Month: December 2011

Adios 2011

Published this year’s “Best Of” page tonight. You can find it over on the left under Highlight Reels.

In the beginning, ten years ago, this was two different and separate blogs, The Miata Diaries with stories about the car and how it fit into my life and the other, called Brian’s Daily Rant, was a place for me to bitch about what got stuck in my craw each day. There was so much stuff written during the year that I had a hard time weaning out all the quality posts to get it down to just one best per each month.

Somewhere around 5 or 6 years ago I merged the two into this one. The total posts diminished and soon after the caliber of content did too. For the last couple of years I have wished I could have cheated and used a second post from one month to use in the place of another month with nothing that I felt qualified.

And as I look back on this year I don’t see very many posts that qualify either, mostly they were just just recaps of geocaching adventures or pictures of papercraft projects. In an effort to at least post something when I didn’t feel like writing I would often upload a photo. So for the Best Of 2011 I have used no words, just my best picture from each month.

In a Weird Way I Missed Them

Today was the last day of work at the Valve Store(tm) until next Tuesday because of getting a 4 day weekend off for Christmas. Every year, as we get to the end of the final work day before this holiday, various employees will punch 6 on their phones, activating the paging system, and broadcast a loud, “Merry Christmas from Line 6” (or SBSA or Nuclear or whatever.)

I always find these very cringe-worthy and am far from being alone. One notable detractor was our previous Director of Operations, he hated it, but didn’t want to come across as a Scrooge, so he let it go on. Hey, it is only once a year and the hourly Janey Lunchpails got a kick out of it.

The new Director started last October and he is not so worried about what folks think of him. After he got an earful of all the “Merry Christmas froms” last year, he decided that was just not professional and would not be tolerated. There was no official word that the new Big Cheese didn’t want that to go on anymore, but word did filter down through the ranks somehow.

From 2:30 to 3:30PM today the paging system was oddly quiet and even though I thought the practice was kinda stupid, I missed hearing it.

I Dare Anyone

To not enjoy this video and/or not get this song stuck in their head.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf_hdFSnOEI

The Sweet Smell Of Decay

I haven’t turned all morbid, stared taking mortician training courses at the local junior college or anything, but me merely enjoying the slowly drying out of our real pine wreath hanging on the inside of our front door.