Top Three Worst Movies Ever - Updated

The number one spot is:

After spending three hours of my life that I will never get back, Nicole Kidman uttered a line I won't repeat that literally caused everyone in the theatre to let out a very audible groan.


Second is:

Geez, for some reason it's another Tom Cruise movie.  I may think he's a freak, but there are few good movies he made, these are not among them.   Of course Top Gun rates up there as one of the good ones as does A Few Good Men, but that may be because of Jack Nicholson.

Third has a great actress and a horrible one. 

I wonder who in their right mind advised Meryl Streep to appear with Rosanne. 

And on the other hand, the hands-down winner of the best movie of all time is:

I LOVE Morgan Freeman in nearly everything he does.

My assessment is not up for debate. 

OK, that doesn't mean you shouldn't post your comments.   That just means that you will be wrong and I will be right.  Kinda like every other day of the week.

Update:

Oh wait, I have to put another movie in 2nd place.  I complete forgot about this one.

I went to watch it with a friend of mine and remember telling her at the end if I had wanted to listen to a bunch of screaming female teenages for two hours I could have just stayed home.  Bad bad movie.  Has Angelina ever made a good one? 

Charlie

One afternoon in August 2004, I took a nap with my grandson fascinated by the current news story.  I had muted the bedroom TV when I had drifted off and awoke to feeling badly for the people in the path of the news.

Category 5.  It had increased while I had napped.  I distinctly remember thinking about how badly Tampa, the projected path before I drifted off, would get hit.  THEN they also reported that the path had changed while I had been snuggling my favorite 2 year old. 

Fort Myers was the new target.

A mere ten months previously we had decided to go out on a limb and buy a vacation home four miles off the beaches of Sanibel Island and Fort Myers beach.

You might remember the hurricane season of 2004.  Three major hurricanes hit the state of Florida in 2004, Two hit in 2005. 

Most people might remember the news reports that Charlie had a direct hit on Punta Gorda, about a hour north of Fort Myers, where ten people lost their lives.  But the first path of the storm, a "reduced" category 4, was Fort Myers, Sanibel Island and Captiva.  North Captiva was actually split in two after the storm.  North Captival came into existence in the 1940's when another hurricane separated the island. 

Since the news focused primarily on Punta Gorda and phones and electricity were out in Fort Myers for days, we did not know if our new place was even still standing for 4 days.

A bit of damage in our community, but our property was safe and sound.  About three weeks later, we flew down to check it out for ourselves.

Back then it was less expensive to fly into Tampa.  I-75 takes a direct path from Tampa through Port Charlotte (Punta Gorda's neighbor) and into Fort Myers in an easy two hour drive.   At Port Charlotte we could see where the path of the Hurricane proceeded across the state. 

The radio playing as we were driving south.  Between the music, we began to hear the reports.  We had ignored them previously.  I mean, who would believe that another hurricane was heading for the state of Florida three weeks after Charlie?

The first reports were that Hurricane Frances might hit the Atlantic side of the state.  At that time Bob's sister lived on the east coast.  We decided to call them and tell them they were welcome to come to Fort Myers to avoid the storm.  They were already in Atlanta getting the hell out of the state, while we continued south.

As I set up our new computer and internet connection, Bob went to the insurance company to get flood insurance just "in case" after Charlie gave us a scare.  When I was plugging in the cables, Bob came back and said, "We may not be taking this seriously enough."  The path of Frances was still not certain and there was talk of it swinging around and coming ashore on the Gulf side.  The ladies at the insurance company were evacuating.

Bob wondered what we should do.  I told him that we were so far south if we decided to try to leave we would likely be stuck on an interstate in the middle of the state and probably in the path no matter which coast Frances would hit.  We decided to stick it out.

We filled the bathtubs with water, ran to Radio Shack to get a battery powered radio, bought flashlights, candles, canned tuna, crackers and whatever else we might be able to eat if we were stranded for days.

Wanna know what's in short supply on the threat of a hurricane?  Batteries and gasoline.  Bob went to many stores to find batteries and they were virtually non-existent.   The shelves of the nearby KMart were empty.  He said the customers were looking everywhere for precious batteries.  He finally spotted a box just dumped at the end of an aisle filled with batteries.  He made sure he had an armload before he found the ladies that were looking for some and told them all where they were.  We placed our emergency supplies inside a storage closet and waited.

