End of the 1st two Months

Yoo hoo People. It's late and way past my bedtime, but I really have to blog about this quickly. Today was the last day of class at work. I tell ya, it just bores me to death sitting in classroom for 8 hours a day. It reminds me of my days in school. But, it's over with thankfully. Now, I can go into the "nest" for the next part of training which is actually being on the phones. Our instructor, today, made us all feel special. It was about 3pm and she let us go on our last break for the day. When we got back, she said that she had to give us a speech. She gave her speech and then she hit the play button on her boom box she had brought in. The music started playing and she kept telling us to wait, it was coming. Finally, the "graduation" song started playing and she passed out our certificates for passing the class. She had already given us a diploma on Monday for dealing with the past 6 weeks of "stress". I just thought it was a cool thing for her to do. Just a quick note, on tonight's LOST. OH MY GOD, I THINK I'M GONNA EXPLODE. It was a great episode and touching in a way. Hurley always is the one to keep the ice broken. And tonite, he continued on. I think I have always been the kind of guy to make people laugh and smile even when they are down. It seems most of the time, LOST always brings a tear to my eyes every week. Rousseau is back, she is one of my favorite characters, and now that she knows her daughter is alive and with "the Others" I hope they keep her more in the spotlight. I got a bad feeling someone or some people are gonna die next week. So it should be interesting. Anyways, I'm off to bed, I got 1 more long day ahead of me. Orientation for work I'm sure will be boring as all most orientations are. Peace OUT to all and to all PEACE out! LOL.

March Madness

Greetings, People. I hope you all had a great weekend. I know mine went very well. I went with a new friend out on the town Saturday night. We rode over to St. Petersburg and he showed me around some. We had a great time. I slept in today and we went for dinner. I watched Amazing Race. I have always thought that was a great reality show. I would love to be in that. Since that went off, I have been watching the Oscars. There have been a lot of "automatic give me's" but there have been some surprises as well. I got the bedroom cleaned up and did the laundry. It's nice having a washer and dryer at home. I always hated doing laundry before having to go the laundrymat, but now it's simple. Throw it in and walk away. To whoever invented the washer and dryer, We all thank you, LOL. Well, its past my bedtime, guess I will record the rest of the Oscars. Oh yeah, be sure to watch Oprah's special tomorrow night on ABC. I think she should be President. Hehe. As always, Peace out!

These Boots Are Made For Walking...

Good afternoon, People. Here it is 230pm on Saturday and I'm still laid up in the bed. We got home from work yesterday afternoon. I had a few drinks. Rachael and I went out last night. I was itching to get out of the house an celebrate my passing the class at work. So we ended up deciding on going down to Ybor City. Remember those $6.99 cowboy boots I blogged about several months back? Well, I finally put them to use. I put on my tight black jeans and those boots and I must say, I looked pretty good in them. I haven't walked in boots in many years. Forgot what it was like walking in them. LOL. Rachael laughed her ass off for a while. When we got to Ybor, we started bar hopping. We went to Coyote Ugly first. If you have ever seen the movie Coyote Ugly, this bar is just like in that movie. They always play great variety of music and have a decent crowd. Then we stopped while I grabbed a slice of pizza. Then we went on down to Wranglers. Its the gay country bar. We had a blast in there. I dont think I have drooled as much in a long time. I'm determined to remember how to dance again. When I lived in Atlanta back in the day, I loved going to Hoedowns. Country bars are the best because everyone is friendly to everyone. We had several rounds at Wranglers and went back to Coyote. We had another round and decided we were having more fun oogling at Wranglers and went back there. LOL. She went and got us a shot. When I asked her what it was, it was TEKILLIA. I'm not a huge fan of it. It always gives me a headache the next day. Plus when I lived in Atlanta, I had a bad run in with Jose Cuervo. LOL. We put the top down on the car and rode home. I dont know what time it was exactly when we got home, but I know as soon as I hit the pillows I was out like a light. If I had my digital camera, I would have taken some pictures. Damn burgulars. LOL. So of course, I woke up with a splitting headache today and hungover, which is something I rarely ever feel. But, we had such a good time. Well, speaking of good times, I think I am off for a nap. Til I blog again, Peace out!

