Category Archives: Work

The Ballad of House Buying: Part 1 The Surrogates

So I think I can be a little freer with the experience of house buying that I have been enduring.

I guess the most important news is that I am officially going through the process of buying a house now. I would like to at least go through the process of how I came to where I am today to update people that may have very unintentionally fallen out of the loop. I have gotten very busy with the process, work and Jaycee functions. Plus, there was Symposium and helping Derrick and Jen move. You could say that my plate has been more than full. It has been overflowing with crawdads, honey.

To start at the beginning of finding this house you have to go back to December 30 or 31. I can’t remember which.

I joined my Mom, Teresa and Ernie for lunch. When I got back to the office my phone rang and it was my Aunt/Realtor Lori. One of the great parts about this process is that now I can recommend Lori as a Realtor to anybody and include the phrase, “And not just because she is my Aunt.”

Lori was going to look at a new listing that had just went on the market. It was on Garst, which is to say that it is in a good neighborhood. She told me that the house was a foreclosure and I know from the time that Carla spent as a Realtor that meant two things. You could buy the house cheap and that is was probably trashed.

I work for a living, which is to say that I haven’t figured out a way for the Computer Mine to pay me for not being here yet, so I had to decline checking out this house on Garst. I did mention that there was a house on Union and a house on Aldrich that I was interested in seeing. We set up an appointment to see those houses on Saturday.

Then I remembered that somebody that has so many crawdads on their plate should use a surrogate. So I called Teresa and asked if she and Mom could swing by and check out the house on Garst to see if it was even worth viewing.

She agreed to do just such a thing.

About 45 minutes later I got a text message that said, “Garst house is disgusting.”

I called her back to find out what disgusting might mean. Did it mean saloon doors between the dining room and the kitchen? I can change ugly.

Disgusting ended up meaning covered in mold.

Well you can’t just take mold down and store it in the basement, so the house on Garst was eliminated from contention.

But Teresa told me that they had went over and checked out the house on Union that I wanted to see.

Earlier that week I had told my Mom about how I had high hopes about a house on Union, but last time I had gotten my hopes up real high for a house they were dashed by bulging basement walls.

She had mentioned the house to Lori and they had went over and checked out the house.

Teresa recommended that I check out this house on Union.

Goodbye, Old Friend

I got word on Friday that this week will be the last week of operation for the Varsity II Theater in Ames. The Cinemark Corporation had been wanting to close the theater down for quite some time, but they were stuck in a lease. Unfortunately for fans of thoughtful, intelligent films, Cinemark was able to negotiate an early termination of their lease and will be closing down the Varsity forever on Thursday night.

This is a sad day. I know that frequently when I have attended movies at this theater there was little more than me and my companions there, but I think this theater could have made it. The Fleur Cinema in Des Moines seems to flourish showing similar movies to the Varsity and it doesn’t have the built in audience of Art, Independent, Foreign and Documentary Film fans that the Varsity’s close proximity to a major college campus gives them.

It never seemed like Cinemark was interested in making the Varsity work. I know from firsthand experience what it is like to run a business for a person that is doing everything they can possibly do to make that business fail. When it happened to me, it ended with a meeting where my staff and I were served burnt pretzels and burnt hot chocolate.

I hope, if nothing else, that the staff of the Varsity was given properly prepared food when their theater was lead to the chopping block.

I will remember fondly that I saw some of my all-time favorite films at the Varsity. It is the theater where I saw Once, Hustle and Flow, Born into Brothels, Young at Heart, Son of Rambow, Napoleon Dynamite, Fight Club, Insomnia, Akeelah and the Bee and The Queen.

Not everything I ever saw at the Varsity was great. Some movies were quite dreadful, but it was always interesting.

It might seem like losing two movie screens in Ames isn’t going to reduce the amount of movie options in Ames, by much. But when you look at the type of movies that will be lost, the amount of movie options in Ames just hit an all-time low.

