Saturday Scavenger Hunt - Function

Wow. Just wow. Not much was functioning in regards to this weeks SCH.

I went to a pretty cool social FUNCTION on Saturday, fully planning on using that as my subject, but my brain failed to FUNCTION and I forgot my camera. The FUNCTION was Cheyenne Super Day, which is a Saturday of artsy-type booths, bounce houses, games, a car show and my fravorite, an evening outdoor concert featuring Blue Oyster Cult.

So I stole NoRegrets idea and took this picture of the window screen that will not FUNCTION to keep the mosquitos out. My dog was in the back yard when it started to hail and thunder. No one was home so she decided to make her own way in.

She didn't actually make it. The neighbors saw it and brought her into their house until the storm passed. They're very nice neighbors!

Thanks for the idea NoRegrets! As a reward, you get the distinguished honor of choosing next weeks word!

And on an entirely different note....Blogger really needs to work on their picture formatting FUNCTIONality. It stinks!

My first meme!

My first meme tagging! By none other than crazy4coens.

3 Obsessions:

This is very difficult for me. I'm not an obsessive person.

- My girls. I've learned to not worry about them so much during the day, but they're never far from my mind.

- My walk with God. I'm not saying I'm keeping up as much as I'd like, but I think about it a lot.

- My marriage has become more of an obsession lately. I certainly took it for granted up until about 8 months ago, but even now I think I'm letting myself slide away too much.


And that's all I got for now....so let's move on.

5 Dislikes:

- Dishonesty. Especially 'half-truths'. When they're not really lying, but they're not telling the full truth either. To all those people: Just be up front with me dangit!! Unless you screwed it up really really bad, I'm probably more likely to can you because you tried to hide something, rather than whatever it was you did wrong.

- My own frustration. I've learned a lot recently about how to set it aside, but through all that, I've learned how distracting and destructive it can be.

- Stupid TV shows. Which for me is around 98% of them. Especially reality shows. I'm here to be entertained, not to be reminded how uncomfortable life can be. Although I do like cooking shows... Are those considered reality?

- A dirty kitchen. I don't mind cleaning, I find it kind of relaxing, but having to clean everyone's dishes every single day is getting very old. This should probably be up in the obsessions list...

- The gut I'm developing. Too much bad food and not enough physical exertion.


Back to the Obsessions:



Yeah...I'll have to get back to you.

As for tags...you've already been tagged. I'll have to get back to you on that too.

Saturday Scavenger Hunt - FAIL!

I failed...miserably. I knew about it, knew what the word was (even if not the definition), but my mind and time were fully preoccupied.

And wouldn't you know it...I've been picked for the next word!

My word for y'all is FUNCTION.

The most mixed day ever...

What a freaky day!

We'll start off with the good:

- I had my annual review...6 months late. But it was all good. My boss rated me higher than I did, but that always happens. He "blessed" efforts for me to invest in myself and learn more about Lean Manufacturing. I think I've done quite a few small things that have added up to some big improvements. The shop is performing quite a bit better than it had under the previous production manager. I attribute it a lot to how I try to let my production guys know how well they're doing on a daily basis, as far as meeting production goals. Before I started that, they wouldn't know how they did until well after the month was over. And they would only get an update once for a month. Now they get that update twice a day.

So for any of you managers or team leaders struggling to get your team to meet goals, I highly recommend that strategy. Just let your people know how they're doing and let them know often. To begin with, I wouldn't even suggest how they could get better. Let them know how they're doing and if they need to be doing better. More than likely, they'll make the first big steps on their own.

Now the bad:

- I had to fire my production foreman and my lead sawyer. The 2 highest 'ranks' in my shop. One was clocking in for the other. Dumbasses. The real problem is that it leaves a gaping hole in how well we know our automated saw. Between the 2 of them, they're the only guys that have been involved in repairing it. But it's just a machine. And all machines can be fixed, one way or another.

- I didn't get a raise. I know there's a wage freeze, but I still hoped.

- And I have about 20 unread posts from my wonderful reader network. I feel kinda bad writing this without having read those. I'll get to them, I promise.

Dream weirdness

The latest post at Eclectic Spaghetti rang a bell for me. I meant to post about this, but forgot all about it.

