bill for july, which I believe all 3 of these bills are due middle to end of the month of july, so thats not bad.
A recent development, Erin got a text from Eric (the supervisor that claimed I never contacted him,m and said some things about me that I never found out what). he claimed to erin that he had nothing to do with me getting fired, and he is saddened that I wont talk to him. the funny thing, well there are a few, is this. 1) I'm not "not talking to him." I simply have been the one to have to initiate contact with him in the past when we didn't hear form him for a while. I don't trust him at all, and with the way that the firing went down, with him and securitas claiming two things that werent true, which were that I had the car towed (which I didn't, and I have proof,) and that I never contacted my supervisor (which I did, but eric claims I didn't talk to him.) So oh well! But the funny thing is, Eric has my number, he has the means to be able to reach me if he wants. To say "he's ignoring me. I have tried to call him and he wont answer." I'm like "that's a bunch of crap. He has not tried to call me once." Erin tonight asked him "you 'do' know that chris upgraded to a new phone right? He's no longer on blackberry, which means that you can't reach him on blackberry messenger." Eric was like "oh, I didn't realize that. I will try him again." So erin goes "just be on the lookout, he might message ya."
I'm just like "i will believe that when I see it. Eric is more the kind of guy that gets where he wants to be, such as how he got to be supervisor, by talking big, and making himself look better than he is. It is because of having worked with him, and our experiences with him as a supposed friend that I probably trust the guy less than anyone else. I hate to say it, but it's true. You can only have someone tell you something that turns out to be a lie so many times before you're like "how on earth can I believe anything you say?" If you claim that you are a friend, and you didn't do anything to help push a firing on you, but then when I got fired, securitas said "eric said some things about you," but then wouldn't say what he said, it's like "You had nothing to do with it, but yet you obviously did from what the company told me, and not only that, but the reason you and securitas gave as to why I was fired was complete bs!"
It worked out though, because I was awarded the unemployment because the company was unable to provide any proof what so ever as to why they fired me. THey and eric had no actual proof about what they accused me of. What I 'was' guilty of was simply giving a car a parking ticket because they were parked in a no parking zone and I did what was right with the safety of the other drivers in mind. They turned it around and said "he had the car towed and didn't talk to anyone." When the unemployment representative interviewed me and told me what they reported, and said "is this true?" I was just like "no ma'am, I never had the car towed, and the supervisor was notified of the situation. I'm not sure why they would make these claims."
So oh well, I just completed week 4 of both algebra 1b and HTT210. Lately I am having trouble getting all my assignments turned in by the deadline, but I learned in the past that it is better to turn things in a day late than to skip turning them in. Getting half or 3/4 credit for an assignment helps compared to how much it hurts to get 0 points out of however many. With these math classes I just want to get past them. With the other classes, I have found that I can get a b or an A much easier. LOL!
So on that note, I have to sign off because I spent quite a bit of time on assignments tonight and my batter power is at 7% which means it will put me in standby mode soon. I will talk to you all again next time! take care and God Bless!
C
Monday, June 27, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Sunday, June 19th, 2011 (FATHERS DAY!)
OMG I can't believe that. You ever have part of an email or blog or whatever, and then you accidentally hit the wrong key and you delete it all? Well I just had that happen here. Thankfully I didn't have a whole lot typed up just yet, so I'm glad for that. So here we go again!
Happy Father's day to all you dads out there!
This past thursday, I finally had my over the phone hearing with iowa work force about the unemployment. They tried to call securitas but were unable to get anyone on the phone. I got a few answers to some of the things that I wasn't able to find out when they fired me. They said that Eric had said some things about me, and that there were discreptancies (however that's spelled) with my report, but wouldn't tell me anything else. Well to start the phone interview off, when the lady came back on the line and told me that securitas was unable to be reached, we talked about what they said in their report about why I was let go. This caught my attention, because it was 2 things that were complete bullshit. She said "Their report said that the reason you were let go was because you had a vehicle towed, and said that you notified your supervisor, and this was a violation of company policies. Did you have a car towed?" I was like "NO ma'am I did not. I had a vehicle 'ticketed,' but the car was still in the lot when I left. They told me that the hospital paid for teh parking ticket, but I know nothing about it being towed." She was like "that's interesting. So you did not have the car towed, you only had the car ticketed, right?" "That's correct ma'am." "What did you have the car ticketed for?" "They were parked in a traffic area. I have a photo that I took as well as the police officer that issued the ticket. In the photo you can see at least half a dozen spaces near the vehicle that they could have parked. There was no reason they should have parked there, and I felt that it was a safety concern for other drivers coming into the parking lot." "Oh, I see. Well yeah, it makes sense to me Christopher, if they are parked like that then they should have been ticketed." "Exactly my thoughts on it ma'am."
She asked me how many written and verbal warnings I had received prior to this. I said "I only received one verbal warning about something about 8 months back, but otherwise in the year and a half that I had been there, I had a spotless record." She simply said "sounds great! I think that's all I need. I will make my decision and you and securitas will receive notice of my decision. If either party doesn't agree with the decision, they can contest it." I simply said "Sounds good. Thank ou ma'am."
So, now hopefully by next friday I will receive my first unemployment check in the bank. It'll be for 4 weeks, so that should be pretty nice. If it doesn't happen by then, then it should definitely take place by the following week. I'm just anxious because I don't know the "official" decision. I guess it worries me because there's always that chance that she decided not to award me the unemployment. I'm sure I have nothing to worry about. I am applying with jobs each and every week, and focusing on my algebra and hospitality class. So far so good with those. I think I have a B in both of those currently, not that i'm 100% positive that algebra will remain there, but we will see. All I can do is try my best and see what happens.
I'm hoping that after finding out that their report wasn't exactly the truth, that I should have no issues with getting the unemployment. It made me stress a bit though because I'm like "why would they say I had the car towed?" Also, when we talked about them saying I didn't contact my supervisor, I explained that I contacted him through black berry messenger, and sent him the photo that way. She asked me "and you two had always communicated that way and never had any issues till this incident right?" I was like "that is correct. Working the grave yard shift, if it was something like this, we never used to have to call anyone and get permission. It was not a very big deal and I feel I made the right decision. Eric was notified though, whether he claims he was or not, and the vehicle was never towed, so I'm not quite sure why they are saying those two things."
It made me go "oh, that makes sense though, becaues they claimed there was a discreptancy between what happened and my report, and said that I had an integrity issue. Well if they are claiming that I towed the car and didn't contact eric, and I actually did contact eric, and didn't tow the car, and wrote my report exactly how things did really happen, they could easily claim that I wasn't truthful in my report. It makes sense that they would not tell me that when getting fired becaues they knew that if they tried to not say too much about what they were claiming, maybe I wouldn't fight them on it. And I would have. I kept the photo of that car for a reason. I still have it, not that it is much good to me anymore.
So it's interesting, I am loving my HTC Thunderbolt phone from verizon. Ever since I upgraded from my blackberry, I am so addicted! I love the android network! There are so many free apps that you can get! Plus compared to my blackberry, I can download songs for free. I have gotten into this game, Live Texas Holdem. I play with the chips that I win for free every day. every day that I log on, I get awarded 5,000 chips. I only do the low stakes tables because I don't like losing a lot quickly. Plus, for some reason I win a lot more on the low stakes tables than on the high stakes tables. Erin was like "Just don't bet with real money though." I was like "oh trust me, I'm not. I don't want to lose real money on it, that'd be too depressing.". I like the "idea" of gambling and possibly getting rich but at the same time, I'm scared to death that I would lose a lot of money. But I want to know how to play cards a little better, and I have noticed that I am picking up more on the different types of "hands" you can get and then knowing when to bet more, but also knowing when I might be better off to fold. I downloaded an actual poker game and I didn't like it because I had to put money into the pot each hand no matter if I folded or not. I couldn't just check. So I uninstalled that app and will stick with my blackjack game and my live texas holdem. The blackjack is against the computer but the texas holdem is against actual players.
