Corporate F'ing Around

Well blog world I'm getting away from the office for a few days. My boss and I are headed to the HR Southwest conference for the next three days. What's that mean? It means that besides being away from the computer for extended periods, I will be signing up for any and every drawing that I see in the hopes of actually winning something from one of the bazillion vendors that will be set up there. It also means that I will be sitting in many "interesting" lectures and classes. It definitely means that I will be getting a free lunch for the next three days, and ultimately that I will be taking a company paid three day vacation.

Hopefully I'll get enough continuing education credits to keep up my certification while I'm counting how many hot girls actually work in the HR field. For those of you who don't know, it's not many.

My boss has pretty much the same thing in mind that I do. We'll go late, leave early, and work on getting plenty of rest. I do have to admit that I'm excited about Friday's keynote speaker.
http://www.hrsouthwest.com/pages/Keynotes.htm
I don't really know what she has to do with HR, but I'm hoping for an autograph!

Memories

I thought I'd share a few pics as I was recently overcome with nostalgia for my community at large and specifically my Blog Community.

The first one was taken at the wedding of Gyuss Baaltar a few years ago. Here he and the Mrs. are at the reception that immediately followed the wedding. Gyuss took a spare no expense approach to his wedding. The reception was at a really nice Days Inn and he bought his wedding costume as opposed to just renting it. Unfortunately the Green Lantern ring he placed on his bride's finger brought looks of disapproval from her family. They had been hoping for a Legion of Super Heroes flight ring.

This next one comes from the time when Q had seen Scarface and thought that he could become a drug overlord in a short amount of time with a few high profile displays of violence. So he snuck out one evening and keyed the cars of people that he thought might know about the drug industry (which were basically the workers at the local CVS, his family doctor, and the Hispanic families in his small town). This caused a small revolt by the Mexican gangs in the local area and this nice piece of grafitti appeared. Q feared for his life and went into hiding at my place until it was safe, or at least until I stopped buying the meatball Hot Pockets.

I also wanted to share a picture from a time I was hanging out with Cyber D. As everyone knows Cyber D loves going to the movies, like almost more than anything. So a few months back he and I went to the premiere of Transformers. Cyber D loves Sci-fi but had been drinking (big surprise, I know) and while we were waiting had to start mouthing off about how much better the Dr. Who franchise was and that the Transformers movie was like Brokeback Mountain with robots. I edged away as I could see the restlessness growing with each of his loud proclamations. As soon as Cyber D shouted that Megatron was Starscream's bitch I knew it was on. Anyway Cyber D and I didn't get to see the movie together that day, but I did get this funny picture of him totally getting his ass beat.

Susan and I met up once. Once. I had just flown into town and Susan met me at the airport. I didn't expect to even see her on that trip. To be honest I don't even know how she knew it was me. She just said she recognized my pants. She also said that she hung out at the airport all the time and asked if I wanted to buy her a drink. "Ummmmmm.....ok," I said. So she pulled me into the TGI Fridays in the airport terminal immediately ordered a bottle of Crown, poured it into a half-full two liter of Coke, and started drinkning straight from the bottle. The conversation was really weird and seemed to revolve around which of the Seven Dwarfs would be most fun to date. Just before airport security arrived I was able to get this picture.

So a few weeks back, I had run into a Barnes and Noble, when I heard an unfamiliar voice call from behind me "Dagromm! Dagromm!!!". I turned and was surprised to see Tera there. She was in a terrible fury. Before I could even ask what was wrong she shoved a book into my chest and said, "Can you believe this shit??? Well I'm not standing for it!! I'm protesting this! I'm glad you came we'll make human chain at the front door". It wasn't a really effective protest as the Barnes and Noble we were at had four doors and we only blocked two of them. I'm not sure that most people even knew it was a protest. I think they thought we were just arguing. This conception was probably exacerbated by the fact that Tera kept yelling at me when ever anyone came through one of the other doors that I was "doing it wrong". Anyway, here's a picture of the book that set Tera off. She said they stole the title she was planning on using for her memoirs.

I don't travel a whole lot, but I did earlier this year and got turned around trying to find my hotel. I went into a grocery store to ask directions. I walked up to what looked like the most available employee which was at the bakery counter. I asked for some help with directions and got a glazed stare in return. Feeling awkward I glanced down and found a disturbing array of cakes that all featured bunnies. I asked what the deal was with the cakes and was told that it was Tuesday and if you wanted a cake on Tuesday you had to buy a bunny cake. I asked why and was given the glazed over stare again and then told in a very cold voice that, "Everyone likes bunnies!". I didn't want to argue, so I just repeated my request for directions. Her response was that she wasn't being paid to give directions and that she didn't do it for free. She then advised me to buy a Tom Tom and to have a nice day. Thanks Heather.

