Recycled Blog Idea/Adulthood Dream Come True

Happy New Year!

I was looking at a friend of a friend's blog, just out of curiosity, and she had posts relating to books she had read during the year. For example, the first book she completed was posted as Book 1, etc. I thought this was a cool idea and that I would try to copy it this year. I'm not a book reviewer by any means, but I will share my thoughts on said book and give it a thumbs up or down. I just started a new book yesterday about Batman and Superman, that I got for my birthday from my friend Adam. It's pretty good so far. Before that I read Blockade Billy by Stephen King, which I had not heard about until I saw it on the shelf at my library. It's more like a short story, it only took me a few lunch breaks to read it. Stephen King loves baseball, and it comes through in this story. It was kind of weird too, because King wrote it as if the character telling the story was telling it to him. I have a lot to catch up on with Stephen King, so you'll probably see me write about some of his books this year.

A few years ago, we went to a local restaurant for the first time, and they had on the menu something called pineapple bread pudding. I had never had it, and it sounded good, so I ordered it. It turns out that I had had it, and quite often when I was a kid. My paternal grandmother always made it, and I had totally forgotten about it. It was exactly like the scene in Ratatouille where the critic is instantly transported back to his childhood (this happened before I saw the movie) after taking a bite of the ratatouille. I thought I was going to start crying right there in the restaurant, but I managed to hold it together.

After I had this experience, and I saw the movie, I started to hope that one day I could do the same thing for someone else. As I have mentioned, my dad was a baker when I grew up, so we had a lot of bakery stuff around the house. Christmas was my favorite time because there was a lot of different stuff that you didn't get the rest of the year, stollen being my favorite. When I got to my current job I started to experiment with it at Christmas time. I started it maybe 5 or 6 years ago (my manager looked at me funny when I asked for a bottle of rum), and I could barely give it away. This year, I had an order for 2 before I even started making them, and people came in and asked for stollen specifically. I'm not making hundreds of stollen every year, but it's a far cry from that first year.

The day before Christmas Eve was a pretty emotional day for me. I was tired as my schedule ramps up around the holidays, and the store ran out of propane, so all of our ovens were down, ruining some of the stuff I had made. I actually threw a bucket in the back room and put a hole in the wall that day, which I feel bad about now. After we opened and had put the stollen out, one of the managers was walking out to the store when a customer stopped him and asked him about the stollen. He referred her to me (I'm the only one who makes it, my co-workers are afraid of it). She told me that it was delicious, and that it made her husband cry because it reminded him of the stollen his mother used to make. I don't remember what I said to her because I was concentrating hard on not losing it right there in front of everyone (I managed to bottle it up until I got home). But whoever you are, that was best compliment I ever could have gotten and probably ever will get. Thank you for making the holiday better for me.

Gearing up

Today was a long day at work, I tried to get as much ready for next week as I could. Monday through Wednesday next week is basically coming home from a very long day at work, sleeping for a few hours, then going back to work. Hopefully it will not be that bad, but we'll see. I'm starting to get a little anxious about it now.

I am picking up my co-worker at midnight on Sunday night/Monday morning (she is Amish and is not allowed to work at all on Sunday). She does the pies and I do the bread and rolls. We have an overabundance of people working on Monday and Tuesday, which will be good since we only have 4 bakers on Wednesday, which is the big order pickup day. Wednesday usually starts for us on Tuesday night. Sarah is coming to help us also, so that will be good. I guess it was a good thing that I shoveled the sidewalk at KayBee all those years ago. :)

Tomorrow I have to try and get up early and go shopping for Thanksgiving ingredients. The last thing I want to do after work on Wednesday is go shopping, because that's when everyone else is doing it. I am making mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and two kinds of stuffing. That will be easy compared to all the dinner rolls I have to make this week, which I also have to bring to Thanksgiving. It will be tiring, but fun, despite my constant complaints during this time of year that I wish I stayed in school. I don't, really. If I had an office job I think I would be even fatter than I am now.

Boo!

Here are some excellent step-by-step ways to scare me at work. All methods assume that I am in the building by myself (most days until 5 am):

1.Enter the building way before your scheduled time.
2.Jingle your keys without me seeing you.
3.Come around the corner into the bakery and say, "Hi! I didn't want to scare you, so I jingled my keys."

1.The night before, leave the 18 wheeler in the dock with the overhead door open and the metal plate in that connects the truck to the floor of the dock. Pray that I don't notice this.
2.Wait until I am in the freezer with the fans off, so I can hear.
3.Get in the truck and pull it away from the dock so the metal plate falls to the ground with a large crash, making me rush out of the freezer with fogged up glasses so I can only see the overhead door open.

1.Sneak into the building a few minutes before you're scheduled, when no one else but me is there.
2.Sneak into the bakery area.
3.WHISPER my name from across the bakery while my back is turned to you.

This last one is the most effective, that happened many years ago. The first one happens a few times a year. The second one happened this morning. Luckily I had gone to the bathroom right before I went to the freezer.

Taken to the cleaners?