I had a nightmare a few nights ago. First nightmare I've had in a very long time. It was the 'woke up in a sweat' kind of nightmare.

I wish I had written it down sooner, cause now it's a little hard to remember the details, but it ended with me failing to save my girls from drowning. They were in my arms and I couldn't save them.

It's frustrating that I can't remember all the details now, but I think we were in some kind of tube. There was events leading up to the end, but I can't remember any of it. At the end, my family was there. My wife was trying to help my oldest swim and I was holding my 2 youngest. It ended with me seeing my 2 girls under water, limp, and with their eyes closed. I just couldn't hold them above the water.

I'm not one to dwell on stuff like this. I don't put a lot of meaning into dreams, but this one really freaked me out. Even writing about it now is getting me worked up.

The last nightmare I remember involved me running over my dad. This was 11 or 12 years ago, when I was in high school. I was in a golf cart and my dad was really tiny. Barely half the height of the tire and I ran him over. If it didn't involve my dad dying, it would be kind of comical.

Sorry if I'm bumming you out, but these are the only dreams I remember for the longest. I can tell when my wife is dreaming because my dreams get really weird. No nightmares, but just very strange and vivid. When I have those dreams, the next morning I'll ask my wife what she dreamed about and she'll have a weird dream story of her own. I don't remember my own dreams, just that I had them and they were weird.

The only other dream I remember is another strange one. In reality, I was at a ski trip with some HS friends of mine. We were all staying in a cabin. I was sleeping on the floor next to my good friend, who was sleeping on a bed. In the dream, we were having a poker game and that friend was sitting next to me. In the dream, he dropped one of his cards on the floor. At that moment, I woke up and actually said to him, "There's your card" and in the dream I pointed to it. The thing that is really freaky, is that he woke up at that same moment and actually said, "Thanks" then in the dream picked the card up. In the morning I asked him about it and he remembered it just as I did, but from his perspective. Weird shit!

Thanks for reading.

Monday morning randomness

Movie Review: UP is a good movie. 4 out of 5 stars. It had funny parts, scary parts, sad parts, but had some pretty adult themes too. Not inappropriately adult, but the major premise behind the storyline is probably not something my 6 year old can fully comprehend. We did not see the 3d version, which probably would have been good. We took all our kids and proved that our 2 year old still can't sit through a movie.

We've had a good amount of rain here. The locals say they haven't seen this much for at least 8 years. But in spite of that, work is picking up and I finally have something to do. (In case you were wondering, I work in the new construction industry and weather plays a big part in how busy we might be.)

My wife and I are doing ok. She's still doing things that I don't think are healthy, but all I can do is pray about it and watch to see that it doesn't get out of hand. I haven't been as loving as I should be though. It's still hard for me to work through my bad thoughts about those unhealthy things she does and choose to do the loving thing for her.

The neighbors and I got a notice from our trailer park landlord about mowing our lawns. I appreciate that he wants to keep the place nice and presentable, but to threaten a $50 fine on the first warning, a $150 on the second and $300+eviction on the third is a little stiff, I think. We won't have a problem, as I mow every weekend it's not raining, but so does everyone else! This is a new landlord and rather than give people the benefit of doubt, he's putting his foot down before anyone argues. Not a great way to win friends. Actually, we suspect he wants trailer owners to sell out to him so he can own the whole park, trailers and all. There's a stipulation in the lease that requires them to give him notification before they put their trailers on the market. We actually already rent from him and he's pretty good at getting stuff fixed, so it's a mixed bag I guess.

I wish you all a great week! Remember to set others above yourself and don't worry about what others think when you do the right thing. If you can master those 2 things, you'll be on your way to being content. Learning what 'the right thing' is, is the next step. :)

Photohunt: Play!

My girls love to PLAY at PLAYing the piano. I haven't taught them much yet, so I'm not sure I would consider it actually "PLAYing" of the piano, but they like it.



They really like me to lift the front cover so they can see the hammers hit the strings while they PLAY.




Thanks for letting me PLAY in the Photohunt!

I'm being watched!!

