Guest post written by my buddy Royce Heath

My boss told me about HughesNet Packages in my area and I think it’s because he wants me to have Internet at home so I can answer all the crazy emails he sends me throughout the night. I know it sounds ridiculous but it’s like wanting to work 24 hours a day and I’m just not ready to make that kind of commitment. I feel like in today’s day and age there’s a really blurry line between what is your personal time and what his professional time and I don’t necessarily think that’s the healthiest way to live. It’s not that when I leave at five o’clock I’m not allowed to think about work until the next day but I definitely should have quality time with my husband and my dog that I don’t have to think about the office. I think it’s unreasonable for my boss expect me to be on call whenever he needs me… It’s not like I’m a doctor! I need to tell him that I’m setting some additional boundaries.

One thing that I really loved about working for Nationwide Insurance so many years ago was all of the training that they provided us. Most of it took place at the Regional Office which was over fours away, so that meant that we were usually put up in a hotel and were provided with an expense account which was always such a blast for me and the other employees that I drove down with. I just loved the idea of spending a night away from home in a nice hotel and being able to eat out instead of having to do the cooking myself. A mini vacation for a working mother such as myself.

These days the Internet has made it possible to keep employees from having to travel so much by bringing a lot of training right to them, saving companies a good amount of money along the way. Now a days there are sites like securityawarenesstraining.com that have everything that you need for employees to learn about all kinds of awareness training. They even have sexual harassment videos through this site, and we all know how important sexual harassment training is in today’s work place.

But what they really need is to really take action on people that are still continuing to sexual harass others at work. My oldest daughter seems to find herself being harassed at every place she finds employment. Trying to prove this behavior isn’t easy and she always ends up leaving while the idiots still continue on making money and taking advantage of girls/women. Managers are crooked, video tapes get lost or erased and the abuse just keeps on keeping on, a sad state of affairs. If my daughter wasn’t legally an adult at this point you can bet I’d be sticking my nose into and lighting some fires under some hind ends.

Just read a report that cars that have bumper stickers are much more likely to be involved in road rage incidents. The larger the number of bumper stickers the higher the chance they will be involved. Factor in the color, red cars are much more likely to be involved, add the use of cell phones to the mix and you get road rage times ten. It is almost not safe to go out on the road anymore. Better to stay home and knit than venture out to work.

It just really blows me away to find that so many more people are still using and depending on dial-up internet these days. I think that I would end up either pulling my hair out or tossing my computer out the window if I still used dial up. I’ve been using dsl for so long and have been accustomed to having the quick speed that is necessary for all the things that I do on computer on a daily basis.

I remember having dial up and just getting so impatient waiting for pages, documents, websites and attachments to download and you can just forget about playing any type of game using dial up, it’s just not worth the time and effort involved. I’ve always been an impatient son of a gun and I know that I’m not alone in that club.

I do understand that times are extremely rough right now and a lot of folks have had to cut back on numerous expenses so more people are forced to go back to dial up, which must really suck. I think that I would be looking at other options to cut back if I was faced with that task, but that is just me and it is easy to say when I’m not walking in their shoes.

Maybe I am totally way off base with this, maybe dial up internet service has come a long way since my dial up days and it could be running a lot faster than I’m giving it credit for, but I’m in not hurry to find out.

The best rating and review sites that I have had the pleasure of reviewing is the new and improved Webhostinggeeks.com. They have taken the guess work out of the task of finding which website hosting company has the best options for your use, whether it’s for personal or business use. They have the top ten list of 2011 on their home page, an independent review of today’s web hosting providers.

Upon further clicking about, I’m glad to report that they also are providing the Top 10 Eco-friendly Web Hosts, green is the color of the century and I’m all about being as green as possible. These top ten green web hosts use alternative energy to to power their data centers in many ways, which are all good options that we all could be using. They plant trees, recycle, and purchase RECs for power needs. You just gotta love and respect their efforts for their eco friendly web hosting products.

They have an interesting blog page that is worth the time to read. They do address the important of website security, which is a hot topic these days, with all the new viruses and the ridiculous hacking that is taking place now more than ever and costing all us millions of precious dollars.

Took a trip to the local hospital today to visit a buddy who had an appendix flare up. Right before Christmas isn’t the best time to land in the hospital, there isn’t ever a good time, but there are worse times. At least the hospital that he landed at is a good one and the people that work there are dedicated and caring folks that seem to go the extra mile for their patients. The nurses were right on top of things and were easy on the eyes, if you know what I mean. There were a few that I ended up checking out pretty closely with their cute little nursing uniforms scrubs on with their comfortable sneakers running here and there trying to keep up with the demands of their patients.

Way gone are the days (thank goodness) that the nursing staff only wears the boring white nurse uniforms of the past. Now a days they have a large variety of scrub clothing that they can mix and match and come off looking pretty good. Not that there was anything wrong with the old uniforms, mind you. You can get good quality medical uniforms at site like http://www.blueskyscrubs.com/categories/Scrubs/.

