The Trials and Tribulations of the not-so-New Bear Icon

☆ Well, again I'm having to say something about how long it's been since I've written in my journal. For weeks I had a half written post about TBRU that never got off the ground. Partly it was due to stress at work and trying to get through tax season, and now that's over, thankfully. It may not have been as hard as we thought, but it's definitely been a stressful time at work. Otherwise I just haven't been so inspired to write and have been lazy, watching TV in my spare time.

Lets face it, TBRU can be boiled down to a few things. There was great people there, I did my best to stay out of crowds and kept the drama to a minimum. That's not to say that going to Six Flags during Spring Break was not frustrating with the long lines and rude people, but luckily the guys I went with were good company. Also, the Battlestar Galactica finale went great and it was fun to have fellow geeks come over to watch. It made viewing it much more of an event. The finale itself was good, not great, but I think there was a lot of expectations. I saw people I knew and was glad to see them, and met a couple of new people, mostly introduced by people I knew since I'm too shy to go meet them myself.

☆ I'll just a paragraph or five about politics here. I think Obama and his administration are doing fine. Sure, I don't agree with everything he does, but I do appreciate that he seems to be able to plan for the long term and doesn't get caught up in the day-to-day news cycle. Politicians are often too reactionary (see AIG bonuses) and try to respond too often to what the polling shows rather than getting out there and making real plans. I find it refreshing.

The tax day tea parties were ridiculous. What began as a libertarian thing suddenly became some way for disenfranchised Republicans to find a voice, but the problem with that voice is that it seems to find outrage but no substance or solutions. For many people there they seemed to be outraged, but didn't quite know what they were outraged about. Of course you have Fox News out there, actually adding their name to the event. If my parents ever try to tell me that Fox News is balanced again, all I have to do is point to this moment where the right-wing network didn't report the news, but tried to be an event organizer. While I don't find much in the way of objective journalism from any of the cable news outlets, I can't see either CNN or MSNBC trying to actually create a movement for their benefit. For anyone on fox who wants to remain a journalist, it's time to leave.

Funny that these tea bag protests about spending come after several years of Republicans raising deficits while Bush was in office. All this sturm and drang only seems to come around now that they are out of power. I'll take your message as seriously as I do the Code Pink housewives.

Oh, and our governor here in Texas, Rick Perry, is worried about a primary fight against Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson next year, so naturally he decides to go to these tea party events to campaign. He's a complete idiot, but he knows the Republican Party here is a bunch of rabid fools (Just check out the Texas Republican Party Platform) so he knows he has to play to these guys. Kay is much more the moderate, and she would do better in a general election, but it will be harder for her to win the primary.

So Governor Good Hair, as we call him, goes out to start talking about Texas shouldn't be ruled by Washington, that states are sovereign and we need to look at secession from the US. Great! Just what we need here is an idiot telling us that we should leave the US. If we left the US, the US would also leave us. Do you think Texas would keep the US companies that headquarter here? Do you think that the US military would just leave all there equipment to us? Do you realize that there isn't a large enough bank based in the state to do commerce with? We are so tied into the US, that...why am I even arguing this, our governor is an idiot.

☆ Lastly, tomorrow we head out to LA for our cruise. I'm excited about going out to see a Dodger game tomorrow night and Saturday getting on the ship for a Mexican Riviera cruise. It's the Lazy Bear cruise, so there should be lots of good people on the ship. chris was on this same cruise a couple of years ago - as were a couple of other LJer's. I'll admit that I am not excited about any of the ports of call, but it will be nice to relax and get away from it all.

I'm packing, trying to get everything I need into one suitcase. You'd think going away for a week wouldn't require so much, especially going to somewhere warm, but I'm struggling to keep the bag under 50 pounds. Luckily this cruise I don't have to bring formal wear.

