The Blog of Bert Jones

Working third shift is a pain. You get tired real easy, the nights can seem to drag on forever…

But it helps when you have great co-workers that can make you laugh, and I mean laugh HARD!

Tonight for instance.

Our project scheduler’s (a.k.a. COPS) printer was down. So they had to one that is by me, that I use.

So I had just printed some­thing out, and so did our one COPS. I go over to col­lect my print outs and I notice all this white blank paper get­ting printed out. I ask her if she intended on printing out blank white paper…she was all like, “ummm…no…”, so I cancel the print job from the printer (not noticing it is asking for con­fir­ma­tion to cancel, as I walk away)

She come over and we see that along one margin of all the sheets is junk text. So obvi­ously an error is going on.

I go over to look at her machine to make sure the printer was setup cor­rectly. (It was for the most part) and print a test sheet.

Well, I walk over and notice nothing is printing. I look at the screen, con­firm the cancel order and more of her orig­inal job prints out, but cor­rectly. No Junk text.

I holler over to her, “Hey, maybe its working now, the rest of your job is printing. I don’t know what all that white stuff was…”

I then stop dead in my  tracks and go, “Wow…that sounded really bad.” (I had mean all that white paper)

She starts laughing, and then states, “Its a good thing you caught that first, cause I was about to say ‘maybe it’s your white stuff’…” (meaning my print job).

We were laughing so hard, my cheeks hurt.

Thanks Amy for a funny night.

(I know, ironic that she shares the same name as my wife. Funny Story: Its been known to give me com­pli­cated jobs or rush jobs at work, and usu­ally Amy hands them to me. I’m kinda her “bitch”, in that sense. I’ve told her in the past that I have just learned, to keep things simple, to do what­ever any woman named Amy tells me to…)

Sorry, I haven’t posted in awhile. Lots been going on.

• I resigned from my posi­tion on the Communications/Marketing Com­mittee. Too much drama to deal with.
• I became a reg­is­tered Girl Scout (Don’t Ask). Mainly so I could be a Co-Service Unit Cookie Man­ager with Amy. We manage around 60 troops and their cookie orders.
• I got a second part-time job back at the Print shop I used to work at, AlphaGraphics.
• Still going to school.
• Working on more training at work, to have more responsibilities.
• Amy and I became Cre­ative Mem­o­ries Con­sul­tants. Mainly because they came out with so many new oppor­tu­ni­ties for folks and their photos! Con­tact us for more info!

Just lots of stuff. So I have been really busy. I get about 4 hours of sleep a day, sort of. It’s been hectic.

Talk later when I ain’t so tired!

So, I haven’t written in quite awhile. Sorry.

My life has been insanely busy.

Col­lege: Not only has classes started up again, but both courses were drawing courses. Which would hav been fine and I would have enjoyed them, but they were con­densed and so busy. I had assign­ments due every other day!

Work: Still not liken the whole no music and not internet policy. But it is okay. The pay is good, the hours aren’t too bad. But the work can be boring and then there is the nights when there is nothing to do.

Home: Busy as usual. Riley is growing fast and starting to add more and more words to his vocab­u­lary. I will miss it when the love he gives is uncon­di­tional. My old­ests still give uncon­di­tional love, but it is less fre­quent. The signs of growing older.

Board: Busy as ever. Need to adver­tise like crazy. Need to find replace­ment board mem­bers. Inter­ested? LOL.

Not much else. But I thought I better update ya.

I want the new iPod! With its full touch screen. (iPod Touch for those keeping score).

I haven’t said any­thing, because I didn’t want to jinx it, but I have been on assign­ment with a client (through Aquent) for a year now. Well, a few weeks ago, they hired me on full-time.

The exciting part is that they have kept my pay rate, which wor­ried me, because I had assumed if any client ever hired me, that the rate would go down. But it didn’t.

I also get really nice ben­e­fits and 401K. So I am excited.

Down­fall, we can’t listen to music any­more or use Internet on our puters. Bummer. It is kinda scary hearing some of the sto­ries of people walking off the job or get­ting sus­pended without pay over what seems like really menial stuff. But we will see what happens.

Good Morning all you people that are asleep as I write this.

I was out of town last weekend. Went up north to my Sister-in-law’s house for the final Family Christmas on my wife’s side.

Oy Vay. That is all I am gonna say. We had our fun moments, but, oy vay!

The kids did put on a pagent. That was cute. I use dmy pro­jector to cast a back­ground for them to use. Next year I will take more time and actu­ally create var­ious scenes and stuff!

Nice to be back. I have so much stuff to do though!

1. Scrap­book night on Friday
2. Pinewood Derby on Saturday
3. An online pre­sen­ta­tion on Thursday
4. finish up PRC stuff this week

Just a lot to do!