I will be going to the Varsity for one last time on Monday night to say goodbye to an old friend.

Muskrat Carcass



This is just a random image. I thought you might find it interesting and you might want something interesting after the story below.

On Tuesday a few of us miners went to Pizza Pit for lunch because a new employee allegedly loved chicken wings, but as it turns out, he didn’t love chicken wings enough to show up for work.

After we returned from Pizza Pit we noticed about 20 (not an exaggeration for effect) crows in the back of a co-workers truck.

When I went into the mine I found the owner of the truck and asked him what he had in the back of his truck that would attract a murder of crows.

To know the answer, read the subject of the entry again.

Here is the weird thing. It didn’t even phase me. It just made sense to me that somebody where I work would have such a thing in the back of his truck.

No Good Deed…

From the Clare Boothe Luce Files:

Monday was the annual Computer Mine Thanksgiving. The Mine brings in a healthy spread of food and the meal is supplemented in a potluck manner by various employees.

In my time at the mine, I’ve never once contributed to a potluck. This is connected to the fact that I don’t cook all that much and because I don’t really want to.

On the Friday before the Thanksgiving I was having a conversation with newest member of the mining team. He had signed up to bring a wide variety of food and through the process of the conversation I somehow agreed to lighten his load by bringing rolls.

On Monday I brought rolls, butter and homemade apple butter. The apple butter is made by a woman that works with my mom.

After the meal was concluded, the people that run the Thanksgiving loaded the leftovers (including the apple butter) into the company fridge.

The next morning the following email was sent out to the entire company.

To whomever had a jar of homemade applesauce/butter in the refrigerator, I regret to inform you it fell out and busted on the floor. Sorry.

I think this is the universe telling me not to contribute to any potlucks in the future.

Mr. Meeting

As I look at the year that is rapidly approaching, it turns out that 2009 is going to be the Year of the Meeting.

For starters, I will be the Marketing VP for the Ames Jaycees in 2009. That means two board meetings a month in addition to 2 membership meetings a month.

I will also be on the Board of Trustees at the church. I don’t know exactly what the Board of Trustees does, but apparently it involves staring at water damage to the ceiling and then voting on it. I vote “yes” that is water damage. I’m not sure how many meetings that will entail, but I’m hoping that it isn’t too many.

It also seems like I might end up on the Board of the Methodist Men. I’m not sure if this is a done deal, but I think that they meet twice a month in between church services.

That should be enough meetings for me, I might have to abstain from all meetings in 2010.

As it is, my years working for the Evil Clown Empire conditioned me to hate meetings. We only really had 2 Store Manager Meetings and we rotated through them.

The first meeting I will call the Boat Captain Meeting. The old man that owned the company would give a stirring story about how managers were doing to much work. My favorite was when he compared managers to boat captains.

If you were a captain of a boat and you saw that you were going to slam into something ahead, would a good captain run down into the boiler room and start shoveling coal or would they grab the wheel and steer the ship out of danger?

The point of the meeting was that he wanted more staff added to every shift so that managers could manage rather than shoveling coal.

The next manager meeting would always be about how labor was too high and we needed to cut labor.

This of course would be followed by the Boat Captain Meeting. It was an endless cycle.

Spoiled

Last week was National Customer Service Week. I don’t know if this is a real week that exists in the real world, but it is a pretty big deal at the Computer Mine.

This year we got 75 dollars in gift certificates, a travel mug and a 4 port USB hub. Despite all of the goodies, the one aspect of Customer Service Week that I couldn’t wait for was Friday’s lunch. The calendar indicated that they were bringing in the Hot Dog Station to serve us lunch.

The last couple of years that they did this all employees got 2 free hot dogs. I was pumped all week for a Superdog.

Then on Thursday I got an email indicating that the Hot Dog Station wasn’t coming, but the gyro stand was coming instead.

Truth be known, I prefer gyros to the hot dogs, but I was a little saddened.


