Work was exciting. The calls were coming in non stop just like usual when somehow I managed to crash my computer. I had to restart the computer and log in again. When I went to log in it did not let me. So I went to the supervisor station and they let me know that the computer system was having issues and more then likely I would be waiting until the end of my shift with it trying to log me in.. So I sat back down at my desk and read for the last hour and 15 minutes of my shift. That was great!
It's raining today. I have a theory about the rain; I think it is all brought on by my dad. I think that when ever he goes somewhere he packs along the rain or sends it ahead as a warning of his impending arrival . I came up with this theory because it was sunny and nice all week but as it neared my dad's visit the rain and clouds came. It also rained in Phoenix during Maryann's wedding and their is a common thread here and it is my dad's visit. I bet it even rained in Italy! If it didn't I bet it will soon because maybe rain is not good at traveling over the ocean. It took two days to get from Oregon to Arizona so it could take a while to hit Italy. With that theory in mind, I would like to announce the next product I have in mind for the crazedlunatikdesigns.com line. It is called 'Need Rain? Rent My Dad!' I have some preliminary pricing for this feature. I figure with airfare, gas, car rentals and other travel expenses we are looking at $700 dollars provided you house him and feed him. If you would rather not house or feed him the cost will be $1000 because he needs the finest hotels and gourmet meals. I must have at least a month advance order to set it up and that is from the time that I recieve your payment. To rent my dad for a weekend just select your choice below:
To feed and house him yourself select this option:
To just have him fly in and stay for a few days without actually having him stay in your house, choose this option:
DISCLAIMER: "Rent My Dad!" in no way guarantees rain it just possibly might increase the chances of rain. If you do not get rain from it there will be no refunds. This product is pending approval from my dad, dates may need to be changed to accomodate the trip. Purchasing his time does not obligate him to any chores at your house it simply means he will fly in and possibly bring some rain. If my dad decides to not participate, since he does not know about it yet due tothis being a recent brainstorm and the fact he has not been reading the blog, I (the owner and purveyor of crazedlunatikdesigns.com) can fly out myself for no extra cost, bet Bill Gates doesn't offer to fix your computer for you! If you insist on my dad and he is unavailable or decides not to participate crazedlunatikdesigns.com will refund your money minus paypal's processing fees. Refunds will only happen because no trip was made. Please enjoy "Rent My Dad!" responsibly.
I had an afternoon all planned but the weather turned cold and dreary so I decided to stay indoors. With my plans now canceled I had a free afternoon so I decided to hit some stores for a little classic window shopping. I had planned on taking a few pictures of myself reflected in the lakes around the Japanese Garden in downtown Portland. I was a little disappointed with the weather since I needed a new picture for the site. Then it hit me, I would use the fancy shops mirrors to take my picture. I was able to take 3 pictures before I was chased out of Crate and Barrel. That did not deter me I headed over to Z Gallerie and took one picture of myself and I was 86'd from the store. So I got a great picture through their display window, it has me in the mirror and also reflected on the window. That became the new site picture you can see it by clicking here. I had a lot of fun taking pictures before I had worn out my welcome which took just 15 minutes. I spent the next hour at Borders wandering about trying to find something to read, if I had I was planning on having a cup of coffee and reading for a few hours. Unfortunately nothing was keeping my attention even though it would have been free to read while I was there, so I headed home to write this blog, update the site and tell you about yesterday.
Yesterday was a grand day. Well the last part of it was anyhow. The first half was abhorrent. Let me tell you why. I had a later start time for work and I decided to sleep in a little bit. When I finally got up I still had plenty of time as I started getting ready for the day. I packed a lunch, I made coffee, and I got my books, camera, note pad, iPod and my cell phone in my messenger bag. I was ready to go but I still had time so I sat down to drink a cup of coffee and have a bowl of cereal when I bumped my elbow and spilled hot coffee all over myself! OUCH!!! So I rushed to change clothes and it took a few minutes to get ready because basically I had to re-shower to get clean again. I went back into my room and started putting on clothes when I noticed that all the time I had was gone. So I rushed out of the house forgetting the coffee pot was on. I realized that fact as I was about to get on the freeway. So I turned around and headed home to turn off the coffee pot. With that done I rushed out of the house, hopped on the freeway and was at work right on time. That was when I realized the new cup of coffee I had poured to take to work was at home sitting next to my bowl of cereal that I never ate because of the coffee spilling on me. I was irritated, which is not the best way to get on the phones to answer questions for degenerates. Degenerates that somehow think it's your fault their bank has non-sufficient funds to process their transaction. They also think it's my fault that they forgot to pay the bill and they lost their minutes. This had not been getting to me until yesterday. If I could have ripped them limb from limb I would have. All I wanted to say was "I am sorry but you have to be 10% smarter then the cell phone in order to keep this account open, unfortunately Mr./Ms. Soandso it appears you do not meet minimum operating requirements your phone will be canceled and a stupid tattoo will now be added to your forehead. Please hold still, this will be painful."