Riley is talking nicely, more sounds than actual words, but he is get­ting there.

He knows some sign lan­guage that Amy is teaching him. He can ask for a bottle, food, more and toys. They aren’t the actual signs, but he under­stands when we sign them and he has his own ver­sion (with a sound to go with) to tell us what he wants.

He is so smart too! I can’t get over how smart he is for his age!

We have a meeting with the Dean of the Ele­men­tary and a few school teachers in regards to Dominic.

They think there is some issues there and I think they need to know how to handle him. His actual teacher had no prob­lems with him, when she went off to mater­natiy leave, all of a sudden we are having issues… oy vay!

Well, got to get back to the imag­i­nary work to do here…

Well, it has been quite awhile since I wrote last. And, I guess, a lot has hap­pened that has kept me busy.

Let’s start youngest to oldest.

Riley is get­ting pretty big. He can stand him­self up on things. He crawls VERY fast. The roomba is his friend. He will sneak over there and turn it on when­ever he can.

He is also get­ting in a lot of his teeth. He also gives this great big cheesy grin. Matter of fact, it is the same cheesy grin that Dominic and Mikayla had when they were younger. The one where they scrunch up their whole face and all you see is a big toothy grin. I love it. I could stare at that face the rest of my life and be content.

He also loves the com­puter even more now. He will play pogo with grandma or Amy, or watch me play WoW.

He still takes his naps with me in the after­noon when Amy sneaks him in bed with me. I never know he is there until he wakes me up. If Amy gets him before I wake up, then they come in around 2:30 and wake me up. There is nothing better than having your baby boy sit­ting next to you on the bed, gently pat­ting your back to wake you up and going “da da da da”

Mikayla is just like her mother. All atti­tude. But cute atti­tude. And she is still my baby girl and still a little princess.

She is still in dance. Unfor­tu­nately we don’t know for how long she will be able to stay in dance. She is cur­rently in Pre-Comp. But after that she would go into a com­pe­ti­tion line. Trouble is, it is EXPENSIVE! So far this year I think comp line has paid about $400 in dues, and that is just since Sep­tember! They still have more to go!

Dominic is doing pretty well in school. He still will have his moments where he likes to screw around and not pay atten­tion, but we are working on those. He and I have nightly talks. Some­times we talk about what­ever he wants to talk about and some­times we talk about what I want to talk about and some­times it is to talk about serious mat­ters (like behaving).

Courtney is doing great in school. Smart as ever, still in the Tal­ented and Gifted Pro­gram at school. She does have this knack for turning in home­work late. So we are working on that one.

My mom is doing pretty well. She is known around here is the beddie-time grandma. It is her job to put Riley to sleep at night. I think the record is 2 sec­onds. She lit­er­ally picked him up, he rolled over to look at her and out he went. He seems to sleep better at night if grams puts him to bed. Some­times though she has to wear him out by playing pogo with him or watch some TV. It is there spe­cial bonding time together.

Amy is busy as ever. It is Girl Scout cookie season and being the Ser­vice Unit Cookie Coör­di­nator for the entire Cen­ten­nial Ser­vice Unit (60 troops this year). It is her job to make sure everyone gets their troops order in on time, train the “cookie moms”, and orga­nize all the paper­work. I helped her out this year by putting together a Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tion for her to use, so she could make sure that all the trainees (in three dif­ferent training ses­sions) got the same information.

I am doing so-so. Working third shift does take its toll. I am always tired. I feel like I never get any­thing accom­plished at home. I still am on the Board at our coöper­a­tive. And still the Communications/Marketing Com­mittee Chair­person and Com­mittee Rela­tions Advisor. Not easy work, I am con­stantly busy.

I have been going back and forth with the deci­sion if I want to run to be on the board again this Feb­ruary, or not. And if I want to stay involved in my com­mittee or not.

• The pro is that I get a say in what hap­pens where I live, I get to be a part of some­thing grand (in its begin­nings too!).
• The con is that it takes up so much of my time, some of my neigh­bor­hood friend­ships have dete­ri­o­rated, I get frus­trated with the in fighting and drama.

So I try to figure out if it is really worth it. I know that there is no one else who could do the jobs I do. No one is as orga­nized as a sec­re­tary as I am. No one has the skills (let alone the design pro­grams) to do the cre­ative work that I do to try and make this park more professional.

It is also hard being in the ‘public eye’, since I am such a pri­vate person.

I hate not having free time and being lazy, like I used to be. Every waking moment is filled with things to do.

But any­ways. Enough of that.

Not sure what else I should write. I want to write more, but finding the time is exhausting. I have so many things I want to do. Lose weight, eat right, write more, home projects, office projects. The list goes on and on and on.

