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When I am writing a bunch that's the sound my wife makes. I don't exactly type. It's more like I bang the keyboard to death. I can take one of those extremely quiet keyboards and make it sound like an instrument of torture. I type so-so. I used to do the two fingered typing although now that I have been paying attention I see that I am using four or five fingers. I am somewhere around 50wpm I guess and I only have to look at the keys about half the time.

So what the fuck got me to thinking about how I type. I've been writing pretty much non-stop since I got home. Not here obviously although I have been needing to get back into postme. No, it's mainly on my other sites where I am still posting for $$$. I discovered that since we've been home from vacation that I could use the extra bucks. I enjoyed that extra twelve grand I made last year and I fully intend on making some more between now and Christmas. I've written probably 15 posts since I got home this afternoon and I fully intend on writing about 15 more before I go to bed. Maybe even one or tow that actually make some sense over here :)

I am also available on a contract basis to the CIA if they want. You know, stick me in a room with some fucking towel heads, blindfold them and let me blog for ten or twelve hours at a time. They'll get so fucking sick of it they will tell you anything you want to know...

Want to know something else that's funny as hell? You know fromt he little 'reblog' link that's in the corner of my posts that I have been using that Zemanta stuff for a few weeks now to suggest keywords, tags and photographs for my blog posts. It comes in a plugin form for my browser as well as one for MT. I use the one for my browser because it works in ALL my blog formats. Anyhow, since I mentioned the word 'torture' the first keywords to surface were 'John McCain' and 'George Bush'. Bwahaha. Only if money-grubbing stealing bastards is torture, but then again that applies to Obama and the rest of Bozo's clubhouse as well.

Well, the Marine caught the Greyhound yesterday morning. He was supposed to ride to Raleigh, NC to the airport and then was going to catch some Z's at the USO until his flight to Palm Springs, California left this morning. Long flight as he had a two hour layover in Chicago as well. He's supposed to check in at Twentynine Palms by midnight tonight. There's a glitch now. NO UNIFORMS, thanks to Greyhound Lines.

Apparently his bus broke down in Norcross (about 20 minutes after it left the station). When they got another one there the driver would not allow anyone to get their luggage, claiming that it was too dangerous. He said that Greyhound employees had to do it. When my son got to Raleigh he found that his luggage had not come along for the ride and stayed up all night trying to locate it.

He let us know this morning and my wife has spent something like twelve hours on the phone with no results. Some woman finally told her she would put a 'tracer' out for it, not that it does the boy any good. Upon checking in at Twentynine Palms he's going to have to buy new uniforms. He probably had over a thousand dollars in uniforms, knick knacks and irreplaceable stuff from his mom inside the things. It's a damn good thing that he decided to leave the X-Box 360 here for me to ship to him.

So far their customer service reps have called my wife "baby" "and honey" and some of them have been downright rude to her. As someone in the customer service industry, this is a no-no. If anyone knows the email address for the CEO for Greyhound, Dave Leach, please email or contact me. I have already tried the obvious ones  so maybe one of those will work. Also, Digg and Fark this if you guys have accounts. Thanks!

Currently the wife is discussing with a woman on the phone about his luggage. She says that the best they can do is send his luggage to Palm Springs. They won't even send a courier to Twenty Nine Palms if/when they find the luggage. No refunds, no delivery. Fuck them. I have emailed about 40 Greyhound employees so far as well as folks from parent company Laidlaw, Inc and hopefully will get an answer tomorrow.

All I can tell you is unless you want to get ass-fucked, DON'T leave the driving to Greyhound.

Here's the body of the rude-ass email I am sending to everyone with any vested interest in Greyhound I can find.

"The party that was traveling was my son Marine Pvt Christopher Miles. His bus out of Atlanta broke down in Norcross, GA yesterday morning and when they transferred everyone to a new bus they were not allowed to get their luggage. It was shipped back to Atlanta and no one has seen it since. My wife (contact information above) has spoken with at least ten different people who were no help whatsoever including one that was entirely rude. I expect this to be dealt with in a timely and efficient manner. I can understand things being lost but your customer service is clueless, understaffed and filled with people that don't even have 'stock' answers, much less the real ones.

