"A Social Tool Without A Use"

So once again, I'm somewhat dwelling in inactivity, knowing that my skills and abilities are languishing on the sidelines due to the process of merging with a new organization. I know that once we get tied in, I'll be chugging along as normal (or everytime an insurance carrier biffs up per usual).

I've noticed that only when we're dolling out new policies or insurance are my abilities ever really challenged, and that's usually not for periods longer then two days. HR is really quite a bit of overabundance and under abundance of work. Although I'll admit, I can think of many workplace issues I'm glad I don't have, there are just days I really feel like doing twenty lbs. of paperwork while digging a hole.

Steak With A Side Of WRONG

Hmm....I was told by my two resturant managers from before I graduated college that the Bonanza line was being systematically shut down by it's parent company, Metromedia Steakhouse.
However, when I went to this link, I came to discover that the webpage is dated 2008...which means they're still up.

Sounds like a few people back in the hometown are WROOOONG.

Brushing Up With Fear

No time to blog today, so thought I'd just drop alittle bit more horror on dentistry. Enjoy!

My Maw's Overhaul

Went to the dentist today to get my bum Army filling replaced. I was unsure as to how much drilling and poking would be involved, seeing as how in my mind, all they had to do was remove the old filling and replace it. Well, to those of you that should ever experience this wonder, it's pretty much on par with getting a regular cavity filled. Lots of drilling.

To preface this story, I need to point out what appears to be a biological anomoly with me. For some reason, the "standard" amount of novocain pretty much bounces off me. My mother claims it's due to the fact that I am of Northern European ancestry and that the nerves in my jaw are more deeply set then other people, so the novocain doesn't quite get to it all the way.

So when I step foot into a dentists office, I pretty much know I'm going to experience the electric shock that is the drill going too deep into my tooth at no fault of the dentist. My dentist I currently have probably thought he was going well above and beyond by giving me a heavy dose of novocain (I hadn't told him about my nerve issue at this point). Kudos to him. It made my right side of my face numb, and my tongue numb to the point where I was afraid to talk at work because I was slurring like a drunkard.

Suffice to say, when the point hit that he buzzed too deep and I jittered (infront of a hot dental assistant no less), he was amazed. He double checked the numbness of my tongue and lower lip to which I confirmed was still numb, and he went back to drilling...but more cognizant of my body language.

After it was over he apologized for "buzzing" me. (which came as a shock because Army dentists probably don't really care). I explained that I pretty much feel pain on every filling, and that's why I hate it so much when I have one. He seemed impressed that I powered through anyway and shook my hand after I told him thanks for the speedy filling (which was pretty quick).

So it was a successful visit other then the fact that I made my dentist feel bad. I never thought something like that would ever bug me...or even be an issue.

WTF Fatties?!

Today I'm delivering a big pile of wtf to what was a growing subset of our population. Now before you go and start defending them off the bat, hear me out...you might not be as offended as you think you'll be, but if you are offended, then it's probably safe to say you need to lose some weight.

I'm talkin' about the fatties. It's a well documented fact (and probably over expressed) that I loathe fat people. I'm not talking people who try to eat right, hit the gym when the can, and wear loose fitting clothes to cover up "problem areas". I'm talking about the slovenly beasts who ride the "Jabba The Hutt" carts at WalMart, sweat when they open a jar of jam, and have horrifying yellow discolorment around certain parts of their bodies that don't receive direct sunlight. And not just the 400 lb. "don't get on my elevator" fatties, I'm specifically identifying those people who have developed front butt, and somehow think it's okay to still wear shorts and for some reason, Disney-anything tshirts.
My anger against these Staypuffs was brought to a head when I read an article on MSN about blogs (one notably called the "Fatosphere"...and I'll be f$(ked if I'll hyperlink that garbage) in which fat people gripe about how much crap they get for being overweight, and telling people that it's okay to be fat. They further their grisel filled debate by saying they can be just as happy as everyone else and that once they accepted their weight, everything was A-Okay.
Well listen up you pooch-porting pile. The fact that you and 50% of the United States isn't a problem because you're not happy, it's a fact that everyone else suffers because you decide to suck down the hamhocks with gravy fries at breakfast. The First and Foremost issue is the fact that obese people drive up healthcare costs. We all know that being overweight EXPONENTIALLY increases health issues, hence more doctors visits, hence increased demand for healthcare, hence the fact that people who actually need/deserve healthcare (ahem..that try to take care of their bodies) can't get it...because you and your jolly friends are using up the doctors, increasing corporate insurance premiums, and increasing malpractice complaints when your octople bypass goes awry.
Secondly, beyond the damage that's being done to the medical community, there is nothing pleasant about the side effects of the extreme fatties. I'm talking about being blanketed in their flab while sitting next to them on airplanes, or even thanks to their inability to use self control, I now can no longer order a supersized anything at McDonalds. Hell, even Disney Land has to suffer economically due to these consistant bingers.
Finally, I'm driving to drink by their inability to understand why their teased and taunted. I can even cite Darwin on this as being just simply, fat people are weak. "But my condition is genetic" I can hear in a whimpery voice muffled with curly fries and a shake. Well, what genetic condition doesn't allow for you to pick up a damn carrot stick, or jog (yes, I'm even willing to allow jogging) on a treadmill for 20 whole minutes out of your calorie soaked day.