I have been on one other all-gay cruise, and that was the one to Alaska in 2007. I liked that one because people were dressed a little more warmly, but I see this cruise as a little more body competitive - beaches and pools and such. I'm sure there will be several people in skimpy swimsuits both on and off the ship. I'm already in my mindset that I will be the largest guy on the ship and won't want to be out at the pool area. Hopefully this feeling will change and I'll be able to let go and have a good time, but I'll tell you, it's easy to feel that you are very unattractive going into something like this.

Still I can't just stay in our little cabin all vacation long. This will be odd for me because I'm always looking for things to do on vacation but this one seems to be more about doing nothing. I hope I don't go crazy with boredom as I can't think of any of these ports that I want to explore, or anything. I'll be missing my internet access, too. I'm guessing I'm going to be on deck reading a book quite often. We will see how it goes.

Now if I can just cram all these T-Shirts in the bag!

☆ Oh, and it's possible that California's Supreme Court will rule on marriage next week. I guess we'll see if our marriage is still valid (in selected states) or not. We'll be without internet, but I'm sure we will hear the news on the ship. not that I'm expecting it, but if they rule for marriage equality that is going to be one big party boat.

Christmas was a quiet affair here. I never did get totally in the spirit and neither Chris nor I were really wanting to spend a lot on each other. Chris also went out to California for a few days to be with his family. He returned on Christmas Day and I cooked up a big pot of chili for the two of us. I think this kicks off our attempt to cook more for ourselves and try to save some money.

In the saving money category we went out to the mall Sunday, and I think people have decided to stay away, which was good. There's only one store in our local mall that carries my size, and that's Dillards. Despite being told that retailers have slashed prices to try to get people to buy, Dillards didn't seem to follow the trend, at least not for the big boys sizes. Chris was looking for a new coat and didn't quite find what he wanted. Macys selection was terrible and for some reason they don't have the big-boy love at all. What's up with that?

One thing we did finally do was buy our wedding bands. We had made some attempts to check out some stores, but apparently trying to buy jewelry at retail stores is just a giant rip-off. We went to Robbins Bros., a specialist on wedding rings here in town and totally felt that we were being sold a car. Would you like floormats with your rings? That will be an extra charge of several hundred dollars. The salesman there wanted to give us drinks and sell us something a lot more than what we were expecting. It was ridiculous.

Let's face it, wedding bands shouldn't cost as much as women's rings with diamonds and all. It's a symbol, not necessarily an investment. Right now I don't have the money for a big investment and I don't want to go into debt. If we want something more extravagant several years from now, we can do that later. I personally want to get out of debt, and maybe look at things like a house. Jewelry isn't my main worry.

Well, we finally found a ring we liked that was made of tungsten. It's great, meets my requirement of being inexpensive, and is what we wanted in looks and color, etc. It will be nice to have them before the state of California decides whether we stay married, officially or not.

Work has been interesting these last few weeks. Call volume has quieted a bit, but I had to work Saturday and it was quite busy. I know the next few weeks will be very busy, especially as the new statements come out and people learn that they lost a lot over the last few weeks.

Work has already started reducing our lunches from an hour to thirty minutes, which really makes me mad. I really do need that time to decompress. I'd rather come to work earlier, or stay later than have my lunch cut short.

I've been watching a little more football lately, with the bowls and the NFL playoffs coming. I'm glad the at Cowboys are out of the playoffs because I think their owner, Jerry Jones is an idiot and needs to be slapped in the face and told he doesn't know what he is doing. The man spends a lot of money on talented people, but doesn't understand that they are all cancers to team unity and success. The man gets what he deserves. I wish he would sell the team - a wish I've had since he bought the team, but not one I'm likely to see.

Otherwise in the small, means nothing bowl games, I'm rooting for the Rice Owls tonight in the Texas Bowl. The Owls have been underdogs for years. They have always been the smart school in a league that was too strong for them. This year they almost won the conference and they beat my Alma Mater for the Bayou Bucket.