My son checks into the Marine base at Twentynine Palms, California tonight. If they let him check in at all without a uniform, since they are at an undisclosed location, maybe on a bus, he will be forced to purchase a new set of uniforms. which is quite expensive.

I've now been told by a gentleman named Jeff in your Raleigh, NC terminal that the next step is to file a claim. That certainly doesn't help my son who is going to have to purchase well over a thousand dollars in uniforms, a laptop, camera, various odds and ends and keepsakes from his mother. I do not have the time to drive to the nearest bus station which is 40 minutes away in Atlanta, just to help your employees do the job they should have been doing in the first place.

Please contact my wife or myself at the soonest time that you locate my son's two sea bags and his large clothing bag. I fully expect reimbursement for the expense incurred as a result of not having proper uniform upon showing up at the Marine camp, as well as a refund or an airline voucher, not a greyhound voucher, as we will not be using your service ever again.

Richard Miles
address and company information removed."

 

Apparently quite a few people have been having problems with Greyhound. Check out this article from ConsumerAffairs.com (in the extended entry because it is so long)

That's how much sleep I managed to get last night.

I can't remember the last time I was able to sleep in until quarter of nine in the morning.

It must have been back before the holidays at  some point I suppose.

Each time I have had a day off I have always had some place to be or something to do that kept me from actually resting up from the previous week. Today I don't have anything to do until this evening. The engine light on the wife's car keeps going on and she called the dealership to make an appointment. As long as they have a loaner for her we'll be leaving her's there tonight. I have to pick up the Oldsmobile anyway and get it home. Rather than sell it to Carmax I decided to sell it cheaper to one of the guys that works for me. The guy is married with a new baby and has no car so he will get more use out of it. I cut what my asking price would be in half for him. He should be able to pay that off in about three to four weeks, although he does have to get insurance and tags so if it takes longer, no big deal.

Well, the Starbucks is finished making. I need to get a cup and try to wake up a bit.

While Shadowscope the blog doesn't celebrate it's blogiversary until June some time, Shadowscope the web site his nine years back on Christmas Day. I started out running the site mainly for BBSing and Skinning news back sometime in '98 and installed my hit counter on Christmas Day, which is why I use that date as the official birthday.

I guess I was so busy working through the holidays and spending time with the family that I completely forgot about that.

There is another weird anniversary of sorts going on as well. I started getting paid to blog this time last year as well. Over all I think that it has improved my blogging as a whole. While there are some posts that I look at and say "?" and "why the heck did I write that?" I have been blogging more regularly, writing longer and more thoughtful posts (sometimes) and just had a good time doing it.

Up until this time last year most of what I did the first three years was post links and one-liners with an occasional rant thrown in to mix it up a bit. I really didn't write much and the thought of writing a post of several hundred words just would not have crossed my mind at all.

Now it's just not a big deal at all to whip out a post of several hundred words. Are they more entertaining? I guess that's all in the eye of the beholder but I am certainly more entertained, which is why I started this dog and pony show to begin with...

BTW, I got the weirdest text message the other day..

"HELLO HOW HAVE YOU BEEN? WE HAD A FABULOUS MEETING TODAY! WE SURE MISS YOU BEING THERE"

?

What fucking meeting? I left the name off but I know at least four ladies with that name. I suppose I could call the number on the text message and see what it's all about. I was afraid I had missed something that i was supposed to be at, so if you sent me this text message, send me a friggin' email or something.

...

Jut finished boiling some eggs. I think it's time for a nice little egg salad sandwich. Enjoy your lunch if you are eaiting.

I started working with the ideas presented in this e-book about a month ago and in that time I have more than doubled my profits from PPC campaigns. If you are interested in learning how to double your pay-per-click profits then go check it out.