So other than that, I just felt like with the new news about the unemployment, and stuff like that, I knew it was time to once again get on here and post. I went on facebook to post happy fathers day to all the fathers I know, including a few friends (or one that I thought was a friend). This other guard named Matt Kestel, when I got fired, I blocked Eric on facebook and deleted matt because I was trying to sever connections with past employment. Matt texted me by that night complaining and asking why I deleted him. I re-added him and said that I really did not have any issues with him, just with eric, and I thought things were good. Well, I went to try to look him up on my friends list and he wasn't on there. I was like "well that's very interesting." I was able to look him up so apparently he didn't block me, just probably deleted me, and he did so after acting like I offended him by deleting him. I'm like "um, ok? Why throw a fit just to turn around and delete me instead?" If he wants to be childish like that, when he claimed that he and I were good, then that's his problem. OH WELL
But it did bug me quite a bit today. I was making lunch and doing the dishes really quick, and erin came in there and asked me if I was ok. I just shrugged. She was like "what's wrong?" I told her that I was just thinking about the things with work, and what they claimed in their report, and the fact that matt de-friended me, and although I know it shouldn't bug me, it does a little. that I thought that the main problem I have is that they weren't honest in their report. If they said "he had a car ticketed and didn't follow chain of command, and that's why we let him go." That's actually what they told me, but then to turn around and say "he had the car towed and never contacted the supervisor, and lied on his report." I'm like "huh?!" So, apparently I just have to let it go. There is not a whole lot I can do about it. I had to keep explaining to Erin's mom why I don't think I will apply at securitas out in Philly. After this, I don't know if I want to work there again.
I look forward to being out there though, I really want to get into a flight school and start working on my pilot certs. That will be really awesome!
So anyway, at least all bills except rent and the cell phones, are paid up till the beginning of august, so that is great. I am getting another refund from my school that should be deposited in my bank account by monday morning, so I will be able to send off rent for the month and pay the cell phone bill. As long as the unemployment begins, I wont have to worry much.
On that note, I will call it a night! I will have to get back online in a little bit and do one assignment. I already did algebra for the week, I just have to do my hospitality class as well. Talk to you all again soon!
C
Happy Father's day to all you dads out there!
This past thursday, I finally had my over the phone hearing with iowa work force about the unemployment. They tried to call securitas but were unable to get anyone on the phone. I got a few answers to some of the things that I wasn't able to find out when they fired me. They said that Eric had said some things about me, and that there were discreptancies (however that's spelled) with my report, but wouldn't tell me anything else. Well to start the phone interview off, when the lady came back on the line and told me that securitas was unable to be reached, we talked about what they said in their report about why I was let go. This caught my attention, because it was 2 things that were complete bullshit. She said "Their report said that the reason you were let go was because you had a vehicle towed, and said that you notified your supervisor, and this was a violation of company policies. Did you have a car towed?" I was like "NO ma'am I did not. I had a vehicle 'ticketed,' but the car was still in the lot when I left. They told me that the hospital paid for teh parking ticket, but I know nothing about it being towed." She was like "that's interesting. So you did not have the car towed, you only had the car ticketed, right?" "That's correct ma'am." "What did you have the car ticketed for?" "They were parked in a traffic area. I have a photo that I took as well as the police officer that issued the ticket. In the photo you can see at least half a dozen spaces near the vehicle that they could have parked. There was no reason they should have parked there, and I felt that it was a safety concern for other drivers coming into the parking lot." "Oh, I see. Well yeah, it makes sense to me Christopher, if they are parked like that then they should have been ticketed." "Exactly my thoughts on it ma'am."
She asked me how many written and verbal warnings I had received prior to this. I said "I only received one verbal warning about something about 8 months back, but otherwise in the year and a half that I had been there, I had a spotless record." She simply said "sounds great! I think that's all I need. I will make my decision and you and securitas will receive notice of my decision. If either party doesn't agree with the decision, they can contest it." I simply said "Sounds good. Thank ou ma'am."
So, now hopefully by next friday I will receive my first unemployment check in the bank. It'll be for 4 weeks, so that should be pretty nice. If it doesn't happen by then, then it should definitely take place by the following week. I'm just anxious because I don't know the "official" decision. I guess it worries me because there's always that chance that she decided not to award me the unemployment. I'm sure I have nothing to worry about. I am applying with jobs each and every week, and focusing on my algebra and hospitality class. So far so good with those. I think I have a B in both of those currently, not that i'm 100% positive that algebra will remain there, but we will see. All I can do is try my best and see what happens.
I'm hoping that after finding out that their report wasn't exactly the truth, that I should have no issues with getting the unemployment. It made me stress a bit though because I'm like "why would they say I had the car towed?" Also, when we talked about them saying I didn't contact my supervisor, I explained that I contacted him through black berry messenger, and sent him the photo that way. She asked me "and you two had always communicated that way and never had any issues till this incident right?" I was like "that is correct. Working the grave yard shift, if it was something like this, we never used to have to call anyone and get permission. It was not a very big deal and I feel I made the right decision. Eric was notified though, whether he claims he was or not, and the vehicle was never towed, so I'm not quite sure why they are saying those two things."
It made me go "oh, that makes sense though, becaues they claimed there was a discreptancy between what happened and my report, and said that I had an integrity issue. Well if they are claiming that I towed the car and didn't contact eric, and I actually did contact eric, and didn't tow the car, and wrote my report exactly how things did really happen, they could easily claim that I wasn't truthful in my report. It makes sense that they would not tell me that when getting fired becaues they knew that if they tried to not say too much about what they were claiming, maybe I wouldn't fight them on it. And I would have. I kept the photo of that car for a reason. I still have it, not that it is much good to me anymore.
So it's interesting, I am loving my HTC Thunderbolt phone from verizon. Ever since I upgraded from my blackberry, I am so addicted! I love the android network! There are so many free apps that you can get! Plus compared to my blackberry, I can download songs for free. I have gotten into this game, Live Texas Holdem. I play with the chips that I win for free every day. every day that I log on, I get awarded 5,000 chips. I only do the low stakes tables because I don't like losing a lot quickly. Plus, for some reason I win a lot more on the low stakes tables than on the high stakes tables. Erin was like "Just don't bet with real money though." I was like "oh trust me, I'm not. I don't want to lose real money on it, that'd be too depressing.". I like the "idea" of gambling and possibly getting rich but at the same time, I'm scared to death that I would lose a lot of money. But I want to know how to play cards a little better, and I have noticed that I am picking up more on the different types of "hands" you can get and then knowing when to bet more, but also knowing when I might be better off to fold. I downloaded an actual poker game and I didn't like it because I had to put money into the pot each hand no matter if I folded or not. I couldn't just check. So I uninstalled that app and will stick with my blackjack game and my live texas holdem. The blackjack is against the computer but the texas holdem is against actual players.
So other than that, I just felt like with the new news about the unemployment, and stuff like that, I knew it was time to once again get on here and post. I went on facebook to post happy fathers day to all the fathers I know, including a few friends (or one that I thought was a friend). This other guard named Matt Kestel, when I got fired, I blocked Eric on facebook and deleted matt because I was trying to sever connections with past employment. Matt texted me by that night complaining and asking why I deleted him. I re-added him and said that I really did not have any issues with him, just with eric, and I thought things were good. Well, I went to try to look him up on my friends list and he wasn't on there. I was like "well that's very interesting." I was able to look him up so apparently he didn't block me, just probably deleted me, and he did so after acting like I offended him by deleting him. I'm like "um, ok? Why throw a fit just to turn around and delete me instead?" If he wants to be childish like that, when he claimed that he and I were good, then that's his problem. OH WELL
But it did bug me quite a bit today. I was making lunch and doing the dishes really quick, and erin came in there and asked me if I was ok. I just shrugged. She was like "what's wrong?" I told her that I was just thinking about the things with work, and what they claimed in their report, and the fact that matt de-friended me, and although I know it shouldn't bug me, it does a little. that I thought that the main problem I have is that they weren't honest in their report. If they said "he had a car ticketed and didn't follow chain of command, and that's why we let him go." That's actually what they told me, but then to turn around and say "he had the car towed and never contacted the supervisor, and lied on his report." I'm like "huh?!" So, apparently I just have to let it go. There is not a whole lot I can do about it. I had to keep explaining to Erin's mom why I don't think I will apply at securitas out in Philly. After this, I don't know if I want to work there again.
I look forward to being out there though, I really want to get into a flight school and start working on my pilot certs. That will be really awesome!
So anyway, at least all bills except rent and the cell phones, are paid up till the beginning of august, so that is great. I am getting another refund from my school that should be deposited in my bank account by monday morning, so I will be able to send off rent for the month and pay the cell phone bill. As long as the unemployment begins, I wont have to worry much.
On that note, I will call it a night! I will have to get back online in a little bit and do one assignment. I already did algebra for the week, I just have to do my hospitality class as well. Talk to you all again soon!