No only is the issue that they believe that society must accept them for what they've become, there's an actual "fat rights movement" apparently brewing the darkest corners of the country in which fat people feel it's not okay to be discriminated against (i.e. two airplane seats = two airplane fares). Right now, from what I understand, it is completely legal to fire a fat person from a job as long as their obesity isn't genetically linked. Wonderful! Appearance is something that not only reflects how the person views themselves, but it also reflects on the organization they work for. I sure as hell would not keep an employee who gained a crap ton of weight, especially if I worked for say, a doctor's office, or a gym
Pretty much to sum it up, it is NOT okay to be fat. It is NOT okay to "accept your body the way it is" just so you can be happy. If you accept being fat out of concern with making yourself feel more at ease with your precious feelings, then you might as well go out and trip a little kid because you're essentially doing it to a grand scale to society. My wallet, healthcare, and personal bubble (ahem...airplanes) should not have to suffer just because you refuse to break a sweat. I can't imagine anyone convincing themselves to be happy when they have an actual medical condition that contains the word "morbidly".
If you are fat and happy, you are wrong. If you are fat and miserable, DO something about it.

No Water Here

Last night marked the unofficial last day of the medium sobriety I've been going through as this was intended only to go until the end of January. I decided to hang off the wagon alittle bit, and sure enough, before I knew it, I was on the ground and the wagon rolled over me.

Bad is waking up and realizing that you're still drunk. Worse is realizing your still drunk and you have an important teleconference later that afternoon. Downright lame is realizing that it's already 8:45am and you're late for work.

Not all was lost however. I batted a thousand in the conference call (still drunk) and competed a few frightening tasks to boot. I'm not sure if its the extra energy from all the booze, or if it was a desparate bid to my insecure self to prove to others I didn't drink last night. Either way, I apparently am more functional when I'm still crispy from the previous night.

Sending Them To An Unhappy Place

The day is over half way over and despite the fact that today began so well, it's already on the slippery slope down. I submit the following list:

- Amnesty International - For disapproving of the overall life saving use of tasers by police and security units

- ACLU - For supporting a Senator that opposes everything they stand for by stating that sexual relations in a public restroom is Constitutionally Protected

- Westboro Baptist "Church" - For moving from celebrating the deaths of American Soldiers to persecuting a recently passed actor for a MOVIE ROLE. (For the record, every time I even mention this "church's" name, I throw up a little in my mouth)

- People Magazine - And pretty much all other tabloid magazines for punching us in the face repeatedly at checkout lines with nothing but verbal jizzing over who having how many babies and why that's influential on our lives

- Miley Cyrus - AKA Ashley Simpson Part II for even entertaining the idea that her fans would be dumb enough to miss this switch out. This is more blatant then tearing one off in an elevator and fanning it around.

- And who can forget people who walk on the treadmills at the gym. I can't forget those people because...well let's face it, there's plenty of laziness to go around.

***Just a little snapshot of the people/things that have recently snapped my radish.

Apathetic Delight

At the risk of being brief, let's recap this weekend in the standard bullet format:

o Started off the weekend by drinking COPIOUS amounts of beer until I was sloshing around as if I were my own keg with feet. (Note: The normal beer "chugging" days end for the average human at 25 years old)

o Subsequently cancelled several plans to drink due to feeling like crap. (see above)

o Baked a cake and subseqently ate a quarter of it immediately after frosting it.

o Burned up a good 20+ hours on XBox & resurrecting old computer games.

o At end of all this, destroyed at least 3 gallons of beer and at least 3 bottles of wine.