 

The wife and the Marine had to run to Douglasville this morning. They are going ahead and getting some Christmas shopping taken care of this morning at the Mall. She hates going to the mall even more than she hates shopping but it's one of those things I suppose.

I was reading this story over at CNN last night about one mall where the police are really creating a presence and they had some news crews out there filming some of the things people would do. Purses and phones in plain view in their cars, expensive gifts left in eyeshot and even worse, some of them wore open.

Even if you keep your stuff locked in the trunk there is still the danger of it coming up missing. This time of year criminals are out because they know that people hide stuff in their cars. That can make a car more of a target and even effect your car insurance policy.

I had to get online last night and renew my car insurance. The company had called me day before yesterday and told me I had underpaid them by $15 by mistake so I had to get on their site. Most of them allow you to pay online which certainly makes life easier. Fifteen years ago it would have just been canceled and I would have had to deal with going out and getting car insurance quotes and renewing the policy. Cheap car insurance is easy to find but I prefer to keep the same company rather than having to switch every couple of years.

It's funny sometimes how things can tie together. I have been listening to Queensryche's latest album tonight, which consists entirely of cover songs. Right around the time that 'Almost Cut My Hair' came on someone sent me an email with a link to the American Hair Loss Association. Why?...

I used to be extremely concerned about going bald and for lot's of guys it's a pretty serious subject. It doesn't really other me much anymore. I let what's left of it grow out during the winter and then just shave my head the rest of the year. Easier to take care of and I don't use much shampoo anymore...

Since I'm not doing much of anything else tonight I clicked the link...

The American Hair Loss Association is a non-profit organization that is set up to educate people about hair loss and hopefully help to make the lives of people that are affected by hair loss a bit better. There are so many different home remedies and 'snake oil' medicines out there that promise to restore your hair that creating a bit of public awareness about it can really help. It's a huge deal for some people. When I was younger I was very proud of my hair. I think I recently posted a couple of pics from the late eighties and early nineties when my hair was well below my shoulders. When I realized that my hair line was receding it was extremely depressing. While not as serious or harming as the degeneration of eyesight or arthritis, hair loss IS a medical condition and legitimizing it as such in the eyes of the medical community is a good thing.

With the advent of the World Wide Web it is much easier to find needed information and I would have to tell anyone that I know that might be looking for hair loss remedies to go check out the American Hair Loss Association and see what they have to say about it. Products that are legitimate and recommended by the AHLA display the seal shown on their web site. That's what you want to look for...

Car Angel is a site that I came across that allows you to make tax deductible car donations (as well as other donations) that  they turn around and sell in order to make positive videos for teens and children such as anti-drug DVDs. They have given away almost two and a half million videos through this program.

Donkey Ollie is one of the characters used in some of their videos. He is a Christian children's animation used to send a message to kids.

No matter what you think about religion or different companies, donating  a car to a good cause such as anything anti-drug is a good deal. I myself donated my custom van a few months ago to the Alzheimer's Association. I wanted to get rid of it because of the expense and and it gave me a tax deduction along with the satisfaction of knowing that it would be used for a good cause.

One of the things I share with my mother is a serious fear of spiders. While not as bad as her's I can't stand the damn things. I know that they eat all kinds of other nasties that I wouldn't particularly want around my house but that doesn't seem to alleviate my fears.

So what am I doing awake this fine evening? Watching Arachnophobia on TV. I suspect that I may be up late with nightmares...Hell, the hard part will be actually getting to sleep.

When I was helping to load the truck yesterday so that the girls could go pick up the Marine I was truly amazed. No luggage. All they had packed between the three of them was a little bitty bag to take since they aren't going to be gone long. That was pretty cool. Heck, even if I was going by myself for two days I most likely would have packed at least as much as the three of them did, of course half of it would have been gadgets :)

The hardest part of them being gone for two days is the fact that I have to sleep by myself for one night. I hate it when one of us has to go out of town without the other.

