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A Tragic few days…

Posted in personal with tags personal on March 2, 2007 by Paxton

It’s been a tough couple of days for my family.

If you’ve been watching the news then you know that Enterprise High School in Enterprise, AL was hit by a tornado on Thursday afternoon. So far, 17 people have been found dead.

Here’s a slide show of pictures of the aftermath.

My wife and her best friend, Kathy, graduated from Enterprise High School in 1995. Kathy’s parents and sister still live there. Kathy’s sister’s house was damaged by the tornado. It’s just surreal and sad the damage that can happen to people so close to home. Our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone.

Another tragic bit of news came this afternoon. My Uncle Mike, diagnosed with Advanced Prostate Cancer last year, finally succumbed around 11:30am. You can see his picture on the lower right of this blog. He started the First Friday Foundation to raise awareness for Prostate Cancer. Here’s a better picture of the link:

The image above is a picture of him in high school. The image is linked to the website for First Friday Foundation. Take a look, and remember, 1 in 6 men will be stricken with Prostate Cancer, get your PSA Blood Levels checked when you turn 45.

My family is pretty close. My cousins Micheal & Megan and my brother and me were always really good friends. We loved going to Ohio to visit my Aunt and Uncle and just hanging out with them at their house playing board games and watching TV. Every year we used to go to Myrtle Beach for a week in the summer. It was some of the best times of my life. Life being the way it is, we haven’t been able to see them as much as I would like the last few years and I hope that changes. I love all of them and will thankfully see them soon. I know Uncle Mike is in a better place now.

I’ll miss you greatly, Mike. We all will. Tell Grandmother, “Hello”.

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Welcome to the Day-That-Hallmark-Built!

Posted in holiday, humor, personal with tags personal, Valentine's Day on February 14, 2007 by Paxton

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I hope everyone has a great Valentine’s Day. Just remember that this holiday was artificially created by greeting card companies to bump up sales during the slow early year months. In fact, tell your Valentine that when she asks to go to dinner. Mention how this holiday is the manifestation of the corporations’ greed and you don’t want to buy into the hype or feed that kind of soulless corporate money-lust. It’s just not right.

Don’t worry, I got your back, you can sleep at my place. 🙂

I was in the process of preparing an article but I think I’m going to save it. Work has been cracking the whip something fierce this week and I just want to enjoy the day. Tonight the wife and I are going to Roy’s here in Jacksonville. We have a gift card, so I’m not personally putting money into the corporate coffers. The place looks really good so I’m stoked. As for the after dinner festivities, well, let me just say without the least bit of exaggeration, that nary a woman can resist when Pax puts on his shiny shoes. That’s all that needs to be said. *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*

How cool is the picture up top? A good friend of Steph and mine, Kathy, sent it to us. It looks like she actually created it herself in MS Paint. I love it, so I put it up here for everyone to see. Thanks, Kathy.

Technorati Tags – Valentines Day personal humor holiday

I’m in Training. Glorious, Glorious Training.

Posted in humor, personal, work with tags personal on February 1, 2007 by Paxton

Take a look at the picture to the left. Was this picture taken in like 1978? What’s with the tri-fold Science Fair display in the back? Or the easel with the paper and permanent marker? Wow, that’s old school. That’s how the people who worked during the Crusades had on-the-job training. Hard to imagine right? I’m used to sitting in stadium seating like you are at the big game. I’m used to Powerpoint presentations that look like they were directed by Michael Bay. I’m used to a table of bagels and muffins in the back with the 30 different kinds of cream cheese (do we really need a pistachio cream cheese? Really?). Things have come a long way since the Golden Days of training. You wouldn’t know this, however, if you sat in on training with me this week. Actually, staring at that picture is more exciting than the class I’m in right now. Watching the grass grow would be more exciting.

But, Pax, you say, you are learning new skills, broadening your horizons. Nay, I say, NAY. I am dying a slow death, twitching and spasming like a fish on land. The training class is attempting to teach me about the functional implementation of PeopleSoft General Ledger…….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz……Wha?! Huh?! I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I think I dozed off telling you about it. You see what I mean?

Since the instructor is going to continue to talk, let’s take a tour around the classroom.

Here’s a picture of my instructor teaching. He manages to drone on about General Ledger concepts as if they were old friends. “Hey, I remember when Balance Sheet and I got hammered and peed in the water supply of a small town in West Virginia! Those were the days!” That just was a fictionalized example. I had to make it more exciting so you wouldn’t lose consciousness reading it. You get the idea, though. He is so dry and boring and he keeps stammering through his sentences. He peppers his lectures with uhhs, ahhs and umms. When he talks, he literally sounds like this:

mumblemumblemumbleUHHmumbleJOURNALSmumbleUMMMmumblemumbleLEDGERS
mumblemumbleAHHHmumbleSPREADSHEETS

You think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not. How productive can I be listening to that? Answer: Not very.

So, here’s a picture of my shoe. I got bored watching and listening to our instructor so I just stared staring at my shoe. Pretty boring, right? This was better than the class.

Here’s a grouping of cables sitting on my desk. These cables became good friends of mine while the instructor started talking about transaction codes and how they map to journal entry lines. During that lesson, he actually used the phrase “…service my intraunit…” Look, buddy, I don’t know what you like to do with your intraunit, but keep it out of the classroom. Yikes.