So when my shift ended all I wanted to do was stomp on flowers or kick babies or something equally as horrible. I was going to go home and sulk in peace but when I got in my car and looked at my bag of tricks I realized I needed to go outside and enjoy the day, after all the sun was shining and it was only noon. So I headed to the Hoyt Arboretum since I knew it was free admission. It was the best move I could have made, in fact when I get some money I might become a H.A.F. (Hoyt Arboretum Friend). I headed down one of several paths with my bag and my lunch. I took some pictures of the magnolia trees which until yesterday I had always thought were some little flower but apparently I had always been wrong. I loved the smell, it was quite intoxicating and within 5 minutes I had the largest smile ever.
I sat down nearby jotted a few thoughts down and had my sandwich before I headed off to wander. I ended up heading through the Winter Garden to the ?Wildwood Trail? and then down to the Japanese Garden. When I reached the Japanese Garden I realized my 4 dollars would not get me in since it was less then half of the 8.25 entry price. I was a little disappointed as I headed back to my little trail until I saw that every car in the employee parking area was a Toyota. That sent me into a fit of laughter. If you have no idea what I am going on about just put ?Japanese Garden? together with ?every car in the employee parking area was a Toyota? and it might click. If it does not, think of where Toyotas are made and it should. Get it? Good I was beginning to wonder who I had invited to read my blog.
I headed back up the trail and talked to every person I came across. All of them seemed very happy to be at the arboretum. I snapped pictures of animals and plants on the way back to my car. Here is a little feisty guy I snapped this while I was convinced he was about to leap, he didn?t leap so I was very happy.
I was about to run away like a little screaming girl when I moved too quickly and scared him up a tree. I had a nice conversation with the lady in the gift shop and I was totally refreshed by the time I headed home. So if you are having a bad day, stop what you are doing and enjoy your world.
Just to let you know I am trying to explore some places around here so that when you all come to visit I might have some places to take you. Anyway I hope you are all having a fantastic week.
Just a side note: Mom good luck on the job hunt!
Oh and check out Jason on his new bike! ACTION SHOT!!!
And Katie is on a soccer team and because of that they won the game. Yes it was all because of her; she is like a ?Michael Jordan? of soccer or something. She should change her number from 17 to 23. In fact you better ask her for an autograph now because one day she will charge you for it. Remember: All my facts and beliefs are based on the best research available, seriously!
I can?t seem to locate the ball in this picture , which is just an observation.
Jason and Katie's photo are courtesy of my mom. Thanks.
Insurance Tests
Just to let you know I set up the two insurance test dates. Life and Health will be the 21st and Property and Casualty will be the 22nd. I am hoping I don't get scheduled to work through the start times of the tests. If that happens I will have to reschedule them. It was amazing how long it took to set up the times for the test. You call an 800 # and it seems it is one number for the whole country. I was waiting for 30 minutes and the recording kept saying "We are experiencing higher then normal call volume. Please call back at another time or if you continue to hold we will answer your call as soon as possible." Those recordings just make me more anxious, I would rather have hold music. It wasn't true anyhow I had called several times the day before and had been told the wait time was 'higher then normal' so I decided to try it again later. The third time I called I just waited. The lady I finally spoke with was about as helpful as a slug and there were long periods of silence. I figure She put me on mute to talk to her friends. She sounded like she had been working there to long plus she kind of spoke like she was gargling marbles. The good news is that I did finally set the test dates and I paid the money so I guess I am good to go. Now all I have to do is study for the tests.