Completely off the subject but I am really starting to love that Roomba I 'won' last month. I had not really noticed until today because I normally let it vaccuum and then turn it off to take it back to the charger but when the battery starts getting low it navigates itself back and hooks up. Sweet. I ran it twice today and it managed to get back to the docking station on it's own both times. Amazon is doing their 'Customer Votes' thing again this year and one of the possibilities is a Roomba for $69. Very nice. It doesn't look as if it's going to win but that's only because these fools don't know what they are missing.

I had the post about Valour-IT up for about a week or more here sitting on the top of my blog. Through the period leading up to Veteran's Day Soldiers' Angels held their third annual fundraiser and with the help of web sites and blogs all over the world were able to raise over $200,000. That is great! Thanks to everyone that donated to help out during the fundraiser. It even got my buddy Zonker out of the closet to post for a few days. Amazing...BTW dude, I added your link back in, I had inadvertently deleted it and didn't realize it until I went looking. Sorry about that.

Anyway, The Gallery Collection is the leading supplier of business holiday cards and just recently it was announced at Soldiers' Angels that they have made a fairly sizeable donation. Anyone that runs a business knows that giving away your product for free might be one way to create awareness about your products but it can be an extremely expensive proposition because it cuts into your profits. I know because we do things on a smaller scale in the community, mainly for schools and every dime I give away is basically a dime out of my paycheck but the feeling you get being able to help out is unmatchable. Kudos to The Gallery Collection for their donation.

It might not seem like a lot but they are donating a greeting card to every soldier that wishes them Happy Holidays and Happy New Year and tells them thanks for their service. They are also putting in blank cards and envelopes for the troops to write home as well. The cards are being included in care packages that are being sent out by Soldiers' Angels.

Even though the Veteran's Day fundraiser might be over, you can still donate year round to Soldiers' Angels, just go to their web site.

I know one thing and that is that I support the companies that support our soldiers, so here is a plug for The Gallery Collection.

They have a pretty nice selection of different holiday cards for businesses and not just Christmas cards either. I found some Thanksgiving cards over there as well as many different Christmas cards for all manner of gifts. They even have calendar cards and die-cut cards to choose from.

I am lousy about sending out Christmas cards and every year I say that I am going to send them out and never do. I think that this year I will start on a smaller scale and just physically hand them out to all of my employees and managers. Next years I can deal with the whole mailing thing.

It's Velociman's fault that I even bothered going to check this stupid thing out in the first place. I can certainly see the teenage level of humor that is brought out when I post, therefore I won't argue with it.

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I was going to post this in the Thursday Thirteen yesterday but unfortunately got called in to work prior to getting anything put up so here is some of the stuff that is being searched for. Most of the searches I am getting now are coming from Yahoo, and a few from Google. Google hates me now I do believe. The amount of traffic I am receiving from their search engine is miniscule compared to Yahoo. The thing about Google is that most of the referrals I get from them stay longer and look at more pages, which means that folks are actually reading the stuff. They stay here something like ten times longer than visitors from Yahoo. Whatever.

The keywords that Google Analytics shows me pretty much matches MT Visitor Stats, so here is the list.

1. Republican Presidential Debate and 2007 Republican Debates. The great majority of the searches are finding this. How utterly boring.

2. Cleveland Shooting and Cleveland School Shooting. I had a couple of posts up about the Cleveland school shooting shortly after it happened.

3. Chester Styles. No need to say more. I posted about this scumbag a couple of times.

4. Pornotube. I mentioned Pornotube in a couple of posts what seems like a REAL LONG time ago, but am still getting hits for it.

5. Beef Curtains. You know, until Ms. Kat mentioned beef curtains awhile back I had never heard that expression in my life. I guess I was just too sheltered or something. 40 searches for this brought people to my site over the last 30 days.

6. Photo Hunt. I participate in the Saturday Photo hunt most weeks, so it's only natural that I would turn up in a search for that.

7. Cheap Disney Tickets. I have posted about our Disney trip on several occasions, and also done context links and reviews for sites that sell Disney tickets. I suppose that's doing exactly what it's supposed to.