I have 4 followers! I never thought I would have even 1 follower. Are you guys that bored? ;)

Just kidding...

I know I'll have truly entered the blogosphere when I find my blog linked to in someone else's blog. I can't really imagine that happening right now, as I'm still trying to find some sort of groove, but I can dream. Shoot, maybe there's one out there I haven't found yet.

I tell you what, since I set up my RSS feed reader, and subscribed to so many blogs, it's a good chunk of my day to try and read them. I have 42 unread posts as of this moment, but all are in the list of suggested blogs put together by the Google people. I'm not sure I'll keep many of them. Although my girls sure get a kick out of Cute Overload. I'm doing pretty well at keeping up with the personal blog posts.

There's a gaming blog, Rock Paper Shotgun, that is nice and simple. It got me to check out the game Global Agenda, which looks very cool. But the thing is, since my Xbox 360 died, my interest in gaming has seriously waned.

(The previous paragraph makes a lot less sense than you might think. The blog is about PC gaming and I've never really been into that. I've only been into Xbox'ing, and that's been for 5 or 6 years now.)

I'll probably keep ThinkGeek. Mostly because I am. A geek that is.

There's one called "What's Hot in Google Reader" that comes up with some pretty funny stuff.

There are a few more than I'll watch for a little while, but don't have much hope in. There's one called WebUrbanist which was nice to look at for the first few blogs and then got repetative for me. I'm sure it's new stuff to someone...just not me. It's about 'alternative art'...I guess.

I'm still developing my true 'most wanted' list of blogs. So if you post some awesomeness that is entirely deserving of even my praise, forgive me if I miss it. I'm adding more as I write this and only getting in deeper!

Thanks for reading!!

Lead me not....

To expand on my first 'Random' bullet point: I really dislike it when people spin their comments in order to tell me what they think I want to hear.

I know a little about the Mexican culture and I've had first hand testimony of most Mexicans strong inclination to please. I grew up in Central CA and had a few close friends who were Mexican. I can't say that those particular friends went out of their way to please me, but they were older than me and they were more of the mentor type relationships.

That first hand testimony was from my brother. He lived in Mexico for a few years and was a plant manager there. It didn't take him long to discover that his subordinates strong inclination to please him affected how they communicated to him. If he asked them, "Did you meet your goals today?" they would say "Yes!" even if they didn't meet the goals set for them. Being the American I am, I would probably not take that very well. I would consider that lying. But my brother discovered that they had no intention of lying to him and what they meant by "Yes!" was that they did their best.

But I live in and work with Americans. Even if I did have someone communicate to me in that manner, I would correct them and ask them to tell me if they met their goals or not. When I ask "Did you meet your goals?", I'm not asking, "How do you think you did today?" If they didn't meet their goals, then that would prompt another question, "Why not?"

I want people to be direct with me. Not to fudge the truth or spin their comments according to what they think I want to hear. I have a huge problem with people lying to me and just don't stand for that in my employees. That's a good way for them to lose their job. But when I ask for their thoughts about things, I have a few guys that read into my questions. I've gotten a lot better at asking non-leading questions, so it's pretty obvious when they stumble through their response and are trying to come up with something that I'll like. Stop it!

That really is the key though. Ask questions that don't lead people to the answer. Asking questions that require a 'yes' or 'no' is another way, but not when you really do want to hear their thoughts.

- "You did a good job on this, but can you think of any ways to make it better?"

- "I'm not really sure how to fix this. What do you think?"

Of course, there have been more than a few times I intended to lead the answer. Maybe it's not always fair to test people that way, but sometimes it's a good way to discover someones character, skill set, or perceptiveness.

Random...very random

- I wish people would stop telling me what they think I want to hear.

- Why is the 'squeaky wheel' (that needs the oil) so much squeakier than the next squeakiest wheel?

- Donuts will be my demise.

- If stereotypes weren't at least somewhat accurate, they would never have been conceived.

- I saw a tall truck driver with his red sweat pants tucked into his old school cowboy boots, his old school brown western shirt not tucked in and missing the top 3 buttons, topped off by what I think was a woman's cowboy hat.

- I've been searching up and down, all over this office, looking for my camera-computer cord. It's hooked to my computer!! I feel like an idiot...cause I am one.