Speaking of the alma Mater, the Houston Cougars play Air Force in the Armed Forces Bowl tomorrow. I'm rooting for Air Force. I think UH puts far to much money and emphasis on the football program, a program that always loses money. The school would do better, and be more competitive if they moved down to Div II A, but no. They must keep going on playing Div IA and being a middle of the pack team in an awful conference. The School sent out an email begging alumni to attend this game as the school can lose money if the tickets aren't sold. In the same email they said that UH would be looking for it's first bowl game win in 28 years - not a good way to sell the team!

i think the end of the year has sent me into an introspective mood.

A few notes today:

● First, I watched the season premier of Heroes the other day, and I think we can start a drinking game with the number of stolen plots. Sure, they say there are only 153 plots in the world, but when you can clearly see they are stealing from “The 4400”, “X-Men”, “The Sixth Sense” and every other movie where the villain is somehow related to the hero. It doesn’t feel fresh and new. Of course, reading comics for so many years makes most of the plots and characters seem kind of old.

Although they didn’t introduce many new characters, there’s too many of them out there, and they rarely work together in any meaningful way. Sure, the idea is that at the end of the story, everything comes together, but the writers seem to have a hard time with that. Here are a couple of thoughts. Kill some characters. We’re starting to get some redundancy in powers and it just muddles everything. When you do kill some of them, then let them stay dead. There’s no way the audience can feel for the danger the characters are in if everyone can easily come back to life.

Speaking of new characters, there was the one “villain” who was locked up with the others in the paper factory. He is a cute Hispanic cubby, but since he apparently has been switched out with Peter Petrelli, now that he’s escaped, we the audience only see Peter, and the cute cubby in mirrors and reflections. It’s a lazy way to not have to explain to the audience that he’s really Peter, but that could be explained in dialogue. I’d rather see the cubby.

It’s also interesting how they are spending their effects budget. Some effects look great (the freezing, the speedster’s streak) others look terrible. I know you are working on a television budget, so you need to choose carefully.

Hopefully with the extra time off, Heroes writers worked harder to put together a season-long story arc like there was with the first season. There’s some indication of this, but it is tough to see how some of the storylines work together. One last thing. Too many characters can see the future. One is OK, but you have dreamers and travelers and sometimes they see different visions. It’s confusing to the audience and it’s used as a cheap way to build a threat – much like our current administration warning about attacks that haven’t happened. Let’s limit the visions of the future on this show.

● The Emmy Awards show was terrible, but I like both Mad Men and 30 Rock. It’s rare that I like the shows that win.

● I love that to try to preserve the economy until at least a week into November the Bush Administration wants to have an unelected official have the power to distribute 700 billion dollars of taxpayers’ money to banks and investment firms that couldn’t control their own businesses? No way. The Bush Administration has done terrible damage to the country grabbing powers that were not a part of the executive branch, or once had oversight by other branches of government. Congress has too many times rolled over to let them take it’s oversight power, or allowed the administration to write in restrictions to judicial oversight. Sorry, but this time we need to say no, even when the economy is tanking.

The bailout will happen, but it needs to be on terms that protects taxpayers and works to protect the government from falling into deeper debt. Mortgage lenders don’t like the idea of the government coming in and re-writing loan provisions, but it’s better to prevent foreclosure and have people pay back the loans rather than to have them just walk away. This was done in the great depression and can be done now. I hope Congress will have the guts to demand it.

I’m sure Republicans will try to block the bailout legislation if it comes in with a lot of oversight. They will say that the Democrats were just trying to grow government and put in a lot of wins for them, but the Republicans can easily use the bill to try to make political points as well by refusing it. Since Republicans like to say they are for free and open markets, they can say, oh, the bill didn’t pass because there were too many demands (like the CEO pay bit) that made it unpalatable to business, and argue that business will drive the economy if it’s left alone. Bull. These companies got into trouble and are driving the economy to ruin. I don’t want long-term oversight, or government ownership, but there has to be restrictions and accountability. I don’t think the Republicans are up to the challenge. Hopefully the Dems will be.