C
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Tuesday, June 14th, 2011
Good evening all. I'm not sure how long of a blog I'm going to make tonight, but I wanted to at least do something. So, I received my first of 3 refunds I'm scheduled to get this summer this week. It helped tremendously, even though it was pretty much gone within half a day. The great thing though is that we paid a huge chunk of change to the energy company, so we are all paid up with them, and we paid off our qwest bill, so bot those are good until at last the end of july. Then we had some work done on Erin's car beecause it really needed it.
So this week in class has sucked really bad. University of Phoenix has been having a lot of technical issues with their student web site. There have been at least 2 days so far where I have not been able to turn assignments in on time because it wouldn't let me into the site. At first I freaked out because it said I was not enrolled in classes, which I was like "WHAT?!" I can always reach my financial aid rep,and they can reach each other, so I called her and told her what was going on and she told me it was not on my end, and was actually the college student site messing up. So, I breathed a little bit easier. The night before, I had worked my butt off to get my algebra quiz done and i passed it, and then suddenly I was unable to submit my assignments. I was like "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! I DONT WANT THEM TO BE LATE!!!"
Side Note: One thing that bugs me about my netbook sometimes is I have to pay close attention because while I'm typing, I will notice that one of my keys did not register and so I will have a word that shows up with a letter missing.
So, the night before, I felt great having all my assignments done on time, but then I was depressed because I knew that I was going to probably take a hit on my grades on those assignments. I was up till like 4 AM and then still could'nt sleep very well. It sucked.. but now I hear that wih the problems that the site is having this week, they are going to be lenient on the grades if we are unable to get on the site and turn things in. I hate it, but at least there is that positive part of it.
So on that note, zoe, erin,and I went to the strawberry farm and picked about 18 lbs o strawberries. That was fun. We paid $1.50 per pound, and they took us right to one of the rows and we were there for about an hour. Then we sold off about 5 lbs of it to a friend, bagged up most of the rest, minus about a lb that I split with Zoe. I had about 10 oz in a bowl with sugar on it, and zoe had about 6 oz. I thought she had quite a bit, but I realized I was wrong when she finished it and was like "MORE!" lol.
So on that note, tonight I went to try to log into the student website and now they are having issues with people being able to even log in, so I was like "well, I guess no school work for me tonight!" Oh well. I'm going to try to not stress out about it. On that note I will call hat it for the night! I wish you all the best, God Bless you all, and talk to you again soon!
C
So this week in class has sucked really bad. University of Phoenix has been having a lot of technical issues with their student web site. There have been at least 2 days so far where I have not been able to turn assignments in on time because it wouldn't let me into the site. At first I freaked out because it said I was not enrolled in classes, which I was like "WHAT?!" I can always reach my financial aid rep,and they can reach each other, so I called her and told her what was going on and she told me it was not on my end, and was actually the college student site messing up. So, I breathed a little bit easier. The night before, I had worked my butt off to get my algebra quiz done and i passed it, and then suddenly I was unable to submit my assignments. I was like "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! I DONT WANT THEM TO BE LATE!!!"
Side Note: One thing that bugs me about my netbook sometimes is I have to pay close attention because while I'm typing, I will notice that one of my keys did not register and so I will have a word that shows up with a letter missing.
So, the night before, I felt great having all my assignments done on time, but then I was depressed because I knew that I was going to probably take a hit on my grades on those assignments. I was up till like 4 AM and then still could'nt sleep very well. It sucked.. but now I hear that wih the problems that the site is having this week, they are going to be lenient on the grades if we are unable to get on the site and turn things in. I hate it, but at least there is that positive part of it.
So on that note, zoe, erin,and I went to the strawberry farm and picked about 18 lbs o strawberries. That was fun. We paid $1.50 per pound, and they took us right to one of the rows and we were there for about an hour. Then we sold off about 5 lbs of it to a friend, bagged up most of the rest, minus about a lb that I split with Zoe. I had about 10 oz in a bowl with sugar on it, and zoe had about 6 oz. I thought she had quite a bit, but I realized I was wrong when she finished it and was like "MORE!" lol.
So on that note, tonight I went to try to log into the student website and now they are having issues with people being able to even log in, so I was like "well, I guess no school work for me tonight!" Oh well. I'm going to try to not stress out about it. On that note I will call hat it for the night! I wish you all the best, God Bless you all, and talk to you again soon!
C
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Sunday, June 5th, 2011
Hello one and all! Yes I am aware of the fact that it has been a little while since the last post, and for that I apologize. Quite a bit has happened since the last time that I was on here. 1) I have taken the book I am writing and increased the number of pages from page number 105 which is where I was about 2 weeks back, and am now around page 127. I would love to be able to keep myself motivated and write 3-5 pages per day, but there are some days when I am not really motivated to do a whole lot of anything really. 2) I finished Algebra1A about 3 weeks ago, I had a two week break between those two classes and the classes I have now been into for about a week now. I am now taking Algebra1B and hospitality class number two.
Mat, I have to say, I was actually quite surprised to find out that you have read my blog. I honestly had no idea! lol. I guess that comes from you not necesarily having an account on blogger and commenting online or anything, but it was nice to find out that I have other readers other than my lovely wife and my best friend melisssa from down in Florida. I'm sure others might eventually make their way here, but hey, I'm in no rush. It's not like I have to have people reading my blog all the time, or be super popular at this point in life anyway. I'm just some random person that has a blog online, so I guess I'm one blog out of millions or billions of blogs.
Also, Mat, something quite interestin, I was on facebook on my lapto instead of my phone just as I was typing this blog, and was looking at the list of people that it says "you might know . . " And it's true, I did know quite a few, but I didn't add them. I don't understand a few things. 1) I don't understand people from highschool and the way they think. Yes I get that they feel that their high school days were the best times of their lives. I admit those times were really nice, but would I want to go back? Hell no. I'm fairly happy with where I'm at right now, minus a few minor details, but we will go into those in a bit. 2) I don't understand how some people have hundreds and hundreds of people on their facebook just because they went to school with them. If those people talk to all those people, then I can understand having everyone on there, but if you dont, then it just doesn't make any sense to have everyone on there I guess that leads me to my other point. It has been 10 years since I have been out of high school, and I just got a facebook reminder about our "10 year high school reunion." There is even a really big schedule of events planned for what we will do when we all go back to lil ol holdrege nebraska around the 15th of June. Seriously? I just don't get it. I was in a hurry to get away from holdrege. True I did have a small group of people from my graduating class that I hung out with, but not enough to make me want to go back and say "Hey guys! Haven't seen you since we all left! Whats up?"
I just don't see myself making the trip all the way back to holdrege just for that. In my opinion, high school was one part of life and it's in the past. I don't care to see how some of the old high school graduates are doing. They all have their own lives and I wish them the best. If I make any trips at all in the month of june, it will be either to see the east coast family, or to go to florida to visit grandpa blodgett and my friend melissa. I'm not sure quite yet if those wll take place, but it'd be nice, since I'm on unemployment. That's right! I haven't covered that yet! But first, since I rambled on a bit, mat what I was saying was funny about facebook right now is I was looking at photos of people online that it says I might know and I saw a "travis pell." I was like "Holy shit! Travis and kyle!" But I still didn't add him. I know I know, we are cousins and what not, but God it's been over 10 years since I last saw him. probably longer. I was probably 12 the last time we saw them, back when tommy was around, and married to Lu I believe, and he came out to visit us in las vegas and Sheryl showedup and was suddenly lounging in our pool, I don't know if you remember that or not.
So anyway! Unemployment.
Hopefully you can all see the image up above. Let me explain a bit first and then go into info about the photo up above. There is a guy at the hospital, whom is a guard like I was. His name is Eric. Eric was someone we knew from texas, whom had family troubles, and we helped him move to were we live in Clinton, Iowa. We helped him move up. Out of the hundreds that he had received from us in assistance, he said he would pay monthly to pay it back, and then I had to keep coming to him and asking him about if he would be able to pay anything towards what he owed. It's one thing if you have lended someone money and they said that they do plan to pay it back, but obviously can't right now. That we understand because we have other friends that we lended about $250.00 to help them, and they plan to pay it back, but haven't been able to yet. We understand that, and we don't keep asking. But with Eric, it was "here's $20.00.." and "here's $50.00." and then he stopped and would talk about how he had payed us back in full. I was like "um, how do you figure? there's still $250.00 that you haven't payed back and yet now you say that you payed everything that was owed?"