It was not an exciting day. I think I actually had too good of a day yesterday. I tried to go downtown to explore the huge park in the middle of downtown but by the time I got motivated traffic had started and it was horrendous. It was only 2PM, so I am not real sure if that's when rush hour starts or everyone decided they needed to drive anywhere I tried to go. So 30 minutes into a 15 minute trip I turned around and headed to the park I was at yesterday. It was not as much fun because there were a few guys hitting golf balls in one of the fields so I had to avoid that area. After an hour and a half of wandering I just decided to go home and watch tv.
My Day Mood: surprised Now Playing: Rusty Cage - Johnny Cash
So I am sitting here munching on a bowl of Easy Mac (courtesy of Aunt Wanda and Uncle Don) knowing that the previous post was not quite enough for today. So I decided to add another. This one might get a little random but I guess you're used to that by now.
I actually woke up with enough time to have a cup of coffee and a previously made pancake. The pancake reminded me of Stewey a little....
That was when George started in on me about Stewey being my best friend even though it should be him because we live together. It's always the same argument but I guess at least we are talking again. A sticker and a tote bag design and George speaks to me again. I headed out the door and it was pouring. I hustled to the car and headed to work, it was 4:15 AM. I arrived at work at 4:45 AM and was told that I had to go to the training building. I headed to the building..... in the rain and as luck would have it I did not see anyone or anything in there. So I headed back up to the main call center and they told me to wait until the trainer came and grabbed me from the break room. Other new people piled in and waited as the trainers got their act together and then we all headed down to the other building together. It had stopped raining and it was 5:20 AM. The building was brand new and smelled that way we were the first people to work in there so naturally we had a hard time logging into the computers and the phones. I was in the system by 5:45 and I was taking calls. Next came break and then it was lunch at 9 AM. 11:30 rolled around quickly and I was out the door and on my way to the insurance testing school. I had an errand to run so I was there by noon.
I met a fellow potential AFLAC sales person there, Michelle. We chatted for a while about all kinds of things and then we hit the books.
Apparently Michelle has a daughter and she has been the coach for her daughter's volleyball team this season. She was telling me they had just finished their last tournament on Sunday and it was grueling for her. As a coach she pulled coaching duty and refereeing duty. I asked if she had liked it and she said she would never do it again. With that statement out there I had to ask more questions, the obvious question came first; "Why not?" She said that she felt like for the amount of work she put into it that the girls didn't really care or have much fun doing it and she ended up not having as much fun as she would have liked too either. This started my brain whirring and the cogs started moving and moke came out of my ears and while we talked and studied I was pondering things parents do for their kids that their kids never thank them for. I am fairly certain that her daughter will look back on her mother coaching her volleyball team as something that was pretty cool when she gets a few years under her belt. I am basing that off my own experience with my dad as an assistant coach for my soccer team. It was not something acknowledged or appreciated at the time but it is a pretty cool memory now. Thanks dad. So I felt like I needed to thank both my mom and dad for all the things they spent time on and did for me just because I was interested in it. Hey call your parents up and randomly thank them. It will make you both feel good and if you work it right you might even get a beer out of the deal! That is a win-win-win situation there.
With all those thank you's I just dispensed I bet the parental units are keeping their wallets close, hehe.
2:00 PM rolled around and I headed up to get my certificates of completion, I was officially done with the required hours! I headed home and a car in front of me had a vanity license plate that read "If you don't like my driving/you should see my putting!" which made me laugh and I didn't mind his driving anymore. The grey of the day was drifting away and the sky was starting to show signs of sunshine. I headed inside my home, checked my email shot off a few replies to Kevin and Pete, both of whom either added a comment, an event, a guestbook signing or voted in the poll. Thanks guys. I want to thank myself for heading to www.cafepress.com/crazedlunatik and purchasing the Stewey pin! Thanks Mike!
Next I wrote the post featuring Maryann as the Reader of the Week, in which I displayed extraordinary journalist skills. I exchanged about a dozen more emails with Kevin and then I realized the sun was out and I headed outside with my camera. I walked to the park and ran about snapping pictures everywhere. A Walk in the Park. is the new photoset from those pictures.
Then I headed inside and watched one of my recorded shows, 'The Boondocks'. If you haven't seen it, just know that it's funny or at least I think so.