● I’m getting ready with Chris to go to Austin City Limits Festival (ACL) this weekend. I’m ready to get away from the calls and callers we’ve had these last two weeks. It’s been crazy as people are looking for advice, but we can only provide information and a bit of guidance. People always pick the worst time to take action with their retirement accounts, selling out of funds when they are down, and buying “hot” funds when they already are at their highpoint. It’s tough to tell them that. I also hate when we are told to reduce our lunchtime due to the high volume of calls. I’d be happier to stay later than cut my lunchtime.

● As for ACL, I don’t think there are many people we know going. I’ve heard from a couple, and of course we are excited to see Nakia (austinchubbylimits) take the stage at the event. It should be cooler this year, too. 90 degrees instead of 108. There’s a lot of overlap this year during the afternoon hours where two or even three good bands are on at the same time. There will be lots of choices to be made.

● Damn, I’m already wanting lunch and it doesn’t come until 2:30 today. The person who popped popcorn needs to die.

Tomorrow it's off to the East Coast again, probably for the last time for a while. Airline ticket prices are rising, and once I see the two stadiums I'm going to see next week, I will have seen all the east coast ballparks. I'll need to start getting out to some other parts of the country!

It's been nice to have my sister Laura and her fiancée (still a fiance after 7 years) living in Baltimore that has made it an easy way to travel the upper east coast. It's been a good jumping off point. Over the last few years I've seen Boston, Washington DC, and Philadelphia, and now finally, New York City. I'll get to finally say that I've walked in the city, not just taken an AMTRAK train under it!

I leave for Baltimore early tomorrow morning (apparently no one wants the early flight on a Saturday), and then take the train up to New York City on Tuesday. Laura will join me there on Thursday. The only things I have planned are the Yankees game on Wednesday, the Mets game on Thursday, and Frank DeCaro is going to let us watch him do his radio show at Sirius on Firday. Hopefully our New Jersey boys, evilcreamsicle, njbearcub1, and Texas ex-pat txredneck will join us on Saturday. It's a good long trip.

I decided not to book any Broadway shows as it's cheaper to play your luck and try to get tickets the day of, also, who knows what you might decide to see. I do need to find out more about the water tour that Dan (musicbearmn) told me about a few weeks back. I know Chris will think it's not true, but this is about as unorganized and unscheduled as I get on vacation. Still, I know once I hit the ground, I'll be running like mad trying to see everything I can!

Now I'm getting excited. I'll have camera in tow, of course, and I'd love to meet other people up there! Is there anything you guys say I HAVE to do while there?

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On the home front, since I haven't posted in a while, things are good. Chris has been getting into the summer pool party season, and I've been opting out more times than not. The circuit seems to call for a more trim man than myself, so I feel really self-counsious about it, and it makes me a miserable guy to be around, so I tend to stay home. Not all of the pool events have been this way, and I've been pleasantly surprised by some new friends this summer.

Still, work has been taking up most of my time, and it's been going well. If there's one thing that's bothering me is that I'm often more of an operator than someone who can get something accomplished. I hate getting an issue and having to document it and give someone else an order. I want to be able to resolve it myself, especially since I have little confidence in others at the company to do it.

The sales aspect of the job has been going better than expected, so maybe it's not the problem I thought it was going to be. Still, being tied to a call center schedule is very annoying. Here's hoping I shine and I can eventually move up to other jobs in the company. for now I'll just have to pay my dues.

Hey, but a week of vacation just may get me through the rest of the day!

Wow, is it June already?

The other day I stripped off all my clothes after coming home from work. The hose was hot as the air conditioner hadn't kicked in. I threw the clothes I wore and some more into the washer and pushed the "on" button.

Several minutes later I noticed that my iPhone wasn't with the watch, wallet and keys on my desk. After a minute or so, I realized where it was. I had to pull it out of the washer, just before the last spin cycle. The phone was completely unresponsive.

