The Daily Grind

So I’ve basically stared at the same blank word document for 2 hours trying to produce something meaningful and whimsical for you lovely folks today, instead I’ve come across one of the worst cases of writers block I’ve had in a long, long while.

                What causes writers block? See: http://www.writing-world.com/basics/block1.shtml Really good article there, and now I take some of that advice while I fight my own, inability to know what to write.

So ,my friends, what do I write about now with you folks? I can’t see anything that I’m typing and I’m just going off now with any word that comes to mind to bring out on this paper and to your eyes. It’s currently 11:19pm PST and I’m listening to Atmosphere “hope” This song is phenomenal from a written standpoint. It’s actually uplifting in lyrics, and I listen to it anytime I need to be uplifted just a little.

Today I reflected on friendships and what they mean to me and how they can change, go away, or develop into something new all together, I have made and lost a lot of friends over my lifetime. I lost a good friend to the jail system and just stopped writing to him, which is disheartening some days knowing that I let such a good friendship fall to the wayside, but really how good of a friendship was it?  Was I enabling him or him me? I don’t know, probably never will.

There are friendships I have ended because that person broke my trust, I hate losing friends but it’s a must sometimes . I have strict guidelines for friends and if I can’t trust you then you’re gone. Sorry but it’s the way it goes.

There are other people that I will be great friends with until the end of my time at least, and those people will know who they are. If you think it’s you well you’re probably right.

I lost my train of thought again, and off I go rambling back to the paper again, freewriting/blind writing scheme that I’m going on and just trying to get the words out so that I may be able to focus on what’s really necessary again. I need a moment of clarity, so that I can see what it is that I’m supposed to write about on a daily basis,, I doubt that it’s going to be that easy, nothing’s that easy.

I’ve got 34 minutes before I have to make this post, and yes folks you are getting me fighting writers block as today’s post so you can see what I go through in my head to try and bring you a post on the daily.

Now thoughts that will probably keep me out of good schools for my lifetime.

Why does Swiss cheese  have holes?

Why is money valuable? Money is oriented on paper, and paper isn’t worth what the value that we print on it is. Then why is money worth that value?

Hwy is a pickle just a cucumber?

Why did they call it pickle?

Who decided what to cal things?

That’s it folks, I’ve done all the writing that I can think to do tonight, I can’t keep babbling on about random nothingness, like banana peppers are good for plugging holes in your boat to keepe the cottage cheese monster from getting into your vessel.

Welp goodnight.

George

Hey all, still feeling like hell here, good thing I see a doc tomorrow. Until then however...

Hey guys, I'm still feeling like hell here. I'll hopefully be back up to full capacity in the next day or so. In the meantime, new picture.

Dear loyal readers,

I have nothing for you today. I'm feeling incredibly under the weather and run down. Not to mention my back feels like someone ran a sledgehammer into it.
So tune in tomorrow folks.

In the meantime, here is a picture of a cat riding a turtle.

Goodnight,
George

Today I'm going to skip all the filler nonsense and leave you with a simple message.

Don't let anyone tell you what you can and can't do, decide for yourself by doing and failing. From failure comes learning, and from learning comes the knowledge you need to succeed. I said it before, the only who is standing in your way of you doing what it is that you want, is looking back at you in the mirror.

George.

WARNING: If you are easily offended, stop reading this post, and probably this blog, as I don’t give a damn if I offend you or not, these are my views and opinions, deal with it. Now on with today’s post.

Alright I’m not going to waste anytime getting into this one, as I hold this subject near and dear to my heart

How to behave in a Retail Environment

That’s right, this is a simple guide on the do’s and don’ts, let’s be honest it’s pretty well all don’ts but take this to heart, call it what you want to, yet follow these practices.

1. This goes back to the post I made the other day*, and this is in truth the most simple rule to follow. Be nice!! I can’t stress this enough, if it looks busy, guess what? It is!!! Oh wow what a novel concept. So be patient and be polite, you will get significantly further with your endeavor following this one rule if no other.

  2. Do not wave, whistle, snap or yell. This is the fastest way to be ignored or brutally mocked behind your back. If you wave at me, I will in fact wave back at you and continue about my business, please learn to have some manners walk up to me like you would any other human being and ask me whatever question you have. Which if you’re waving at someone in order to be helped is probably as dumb as you are. If you have decided to yell across some great distance to help in order to be helped, you will be ignored. I saw this happen while I was at the grocery store the other day, this lady was screaming down an aisle for someone to assist her, of course she got helped. If it were me in that situation, I will let you yell for a couple minutes so that you can look like the jackass you truly are. If you whistle or snap, I’m going to assume you lost your dog and pay ZERO attention to you until you can grow up and use your words.