Apparently when he moved up, he said that the way he cleared all his debt from his credit report was he wrote all of them and requested that they send him proof that he owed the money. From what he said, only one or two of the 12 or so creditors could prove it, and so most of the debt he owed was cleared without him payin a dime. He told me I should do that too, but that just sounds wrong to me. I know I owe the money and am doing what I can to pay it back. It makes sense though, because he feels that he paid back everything he owed, and so it's like "you know what man? no you didn't, you still owe $200.00, but I'm not going to stress about it because we know that we will probably never see any part of it."
So, the rest of the story about Eric is like this. He came up here, had trouble finding a job for a month or two. I was working at the hospital as security through Securitas. I recommended eric to my boss, saying "you should give eric a shot. he's a great guy, he would make a good guard!" And I had been Guard of the Month once or twice already and was willing to work extra if needed, and so they trusted me and gave him a chance. The contract that they originally put him on was canceled and they made him a supervisor at another site because he is 40 years old, and had business experience, etc..... then after 6 months of him working that site, he was going to quit, but by that point my site, the hospital, was looking for another guard because we had gone to 24/7, and so Eric was put over with us. We had never had any official supervisors among us, and there were only 4 or 5 of us total, and so we had always been able to work things out and do a really good job. Well Eric, from what i have overheard from the bosses and maintenance we worked with, he went behind the backs of all the guards and made claims against us all saying that we each did such and such, to make us look bad, and then tried to talk himself up and that is how he was made supervisor over the rest of us.
The odd thing about this part is that I had been with securitas longer, and I had been with the hospital 3 times as long Eric, and the rest of the guards actually looked up to me as though I was a supervisor, even though technically I was not. When eric became the official supervisor, he went on a power trip and started saying "you have to do things this way instead!" and "stand out and be visible," and just little stuff like that, saying that he wanted us to go above and beyond and make a better impression on the client(Ie: the hospital).... I think that because I had been there longer than him and knew how to do my job, i could tell that he was out to try to find things to come up with that I might have done wrong, things to write me up about, but I wasn't going to give him any reason. He even came into the hospital during one of my shifts, at around 3 AM, and was pissed about stuff that he and I had already talked about. He just came into the office while I was updating paperwork, and he was pissed, and was like "Chris! I hear you have problems with me!" I was like "what the hell are you talking about eric?" He was like "Well I'm here in regular clothe and not in uniform, and that is 'unprofessional'." I was like "eric, have no problem with you coming up here in your free time in regular clothes, because you will do whatever you want, and that's your business."
He was like "Well, you are going around causing problems and that can result in paperwork." I was like "what do you mean paperwork eric?" He was like "I will have to write you up." I was like "write me up for what Eric?" He was like "for causing problems." I was like "How am I causing problems eric?" He was like "you're going around saying things about me." I was like "I absolutely have not. I don't say anything about you at all. The only person I talk to is matt when I come in to take over for him, but all we talk about is how the day went, and stuff like that." By the end of the conversation, I had defused him quite a bit, but that was a big stress for me because it was like, when I relieved matt the following night, I was like "dude, Eric came in last night and tried to rip me a new one." He was like "what?! why?" I was like "Well, he accused me of talking about him behind his back, and threatened to write me up, and I told him that I haven't done anything like that, and that he had no real reason to write me up."
So, it went eventless for a few more weeks, and then eric commented that when we have to patrol the parking lot in the morning and make sure that people don't park where they are not supposed to, he recomended that I stand out where people see me so that I am "visible," and greeting staff as they come in, etc, and so I was doing that. Well, Thursday morning, I came back from South campus about an hour before I was to be getting off work, and I noticed this car in the photo up above. The yellow lines are the end of the parking spaces, and as you can see in the photo, there are multiple open spaces near that car, and so there was no reason why they should have parked in this traffic area. Well, I noticed this car, and thought "i really should have this car ticketed, because it is a safety issue for drivers coming into the parking lot." The thing about it was, I felt that either way, I was going to be bit in the ass. I thought that I could 1) not do anything, and leave it and just not say anything, but if I did that, I felt that if something should happen, like an accident happened, they would look on the video tapes and see that I had seen the car, and I would have gotten in trouble for that... or 2) I call the police and have the car ticketed and that the car might belong to somebody high up the chain in the hospital, and that I would end up getting in trouble for that as well.
So, I thought, "if I'm probably going to get in trouble for either scenario, I would rather be able to say that I did the right thing. So I called the police and had the police issue a parking ticket. It would only cost the driver $25.00. Then I took this photo, and the cop took a photo just in case this ticket was disputed. I sent the photo to Eric, and told him what took place, and securitas asked me to send them the photo as well. I thought everything was hopefully ok, but had a bad feeling. Later that day, I received a voicemail from securitas saying that I was removed from the site, and that I needed to come in and talk to my HR manager at securitas the following morning. I told Erin that I was probably getting fired. She said "they wouldn't have you come all the way out there to fire you."
So, I drove out to bettendorf, IA, which was an hour trip, and sat down for 10 minutes with the HR manager. He basically said "you didn't follow chain of command, eric said some things about you and because of that, we feel that there is an integrity issue. The hospital paid the ticket for the vehicle owner, and was very upset with that, and so we had to take care of that, and because of all this, I had to remove you from the site, and I have to let you go from the company."
I was like "1) why did the hospital pay the ticket for the owner? As you saw from the photo I sent you, the vehicle was parked illegally and the ticket was valid. We did not have any written protocols and such about having to call and get permission before making a decision, etc. we did things this way since the day I started." He was like "yes they paid the ticket, the client was very upset about it, I'm not going to go into that right now." I was like "ok, then what is this about an integrity issue? I have never lied to you guys,I have always been up front about everything, and have never been written up for anything. What did Eric say about me because I can tell you right now he is completely full of crap." He was like "i'm not going to go into that right now."
So after that, I talked to a lawyer, and found out that there is nothing i can do....but I already filed for unemployment and will make more on that than I did with securitas.... So I am dedicating a lot of time to my classes and to writing in my book and spending time with the family.
So that is about it for now. That is all the dirty details about the events. I gotta go because I gotta grill some food for dinner!
C
*** Updated around 11:23PM**
Well the night is done with. After dinner *which I had to end my blog post earlier because I had to do the grillin, we were having Betsy's (erin's adoptive mom)'s recipe called steak teriyaki. It was good, and was very similar to our version of Teriyaki steak. There apparently are only a few small differences in the recipe, but I thought it tasted very much like it. Plus we had corn on the cob, asparagrass, and then margaritas to drink. After dinner, we went out on the lake on a pontoon boat, which I was very impressed with and actually would love to eventually own a pontoon boat to go out on the water with the family more often. Lots of room for many passengers, and very relaxing. The only downside to it was that it was getting dark so we weren't out on the boat long. Next time, hopefully we can hang out on the boat much longer. =) Something fun though, the girls both loved being out on the boat, and they even had their golden retriever Molly out there on the boat with us as well. After that, we drove the golf cart over to some friends of erins that she has known for a while. It was nice, then we got the girls both a drinks and they were both headed off to bed. Now just time to chill out and relax since even though it is 11:30 at night, it feels early! But, still one day left of our little mini-vacation and then Me, erin and zoe will be heading back home and ally will be staying with the grandparents for the month of june. If we're lucky, betsy and harry will be open for a visit around july 4th from us, and we can do a weekend like this again! Maybe we can go out on the lake in a pontoon boat to enjoy the fireworks, because I think that would be awesome! So anyway, that is it this time. Thanks for reading and don't be afraid to comment and letme know you were here! =)
Mat, I have to say, I was actually quite surprised to find out that you have read my blog. I honestly had no idea! lol. I guess that comes from you not necesarily having an account on blogger and commenting online or anything, but it was nice to find out that I have other readers other than my lovely wife and my best friend melisssa from down in Florida. I'm sure others might eventually make their way here, but hey, I'm in no rush. It's not like I have to have people reading my blog all the time, or be super popular at this point in life anyway. I'm just some random person that has a blog online, so I guess I'm one blog out of millions or billions of blogs.