Life Imitates Art

One of the problems of my current job is that I've been pulled from the recesses of having my own office to having to sit with the commoners in the cubicle area. This means that I have less ability to spend hours talking on personal calls and write on my blog. It also means that I am more likely to have interractions with my fellow employees. I shout out random comments over the cubicle walls like, "I like cheese", and when one person asks a question over the walls to someone else I follow it up with a question like, "Employee Z, why do bad things happen?".

About a week and a half ago I made the statement that I wished we would stop doing cakes for people's birthdays since I don't have much of a sweet tooth (chocolate chip cookies excluded) and instead did nachos. The idea of nachos seemed to really resonate with my coworkers and the next thing you know a nacho potluck was being organized. There was a sign up sheet posted and it was given the title of Dagromm Appreciation Day. I couldn't believe that this had happened. Certainly Eslocura has some strong influence even all the way up into the far reaches of North Texas. When I returned to work after teh weekend a poster had been put up advertising Dagromm Appreciation Day with multiple pictures of yours truly and thought balloons making statements like, "I love cheese" and "I love me". Both of which are true.

So last Friday was Dagromm Day here at work and it was a huge success. Nothing brings the people together like........well........me.......I suppose. I gained a solid two pounds after consuming massive quantums of nachos and everyone was already making plans for the next one. The only embarrassing part was when the company owner came up and saw the sign with my picture all over it declaring it was my day. I felt bad because it was also his birthday and there wasn't nearly the same done to celebrate it.

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

If you like deviltry then you're probably a big fan of The Charlie Daniels Band and the Devil Went Down to Georgia. If you've never heard the song then feel free to enjoy.



If you do like this song then you probably also remember the more recent version done by the KMC KRU. It's so fresh I can hardly stand it. Uh uh uh uh. Sorry, I broke into the running man for a minute.

Time and Again

I'm not feeling too productive today. I find them times of intense activity and productivity are generally followed by times of intense inactivity and lack of productivity. This is one of those days. The necessities of the week have been met, and I'm done. There's plenty more for me to do, but mentally I'm on vacation.


I feel like I've been talking about the value of time a lot lately and certainly contemplating mortality brings that out in people, but hopefully it hasn't been too redundant. I thought I would spend a post listing some of the things that I think are an inordinate waste of my valuable life.


People stopped in the right lane at a traffic signal who are not going to turn right. These people should by and large be dragged from their massive SUV's and shot. You are wasting my life by sitting in front of me and holding me up.


Word Verification on comment pages. I don't know how many precious hours I've lost to this thing. I get them wrong all the time. I have yet to see any difference on my blog by not having it. Please get rid of them.


Customer Call Centers with automation instead of a live person that can quickly answer my questions.


Lines. Any of line that I have to stand in, is not a well organized event. I should never have to come to a complete stop. Ever.


The credit card pitch at the department store. I don't want it. Please don't beat me down at the register about it or ask me why I don't want to apply. It's none of your f'ing business. You need to be more concerned with how pissed I am that I had to stand in line for an extra five minutes to get to the register because you beat down every person in front of me with the same pitch.

Tera-rize Me

The current meme that's running rampant like VD in the Playboy Mansion has come back to haunt me again. This time I've been tied to the chair by Tera who has put the hot lamp in my face and put her cigarette butts out on the back of my hand until I came back with answers.


1. What is the one lesson that you've learned in life that has the biggest impact on you?
That the most valuable thing you will ever have is your time. This is one of those things that occured to me as I sit/stood bored to death in some menial minimum wage job when I was younger. I realized that I was basically selling my life away for $4.50 an hour. I look at everything I do now as a trade off of the limited amount of time I have on Earth and ask myself if it's worth it to me.

2. Write your epitaph.
Living easy, living free
Season ticket on a one-way ride
Asking nothing, leave me be
Taking everything in my stride
Don't need reason, don't need rhyme
Ain't nothing I would rather do
Going down, party time
My friends are gonna be there too

I'm on the highway to hell

3. In your estimation, what is the ideal vacation?
This is a great question and I'll tell you what I've been planning for a few years now. I feel that I've been too reclusive lately. My ideal vacation would be to get out of the House for a while and tour the world to see how Dagromm Day is celebrated by all the people's of the world. Can you imagine what a treat it would be for all the common folk around to get to see the REAL Dagromm on D-Day? I think it would be pretty special for everyone. From the noble houses of Puerto Rico to the shanties of.....well, probably Puerto Rico.

4. Your children ask you about the "birds and the bees," what do you tell them?
I tell them that we pay taxes so that teachers can answer those questions. Do I look like a trained educational professional?!???? What the hell are you learning in school anyway? Where's your homework? Let me see it!!! Clean your room!

5. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Since I can't decide on anything, I suppose I would make myself more decisive. No wait, maybe not. I'm not sure.