In my iPod:

• Aquarius — 25^th Annvier­sary Edition
• Take Me Out - Franz Ferdidnand
• Vaca­tion — Connie Francis
• Eldest — Audio­book (Eragon Book 2)
• Hurt — Christina Aquilera

Okay, so I am in a funk. I hate it. I hate being in a funk, I FUNKin’ Hate it.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do with my life. I don’t know what to do with my career. I don’t know what to do with my vol­un­teer work. Nothin.

Where should I begin… I don’t like working third shift. I don’t hate it, kind of nice and quiet, but the sleep schedule sucks.

I want to work from home. I want to work, when I want to work. But I am so afraid of taking the leap and trying to start my own busi­ness. Could I actu­ally do it? Am I good enough to have my own design studio? Maybe I should go back to school. I don’t know.

I am tired of my vol­un­teer work with the Coöper­a­tive. WAY MORE work than I ever imag­ined. Takes up WAY too much time and there is just WAY too much DRAMA! I can’t stand drama. I have enough of my own! Then friend­ships get in the way and I don’t know if I should be loyal, or make sure the work is get­ting done…

I don’t know if I still want to be on the Board of Direc­tors, or Just be the Communications/Marketing Chair­person or nei­ther. I want my life back, but I can’t afford to not be there. NO ONE can do the work that I do. If no one can do it, I fear we could loose our home and then where would I be? I don’t know.

I am tired of WoW. Now that I made level 60, everyone expects me to help them out here or do this quest with them there, “because I am level 60 and have nothing else to do” or “Your in our guild so you have to help us”.

Well no I don’t, I just wanna relax and play and de-stress. I don’t even like playin my 60, I have played her for SOOOO LONG! I wanna try a dif­ferent char­acter, but feel like I just have to check in every now and then oth­er­wise I am labeled “Too Busy To Care”. And I don’t like that, before I was a 60, I helped everyone I could if they needed it and I hap­pened to not be helping someone else. I did that since level 30. Can I be done now?.…

So I left my guild. Not that I really wanted to, but I don’t know anyone on there any­more other than my char­ac­ters and my two good Friends. And all these new people on there get pretty rude (see para­graph above). It isn’t the same guild any­more. Lately I am never actu­ally playing because I either have to try and break up a very heated/insulting dis­cus­sion (and then get chewed out for trying to calm things down) or I get insulted myself and then don’t feel like playin. I don’t know.

I am tired of money. Even though I have a job, I am busting my ass to play catchup on bills. Then on top of that my car has to break and cost me $900 to fix (that I don’t have). I hate it. Can I please win the lot­tery? Just once? Can I please win like 500 mil? I would be happy, trust me.

My family still wants a dome home, and I don’t know how we are ever going to raise the $40,000 we will need for the down­pay­ment (roughly a $300,000 home and I would need at least 10% to get that kind of a loan, if not more). It is so hard for us to save any money!

I don’t know. I really don’t know.

The only thing I do know is that I love my family and my wife and my mom and sister and brother-in-laws and sister-in-laws and just plain old in-laws. I love that aspect of my life, I just wish every­thing else would work out along with it.

“Life is an ocean. A twisting nether at one time, a calming plain another. For­ever changing. Some­times for better, some­times for worse, but always changing; turning into some­thing beau­tiful or some­thing ugly. How we swim in that sea, deter­mins our course. We either swim hard, or float through, or drown. But it is our choice that makes the dif­fer­ence.” — Bert Jones

Wow, I just wrote that. I don’t really think of myself as a writer, but that just spewed forth from my fin­ger­tips. Hmm.…somewhat sat­is­fying actu­ally. Kiki? Is this what it is like to write? Not knowing exactly what your writing until you think you are done? And then looking at it and feeling a com­ple­tion? A grat­i­fi­ca­tion? I envy you. No, I take that back. I am lucky to know you.

All the things that you do, cre­atively at least, inspire me to try the same. You also inspire me to try harder, no matter what life throws at me. You inspire me to just try. Thank you for being my good (best?) friend.

Kiki?… You out there?… Hello?… (hehehe..LOL)

For those of you who know me, you should now that part of the song from Space Ghost

So, it has been awhile since I last wrote. And actu­ally I didn’t write any­thing, just posted some videos.

I am not that crazy about my job. I don’t know if it is the 3^rd shift, the lack of work, or both.

1. I am tired all the time.
2. There is barely any work at work. So it is hard to stay awake.
3. I have so much going on in my life.

Basi­cally we had 3 people out of 5 resign from the Coöper­a­tive Board I am on. Which means I am the only res­i­dent board member left. So everyone comes to me with their stuff.

