AtomicMrX

Well the holidays are winding down along with the clock to the New Year.

I had a nice trip to see my folks in Omaha, Nebraska. Jaki did exceptionally well on the trip up and back down. I have discovered the road noise along with the accompanying loud music makes her crazy during the trips. So now I use my iPods ear buds to listen to the music and she has a pleasant trip (along with me).

I got really nice gifts from my folks and brother. I am going to try and break the cycle of “no money” around the end of the year so I can buy my family and friends gifts in 2006!!! It will be a struggle but I need for it to happen. I always feel lousy not giving gifts.

I did manage to get Shannon a gift. I was able to afford a refurbished iPod Shuffle. He listens to music non stop while working and really needed a good MP3 player. I probably shouldn’t have spent it but I just felt I had to. He really liked it and had pretty much guessed what it was before opening it. (that jerk! LOL)

I hope to spend my Birthday money from my folks on a new (replacement) mattress set later in January. I bought the set I have from CostCo and the mattress has coil springs sticking out of the sides! It has a 10 year warranty so I have to lug it back to the store to get it exchanged for a new one. However I will be short money because I got it on sale so I will have to use my Birthday money to cover the difference.

Shannon, and a couple of friends of mine are going out for Happy Hour and Dinner tonight. It will be nice. We never get out and do things lately because of the money and different work schedules.

Happy New Year everyone!

I get today and Monday off for Christmas with pay. We don’t get any Christmas bonuses where I work. Nor do we get cost of living bonuses. It boils down to: no bonuses, period.

They did try to give us a “special treat” on Wednesday and had the vending service provide Chicken breast, Hamburger, Broughts, cold slaw, potatoe salad and cookies. Everything was cold and the cookies were hard as rocks. It is the first time in about ten years they have provided us with a free meal and it wasn’t very good and not even in a holiday theme - more like a summer pick-nick.

The main reason we never get “free” food is too many employees ruin it for everyone else. You should have seen some of the plates leaving the food line. They would have one (or more) of every possible combination of sandwich and then pile on as much food as possible. Because of a few the rest of us will never see free food again. It always happens. We have some very “I deserve THIS!!!” kind of employees.

I do think if they gave us raises more often and you saw the profits being shared amongst us little people instead of the big boys, there might be more employee pride. Instead we see the big boys getting new cars and the children of the family that owns the business getting new cars and “free money” every year. While our pay scale is that of an employee from 1982.

Alas I forget the holiday spirit. They tried to give us some little token of “good job” and we just mis-interpret it. Thanks for the food and pat on the back, can I have a ride in your shiny new car?

Well, I just got my Gas bill (heating) and let’s just break it down shall we? Last months bill was $64.87 and the new bill is $166.05 due by January 11, 2006.

We keep the house at 65 when we are not home or while sleeping and 68 when we are home. So we are not just pumping the house full of expensive hot air for the joy of it.

Oh well, there goes the “extra” money I could not account for at the end of December in my accounting.

The weather outside is frightening. Actually it’s very pretty. We are getting a light snow that started this morning and is expected to last all day and the accumulation estimates are all over the place. I hope we don’t get too much and spoil a lot of travel and weekend entertaining. I have a Open House to attend on Sunday night and I don’t want to drive if the roads are going to be nasty.

I just finished shoveling the drive and front sidewalk. It wasn’t till I got into the office that I saw I forgot to do the sidewalk along the East side of the property. Raytown is funny about sidewalks. They don’t have them on every side of the street and some streets have none. We have one along the East side of the property but none along the North or front of the property.

Time to get started on all the weekend chores and stay inside were it is nice and warm!

Sorry I haven’t written all week. My internet connection has not been working. It’s finally working today. So I’ve been off the computer all week. If I was lucky I could connect long enough to get my email.

We got snow and we got hit hard! It started on Wednesday morning and didn’t stop till Thursday. It usually takes me a half an hour to drive home from work and on that day it took two hours to drive home. We got about 10″ of snow.

Most of that snow is melting now. The streets are clear but there is a lot still on the ground.

Read an interesting article in my Consumer Reports magazine. Verizon Wireless is the top cell phone company for service and quality. I use Verizon for my cell phone and have never had any problems that I hear other people complain about (with their companies). I think in the five or so years I’ve been with Verizon I’ve had 2 dropped calls (and it was probably due to the other persons phone being on Sprint service).