Also, Mat, something quite interestin, I was on facebook on my lapto instead of my phone just as I was typing this blog, and was looking at the list of people that it says "you might know . . " And it's true, I did know quite a few, but I didn't add them. I don't understand a few things. 1) I don't understand people from highschool and the way they think. Yes I get that they feel that their high school days were the best times of their lives. I admit those times were really nice, but would I want to go back? Hell no. I'm fairly happy with where I'm at right now, minus a few minor details, but we will go into those in a bit. 2) I don't understand how some people have hundreds and hundreds of people on their facebook just because they went to school with them. If those people talk to all those people, then I can understand having everyone on there, but if you dont, then it just doesn't make any sense to have everyone on there I guess that leads me to my other point. It has been 10 years since I have been out of high school, and I just got a facebook reminder about our "10 year high school reunion." There is even a really big schedule of events planned for what we will do when we all go back to lil ol holdrege nebraska around the 15th of June. Seriously? I just don't get it. I was in a hurry to get away from holdrege. True I did have a small group of people from my graduating class that I hung out with, but not enough to make me want to go back and say "Hey guys! Haven't seen you since we all left! Whats up?"
I just don't see myself making the trip all the way back to holdrege just for that. In my opinion, high school was one part of life and it's in the past. I don't care to see how some of the old high school graduates are doing. They all have their own lives and I wish them the best. If I make any trips at all in the month of june, it will be either to see the east coast family, or to go to florida to visit grandpa blodgett and my friend melissa. I'm not sure quite yet if those wll take place, but it'd be nice, since I'm on unemployment. That's right! I haven't covered that yet! But first, since I rambled on a bit, mat what I was saying was funny about facebook right now is I was looking at photos of people online that it says I might know and I saw a "travis pell." I was like "Holy shit! Travis and kyle!" But I still didn't add him. I know I know, we are cousins and what not, but God it's been over 10 years since I last saw him. probably longer. I was probably 12 the last time we saw them, back when tommy was around, and married to Lu I believe, and he came out to visit us in las vegas and Sheryl showedup and was suddenly lounging in our pool, I don't know if you remember that or not.
So anyway! Unemployment.
Hopefully you can all see the image up above. Let me explain a bit first and then go into info about the photo up above. There is a guy at the hospital, whom is a guard like I was. His name is Eric. Eric was someone we knew from texas, whom had family troubles, and we helped him move to were we live in Clinton, Iowa. We helped him move up. Out of the hundreds that he had received from us in assistance, he said he would pay monthly to pay it back, and then I had to keep coming to him and asking him about if he would be able to pay anything towards what he owed. It's one thing if you have lended someone money and they said that they do plan to pay it back, but obviously can't right now. That we understand because we have other friends that we lended about $250.00 to help them, and they plan to pay it back, but haven't been able to yet. We understand that, and we don't keep asking. But with Eric, it was "here's $20.00.." and "here's $50.00." and then he stopped and would talk about how he had payed us back in full. I was like "um, how do you figure? there's still $250.00 that you haven't payed back and yet now you say that you payed everything that was owed?"
Apparently when he moved up, he said that the way he cleared all his debt from his credit report was he wrote all of them and requested that they send him proof that he owed the money. From what he said, only one or two of the 12 or so creditors could prove it, and so most of the debt he owed was cleared without him payin a dime. He told me I should do that too, but that just sounds wrong to me. I know I owe the money and am doing what I can to pay it back. It makes sense though, because he feels that he paid back everything he owed, and so it's like "you know what man? no you didn't, you still owe $200.00, but I'm not going to stress about it because we know that we will probably never see any part of it."
So, the rest of the story about Eric is like this. He came up here, had trouble finding a job for a month or two. I was working at the hospital as security through Securitas. I recommended eric to my boss, saying "you should give eric a shot. he's a great guy, he would make a good guard!" And I had been Guard of the Month once or twice already and was willing to work extra if needed, and so they trusted me and gave him a chance. The contract that they originally put him on was canceled and they made him a supervisor at another site because he is 40 years old, and had business experience, etc..... then after 6 months of him working that site, he was going to quit, but by that point my site, the hospital, was looking for another guard because we had gone to 24/7, and so Eric was put over with us. We had never had any official supervisors among us, and there were only 4 or 5 of us total, and so we had always been able to work things out and do a really good job. Well Eric, from what i have overheard from the bosses and maintenance we worked with, he went behind the backs of all the guards and made claims against us all saying that we each did such and such, to make us look bad, and then tried to talk himself up and that is how he was made supervisor over the rest of us.
The odd thing about this part is that I had been with securitas longer, and I had been with the hospital 3 times as long Eric, and the rest of the guards actually looked up to me as though I was a supervisor, even though technically I was not. When eric became the official supervisor, he went on a power trip and started saying "you have to do things this way instead!" and "stand out and be visible," and just little stuff like that, saying that he wanted us to go above and beyond and make a better impression on the client(Ie: the hospital).... I think that because I had been there longer than him and knew how to do my job, i could tell that he was out to try to find things to come up with that I might have done wrong, things to write me up about, but I wasn't going to give him any reason. He even came into the hospital during one of my shifts, at around 3 AM, and was pissed about stuff that he and I had already talked about. He just came into the office while I was updating paperwork, and he was pissed, and was like "Chris! I hear you have problems with me!" I was like "what the hell are you talking about eric?" He was like "Well I'm here in regular clothe and not in uniform, and that is 'unprofessional'." I was like "eric, have no problem with you coming up here in your free time in regular clothes, because you will do whatever you want, and that's your business."
He was like "Well, you are going around causing problems and that can result in paperwork." I was like "what do you mean paperwork eric?" He was like "I will have to write you up." I was like "write me up for what Eric?" He was like "for causing problems." I was like "How am I causing problems eric?" He was like "you're going around saying things about me." I was like "I absolutely have not. I don't say anything about you at all. The only person I talk to is matt when I come in to take over for him, but all we talk about is how the day went, and stuff like that." By the end of the conversation, I had defused him quite a bit, but that was a big stress for me because it was like, when I relieved matt the following night, I was like "dude, Eric came in last night and tried to rip me a new one." He was like "what?! why?" I was like "Well, he accused me of talking about him behind his back, and threatened to write me up, and I told him that I haven't done anything like that, and that he had no real reason to write me up."
So, it went eventless for a few more weeks, and then eric commented that when we have to patrol the parking lot in the morning and make sure that people don't park where they are not supposed to, he recomended that I stand out where people see me so that I am "visible," and greeting staff as they come in, etc, and so I was doing that. Well, Thursday morning, I came back from South campus about an hour before I was to be getting off work, and I noticed this car in the photo up above. The yellow lines are the end of the parking spaces, and as you can see in the photo, there are multiple open spaces near that car, and so there was no reason why they should have parked in this traffic area. Well, I noticed this car, and thought "i really should have this car ticketed, because it is a safety issue for drivers coming into the parking lot." The thing about it was, I felt that either way, I was going to be bit in the ass. I thought that I could 1) not do anything, and leave it and just not say anything, but if I did that, I felt that if something should happen, like an accident happened, they would look on the video tapes and see that I had seen the car, and I would have gotten in trouble for that... or 2) I call the police and have the car ticketed and that the car might belong to somebody high up the chain in the hospital, and that I would end up getting in trouble for that as well.
So, I thought, "if I'm probably going to get in trouble for either scenario, I would rather be able to say that I did the right thing. So I called the police and had the police issue a parking ticket. It would only cost the driver $25.00. Then I took this photo, and the cop took a photo just in case this ticket was disputed. I sent the photo to Eric, and told him what took place, and securitas asked me to send them the photo as well. I thought everything was hopefully ok, but had a bad feeling. Later that day, I received a voicemail from securitas saying that I was removed from the site, and that I needed to come in and talk to my HR manager at securitas the following morning. I told Erin that I was probably getting fired. She said "they wouldn't have you come all the way out there to fire you."
So, I drove out to bettendorf, IA, which was an hour trip, and sat down for 10 minutes with the HR manager. He basically said "you didn't follow chain of command, eric said some things about you and because of that, we feel that there is an integrity issue. The hospital paid the ticket for the vehicle owner, and was very upset with that, and so we had to take care of that, and because of all this, I had to remove you from the site, and I have to let you go from the company."
I was like "1) why did the hospital pay the ticket for the owner? As you saw from the photo I sent you, the vehicle was parked illegally and the ticket was valid. We did not have any written protocols and such about having to call and get permission before making a decision, etc. we did things this way since the day I started." He was like "yes they paid the ticket, the client was very upset about it, I'm not going to go into that right now." I was like "ok, then what is this about an integrity issue? I have never lied to you guys,I have always been up front about everything, and have never been written up for anything. What did Eric say about me because I can tell you right now he is completely full of crap." He was like "i'm not going to go into that right now."