For a few days I used my old motorola phone using the iPhone's SIM card. It was good that it worked, but I was really jonesing for my internet browser. I hadn't realized how reliant I had gotten on the ability to instantly look things up or read news and blogs during down time. I live the iPhone for that reason.

After googling some tips for what to do with a waterlogged cell phone, I left the iPhone in a jar with some rice in order to dry it out. I wasn't looking forward to having to buy another iPhone, specially since they are out of stock while everyone waits for the next model.

Luckily for me, two days later the phone powers up and works, just as it had. For a few more days there were some watermarks on the screen, under the glass, but those too seem to be gone. I'm hoping the phone will last at least another year to officially finish out the contract period, then I'll think about replacement. I don't need G3 speed that much.
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Next week will be my last week in new hire training. It's been months now, but with the licensing, all the new products and services and just the way the new company does business, I'm not even sure that four months is enough training. This company is really very different from anything else I've done, and they expect a lot out of their call center reps.

I remember on our first training-wheels queue rotation we learned much more than we did in class, with several new scenarios and small details that weren't brought up. I fully expect the same as we move up to full fledged licensed calls. There's two big issues I have with moving forward:

First: I've never been a salesperson. Well, I've sold shoes and clothing, but not in the financial realm. I've always done service after the sale. Here we have goals to try to retain assets, bring in new business, and expand business with current customers.

Now mind you this is a soft sales pitch, no heavy pressure or anything, but if you want to earn more and get good scores on your reviews, you have to do some selling. I'm not sure how well I'll adapt to this. If it's just bringing up a customer need, and they go for it, then fine, but I'm not much for full on sales.

Second: I've never been on a full out call center queue. I've already had trouble with being able to close a call and to take the next one right away without having to have processing time. I've never been rushed like this, having always had time to process after the call. Here that can hurt your stats. I really don't like that, nor do I like leaving people on hold just to finish up notes, process paperwork, and finish what needs to be done. I wish they would give us more flexibility.

Luckily one of the normal call center stats, talk time, is not used here. Where in most call centers a phone call that goes over seven minutes will hurt your stats, that's not the case here. If a call takes 90 minutes, then it takes 90 minutes, no problem. I had one that took that lone the other day and there was no selling or withdrawal to it. It was all talking about the market and what funds she should be invested in. It's nice being a consultant, not a salesperson.

Still, I know getting into the grove of the call center is going to be difficult. I've never had to take the volume of calls that I will here, and I hate the phones! Still, when I get into it, and I get all this information sorted in my head, I think I could find it rather rewarding. It's just change and I need to get on board.

I've already found some other gays at work. My boss, not gay at all, but cute, asked me what the bear flag meant. I think I mentioned something about a fat, hairy fraternity. He looked like he had heard enough and turned away...not disapprovingly, but in his "I have to be gruff" way. It's kind of funny.

Today I heard about more layoffs at my old employer, Fidelity. It made me glad not to be in their employ anymore, and finally encouraged me to roll my retirement funds out to my new employer. Sometimes moves are made for the best, no matter what the difficulties might be.

I'm standing on the 11 books and various notes I've used to pass the various licensing exams I've taken over the past year. I finally passed the last one, the Series 63, earlier this week finally ending all this crap. All of these books will now collect dust somewhere.

Over the last ten years I've sat for five different exams. My first two licenses have lapsed, one being supplanted by the Series 7 last year (the test with six separate books), and the management license wasn't carried over by my last employer. I currently hold the 7, the 63 and a Texas Insurance License. Over the next few months I have to get an Insurance license for the other 50 states (49 + DC). Luckily I don't have to take another test for those.

Otherwise, the job is going well. It's super busy with tax season in full swing, and people's statements just going out. I love the calls where people wonder why they've lost money in stock based investments this year. Still, even better are the calls from people who didn't know that they even had a retirement account. The moment they hear there's more money out there, they want to know if they can cash out, not thinking about the future. Ahh, the final triumph of a consumer-based economy.

