Jasper Jones

You might have noticed that I don’t post my political views on this blog. I do have views on politics and the Presidential race and the candidates. But I’m not going to post about them or enter into a discussion with anyone unless it is face to face, one on one, mano a mano.

Thee are other sensitive subjects, too. I won’t go into too many details about my dating life. Just be assured that I do have an active and satisfying social life. I don’t name anyone from my personal life without their advance knowledge and permission.

I won’t discuss abortion or other very personal subjects on the blog. Again, I have my views and if you want to meet me face to face for a discussion or even debate, that’s totally cool with me.

I just felt the need to get that off my chest. I know some kids at school read my blog, and I have family and friends back in Nashville that read it. And since this is the internet, I might even have readers from overseas, the Government, my employer and who knows who else all reading this blog.

So, welcome dear readers, I hope you find my posts about the daily life of a college senior in Southeastern Tenneessee to be totally engrossing and entertaining!

Taking a break from my “duty desk” at the admissions department tonight. It’s been really busy at the hospital tonight. A lot of accidental injuries, from one source or another.

One case was really bizarre and we had to call the police about this one. A woman stabbed her husband and then drove him to the ER crying about how sorry she was and that she didn’t mean it. None of that made any sense to me, but we called the police and they can sort it all out. The old guy is going to be OK after surgery but I don’t know if the wife is going to be charged with something or not.

I can’t imagine my parents getting into any physical altercation like those two did. Sure they have arguments, but picking up a kitchen knife and stabbing someone is extremely wrong. I just can’t imagine doing that or letting anything get to that point of anger that anyone would think it is OK.

So here I am at the hospital ER taking insurance information from the woman who stabbed this guy. How weird that was for me and everyone else in the ER acted like it was just another case.

Bought the Kid Rock CD called “Rock N Roll Jesus” because I’ve been hearing a really catchy song on the radio called “All Summer Long.” Now, I’ve never been a real big fan of the Kid, he has a bizarre lifestyle that I personally find very offensive. But that’s his life and he’ll deal with the consequences of his actions further down the road.

I don’t like to help support the drugs and illegal activities of today’s musicians by buying their records. But then again, there are lots of other good people involved in the making of a CD and some of them do deserve to earn a living in the music business, so if I really like the songs and can afford to spend the money then I’ll buy the album. but I only buy 2 or 3 albums each year, so it’s not like anyone can buy much cocaine with that little bit of money going their way.

That’s my take on the music business.

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.

One of my personal heroes is Mark Twain. I remember reading all his books as a kid and really enjoying both his storytelling and his writing style. It inspired me to even read his biography in a book that I checked out of the school library. That shocked both my teacher and my parents! A library book? Me? LOL

So I learned a little about Mark Twain. For the times he lived in he was a very different character. He had some eccentric views about politics, race and all kinds of things that were just too forward thinking for most people who lived in his era. Strangely enough, when I was at the drug store tonight I noticed that on the cover of TIME Magazine they are featuring Mark Twain and the cover story is about his forward thinking. I might go back and buy that magazine tomorrow just to read what they have to say about my hero. Too bad I didn’t know they wee interested in a story about Mark Twain - I could have written that myself and it would have been sweet to get paid for my writing.

Probably two of the most powerful and underappreciated words today are “internet Marketing.” Most people just don’t understand what that means. Ask any 4 or 5 people on the street what SEO means and they won’t be able to answer. They’ll think you mean CEO, which has nothing to do with search engines unless that CEO happens to be in an internet company.

Because I’m newly into this blogging thing, I have a much bigger appreciation for other bloggers and anyone who has been able to learn HTML coding, SEO technicques, and other internet tech words like reciprocal consulting.

So I found a blog that talks about all these buzzwords that I’ve mentioned and they talk about it in plain English, so just about anyone can understand their point. If you have a need for internet marketing advice and want to get a jump start on the topic, you can read the blog posts on this site, reciprocalconsultingblog.com, and learn quite a bit.