So after that, I talked to a lawyer, and found out that there is nothing i can do....but I already filed for unemployment and will make more on that than I did with securitas.... So I am dedicating a lot of time to my classes and to writing in my book and spending time with the family.
So that is about it for now. That is all the dirty details about the events. I gotta go because I gotta grill some food for dinner!
C
*** Updated around 11:23PM**
Well the night is done with. After dinner *which I had to end my blog post earlier because I had to do the grillin, we were having Betsy's (erin's adoptive mom)'s recipe called steak teriyaki. It was good, and was very similar to our version of Teriyaki steak. There apparently are only a few small differences in the recipe, but I thought it tasted very much like it. Plus we had corn on the cob, asparagrass, and then margaritas to drink. After dinner, we went out on the lake on a pontoon boat, which I was very impressed with and actually would love to eventually own a pontoon boat to go out on the water with the family more often. Lots of room for many passengers, and very relaxing. The only downside to it was that it was getting dark so we weren't out on the boat long. Next time, hopefully we can hang out on the boat much longer. =) Something fun though, the girls both loved being out on the boat, and they even had their golden retriever Molly out there on the boat with us as well. After that, we drove the golf cart over to some friends of erins that she has known for a while. It was nice, then we got the girls both a drinks and they were both headed off to bed. Now just time to chill out and relax since even though it is 11:30 at night, it feels early! But, still one day left of our little mini-vacation and then Me, erin and zoe will be heading back home and ally will be staying with the grandparents for the month of june. If we're lucky, betsy and harry will be open for a visit around july 4th from us, and we can do a weekend like this again! Maybe we can go out on the lake in a pontoon boat to enjoy the fireworks, because I think that would be awesome! So anyway, that is it this time. Thanks for reading and don't be afraid to comment and letme know you were here! =)
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Thursday May 19th, 2011
I don't think I am going to make this entry too long tonight. This week I have been enjoying not having to worry what so ever about getting school done. I know when Erin reads this entry eventually, she will probably be like "SHUT UP!" lol.
Pay day came today, and of course, i filled up the truck *since I have to use my own gas to patrol on the job, and we pay for it ourselves versus the company being willing to reimburse us.. what can I do? quit? eventually yes.. but not yet*... I also picked us up breakfast from mcdonalds. Got sausage bisquits for all 3 of me, erin, and zoe, and got a bacon egg and cheese buisquit for myself. Then spent damn near $100.00 at wal mart mainly because there were quite a few things we needed. We were getting low soon on TP, we have been out of Paper Towels for a while, the dog and cats both were pretty much out of food, we haven't had ibuprofen for a few weeks now and so that was a must, and zoe needed some new pull up training pants. The only other thing, which probably was the most expensive between $20 and $30 was a pair of black shoes that I have to get every 5 months about, mainly because I use them for work, and they are cheap enough that they don't last forever, but yet they make really excellent work shoes especially for my job..
So, with a lil over $20.00 to spare after we mail the rent check to my parents, I guess things could be worse. At least I was able to grab food at culvers for all of us. What can I say? When we don't make a whole lot, enough to the point where there are some days we scrape whatever we can at home simply to make sure we can make meals because we might not be able to afford to go pick up some other supplies.
So, on a different note, we watch american idol, and last week, my favorite, James Durbin got sent home. We couldn't believe it. I still believe that he is the best I have ever seen. Plus, he had never been in the bottom at all, and then suddenly he was voted off. It's like "WTF!?!" Well, I looked up info earlier about when they are holding the next american idol auditions for the next season, because I'm 28 and still fall in the guidelines I believe, and i might end up going for it and seeing what happens. They have auditions through out the summer, one of which is in PA a few hours away from our inlaws. So, we might plan a trip for a week out to see the family in PA around that time, and just happen to drive up to Pittsburgh and audition. At least if I try, and get rejected, later in life I can look back and say "I went for it.. it didn't work out, but I went for it..." but what if I get in, and not only that, what if I make it quite a ways in to where america is voting for me? That would be one hell of an accomplishment. It might be worth it to be able to look back later on in life and say "look at what I tried to do!"
It seems to me that the contestants like Scotty *whom we don't necesarily love too much*, have gone a lot of country and they seem to be favored more.... so, maybe I should focus more on that type of genra with a little bit of r&b or whatever.. i dunno. We'll see! But, when I was looking online trying to get more information, I found this site that actually had clips and I found my favorite performance by James Durbin. Let me see if I can post it below for ya! I hope you like it as much as I did! Talk to you again soon!
http://www.tvfanatic.com/videos/james-durbin-on-american-idol-uprising/
Pay day came today, and of course, i filled up the truck *since I have to use my own gas to patrol on the job, and we pay for it ourselves versus the company being willing to reimburse us.. what can I do? quit? eventually yes.. but not yet*... I also picked us up breakfast from mcdonalds. Got sausage bisquits for all 3 of me, erin, and zoe, and got a bacon egg and cheese buisquit for myself. Then spent damn near $100.00 at wal mart mainly because there were quite a few things we needed. We were getting low soon on TP, we have been out of Paper Towels for a while, the dog and cats both were pretty much out of food, we haven't had ibuprofen for a few weeks now and so that was a must, and zoe needed some new pull up training pants. The only other thing, which probably was the most expensive between $20 and $30 was a pair of black shoes that I have to get every 5 months about, mainly because I use them for work, and they are cheap enough that they don't last forever, but yet they make really excellent work shoes especially for my job..
So, with a lil over $20.00 to spare after we mail the rent check to my parents, I guess things could be worse. At least I was able to grab food at culvers for all of us. What can I say? When we don't make a whole lot, enough to the point where there are some days we scrape whatever we can at home simply to make sure we can make meals because we might not be able to afford to go pick up some other supplies.
So, on a different note, we watch american idol, and last week, my favorite, James Durbin got sent home. We couldn't believe it. I still believe that he is the best I have ever seen. Plus, he had never been in the bottom at all, and then suddenly he was voted off. It's like "WTF!?!" Well, I looked up info earlier about when they are holding the next american idol auditions for the next season, because I'm 28 and still fall in the guidelines I believe, and i might end up going for it and seeing what happens. They have auditions through out the summer, one of which is in PA a few hours away from our inlaws. So, we might plan a trip for a week out to see the family in PA around that time, and just happen to drive up to Pittsburgh and audition. At least if I try, and get rejected, later in life I can look back and say "I went for it.. it didn't work out, but I went for it..." but what if I get in, and not only that, what if I make it quite a ways in to where america is voting for me? That would be one hell of an accomplishment. It might be worth it to be able to look back later on in life and say "look at what I tried to do!"
It seems to me that the contestants like Scotty *whom we don't necesarily love too much*, have gone a lot of country and they seem to be favored more.... so, maybe I should focus more on that type of genra with a little bit of r&b or whatever.. i dunno. We'll see! But, when I was looking online trying to get more information, I found this site that actually had clips and I found my favorite performance by James Durbin. Let me see if I can post it below for ya! I hope you like it as much as I did! Talk to you again soon!
http://www.tvfanatic.com/videos/james-durbin-on-american-idol-uprising/
Monday, May 16, 2011
Tuesday May 17th
Wow, just like they always do, this month is just cruisin on by. At this rate, I would hit my 2 year mark with Securitas before I know it. That's if we do not move right away. Ideally, Erin and I talked about how we would love to be in PA no later than the end of July. However, there are things to keep in mind, such as the pets. We need to move into a place (townhome, house, etc) where it is possible to have our dog Teegen, because let's face it, husky's, and other big dogs like him need at least a small yard to run and play in. Our current yard isn't the greatest as far as size goes, but he seems to do really well.
Basically he has this 20-30 foot run line going from the corner of our house to this massive tree in our yard. When he gets really excited, he literally will run very quickly back and forth, around the tree, etc. Otherwise, He just lays around, chillin outside. Of course when it is extremely cold or extremely hot, we bring him inside so he can be comfortable while hanging out with the rest of the family, but otherwise you can really tell he likes it out there because, like earlier, I went out and tried to get him to come over to me from where he was laying by the tree, and he just layed there and looked at me. I was like "ok, if you wanna stay out, that's fine boy!"