3. If you are shopping in a department store, it’s possible that you may run into a person who actually knows about EVERYTHING there, for the most part, you won’t so if you ask a question about a product in another department and the response from the salesperson you get is “Well, that’s not really my area of expertise, but I may be able to answer your question” don’t get upset when said salesperson CAN’T answer your question, you were pre-warned. You, at this point have no reason to get upset other than your listening comprehension blows nuts.

  4. If you bring your drink, food, babies crackers, your crackers, sunflower seeds, etc… don’t leave them all over the place. You are not in a bar, don’t leave your sunflower seeds all over the floor, YOU aren’t the one who has to clean up after that you ignorant slob. The person who WILL have to clean up after you, doesn’t get paid enough to deal with your bullshit. If you have some form of cracker that you happen to give your baby, FEED YOUR FUCKING CHILD IN YOUR FUCKING CAR YOU STUPID FUCK (/tangent) Your child’s mess doesn’t belong on my floor, end of discussion. If you happen to bring a drink into the store with you, the shelves are for merchandise not your garbage. I don’t think I have to go further into explanation here, however most consumers are dumber than a box of rocks (or if you’re a dear friend of mine, “cocks”) Ask me where a garbage can is PLEASE ask me where one is, if you’re decent enough to do this, I will even take the damn thing from you and throw it away. DO NOT leave your trash wherever you please real life doesn’t work like that. 

  5. If you are not getting what you want in a situation, don’t yell at the person who is, and I truly can’t stress this enough, HELP you. That’s right, we get paid to help you whether you see it as help or not, we are helping you to the furthest extent possible within our power. You yelling will only get you escorted to the door. It’s really, really sad that as a society we’ve grown accustom to yelling to get our way, it’s like as adult we regress into 3 year olds and throw a fucking tantrum because mommy isn’t buying us the toy we want. It’s fucking clown shoes. I’m done on this topic as it will only piss me off further. Moral of number 5 DON’T FUCKING YELL WHEN YOU AREN’T GETTING WHAT YOU WANT.

  6. If you enter a non commissioned sales environment, If you say you will go shop somewhere else, cool. Have fun. I don’t lose out in this scenario, you do. I have the product in stock and cheaper than wherever it is that you think you’re going to go to purchase it.

7. “The back” 

Okay, Yes there is a warehouse it is mostly full of LARGE product. So if you ask me to go check the back for something, and I say to you that we don’t keep that in the back, don’t ask me to go and check in the back. It’s not fucking back there, I know what’s kept back there, you don’t, therefor it’s not there. We don’t need to go in circles about this for 45 minutes, I will not go and check the magical mystical back because the item your looking for isn’t there. If you are still that damn stupid and persistent that you think after being continually told that the thing that you just can’t live without, that you probably didn’t know existed until an hour or two before you showed the hell up, is still in the back, I will go into the warehouse. When I go back there, I will brutally make fun of how absolutely blatantly stupid you are and come back out and tell you we don’t have it. There are no gnomes, elves, midgets, asian children, mexican children, or magicians back there making products. Products are made by companies who mass produce things and ship them to us, which can take time.

8. If we’re out of stock on something, than it means just that, we don’t have it. Like I just stated in topic number 7 Products are made by companies who mass produce them and ships them out to stores, which can take time. Why did I just type that twice? Because it’s not a new concept by any means, however, a large portion of consumers still can’t get that through their heads. Don’t get upset that something is out of stock, you could’ve called before you “drove all the way here from (x destination, 15 minutes away) and now you don’t have it” phone numbers are listed on websites, websites are those things that you can find on the internet and see if a product is in stock for most places. The internet is that thing that you use to find porn and then complain about viruses being on your computer...sorry that’s another subject all together. If we’re out of a popular item that you probably heard about on the news, don’t be surprised, again you could’ve called and asked, you didn’t. It’s not my fault you can’t leave with whatever item your life just wouldn’t be complete without.

