A Few Hours

Break time.

I went to Denny's and sat at the counter - usually get better service at a counter than at a booth in that particular location.  Very nice looking and sweet young lady was my server.  She made several corrections during my visit which made it particularly nice, not to mention repeatedly visiting me to make sure everything was good and drinks were filled.

Corrections being taking the hash browns back before even serving them to me - I said nothing about them and would have eaten them the way they were, but I had asked for extra crisp and they were not.  Took a cup of coffee she had just poured, looked at it and said no, this isn't good, dumped it out and actually went to the server station in the middle of the place to get a fresh cup for me!  I didn't ask for any of it and I was in a very good mood, I would have just taken whatever and been happy with it. 

I got service you would expect at a much finer restaurant with much higher prices and yes, I tipped accordingly.  It had been so long since I had down sit down service that I gave a 200% tip.  Lol.  Make that about 230% tip, but who's counting.  Made up for all the time I had not done sit-down service, but more importantly, that I recognized the quality and level of service that she was giving and that I very much appreciated it and beyond that?  I worked in restaurants in my teenaged years and there are a lot of very STINGY people out there that either do not tip at all or give very minimal percentage tip that is not on par with industry standards of at least a 15% gratuity if you have received good service.

Waiters and waitresses, as most people know but many don't seem to care anyway, get the bulk of their income from tips, not hourly wages.  

I then headed to Auto Zone. Car needs new brake pads and I decided I would either install them myself or have someone come over and give them $25 or $30 to do it for me.  Versus taking it into a shop and having them attempt to tell you that you need $800 to $1,000 or more worth of work.  I never take my car into any shop to have brake work done, it's pretty much a ripoff and I am not buying it.  Well, the gift cards I had not only paid for the brakes, but also the floor jack and also some other stuff I needed.  Well, there you go, the money spent on the tip at Denny's was made up for by the gift cards at Auto Zone.  

I then headed to Home Depot, which was the intent of my departure from home earlier anyway.  Marigolds, Tulips and other flowers, got a flat's worth of them and brought them home.  Out front, I noticed that the recent rain had given rise to - a lot of weeds.  So, instead of getting on the trailer roof, I got down and dirty and started pulling weeds.  After 45 minutes of that, well, I had to plant those flowers.  All 3 pots out there are now filled with beautiful, extremely fragrant flowers of all kinds of colors - purple; red; yellow; orange and there it is.  Instant beauty both visually and orfactoral.  I have plenty left to do out there in pulling the small weeds - much easier to get them up and out when they first show up than commit a procrastinational offense and then, you are going to have a time getting them out WITH the roots.

Next.  MAYBE up on the roof before going back to the weeds.  In fact, I need to get my vacuum out and use it on the front - leaves everywhere detracting from the beauty of my front yard, which I do consider to be looking very fine at this point if I do say so myself.  Plus, one of the Sissoo's needs an entire limb cut down - it is a 2 limb tree growing out of the ground.  If you leave it that way, eventually it's going to come back to bite you.  This is still a small tree so it should be okay doing that without anything but the tree being able to focus on it's one limb growing instead of attempting to grow 2 of them.

Dogs have my room smelling - like dogs so a very intense cleaning started on that as well, including cleaning the carpet later on.

Well, it's a beautiful day outside and I just realized that - uhhhhh - probably better to get going on that roof before it gets burning hot, ie: waiting until May or something to finish it.  Not the greatest idea, so, I am going to get up there and do that small vent and maybe start on the other thing up there that I want to do before calling it roof quits for the day.  Then, back to weeds and also cleaning out one of the pond filters for the second time this week.  It is getting clogged up quickly because of the tree debris coming down into it.  Soon, that will all be cleaned out of there and I will be able to revert back to once a month cleanings.

Have a great day : )

ben

Saturday 3/24/2012

Another Marathon work day yesterday.  About 1:00 pm, I'm sitting at the main branch, calling the salesman on the account that is working on the new Intel plant.  "I'm down here, right now, is there anything ELSE that we are doing today?". He calls all the supervisors out there and they tell him, no, they are good, don't need anything.

So, I take the load I have on the truck to, where else, the Intel plant and figure the day is over after that.  2:00 pm.  Salesman calls, I'm still sitting on the site waiting for yet another contractor that we are also delivering goods to out there.  The call is telling me that I am going to have to run all over west Phoenix, pick up all kinds of stuff, go back to the yard, pick up more stuff and then deliver it - today, being yesterday.

Balk. It will be at least 5:00 pm, if not later, I reply, and they will have gone home by then.  The plan changes, just get the stuff we have at our yard he will go to 2 of the places, the 3rd vendor - which is way over in west Phoenix, we can do on Monday, according to the supervisor on-site that the salesman talked to.

Pass 30  minutes.  Another call.  The supervisor's manager changed that.  Nope, we need that part today to install tomorrow morning.  So, after finally getting out of that place at 3:10 pm, I knew I was in for a horrid time in traffic.  Friday afternoon, everyone wants to get home.  Indeed. I didn't get home yesterday until 7:00 pm.  9 hours of overtime for this week.  Undoubtedly will get more OT next week.  I was so tired, driving home was a chore.  I got in here and collapsed on the chair.  It wasn't 12 hours of driving, it was 12 hours of loading and unloading, move this, shift that plus I hadn't eaten enough food for that much of a work load/day.

So, here it is, 9:00am Saturday morning and I have had enough work for one week.  Too bad I still need to get up on the roof of that trailer and do more work up there.  Debating whether I really want to exert the energy to do any of that today or not.  I could do the small vent in relatively short order, I do believe, as long as the grinder doesn't blow up in my face.

But, I also want to get some flowers that Home Depot has for my front planters.  I have 3, nice looking planters out there that have much of nothing in them at the moment. A few flats of flowers would fix that nicely.

Maybe I'll head that way and stop at Waffle House or Denny's.  I haven't eaten in quite a long time now, about 17 hours and then, it was only 2 very small sandwiches.  9 hours before that was a salad and 15 hours before that was dinner.  The point? I'm hungry!

Later.

ben