Testy Thursday

Hello People. Well, here it is Thursday. It has been a rather good week. It seems to have flown by. LOST seems to be getting on track again. They are finally answering questions but adding more food for thought as well. I called the sheriff's office today and checked on our case. The detective told me that the prints that came back, didn't have any luck. The kid next door is still a suspect, but he hasn't confessed to anything. They searched the house and found that he had a unlicensed gun under his bed. So they are investigating that in itself on a different case. I took the final test today at work. It was the hardest test yet. With all the 30 different types of medicaid and regulations that go along with them, I felt like my head was about to explode. But, I passed it with a 79. So my average after 3 tests was 80 and I am rather happy with that. Considering that I had no clue as to what all was involved with working for the Dept of Children and Families. We found out today that they arent wasting no time at all to hire everyone in our class. They are planning on hiring us March 9 or March 23. Our last day of class is next Wednesday. Then we go into the call center in the "nesting" area. I'm looking forward to it. I can't believe I am as homesick as I am. I have moved many times through my adulthood and this is the only time that I have been this way. I miss being in Daytona, because of my friends and good times that we had. I could have been having a grand time here if it wasn't for the burglary. But, we have to move on best we can. What was supposed to be almost instantaneous settling when I moved here, has turned out to be somewhat just like a typical day in my life. LOL. The weather last week was frigidly cold. But, this week it has been in the upper 70's during the day and in the low 60's at night. I love sitting out on the back porch or out in the back yard in the evening before the sun sets. It's a great way to wind down for the evening. Speaking of winding down, I'm gonna hop off of here and chow down on some leftovers. Have a good one, PEACE OUT!!

"Moanday"

Good night, People. If you didn't watch the Daytona 500, yesterday, you missed out on a spectacular finish. I'll be damned if Mark Martin didn't have that race at the end. I don't ever recall an ending like yesterday. With the race red flagged, I was practically doing all I good to get Mark across that finish line first. Rachael apparently doesnt like the races. I thougt yesterdays race shows that its a sport that you never know what's gonna happen. Kevin Harvick came from 7th to beside Mark in a matter of the last two laps. With wrecks behind them happening, those two literally raced to the finish line. Kevin beat Mark by, get this, 0.02 seconds. One of the driver's actually slid across the finish line on the roof of the car before it somehow rolled back over on all four wheels. I was yelling at the tv wall like I was right at the track. In all the years, I lived in Daytona, I always wanted to go to the rack track but never did. I would like to go one day. So, I guess I woke up a little pissy this morning. Then when getting to work, the instructor, decided to not even explain anything all day, and just slammed us with some cases that we were completely clueless about. So, it was just a "Bah Monday". After work, Rachael I went over to her brother's, Grant, house. He's downsizing a lot before moving into an apartment in the next month. We went and picked up the grill, and this great outdoor patio set. We actually fit thisbig grill along with the 6ft table with 6 chairs and this 8ft umbrella. So, we got it back here to the house and got it unloaded. Rachael took the truck back to his house and got her car. While she was gone, I got everything set up on the back porch. I put the the table and 4 chair in the screened in porch and took the other 2 chairs outside in the back yard and set up that big umbrella over them. She got back in perfect timing. Even with this big table and grill on the back porch, I still have room for extra chairs and my triangle table. I can't wait until I an get the fabric for the curtains back there. Hopefully I can budget it by mid-March after getting the bills paid. LOL. But, the house is coming along slowly enough. If it weren't for the break in, I think we would be done by now. We are throwing our housewarming party March 18th. It will be a blast. Well, it's 1150pm and I should have been asleep an hour ago. Enough with blogging tonite. Peace out!

