Sorry, it's been awhile!

So. . . I've been well, busier than a one legged man in a butt-kicking contest. Felt like the person on the receiving end of that butt kicking as well. Labor Day hit and almost immediately, the nights have become much cooler (and comfortable). Sleeping more through the night than I have all summer. Going to work with the prettiest of the year's sunrises coming up showing colors of pink, orange, purple and blues. The leaves on the Aspen trees are really starting to turn their colors of gold, and the fire bush in front of the house is going red. Spring and Fall are my favorite times of the year, but I think fall is the prettiest.

It's been a fairly eventful month. Gone to a few Rockies games, hoping that they can still pull out their trump card and make the last minute vie for a Wildcard playoff spot. They won their last 3 series, plus, had a 10 game winning streak going, then lost the first game of their last regular season series to Arizona. Although they have greatly slimmed their chances for that playoff berth, there is a VERY small chance that if the planets align, they beat Arizona 2 games and San Diego loses (along with a few other variables) they could still make it. Our team has come a long way this last part of the year, wish we would have had this exact combination of players in the beginning, we would have had a pretty good opportunity.

And there's the Broncos - they barely pulled off their 1st 2 wins (really, by shear luck) and then they lose to Jacksonville. Broncs play the Colts this weekend, I'm not too hopeful on that one. I'll be at a Rockies game anyway.

A few weeks ago (think its been 3 of them) Karen and I went to see the Def Leppard/Styx/Bad Company concert. Each group played about 45 min, with 15-20 intermissions to change out the equipment for the next group. Good music, but it was on a Sunday night, didn't get to sleep until after 11pm (and we left before the last couple of songs to beat the crowds) - that's really late for me, so my Monday was pretty rough.

I started college this past week, I'm only takinig one class - Leadership. Really think it will be a fun class, a lot to learn. Already have my list of all assignments due, so I can work on them as quickly or as slowly as I want, just can't turn them in until the dates allowed. I have so much in my work and volunteer life to pull from, that I should really be able to learn how to handle myself better at work. We are at the time of the year that is the toughest for us, and busiest for me. With 2008 Business Planning (a 1 month process in itself), 2008 budgeting, events, marketing sell-ins and preperation for next year, as well as the usual day-to-day stuff, it creates a somewhat stressful atmosphere at work. Tempers flare easily with the sales guys, as they read and take less and less direction, just wanting to "sell boxes" and make their quotas. I can understand where they are coming from, but don't think they understand to much of a degree what is on my plate, either. We give them a lot of information in which to help them stave off issues, yet they read none of it and double the work for myself and others in the office. It becomes a big circle of discontent and confusion, and it all lands on me in the long run. I'm really hoping that my class will help me learn how to handle these issues better and create a smoother running office for everyone.

Tomorrow night we are going to see "Spamalot," the broadway version of "Monty Python and The Holy Grail." I'm really looking forward to some big humor in my life right now. Took Monday off from work since it will be a somewhat late night on Sunday, plus I get some things done that are normally not as easy to do when I can't get away during my lunchtimes.

I'll report on the play - hopefully sooner rather than later!

Well, it finally happened. . .

I had a complete meltdown at work today. I've been working with our Salt Lake District to put together this Parts & Supplies postcard to send out to our customers, and we had a couple of glitches with it, along with my trying to accurately change the price via the inhouse system. We saved it from being mailed, but it will cost us a little something to reprint it with the correct message. My contact there told me not to feel too bad, one of the California Districts did one that got mailed out and had blatantly bad info on it (10K copies). For ours, we could have worked through the error with little difficulty, but there are those that know what the difference is, so we are changing it.

Anyway, I had a bunch of things happening early this morning (as well as this week), and along with covering 3 jobs and the workload that doesn't seem to see the light of day, it was the final straw. Luckily no one was there when I lost it, it was pretty early this morning (around 7:30am). My counterpart Sue in the Salt Lake office just happened to call me as I was calming myself down from a river of tears. She verbally walked me out of the moment, and helped me start to ground myself again. My boss walked in after that, around 8:15am, but I didn't let him know what was going on until about 10:30. By then, he had a pretty good inkling that I was having a hard time, so we hashed it out and I get a temp!! But not just any temp, the girl we've wanted to hire for our SA position. Karin is going into this knowing that she can't hold any expectations, and there is no guarantee that the job is hers. Since Corp is still sitting on their butts about this and I'm just overly and publicly buried, Skip somehow got us the permission (not only is our company on a hiring freeze - in the field only, of course, but nearly every district had to let their temporary workers go). However, she can start learning the ropes, it'll give Skip a chance to see how well she fits in, too. I think it will work out really well - but I'm just happy that I have someone to help, now, and exactly the person I wanted there!! Yiippppeee!!!! Now I can start getting caught up on stuff.

When I left work, my boss told me not to be so hard on myself, we'll get this all worked out - we've survived huge challenges, this one will work itself out as well. I work really hard to do things right, but lately that has been really difficult to do. I'm just sorry it took a major meltdown to occur to make things happen. I should have done this much sooner!