A few weeks ago I decided I needed new sneakers for work. I wear them out pretty fast at work, as I'm on my feet for at least 8 hours a day and I am almost always moving. I know when I have to get new ones when it's raining and my feet get wet on the short walk from the car to the door. It usually takes me awhile to get them, as I don't really like going anywhere right after work (not to mention take off my shoes in public after work, despite the foot powder that I use), and I can't go anywhere after dinner but bed.

Sarah was off on a Wednesday, which is also my day off, so we ran some errands together. We went to a nearby town where the town center is being revitalized and many of the independent stores have been there for quite awhile. There is a 60 year old shoe store there, and I always thought it was a women's shoe store by the name (which I won't mention, but I'm not sure why). Sarah said it was for men and women, so we went inside.

The first thing I noticed was that is was like walking into the shoe store I used to go to when I was little. It smelled the same, it looked the same, and there were Stride Rite signs everywhere (the store I went to when I was little was Stride Rite in the old Menlo Park Mall, I had to get special shoes made because my left leg is shorter than the right). The proprietor had been sitting and talking with two other older gents, and he jumped up when we came in and asked us how he could help us. I said I needed new sneakers for work, and he asked me what I did. I told him I was a baker, and he said he had just the shoe for me, because he sold the same shoe to a lot of chefs in Rehoboth (a beach town in DE with scads of restaurants). He then told me to follow him so he could measure my foot.

This floored me, to tell the truth. I had not had my foot measured since I was 12 or so. Once I started buying my own shoes, I just bought shoes I liked in whatever size I was (I have gone from 10 1/2 in my late teens to 12 now). Some shoe stores do still have those foot measuring things lying around, but I never used them. I prefer the floor mat version, which I noticed recently that Target has. So I sat down and he pulled up that little stool thing with the foot ramp on the front and proceeded to take off my shoe (he asked first, but it didn't make it any less uncomfortable). After he found out I was a 12, he went back and got a pair of size 12 Converse (not Chucks, I wore those for a log time and my feet are probably suffering for it now), and he put them on. I got up and walked in them, and I was surprised at how comfortable and springy they were. I couldn't believe the guy nailed it on the first try, so I have to give him credit for knowing his product. I figured since they were Converse sneakers they would be no more than 60 bucks, but I never asked. I just took them up to the counter and he mentioned that I never asked, but I said that was fine, they were comfortable and most likely worth the money. He said the price wasn't too bad (his words exactly), they would be 90 dollars.

90 dollars! I have never, ever paid that much for a pair of shoes before. I bristled inwardly, but thinking about the comfort and fit, and the guy being the owner of an independent shoe store, I paid the 90 dollars. I did have some buyers remorse, but only for the price. When I wore them to work I was extremely happy with them, and he did say they were easy to clean, which I need to start doing, because they get gross pretty fast.

After a few days I started thinking that I should get a spare pair of the same Converse, because every time I found a good pair of work sneakers, I would look up the same model when I needed a new pair, and they would always be discontinued (mainly New Balance sneakers). So I typed the pertinent info into Google and found out the actual retail price. Across the board, they were no higher than 45 dollars.

I was pissed! I paid twice as much as I should have, and I was going to leave a nasty review on yelp.com. Luckily, I didn't do it right away and I had some time to think about it. I probably would not have found these sneakers if it wasn't for this guy, so there's that. I wondered if the price would have been lower if I had asked what it was at any time during the fitting, which was really a stupid move on my part. I don't know if that's how much he actually marks these sneakers up, or if he was having a bad sales day and saw an opportunity to make a few extra bucks. Whatever it was, I won't leave a nasty review, but I also won't go back there to get another pair. If they were 60 dollars, I would have been fine with it. But a 100 % markup of the MSRP is just too much. The service was great, and the guy was effusive in his thanks, but I don't know if I could ever go back there. I realize that he has to make a living, but I do too. I'm chalking it up as a learning experience.

Opposite Day

Yesterday was a great day, mainly at work. I woke up and I didn't feel tired like I usually do, and my shoulder that has been bothering me wasn't. My back felt pretty good (I have a protruding disc at L5, which comes and goes), and the plantar fasciitis in my heel wasn't bothering me either. With the fasciitis and my shoulder, I usually have to walk down the stairs sideways, one step at a time. I do exercises for my heel, but I have not been to the doctor for my shoulder yet (I'm sure that is in Sarah's list of things to do, I hate talking on the phone so she makes all of my appointments). So none of that stuff was bothering me.

I had a lot of work to do yesterday, and everything fell into place beautifully, and all the bread looked really great. As did everything else. I usually get some help around 4.30 am, but not on Thursdays, but I was chugging along really well and I didn't need it. I even got a couple things done at home too. I kicked some ass yesterday.

Today I got kicked in the ass. I woke up in pain from everywhere, tired and not wanting to go to work. I screwed up a few mixes today and overproofed a lot of stuff, but luckily didn't burn anything. There was a lot of yelling and cursing going on. That has to happen before 4.30, because I don't like doing that in front of the people at work (plus, I can be fired for cursing). So I was having a big pity party for myself for most of the day. I know that it's all in your attitude, but it was so hard to get out of that funk this morning, I did try once people started coming in. It eventually lifted but I was still in wanting to go home mode, and I was able to leave early, after 9 hours, which kind of sucks. Oh well, you win some, you lose some. The challah did look really good today though, so there's that.

