Full Moon Friday

It's been a strange week, even by my standards.

I had to post tonight, my pride is at stake. I helped Jesse Bledsoe at Buffalo Presbyterian Church set up a blog for the church. I told my Scoutmaster that I had helped Jesse set up the blog. He asked if Jesse had read my blog. I told him that I thought that he had read it. His response was "Wow! Presbyterians must be more liberal than I thought!"

Back to Jesse and the church blog. After a couple of weeks of inactivity, Jesse posted three items this week. The first two I expected, the third one sneaked up on me. I looked a couple of hours ago and found that he had posted yesterday. I was stunned. After my e-mailing him urging him to post regularly, I am now forced to take my own advice.

This week at work, I had to fire an employee for petty theft. Despite what most people think, one of the toughest jobs in management is terminating employees. I have terminated hundreds of people over the last 36 years and it is never easy. The reality of life is that some people must go so that the business can prosper and the rest of us remain employed. The truth is that most employees make the decisions to get themselves fired, I just do the paperwork.

Thursday night, something happened to me at the restaurant that is too embarrassing to discuss here. This one will take a while. Look for it next month!! Maybe!!

Wednesday morning, Ginger asked me about the employee termination. I told her that I had been able to terminate the gentleman without using a single profane word. She walked away repeating, "Going to church must be working!!" Maybe, maybe not.

Wednesday evening, I attended the weekly dinner and program at Buffalo. The meatballs were good and if you're the person who made the German Chocolate cake, it was good. I don't get cake often. The speaker was Emily Wilson, who spoke about her 14 months at the South Pole. As a long time science geek, I really enjoyed it. The last discussion that I heard about the South Pole was in 1970. The situation has changed a lot since then. Thanks for the update, Emily.

At the dinner, I sat at the same table with the Queen and her sidekick, the Princess. WOW!! Talking to royalty and having cake all in the same night. Dear Diary..........

Valentine's Day was Monday. Valentine's Day affords me the opportunity to work late. I arrived at work at 4:45 A.M. and left at 8:00 P.M. That's barely half a day. My wife was asleep when I left for work and was asleep when I returned home. I think that Valentine's Day is some sort of female conspiracy. I noticed on Monday that about 50% of our female customers were wearing red to celebrate the day. I wore black in protest.

I have two great stories about Valentine's Day and my personal experiences. One story I have told a bunch of people, the other I have told three people and only two of those people are still alive. If you are one of those two, you are free to tell that story at my funeral. To hear the other story, just ask. It's not as funny or humiliating, but it's still a good story.

Do you think that all or any of that lingerie sold for Valentine's Day actually gets used?? It would probably more economical to rent that stuff than to purchase it. It's kind of like a wedding dress or tuxedo. You only need it for a few minutes.