*I suppose I should feel bad because I'm sure 80% of all other bloggers that talked about this last weekend talk about how they went skiing, camping, hiking, blah blah blah, all to which I submit the above listed picture.

Hitting The Invisible Wall

Today at the gym is a special day. The usual 30 minute treadmill routine (which is every other day for cardio) is reduced to 25 minutes and divided between the treadmill (15 min) and the stair machine (10 min).

The intent of the shorted version of the run day is to see what my maximum speed is within a 15 minute period. In the Army, the Physical Test you take every 6 months requires you to run 2 miles at top speed. Historically, I've always managed to complete this with an average speed of about 12:20. So I use Fridays (if I've done at least two other cardio days in the week) to essentially "max out" my speed and see where I get.

Today, I decided to ramp it up a bit and tack on some elevation. So here I am about 14 minutes into my run. I've got the elevation at .5% and the speed set at 9.8 (mph I believe - equates to a 6:05 min/mile). As I'm burning off my last minute, I accidently pull the "STOP" button off of the panel infront of me and immediately came to a dead stop. And when I mean dead stop, I mean I couldn't have stopped any quicker had I thrown myself into wall of iron. It wasn't so much the fact that stopping suddenly like that pisses off every major organ and muscle in your body, it's the fact that it quite literally leaves you in a dazed state. I stood there for a good 10 seconds, staring at the treadmill like I was trying to disarm a nuclear device.

After shaking off the vertigo, I plugged it back in, and jacked the speed up to 12 on a .5% incline for 1 full minute to make up the difference. As I watched the speed ramp up, I noticed it couldn't get past about 10.8 and actually said "unable to attain goal" on the monitor. The speed hovered well below 12 until the minute was up.

Treadmill 1 : Azurael 1

Let's Get To Firin'! All Barrels Hot!

If any of you are contemplating a position in human resources, I'd like to outline certain key things to keep in mind.

If you get a job at a small company (i.e. approximately 50 employees), things work quick and smooth. The fact that the structure is so small allows for quick communication and even quicker action. If you want to hire someone, you basically need the funds and the okay from the hiring manager. Same if you want to fire someone, you essentially identify it, point, and click.

However....

If and when you get acquired by a larger company (i.e. approximately 200 employees), things tend to slow down. Usually hiring someone requires several different levels of authorization, and usually takes about a week to do so. Firing someone is essentially impossible in a timely manner because all the sudden 300 lawyers need to make sure you're not firing someone for being a minority, but rather for the fact that they do indeed suck. Then you need approval from supervisors that pretty much have nothing to do with said employee. Finally, after all of this has gone by and the targeted employee has already retired, then you can fire them.

I'm in the above situation, pre-acquisition, we could hire and fire with the click of the mouse. Now that we've apparently grown into a full scale bureaucracy, we can't do jack in a timely manner, which makes me look bad because I can't do anything without approval.

W-T-F#$k it's like being in the Army all over again.

Anything For A Sale....

So as I'm taking a brief pause from churning through my paperwork laiden day to blog, I'm also waiting to meet with an account manager from a local consulting firm.
For those of you not familiar with what consulting firms do, allow me to break it down. When a company needs someone for a job opening, say an accountant, they have two choices. Either put out an ad themselves, root through many resumes, conduct interviews, and a select a job applicant. Orrrrr, they can go through a consulting agency which does all the filtering and reviewing for you. Essentially, you tell them you need "x, y, and z" and they send you resumes containing x, y, and z. Then after you agree to contract an applicant through them, they charge you rediculous amounts of money to have this individual work for you. Typically, if we hire someone one who we're paying the agency $40 an hour for, the individual usually only sees about $23 of that $40 per hour.
In an attempt to drum up loyality to their organization, and to look sincere in reaping all they can from you personnel needs, they typically try to organize a meeting with HR once every 4-6 months to "drop in and see how business is doing". This translates to they're going to bombard you with free crap (I have literally a small pile of logo'd coffee cups & candy behind me), their business card, and an attempt to make you feel like they share your "dreamy vision of business growth and success".
Far be it from me to turn down free stuff, or even chat with someone to break the monotony of work sometimes. But the thing that irks me about meeting with them is usually after the small talk has subsided, it gets really awkward because there's not much to talk about once you state you need (or might need employees) and they confirm that indeed they are willing to offer employees.
Despite my desire to, I have yet to end a discussion with a consultant rep with "well, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go drum up some business for you and fire a few people."