Sourdoughmania

I make sourdough bread at work. Usually the mix I make gives me 6 loaves, and I make mostly round ones and a long one sometimes. 6 loaves is not a lot, really, but they have been selling out everyday. So I started to make a mix and a half, which, if you do your math correctly, gives you 23 loaves. I mean 9 loaves, sorry. Now those have been selling out too. All the bread has been selling really well in the past few weeks. I don't know if it's just the fact that it's colder (our business picks up a lot when it gets cold), or more people like my bread. I have been getting a lot of compliments on it lately, which is really great.

Maybe it could be the sourdough starter I use. I first started making sourdough bread at work in 2002, and I made a starter from scratch. I am still using that starter today. Before you say eww gross, I feed it almost everyday, which means I make a new batch of starter and mix it in with the old. Plus I use milk instead of water, so it gets even more sour. And I throw a little cider vinegar in there too. A lot of people hate the smell when I open the bucket, but I love it. Sometimes it smells like apples for some reason.

I have not tried actual sourdough bread from San Francisco, which I think is where sourdough originated. There is a lot of yeast in the air in that area, and they don't even put yeast in the starter there, from what I have read. I think that's pretty awesome, and eating a loaf of authentic San Francisco sourdough bread is on my bucket list. Wow, I used bucket twice in this blog. Seems like a good ending point.

No, today is Veteran's Day. Instead of using this day to go shopping for something cheap that you don't really need (yes, I see the irony that the first part of this post was about shopping), say thank you to a veteran for putting their life on the line so we can have the freedom to make stupid blogs like this. Thank you Kevin!

OT

Yesterday at work I got my yearly review. Like I mentioned earlier, I am a dedicated worker there and they appreciate it and treat me accordingly. The one thing my boss said was to cut down on my overtime. This is the busiest time of the year for me, but the overtime I had on my previous check was probably the most I've ever had there.

Up until last week, we were doing two weekly specials, just about every week. We would pick something, cut the price, and make a lot of it everyday and sell as much as we could. The original hope for this was to get people interested in buying the product at the regular price after the special was over, which didn't really work out like that, save for maybe 2 or 3 items. It did involve copious amounts of time spent making one item though, which is why I had all of that overtime. My co-worker that usually helps me out with the specials was off for a week and a half, so I was doing it all myself. I didn't realize I had that much overtime until I got my check, but I didn't actually get reprimanded for it, my boss just mentioned it at the time. But obviously she was concerned about it since she brought it up. Plus, I actually realized that something at work was too much for me and did something about it. I told them that we had to stop the specials until January because it was too much to handle right now. If this was 2 or 3 years ago I would have kept on doing them, but I think I have finally realized what my limitations are. I probably haven't, but it sounded good, right?

I like my job

In a few weeks I will have been at my current job for 9 years. In April it will be the longest I have worked anywhere (current champ right now is at my parents' bakery). A lot has changed in the past 9 years, I am the only one left in the bakery from when it opened, yes, 9 years ago. My boss is still there but she doesn't do any baking anymore. The bakery was her idea and she worked it for a few months, then left it to us. A lot of people have come and gone, many that I don't remember at all. I can see their faces but I don't remember their names. It's kind of strange that you can see someone for 4 or 5 days a week for months at a time, then later you can't remember them.

We have two stores now, but there is no bakery in the new store, which was a bummer because it's closer to my house. What isn't a bummer is that the bakery is the most requested thing at the new store. Score one for us. They have been talking about transferring stuff from our store to the new store, but I really don't see how it's going to work right now, we are pretty swamped. Maybe in January.

I've been having trouble sleeping lately, so it's making me tired at work, but it doesn't diminish my love for baking or getting up at 1 am to do it. I don't think I could do a 9 to 5 job anymore, I like getting all of my work out of the way before most people eat their lunch. Plus it's necessary, we have limited oven space and the bread takes longer to get to the oven than anything else, and I have to make way for the second shift to start baking when they come in at 7. It is very hectic sometimes, especially when I'm by myself, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

They treat me well there, very well. If I want to try something I can, if I need a small piece of equipment I can get it. They gave me a key to the store a few months after I started, so I must be doing something right. Either that or they didn't want to get up that early anymore.

I don't know if this is true for everyone, but my job means a lot to me, and I want to make sure that I do it right. I do tend to go overboard, and I usually have to get pulled back in by my very understanding wife. But everything is worth it when someone gives me a compliment or says that they traveled a long way to buy something that I have made. It's a nice feeling.

A Childhood Dream Come True

I don't think I've written about this yet, I'm too lazy to check, and I have never tagged anything, so you get what you get.

Remember the Scholastic Book Fairs in elementary school? They would take over a classroom for a few days, and there would be books piled everywhere that you could buy. It was heaven for me. It was a lot better than the catalog, where they had only a smattering of books and then you had to wait for them to be shipped to the school. I did love getting Dynamite magazine from the catalog, but I can't remember if they had them at the fair.

One of the books that I bought at the book fair when I was 8 or 9 in the late 70s was the Guinness Book of World Records. I absolutely loved that book, I used to pore through it everyday. I think I first heard about it on the Brady Bunch episode where Bobby and Cindy are trying to go for the see-saw record. I believe it was also the first time I saw a current picture of Paul McCartney. I was a burgeoning Beatles fanatic and at that time, had only seen pictures of them as Beatles (I think Paul was in there for songwriting).

