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Archive for December, 2006

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Richmond’s own Ball Drop…

From the RTD

Carytown NYE
On the street in front of the Byrd Theatre (2908 West Cary St.)
Want to watch the ball drop and celebrate New Year’s Eve in Carytown? For the first time ever, Carytown is hosting its own New Year’s Eve celebration in the tradition of the Times Square. The street in front of the Byrd Theatre will be transformed into an outdoor theater and beer garden, complete with live sets by Johnny Cash cover band, Black Cash and the Bad Trips and local indie rock acts the OK Bird and Duchess of York. DJ Jack McHale from WRIR 97.3 FM will be spinning music and there will be vendor booths serving hot and cold refreshments. As midnight approaches, a custom-made, lighted ball will drop down and countdown to welcome in the new year. RVA Magazine and Carytown Merchants Association have gathered together to host the event to benefit the Byrd Theatre Foundation and in memory of the Harvey Family. 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. Free.

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Christmas Roundup…

Wow… is Christmas really over? I hope everybody had a happy one. We had a great one here, with all the family getting together at our house this year. (We missed you Kate!) Now that the dust has settled, I can start playing with some of the goodies I got:

A cool photo printer/scanner that can print photos straight from the memory card. This is pretty cool and goes hand in hand with my desire to take more pictures. She also took her slr camera in to be cleaned up and got me some rolls of black and white film.

I also got some pretty cool shirts. The wife bought me an “inspirational” shirt. It’s about the size I can wear when I trim down, so I need to get my butt back in the gym again.

One of the best gifts that the wife got me was three guitar lessons from Guitar Works. Awesome!!!

All in all, it was a great Christmas, not so much because of the stuff, but mainly because we got to spend time with our families. I hope you and yours had an excellent one too!

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Conversation with Josiah…

Papa, Mama bought us beer today!

Ummmmm, what???

Yea, she bought us kid beer. Kid beer!!

Buddy, there is no such thing as kid beer. (At least I hope not, and if there was, where was it when I was growing up??)

Yes there is. She bought it at the store today. She said it’s special kid beer.

No. Really, there is no kid beer. Show me what she bought you.

He then runs to the kitchen and brings back a big bottle of sparkling cider.

OH…ok, this is not kid beer, this is like sparkly juice.

OHHHH…

You haven’t been telling your friends mama buys you kid beer, have you?

No answer… just a big grin….

Oh, well. I guess we’ll just wait for that knock on the door from child protective services now.

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pooped…

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Goodbye White River Dolphin, I hardly knew you…

It’s always sad when something or someone is completely wiped off the face of our earth. In the latest instance, it seems a rare, nearly blind white dolphin that survived for millions of years is effectively extinct…”

Honestly, I’m mostly worried about what shape we are leaving our planet for our kids. That’s the kind of stuff you start thinking about when you start having kids… but oh yeah, I’m sad about the loss of another species… *sigh*

Some background info can be found at baiji.org

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Our President reads… ???

I came across this article that says George W. Bush has read 60 books this year. Sixty Books??? Really? Come on, by my calculations this means he has to read at least an hour and a half every day. I’m guessing most books have at least 500 pages, multiply that by 60, comes out to 30,000 pages. Divide that by 365 days, and you get 82 pages a day. At a minimum of a page a minute, that’s about 1 1/2 hours per day. And that’s if he started on January 1st.

I’m no literary giant, but I’ve read a couple of books this year, and the biggest challenge has been finding the time to read. I’m a pretty busy guy; family and work usually take up all my time. How can he find the time to read sixty freakin books??? The next question is do I really believe that he has read them. Ummmmm, I’m going to have to go with a big fat NO. I call BS on you, Mr. President.

From US News…

George W. Bush a bookworm? White House aides say it’s so. The born-again president’s literary interests start with the predictable, such as his daily readings from the Bible. But he also enjoys books about Abraham Lincoln, his political hero, and, of course, yarns about baseball-in a past life, he was, after all, the managing partner of the Texas Rangers. Staffers say the president is actually engaged in an informal contest with White House senior adviser Karl Rove to see who can read more books this year. The latest score card has Bush ahead 60-50.

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Small minded people suck…

This was posted anonymously online about my company:

Well to start with – they did not show up on May 1 to pickup all the equipment we rented over the weekend. That also happened to be day of the “boycott”. I get home the following evening to find 2 people that speak only spanish and 1 american that is their manager/translator. Had I known they were to use non US labor I would have never done business with them.

This was my response:

While it is true that XXXXX hires “non US labor”, we do so by legal means. Our workers are contracted for work for the season. We undergo a rigorous process that is approved by the US Labor Department. Our workers hold H2B visas, and are entirely legal. These gentlemen are hard workers, pay their taxes, are respectful and return to their families when the season is over.

Our not picking up on the referenced day had nothing to do with the “boycott”. Our workers did not even realize that such a thing was going on. We simply had an abundance of work and had to delay their pickup. It is our opinion that it is a small minded point of view to think that because there are non English speaking people on a job site that they are illegal aliens.

We can see the benefit of a website such as yours, but the danger is that people can anonymously post information without any facts. That you do not contact that employer to verify such claims does not give an equal voice in the process. We understand that there are many businesses hiring illegally, but XXXXXX has NEVER hired anyone illegally and we can prove so with all our documentation. We ask you to kindly remove the post above, as it can negatively impact our business. You may contact me at XXXXXXX if you have any further questions.

Thank you,

XXXXXXXX
Director of Operations

The wife thinks I was too nice, that I should have given them shit for allowing someone to make a flippant comment without any facts. I’m giving them a couple of days before contacting a lawyer. On their site, they claim that anything posted there is “alleged.” I have no idea on the legality of it, so I’m wondering what they can or cannot do. If you say something is alleged, can you pretty much write anything you want about anybody??

Needless to say, I’m pretty pissed off about this. It bothers me on so many levels, (I am hispanic, and also a US citizen) but mostly I can’t help to think of how much of an idiot this person is, and how small minded. Anyone have any thoughts?

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Charlie Brown would *NOT* approve…

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elf issues…

Dave’s workplace is having elf issues. Read all about it at Save the Elf.

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I’m not going to jail today…


I’ve had this court case hanging over me for about four months now, and although I hadn’t thought about it too much, I finally faced up to it this week.

Way back in September, my company produced an event up in the fine city of Fredericksburg. We seem to have pissed off the the fire marshall up there (over something very small), because he refused to issue the necessary permits until someone from my company(me) showed up and made the necessary adjustments. What I didn’t know is that he already had a summons written up and ready for me as soon as I got there.

Needless to say, I was very polite, figuring I could talk my way out of it. No such luck. Summons issued, and I had to appear before a judge to be arraigned.

In conversations with my lawyer, she tried to reassure me with words such as continuance, dismissal, not guilty… ALL I heard was “sure, there is a possibility of jail time, but lets’ not think about that too much.”

EXCUSE ME???

Long story short, she was able to work out a plea with the court where it gets continued, and then dismissed in a year, provided I don’t piss off any more fire marshalls in the great state of VA. Woohooo. Way to go Mr. Public-I HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO-official, thanks.