Hurricane Frances came ashore on the east coast as a category 2 about 45 miles from my sister in law's home.  The roofing was gone and the accompanying squalls allowed the rain to pour onto the ceiling, which gave way in several rooms.  Before they had time to repair the damage, Hurricane Ivan entered the Florida/Alabama panhandle, whipped around the US emerging back out into the Atlantic and traveled back down into the path of southeast Florida.  They were hit again.

Frances traveled across Florida during the five days we stayed in Fort Myers, going out into the Gulf somewhere close to Tampa.  Fort Myers experienced significant, but not damaging winds from the backside of the hurricane and I had to endure five days trapped inside a coach home with Bob, who cannot sit still for more than 5 minutes, much less 5 days.  Our supply equipment did not include a gun or I might have had to shoot him.

Since the electricity and the internet never went out I at least had an interesting outlet.  I found a webcam of the beach and with only 50 mph sustained winds we decided to trek out to to see for ourselves.  We had to lean against the incoming winds and watched as we saw complete idiots trek out on the pier and dive off with their surf boards riding the hurricane waves coming into shore. 

A few days before, we drove along Estero Boulevard and could see the watermarks left on the buildings.  The piles of rubbage from the watersoaked hotels were lined along the street at least one story high.  As we drove off the beach, we could see the clouds signalling Frances was on its way.

The devastating effect of Hurricane Charley on Sanibel Island ruined the beautifully draped Periwinkle Road.  All of the Australian pines were destroyed and although six years later first time visitors do not see it, the charm of the road is gone.  Sanibel has only one road leading out with (at that time) a drawbridge with a limited tonage capacity.

Nearly all of Captiva has only multi-million dollar homes and is where most of the damage occurred.   The only road leading to Captiva is from the north side of Sanibel. 

After the hurricane, the weight limit on the bridge was reduced, so any debris coming from Sanibel and Captiva was even more restricted.   Months later there were still empty lots in Fort Myers that were a staging dumping ground for the trucks to unload and head back over to the islands.

Even two years later, a trip to Captiva showed these multi-million dollar homes with "blue roofs" and debris.  With all the wealth of the owners on Captiva Island, it proved to me that there are just some things that are just simply physically limited, no amount of money or manpower can change that.

When Katrina overshadowed anything America could imagine, I along with millions of America couldn't believe such a thing could happen in the US.   But when two years later the media was lamenting the lack of progress, I was reminded of Captiva.  There are simply some things from which we humans are physically unable to recover in a "timely" capacity.  If the wealth of Captiva could not fix everything in two years, there was no remote possibility New Orleans could recover from the massive devastation even now.

And all this comes to mind with this horrible, horrible oil spill.  I don't believe BP wants this to continue, I don't believe the Obama administration wants this to continue.  I don't believe anyone wants it to continue.  We are again reminded that there are many things that are simply too great for us mere mortals to deal with quickly.

And I wait.  I hate that Louisiana has such devastation, I hate that it's now hitting the pristine beaches of the panhandle and I hate that I wonder when it will affect Fort Myers, Sanibel and Captiva.

There are no winners here.

This Memorial Day

H/T - Is it Just Me?

Rest in peace my friend

You made me laugh.

Guests

Imagine getting a call from someone you used to work with who now lives in Texas, but haven't seen in a couple years.

Imagine that call and a request that on their way to Chicago, they want to stay at your house for several days, along with their 17 month-old twins.

Imagine them asking if they could then invite a few friends they made while they lived in your town over to your house so it would be so much easier than them having to drag the twins all over the city.

All of the above is true.

Now imagine what having two 17-month-old girls in your house for several days would be like, the chaos, the things that would get broken, the squalling day and night.

That last paragraph is NOT true.

Several posts back I wrote about the two women who have become my daughters of my heart. My Texas daughter and her husband just left this morning and we miss them and those two precious baby girls already.

Although I knew T and her husband would be good parents, I never expected that two barely-toddlers could be so sweet, so good and so little trouble.

These two precious girls stole their way into our hearts and we hate thinking how long it will be before we see them again.

The party they requested was fabulous, 5 little ones running around the house, their parents worrying over leaving a few toys in the floor even though we kept insisting that we let our grandkids scatter the toys in the floors when they visit. We're not the parents, we're the grandparents, aunt and uncle, etc. We get to spoil, it's our pleasure and our right.