8. Picture of Giant Spider Web in Texas. I do have this picture posted as well as some stuff about it, but not really a hell of a lot of content.

That's it for searches, at least for this morning. I know it's not 13, but this ain't the Thursday Thirteen either.

Happy Friday...

Back in the 1700's Paris cemeteries had gotten so overcrowded that the bodies wouldn't even decompose. The stench in the city was so bad that they moved a lot of them into the catacombs, which had originally been a limestone mine. This is one of the creepiest places on earth and has pretty much been off limits to the public for a long time.

 

 

Earlier this year one of my friends who has been a co-worker for the last 15 years, at times my boss and at times a colleague, decided to leave our company and start his own massage therapy business. I am not so sure that it is necessarily the right thing for him but he certainly seems to enjoy it much more than he did working with us and he is much calmer now. It's not the way to retire a millionaire but money isn't everything and if you are good at it you can certainly make a comfortable living.

One of my best friends for the last 24 years is also a massage therapist. She was going to school when we were roommates back in the eighties and it's what she's done for a living since then. I can remember being practiced on, and that was pretty cool. I'm not sure why, maybe it's because we were so young, but it seemed more the route for her than it did the guys I know that has just started doing it. Maybe because he is always so tense.

One of the biggest issues with massage therapy as a career is that even though you may be great at it, that doesn't make you a great business person. It is much easier in all types of business to learn from the mistakes of others rather than repeat them yourself and massagegeeks.com is a place to learn some of the ups and downs. It is an industry blog mainly intended for those looking for advice running a business in Massage Therapy as well as people that might be interested in becoming massage therapists.

Thanks to Jimi I got stuck at his site for quite awhile fooling around with this. Warning, it is addictive...

After that first glass of iced coffee I decided it wasn't quite sweet enough so rather than taking a spoon and stirring it up I decided to shake it up. It's got a lid, right? That was a damn mistake. Just finished cleaning up the mess but I am fairly hyped on caffeine today so it doesn't matter.

The girls get home in an hour and a half so I need to go ahead and finish up what posting I am planning on getting done.

Quote of the day:
Men live in a fantasy world. I know this because I am one, and I actually receive my mail there. - Scott Adams

I have been thinking about stopping smoking for a long time now. The problem is that I occasionally still enjoy it. Most of the time it's just a habit but I fight these things, particularly since everyone in the house wants me to stop. It's a psychological thing I guess.

One of the guys I used to work with has been in the same boat for the last few years. A couple of years back he tried hypnosis and that seemed to work briefly but not for good. Recently he has been trying subliminal messaging and thus far he has been doing a pretty good job at it. I don't work with him anymore and only speak to him on the phone occasionally so I don't actually know if he has stopped or not for real but he does claim he's not smoking at all and attributes it to subliminal CDs that he ordered off of the Internet. What's interesting is that he is creating his own subliminal tapes and subliminal CDs himself using Subliminal Studio.

Subliminal messages are supposed to be pretty powerful stuff. The only reason I haven't done anything like that is because I am always afraid I will wake up barking like a chicken or something ;) Seriously though, I looked around the site after he told me a bit about it and the whole deal looks pretty cool. I do know that a lot of people use subliminal audio to learn languages, refine their thinking so that it's sharper, even get rid of fears. Hey, maybe I should make a tape that will get me over my fear of flying before I have to go anywhere again. I am deathly afraid of flying and it would be pretty cool to get rid of that one.

I have a ton of writing I need to get finished today and for the last ten minutes or so I have been dozing off in front of my computer. I guess that shake only lasted so long. Time to go make a pot of extra strong coffee. Too bad I ran out of the good Starbucks stuff...

After my breakfast of a couple of handfuls of Turkey breast lunch meat there's not much better than a homemade chocolate shake made with Chocolate ice cream, a touch of milk, and some chocolate syrup. Damn that's good. I've had most of my major food groups now, poultry, dairy, vegetables (chocolate beans), caffeine and tobacco. Good to go.