HR Manage....To Give Advice No One Takes

If you're curious to know what Human Resource managers do, watch the above video. But first, absolutely accept that all of these duties are proclaimed with the caveat "if management thinks it's a good idea." Because by all means, as an HR professional, apparently we're here for advice nobody wants anyway.

Whoo hoo!

"Fish Hook On A Stick"

So the big dentist visit was today. I expected some praise as since my last dental visit, I've been fairly good about brushing, flossing, and using mouthwash every night.

And I was wrong.

The dental hygenist spent a good 30 minutes at least scraping more calcium off my teeth then there is in a jug of milk, and harshly at that. If I didn't know any better, I would have been more convinced that she was etching the Mona Lisa into each one of my teeth as fast as possible. This sweet delight capped off with her occasionally knicking my gums with the pointy edge.
The funny thing was, after she had done this and gave me the grape(vomit) flavored flouride treatment. She stood up and offered me a tissue (as in a Kleenex tissue). Now, place yourself in my shoes for a second. I've been sitting on my back for the last 40 minutes with my head tilted back, chin up to the ceiling. After being offered a Kleenex, what is the first thing you're going to think? Thaaat's right, boogs. So immediately I checked my nose for any stalagmites, but nothing. So I went back to pondering as to what the Kleenex was for. After a few seconds of thought, she then offered me one of those individually packaged, high quality napkins that was being kept warm. Puzzled! "What the hell am I supposed to wipe with this thing??" She hovered over me to see what I was to do with it, and while I fiddled with it, she stated "you should open it now, it's better when it's warm". "Oh, of course!" I muttered quietly while stalling to figure out what I was going to do. Finally, I just took a shot in the dark and started rubbing it all over my face below my eyes. Then she, creepily I might add, said "there, isn't that nice?" (no, literally...I quote ver batem). "Oh totally - Apparently I had spit in and about my face that I wasn't aware of".
Then the dentist came over to inspect her work. Seeming timid (for dentists - Army dentists are always old and real pissy) and near my age, he was actually refreshing to be around. He started checking my teeth for cavities (which actually "occlusion" is the magic word to listen for). He looked around, then shortly after got the fish hook on a stick device and started checking my fillings. From my limited knowledge of dental procedures, this is usually good....however...then he uttered the dreaded "occlusion in 31" followed by the damnit phrase "watch occlusion in 17".
So, in my immediate thought of "dammit! How can I have any more cavities?? My back teeth have more silver then Federal Reserve!" I then thought back to my last dental visit in the Army...yes good ol' number 31 was filled by the dentist that used the tactic of drilling REALLY hard and REALLY fast. That way, there was no anxiety about getting a filling (however, he usually failed to let the novocain set in). HOWEVER, the Army dentist apparently didn't fill number 31 correctly because now a part of that filling is gone. This was further demonstrated by my current dentist when he stuck his pick in their and showed that he could actually tug on my tooth because it was that far into my tooth. Great. So not only do I have to get a cavity filled (er...refilled), they have to remove the rest of the old filling. I have no idea what that entails, but I already hate it.
This I presume is the karma boomerang for me talking smack about Army Dentistry. Damn.

Definately Not "The Fad"