When my Texas daughter called to tell us they would be visiting, it was in the middle of the horrible working hours I was putting in February and March. Instead of giving me dread, it perked me up and gave me hope. I was thrilled they were coming, I was thrilled that she knew she could ask.

We are family, not just friends. Family.

We're gonna miss those precious baby laughs and smiles. But we are now planning our big Memorial Day Camping trip with my massive family and our grandson will be joining us. Thank God for this trip or I would probably be going through some dramatic withdrawal about now.

Found this on Facebook. Definitely worth watching

Nineteen Years Ago Today

I said my next husband would be responsible and get along with my family.

Hmmmm. 

At the same job now for 36 years.
Drives me crazy BECAUSE he gets along too well with my family, they encourage his silliness.

Oh, there are other qualities, both endearing and crazy, but I don't have time to list them all.

We're heading downtown for a nice dinner. 

Next year is Hawaii.

Yeah, I guess I'll keep him.   Good man, love him more today than 19 years ago. 

I Vote YES

Next spring we will celebrate our 20th anniversary.  I figure that calls for a GOOD trip.  Here's our next destination:

I've convinced Bob by saying, "I'm planning on going to Hawaii for our 20th, wanna join me?"  After a few weeks of this he finally realized I meant it.    New places make him a little nervous, but once we're there he loves it. 

He hasn't quite figured out yet that I'm planning on making it at least a 2 week trip, with a couple of days in San Francisco as a stop over.  I suppose he might realize it when we don't fly back in a week.

So, I'm doing the research on where to go.  I figure we can hit two islands in two weeks.  I have to pick Oahu for one week, I don't want to not see Pearl Harbor and I think Ko Olina is where we might stay.  Waikiki looks too crowded and the only people who complain about the Marriott in Ko Olina on tripadvisor.com gripe about how out of the way it is with nothing to do but lay by the magnificant beach and the wonderful pools.  I'm good with that, thank you very much.

I think I'd like to be on the Big Island the other week.  Seeing all the volcanoes would be amazing.  I would love to find some isolated tropical paradise tiny "hotel" like they show on Survivor when someone wins a reward challenge.  I don't know if such places exist on Hawaii, but I can't imagine that don't.

And reading through the books, today I read this:

"Every 5 days, there is enough lava coming out of Kilauea volcano's eruption to place a thin venner over Washington DC - all 63 square miles"

Now it's even a BETTER idea for vacation.  I vote "yes" to shipping about a month's worth there.

Our last night in Paradise

At first I wondered where all the fabulous green hills were. 

For me, this was the most anticipated place on our itinerary.  But getting there was hectic and making sense of the directions was a bit confusing although Brian had printed out plenty of instructions.

During the entire hour and a half drive, my finger throbbed miserably and I wondered if I might lose the fingernail.  When we loaded the suitcases in the back of the car, I got my finger nearly permanently wedged between my sisters suitcase and the lousy wheels on the thing.  I yelped and knew the worse was yet to come when I had to yank my finger out otherwise I would be carrying the danged thing by one poor fingernail the entire trip.  I cursed my sister when I finally got up the courage to pull my fingernail out from the evil thing.

An hour later we slowly made our way up some small hillsides.

Where are the valleys, where are the hills, where is the lush countryside?  My heart began to sink a little thinking I was going to be more than disappointed in my expectation.

THEN, as the road narrowed and curled and "ssss" around, the descent was barely noticable.   As we rounded curve after curve, the edges of the road dropped off to breaktaking views.

I wanted to tell Brian to look, but I was afraid he would and I didn't want his eyes off the crazy winding roads.

We had long decided to stay in Volterra after watching a Rick Steves show on Tuscany and he named it his favorite.  An agriturismo is a working farm and after much research, we verified San Lorenzo Podere to be the perfect location for our stay by seaching on flickr.com and finding Rnout's pictures and posting a comment.  He's from Amsterdam and was very helpful in helping us make our decision.  Although flickr is a photo sharing site, it's a great way to get feedback from people who have visited anywhere you might want to go.

By law, an agriturismo must make more profit from their farm than their hospitalities.  San Lorenzo Podere is an olive farm.  The dining room, back in the 1200's was originally a monastery for a small group of monks.  The frescos can still be seen near the window.