1st Race of the Season

Vroom vroom people. It's the Great American Race. I'm sitting here in my recliner watching the open ceremonies to the Daytona 500. Big and Rich sang the national anthem and it brought tears to my eyes. I think NASCAR is the most dangerous sport there is out there. I think its amazing for them to fly around the track 200+ mph and when they crash or wreck they can practically walk away from it. The skill it takes to race around a track non-stop for 3+ hours. I remember when I met Richard Petty and Kyle back in '00. They used to stay at LaPlaya Resort when I worked there. Richard was such a nice guy. I do miss Daytona in a way for the special events. I have rooted for Mark Martin for several years. And he is semi-retired and he lives in Daytona. It all boils down to who crosses that finish line first. I woke up this morning and pretty much rolled right out of bed and started on some cleaning up around the house. I got the bedroom cleaned up, hung the shower curtain, swept all the floors, did the laundry, and emptied the dishwasher. Cooked a nice dinner yesterday. Grilled some chops, made some pasta salad and black eye peas, and baked some banana nut muffins. Not sure why, they seem to come out dry. I follow the instructions and they come out warm tasting great, but then dry up. Anyone know what to do to fix it, let me know. Well, the race is about to start, wish them luck and safe race. Peace out!

It's the weekend...

Hello People. Here it is 1245p, Saturday afternoon and I am still laying in bed. It's cold outside. It got down to about 30 last night and they are calling for the same again tonite. I must comment on the episode of Grey's Anatomy that I saw last night. It was 2 hours long and I was glued to it the entire time. I am going to have to watch the conclusion next week when it comes on. I finally decided to leave the "nest" (home) last night and met up with a couple of new friends. They took me out to a nice bar, here in town. We played pool for a few hours and had some drinks. It was actually a great evening out. I only won 1 game of pool and that was by scratch. LOL. Next time we go, I'm taking my stick maybe I will play better. I would love to have my own pool table. This week has been an interesting one at work. I have never in my life, seen so many different types of medicaid. They all do the same thing, but all are coded differently. The instructor started going over them all in one day, and I thought my mind was gonna explode there on the spot. I still haven't been able to get them all down. We only have one more test, and then it's just patience til 2-27. After the 27th we should go into the call center for good. I will be in what they call the "nest", which is the training part of the call center. We will actually be taking real calls and working with real cases, so I'm looking forward to that. I feel the actual classroom setting learning all the policies that comes along with the job, is about to make my head just turn to mush. Getting out in the call center will be so much better training for me. Hands on is the best way I learn and much faster as well. Still no news on the break-in. Hopefully patience pays off. Well, I think I am ready for a nap, yes a nap. LOL. Talk to you next time. Peace out!

Terrific Tuesday

Hello Everyone, it was not that bad of a day here. I went to work/class and we went over the practice test we took yesterday. I did terribly on it. I missed 8 out of 19. That's not good. This test seemed to be harder than the last test we took. So our instructor let us have a quick break before taking the actual test. I, of course, went out and smoked a cigarette. The entire time, telling myself, that I was determined to make an 85 on it. We took the test and I actually felt pretty confident on it. But, me being the bad-test taker I am, found out, after we got another break while the instructor finished grading them, that I had missed 3 questions on the test already. I was dreading going back in there. We couldn't actually go over the test since a fellow classmate called out today. So we were handed our test score on a piece of paper. I took the paper and closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I knew I hadn't made better than a 90 because there wasn't a sticker on it. Yeah, here I am 31 years old and would have really gotten excited to see a "terrific" sticker. I made an 83.5 on the test. I was very surprised. So, my mentality immediately switched into the next gear. Forget the test and prepare for the next one. The instructor passed out the next "module" that we will go over the week or so. Me being the comedian in the class, of course, made some remark about the 200 pages she handed us. So, I recommended to one of the classmates, that I hang with, that we go to celebrate lunch. We went to this awesome restaurant, a couple of blocks down the street from work called The Cuban Sandwich Shop. It's about the size of a Wendy's. There literally wasn't a seat left in the place when we sat down. I ordered a large Cuban sandwich. It was off the chain. After that, we got back to work just in the nick of time. We got out of the car, and a bolt of lightning came out of nowhere. It scared the $hit out of me. I finally got a hold of Missy today. We chatted for a little bit when I got home. Rachael and I watched one of my favorite movies, Sordid Lives. It's one of those movies, that I laugh my ass off every time. Sometimes, I think it's my life in a nutshell. I feel like a couple of the characters in it. Still, nothing new on the robbery. I was hoping to hear something. But, I am not gonna harass the deputies. I'm sure, that if they find something, they will call us. Growing up, when we got robbed several times while going through high school, it was detrimental then. But, now, I guess, we are just another victim of another statistic. I'm not gonna even try and replace the majority of what was stolen. But, I do wanna, try and replace my LOST season 1 and 2 DVDs and I wanna replace as much of the home automation stuff that I had. I am looking into a wireless camera system. I found a nice 4 camera set that I can hook up to a VCR and it can record all the time, or when someone triggers it. I've always been one to enjoy having gadgets. Before the robbery, I was gonna use the majority of the home automation stuff for my bar. But, its ashame, now I have to instead replace them and use them for security reasons. I will make the best of it. Well, I guess I have rambled enough, I am hitting the sack. Peace out and Happy Valentine's Day to all.

