Jasper Jones

Late summer is the time for rodeos all across the country. There are still two rodeos that I haven’t been to yet and I’m hoping to go to one each year after I get out of school.

I’ve alway wanted to go to Canada and the Calgary Stampede rodeo and festival every July is the perfect reason to go across our northern border.

And for the rest old west of America, the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo is 10 days of everything cowboy.

Although a lot of people think working at a warehouse must be boring, that’s not true where I’m working. You put a lot of guys together that don’t know each other and come from all different kinds of backgrounds and you expect them to work hard all day and be a team and get along. Well it doesn’t usually work out that way. There’s guys with tempers, there’s guys who show up late or get drunk one night and don’t show up the next day and all kinds of things going on.

Today was very unusual in that two of the loaders got into a scuffle. Not really a fight but a lot of shoving and cussing and the supervisor ran over and broke it up. But with all the pushing and stupid stuff, some of the computer equipment got broken and both guys ended up getting fired.

The barcode scanner handpiece for tracking inventory was one of the things that got dropped on the concrete floor and busted. I was wondering how much those things cost - they must be expensive. So I looked it up on the internet and found a website that sells them called, BarCode Giant. I don’t know if this is the same place where the company bought ours, but it is the same brand and the website gave me the information I was looking for and a ballpark on the damages. The intermec scanplus-1800 scanner seems to retail for around $400-$500 so that guy just pushed his way into forfeiting his paycheck over a stupid fight.

I don’t know if we have any extra scanners laying around the warehouse, but if they need another one this website has free shipping and toll free tech support, so they can get another one quick. and BarCode Giant prices everything below retail, so they can save some money, too.

Dinner was at Olive Garden. I figured there would surely be non-meat dishes on an Italian menu. Plus I like the huge bowl of salad and basket of breadsticks that they bring to the table to help beat down the hunger pains while you wait for your dinner to be cooked and brought out.

She was easy to please - ordered a pasta with cheese sauce and she didn’t mind that I ordered a dinner with meat and ate it in front of her. At least she said she didn’t mind. But I have to wonder if she is so committed to be a Vegen why she can in good conscience watch others eat meat. I’m not sure how that works, but I didn’t want to ruin a nice dinner attacked her values and questioning her Vegen reasons.

But eventually I think this huge difference between us will interfere with our relationship. So I don’t know if I’m going to call her for a second date or not. She’s nice and all, but this Vegen thing bothers me. I’ll have to think about it.

My brother was over at the house gettig yelled at by my dad. He came over wanting to borrow money again and my dad told him last time to quit coming over begging for money. Geesh - every time he gets in a bind he’s over here getting yelled at. I don’t even understand what he does with all his money. He has a good job in construction and his wife works, too. It can’t be that tough to live in a nice little house and raise two kids on the two salaries they make.

The whole house heard most of the argument. Warren has run up his credit cards to a ridiculous balance and is behind on his car payments again. Dad told him to go someplace and get credit counseling because Dad’s frustrated and sick of doling out the cash every couple months. He might even have to file for bankruptcy - it’s THAT bad.

Bankruptcy is a lose-lose situation and I think he would be better off going to Freedom Debt Relief for help. I heard about this program from the guys at work, If you are in a bind, this company provides Debt Relief and saves you a lot of money doing it with their program instead of what the debt consolidation companies provide. My supervisor at the warehouse told us that he used Freedom Debt Relief to get out of debt and he stuck to their program and sure enough he was debt free in less than 2 years.

This sounds to me like what Warren needs to do - for the sake of his own family and for the sake of my dad and mom, too.

By the way, I’m still ticked off at the bank and I decided to open a new account at a different bank when I get back down to school. It will be easier for me to do my banking with a local bank down there anyway. And I’m going to ask them if they will take my loose change once in a while. If they all say no then I’ll look for a credit union or something online. If no one wants to take my loose change it seems unAmerican to me but there’s no need for me to be tied geographically to a bank if no one wants to give me good local service and meet my needs as a consumer.