  9. If I tell you that you’re going to NEED product B to make the product, which we’ll call product A, work then you NEED it in order to make the damn thing work. I don’t understand why you feel the need to play 20 questions afterward to “test” me on whether or not you actually need what it is I’m telling you to buy to make your damn product work when you leave. Would you argue with your doctor if they told you to take X medicine so you don’t die? No you won’t, why? They know what they’re talking about. Guess what champ, so do I. Stop arguing with your salesperson.

  10.When you can clearly see that whatever store your shopping in has closed, gather your final purchases and leave. Store hours are posted on or near the doors of pretty much every store. These are not “suggested” times you should be in the store, these are the hours of operation for this business. If everything is turned off, and you’re the only customer in the store and you realize this, which you do, then get the fuck out. The people working there also have lives and don’t want to wait for you to finish “just looking” when the store’s been closed for 20 minutes and you’re not even buying anything. Go the fuck home. 

Look folks, follow these 10 simple rules of how to behave in a retail environment, and you’ll notice a MUCH better shopping experience. 

Goodnight and have a pleasant tomorrow.

George. 

*http://halfsdailygrind.posterous.com/the-daily-grind-day-5-just-be-nice

PS. This is one of the few posts, I will ask you to share with others, please do so to improve the general shopping experience with everyone.

Cheers.

Alright, so now that I've waited until damn near the last minute for todays post.I remember why I did so, I have nothing to talk about. I spent most of my day running around to different forms of medical offices trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with my back. 

So my dear readers, I apologize for the lack of anything substantial in today's post. It's been a long, painful day. 

Highlights of today consisted of,

• my elderly Hispanic doctor molestering my ass while trying to get my vertebrae back into alignment. 
• I wore paper shorts, and was thoroughly entertained by them

Tomorrow, I will be back on track. 

George

It’s funny how sometimes a certain event or injury can trigger such a strong emotion, for some it could be the loss of an acquaintance, for others it could be a great amount of pain that causes you not to be able to do anything. For me it’s the latter, and today’s topic.

This is the now the 4^th time I’ve thrown my back out in the last year and a half, and the worst of all 4. The last 3 times I took a muscle relaxer, a couple of days off work for rest, and a heating pad and I was fine. This time however, I tried that and it didn’t work. I went to physical therapy, that didn’t help either. I tried 2 different anti inflammatory meds no help there either, the muscle relaxers have long since stopped helping leaving me to be in constant pain and limiting me from standing for any more than 5 minutes at a time really. Which you may think, “oh it’s not that bad”. Well it’s been almost a month since this happened, it’s getting old, and it’s dragging me down with it.

                The crazy array of emotions that I go through on a daily basis lately honestly scares the hell out of me. One minute I’m depressed, the next I’m happy as can be, rinse and repeat. The fact that I can’t help make dinner, or take out the trash, or help carry in groceries makes me feel bad enough, the worse part however is that simply bending over to tie my shoe, or pick something that I dropped up off the ground is something that I struggle with when a month ago it wasn’t an issue, terrifies me. I see what one of my friends is going through with their back, and when the doctors tell me that it’s muscular and that it’ll go away within a week or two, and now I’m a month into this, and it’s getting worse scares the living hell out of me. I’m really starting to think that it’s not a muscular issue and we’ll find out tomorrow what Dr Number 3 says it is. The thought of it being something more serious and me having to miss MORE work,  and being able to do less to help around the house, has spun me into one of the biggest depressed states of mind that I’ve been in in almost 10 years.  I have never felt so, I don’t even know, helpless? I guess, for lack of a better explanation of how I’m feeling.               

                I don’t know how to beat this, I can surround myself with as many good people, and as many good things as I possibly can, and yet I still feel uneasy about this, I’m still really downtrodden because it feels like I can’t do anything. I know this has to be incredibly frustrating for those around me who interact with me more so than anyone else, I.E my co-workers, my managers, my roommate, and most of all my future wife. These thoughts of how much I must be frustrating them only seem to drag me down further into the darkest pit of this nonsense called depression.

                For those that have known me for a long time, you know that I don’t like feeling or being helpless, you know I don’t often ask for help, advice yes help…no to a fault, I admit it. This, this is where my own insecurities with asking other people to  help me gets me in trouble. It’s because that I have a hard time asking for help that I feel the way that I do to a certain extent. It’s the reason I probably waited way too long to see a doctor, I hate doctors (but that’s an entirely different post all together, maybe tomorrow? Who knows) so I didn’t bother to find a doctor until I was way past when I probably should have. I feel like the worse person in the world asking my future wife for help, although if I knew she had a problem with helping me then we probably wouldn’t be engaged, right? Yet I still can’t bring myself to ask her for help 90% of the time.   