When we arrived, we were exhausted from the train rides and the car trip, so we all took a long nap.  Our room was next to the dining room and around five we were all awakened by the amazing aroma emanating from supper being prepared from Marinella and her staff.  Each night there was a full seven course genuine Tuscan slice of heaven.  Brian was hooked on the spaghetti carbanara which is unmatched throughout the world.

The peace and quiet was exactly what we needed in the middle of our trip and "our" agriturismo was perfect with it's breathtaking views and natural pool.  We soon learned a natural pool meant that should you decide to swim, you would likely be joined with the melodious frogs that would sing a beautiful frog chorus for the guests.

Surrounding us was the olive fields.

Brian was lucky enough to return in October when the olives were ripened and caught this picture of Marinella harvesting the olives.

On his second trip, Brian brought me back a bottle of San Lorenzo's olive oil.  Of course I can never use it, although I would love to.

Sadly, it was one year ago tonight we were spending our last night at this heavenly place, planning our next adventure to Rome the next day.

There is more to tell about Volterra and Tuscany itself, but I'll save that for the next post.  Needless to say, this was a tie for the top favorite place in Italy. 

I can't wait to return.

My Favorite Part of Italy

REPOST:

One year ago today, I was watching this sunset on the Italy coast.  I want to go back!!!!

We've argued this point. Brian and I. The places we chose to go were so different and so wonderful that's it's very difficult to actually name a favorite.

We started planning a year in advance, studying, reading, researching. Obviously there were easy choices, Rome, Tuscany, Venice.

I first heard of a not-so-obvious choice when I was waiting on a flight out of Indy to Fort Myers, months before we finally selected our itinerary. Bob had flown out earlier in the day, so I was at the airport alone. I was wanting to learn Italian and stopped at the Rosetta Stone kiosk. (By the way, they are way overpriced at airports.)

While listening to the vendor, a middle-age man was slightly behind me. We struck up a conversation and, as it turned out, he and his wife had been to Italy the previous year.

Then he told me their favorite place. Somewhere I had never heard of.

Cinque Terre.

I sat next to him with my Italy book and he told me about these wonderful towns. Five of them (duh, Cinque). I shared the story with Brian and the more we researched, the more we decided we had to find a way to include it in the itinerary.

Wikipedia says: "The Cinque Terre is noted for its beauty. Over centuries, people have carefully built terraces on the rugged, steep landscape right up to the cliffs that overlook the sea. Part of its charm is the lack of visible "modern" development. Paths, trains and boats connect the villages, and cars cannot reach it from the outside. It is a very popular tourist destination."

"Rugged, steep landscape"? No, they are not kidding.

This is my picture, which is almost exactly like every picture you will find online when you google Cinque Terre.

 

This is Manarola, the least "touristy" of the five towns.  We chose Manarola after alot, and I do mean alot of research.

Our best and most reliable research came from flickr.com.   No, it's not a travel site, it's a picture website.  Typing in a destination and finding people's picture, adding a comment asking for information and.....you get real live feedback on great places to stay.  (This is also how we found our lovely agriturismo in Volterra.)  In Manarola we stayed at Arpaiu.  Their Odina room was an efficiency with two doors that opened directly out to the cliff.

A little closer look at where we stayed.  The orange building with the green shutters that looked directly out to the sea.

Yes, we stayed at the very top of the cliff.  And no, there was no method of reaching the top without walking. 

It's a great place for college kids with all of their luggage stuffed in their backpacks.  For a couple of old ladies and a mid-30 guy who had back surgery 3 weeks prior to our trip.......it was still a great place, just not one easy to get to. 

But it was worth it.

From what I have been able to discern, Cinque Terre was "developed" in 1000 AD.  All I can say is those people had to have been some badasses to manage to build on a cliff side.  Add to that, there was quite a few pirates who found a method to scale the cliffsides and kidnap people.  Geez, we have grown soft compared to the people of that age.

The view out of our room was breathtaking.  The Mediterranean is cold (at least in April), rugged, and crystal blue.

Helen - at the foot of our cliff, in front of the dog rock.

Brian, on the hike between Manarola and Riomaggoire.

Corniglia was our first hike.  I loved the town and found the best pizza in all of Italy there.

On our last night in Manarola, we revisited a restaurant that had the most wonderful minestrone.  Since Brian's back was not cooperating since we sat for awhile on rocks on the Mediterranean, we were planning on heading straight there.