Maryann is the featured Reader of the Week! Mood: silly Topic: Reader of the Week
I have a new feature on my blog. It’s where I stop talking about myself for a second and I start telling you about each other. I have gone through painstaking research to get all these details and I take pride in my investigative skills. Of course mistakes may happen, so if any of this is wrong please let me know and I will print a retraction. Of course, how could it be wrong with my vast informational sources and my limitless supply of monetary assets!
Things you may know about her: 1. She is my step-father and she eats lots and lots of chicken feet. 2. She recently married Glenn. Glenn is from the planet snog and likes to munch on paper. He is 10’2” and has blue fur on his belly. I have no word on what he does for a living but I believe it has something to do with evil plots and kicking small animals. I will get you a full report when his featured week happens! 3. Maryann has been known to have large nation-wide barbecues. She invites people to her ranch in Philadelphia where she has an overabundant and extremely rare supply of Tyrannosaurus Rex meat, which is why it’s a national event, 2 or 3 of those suckers feeds a lot of people! You have never had a burger until you have had a T-Rex Burger. 4. She also is a full time gym teacher at the local oceanography school based in Missouri. 5. She has two dark red eyes and worships the devil! 6. Her last name used to be Moppleflopper before she changed it to Slapalapa!
Things you may not know about her: 1. She is a master of the notfou karate, which is pronounced Not-fo-u. 2. She likes collecting snails, toads, spiders and puppies. 3. She has a collection of plates with half eaten food from celebrities’ kitchens that she hangs proudly on her kitchen wall. 4. Maryann recently won the lottery and is investing all that money in a rocket to take her to the moon, where she plans to set up the first colony and the first fast food restaurant. The fast food joint will have no vegetables and be completely about meat. Instead of fries you can order up a nice side of lizard gizzards! Yeah it is making me hungry too! The value meal promises a special T-Rex Burger, a large side of lizard gizzards, a three piece chicken feet with ranch dressing and a nice butter milkshake! That’s how you spell down home cooking!
That has been the first installment of Reader of the Week. If any of this is wrong please let me know, but as I said before anything actually being wrong is impossible. If you do find an incorrect fact it is probably your fault! You obviously do not know your fellow readers or your self very well, that being said; please congratulate Maryann on being the first featured reader! Wish her luck on her fast food endeavors.
Just a sort of quick update on my life Mood: sharp
I have a few things to talk about this fine Sunday evening. We will start with my new store. It’s a place to get official items inspired by the blog. At the moment there are only a few designs but more will be coming later. I teamed up with Cafepress to get the items up for sale with as little set up cost for me as possible. They have the materials and the secured payment set up in place, I just design the products. Designing the products was a lot harder then I thought it would be. Every item has different dimensions which means you have to redesign every time. I also have forgotten how to utilize Illustrator and Photoshop as well as I used to, so everything is taking longer then expected. I have actually produced a few designs on paper but the mouse and the computer method has been problematic. If I had a scanner I would sketch the design and then scan it in. Then I would modify the scanned image into a usable design. Unfortunately my printer died a year ago and I am working with out it. I will continue to crawl along with the designing process. You will know when the new designs come in, don’t worry. That being said please go to http://www.cafepress.com/crazedlunatik to view the merchandise.
I wanted to say thank you to my mom for purchasing the Stewey cup. Way to go mom! One item down a billion left to design and sell!
Let’s talk about work. I am still OK with my job. It is not a great job but it is definitely not a horrible job. In fact I really can’t remember anything about the people I talk to I can only remember the script I say for each caller. I have never been happier with a call center position! If you forget the fact that I don't make enough money I can say that I love not remembering what the people are upset about. I have the opposite of total recall, total forgetinitis or something. That kind of sounded like I may need to buy some 'Tough acting Tinactin!' or some 'Bengay for sore muscles.' I think that it doesn’t bother me because a lot of the time I can't help them ayway so I actually don’t listen. Here they are going on and on about some perceived injustice or slight and I pretend to listen and then I apologize and offer to transfer them. All I can do is take a payment for minutes; anything else gets transferred. The best part of the job is asking someone “Is there any other questions for me?”, which is a question that I am required to ask, even if I did not answer their first question. Actually the best part is that I immediately forget what the calls were about when I leave the place.