                Here’s the deal okay, I have NOTHING for which to enrich the lives of others with tonight. Tonight’s post was for me, it was so that I could get what was on my mind off it, and on to paper and out of my head. I couldn’t  torture myself with these thoughts for another day without going off the deep end.

So my dear readers, I leave you with this quote from Sir Winston Churchill

” Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.”

Until tomorrow…

George.

Thank you George, for affording me the opportunity to have something read by your viewers. Before I get into it, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Floyd, and I am George’s roommate, friend and NHL 2K11 victim. I’m 26, and a smart-ass with nothing but good intentions for most. If I am wrong George, feel free to correct me. Now onto the things that are slightly less happy.

Recently, I was notified that a friend of a friend had passed away. I had met this guy many times, and partied with him, but would never say I was his best friend. Well, let me actually take this back a few steps, and years. I used to live with a guy named Jay, and he and I were great friends. Jay had an amazing friend named Mark, who he had gone to high school and become great friends with. Mark was amazingly smart, but also was always ready to have fun. He was the type of person who would thoroughly enjoy a weekend of drinking, but never drive drunk. Anyhow, things between myself and Jay were dicey at best, and we ceased to talk and went about our separate paths in life. On occasion he and I have had important communication via his brother, but even that is limited to life threatening events. Well, I learned today of Mark’s passing. Though I wasn’t as good of friends with him, his passing has reminded me how fragile life is, and as such, I have been inspired to drag you folks along my thought process.

Having had a neuromuscular disease my entire life, I am intimately familiar with the latter portion of the circle of life. The most common form of Muscular Dystrophy has a life span of less than thirty years of age. For some, that seems like a ways away, but let me be clear. I am 26, and I should be so lucky as to have my shit together before I’m forty. Having this much experience with the looming prospect that many of my friends will not live to experience their first sexual partner, love, grey hair or first child, you would think that I’d be hardened to the idea and that it might have little or no effect on me. This is only partially true. I don’t cry when a friend dies anymore. I’m not sure if it’s because I am no longer as effected by it, or if I don’t allow myself to show the emotion, knowing that tears won’t change the situation in a favorable manner or otherwise.

When I hear of someone’s passing, no matter how good of friends we were, my mind immediately goes into over drive, and I’m instantly reminded how strong life can be, and how fragile at the same time. People have survived falls from airplanes, but fallen victim to a cold, or pneumonia or influenza. The human state is an interesting one for certain. Life is a tricky thing, and as the old saying goes, nothing is guaranteed in life, except death and taxes. Truer words may never have been spoken.

I’ve spent numerous hours contemplating what I would do, in the event I were to lose my best friend, or another family member, like my mother, whom I’m very close to. I consider myself to be mentally and emotionally strong, but there are certain things that I feel might break the glue that holds my mental state intact. Am I saying that I am crazy? Certainly not. Am I saying that an event or series of events that have yet to happen could change my mind state for the worst? Ab-so-fucking-lutely. I firmly believe that everyone has a breaking point. Great mother’s murder their children, great teacher’s have sex with their students, and great soldiers come home with mental problems. Clearly we don’t know what our individual breaking points are, but they exist.

I’ve thought about my own demise, as I assume most people have. It’s not a pleasant thought, but no doubt one that everyone will stumble upon at some point in their lives. I would also assume that the catalyst for this thought is the passing of someone else. It’s one not those things that you can’t avoid forever.. well actually you can, but it will do no good.

Ultimately, I think it is important to live life day to day, but only to an extent. Living in fear of death takes the life out of living. But living in such a way that you have every step planned may have you banking on an uncertain future. As with most things in life, moderation is key. I want to live life in such a way that I impact people’s life in a positive fashion. I want people to remember good things about me. I want to be important, just like everyone else does. It is currently January 30, 2011 2:52 AM. I may not have a January 31^st, 2011. With this in mind, I think it is important to acknowledge that we are human, weak and breakable, but don’t let this knowledge take the steering wheel to your life. Good luck with your journey!

Good evening boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, b boys and girls, graph artists, dragon slayers, lords and ladies, alright enough stalling...I get it time for todays post

Humility, what is it good for?