On a whim I decided, despite the argument my calves were giving me, to venture UP the path of Manarola.   I strolled, taking in the stream, the town, the locals and rounded a corner where I literally gasped when I came upon this:

I felt absolutely drawn.  I entered the outer doors where I could hear a service.  Not wanting to interfere, I listened through the crack of the inner doors.   Even though I couldn't understand one word, the chills just ran through me.  I remained there for a couple of minutes and then quietly, awestruck, I left.  

Helen and Brian were making their way up as I descended the "hill".  By the time we reached back up to the church, the service was over and we entered The Church of San Lorenzo, which was built in 1338 AD.  It took my breath away, more so than any grand Basillica throughout Italy.  It was like finding a diamond when you were looking for a rhinestone.

I want to go back.  We spent three nights in Manarola.   Next time I want a week there.  Vernazza, Manarola and Corniglia were soooo worth it.  The Italian Riviera, sounds exotic, doesn't it?

So Cinque Terre and Volterra in Tuscany were a toss up as my favorite places.  Each were special, but then so was Venice and Rome and the Amalfi Coast. 

Pisa?  It has a tower that leans.  I can say I've seen it, but it was the least impressive part of the trip.  It qualifies as one of those "been there, done that".  I would not classify any other part of Italy like that.   Every other place far exceeded my expectations.

The minestone:

Toes dipped into the Mediterranian.

Brian crossing the suspension bridge on a hike between Manarola and Corniglia

Braving the cold splash.  He looks cool here, right?  That's only because I've promised not to post the picture taken a second later where he is turning away like a little girl.  But.... he got a fascinating shot.

I Asked Her

It was 30 years ago. Before remote controls were the norm.

I was staying all night at her house and I wanted to watch a movie when she and her husband were deciding to go to bed.

So I asked her, "Is it really scary?" She said no.

So off to bed they went, probably 10 pm or so and I began to watch the movie alone.

The opening scenes were not scary of course, but the music, oh God, the music. It began to creep me out immediately.

I laid on the floor, close to the TV, so I could turn down the sound when it seemed to get too loud. It started out that the music was the loudest.

Of course, the storyline was fascinating and the cast, amazing.

The first time I had to quickly change the channel was when I first saw these two.

They started to freak me out.

Everytime they showed the girls, I reached up and changed the channel. 

The night got later and later and I felt very alone in the house.

Between the "Danny's not here, Mrs Torrence" and the "REDRUM"  I was hooked and spent the late evening jumping up to change the channel whenever the blood came streaming through the hallways.

I could not believe my own sister told me this movie was NOT scary. 

To this day it's one of the best and scariest movies ever made.

The next morning when I talked to her about the show, my sister said, "Well, I got to thinking about that, I guess it's not really scary if you're watching it in the middle of the afternoon with a house full of people, probably watching it all alone at night it would be scary."

Yeah, thanks for that sis.

And here I am thirty years later watching it alone late at night.  Bob went off to bed,  we're in our Florida vacation home and I have my internet friends to keep me from feeling too scared and the remotes right next to me to change when it gets too scary.

What This World Needs

What this world needs


Is not another one hit wonder with an axe to grind













-

Another two bit politician peddling lies

Another three ring circus society

What this world needs

Is not another sign waving super saint that's better than you

Another ear pleasing candy man afraid of the truth
Another prophet in an Armani suit



What this world needs is a Savior who will rescue
A Spirit who will lead
A Father who will love them in their time of need
A Savior who will rescue
A Spirit who will lead
A Father who will love
That's what this world needs

What this world needs
Is for us to care more about the inside than the outside
Have we become so blind that we can't see
God's gotta change her heart before He changes her shirt


What this world needs
Is for us to stop hiding behind our relevance
Blending in so well that people can't see the difference
And it's the difference that sets the world free.

Ripped off from the lyrics of a Casting Crowns song.

And as a postscript, it was just a fluke the whackos from the KS church had a sign that said, "Rita is God's Wrath".  I THINK they were referring to Hurricane Rita and NOT me.

Establishing Priorities

I'm sure I've made it abundantly clear by now that I have been working too much and having to keep a few people in line.  My issue is that some people can't figure out priorities.  At least one of the main players can't seem to figure out what to do on his own and interrupts people with issues that are significantly lower on the priority list.  He's never happy when I overrule him.