- So many ideas....not enough resources to have someone else do it....and without the know-how to do it myself. How frustrating.

- And on a positive note, 1+1=2.

Slightly ugly breath?

I've stayed away from coffee from coffee for 3 whole days now!

A couple things I've discovered:

- I enjoyed coffee more than I realized.

- Coffee smells good and it sucks that the coffee pot is so close.

- Haven't had any headaches yet. Still crossing my fingers.

- In addition to brushing, flossing every night and using mouthwash in the mornings, I think my breath is ok now. I did that before, but not regularly and was sabotaging my efforts anyway.

Haven't had to revert to tea or hot cider or anything like that. Water seems to be holding its own.

Bloggerific trends!

I spent more than a little time clicking that little "next blog" button at the top of my screen tonight. I didn't count the number of blogs I glanced at, but I'm sure it was more than 50. It didn't take long to discover some trends.

1. The majority of what I saw was in a foreign language. Foreign to me anyway... Primarily Spanish (I think), but with a dose of some Asian languages and a couple of Eastern European.

2. Photography blogs are popular. I could even tell the ones that were in a foreign language.

3. A healthy mix of personal and professional blogs, although there were a few that handled both. Not many that were obviously selling something though. It seemed to be people trying to make a hobby a little more worthwhile than just a pastime.

4. Then there were the topical blogs. Talk about very specific! I mean really, one just for the vegetarian haunts of Singapore? Maybe that's a really popular topic there, but who knew...?

5. Then there were the travelers. I don't know where the people started out, but there are more than a few that use blogs to archive their adventures. I think that's cool!

6. Then there are the family blogs. Most I saw were handled by the wife/mom, but a few seemed to be a hub & wifey collaboration. What a great way to keep family & friends up to date! Lots of good amateur photogs out there too! I did notice however that family blogs had mostly other families in their 'blog friends' list. Not saying there's anything to that, but thought it was something to mention. Although I'm certain it's just a means to show off the kids. :)

7. Women. Most are written by women. In fact...I would guesstimate that 80% of them are. Where's all the guys! I found a couple by guys and subscribed, so maybe I'll find that elusive male blogger network that must be as prolific as the female one.... Yeah, right.

It was interesting...to say the least.


EDIT: I forgot about the student's blogs! I think it's a fantastic idea for students of creative studies to use blogs as their portfolio. There are quite a few young people that seem to be far more self aware than I remember being at that age. Go for it!

Monster breath!

I really need to stop drinking so much coffee.

- For one thing, the stuff here at work is terrible, but it's all of 12 feet from my desk.

- For another, I know it's not good for my breath. And I think it's been getting worse.

- While the caffeine isn't my biggest concern, I'm sure it doesn't help when I'm stressed...as I have been lately.

- I've tried quitting before, but the headaches weren't worth it. If they kick in and I can't work through them without pain relievers, I'll be looking harder for another solution. Maybe tea?

- I think a lot of the habit comes from needing something to hold or do with my hands when I'm not typing, talking, or writing. I think the water bottle can fill that void.

So here we go... I've dumped out my little styrofoam cup of coffee and filled up my water bottle. We'll see how this goes.

Trying out the photo thing.

My girlies.








Gracie, the oldest, is 6 now. Just finished Kindergarten.















Anika, 4, will be starting school in August.













Ellie is 2.






















With an attitude.

*insert catchy blog title here*

* Why do I have such a hard time with the blog titles? I know they need to be somewhat 'eye-catching' to promote the most reading, but to have a unique idea every time is a bit beyond me. Yes, my imagination is not fantastical.

* Focus...does anyone have some they can share? Because I need some!

* Hundred different things rolling through my head. God, work, family, life, ideas..... I'm afraid if I write them all down I'll get a little overwhelmed.

* I need to focus. And I mean really focus. I'd like to think that I'm not a scatterbrain, but multitasking almost comes too easily. I want to be able to teach my girls how to focus but am afraid I don't know how.

* I need to start teaching my girls how to play the piano. I know that would help with the focus thing. Let's start with that.

* And if I'm going to post again....I need to come up with some better titles.