The entry that most captivated me was for the World's Quietest Room. At that time, it was located in Bell Labs, in my home state of NJ! I had no concept of where it was, but I knew that it was close by. The entry mentioned that you were able to hear your own heartbeat while in the room, I think that's what really got me. I built up an image in my brain of a dark room with red lights all over the place, trying to match the air of mystery the room had in my head. (I was also fascinated with the phone at the time, which is much different than it is now. My family went to Sears once, and I remember seeing a darkened inside window, and I could see red LED lights and make out the outline of a person inside. I asked my mom and dad what it was, and they said it was a switchboard room for the telephone system in the store (my mom was a phone operator at one time). So I think I transferred that mystery to the Quiet Room.) I read the entry over and over and dreamed of going into the World's Quietest Room. But eventually, I grew older and forgot about it and the Guinness Book.

In 1995, I started working for the food service contractor Aramark. The building that Aramark was servicing was AT&T in Murray Hill. Murray Hill was vaguely familiar to me, and I thought it was because of the sign for it on Rte. 22. But you know where this is going already, right?

On my first day of work, I found out that my friend's dad also worked in the building, and both of us were very surprised to see each other. We caught up a little and saw each other a lot at work over the years I worked there. His son and I were in a band together, so we talked about music a lot (he was also a musician).

Eventually I found out that I worked in the same building as the World's Quietest Room! I asked my friend's dad about it and told him my story. He told me that it was indeed in the building, and that it was no longer the World's Quietest Room, which made me a little sad. I don't know if I broached the subject of my seeing the room, but he didn't take me there then.

On my last day at Aramark, my friend's dad came to the kitchen and asked me to come with him for a little while, and I got pretty excited. He took me into an auditorium and showed me the sound system that was there, which was pretty cool. Then we were standing at the door of the World's Quietest Room! It was nothing like what I had dreamed about. First of all, it was huge. Wikipedia says it's wedge shaped, but I recall more of an oval, but it was a long time ago now. You entered the room in the middle of the wedge/oval, and the floor was made of some kind of netting (the engineer in there told me what it was, but I have forgotten). It was a little rough walking through there, but upon entering, it felt as if your ears closed up on you, but you could still hear. You know how when you hold your ears shut with your fingers, and you can hear yourself in your own head? It was like that, but much clearer, and of course you weren't holding your ears.

One of the coolest things that the engineer showed me was when he walked a few feet away from me, and his voice had the same volume as it did when he was standing next to me. Then we all stopped talking for a minute, and sure enough, I could hear my own heart beating (it was going pretty fast at the time!).

Even though I had forgotten about the room and it had lost its worldly stature, it was still one of the coolest things I have ever done. And my friend's dad was the best for taking me to see it and fulfilling a childhood fantasy. Thanks Al!

Happy Flag Day

I made this bread at work this morning, in honor of Flag Day. This is something I've wanted to try since Sarah explained caning with fimo clay to me, quite a few years ago. Of course, since that is done with clay, you don't get the problem of rising. I staggered the star section, but because of the rise over the top of the pan, it's a little out of wack. Still, I think it looks pretty neat.

I made four loaves to sell in the store. The four loaves took me a half hour just to put into the pan, so I had to raise the price from $2.50 to $3.25. I wanted to make it $2.95, but I really didn't think that was enough. The coolness factor of the bread might get clipped by the price. I'll find out in the morning.

I'm not sure if people even know about Flag Day anymore. I'm curious as to how many people will look at the bread and wonder why the hell we have flag bread such a long time before 4th of July. I have trouble selling colored breads to our customers anyway, many of them probably think that it's weird and tastes different because of the dye (especially the Amish folks, this is definitely not a plain bread). But that won't stop me! I'll probably have better luck on July 3rd, which is a Saturday. If I can get people to buy bread with dyed hard-boiled eggs in it, I should be able to get them to buy this.

Extra special Flag Day wishes to my friend Jenny, but I'm not telling you why.

Lost in the Supermarket

When I got to work this morning, there was a cat underneath the store van. I walked a little closer to see it, and I realized that it was Byler #2, with whom I had been previously acquainted. Let me explain that.

Several years ago in December, I got to work one morning, and as was my habit, I went around the store and checked all the doors to make sure they were locked. I didn't turn on the lights in those areas, because there was usually enough light to walk to the door and check it. I was in the back room of the stove shop when I saw something move across the door leading into the bakery. It was a big something, not rodent sized, and it scared the heck out of me. Right near that door are stairs going down into the crawlspace, which is where the big something came from. I went to work and forgot about it.

A few days later, I was walking past the deli cooler, and I noticed the meat ends packages were open and bitten into (the deli throws the ends of the cold cuts into a package and sells them). I didn't know what to make of that, as I had forgotten about the big something I saw.

A couple days after that, I was checking the same door, and someone had left the light on near the stairs. When I turned from the door, there was a small gray cat standing there. When I turned, it bolted into the crawlspace. I ran over to see if i could catch it, but it was gone somewhere under the building. I now had the culprit for the missing meat ends. I could smell cat urine down there too. There was a lot of gravel down there, so she was probably using it as a giant litter box.