I went to the college to get my one book and a testing page for my class that starts on Sept 26th. Both of those items together cost 2/3rd's as much as my class did - YIKES!!!! This school thing is MUCH more expensive than it used to be. College textbooks cost so much cuz "THEY CAN." That's crap, but guess that's the US for you. Yes, you can make money and over charge huge amounts and THEN live the American dream. Kiss my butt you greedy bastards :)

Labor Day Weekend

It's Sunday evening at 7pm, raining with a slight breeze, water drenching my oak bookcase. . . dammit! Ok, so I closed the window, wiped everything down that has gotten soaked, but can still hear the thunder - ahhhh, what a soothing evening it will be. And the best part - I don't have to go to work tomorrow, yippee!!

Friday afternoon late, I met Boots downtown where we walked to Civic Center Park for the first day of a Taste of Colorado. I am now convinced that Friday night is really the only night to go. Sure, there are no "big bands" like Night Ranger or Survivor playing that night (seen both, NR a few times back in the late 80's), but the show we did see was awesome and the performers have now become my new favorite band - Something Underground. They are young brothers (somewhere, I am guessing, between 25-30 years old), with a drummer and the ability to interchange instruments. Seth, the older one, can play all, and Josh, the younger one plays bass primarily. We did determine that the one playing lead guitar is the one that gets to sing. They take popular songs and change them into something completely different (kind of what Eric Clapton did to his song Layla). When they did "Free Falling" by Tom Petty as a reggae song, I wasn't sure at first, but they did it very smoothly - even interjecting the lyrics and chords of other popular songs. Not even ZZ Top can pull that off as well!

Along with the music, we had a thunderstorm move directly over us, spitting a little bit of rain here and there, but nothing we couldn't live with. What was really awe inspiring is the tall glass building at the corner of 13th and Broadway, just south of the Colorado Historical Museum (the one my cousin and I went to while he was here). With sky going into darkness, you could still see the outline of clouds against windows. The glass not only reflected the lightning, but along with the lighted rotundra of the capital building, it was quite a show! It added to the musical talent all that much more. Wow, I LOVE living here!

The "TASTE" is a yearly event, and really can be a lot of fun. There is a lot of different foods to try from a few restaurants (I personally don't think that enough participate), with cooking shows and the higher end restaurants showing off their wares in the center. There are 6 stages of different types of music, plus a karaoke stage. It's a great place to eat fruit kabobs (strawberries and bananas drizzled with dark then white chocolate) and just people watch.

My friend Jill's husband, Joe, passed away the weekend before, sadly, on his son's birthday. I don't remember how old he was, but I think he was around 45. Died from liver disease. He had been in and out of the hospital all summer long, apparently. I hadn't seen him in probably 3 years. Makes me even more determined to stay in touch with people that I don't see much, but making sure that they know I'm thinking about them and wish them well. There was a memorial service and BBQ at his parents house - they live just outside of Kiowa, about 15 miles southeast of Castlerock. A potted spruce was dedicated to Joe by his son Christopher, who turned 6 that fateful day. I am very sad for Jill and Chris - not matter how long they have known that Joe's passing was a strong possibility, it'll still be tough for awhile. I told her that I would be there to help when she decided to go through Joe's things. It's not good try and do that by yourself. My dad didn't deal with my brother Jason's things for nearly a year after he died. I would go into his room and just lay on his bed. Started taking posters down a couple months afterwards, my dad got really mad - he just wasn't ready to let go just yet. So, I left all as it was.

Jill and I received our Senatorships the same weekend. She was state President of our Jaycee organization, and I was ONTO Vienna chairperson. She is my junior with the Senatorship (my number is lower than hers :) We had a rocky time that year, with a few things happening that tested the friendship that we had - I got mad about something, I can't even remember what it was, now. We did get past it eventually. You have to let the little things that just don't matter go - you just never know when you might get to see that person again.

My friend Jerry rode with me to the BBQ. When we got there, only 2 others in our circle were there, Jim and Laurie. Along with Kerry (who showed up a couple hours later), we were the only Jaycee friends that showed up. That was a little disappointing to me, but at least we represented those that couldn't make it and Jill knows that we all are thinking of her.

Last weekend, Karen and I went to the Balloon Festival at Chatfield Resevoir, in the very southeast part of Denver (actually, Littleton - in the burb's). We went REALLY early, which is a feat for Karen, who doesn't generally get out of bed on the weekend until 9am. As I am a natural early bird, I woke myself up a little earlier, and drove us to the event. It was really a beautiful, crisp morning, with the sun just coming up. It was just really an awe-inspiring sight to see those balloons filling up with hot air and taking off. We saw Tony the Tiger, the Energizer bunny, a dragon wrapped around a balloon and proof that, in fact, pigs DO fly. The pictures will say it all :) There were 70 balloons that day, so in our small space, it was really cool. Just wondering what it's like to watch 800 balloons go up in a morning in Albuquerque during their festival!

At work, we are still waiting for Corporate to get their @#$es in gear so we can hire our SA. My workload is already straining at the seams, and I'm learning new things so I can help out a little more. It has been truly trying at times, and my boss is quick to let me know that he appreciates how I've stuck it out and put in the extra time to ensure that things are running as smoothly as we can make them. We'll just see how things go and what happens in the coming weeks.

That's all for now, catch y'all later - and thanks for reading!