Hurricane Education: What I've learned during our last hurricane . . .

1. Coffee and frozen pizzas can be made on a BBQ grill.

2. No matter how many times you flick the switch, lights don't work without electricity.

3. My car gets 23.21675 miles per gallon, EXACTLY (you can ask the people in line who helped me push it).

4. Kids can survive 4 days or longer without a video game controller in their hand.

5. Cats are even more irritating without power.

6. He who has the biggest generator wins.

7. Women can actually survive without doing their hair- you just wish they weren't around you.

8. A new method of non-lethal torture- showers without hot water.

9. There are a lot more stars in the sky than most people thought.

10. TV is an addiction and the withdrawal symptoms are painful.

11. A 7 lb bag of ice will chill 6-12 oz Budweiser's to a drinkable temperature in 11 minutes, and still keep a 14 lb. turkey frozen for 8 more hours.

12. There are a lot of dang trees around here.

13. Flood plane drawings on some mortgage documents were seriously wrong..

14. Aluminum siding, while aesthetically pleasing, is definitely not required.

15. Crickets can increase their volume to overcome the sound of 14 generators.

16. People will get into a line that has already formed without having any idea what the line is for.

17. When required, a Lincoln Continental will float, doesn't steer well but floats just the same.

18. Tele-marketers function no matter what the weather is doing.

19. Cell phones work when land lines are down, but only as long as the battery remains charged.

20. 27 of your neighbors are fed from a different transformer than you, and they are quick to point that out!

21. Hampers were not made to contain such a volume.

22. If my store sold only ice, chainsaws, gas and generators... I'd be rich.

23. Price of a can of soup rises 200% in a storm.

24. Your water front property can quickly become someone else's fishing hole.

25. Tree service companies are under appreciated.

26. I learned what happens when you make fun of another states' blackout.

27. MATH 101: 30 days in month, minus 6 days without power equals 30% higher electric bill?????

28. Drywall is a compound word, take away the "dry" part and it's worthless.

29. I can walk a lot farther than I thought.

Beware of Garbage Trucks

Beware of Garbage Trucks
by David J. Pollay

How often do you let other people's nonsense change
your mood? Do you let a bad driver, rude waiter, curt boss,
or an insensitive employee ruin your day? Unless you're the
Terminator, for an instant you're probably set back on your
heels. However, the mark of a successful person is how quickly
she can get back her focus on what's important.

Sixteen years ago I learned this lesson.
I learned it in the back of a New York City taxi cab.
Here's what happened.

I hopped in a taxi, and we took off for Grand Central Station.
We were driving in the right lane when, all of a sudden,
a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us.
My taxi driver slammed on his breaks, skidded,
and missed the other car's back end by just inches!

The driver of the other car, the guy who almost caused a big accident,
whipped his head around and he started yelling bad words at us.

My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy.
And I mean, he was friendly.
So, I said, "Why did you just do that?
This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!"

And this is when my taxi driver told me what I
now call, "The Law of the Garbage Truck."

Many people are like garbage trucks.
They run around full of garbage, full of frustration,
full of anger, and full of disappointment.
As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it.
And if you let them, they'll dump it on you.
When someone wants to dump on you, don't take it personally.

You just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on.
You'll be happy you did.

So this was it: The "Law of the Garbage Truck."
I started thinking, how often do I
let Garbage Trucks run right over me?
And how often do I take their garbage and spread it to other people:

at work, at home, on the streets?
It was that day I said, "I'm not going to do it anymore."

I began to see garbage trucks.
Like in the movie " The Sixth Sense," the little boy said,
"I see Dead People."

Well, now "I see Garbage Trucks."
I see the load they're carrying.
I see them coming to drop it off.
And like my Taxi Driver, I don't make it a personal thing;
I just smile, wave, wish them well, and I move on.

One of my favorite football players of all time, Walter Payton,

did this every day on the
football field.
He would jump up as quickly as he hit the ground
after being tackled.

He never dwelled on a hit.
Payton was ready to make the next play his best.
Good leaders know they have to be ready for their next meeting.

Good parents know that they have to welcome their children home

from school with hugs and kisses.
Leaders and parents know that they have to be fully present,
and at their best for the people they care about.

The bottom line is that successful people

do not let Garbage Trucks take over their day.
What about you?
What would happen in your life, starting today,
if you let more garbage trucks pass you by?

Here's my bet.
You'll be happier.

Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so..
Love the people who treat you right.
Forget about the ones who don't.
Believe that everything happens for a reason.
If you get a chance , TAKE IT!
If it changes your life , LET IT!
Nobody said it would be easy...
They just promised it would be worth it!

 

 

Who is your best friend?

If you don’t believe it, just try this experiment.

 

Put your dog and your wife in the trunk of your car for an hour.

 

When you open the trunk, who is really happy to see you?

Cowboy

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in California when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him.

The driver, a young man in a Armani suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?" 
   
Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer,connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany.

Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-Tech Miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Bud.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car. 
  
Then Bud says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"

"You're a Congressman for the U.S. Government," says Bud.
   
"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?" 
 
"No guessing required." answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about cows...this is a herd of sheep. 


Now give me back my dog.

 

Howdy Y'all

Ok so it has been a long, long time since I posted. Here is why and what's been going on.

After many years in the shipping and logistics industry on Nov. 26 I started a new career with a Geological company. After a few months of training I am loving it and soon I will start in my sales position. My old job changed. I liked the company under the manager that hired me. Then he left and the sales manager left. When the new branch manager came in things went downhill quickly. I can probably sum it up in the following words: Arrogance, micro-managing, lack of industrial knowledge, sexist, childish, poor management. Who wants to work with all of that? For example besides doing a lot of time wasting work with not even a thank you or good job, when I told the new branch manager I wanted to transfer to the special projects branch he stopped talking to me. He would pass my desk 20 times a day and not say a word or even look at me. I continued to work in the projects department for another 9 months and he maybe said hello to me twice. Maybe if he wouldn't have been such a jackass about stupid stuff maybe I would have stuck around. Or maybe if he acted like a real manager. Or maybe if he would have treated me and everyone else with a little respect....I could go on and on. Anyway, my stress level went way, way down once I left. I am also not working any over time with my new company so I have more time to spend with my precious daughter.

Speaking of my precious daughter, she turned 1 on Jan. 12 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't believe she is already 1. Time sure does fly by. She is walking around pretty good now so you can imagine she is getting into everything.

Here are a few things I have learned in my first year of being a dad and almost 3rd year of being a husband

1. I never thought I could love 2 people so much
2. I thought that I wanted a boy like most men but I wouldn't trade my daughter for anything in the world.
3. Babies can bite pretty hard even if they only have a few teeth
4. Seriously, plastic blocks hurt when stepped on in the middle of the night
5. No matter how tired or frustrated I am the smile from my wife or baby makes it all go away.
6. It's starting to seem that I know more songs from my daughters toys than I do on the radio
7. Women, both young and old, are truly amazing
8. I have never thought about safety so much in my life
9. I have never worried so much in my life when my daughter is sick or something might be wrong
10. I love being married to my wife
11. I love being a Dad

Anyway I will try to post more stuff when I can.

Later