Despite weeks of training, there are many ways that customers can throw you. there have been questions here that I've never had at previous jobs., partially because there's many more types of investments here than I've worked with before. Still, someone can come along trying to log on our company website and get an error that no one in the office has ever seen before.


Now that all of the tests are done (for now) I need to get to some home based projects and cleaning. Believe me, Chris would really like me to do more of the cleaning.


In other news, our little neighborhood suffered some damage, torn up garage doors and fallen trees, but other areas of town suffered much more in the storm. I had to go through a detour yesterday coming home where a huge metal power line tower had been blown over and many newly built homes had been stripped of their rooves. The small neighborhood next to us, the one I call tiny town, had their entire fence blow over. Still, the city of Dallas has already replaced the traffic light poles at the nearby intersection.

Another licensing test down. This morning I went over to the testing center to take the r the Texas Life and Health Insurance exam. I didn't study all that much over the weekend, but I managed to stun myself by scoring a 92. Now I can sell insurance in Texas. over the next few weeks I have to get the licenses for the remaining 50 states (count in Washington DC) before I can go on the regulated phones.

I don't have to take the test for the other states, but I do have to send off requests to them to show i passed the Texas exam. Now the job doesn't sell insurance, but we sell annuities, so the license overlaps the securities license I have for the brokerage aspects of the job.

In the long run it just means I can answer trivia questions about insurance.

Several other members of my training class were also taking the test. Most have been working in the financial world for some time, but had, like myself, no insurance experience. A couple of them were outside the testing place this morning still going over flash cards. I have a feeling that I'm not going to learn much in the minutes right before the exam, so I just have to rely on whatever I picked up before. Luckily the practice tests were giving me most of what I needed, and common sense picked up the rest. I know one of our classmates failed the test and will have to take it again.

I have one more examination before I'm fully in the clear for my new employer. I still have to take the Series 63. It's a selling license for stocks and other securities. The Series 7 that i took last year is one part, it allows you to be a registered representative with the stock exchanges and allows you to work with securities, but the 63 allows you to sell and market those securities. I never picked up the 63 because I never did sales to the public, oh, and my previous employer was too cheap to let me sit for it. I guess that's one reason that half of my training class is from Fidelity.

I know they want me to sit for the Series 63 exam soon, but since the next two weekends are very busy, Chris' brother's wedding this weekend, and TBRU the next, I'm not sure when I'll have a lot of time to study.

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Speaking of the upcoming weekend, Chris' brother's wedding is happening on a yacht. A Yacht on the Pacific Ocean. Thank goodness I still have one of the sea-sickness patches left over from last year's cruise, otherwise I'm not sure I would make it to the reception.

Because I have no vacation time, it's going to be a quick hop in an out for the wedding. We are looking to hit Disneyland on Saturday, and the wedding is on Sunday. I fly back just a short bit after the ceremony ends. We aren't renting a car, so I doubt we'll be able to leave the OC for anything Saturday night. Still, I'm excited about Disneyland, and seeing the changes since I went there in 1972 (the year Chris was born).

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Finally, Should you be inclined to ask me a question, you can still do so HERE, where comments are screened.

It's been a low-key Thanksgiving around here. As usual, I had to work the day after Thanksgiving, since the Stock Market is open that day, but this year because my department is so understaffed, and so behind, we were asked to come in for a half day on Thanksgiving. Since I wasn't traveling, and there were no plans until later that night, I went in. Heck, for double time and holiday pay, I'll take it.

Even though I'm really down on my job and am looking for something new, I do have to say that there has been some good with all the overtime I've been able to accumulate this year. I've been a good boy and have been applying much of it to larger credit card payments. Oh, and gas, of course. I guess the Thanksgiving paycheck will go to buying Chris his Christmas present.