I particularly liked the post about protecting your company’s reputation. In my experience, we do share the good things among our close family members, friends, and in many cases our co-workers. But when something bad happens we do tend to spread the word on that more vocally and to more people. And the power of blogging is not to be underestimated. Companies that care about their reputation - which is also measured as good will in a business sale or merger - need to be alert to what bloggers and others on the internet say about their company - both good and bad.

One of my buddies at work was talking about his girlfriend’s cats and how they really like the new house they’ve rented because their is a huge backyard with trees, lots of birds, squirrels and rabbits. They moved here with 2 cats and just recently adopted a new kitten from the shelter.

This time of year there are always a lot of kittens and puppies at the shelter from the spring birthings, but there are also a lot of adult cats and dogs being surrendered by owners and many are abandoned or dropped off because of the economy. People are being evicted and having their homes foreclosed and have no way to take care of the pets any more.

This really bothers me - I just don’t see how anyone in good conscience can abandon a pet. What kind of person leaves an animal locked in an empty house and drives off? What kind of person can drive down a road and just toss kittens out of the window into  a stranger’s driveway? People who do that and people who beat their dogs or otherwise abuse their animals should be arrested and put into jail.

If you have a shelter in your community, next time you have the urge to take on a pet, I hope you will go to the shelter and adopt an animal from the shelter. And if you have anything you can donate to the shelter, here’s a list of desired items that can be dropped off and will be put into good use:

• Clean, old newspapers to be used for litter and lining cages
• Toilet seat covers (cats love to lie on them in their cages)
• Any type of cat or dog toy (plastic or washable)
• Old bath towels and blankets
• Canned cat food, any brand
• Bagged, dry dog food (particularly desired is Science Diet but other brands accepted)
• Laundry soap
• Bleach
• Heavy ceramic food and water bowls
• Antibacterial hand soap
• Candles - citrus or spice
• Paper towels

Shelters also need volunteers to come and walk dogs and play with the animals for short periods to give them exercise and socialization skills. If you have a good heart, please help the animals in your local shelter.

To be honest I’ve never looked at any of the online dating sites. My social life has been pretty full, although a lot of the dates turn out to be just once and then the realization that I don’t really want to call that person again just we just don’t seem to click. But I try to make the dates more than the typical dinner and a movie. I like to go places and do things, like go to the aquarium for a tour or take a train ride someplace new just for the day. And there has always been someone to ask to go along.

So I guess I wasn’t much help when my buddy Jerry asked me for advice about signing up for a dating site, and then I felt bad so I invited myself over to his place after work and we got online to check it out. Turns out that there are a lot of dating sites on the web and each one is different in its own way. It was frightening, in a way, to try to figure out which ones to spend the time on. So it was good to find this one site called “Prime Dating Sites” that actually lists and reviews all the top online dating services.

They’ve made it easy to read a short profile of each dating site and get an idea of some key factors, such as whether the site focuses on casual dating, like Yahoo Personals, or on finding your soul mate, like eHarmony. To put it another way, if you are looking for lots of flirting and romance you might have better luck with a site like Friend Finder and if you are looking for a serious relationship you should probably sign up for Chemistry. And Prime Dating Sites helped my buddy figure out which way to go, which is good because I had never heard of some of these dating sites and had no idea this could be so complicated.

First of all, I don’t listen to the Don Imus show. I think he’s a jackass and I don’t waste my time listening to the kind of stuff he talks about.

But I was amused when he caught the media spotlight off his “nappy haired ho’s” remark. He needed to be reeled in, and to be honest, I was surprised that he got back on the air so quickly.

But now he’s put his foot in his mouth again. I wonder how much the station management will put up with before they require him to see a shrink or just retire?

He was discussing the Pacman Jones debacle with his producer, who is black, and he mentioned all the arrests and trouble that Pacman brought upon himself while he was supposed to be playing for the Titans. Imus says, “What color is he?” (which was his first mistake) and his producer answered, “He’s African-American.” Then Imus was stupid enough to say, “Well, there you go.”

The station management needs to show Imus the back door that dumps out into the alley with the rest of the trash and say to him as they boot his ass out, “Well, there you go!”

And the Titans should have done the same thing to PacMan last year instead of rolling over like a  ____________ (fill in the blank).