The next day I was out in the store (in the early am, so I was by myself), and I saw movement from the corner of my eye, and I quickly turned around and saw the cat again. Only this was a brown cat. So now there were TWO culprits eating the meat ends. When the managers came in, I told them that I saw two cats in the building. They explained to me that they had recently sealed up all the holes in the building, and the cats were probably two of the kittens that lived in the barn behind the store (it looks like a barn, but we use it as a warehouse). It was cold, and they had probably got into the store to keep warm, but now they were trapped. These were feral cats, so there wasn't any way of picking them up and taking them out.

We had two humane animal traps at home, because we had been doing cat rescue at the time. I asked the managers if it was okay if I set up the traps in the store to get them out, which was fine with them. It was very near Christmas, so I was going in around 9 pm at night. I set up a trap in the crawlspace, and two days later I caught one of them, and took her home to wait for her brother to be caught. I set up another trap in the deli, and I actually saw the cat in the trap eating the food, but he didn't trip it closed. I walked all the way around and snuck up on the cat, which amazingly didn't hear me. I smacked the top of the trap, thinking it would shut, but it just scared the hell out of the cat and he ran away. I didn't think I would be able to catch him with the trap after that, but by that time they were putting the meat ends and the bags of cat food away at night, so there was nothing else for them to eat. I caught the other one the next night in the crawlspace.

Now we had two feral cats in our craft room. We made an appointment for them to be spay/neutered at Delaware Humane Association, which does low cost spay neuter, as well as adoptions. We didn't name the cats, so we just called them Byler #1 and Byler #2. The store didn't pay for this, we did, but I didn't ask and I didn't expect them to pay either. We had been doing this for some time, so it seemed like the right thing to do in this case. Most of the people at work thought I was weird for doing this. Maybe not just for this, but oh well. :)

We had to keep them for a few days after the spay/neuter (they stayed right in the traps, thank you). After the few days, we brought both of them back to the store and set them free by the barn/warehouse. We had bought a 20 lb. bag of food and just dumped it behind the barn for them to eat. I did this regularly for awhile, but eventually I had to stop, as it was getting expensive. They lived for at least a year after they were born without being fed regularly, so I figured they could keep it going.

The brown kitty was Byler #1. I saw him only once after he was neutered. He was not happy to see me. The gray kitty, Byler #2, was possibly the cutest kitty Sarah and I had ever seen (I think we took pictures of them in the traps, but I cannot find them). I saw her many times after she was spayed. Most times were when I surprised her in the dumpster. I would have to throw something out when the store was not yet open, so I would open the back door and lob the item into the dumpster. Every once in awhile a frightened kitty would jump out and run back to the barn.

I saw her less and less as the years passed, I think now I maybe see her once a year. It has been said that spay/neuter lengthens a cat's life, so maybe that's why I'm still seeing her from time to time. She's still as cute as ever!

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone that partied last night is feeling good (or at least so-so) today. We spent the evening at Sarah's sister's house, who made us a great dinner. Then we played the Wii with the kids and then Sarah's parents and aunt and uncle came by, and they played the Wii with us too. We had fun, but Sarah and I were tired, so we left at around 11.30. We had a great time.

I think my plan of not subverting my schedule at work was a success. Ususally I feel kind of depressed at this time of year, because I love the holidays, but I don't get to enjoy them very much because of work and how fast it goes by. I had some help this year for the first time, and Sarah gave me a Christmas tree for my birthday, which we haven't had in a long time (in case you're wondering, she put it in the bedroom to keep it away from the cats).

Right now I don't feel tired, mentally or physically, which is a good thing. Also, I think I finally have realized that the year will be what I make it, not the other way around. I need to extricate myself from the computer and do other things that I really want to do. I need to spend more quality time with Sarah, to keep the house cleaner, to exercise, to plan meals better and cook more often, to have a more positive attitude at work, and yes, to play more video games. Not being sucked into the internets all day will free up time for all of these things.

I hope you all have a great year!

I hope I'm just tired.

I have been pretty cranky for the past few days, sorry about that. I'm hoping it's just work and not sleeping well that is making me that way. This year I didn't upend my schedule like I did the last two years, which I think is helping a lot, but it's not making the crank unavoidable. I don't think anything can do that, save for quitting my job and devoting myself to a life of leisure. That probably isn't going to happen anytime soon.

Being the manager now is part of it, because I hate being in charge, and I don't see any way out of it at this point. I'm not a born leader, as leaders are, I like to go with the flow I guess. I think being the manager is more stressful than the actual work volume in November and December. I wonder if that's why I'm not sleeping well. I've been having a lot of work-related dreams lately, but they all center around baking and not managing. Who knows.