I haven't purchased Christmas cards this year...maybe I'll just go without this year.

Mikel (soonercubntx) cooked up a nice Thanksgiving dinner for us he was also showing of his new HD-DVD player. Of course Chris goes out on Saturday and picks up a Playstation 3 because they were giving away 10 Blu-Ray movies with it. We are all set here, with both the XBOX HD-DVD player, Blu-Ray in the Playstation and the Wii. There's no new game or movie release we can't see here.

Chris is almost through with the new Ratchet and Clank game for the PS3. It looks really good in HD.

Joey has a friend over this week. He's Fidel the basset hound and we're sitting him for a friend. Fidel doesn't smoke cigars as far as I can tell, but he does have a little of that basset hound smell. It's fun to watch him hop his way down the stairs. He's a little gluttonous and has eaten Joey's food as well as his own, so we have to keep them apart to feed them.

Joey has been in alpha dog mode trying to make sure Fidel knows who's house this is. she's not mean or anything, but their play together certainly shown signs of dominance play. Joey is a natural herding dog, so you see she's trying to make Fidel go where she wants. They like to try to out nuzzle the other. No biting or scratching, just nosing each other around. It's funny to watch. It reminds me of Zoolander where the guys are "breakdance fighting."

We have been trying to save money by resisting turning the heat on - and wearing layers. I think I might break down and turn it on tonight though, the cold damp weather gets on your nerves after a while. We did go out to the mall where it was warmer today. I know our nearby mall is pretty empty on most days, even this time of year. The mall has too many luxury stores, and few practical ones. It was interesting to note that the Apple store was the most crowded place there.

Of course the usual thanks to partners, pets, family, good fortune and health as goes this season.

➜First, a couple of sidelines. The coverage of the life of Lady Bird Johnson is interesting. I'm really surprised by her and what she did in an era when first ladies really weren't supposed to do anything. Now they are all supposed to have their pet causes. Lady bird doesn't seem like one to cause too much of a fuss, or be much of a feminist or anything, but she was a pretty early environmentalist in her own way.

She was a very prominent Texas, and quite the southern lady. I must put seeing the Lady Bird wildflower center on my list of thing to do.

➜BW3 isn't as interesting when the trivia game is down. Also, the new cub waiter should be our waiter. He delivered our food, but another gal actually served us.

As we were there, some of the televisions were tuned into the Major League Soccer game. The game wasn't very interesting, and this was certainly highlighted by ESPN's coverage. Every few minutes there was an announcement or a commercial telling you the "David Beckham is coming to America on July 21!!!" You couldn't get away from it. it was like the Second Coming had been announced.

So yeah, the local MLS team in Dallas has a big billboard also promoting this, saying that Beckham is coming to Dallas (for the LA Galaxy's one game against Dallas) oh, and tickets are STILL available. This billboard has been up since March.

Let's face it, here he's a lot less famous than his wife. She got more attention for the announcement of a reunion tour of the Spice Girls. In the middle of tonight's Houston vs. Chicago game, the announcers were so bored they did a phone interview with the LA coach about the arrival of such a superstar. I was really wanting the coach to say, "Oh, he's just another player," but it's more likely the league officials were forcing him to make this a "big deal."

If Pelé didn't make soccer a big success, I don't think Mr. Posh Spice will, either.

➜OK, and now about today's performance.

Well, it wasn't horrible.

There were lots of ways I could have done better, and I probably overreached in a couple of places, trying to do more, and provide more than necessary, but I wanted to show I could develop my own materials and go beyond what was given. I ran into some time constraint problems, some of it caused by the "participants" arriving late.

One of the biggest problems was our training region, with the programs and test accounts was down, so everything had to be on paper, and I could only demonstrate so far in the live production region. It made it hard to complete the mission.

If there's any way to overwhelm with handouts, I think I did it.