So, here's what's going on in a nutshell. Workin on doing whatever we can to be able to move, but we aren't sure when it will be possible. It may very well be that it happens at tax time. *i vow that no matter what happens, we will not wait longer than that. Too easy would it be to get our taxes, spend them, and keep waiting, saying "we're going to do it!!! we're going to do it asap!!"* Really, we just need to get it done. Once we're there, I have no doubt that things will be better for us. She can do extra culinary jobs with her mom and earn extra money that way, she can have the availability of jobs out there to be able to get a good paying job that gives her regular hours unlike her job here. I will be able to make more out there. Plus, 2 other very important things 1) Erin will have culinary schools available for her to go to in order to get her Chef degree, and 2) There should definitely be at least 1 flight school somewhere around the Philly area that I can get into and start working on my flying certifications, so that I can be working towards eventually pursuing my dream of flying for the airlines. It's a dream of mine for 2 main reasons. the #1 reason is I love to fly, and have wanted to be a pilot since I was in my teens. and #2 is they make some kickass bucks. I believe if I were the captain and not the copilot, I could very easily make up to $200,000 or above, probably 150-200k as the co-pilot, but still, those days will make life extremely easy! Never having to worry about money again. Being able to put a lot of money away each year towards retirement so that when we retire, we are set.
So, school is going well. My hospitality class I passed really easily, but my algebra class had me worried. However, because I realized in week 7 that I was starting to struggle for the last few quizzes and tests, I worked my butt off trying to better understand the material we were studying, with the hopes that the last few quizes and tests would not completely flunk me out, making me have to repeat the class. Well, apparently a passing grade is a 60% or above, and when going into the last day of week 9 (the last week of class), and getting ready to take my final exam, I had to get another 85 points total in my class in order to hit the 60%. My current grade before that test was around a 70%. I had points coming to me for participation for the week, as well as answering the weekly question in the forums, but the test was the important part. 56 questions, which would then be calculated into a total of 250 points. I took my time on it, started it on Sunday at around 12Noon, and didn't finish till after 5pm. when I finished it, I think I ended up getting like 37 questions correct out of the 56, and ended up with a 65% or something like that. 65% of 250 possible points was like 130 or something like that, so I think I managed to get by with a passing grade in the class. You know what good news that brings? On to the next round where I now take Algebra 1B with another hospitality class. Oh what fun!
So, a few weeks back, I asked my academic advisor if I could take a few weeks off before beginning the next round because algebra had me so tired and so stressed. Right now I'm scheduled for two weeks off, but I emailed her again tonight and asked if we could make it 3. I just want to be able to not have to worry about school for a few weeks before struggling to get through yet another math class. Who knows, maybe 1B will seem easier than 1A. God I hope so! if it's harder, HELP ME LORD!!!
I have not gotten a lot of time reading any of the books on my kindle the past few weeks, nor have I gotten any time in working on my book that I have been working on forever technically, so I'm hoping over the next few weeks to take time to read more often and to maybe make some headway on writing my book. I know that pushing through it and getting that book completed will get me one step closer to becoming a published author. Who knows? I think it's a possibility for us to eventually not have to worry about money because of me being a respected and loved author. A dream I have is that some day, either through winning the Set For Life scratch card where I would win $1,000. $2500. or $5,000 per week for life scratch card, that I would love to not have to work a regular job, but spend my time with my family, taking time each day to work on writing in my book, and maybe working to pursue other goals such as traveling more often, etc. Someday! I know in the future when we are doing really well, I could come to this blog, go back to the beginning, and hell, maybe I could end up printing the whole blog off, and that would almost be the length of some long books! 100+ entries so far, a lot of them not being short by any means, so hey, you never know.
So on that note, I think I will call this it for tonight. You all have a good night and I will talk to you again soon!
C
Basically he has this 20-30 foot run line going from the corner of our house to this massive tree in our yard. When he gets really excited, he literally will run very quickly back and forth, around the tree, etc. Otherwise, He just lays around, chillin outside. Of course when it is extremely cold or extremely hot, we bring him inside so he can be comfortable while hanging out with the rest of the family, but otherwise you can really tell he likes it out there because, like earlier, I went out and tried to get him to come over to me from where he was laying by the tree, and he just layed there and looked at me. I was like "ok, if you wanna stay out, that's fine boy!"
So, here's what's going on in a nutshell. Workin on doing whatever we can to be able to move, but we aren't sure when it will be possible. It may very well be that it happens at tax time. *i vow that no matter what happens, we will not wait longer than that. Too easy would it be to get our taxes, spend them, and keep waiting, saying "we're going to do it!!! we're going to do it asap!!"* Really, we just need to get it done. Once we're there, I have no doubt that things will be better for us. She can do extra culinary jobs with her mom and earn extra money that way, she can have the availability of jobs out there to be able to get a good paying job that gives her regular hours unlike her job here. I will be able to make more out there. Plus, 2 other very important things 1) Erin will have culinary schools available for her to go to in order to get her Chef degree, and 2) There should definitely be at least 1 flight school somewhere around the Philly area that I can get into and start working on my flying certifications, so that I can be working towards eventually pursuing my dream of flying for the airlines. It's a dream of mine for 2 main reasons. the #1 reason is I love to fly, and have wanted to be a pilot since I was in my teens. and #2 is they make some kickass bucks. I believe if I were the captain and not the copilot, I could very easily make up to $200,000 or above, probably 150-200k as the co-pilot, but still, those days will make life extremely easy! Never having to worry about money again. Being able to put a lot of money away each year towards retirement so that when we retire, we are set.
So, school is going well. My hospitality class I passed really easily, but my algebra class had me worried. However, because I realized in week 7 that I was starting to struggle for the last few quizzes and tests, I worked my butt off trying to better understand the material we were studying, with the hopes that the last few quizes and tests would not completely flunk me out, making me have to repeat the class. Well, apparently a passing grade is a 60% or above, and when going into the last day of week 9 (the last week of class), and getting ready to take my final exam, I had to get another 85 points total in my class in order to hit the 60%. My current grade before that test was around a 70%. I had points coming to me for participation for the week, as well as answering the weekly question in the forums, but the test was the important part. 56 questions, which would then be calculated into a total of 250 points. I took my time on it, started it on Sunday at around 12Noon, and didn't finish till after 5pm. when I finished it, I think I ended up getting like 37 questions correct out of the 56, and ended up with a 65% or something like that. 65% of 250 possible points was like 130 or something like that, so I think I managed to get by with a passing grade in the class. You know what good news that brings? On to the next round where I now take Algebra 1B with another hospitality class. Oh what fun!
So, a few weeks back, I asked my academic advisor if I could take a few weeks off before beginning the next round because algebra had me so tired and so stressed. Right now I'm scheduled for two weeks off, but I emailed her again tonight and asked if we could make it 3. I just want to be able to not have to worry about school for a few weeks before struggling to get through yet another math class. Who knows, maybe 1B will seem easier than 1A. God I hope so! if it's harder, HELP ME LORD!!!
I have not gotten a lot of time reading any of the books on my kindle the past few weeks, nor have I gotten any time in working on my book that I have been working on forever technically, so I'm hoping over the next few weeks to take time to read more often and to maybe make some headway on writing my book. I know that pushing through it and getting that book completed will get me one step closer to becoming a published author. Who knows? I think it's a possibility for us to eventually not have to worry about money because of me being a respected and loved author. A dream I have is that some day, either through winning the Set For Life scratch card where I would win $1,000. $2500. or $5,000 per week for life scratch card, that I would love to not have to work a regular job, but spend my time with my family, taking time each day to work on writing in my book, and maybe working to pursue other goals such as traveling more often, etc. Someday! I know in the future when we are doing really well, I could come to this blog, go back to the beginning, and hell, maybe I could end up printing the whole blog off, and that would almost be the length of some long books! 100+ entries so far, a lot of them not being short by any means, so hey, you never know.
So on that note, I think I will call this it for tonight. You all have a good night and I will talk to you again soon!
C
Friday, May 6, 2011
May 6th, 2011
After getting off this morning, I will have one more day before my weekend. Oh how I love my weekends. For a while now, my routine is simply that I come to work and work my week, and then I just relax, spend time with the family, if I have to do school work I do that too, and I just try to have a relaxing, enjoyable weekend. The weekends always go by way too quickly. Please Lord bring on that lottery winning so I can resign from my job, buy a motor home, and take my family on a nice long vacation to multiple states.