In reviewing the blog, I realized that all the figures of triumph I've named (namely the heroines) have been all female. Well far be it from me to ignore my fellow name. In keeping with the tradition as the first heroine was a musical artist, I'm naming the first hero as the band Chevelle.
I caveat with saying I'm not deep into music. True I played the piano but only when I was forced to, I dropped my Music Appreciation class in college, and I cannot stand such "music greats" as the Beatles, U2, and Lynard Skynard. I don't reasearch and memorize who bands are, their histories, or where they come from. Hell, most of the time I don't even know the names of the songs. However, I can say that I do recognize talent when I hear it.
Chevelle is good for several unusal reasons. First and foremost, the band looks like a couple of gents you'd sit next to at a bar with, or go play poker with on a Friday night. They're not fanatical or tattoo with some image to maintain. They honestly look like they just got out of class and they're on their way home.
Secondly, their musical range is diverse, but not all over the place. They don't do the Metallica thing (please don't sue me Lars) and have a CD compiled with both speed metal and slow dance songs (LAAAAAAMO), or attempt to capture every sound under the sun. Most of their music is in the realm of "a big group of slow walking angry guys" or "bar fight music".
Finally, the biggest asset is the lead singer. He has a very wide vocal range, and his ability to sing while screaming (in a limited manner) is a very rare find indeed, and prevents the "cookie monster" lyrics that have made such bands as Static-X notorious for (no offense guys, you still rock). His ability to harmonize is also very well versed. Having these guys go duo with possibly a female band (I think he'd counter Cristina Scabbia of Lacuna Coil well) would just be the bomb.
"But Azureal, I heard these guys are a Christan band". I don't know if this is true or not, but I really doubt it, and I honestly don't care. I'm pretty positive when I hear "God bands" because they all have those long guitar riffs and the almost wall climbing, weepy vocals (12 Stones you bastards...holy crap did you trick me). Blech. Chevelle is nothing of this sort.

Chevelle, the "we're-gonna-have-your-back-in-a-fight" heros!

24 Hour Fitness.....Land of Sand

fig. 1-1 The standard morning of running with the others

So today's workout was pretty much crap as I found that it was way the hell too hot to run this morning on the treadmill at the almight 24 Hour Fitness.

My logic breaks down why it's so freaking hot in the gym, especially when everyone is supposed to be working out and breaking a sweat. For it to be that hot in the gym, some group of exercisers must be complaining that they're too cold. Let's see...

Is It The Elderly? Nope. Everytime I see them, they all pretty much wear sweatshirts and sweatpants, and are usually bustin' out some type of energy burning exercise.

Is It The Weight Lifters? Nah. They're always coming to the gym in barely anything anyway, and usually they're just as drenched with sweat as the next guy.

Is It The Exercise Class Participants? No chance. The instructors keep them moving way too much to get cold.

Is It The Pool Goers? Nope. Pools in a separate room and the water is heated.

Is It The People That Walk On The Treadmill? YES. Who else can be on a cardio machine in excess for 30 minutes, feel like they're exercising, and not even break a sweat? These meatballs! Hey! Walkers! I don't care if your ankles are "weak" or if you're "taking a break from your normal routine", either crank it up, or get the hell off the machine!



*Now it may just be that the facility just turns up the heat way to much, but far be it from me to resisting dumping all over the gym goers that decide to tie up one of the limited treadmills with their cosmo (or wall street journal) -reading walking a$$es.

"America's Got Talent...And I've Got This..."

Recently while I was back home in Idaho and pouring over my old grade school homework, I stumbled across a poem I wrote to my mother for Mother's day. I think I had written it in 4th Grade and it was honestly not that bad. I had seemingly mastered the concept of iambic pentameter by this point, which was very enlighting to me.

Essentially I could see talent going something like this. Before we're born, we're bartering certain elements of our lives for other elements. Some men may wish to be good with the ladies, but be unsuccessful in their jobs, others may wish the opposite and end up alone but successful. Apparently, I chose to barter away some element of my life, because I thought that for some reason, my strongest skill would need to be...poetry.

Yes, undeniably, I cannot throw a spiral football. I'm not skilled in building anything. I've grown out of touch with the inner workings of a computer and I'm so inept at cooking I could burn cereal. But low and behold, put a pencil and paper infront of me, and I have yet to meet someone who doesn't at least give me the basic "not bad!"

This skill, being extremely limited in it's use in everyday life, has actually come in handy more then a few times. It's helped me win poetry contests, I've received requests to have it published in literary magazines, and most notably, it's been responsible for woo-ing the hell out of more then a few women (however, unfortunate for me that my in-person follow-up sucks).

Now far be it from me to call poets like Poe, Tennyison, or Silverstein weenies...they poetry changed the face of writing in school forever, I'm just wondering why of all things this had to be the skill I excelled at. If there was ever a way that it could have been incorperated into the Army, hell I'd be a General by now.