As defined by the dictionary the word humble is described as - 

humble
[huhm-buhl]

-adjective
-bler,-blest
1. not proud
2. low in rank, condition, etc.

-verb (used with object)
-bled,-bling
3. to lower in status or condition

Now why did I choose humility as today's topic, well simple really it goes hand in hand with yesterdays post on being civil, what I mean is that while trying to be nicer to people in general, that we can be as nice as humanly possible, however in that still be incredibly proud about things that we really shouldn't be proud about, you want examples? Good, I have them. 

For me, as a salesman, I get paid to be a little arrogant and incredibly proud of the product that I sell, meaning I know more than you do about X product, and for the most part in my mind this is fact and I'm incredibly prideful about this, however when I actually end up in an interaction with someone who truly knows more than I do, and most of the time I find this out VERY quickly, it is a good slap in the face, that while I do know a lot about what I talk about on a daily basis, there are people who actually know more than I do. It’s a humbling experience to know that I really don’t know everything. 

Another prime example of this is a situation that occurred today, I’m dealing with back issues, at this point I can breathe and throw my back out, while at work today, as I basically had to beg people to cover the end of my shift, so that I could leave to take a muscle relaxer as to not end up in a worse situation. It was an incredibly humbling experience to have to put my pride aside and say “hey I’m not in a good way, will you help me out?” This is something I have an issue with is laying aside my pride and asking for help. This, however, is something that I’ve learned about myself over the last year or so and continue to work on on a daily basis. Oh yes folks I have examples for this as well.

A year ago almost to the day, I was promoted to a supervisor level at work. So I went from thinking I knew all the answers and how to deal with every situation to NEEDING to know all the answers and how to deal with every situation. Do you want to talk about a humbling experience? Try standing in front of a group of 25 people and explaining to them why you are now in charge of them and they have to answer to you on every situation, especially when some of them are older than you or have been doing the job you were JUST doing for longer than you had been. I’m fairly positive that in the first couple of meetings I had with that team I looked like an asshole, as I just stood there and rambled on about things trying to make myself seem like the all knowing in that position. Now let’s talk about how hard I failed at that right away. However, once I could say that I needed help, I, in my opinion, began to excel at the job. 

Here’s the best (non lived) example I can think of for having to put your pride aside, and humble yourself to ask for help in a situation.

Let’s travel into imagination land kids, 

Let’s say I had to go right now and slay a dragon, not a small puny dragon, but a big breathing fire and shitting death dragon. I wouldn’t have the first clue as to how to defeat such a creature, I could grab what’s around me and go into battle with this fearsome foe clothed in a cardboard suit of armor, and carrying a dull butter knife for which to do battle with. I would probably live long enough to realize that I am a complete idiot. Now in order to survive through this situation, I would need to find an experienced knight, to find out where to purchase, and or craft a suit of fire proof armor. A sharp sword of some form for which to cut said dragons head off. I would also probably need a shield of some form to stop the fire from hitting any exposed area of myself to prevent death. I would also have to ask the knight for battle training, so that once I went into battle I could actually stand a chance at defeating said beast. 

With asking for help, I would stand a much better chance in that crazy situation than I would if I just went pridefully into it saying “No, I’ll wear cardboard I know what I’m doing, I’ve done this hundreds of times.” In the above situation, I would have a significantly increased chance of survival just by simply going “Nope, I’ve never killed a dragon before I should seek help for this.” Putting my pride aside, I increase my chance of survival. 

Now that was a fun example and pushed way to the extreme, but I think it puts things into a very concise message for what I was trying to get across in this post. By not being constantly prideful and knowing when I should stop talking and ask for help. I think this is a very simple concept, knowing when to put your pride aside and either stop speaking or ask for help. It’s not complicated folks. Let’s all work on being a little more humble, which will lead us to being more civil to each other and now we follow Georges theory from yesterday’s post and there we go.

Well now, that was a good time wasn’t it? 

To bite a line from Chevy Chase…

That’s it for the Daily Grind, I’m George, and you’re not. 

Now that today’s post is out of the way time to show a little love to some friends for some shoutouts, and just some general encouragement of what it is that I’m trying to do here. A Big thanks to these folks... 

My Roommate Floyd

My brotha from anotha motha Case P. http://201020k.com

My buddy Anthony, go check out his band!! http://www.facebook.com/granadamusic

My loving and supportive future wife.

You are all amazing. Have a good night folks.