I've been preaching this "priority" lesson for over five weeks now and I can't seem to get the message through to the slacker.

1)  Keeping the company in business.
2)  Be able to sell the products.
3)  Being able to deliver and transfer the products.

Seems simple, right?   Who couldn't understand the priority list?

Today, there was another priority lesson, this one much clearer than the one I had been yelling.  It was not taught by yelling, it was not taught by me and it was not taught to the slacker. 

It was delivered to me.

The hours are cutting back a little but I had to get up for an early morning conference call again.  This one was faster than normal and we were done by 8, quicker than I expected.

So after the call, we hurried off to a place we hadn't been in waaay too long.  Below is my "ripoff" of the priority lesson that slapped me hard today.


Did you worship here?



What about here?

And here?

And even here?

Your answer? ......................................

Yeah, me neither.

Time to get back to REAL priorities.

Just Call Me Bruce

I try never to write anything about work.   I make sure that every post would be something I could defend if it was suddenly front page news.

So today, all I can say is this was me:

                   "Welcome to the party, pal". 

If you don't remember this part, it was when McClane was trying to get help from the police.  The cruiser had pulled up and looked around, but didn't get there was a big problem in the building.  McClane blasts the cruiser with his automatic weapon. When the cop backs up and goes off an embankment after the car was riddled with shots and McClane says this great line.

Suffice it to say, I'm not exactly ONE person's favorite right now and I like it that way.

Why I don't like most women.

Apparently a large portion of women are born with a gene where they like to bash each other behind their backs.

If you want a couple of  perfect examples, here they are.

Or these:

These ladies remind me I why I generally don't like working with women.

I found my elementary and junior high school years filled with girls that could not be friends with more than one person.  If there are three junior high girls together, I guarantee you two of them will gang up on the third.  It is a trait that seems exclusive to the female gender and one that alot of women never outgrow.

So I can say I "generally" don't like working with women.  I have to stress the "generally" because the field I am in is mainly dominated by men, so most of the women that I do and have worked with over several years outgrew that junior high mentality and behave more like men do.  They can be good friends with lots of people and they don't go get their feelings hurt and try to get the other women to on "their side" in an argument. 

I hate to admit it, but I'm hooked on Real Housewives, which seems weird to me since I hate women who nitpick behind other women's backs. I don't know, maybe it makes me feel superior to them even with all their money and glamour because I have long outgrown the need to take sides on stupid women arguments.

One of my very best friends for over 25 years now started like this.  We would go on break and there was a third girl who was friends with Debbie.  I could tell this third girl didn't like it that Debbie and I were friends, it was subtle at first.

One day I sat down in the breakroom at our normal time and in walked Maggie.  Instead of sitting at the same table like we normally did, she sat at the other table.  I could see what was happening.  When Debbie came down, she would be forced to "choose" which was her better friend.  I remember thinking how ridiculous it was given that jr.high was years before.  I could see Debbie's confusion when she came down and she finally sat down with Maggie.  Did I interpret that as Debbie being Maggie's friend over me?  Nope, I thought Debbie assessed which friend would deal with it as an adult and not a teenager.

I made up my mind to not ever say anything to Debbie about how ridiculous this jr. high girl mentality was.  She was a smart lady, she could figure it out eventually.

A couple weeks later, Debbie was ordering something from a Hanes Catalog.  All the women normally made it one order so we could get a better discount.  Since Debbie worked close to me, we had our orders ready and Maggie came by with the catalog.  When Debbie told her she could add to the order so we could get a larger discount, Maggie decided she didn't want to place her order with mine.  OK, we were only in our 20's, but geez, how immature can you get?

It wasn't long afterward that Maggie and Debbie's friendship cooled significantly when they went out with their husbands and Maggie thought it was her opportunity to bash on me.  Now remember, I had not said one word to Debbie what I saw was going on with this jr. high girl rivalry that I refused to participate in.  Debbie told me later that after listening to Maggie drone on about me for 15 minutes, Debbie told her that I was her friend and that she would not listen to anything else.  Maggie wasn't very happy.

It was only after that night that Debbie ever mentioned to me how she felt she was being pushed by Maggie to not be friends with me and I finally told her that I realized it was going on for months.