Gyro Day - 2008

Gyro Day - 2008

Gyro Day - 2008

Perhaps you can’t tell, but once I bit into my first gyro of the day, I immediately was able to turn the switch and I was 100% all about the gyro.

I’ve said before that my job is a lot like The Office. There are some days I can sit at work and figure out exactly what episode I’m living out. Gyro day reminds me of an episode called Initiation. In that episode the company brings in a pretzel cart and every employee gets a free pretzel.

In that episode, one employee said the following:

Stanley: I wake up every morning in a bed that’s too small, drive my daughter to a school that’s too expensive, and then I go to work to a job for which I get paid too little, but on pretzel day? Well, I like pretzel day.

I don’t really relate to that, but I relate to what Stanley says in a depressed voice at the end of the episode:

Stanley: Only 364 days until my next pretzel.

Only 364 days until my next gyro.

No More Mental Trophies

Last year I won both of the Fantasy Football Leagues that I participate in. This week I finally got what was coming to me, a trophy for the tremendous accomplishment of winning the Fantasy Football League at work. A physical trophy.

The trophy was given to me by League Commissioner and Ortho Bowl loser Jon Dewaard. Luckily for you, fellow Computer Mine employee Mike Vest was on hand to record the moment for posterity.






I have cleared away some space near my work area where I proudly display what I am going to call The Dewaard Trophy.

Some of you might be wondering why I’m displaying a trophy I barely earned in a competition that I hardly give any effort and put my more earned awards in a trunk in a basement. I don’t have an answer for you.

Burden

Sometimes I forget that I cut an impressive figure. Sometimes I forget that when you are 6’3 inches tall and are rippling with muscles, attitude and intensity to spare you can unintentionally strike fear in to the hearts of others.

Back when I was running Campus it was not uncommon for me to cause an employee to burst into tears with just one glare. I was giving the nickname “The Intimidator” by some of my employees.

Stephanie made buttons for most of the employees at Campus. My button said “The Intimidator” and had a picture of a ferocious bear on it. I don’t know the current location of that button, but I tell this story to setup the following.

My final birthday present recently wound up in my mailbox. Stephanie got me a subscription to American Photo. An awesome present, but I worry that she bought me this present because she still fears me a bit. Even if she recently described me as “Former Supervisor, Friend, Mentor” on a recent application. I wonder because of the mailing label on the magazine.


06-28-08

At least the mailman will know not to mess with me.

More From Friday

Duff flooded a few hundred feet from the Computer Mine on Friday. The woods behind the Computer Mine flooded as well. I think all this water caused some of the animals from the woods to be a little more active near the building.

Earlier this year I figured out that Steve the Groundhog (as opposed to Angry Steve that works in Software or Steve the Hardware Plant on Dan’s desk) is in actuality a Stevie. A Stevie like Stevie Nicks, not like Stevie Wonder. I figured this out because I saw a few baby groundhogs hanging around the entrance to their hole a few weeks back.

On Friday I saw 4 baby groundhogs. I was able to get these heavily cropped pictures of some of the baby groundhogs.


Groundhog

Groundhog

They really blend in with their natural surroundings so they make for less than spectacular photos, but believe me that they are cute in person.

I also ambled down to the flood with Vest during my lunch break and snapped off a few pictures.


Squaw Creek Flood - 2008

Squaw Creek Flood - 2008

Squaw Creek Flood - 2008

Squaw Creek Flood - 2008

Squaw Creek Flood - 2008

Squaw Creek Flood - 2008

Squaw Creek Flood - 2008

Squaw Creek Flood - 2008

Squaw Creek Flood - 2008

Squaw Creek Flood - 2008

Squaw Creek Flood - 2008

Squaw Creek Flood - 2008

Squaw Creek Flood - 2008

Squaw Creek Flood - 2008

Squaw Creek Flood - 2008

While we were over by the flood the water rose rapidly enough to close us in. We had to cross the water just to get back to the dry land of the Computer Mine.