That would be the life! I am never going to give up on that happening. Every 2 weeks on pay day, after I gas up my truck, I go across the bridge to illinois and buy these "set for life" scratch cards as well as my usual megamillions lottery tickets. The set for life, sadly, I have had several tickets so far where one of the numbers that came up that said "$1,000 per week for life," or "$500 per week for life," were 1 number away from any of the winning numbers. like, the winning number might have been 5, and the number that came up with the $____ for life was 4 or 6. its like "DAMNIT!" lol. But, it will happen. I just gotta keep trying.
So I'm not going to make this entry too long, but I really wanted to come online here because it was getting to be too long since I had done an entry. At work.. ok..yeah, there's a whole lot of drama at work. Basically to sum it all up, one of my co-workers got promoted and is now our "supervisor." There's a few funny things about that though, 1) me and one of the other guards have been with securitas longer, as well as have been up here at the hospital much longer than he has. 2) I trained this guy up here, so it's REALLY awkward for me to be supervised by this guy. Supposedly he is just a middle person between us, the client, and the securitas office. However, he has done a few things recently that would border on the edge of "micromanaging" by talking about changing things around, saying that all the guards except him don't make themselves visible enough, etc. But, most the time things seem ok, but then my co-worker that works 2nd shift is constantly texting me saying "dude you're not going to believe what Eric just did..." LOL.. So, let's just say that myself as well as at least one of the other guards are seriously looking for another job.
Actually, not only am I looking for another job but I am so dead set now on getting out to pensylvania ASAP!! for not just the reason of the job, but another reason which basically is our bills here are killing us. We rarely have any kind of extra money after paying the bills. Thank GOD for foodstamps! otherwise we would not really eat much. Plus, getting out to philly would be helpful because it's so much bigger out there, and there will be so much more opportunities. Here in clinton, we are extremely limited as to what types of jobs we can try to achieve. Don't get me wrong, for the most part, I do love it here in clinton, but at the same time, it's like "ok, we've been here over 3 years and we have not really gotten anywhere yet. Yes we are both going to school, and that will help, but we will still have to travel 45 minutes to get any kind of decent jobs with our degrees. "
So anyway, one other change is recently we added our oldest daughter Ally to our cell phone account. We got her one of the free flip phones through Verizon. The funniest thing though is that she and zoe were with us at the verizon store when we did it, and we were able to do it as a surprise to her and she had no idea.. They were both playing sonic on a display iphone and did not hear us talking about the phone or whatever. We payed $50.00 for the phone but we mailed out a $50.00 mail in rebate, which we will get back in about 3 weeks I think. We went ahead and surprised her with it at home. We added our numbers, and the numbers of my parents, and both sets of erin's parents, and then we put the phone in the kitchen and called it. When it started ringing, we were like "ALLY!!!! COME DOWN HERE!! QUICK!!! THERE'S SOMETHING RINGING IN THE KITCHEN!!!!" Ally came down and went in and answered the phone, with the tone of voice that was basically like "um....hello?" like, "who's phone is this?" And erin spoke into her end of the line, saying "happy birthday, this is your new phone from daddy and i!" Ally looked at us...then looked at the phone..then looked back at us again.. "huh?" she said.. lmao!!
Then surprisingly, she took her phone with her to school and I half expected that she would end up getting it taken away for messing around with it during class. She came home with it, so we were like "we're ok with you taking it to school so that you can call us if there is ever an emergency, but it stays in your bag and it stays on silent...." She was like "ok.. I will keep it in my bag and keep it on silent.."
We have unlimited texts, so it comes in handy. Her phone though is one of those where you have to hit the letters multiple times to get certain letters... it's the kind of texting phone I first started with. I looked at Erin, and joked around about it, saying "it's only fair that she start with a basic flip phone since most of us had to do that too!" she was like "Yup!" I'm sure eventually we will probably all have smart phones like erin's droid, or I'm debating on going either with the Iphone4 or this phone called the thunderbolt which is pretty damn awesome...whenever my upgrade comes up in july. Erin made a comment though while we were at the store, when they said I cold upgrade in july, she said "if we're still here.." honestly, I think she and I should look long and hard at any and all possible ways that we can make the move around that time, a reality. That would be awesome.
After the stuff with the job, I'm like "i'm done! I'm out of here at my earliest opportunity!
So anyway, I will leave it with that. Talk to you all again soon!
C
That would be the life! I am never going to give up on that happening. Every 2 weeks on pay day, after I gas up my truck, I go across the bridge to illinois and buy these "set for life" scratch cards as well as my usual megamillions lottery tickets. The set for life, sadly, I have had several tickets so far where one of the numbers that came up that said "$1,000 per week for life," or "$500 per week for life," were 1 number away from any of the winning numbers. like, the winning number might have been 5, and the number that came up with the $____ for life was 4 or 6. its like "DAMNIT!" lol. But, it will happen. I just gotta keep trying.
So I'm not going to make this entry too long, but I really wanted to come online here because it was getting to be too long since I had done an entry. At work.. ok..yeah, there's a whole lot of drama at work. Basically to sum it all up, one of my co-workers got promoted and is now our "supervisor." There's a few funny things about that though, 1) me and one of the other guards have been with securitas longer, as well as have been up here at the hospital much longer than he has. 2) I trained this guy up here, so it's REALLY awkward for me to be supervised by this guy. Supposedly he is just a middle person between us, the client, and the securitas office. However, he has done a few things recently that would border on the edge of "micromanaging" by talking about changing things around, saying that all the guards except him don't make themselves visible enough, etc. But, most the time things seem ok, but then my co-worker that works 2nd shift is constantly texting me saying "dude you're not going to believe what Eric just did..." LOL.. So, let's just say that myself as well as at least one of the other guards are seriously looking for another job.
Actually, not only am I looking for another job but I am so dead set now on getting out to pensylvania ASAP!! for not just the reason of the job, but another reason which basically is our bills here are killing us. We rarely have any kind of extra money after paying the bills. Thank GOD for foodstamps! otherwise we would not really eat much. Plus, getting out to philly would be helpful because it's so much bigger out there, and there will be so much more opportunities. Here in clinton, we are extremely limited as to what types of jobs we can try to achieve. Don't get me wrong, for the most part, I do love it here in clinton, but at the same time, it's like "ok, we've been here over 3 years and we have not really gotten anywhere yet. Yes we are both going to school, and that will help, but we will still have to travel 45 minutes to get any kind of decent jobs with our degrees. "
So anyway, one other change is recently we added our oldest daughter Ally to our cell phone account. We got her one of the free flip phones through Verizon. The funniest thing though is that she and zoe were with us at the verizon store when we did it, and we were able to do it as a surprise to her and she had no idea.. They were both playing sonic on a display iphone and did not hear us talking about the phone or whatever. We payed $50.00 for the phone but we mailed out a $50.00 mail in rebate, which we will get back in about 3 weeks I think. We went ahead and surprised her with it at home. We added our numbers, and the numbers of my parents, and both sets of erin's parents, and then we put the phone in the kitchen and called it. When it started ringing, we were like "ALLY!!!! COME DOWN HERE!! QUICK!!! THERE'S SOMETHING RINGING IN THE KITCHEN!!!!" Ally came down and went in and answered the phone, with the tone of voice that was basically like "um....hello?" like, "who's phone is this?" And erin spoke into her end of the line, saying "happy birthday, this is your new phone from daddy and i!" Ally looked at us...then looked at the phone..then looked back at us again.. "huh?" she said.. lmao!!
Then surprisingly, she took her phone with her to school and I half expected that she would end up getting it taken away for messing around with it during class. She came home with it, so we were like "we're ok with you taking it to school so that you can call us if there is ever an emergency, but it stays in your bag and it stays on silent...." She was like "ok.. I will keep it in my bag and keep it on silent.."
We have unlimited texts, so it comes in handy. Her phone though is one of those where you have to hit the letters multiple times to get certain letters... it's the kind of texting phone I first started with. I looked at Erin, and joked around about it, saying "it's only fair that she start with a basic flip phone since most of us had to do that too!" she was like "Yup!" I'm sure eventually we will probably all have smart phones like erin's droid, or I'm debating on going either with the Iphone4 or this phone called the thunderbolt which is pretty damn awesome...whenever my upgrade comes up in july. Erin made a comment though while we were at the store, when they said I cold upgrade in july, she said "if we're still here.." honestly, I think she and I should look long and hard at any and all possible ways that we can make the move around that time, a reality. That would be awesome.
After the stuff with the job, I'm like "i'm done! I'm out of here at my earliest opportunity!
So anyway, I will leave it with that. Talk to you all again soon!
C
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