This Saturday Sarah and I and my sister and her husband are going to Christmas in Odessa. Odessa is a very small town in DE to the north of us. For the past 40-odd years, they get a lot of people in town to decorate their homes (most of which are very old), and they open them to the public. We saw the sign the first time we came to DE in 1997 to scout out living locations, but we didn't make it until last year. It was everything I had built it up to be in those 10 years, and I had a really good time. We stayed overnight on Christmas Eve at Sarah's parents' house last year, and we made donations in all the adults' names instead of giving gifts (her parents did not strictly adhere to this). Aside from my stupid schedule at work, it was one of the best Christmases I've ever had. It came very close to the vibe of Christmas when I was a kid, which I really enjoyed and missed, because most of my family from then has passed away and the rest of us are all over the states. We are doing all these same things this year, so I think it will be even better. I don't really get into the religious side of Christmas; I like the togetherness and the giving part of it, and I try to stay away from the commercial aspect. These days it's hard to avoid.

Slow.

Today was one of the slowest Saturdays we've had in awhile. I can't really judge it though, since I left 3 hours after we opened, and there were 8 hours left to go. It's usually very busy for the first hour on Saturday, and then it gets extremely busy around 10.30-11. Neither of those things happened. I was hoping to get out after 8 hours, but that didn't happen either. It rarely does.

I have had a nap already, but I still feel pretty crappy. I'm going to sit my ample butt down on the couch and do nothing. This is basically how I feel:

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Is it over yet?

Boy, I'm glad this month is almost over. I don't know if it's because I've been busy at work, but I have grown to hate writing my blog. I never feel I have anything to say. When I do have something to say, it never comes out the way it is in my head. It's like work now, and I dread it and either push it off for awhile, or get it over with fast.

It's weird, because when I was a kid I wanted to be a writer. I think this is because of Richie Cunningham. "Happy Days" is where I learned the word journalist, and Richie was my favorite, so naturally I wanted to be like him. I never really pursued it though. In school when I would have to write papers, I would always do it at the last minute, and I almost always got a good grade. Now it's voluntary and I feel like I suck at it. I know I just need practice, but I just don't want to do that.

After my grandfather passed away, I was talking with Sarah about writing something about him. That same day, I looked at my horoscope in the newspaper, which said something to the effect that I had a great idea for a book and should get to work. It's almost 20 years later and all I have to show for that is a melodramatic first chapter that I wrote here in my blog. I loved my grandfather very much, and I'm the kind of person that feels like I would be disappointing him if I didn't finish the book. But I just don't know if I can do it.

I like to read a lot, and this time of year I don't normally get to do too much of it, but this year I have. Maybe I'll just stick to that.

Watchmen > Dark Knight

Yeah, I said it. The only good thing about The Dark Knight for me was Heath Ledger as the Joker. How many people can make Jack Nicholson look like a piker? Watchmen was fabulous, if you're a fan of the book, I think you will love it. It also has something for everyone who isn't a fan. I just got back from the theater and looked at the book again, it's amazing how close it is. Did you know I was a geek? You do now!

You know what sucks? When you're working your ass off and people are standing around talking and are ignoring the fact that you're trying to get by them so you can do your work, while you're at work! Isn't that why it's called work? And something else is when people put their stuff on top of your stuff and you have to move it everyday to get to your stuff, because the people are too lazy to walk a few extra steps to where their stuff should be. Does that make sense? Well, not to the people who put their stuff on top of my stuff!

No substance today, it's time for bed. Moratorium on concluding emoticons is now over. Good night. -_-

I'm taking what they're giving 'cause I'm working for a living.

If you are a Constant Reader of my blog (and really, who isn't?), you know that I was a baker in high school, and that I hated it. Guess what? I'm still a baker, but I don't hate it anymore, because I chose it this time instead of it choosing me.

My dad bought a bakery in 1982 when I was 12 years old. He was a baker as long as I can remember, although he worked in a chemical plant with his dad when he got out of high school, I believe. Every once in awhile he would take me with him to the bakery on the weekend, which I loved. When he bought his own, I started going every Sunday. I would have to go to sleep very early on Saturday afternoon, and he woke me up around 11 pm. But I was always afraid that I wouldn't get up, so I stayed in the bed and stayed awake until he came in. I guess when you're 12, you can do this. Back then, I was just an assistant of sorts, I didn't do anything like making dough or frying doughnuts. I usually put icing on stuff. There was a luncheonette next door that opened at 5:30 am, and I used to go over there to play pinball and Space Invaders (the German lady that came with the bakery always gave me quarters). Sometimes I would sleep in the office, there was a small single bed in there that also came with the bakery. Now that I think about it, that mattress must have been totally disgusting.

I eventually learned how to fry donuts, and I also became a pan washer after school. I didn't want to learn anymore than that, mainly because I was lazy. I didn't want any more responsibility. My dad bought a second bakery in 1985, which had been abandoned for 4 months when he got it. When I say abandoned, I mean the previous owner locked up and never came back. Eventually the power was shut off, and all that product in the coolers and freezers went bad. There was a lot of cleaning to do, and it was all done in the summer. I stayed away as much as I could, because I hate to clean. Maybe I knew subconsciously that it was going to be my last free summer.

My dad taught me how to make bread in the new place, amongst other things. And my hours got stepped up after a year or so, as the second bakery was in a bad location business-wise, and we eventually dwindled down to just a few employees. We were making everything at the second bakery for both locations, and my dad had to drive all the baked goods to the first location (which became my weekend job when I learned to drive, and was also the first and last time that I fell asleep at the wheel and hit something). As I mentioned, I hated my job, and my dad and I fought a lot about my working there. He said I could quit if I wanted, but I really don't think I could have. I never got to go out with my friends on the weekends. But I always had money, and I was pretty generous with it back then (I still am now, but less so, I have the giant debt to prove it).