Also, whenever an unexpected result happened during one of the instructors “demonstrations”, he says “that’s interesting”. Trust me, dude, it’s not. In fact, it’s anti-interesting. If what you just did and interesting were to ever come in contact, the entire universe would explode. Seriously. It’s one of Newton’s Laws. Look it up.

So, that’s what I’ve been doing this week. Thought I’d let you feel my pain. If you have any pity left in your heart, point it my way. I’m losing consciousness quick.

Technorati Tags – personal work humor

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It’s 2007!

Posted in holiday, New Year's, personal with tags New Year's Day, personal on January 1, 2007 by Paxton

Well, it’s 2007. Where the hell did 2006 go? Last night Steph and I went with Dave and Marlene to St Augustine for dinner at a Spanish restaurant called Columbia. You picked from several things on the menu for a 5 course meal. Unbelievably good. I ate so much I wanted to cut open my stomach, let my dinner pour out, then eat some more. I could really have used my friend Steve’s “The Bucket” (some of you know what I’m talking about). After that we chilled at this cool upstairs piano/wine bar called Sangria’s. We rung in the New Year in the St Augustine town square sipping champagne by the giant Xmas tree. Marlene was a trooper for staying out that late because she was battling a cold yet still refused to call it a night. She gets 2007’s first Ironman trophy. Hope everyone else had as much fun as I did during New Year’s Eve. Right now I’m watching my Auburn Tigers try to squeak by Nebraska in the Cotton Bowl. GO TIGERS!!

I may not have a new blog article for another week. I gotta get back into the grind of work before I can start thinking of random crap to bore the hell out of you each week.

Have a good day and I hope your 2007 is the best it can be.

Festival of the Tree

Posted in Christmas, holiday, humor, personal with tags Christmas, personal on December 13, 2006 by Paxton

Steph and I actually put up our tree last weekend. We didn’t decorate it, but we at least had it up. So, after a week of letting the tree sit in our den pretty much naked as the day I was born, Steph and I finally got around to decorating it last Sunday. I love Christmas. You will see that as the weeks go on. I’m sure there will be a few blog articles on Christmas crap you can only buy in stores during the holidays. I do not, however, enjoy decorating the tree. AT ALL. Let me walk you through the ‘comedy of horrors’ I like to call…The Festival of the Tree.

First, we put on the digital music channel, Sounds of the Season, so we can listen to Christmas music while we work. Then I start unwinding the lights. They’ve been in these RubberMaid tubs all year and apparently were formed into one gi-normous knot not even the Boy Scouts could untangle. After that mess is handled, Steph takes the lead and starts twirling the lights around separate branches moving around the tree in a clockwise motion. I continue de-tangling the herculean knot and passing her the strand of lights. We continue around the tree for what feels like an hour. All the while Steph is telling me to hand her lights faster, then slower, then I’m slacking and I need to start moving faster. Man, how long is this #$&@ strand of lights? And didn’t the music channel JUST play Feliz Navidad, or is it just me?

The Festival of the Tree has begun…

When the first strand is finally done, we plug in the lights to see if we missed any spots. Funny, the tree barely looks lit, WTF?! Maybe it’s because half the strand is not lighting up. GREAT, we just got these lights. So we gotta unwind the flippin’ lights and start again. FYI, if you value your marriage, plug in each strand before you string it. A Christmas tip from me to you.

So, we start again. Oh yes, people, I checked the strand this time. Daddy ain’t no fool. So, things are going good, for what feels like an hour and a half. WTF?! There is no way this strand is longer than the last strand. They are from the same box. Maybe doing the tree was a huge mistake today. Is that Feliz Navidad…AGAIN?! Does this digital music channel only have like 3 songs on its playlist?! COME ON!! Finally, the end of the strand. We plug it in to see the fruits of our labor. Crap in a hat. There’s a huge unlighted hole in the middle of the tree where Steph missed. I. WANT. TO. DIE. Maybe a glass of wine would help? Or a shotgun in my mouth?

So we unwind then begin again. By this point, Steph and I don’t even consider us to be married to each other. We are two strangers who hate each other decorating the same tree, that we also hate. Idle chit-chat is at a low point, which sucks because the digital music channel is playing Feliz Navidad for the 30th time. And this strand is taking longer than the last three strands combined. I’m dying inside, our cat Presley is in the corner weeping and we still haven’t finished stringing lights, much less putting on ornaments. We plug in the newest strand once it’s finally on and the tree is only lit like half way. WTF?! We’ve been at this for what feels like days and the tree is only half done?! That’s it, I’m prepared to call off Christmas and start celebrating Easter.

We are finally getting to the bottom and I keep thinking we are done. I tell Steph, “…one more strand” like twenty times. We keep putting on lights and the bottom never gets any closer. It’s like the tree is a giant optical illusion. We are going to keep stringing up lights until we either run out of lights or we die, whichever comes first, and I’m betting on the latter. We finally finish the tree with a grand total of like 7 strands of lights. Seven strands of lights. SEVEN. We bought this tree like 3 or 4 years ago. It’s fake. We don’t water it, it doesn’t grow. Explain to me why the number of strands it takes to light this ^&%$# tree goes up every year. The first year we had the tree I swear it only took 3 strands of lights. I’ve bought boxes of lights every year to put on the tree. Where do the lights go?! Is there some kind of Phantom Zone in our tree? Another dimension that sucks up lights, never to be seen again? Maybe this dimension is nothing but Christmas lights and orphaned socks from our washing machine.