Jasper Jones

We met some girls while out on the lake and ended up pulling them on the tube for a few rides. They liked it a lot and didn’t mind riding as spotters while Jon and I took turns water skiing.

So we got their phone numbers when we dropped them off at the dock and I went ahead and called Gretchen, the blonde one, Monday on the chance she might want to go have dinner or maybe catch a movie. She said dinner would be nice but she warned me that she’s a vegetarian. So now I don’t know. I’m all about healthy eating, but taking meat out of your diet is a little extreme. Plus it really limits the places you can go and now I wonder if I order meat will I offend her? I’m not interested in giving up meat - even for romance.

So here I already invited her out and she accepted. So I don’t know where we’ll go eat - the places I like aren’t vegetarian. So we’ll see how this dinner date turns out.

My dad was telling us this morning that his company has a bid on a big new project in San Diego and there is a good chance that they’ll win the award next month. This sounds like a dream job - to live and work in one of America’s most fabulous cities. Everyone says that San Diego has the perfect climate and the most beautiful beaches on the mainland.

The job obviously involves the airport, because that’s what my dad’s company does - airports. But it could be anything from new runways to remodeling the terminals to adding a new parking garage.

If he gets this contract I might even be able to score some summer work with his company when school is out. I can work with tools if I have to, and the money from construction work is a lot better than the other summer jobs out there for kids.

They would have to partner up with local suppliers, like Concrete Contrators Interstate. CCI is a commercial concrete construction that does structural concrete and site concrete - the kind of jobs that my dad’s company subcontracts out.

Dad puts out bids for structural concrete San Diego contractors and negotiates their rates before bidding on the complete job. I’ve helped him in the office with his proposals before and I’m learning the whole process. If I’m running the copier I even read the documents - I figure I might as well learn something while I’m there.

For a lot of the bids my dad already knows some of the major players from past experience, but if it is a new location or his preferred contractors aren’t available, he gets a lot of contacts from the internet. For instance, just searching for concrete street construction San Diego or concrete San Diego will pull up a good list to start checking out, and CCI comes up in the top search results for both.

Was talking to my dad over the weekend about maybe changing my college major from sports administration to something more medical and less sports. I’m even thinking about maybe social work, to help adolescents that are in trouble. I didn’t realize that there was such a need for people to do this until I’ve been hanging out with my buddy, the Metro cop.

Well, my dad wasn’t too happy with the idea so I promised to think it over some more. It’s not too late to change anything on my schedule if I decide to make the change. In the meantime I’m looking into what it takes to be qualified to get a job in this field after I graduate next May.

There’s an empty 5 gallon water jug that sits on the fireplace hearth and everyone in the house tosses their loose change into the jug. Every once in a while when there’s too much month left at the end of my paycheck, I’ll tap the jug for $20 - $30 and make it just fine those last 7-10 days.

Today I pulled some coin from the jug and drove down to the bank. I wanted two $20’s or even four $10’s instead of dragging rolls of quarters around. Would you believe the bank wouldn’t take them? The bank where I’ve had a checking account and a savings account for over 10 years! They said I had to deposit them into my account and wait until Thursday or Friday for my account to get the credit for them. I said, what? Aren’t these quarters legal tender? I want to change them in for bills. They said no!

If I’m still this steamed about it tomorrow I’m going to close out those accounts and find another bank.

If you are madly in love with a woman and you want to find a very special gift for her, I can point you in the right direction. I happened to overhear a conversation at the TGI Fridays with a couple of hot - I do mean HOT - chicks talking about a bachelorette party they had attended and their thoughts on the gifts for the bride-to-be and some great girl gossip.

Well, the most important thing I took away from that eavesdropping was that hot women really love expensive, unique lingerie. And these women know the good stuff - so don’t even try to get away with something cheap and trashy. Evidently, there are some particular brands or makers of fine Lingerie that most guys can’t even name off the top of their head but trust me on this, the girls know.

So clever guy that I am, that night I surfed the night for the names I had overheard and I found some great pieces. I bookmarked them and even sent myself an email with the info, so that I will always be able to find this again. In fact, these web sites are a great source for all kinds of great items plus they are all about discounts and saving money. So you might want to bookmark Shopping.com and Dealtime.co.uk, too.