My class was made up of four managers and one corporate trainer. while dealing with this group is tough, having the trainer there was even more difficult as I know from talking with her that she has formal training, and I'm pretty much self-taught, and may be a little more rough around the edges.

I wanted to encourage participation amongst the students, and I wasn't quite sure if the managers would go for it, but how wrong I was. They actually talked to much, and showed a lot more knowledge than a new associate would, so often I would have to try to recover trying to keep them on topic. I'm not sure I reigned them in enough, and I had to drop some of the extras I had planned.

Heck, when I'm nervous I just keep talking, so I was trying to keep myself on message, and here's this group finding ways to make an item good when it was presented as a bad order item. One of them also went on about how his group would process something differently and I had to keep telling him that an entry-level processor isn't trained to do that. It was annoying, and should have been left out of the discussion. I guess I was lucky to get to the actual live demonstration after discussing the reasons why you would reject and item, and having people conflicting on those reasons.

It's training - the only time these things get to be black and white!

I was a little worried about using the "reward" for a good answer, handing out chocolate. I didn't want it to seem like a bribe, but I'd do it in a class anyway, so I did it today. It seemed to excite them. What's training without candy, anyway?

So I should know if I move on to the next round in a week or so, this after the three weeks between round one and today's mess. They started with twelve, had six do the demo, and will narrow it down to two. I'm thinking I didn't knock it out of the park today. Perhaps with some better time management skills i could have done so, but I didn't bomb, either.

I threw in a little joke at the end, a trainer's evaluation sheet who's only choices were that I was great and got the job or I was the best and got the job. It was more the fact that I would think of the detail of an evaluation sheet over what it said, but heck, if I can't promote myself, who can?

I think I did well not to break character, not falling into the trap of saying "oh, you manager's know this already." I even told them, although we won't be able to process items in here, be sure to have your mentor on the floor help you with your first item. Except for having to bring them back on track, I tried not to acknowledge them and anything but new associates.

I had them create name cards for me, a typical training trick to allow the instructor to call people by name. When Chuck wrote Lloyd on his, I only addressed him as Lloyd. They found it funny, but I wasn't joking.

We'll see where they want to go. Apparently they are about to have a training class next month, so they really need a trainer. I hope I showed them that I can hit the ground running, even providing improvements to what's out there, but with these guys I don't know. I'd cross my fingers, but that never works in my favor.

Alright, time to turn on the randomizer...

* First, there's a pick-up truck in our parking garage - one of many as you might guess, we have people driving everything from trucks with acetylene torches for welding to ones where the guy advertises his cattle ranch. Seriously, he'll sell you fresh beef from his ranch. Still, this one truck is out there and the entire bed of the truck is filled with empty oil bottles. On the back window there's a sticker that says "Save Ocean Wildlife".

Luckily for the seals the oil slick is under this guys truck, and not out at sea.

* Next, apparently Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia defended the US use of torture by giving his support to the efforts of fictional character Jack Bauer. He stated, "Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. ... He saved hundreds of thousands of lives," Judge Scalia said. Then, recalling Season 2, where the agent's rough interrogation tactics saved California from a terrorist nuke, the Supreme Court judge etched a line in the sand.

Yes, Jack's techniques work because the writers wrote that it would work. That's kind of like endorsing vigilantism because Batman's effective.

Really, does anyone in Washington know what reality is anymore?

* Here's an odd, morning addled conversation Chris and I had, as much as I can recall it.

I'm at the computer and a noticeably hungry Chris is ready to go get breakfast. I turn and ask him where he's going, and he states he has to get something to eat before he comes over and eats my hand off. I said, "So, eat my hand off, huh?" He replies, "Yeah, then what are you going to do?" "I don't know, wait for the bleeding to stop then stump you?"

Stumping - verb - A sexual act of penetration involving an amputated limb.

Chris, clearly put off by the image starts to walk down the stairs. I needed to pile on. "So, would stumping be something like "Phantom Fisting?"

Chris was done with me for a while.