Home from work..

Well I have been sitting around the house, looks like I will be off work for awhile. I am going to a new rig and they are still in the shipyard, so I will have about 45 more days to sit home. That is good news because after typing this long awaited update, I am off to start trying to get our other house ready to put on the extremely great housing market. What a time to sell your home huh? Well what's been happening with me you ask? Not too much. Working on the house, cleaning out stuff, just trying to do something each day. Got stuff piled up at 2 houses, 2 storage sheds, 2 outside sheds. One day soon I hope to be done with it. That is about it. I will be attempting to keep this updated. Got behind a little bit, but that is just me. Here is a pretty funny joke I came across.

This really tough Hells Angel bursts into a bar and strides up to the middle of the bar. He orders a beer, gulps it down, turns to the people at the left end of the bar and growls "All you down there... You're all a bunch of queer cocksuckers!" he gulps down a second beer and turns to the right side of the bar. "You're all a bunch of stupid motherfuckers." All is still for a moment until a little guy at the right end gets up. The Hells Angel says, "Where the fuck you going?" The guy says, "I'm at the wrong end of the bar."

Merry Christmas

Well one year I had to go to work and I had to leave on Christmas Eve. We were all sad because it was one of those deals where it was sooo close, but still too far away. So my wife and I had my daughter write Santa a letter and ask if there was any way possible that while on his test flight the day before Christmas if he could possibly come see them a day early. Well we all sat around and hoped for the best and sure enough when the girls woke up on Christmas Eve Santa had come to see them and left them all their gifts. The girls had written Santa a letter thanking him to which Santa replied, "No problem, ya'll have been so good it was easy to come see ya'll a day early. Tell your Dad I said Hello" (Santa and I got to meet when I worked in Alaska because he was always flying around up there.) To say that the girls were ecstatic is an understatement. They told all their friends that they had been so good all year, Santa came to see them early. It was a fantastic Christmas.

I hope everyone out there has a Christmas filled with Happy memories. Merry Christmas.

Christmas

Well Christmas is fast approaching. It is 6 days away for those who don't know. This Christmas I will spend on the Ocean Star, working or watching movies. That is one of the downsides to working offshore. I have been working out here for awhile and sometimes you are home, sometimes you are gone. That is just how life is. But we have always adjusted. We have always made it through. We sit down, look at a calendar and plan Christmas accordingly. It has made for some really fantastic memories in my life so far.

One year when my girls were still really young. I think my girls were 6 and 2 or 7 and 3, in that time frame. I was working on a land rig and the Company Man called me on the phone and said "You do know, that if your wife and girls want to come stay with you, that is OK with me right?" to which I replied, No, I didn't know that, but I appreciate it. Renee loaded up all the gifts and covered them with a blanket in her vehicle. My oldest daughter wrote Santa a letter to explain they had gone to Daddy's work. Then my wife and my girls drove to the location and stayed with me in my trailer. The next day the girls woke up and all their gifts from Santa were under my little 3' tall tree. They could absolutely not believe it. I still remember their eyes were as big as saucers. It was just fantastic to them that Santa had come to see them at Daddy's work. Renee had brought all the stuff to cook Christmas lunch, so she cooked and we got to eat Christmas lunch and then they drove home where Santa had put this big swing together for them in the front yard. It was truly a wonderful Christmas experience that I will treasure always. It wasn't the gifts... well it was the gifts. The gifts of spending time with my 3 girls. That is always the best gift, spending time with loved ones.

May you and your family, friends and loved ones have a Wonderful Christmas.

Movie reviews

Well as I sit here at work, there is not really a lot to do some days so I tend to watch a lot of movies. I don't watch much TV when I am home, but we do tend to rent a few movies or even go to the movies when I get home. For instance, right before I left, Renee', Ashie & myself loaded up and went to see 'The Day the Earth Stood Still'. Now my wife and I kinda liked it, but my daughter hated it. I mean she hated it to the point where she was sitting on the edge of her seat looking at me and my wife like "are you serious, we're staying for the whole thing?" She was not happy. But as much as it costs to go to the movies these days, we were not leaving.

Now as far as rentals go, I did happen to rent what I think is the absolute worst movie I have ever seen when I was home this last time. 'The Happening' is by far the dumbest thing I ever watched all the way thru. Why did I watch it all the way? Well because I kept thinking to myself, No fucking way... No fucking way is that really what is happening. **SPOILER ALERT!** If you don't want to know what happens STOP READING HERE!** There has to be some aliens involved or government experiment going on here, no way it is really the grass is pissed off so it is killing people. I mean are you serious??? The grass is mad? Holy crap what director's 2 year old son thought up that shit? The grass is mad at us because we are a threat to it, so it releases a toxin and starts to communicate with the trees and other plant life and gets the wind involved so it can spread this toxin to make people kill themselves. That's it? The grass is pissed, so we all commit suicide.