Let’s move on to the insurance school. Well I played a little hooky on Saturday. I cut after an hour and a half leaving myself two hours left to put in. ‘Why?,’ you ask. I received a call as I was taking a test, from my Aunt Wanda and Uncle Don and I packed my bags to rush over to join them for lunch. WOOHOO!! I actually lied about taking the test I was actually trying to read the test questions through a sleep haze caused by the questions themselves. So the phone startled me. I had been meaning to make it down to visit Aunt Wanda and Uncle Don's house for a while but the rising gas prices, my periods of unemployment and my low paying part time gig doesn’t really put extra money in the pocket for driving anywhere except to work and back. I was ecstatic to hear from them and was relieved to have a reason to not sleep in the insurance school that afternoon. They are doing good. Aunt Wanda is working a lot of hours and Uncle Don is turning their house into a gardening Mecca. They have not won the lottery but they still have their dreams. Well maybe Uncle Don has the dreams and Aunt Wanda humors the dreams. I mean the man has enough lottery dreams for all of us you can’t add too many more without the house imploding. Hehe
George and I recently had a roommate spat. He is pretty upset that I haven’t designed a shirt with him on it yet. I tried to tell him it’s because I was having a hard time drawing his fins on the computer so that he looked cool. That is the truth but he doesn’t believe me so he has stopped talking to me. Every time I try he tells me “Go talk to Stewey! He is your best friend after all!” and looks away. I think that is really mean because he knows Stewey can’t use a phone. Every day I feed him and try to talk to him and every day he pretends like I am not there. It’s almost enough to make me cry like a kid that just dropped their ice cream in the sand. It is enough to make me pout like a little kid that was told he could not have a slice of cake until he ate his lima beans. Since it is the only way to appease him I have started working on the George shirt. Hope he is happy, stupid fish!
Before I leave and forget, please read the previous blog. I would like your input on a few matters of site security. Thank you.
Mike explores the fun of the 3rd person and pontificates upon the next civilization Mood: cheeky
I have a confession...
I was born to write a blog. Don't laugh; it's too true to be funny. I have always written things for an audience, albeit an imaginary audience, but an audience none the less. There are pages and pages of writing that is written for other people's viewer ship. They sit in my boxes and on my bookshelves untouched, unshared and unloved. Then one day it occurred to me, I have an audience and I have a medium for dispensing my views and my goofy, pointless stories. My audience was waiting for me on the internet. They are salivating for what I offer. They may not know it, but it is what I have and what I do that will satiate those desires. You, as part of my audience, know what I mean. I am feeling so good about what I do for people I have decided to refer to myself in the third person for the rest of this entry.
Mike was at work today and Mike thought: "What is with all these people calling in to have minutes added to their phones? Mike needs to write Mike's next blog! Mike has no time for this! What do they think? That Mike is at work? That Mike has a job answering calls and filling their phones with minutes? Mike has a deadline! Mike has not written a decent blog entry in days! Mike is outraged!" Then Mike giggled because, of course, Mike WAS at work and it WAS Mike's job.
Once Mike was done with work for the day, Mike headed down the road to study. The good news is Mike only has 3.5 hours left to study before Mike can sign up and take the insurance tests. Mike is excited! The bad news is that Mike spent most of the day sleeping instead of studying. That was not Mike’s fault, insurance puts Mike to sleep! So it was insurance's fault.
Ok the 3rd person bit was getting to be too annoying to continue! Annoying yet fun! The Mike likes the third person! He he. I think you may agree that the third person is best left to the wrestlers, BROTHER! So we will leave it to them, for now. SNAP INTO A SLIM JIM!