Oooh well.

The Coldest I've Ever Been

fig. 1-1 What I dug out of my boots later that week....

While walking back from the gym this morning, and feeling the wonderous cold breeze from Nordic hell, I remembered the one time I was the coldest in my life.

It was back while I was in Officer Basic Training, as a lowly Second Lieutenant at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Naturally as I started the course in September, it was slated to complete mid January. Near the end of this course was a 10 day field exercise...which ironically landed in the middle of December.

Allow me to paint this picture first. If you're not familiar with the weather in southern Missouri, it is cold of a different sort. Not only is the wind more humid, but for some reason, the wind can also blow through pure steel it's that cold.

So on Day 1, as we're rolling out of the motor pool on the way to our bivouac (camping) site, it starts to rain. The temperature being one degree above freezing, obviously it felt like someone was holding a melting glacier over our heads. It continued to rain...hard, as in Missouri hard...as in if you looked up at the sky you'd drown hard. Despite the fact that everyone was wearing wet weather gear, we were all doomed to freezing. It initially started by my boots getting soaked after kneeling in a puddle while on a tactical halt (why I was dismounted, I still have no idea). Then the wetness crept up my legs and down my jacket sleeves while me and the other LT's fought to get giant, soaking wet canvas tents up in the pouring rain. Finally, after I had shivered to the point that I ran out of blood sugar (and ironically, it was lunch time), I just flat out sat down on the wet freaking ground and ate my cold beef stew MRE. I remember being so cold and so wet that I really didn't care any more. Most would call it good training, I would call it the first stage of hypothermia.

As the days rolled on, the rain bounced back in forth between heavy snow at night, and torrential down pours during the day. I vivdly remember at one point getting massive hail stones to boot. We experienced every type of weather pattern out there short of environmental disaster, and except for sunshine, it was all colder then balls. My other favorite memory was on the night of Day 7 or 8, when it was single digits, and the moon was taunting us from a clear sky (which as we all know makes the night colder). I can remember laying on freshly fallen snow at 2 am waiting to conduct an ambush. Subsequently, the group we were waiting to ambush got lost in the woods, and after 2 hours, we all just packed up and went back to camp. Fortunately my cot was next to the stove in the tent, unfortunately, my fingers were almost too frozen to get into bed.

Long story short, just remember that the Army goes to the extremes, and by that, I mean they go to the hottest or the coldest places on earth, and never the tween do they visit.

Ain't That The Tooth

So my 6 month annual checkup is fast approaching. As per usual, I'm bracing for the inevitable "carie" that usually gets brought up, and having to actually defend the fact that I still have two Wisdom teeth.
I'd swear at the tenacity that dentists want to pull wisdom teeth, it must be some kind of underground currency that they deal in. This would explain why all of my dentists are bummed when I tell them mine can't be pulled due to the inevitability of nerve damage.
I recently contacted my dentist to see what options were for sedation should the event rise that I need a filling. Apparently, they don't do gas, they don't do abrasion drilling, all they do is the ol' shot o' nummy stuff to the gums, which for some reason, never seems to work on me. I've been to dentists that used gas in the past and it was delicious.
I'm wondering if, unlike tattoo parlors, they'd be allowed to work on me if I showed up drunk...hm..

Jumping Back In The Fray?

So now that the week long vacation from HR world has subsided and I'm back in the driver's seat of this awesome stock car called "insurance & due diligence", I'm quickly reminded why the idea of winning the lottery is all the more attractive.

Unlike other people though, I doubt I'd quick working all together. Instead I probably just work a myriad of disposable jobs for extra walking around money, and quit whenever I pretty much felt like it. And the beauty of disposable jobs is that no resume would be needed so I wouldn't have to explain to an employer why I left a job after only three days.

I pretty much figure it would go down in my head like so:

After winning 5.5 billion (after taxes of course) in the lottery, Azurael has decided to quit his HR job and go to work as a fry cook at McDonald's during the evening shift.

Azurael: Guess I'd better throw down another batch of frys.
Lamo Assistant Supervisor/Trainer: You don't need to Azurael, the first one's arn't done cooking yet.
Azurael: Oh is that how it is? Well s$*t...I quit.

I would become an epic story at least at that one resturant, not for the fact that I stood up to the man in any capacity, but probably because they would see that it is a possibility for crazy people to work there.