My dad closed the second bakery in 1990 and then the first one in 1991. I was free! But then I had to do something I never did before: find a job. I had no idea where to look, because I didn't know how to do anything else. I quit college after 3 semesters (more on that later), so I had no degree in anything. I put on a shirt and tie and went to the mall, with a RESUME. Does anyone take a resume to the mall? I had no idea what I was doing. I was hoping to get a job in Suncoast, so I went there and scheduled an interview. I was sweating like a pig and extremely nervous, and I didn't get the job. I was wandering around the mall with Sarah, and she told me to try KayBee Toys. They gave me an interview right then, and I was hired! Yay! I was supposed to be Christmas help, but I did a good job so they kept me on. I enjoyed the job, but there were bad things about it, the major one being the 3 dollar-an-hour pay cut I took after leaving the bakery. And to compound that, I started collecting toys. I bought entire lines of action figures, and lots of trading cards.

After a little over a year at KayBee, I actually began to miss working at the bakery. I had no idea why, but I wanted to go back. I went to the guy who bought the bakery from my dad, and he gave me a job with him. He also had two bakeries and had a truck driver to shuttle baked goods back and forth. I enjoyed the baking part of the job, but after awhile I became the pan washer and truck driver as well, and it wasn't fun anymore. So I got another job with my dad at Rutgers. I was the youngest baker there, and the manager didn't take me too seriously because of that. I was a better baker than the head baker on my shift, and he even went to a baking school! I also had to drive the truck every other weekend, and I hated that too.

After Sarah and I moved to DE and I served my sentence in the 9th Circle of Baking Hell (Sam's Club), I got a job at a country store called Byler's. My neighbor showed me in the newspaper where they were adding a bakery to their store, and Sarah had to push me to fill out an application. They hired me and I have been there from day 1, which turned out to be the Monday before Thanksgiving 2001. People seem to want a lot of baked goods on Thanksgiving, and it has only increased since then, exponentially at times. I get to make almost everything from scratch, and if I want to try something different, I can do it. The people there are great and they treat me embarrassingly well, and I get to work with many Amish women. It's a lot of fun learning about their culture, and vice versa. You haven't lived until you've had an Amish woman tell you to "go on with your bad self."

I hated working with my dad back when I was young, but now I'm very glad I did. He gave me a very rewarding career that I love, and he gave me a good work ethic, although it's a little too good sometimes. I got to spend a lot of time with my parents and my sister at the bakery, which I may not have done if there wasn't one. They weren't always good times, but I miss those times when we were all together, as those times are very rare now.

I gave my love a chicken that had no bones.

I like chicken, especially with no bones, but that's besides the point this time. I do like chicken wings a lot, especially the ones at the Anchor Bar, they were the best ones I ever had. Still.

I had a long day at work today because no one was there yesterday, and I am off tomorrow. My job is not just 9 to 5 and finish whatever you didn't finish today, tomorrow. My job is you work till you're done, and if you're not there the next day, you do some of that work too (I promise I'll give you the lowdown on my job, which I'm sure you're clamoring for at this point). So I was there late, and I had to stop at the bank after work, so I am very late getting home. I need to finish shoveling the driveway, if my back (and my fat ass) will allow me. I have to pick up Sarah at work at 5, as we are watching our niece and nephew tonight. Their mom and dad are going up to Wilmington to see Ani DiFranco, so yay for them! We saw her many years ago in Buffalo with my cousin. I didn't know her music at all but she was great in concert, it was just her and a drummer.

So it should be an extremely long day for me today, I don't think I will be able to take a nap before we go over there. All this is a roundabout way of saying that there will be no actual content today, since I won't have time to write anything tonight, and I don't want to screw up BloMo just yet. I will have no excuse tomorrow, since I am off, and I have already spilled the beans about that.

You can let me know in the comments if you know what movie the title came from, and I will grant you 5 points. You can also tell me if my post of March 1 about Sarah and I meeting blah blah blah was too long. I have a lot more planned that will probably be long like that, and I know how attention spans are these days. I hope to hear from someone besides Monica! Not that I don't want to hear from you Monica, please comment away!

There should be a smiley face here instead of this sentence, but I said I wouldn't do that, so I won't. It seems wrong somehow, doesn't it?

I give her all my love, that's all I do

My wife Sarah and I will be celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary this May. While this may seem unusual when you take into account American divorce stats, it doesn't seem that way to us. Neither of us have divorces in our immediate family. I think that's one of the big reasons why we have lasted so long. We also believe that we are truly soul mates. This may sound corny these days, but I think it's important in a marriage. I used to think being opposites worked in a relationship's favor, but after meeting Sarah, I don't feel that way anymore. Let me tell you about our meeting (cue harp glissando and fade to the past)...

My dad owned a bakery in the 80s, and inevitably, I worked for him there (more on that later). I was the stereotypical baker, the guy who gets up at midnight and trudges sleepily to work. "Time to make the donuts" and all that. After I learned how to drive, I started working the night shift on weekends by myself. This meant that I could not go out on weekends during most of my high school years. As you may know if you've been to high school, this is absolute hell. This alone was the reason why I hated being a baker.