Now, it wasn't just bad enough that the plot of the movie was dumb, the acting sucked. I am usually a fan of Marky Mark, but it was almost like he knew the movie sucked, so he was like watch this shit, and started acting like crap. I really can't believe this movie didn't go straight to DVD or actually straight to the trash dumpster. But instead it grossed over $163 million at the box office and made another $26 million so far in DVD. I went out and looked to try to find a positive review of it. Out of 100 reviews only 18% were positive. Another service had 38 reviews of it, 34 were bad. So almost all of the reviews even said it was shit. So how did it make so much money? Just people like me that wanted to see it once? My daughters boyfriend found out I was going to watch it and he went home. Said no way was he going to sit through it twice. I should have taken that as a warning, but no, I had to see for myself.

As the fog rolls in...........

Well as someone who has worked offshore for the past 15 years or so, I can tell you that one of the things that sucks the absolute most, is getting delayed at the heliport or on the rig for crew change day. I can't drive late at night. I know this. So instead of leaving my house about midnight or 1am, I typically leave around 8pm so I get to the heliport about midnight. I then take out my trusty old pillow and blanket and stretch out on the front seat of my truck and toss and turn a few hours before I wake up and go inside and sign in before 5am. Not a perfect system, but it beats the crap out of waking up in a ditch. One of the big downsides to my system is the lack of sleep on my first day. I am usually exhausted by 2pm and can't hardly stay awake. So imagine how worthless I was yesterday after sitting in the heliport from 5am until 2pm yesterday flying out here and working until about 5:30pm? Well lets just say, I was more worthless than usual. I was so exhausted I had some of the wildest dreams when I went to bed last night. But now I am all rested up, but can't think of anything to blog about. I will spend the rest of the day that I am supposed to be working thinking up new and cool ideas that I can post the next few days. Maybe a quick joke to liven this post up a little bit. I am sure you have heard it before, but it is always funny no matter if you have heard it before or not.

People were in their pews talking at church.

Suddenly, Satan appeared at the front of the church. Everyone started screaming and running for the front entrance, trampling each other in a frantic effort to get away from evil incarnate.

Soon everyone had exited the church except for one elderly gentleman who sat calmly in his pew without moving, seeming oblivious to the fact that God's ultimate enemy was in his presence.

So Satan walked up to the old man and said, 'Don't you know who I am?'

The man replied, 'Yep, sure do.'

'Aren't you afraid of me?' Satan asked.

'Nope, sure ain't.' said the man.

'Don't you realize I can kill with a word?' asked Satan.

'Don't doubt it for a minute,' returned the old man in an even tone.

'Did you know that I could cause you profound , horrifying, agony for all eternity?' persisted Satan.

'Yep,' was the calm reply.

'And you're still not afraid?' asked Satan.

'Nope,' said the old man.

More than a little perturbed, Satan asked, 'Well, why aren't you afraid of me?'

The old man calmly replied, 'Been married to your sister for 44 years.'

Another Bad Service Story..

Ok, so a couple of years ago, we were eating at a very nice restaurant on a beautiful lake close to where we live. There were 8 of us in our party and we ordered and they were short 2 people and service was slow, but the lady was really doing all she could. You could tell she was making an effort and as long as they are really doing the best they can do, I actually have patience to deal with it. Well there was a couple sitting close to us that had gotten there about the same time as us, if not earlier. They both ordered steak and I don't think they saw their server again after she brought their drinks. No refills, no checking up on them, nothing. Well after at least 30 to 45 minutes, they just got up and walked out. They had not gotten their food, they had not gotten refills, still nothing. Well the waitress came out and saw them as they walked out. She stood there and looked and then took off running for the door, came back in and wrote their tags down and got the manager. The manager called the sheriff's department who pulled them over about 10 miles from the restaurant as they were entering town. He then escorted them back to the restaurant. After the waitress told us that they had stopped them and were bringing them back, I asked why they left? She looked at me and said I don't know, but they can't skip out on 2 steaks. I said well had they gotten the steaks yet? She looked at me and said, no not when they had left, but they had ordered them. I said Oh, well are they ready now? She actually started laughing and said, No, they will be ready shortly. I then started to laugh and said well sheriff or no sheriff. If I sat here 45 minutes waiting on a steak, left the restaurant drove 10 miles to town, got pulled over and escorted 10 miles back and my food still wasn't ready? I'd burn this place to the ground. She laughed and said I guess I better go check on them steaks and left.