Day 44

Hola People. Hope all is going well with you all. Not too much exciting going on. Work is going along. We have a test tomorrow on "Expenses and Income". I've never been one good with numbers. So I hope it goes well. I'm shooting for an 85 but would like a 100.It's 20 questions, open book (100 pages, we have gone over in the last week).There's a few problem solving questions. Then whats countable income or expenses or not. That's whats tricking me. I'm just ready to get through class and get out in the call center. But, I am slowly getting used to working bankers hours and having weekends off. I thought about it the other day, and it feels like a nice change from the 14 years in the hotel business. I've been somewhat homesick lately. Getting Missy to answer his phone is like plugging an elephant with diarrhea. He's never been one up on the technology. Hell, he just got his first cell phone ever last year. He still doesnt know how to do anything with it. He did send me a card today. I couldnt figure out who it was from by glancing at it. Being Missy, the return addy was : B. Deveroux 5161 Richmond St Miami, Fl 32176. Well me, being the dork I am, can't think of anyone I know that lives in Miami. Well, I get in the house and finally open the card, and I read the front, and opened it, and laughed my ass off for a couple of minutes. He enclosed a B&W picture of this old lady with one hand on her hip and the other up to her head. That helped the homesickness a little bit. However, this weekend, Rachael and I finally "christened" the house. We mixed some drinks and Lisa stopped by. We had a grand ol' time. We did my version of "skareoke". For those of you who have brighthouse cable, and have digital cable check out the Oxygen On Demand. They have a lot of songs on there you can sing. You all know I'm not a singer. We had a blast singing away. I slept in until about 3pm on Sunday. It was great. I'm slowly adjusting to waking up at 630. Last night, we watched the movie The Guardian. Way cool movie. I shaved my head last night. I went back to the smooth look. I got rid of the mustache and kept my little chin goatee. I've always liked that look on me. I just need to get some sun. Last time I did it was back in August. Well, I'm off to bed. Hope you all the best. PEACE OUT!!!

A special anniversary...