Beyond food service, I figure a part time job as a bartender replacing everyone's order of Vodka with Everclear would work out to be a fun night of people watching (that is until I got caught and the bar lost it's liquor license).

And if all of that fell through, I'd ask to invent jobs that I could work for bare minimum wage that would just confuse people, such as being a door man at a local jiffy lube, or being the guy who cleans the pole between dances at strip clubs.

Don't get me wrong, despite being boring or somewhat irritating at times, I'm thankful that I have this job...some for the fact that my supervisors are laid back, the people here are nice, and it pays comparable to the Army. But more so in the fact that it allowed me to drop kick my name badge on a closing shift at Kmart.

But everything being the same, there's something to be said about being rich and just screwing with people.

Something Weighing Me Down

So now that I've reduced the drinking and increased the gym time, I realize that not only am I fighting myself to get in better shape, I'm also fighting something worse...genetics.

My family is not renowned for being able to bulk up quickly. Even my father and distant uncles, who worked on farms growing up, somehow managed to get skinny and somewhat defined, but never was what would be called "built".

Prior to my new venture into weight lifting, I've also been pretty much against this type of personal improvement. Mostly because of bad past experiences with "know-it-all" muscle heads, and my pure distain for the narcissictic lifters who look at their own a$$es all day in the giant gym mirrors. But also in the fact that all body builders that get older get fat. I'm not sure if it's because the muscle mass loses strength, and fat is the easy way to go...or what. I've always prioritized running over strength because I figured in the military, it's a hell of a better idea to shoot and move rather then stand and fight.

Either way, I do know that I have a strong "max-out" mentality when it comes to trying new stuff. So I'm desperately staving off the need to buy lifting gloves, one of those enormous leather belts, and drink protein smoothies 3 times a day in order to get results quicker.

We'll see where this ends up.

"Hope Is The First Step On The Road To Disappointment"

So now that the New Year is here, I'm fully expecting to see the usual influx of people at the gym that have for some reason put off getting physically fit until a new year starts. And I know in 60-90 days, I'll see a void in place of where these new gym members once were.
Resolutions to me are pretty much the way a person says "I'm going to change......but I'll wait until 01 January to do it"..(i.e. a long term version of 'I'll start/quit x, but I'll start tomorrow). I've always firmly believed that if you don't like something, change it immediately. Don't wait for a new year, don't wait for your friends, just...fix it. The reason why I've seen so many people fail in their resolutions is simple. First, resolutions are a "big thing", where as someone sitting around saying "hmm, I shouldn't smoke" isn't. This way, if you slip up for fail, you don't feel like a colossal douche, and you keep work at getting better. Secondly, if you don't set resolutions, you don't fail, just as long as you stick to the "fix things immediately" point of view.
Speaking of resolutions and people at the gym, I've also noticed an increase of personal trainers at the gym. Now while I do admire people who hire help to get in shape quicker, I don't buy into the fact that these trainers know more about the client's body then the client does. Sure, I personally have been exposed to literally thousands of hours of different exercises designed to prepare someone for war, but exercise is pretty intuitive. If you're fat and don't wanna be, then run (noooo, don't get on the treadmill and walk fatty...we all know running burns more fat then walking...hell, I'll refrain from poking fun at your gravy thighs if you can at least give me a slow jog). If you wanna get big, lift weights. Proper lifting method? Don't use your back...that's pretty much all you really need to know. At least 30 minutes a session, at least 3 days a week. More questions? Google that beast!
However, back to the item of the personal trainer. Now in the light that I look at personal trainers with some contempt, I looked at this one with an extra special dollop of contempt because this personal trainer was FAT (ahem..24 Hour Fitness). How in the heeeell can someone who's got a beer gut give fitness advice to someone who was skinnier then them?
To expound, the following is a list of people I would not take advice and/or services from if they were fat:

- Personal Trainer
- Life Coach
- Motivational Speaker
- Someone teaching leadership skills
- A Doctor
- A Nutritionist
- Spokesman for a Diet Product
- Spokesman for Exercise Equipment
- A Hippy (although I rarely do, what the hell could a hippy eat that would make them fat?)

And the following list is people I would be more willing to take advice/services from if they were fat:

- A Chef

Hmmm...the scales seem a bit tilted