Oh yeah, my buddy is doing fine and should be home by the end of the week.

One of the pure joys that I have with my job is training new drivers, some do not show up the first night. I understand that 2 am is a tough time to start working, but if someone says they want the job you think they would at least show up and try it. Some do not come back the second night, delivering newspapers is not as easy as it seems. I would guess we hire 10 people to fill each position that we have come open, and this week I had 3 open not a lot of fun. In fact it makes for a very frustrating week.

I have a car that I love but the transmission went out in it a couple of years ago. So I parked it in the back of my house until I can get some money together to fix the transmission. If you have ever dealt with a transmission shop, you know that its going to be expensive and you have to go there with a big wad of cash in your hand, because they are going to squeeze it all out of your tightly clenched fist.

Life being what it is, there is always some kind of major expense raising its ugly head to try and keep me broke. I can’t seem to get that extra money together for the life of me. But I don’t want to sell this car – it is a classic T-Bird and we have driven cross country several times in it. I have too many good memories over the years to just junk a car that only needs a new transmission to get back on the highway.

So I got a notice in the mail from the County Government that my car is in violation of their zoning laws and I have thirty days to fix it – OR ELSE!

Now, what business is it of the Government that, despite me working my fingers to the bone and trying to make a living, I can’t scrape together $3,000 to fix my car right now? Maybe I’ll have to wait until Spring when I get my next tax refund check. It’s not like the banks are beating a path to my door to give me a loan to pay the transmission repair shop. The car is not hurting anybody. It is parked in the back of my house and you cannot see it from the street. There is nothing wrong with it except for a transmission problem.

So who are “they” to tell me I have thirty days to fix my car?

I love the section of the local newspaper that has little news bites from around the world.  What got my attention today was the story about a Louisville Kentucky police officer being suspended for fifteen days for giving a ticket to a 7 year old boy who accidentally struck the police officer’s personal vehicle with a ball.  He ticketed the child for criminal mischief!  That got my attention because I really hate it when anyone in “authority” abuses that authority.  I did some Internet research and found out that not only did the police officer ticket the boy, but yelled at the mother for being a bad parent! 

 One of the articles that I read indicated that the police officer gave the boy the ticket because he was hoping that would prompt the mother into punishing the child.  Nowhere could I find anything that indicated that any damage was done.  I have to wonder what kind of ball it was, and if the child was really throwing the ball at the vehicle or if it was just lack of control on the part of the kid.  Regardless, I think that was an extreme thing to do.

I am hoping that the police officer is getting some kind of counseling because he sure must need it!  What was he thinking?

I guess that I have the summer time blues, the should make a song out of this…wait they did already, it has been hot and wet which makes it very humid. I can not stand the heat and humidity as well as I used to stand it. I hate to sweat and humidity is a key ingredient in sweat. I am very ready for fall and winter to get here and the sooner the better. I can deal with the cold a lot easier than I can the heat and humidity. Give me a blanket and a fire and I am set for the night.

It is sad I work nights so sometimes the days get a bit jumbled up. I know that today is Thursday since I just put the trash cans down at the curb to be picked up. Friday I make my deposit for the business, Monday I sleep, all day sometimes it seems. Sunday is our busy day so it is not confused with any other days but the rest seem to run together and unless I look I have no idea what day of the week it is. I think I need a real daytime job so I will at least know what day of the week it is.

We just got home from trying to fill the truck up with gasoline. The gas stations that have gasoline are charging an arm and a leg for the gasoline. The gas station closest to our house is now at $4.09 a gallon. It was $3.51 a gallon there yesterday, I know the hurricane is making some of this price jump but I blame a lot of it on plain old nasty ass greed. The gas stations know we have to have gasoline and they know that they can create a false shortage and charge what they want to for the fuel. I wish I could just stay home for a few days and let the hysteria calm down a little bit before I tried to buy gasoline again. But real life sometimes gets in the way of doing what we know is the right thing to do.

As the only show I watch on a weekly basis comes on my cable messes up again, Comcast is not doing a very good job with the cable in this area maybe it is time to invest in a satellite dish and tell Comcast where to stick their poor service. Every time I want to watch a show I have to deal with poor reception or no picture at all, add in that they do not carry Sports South and it is the death blow as far as I am concerned.

As I was trying to get to the bank before 5 pm I ran into a grid lock and later I found out it was caused by a broken gas main. It is bad enough to have Friday traffic compounded by a road completely shut down. Plus they had to evacuate the bank so it was a totally wasted trip. I think I will just go to bed and see if tomorrow is a better day. I do not know how many more days like today I can have before I have a complete melt down.

If you caught the MMA fiasco on CBS last night you will of been as disappointed as I am. I had never watched the MMA and I thought it would be a good chance to check out a new sport. I was sorely disappointed in the program, not only did it run very late it was all pomp and no fighting. After 70 minutes of broadcast there had been about 2 minutes of fights, very disappointing. I hope if they do it again it will be more fights and less show, if I wanted all show and no fight I would watch professional wrestling.