Anyway, back to what I was saying before I was distracted by speaking in the third person. I was commenting that a lot of my writing is geared towards being read by an audience. A lot of that writing, more than likely, will never see the light of day. Of course a lot of the writing is not all that great; luckily that is not my point. The point I am making is that I write for an audience and I write to be read! I have filled pages in the last few weeks by prewriting blog entries for this place. Some of the ideas completely work and some..... well, not so much. I post all ideas that stand a fighting chance of bringing a smile or getting you to think. This time I will tell you my goal.... no, it is more then a goal it is my dream. What is this illusive dream? I have a dream that this site starts picking up a few readers outside the core group that receive an email every week. I am hoping people read it and they show it to other people, who also start reading it. That is phase one, and yes the dream has phases. Phase two is a next millennia thing. I hope that one day years from now, when people read about our civilization and they study our ancient writing, they discover these blogs. I am hoping that they dub this the Age of Selfishness and they think 'What a waste of time!' Then one day they find my long lost writings. Then carefully translate it word for word and upon complete translation they pronounce their findings by saying "This guy was an idiot!" Then in the history books they have the picture of me dressed as Warden Smiley and a chapter titled 'The Me First King, in the Age of Selfishness'!
Warden smiley says "I think that dream is attainable!"
Hey all..... Mood: not sure Topic: One Ramblin' Ranter!
Well I had planned on updating tonight but I had a virus that took all night to clear off the computer. The virus was called Vundo and it is a trojan virus. It was really stubborn and I ended up spending 4 hours working on it. I had to go into safe mode to fix it.
The good news is, it is fixed and a more entertaining blog will be here tomorrow night.
For the faithful readers, Thank you Mood: cool Topic: One Ramblin' Ranter!
Hey all. I want to take a few moments to thank you guys for reading. I have been having a lot of fun writing these entries lately. I get a kick out of receiving emails from people with comments about the site. Even when those emails simply include a list of grammatical and spelling errors, because at least I know you read it! Speaking of my errors, I have started writing the blog entries in Word to avoid the more common errors that I make. Now I just need to pay attention to the there/their/they’re situations and the pubic/public types of misspellings, isn’t English fun? I am also working on a secret project to be revealed later, those that are in the circle of secrecy know what I mean. If you are not in the circle of secrecy it just means we have not emailed or talked in the last day or so. It’s not hard to enter the secret circle you just have to ask me a question or talk to me and I blab. I like saying secret circle and circle of secrecy, what fun!
So now that I have your attention……
I have started adding a few things on the website to encourage interaction. The first thing I added was a guestbook and a comments button. Then I added the Stewey poll, which was a roaring success with a total of 54 votes. About 40 more then I was expecting. Thank you all for voting. I think Myspace helped out with that, I added a link for the poll and it seems reasonable to assume some people answered the call. Or else you all voted a lot of times, which is fine with me. I then found an event log that you could add important dates such as birthdays, anniversaries, travel plans, national beer appreciation day, green socks day, ‘where did I put my keys’ day, ‘Who took all my money? Oh yeah the government did’ day. Whatever day you feel is important.
So what am I getting at? I like responses, I want to know you were here and you read it. I want you to make this a stop every time you get on the good for nothing (except my site) internet! There are several ways for you to get involved; the first way is to click on the words ‘post your comment (0)’ below and follow the prompts. It is a little tricky but as long as you keep clicking yes and post it will eventually leave it there for everyone to see ‘post your comments (1)’. Then every reader can click ‘post your comments (1)’ and view what you wrote and they can post something too. There are two ways on the main site, the first is the ‘Guestbook’ option and the second option is the flashing ‘Feedback’ button. There is always the old fashioned way of responding to the email I sent out. That works as well and I may start adding those to the site. I would enjoy putting information about other people besides George and myself in here. So, starting today I will be sharing information I hear, unless asked not to. This ends the whiny little girl rant for today. The next post should be more entertaining.
Once again thanks! Pass my link to your friends! If you would like your email or comment to be featured in an upcoming Rant let me know (meaning that I will post it as part of the blog and will respond to it). Please remember that this is a family friendly site, I won’t post naughty things and comments may be censored with the word CENSORED. I have an example “This stupid CENSORED cut me off on the CENSORED freeway today!” I may post it if it’s that type of comment but if it is worse then that it won't make it on here for long.
That brought up an odd thought. I was listening to the radio on the way home today and the people would just use the first letter of the offending word. To my ears it sounded extremely dirty, perhaps even dirtier then the word itself. I have a theory about why, maybe when we all know what the word is supposed to be but all we here is a self censorship it intensifies the actual effect of the word. To imply the word, but not actually say it, lends the word power. That's just my opinion though.
The buttons shown below are the exact same as the buttons that pop up on the actual site. They do work, click them to find out how.
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