Hello people. Hope everyone is doing well. Here it is Tuesday night and I'm getting very anxious. Tomorrow is the beginning of 16 non-stop weeks of LOST. I don't know what it is about this show. But, I follow it online and know a lot about it. We are going to be getting some answers before the season finale. Unfortunately, out of all the DVD's I lost, (no pun intended), my favorite ones were both seasons of LOST. Each year it has come out, I buy it that day. I am going to have to replace them before season 4 starts in Sept-Oct. Speaking of "that", I got a call from the deputy today and he was just making sure that Lisa's car was okay to be in our driveway. The deputies came back out today and talked again to the neighbors. He told me that one of them is a "suspect/person of interest" in our break-in. So we are keeping our fingers crossed. I haven't slept right ever since it happened. I am at the midpoint of class for work. I tell ya, it's pretty mind boggling with all the policies that come with job. I have seen more abbreviations than I ever wanna see. But, I have faith that it is going to be easy out in the call center. We spent a day in the call center last Friday and I thought it was interesting. You get to hear a lot of different stories and pleas from people out there on medicaid, food stamps, and cash assistance. So I am having a positive outlook on this, where as in the hotel business in the call center, it was a different atmosphere by far. In this position now, this is the opportunity to reach out and help people in need. It's almost like I'm returning the special favors that have been given to me. Tomorrow, February 7, is a special day in my life. Every year it is a day that I reminisce about that day back in 1986 when my family drove 4-5 hours away to pick me up from the group home in the mountains of NC, where I had been for over a year. I was 10 yrs old, and who knows where I really was in life. My family adopted me and brought me into their lives and here it is 21 years later, and I feel I am such a better person. I have always said that I feel like a teenager. I never got to experience life as a normal kid. I will never forget the endless nights we would play the Atari 2600 (river raid, pitfall, frogger, freeway and plenty more, oh yeah dig dug). I know that there have been many a tough times over he years, but I guess that comes with all families. But, in the end, we are still connected, even if its 500 miles away. My family and closest friends are the reason why I went from a troubled child at 10 years to the man I am now. Thank you all for your support, advice, and guidance over the years. Happy Anniversay to my Family. To all of you, I love you all!!! Peace out!

Some Welcoming Committee...

Woo Hoo, it's the weekend. But, it's been a helluva week. It all started with work. I had my first test. It was open book. I felt pretty good about it, but I made some stupid mistakes and missed some that I knew I had trouble with. I did pass the test, but by the hair on my nose. Rachael and I got more of the house setup. It's looking pretty good. But, we had a major setback on Thursday. While we were at work, our house was burglarized. They rummaged through every cabinet and drawer throughout the house. They swiped all of our dvd's, both of our laptops, her jewelry, my home automation collection, and my laptop bag that had all my accessories along with my digital camera. I've been pretty sad the last couple of days because my laptop had my life on it and it's gone as fast a blink of the eye. Luckily they overlooked the box that had my projector in it. They opened it up and took the packing paper out and walked away from it. They didn't take my 1 day old surround sound system I bought. We called the police and did the usual routine. The cops took pictures and lifted a few fingerprints. Maybe if we are lucky, we might get our things back. But, in today's times, it's probably very unlikely. I had awesome plans to spend my income taxes wisely and get the house looking even better. But I had to replace my computer. We get robbed on Thursday, and I get my taxes deposited on Fri. I guess it worked out at the right time, We were able to replace the laptops without going in the hole unexpectedly. I was very depressed handing the clerk at Best Buy my debit card to buy my new laptop. But, all we can do is move on and learn. I pretty much spent a good part of the day today installing locks on the sliding glass doors and and on the other entry doors of the house. We got the alarm that came with the house up and working too. If there is a next time, I hope they are prepared to meet the new guard dog and/or a gun. I'm seriously considering taking a gun safety course and having a gun with me. I'm going to have a safe installed into my closet and keep my valuables in there along with some excellent hiding spaces in the house. I got the projector shelf installed and surround sound set up today. I think the setup will be perfect in the living room. We got curtains hung in the living room and kitchen. Black in the living room with red sheers and red curtains in the kitchen with black sheers. It's all coming together. I'm determined to keep my chin up and move forward as best we can. As my motto says "Living the simple life, making it the best that I can". Oh, Daytona has been hit again by a very nasty round of Tornadoes. This time it was much worse than the storms that hit on Christmas day. At least 20 people across the state lost their lives to the tornadoes that hit in the wee hours of the morning. There was devasting damage across the Daytona area. If you are interested...check out www.newsjournalonlne.com and read the local paper there to find out more. This time they had a tornado hit Thursday night and then again on Friday night. It's frightening to see Mother Nature is blind andjust ravages anyone in her path. Well, I've had about 8 hours of sleep since Weds. night. My body is craving sleep, so I am gonna hit the sack. Peace out!