Now, regardless of who pulled me over. How much the steaks cost or anything else. I wouldn't have paid one cent for anything there. There is absolutely NO excuse for that type of service. I mean a steak cooked to medium well takes about 7 minutes per side. Over an hour had passed with all this fiasco. Yep, burned it to the ground.

Cable One heard me bitching..

Well I should have known it wouldn't take long. After my post it rained and we were without internet for the past 3 days. My DSL was supposed to be hooked up today, but NOOOOOOOOOOOO, can't have that can we. They were supposed to be here today between 8 and 12 to install my phone line. At 4pm I called and the lady said they had it down that I was going to do it myself. I started laughing and said, No, I am not going to run my own phone line, that I had failed out of phone line running school and that I would like a tech to come out and run the line for me. She had to transfer me because that was too much for her to handle. So the 2nd person comes on and tells me that he highly doubts we can get it same day, so I said I ordered it almost a week ago, transfer to person #3. Anyway, they have pushed it back to the 19th. Which actually works out well, because the first operator told me the tech would bring the modem with him, according to the 2nd or 3rd person, who can keep up? The modem was mailed and should be here next week. Why does this not sound like it is going as great as I had hoped? Luckily, it has stopped raining and our cable internet is back up and running.

Bad Service

We have a tradition in my family, that your birthday is a special day, so you get to decide where we go out and eat and celebrate. Well my youngest daughter wanted to go to Ruby Tuesday so she could have their shrimp special. No problem, we load up and head to Ruby Tuesday. Now before I go off on my rant, I will say a few things about Ruby Tues. When they first opened here, we LOVED to go there. Their food was good, service was good, good atmosphere, good overall place to go eat. Now? Now, after our last trip, they are on my list of places I will not go back to.

It wasn't just this one experience, it was just the latest really bad experience that has had me decide this. When we get there, it is quiet as can be, which is always weird in a restaurant, to me anyway. Well the hostess sits us down and gives us the menu's and we all look at them, no waitress. Finally the waitress comes over and takes our drink order. We sit and wait. Finally my wife and kids just get up and go get their salad. The girls are about half way done with their salad when we finally get our drinks and she takes our order. The people behind us are mumbling, the people beside us are mumbling. They are out of drink and no food yet.

Finally the people behind us, his wife gets her baked chicken, his food doesn't come out. Then a guy comes up and said "Sir, sorry we are out of baked potatoes, would you like to sub something for it?" The guy, very politely said "No, just cancel my order, we will go somewhere else, this is just ridiculous." So the server guy just said "OK" and walks off. Well they proceed to put on their coats and stuff and the waitress walks up and actually asks "How's everything?" Now they have no drinks, he has no food and they are putting on their coats, how do you think everything is? But to the guy's credit, he was very polite and just told her that they were out of ribs, which is the only reason he comes here so the he ordered a steak and they wait till he had been sitting there 45 minutes to tell him they were out of baked potatoes and to him that just wasn't acceptable. So they leave.

At this point I go to the salad bar and the waitress has told her supervisor the guy left because they were out of baked potatoes. So the manager and assistant manager are going "He can't just walk out because we are out of baked potatoes" and they actually head for the door to go out in the parking lot after this guy and his family (they had a baby in a carrier, I forgot to mention earlier). So I said "That isn't why he left" and they just all stop and turn and look at me, like what?? I said he came here to eat ribs, ya'll are out. So he ordered steak. He has been here, according to him 45 minutes total and ya'll brought his wife her food, but not his for some reason. So then as his wife starts to eat, ya'll then decided to go tell him that ya'll were also out of baked potatoes, which you should have told him when he ordered. When he had waited that long and ya'll then decided to tell him, he decided that he didn't like the service and he left and who can blame him?

So they didn't go out there and talk to him, which I don't know what they could have done if they had. I mean it is illegal to NOT put up with shity service? The lady had literally taken one bite of her chicken. I was on the verge of walking out of there myself. We ended up being there for over an hour, just waiting most of the time as well. I saw a guy sit there and wait for 15 minutes just for his check, then about 10 minutes for her to remember to come get it. I didn't have that problem. My wife had me ask for the check when they brought the last plate to the table and when we finished, I walked over to her and handed her the money.

That place has gone down hill almost as soon as they became popular. The first thing is, you never know what they will have. Most places have a certain menu they serve. You like ribs, you go there. But the one where we live changes their menu all the time. You like this certain thing, you go back for it, they don't serve that anymore. They change the decor as often as they change the menu. Used to be TV's in each corner and cool stuff on the walls, now there is nothing. The bad service is just the latest thing which makes me think they are trying to go out of business. But I know this for certain, I won't go back.

But is it illegal to walk out because of bad service?