My friends felt bad for me, and also saw an opportunity in my plight. They began to visit me at work in the wee hours of the morning. They would talk with me and amongst themselves, and also avail themselves of free coffee and cold drinks and cookies and donuts, etc. I enjoyed their visits, because it kind of felt like I was going out with them, and it wasn't so lonely. Usually the late night visits happened after the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which played at our local mall every Friday and Saturday. One night my friend Mike told me he met a girl there and was dating her, so I told him to bring her along some time, and he did.

Mike brought his girlfriend Sarah to the bakery on November 11, 1990. (I wrote it down in my journal at the time, that's why I remember.) She had very long, almost white hair and a beautiful smile, but I didn't think of her as anything but Mike's girlfriend then. She asked me a lot of questions about my work, which no one had really done before. It was a little difficult talking to her with everyone else there because she was extremely quiet. She came to visit a few more times with him. One time she slipped on some cornmeal on the floor, and I felt really bad for her and was very apologetic. Another time, she asked if she could have some chocolate milk, and I teased her about it, because everyone else just took stuff without asking. She told me later that this made her very angry with me.

In December, Sarah came to visit, and her hair was cut very short. I had always like long hair on women until I had seen Ghost, and Sarah's hair looked just like Demi Moore's in the movie. It was then that I really noticed her for the first time and started to like her. I was hoping that she liked me too, because she started to come and visit by herself. We bonded over my They Might Be Giants coffee mug, whom I liked and didn't know anyone who had ever heard of them. Sarah had actually seen them in concert! We liked many of the same things, and I really enjoyed talking to her (when I could hear her). I thought that Sarah was definitely the one for me.

I was in a long-term relationship that was pretty much over, but I didn't know how to get out of it. And Sarah told me later that Mike was a rebound thing, as she had abruptly ended a long-term relationship of her own. My relationship finally ended mutually, and a few days later Sarah broke it off with Mike. But most of my friends liked her, and I thought I should step back from asking her out. I decide that I wouldn't pursue anyone for awhile, even though I liked her a lot.

I went to a party on New Year's Eve with a different group of friends. But I wasn't having a good time, so I decided to go to my other friend's party, hoping that Sarah was there. She was! I wanted badly to ask her out, but I didn't know what to do. She solved that for me by sitting on my lap and asking me, "How come you're the only one that doesn't like me?" I assured her that I did like her, and we left the party and went to my house to listen to Beatles albums.

We started dating a few weeks later (at the comic book show in New York, another thing we have in common), and both of us realized in a short period of time that we were meant to be together. We got engaged on September 1st, 1991. This was Sarah's 20th birthday, and it was also the last day my dad owned the bakery. So we got engaged in the bakery at 4 AM, surrounded by friends. I got down on one knee with the ring, and I had also written to my disc jockey friend Manny Glin, who was on WDHA at the time. He popped the question for me on the radio, which as you know, was answered yes.

Have the last 15 years been perfect? Of course not. But there's no one else I would have wanted to go through the last 15 years with. And it's true that I love her more now than I did back then. I had always heard people say that, but I didn't know how it could be true. Now I know. I love you Sarah, forever and always.

The Red Pill or the Blue Pill?

We moved to DE in 1998, and that's when I started working at Sam's Club (which is the 9th circle of hell, but I digress). I had to put away the stock at Sam's, and it was a lot of stock every week, which I hadn't really done at my other baking jobs. My wife introduced me to Aleve, which worked wonders for me back then. It got so I would take it before I went to work on stock day. Mind you, before work in 1998 was 2 to 2.30 am, I pretty much rolled out of bed and went to work. So one stock day I looked for the little blue pills that made me feel so good after putting all that crap away. I took 3 instead of my usual 2, because it was getting close to Thanksgiving, so there was lots to put away (I'm a baker by the way, if I haven't mentioned that yet, and more about that later).

Around 7 am that morning, I started to get extremely tired. I could not keep my eyes open, and I actually fell asleep sitting in a chair on my break. I carefully drove home and took a very long nap.

That evening, I was telling my wife what happened at work. She knew it was stock day and that I had taken Aleve, but for some reason she asked me to show her the bottle. She worked at Wal-Mart, and we had started buying the Wal-Mart brands of all the medicines that we took, because they were a lot cheaper, and we were not making a lot of money at the time. All of these bottles look the same. You see where I'm going with this, right? I mistakenly took the PM Pain Reliever, which is in a small bottle and is also a blue pill, just like the Wal-Mart brand of Aleve. Sarah laughed at me for a good long time, and she put a Z on the cap of the PM Pain Reliever. She still does that to this day, even though I don't take Aleve anymore. But I try not to take the PM Pain Reliever any more, because it scares the heck out of me.

This story seemed a lot better in my head. Oh well, I told it because I plan on taking some of the PM stuff tonight, because I haven't been sleeping well lately. That is because I am fat and lazy and have sleep apnea (which would lessen if I wasn't fat and lazy) and I don't go to bed when I should, especially when Sarah isn't home, which she isn't tonight. So it should go pretty well. :P