11-29-13 Friday (Survey Says…)

We’ve been paying my coworker’s daughter $20 a week to let Dasher out.  She doesn’t have to sit with him, pet him, walk him or feed him.  Just go over, let him outside to pee, and that’s it.  Back in April, we bought an electronic lock.  From time to time we wouldn’t get any alerts that she had come.  I thought there was something wrong with the system.  On a day the system didn’t log anything, Dasher peed in the house.  I texted her “Did you come today” and she replied she had.  Other times, no system alert, I’d ask her and she said she came.  I became increasingly suspicious so I put a pingpong ball in front of the door. 

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When the door opened, the ball would move several inches away from the door without her noticing.  The first time I saw the ball hadn’t moved and there wasn’t an alert, I texted her “Did you come?”  She replied “Yes”.  The following week, the same scenario, the same response.  I told my coworker about it.  I asked for how to handle this with her 17-18 year daughter.  She asked me to call her, confront her and see if she would lie.  I did so.  I told the daughter about the alert system and asked why she told me otherwise.  She said “I don’t know.”  I dismissed her.  Sad.

I’m not going to look for a replacement just yet since Jim goes into work a little later now so Dasher gets a later last time pee. 

Jim and I decorated two Christmas trees.  It’s not uncommon for us to have 2-3 trees.  The dining room is done in gold and purple.  The living room has the black tree (recently used as a Halloween tree) decorated with clear, while and silver.  They both came out pretty awesome.  We did that the weekend prior to Thanksgiving.  Yeah, I know, one holiday at a time but we were going to be out of town Thanksgiving weekend and who knows after that.  Jim still wants to put up a 3rd Christmas tree in the office loft area with our travel ornaments.  I’m sure he still wants to put up lights outside too.  Too much!

2013-11-24 004Above: Living room

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2013-11-24 005Above: Dining room

My employer teamed up with HoneyBaked and offered us discounts for several of their products.  I ordered 2 HoneyBaked turkey breasts and a medium size ham.  We again hosted Thanksgiving at our house.  We had 9 total for Thanksgiving lunch, 11 for cocktails.  We had such a great time.  Jim and I supplied the meats and my late Uncle Mike’s delicious and awesome sausage stuffing while guests brought sweet potato casserole, desserts, mashed potatoes, etc.  The food was delish, the company was great!  I didn’t get a photo of anyone.  I was so busy in the kitchen, it slipped my mind.

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After everyone left, we cleanup, and head to Augusta for a long weekend.  Several months ago, Jim and I had took Black Friday off just for this reason.  We arrived in Augusta at our typical time, 9ish.  We had a lot to unpack this time.  We’ve been sorting through our Christmas stuff.  2 piles, Goodwill and consignment.  The pile we brought with us was for consignment. 

The next day we went out for some Black Friday shopping.  It wasn’t bad at all because we went post-door-buster-crazy-time.  We only hit a few stores.  The lines were very short.  At the consignment shop, they took most of our stuff.  We grabbed lunch at Red Robin.  Our server was awesome.  She didn’t write a thing down and got everything 100% right.  I complimented her to her manager and we also filled out an on-line survey with top scores.  See, I don’t always complain…  We’ll maybe:

Rant Animated 1Business surveys have gotten so rough.  For Red Robin, she mentioned only the top scores, completely satisfied, count.  That’s the same way my big bank views it.  Anything under a 5 is a big ole zero.  Just keep that in mind when filling out a survey.  Please don’t be one of those people who think, no one is perfect or “I never give 100% scores”.  It hurts the employee.  So many businesses give employees incentives.  Also, while I’m in bitch mode, don’t fill out a survey and put something like “this is not for my server, it’s about the cook” or crap like that.  Surveys CANNOT be rerouted.  For me, it was a situation of “the underwriter was great, but the branch had no idea what they were doing so this survey is for them.”  No, the survey reflected against me.  This is the same way it works in most business lines, including car dealerships.  Another thing people don’t know is that surveys are typically handled by a 3rd party like JD Powers.

After shopping, we went on a boat tour of the Augusta Canal.  It was just a one hour ride but enjoyable.  The canal was created in 1845 as a hydro power source for various mills.  There was a museum to visit before/after the boat ride.  Our tour guide/narrator provided some great information.  The Enterprise Mill, where the museum and boat ride resides is now mixed use of business and residential lofts.  What a cool building.  It still produces hydro power which is sold to its residents at reduced rates and the remainder sold to Georgia Power.

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11-20-13 Wednesday (Clearance’s Sister)

11-8-13 thru 11-11-13 = 3 day holiday weekend time in Augusta!  We arrived Friday evening.  Our friend, Wesley and Glenn hosted a pulled pork BBQ event.  We brought some delicious homemade Publix macaroni salad.  The pork was excellent, the side dishes yummy too.  We had an awesome time.  It was an early dinner which was smart since when the sun goes down, it’s been getting cold. 