So,  that's why I would prefer to work with men.  By and large, men don't play those stupid jr high girl games and more than a majority of the women do.  Any women I encounter that play that game are quickly eliminated from my list of people I associate with.    Debbie and I are like sisters over 25 years later.  And I have a number of women I have worked with over the years that I dearly love and will remain friends with forever.   All of them left jr high school behind them years ago. 

I choose my friends wisely.

It's Mine All Mine

I won it.  Really.   I wouldn't pull your leg.

OK, I confess.  It's not true.  I did not win the lottery.  That would have been impossible since I don't play the lottery, although Bob does now and then.

But with this crazy work that's been going on, I really wonder what EXACTLY I would do after immediately winning the lottery. 

Who doesn't imagine winning the lottery and telling your work, "bye bye" the very next day? 

So, let's go down the path of fantasy land. 

There have been plenty of jobs, maybe most of my jobs where I would do just that.  I have worked my entire life to some day provide us with a comfortable retirement.  I haven't regretted working.  I've worked for some wonderful people and I have worked with Lucifer himself and I've managed to manuever through that minefield for more than 30 years now.

Three years ago I was forced into a career change in an entirely new industry due to my company going bankrupt.  Technically, I am now self-employed as I'm working as a contractor with a company that is growing fast, but the basis is a family business and that mentality of all that is good about a family business has been maintained.

Significant project, rolled out almost three weeks ago.  We are suffering through bringing ancient programming code, nearly as old as hieroglyphics into today's world.  Working with a skeletal IT staff, where the complete understanding of the business and IT is wrapped up into only one brain.  On top of this major project are suddenly all kinds of personal issues with the IT staff and their families.  The Spock Brain of the operation lost his mother-in-law last Friday and there are other health issues abounding within the staff that are not insignificant.

My job?  Officially it's Project Manager of this major project.  Which means you do anything that needs done that helps the subject matter experts keep seated and doing their jobs long past the time any reasonably sane person would work. 

These people are all hard working, committed, fun people.  They overwork themselves, to the point I worry they won't be able to function.  While I've been putting in 80 hour weeks, at least four or five of them have put in well over 100 hours or more.  When I object about how much they are working, they are soooo quick to point out they are ALOT younger than I am.  No, they aren't clueless to what they are saying, they mean it and they love to slam me that I'm the old lady of the group.  I'm good with that as long as they keep working.  And I wait for my time to find an even better smart remark back.  It's the way we roll and laugh through the chaos.

So....

If I woke up tomorrow and realized I had mega millions now waiting for me at the lottery office, what would I do?

Would I cash in the money and tell all of these good hardworking people good luck but I'm outta there? 

"Hey I would be glad to continue to help you, but I don't need the money now, so you're on your own."

As crazy as it seems in my head, I could not do that.  I couldn't leave in the middle of rolling out this project and telling people that I've worked with for three years, people that I have grown to love and care about that I don't care enough to help get this project running smoothly enough they don't need me. 

I cannot imagine doing that.  I don't think I could enjoy the freedom the money would provide by knowing I have made it worse for the people I work with.  And NO, don't suggest I just split the winnings with them so all of them could quit, THAT is not happening even more. 

But I am tired.  I want things to smooth out.  I told Bob this morning that I was going to call in "retired" but he wasn't keen on that idea.  So I got up again, in the office by 7 and volunteered for the support line until 10 tonight, which really lasted until after 11.  I can't wait for a day off. 

If I was still working for Lucifer, all bets are off and I'm "outta there", maybe without even calling in at all. 

Bob Called It

We don't see alot of movies.  Some years we are lucky if we manage to see one or two.  A couple months ago it seemed there were several coming out that looked interesting.

You might remember my post on The Blind Side.  Wonderful movie. 

When we walked out of the theatre, Bob said, "Sandra Bullock should win an Oscar for that one." 

I was surprised because Bob doesn't really get into awards shows and we both get confused between the Oscars and the Emmy's and then they throw in the Golden Globes.

So, Bob was right.  She got the Oscar.  She was amazing, but I still liked Tim McGraw in it too.  No, his performance wasn't worthy of an award, but I liked the way they played together and I thought he did a decent job considering he's a singer not an actor.

As a side note, I'm hoping I can get back to some regular work hours soon.  Just finished the second straight week of over 80 hours and it appears this one won't be much better since I've already put in 14 hours.