Not only am I the Sec­re­tary, Communciations/Marketing Chair­person, Com­mittee Rela­tions Advisor; but now I am also the interim Pres­i­dent (of sorts) to keep day-to-day oper­a­tions going and keep in touch with management.

We also are plan­ning an open house for the end of the month! A lot of work!

So much to do, and I have such little time.

I wish I could just quit my job, but I need to money. I do need to find some­thing during the day, and full time. That may make it easier.

Amy may be starting her own cake busi­nesses. That would be very cool!

Okay, back to work… sort of.

Well, I am on my last week of training for my new assign­ment. I can’t wait to get started, but I am a little ner­vous too. It will be dif­ferent once I am ‘out on the floor’. But I wish all my other clients had training like this. Very comprehensive.

Riley is get­ting so very big. We had to buy him a new car seat. I can’t get over how happy and smiley he is. When­ever he sees Amy, my mom or me, he just lights up and smiles at us. He loves to laugh at me. I tell Amy, it is because of my hair!

Recently we sat him in from of my laptop and he was so engrossed in it.

He would try and tap on the keys and just watch the mon­itor. A few days later, Amy put him in from of my moms PC and he would just attack those keys and watch the screen. When some­thing would pop up, he would try and make it reap­pear by hit­ting one side of the key­board and then the other. And if it worked, he would do it again. He is very smart and will be using a com­puter in no time.

Amy has him on baby food now. He loves it! She will mix the baby food with rice cereal and he just eats it up.

And of course, he loves his snuggle time. Last night mom had him asleep and not 5 min­utes later he was awake. Mom put him next to me on the couch (where he could watch me play World of War­craft) and not 5 min­utes later, he was back asleep!

Amy will put him in bed with us, in the early morning, and he will slowly edge his head close to me, and push Amy off the bed with his feet. So she ends up going to sleep in another room and Riley and I have the bed to our­selves. And he will sleep for a few more hours.

Courtney has been gone most of the summer. She switches weeks with her dad, but the last time we had her she was at Girl Scout Camp. Then the when she went back to her dads, she went to their church camp. So she has been just a camping away.

Dominic and Mikayla are both doing good. Just hanging around the house, get­ting on each others nerves. They play nice one day, fight like hell the next. Usual sib­ling stuff.

My dad has been in the hos­pital since June 14, and I finally went out to see him last night. Time just flew by and I had so much going on with the family that I didn’t have a chance to visit him. That, and I don’t like hos­pi­tals unless a baby is being born.

Dad had to have the back part of his leg removed, and if it doesn’t heal, they may need to take off his leg from above the knee. He is doing better. He orig­i­nally went in for pace­maker prob­lems and tired­ness and they found out his leg was infected (I think there was a blocked artery). He is not expected to get out for another 8–14 weeks!

Not much else has been hap­pening around the house. Been pretty quiet.

Cur­rently in my iPod:

• Pop­ular – From the Broadway Play WICKED
• Evanescense
• Beau­tiful to Me – Dolly Parton
• Not Ready to Make Nice – Dixie Chicks
• Every­thing for Free – K’s Choice
• One – Mary J. Blige & US

Well hello all, it has been awhile since I wrote.

I started a new job on Monday. I am working with a com­pany in St. Paul. I have three weeks of training during the day and then I will switch to 3^rd shift.

Not quiet looking for­ward to the whole 3^rd shift thing. But it is more money, and then Amy will have the car during the day.

Riley is making lots of sounds. He is fig­uring out his voice and making noises from low to high squeals. He likes to gurgle and goo. He is get­ting so big as well.

He had a doc­tors appoint­ment on Tuesday and he is in the 90 per­centile in weight, the 75 per­centile in height and 99 per­centile for his head size. So that means, he can hold his head up, but not for too long, because he is ‘top heavy’. His head is too heavy for him. Hope­fully by his next appoint­ment in 2 months, that will have cor­rected itself.

Other than that, he is doing great!

His hair is growing out so he looks so cute cause it is spiking on his head!

He had a doc­tors appoint­ment yes­terday and it seems he has an ear infec­tion. We had thought that he was teething (he wasn’t rub­bing his ears at all) so we were giving him teething gel and a teething ring and it seemed to work. To doctor told us why it seemed to work was because it was relieving the pres­sure in his ears as he would chew on it.

We also had the doctor look at his big toes. Ever since he was born the nail on those two toes grew a little dif­ferent. And his big toes were very red. Well, it turns out they are infected. So we have to clean them out and apply anti­septic on them to help them heal.

He also had two shots in his leg. So Tuesday night he had a fever. From the ear ache and the shots, he wasn’t very happy. He just wanted to snuggle. Poor guy.

He seemed to do better in the morning, although his fever was starting up again.

Not much else is going on. I will keep ya posted!