On Saturday, we took a trip to Walmart.  

2013-11-09Above: Here’s a rack with a “clearnace” sign just as you enter the store.

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We walked around the downtown area and looked at some old buildings as well as window shopped.

2013-11-09 008Above: This place had some fugly clothes.

Sunday, Jim and I explored a little.  I’ve mentioned that there’s a lot of old repurposed mills around Augusta and N Augusta.  This one caught our eye:

2013-11-10 003Above: Mixed use Enterprise Mill.

We also stopped at this mill, which I didn’t get the name of.  It had some cool features to look at such as an old scale and doors that might be a little dangerous.

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The next weekend (11-15-13 thru 11-17-13), it was back to Augusta.  On Saturday, Dasher was bit on the nose by another dog in the campground.  He was missing a big chunk of skin but has survived.  I was pretty pissed. It caused a big rift at the campground and I hope it settles down. 

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All in all, it was a fantastic weekend.  We made yet more friends there that I really enjoyed hanging out with.

On Wednesday evening, it looked like Dasher’s nose had a huge blister on it.  I pushed on it to see if it hurt him but it didn’t appear to.  We decided we’d take him to the vet on Thursday night.  When I got home for Dasher’s vet visit, he had popped the blister or something.  It was bloody-ish.  I took him in anyway where he got a booster rabies shot.  Jim met me there.  Dasher is fine.

Sorry for the lame post, I debated on just deleting it.  I got behind on posting and then tried to remember the details of each weekend but that doesn’t seem to be working out very well.  We’ll be back Thanksgiving weekend.

11-5-13 Tuesday (Qality Awart)

It was Halloween this week!  We have a Fun Committee at work that does something every month.  Chip/dip day or potluck or whatever.  This month’s theme was a non-carving pumpkin contest at work.  Here’s a few of the 9 team pumpkins:

2013-10-28 016Above: My team’s but it was all done by one person.

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I’m on week #3 of a persistent dry cough.  It came packaged with a cold but won’t leave.  Yes, I know, I’ll need a doctor’s visit this week I suppose.  Phooey. 

We probably had a couple dozen trick or treaters.  I didn’t answer the door.  It’s Jim’s job to hand out the candy… mostly because he likes doing it.  We were surprised at how many 5-12 year olds were costume-less.  Was it their choice?  Was it a financial issue?  Who knows.

Saturday lunch was at Red Robin.  I went über healthy with a cheese-less turkey burger on a multigrain bun with a zesty chipotle aioli.  It was very tasty.  This is the second time I’ve ever had a turkey burger and have been very pleased.  Enough so that I’m not quite sure why I don’t eat them more often.  Oh, and for my side, I had bottomless steamed (no butter) broccoli. 

2477719For dinner we tried a non-chain, local BBQ place called R&R BBQ.  Review: Jim got the sliced pork plate.  It looked like a chunk of meat rather than having that typical deli sliced look.  It tasted OK.  The BBQ sauces offered was BullsEye.  Yes, they use a name brand… odd or a vinegar based homemade that was so watery, it reminded me more of a douche than of BBQ “sauce”.  The hushpuppies were huge but they were a little on the dry side which he thinks is because they’re so big.  ???  I didn’t have any of his.  He also had the homemade mac and cheese.  I didn’t think it was going to be very good.  The cheese had that coagulated cottage cheese look that I don’t particularly care for. Jim simply stated “it’s definitely not as good as Long Horn’s”, which by the way is the best ever and is called “steakhouse mac and cheese”.  (Steakhouse Mac & Cheese = Corkscrew pasta, four cheeses and bacon.)

My food?  I had hot wings.  They were huge drumettes but sadly they were so greasy I couldn’t eat as many as I typically would.  It’s like they used hot sauce and oil rather than butter or they didn’t let the grease drain off from the fryer.  At the bottom of the basket was a noticeable separation of oil and hot sauce.  Ewwwwww.  I ate like 8 of 12.  It was a wonder I didn’t have anal leakage.  Yeah, I said that.

On Sunday, we had Dasher’s stitches and cone removed.  I probably forgot to mention, a couple of weeks ago, he was bleeding from his shoulder area.  He rubbed or scratched or did something to a growth he had.  He’s got skin cancer so we have to deal with these from time to time.  Jim took the day off, took him to the vet where they removed it, stitched him up and coned him.

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Our friends from Florida, came for a visit on their way back to Florida from a roadtrip.  Mike, Dave and David arrived Sunday evening in time for dinner.  They left Monday late morning.  It was a nice visit; we were glad to see them. 

On Tuesday, at work, I received quarterly recognition for quality.  Basically my files that were randomly reviewed passed with no errors.  During our quarterly meeting I was presented with a certificate.  My name was spelled wrong and the qualifying info regarding the award itself was misstated.  Nice QUALITY.  But, I did get a $25 giftcard so that makes up for it.  Go me.