Post by loverofbeers on Sept 9, 2014 15:41:37 GMT -5
First I want to say sorry to Jake for dropping the ball on these competitions that I sincerely love (present tense) and look forward to every month.
I am sorry, period. All apologies.
I have a few excuses all inter-related.
Back in November I picked up an old job again for the winter season while juggling shifts for three or four different local caterers. Next thing I knew I was volunteered to take my old job permanently and I was once again wearing the hat of "beer buyer" for a pretty big beer department in a big store in South Austin for the biggest liquor chain in the region.
I have been trying to catch up financially in life since the Great Recession started and so I began to work like a mule, putting in at least fifty hours at work per week and picking up any catering shifts on my days off. I became exhausted and unable by the last competition to focus on anything for two hours after getting home without passing out.
Add to that the FACT that the liquor store I was working at was a toxic environment, not just emotionally and psychologically, but chemically with pesticides being regularly sprayed inside our building but also the oft rumored presence of asbestos, I found myself more and more exhausted and developing strange headaches and "summer colds". I left that job in late July and my headaches slowly and mysteriously have lessened and almost completely disappeared. Oh yeah, pesticide-wise, all the baby birds outside our building died off in mass one weekend as well as hundreds upon hundreds of beetles that would crawl out of the wall to die on our floors. Yay!
My new job is taking a lot of energy because at forty years old I work faster and harder than my co-workers that are half my age, but I am ambitious and looking to square away a promotion and a raise ASAP. But I still get home tired and beat.
Two last excuses. My house of dogs, my dog kids, need more attention now when I get home than when they were born, and because I am that "Crazy Cat-Lady" as a guy with pooches, I have more dogs than I should, but as I've been told, they chose me not the other way around. Originally when my pups were born, I gave the vast majority away. Within weeks two of my grandkids were returned with stories I couldn't believe about how they failed to bond with new humans. One of these people, a veterinary tech told me that whether I liked it or not, in this case, Little Muta had chosen me and I HAD to keep her. And time marches on and I have a large brood and will probably be a single weird guy for the rest of my life. And I wouldn't change that now for anything. I love my kids that overwhelm me.
The last excuse is that a few months ago two things happened simultaneously: a great neighborhood bar opened up in my 'hood named Sweetwater (Cheap Pop), and I started working out on paper in an old-fashioned notebook an idea for a future business so I can stop slaving for others and making others rich and so I can start slaving for myself and make myself comfortably independent. The idea is a Latin themed bar and grill, and i don't know when I will make it happen, but I WILL make it happen in the next few years. I deserve it, and "That's the bottom line". And some day JAS will enjoy a cold libation and spicy meal with me at the future "T__ V____'s L____ B__ & G____" somewhere in Central Texas by a beautiful river. Salud! and Cheers! to that. So for a few months now after workdays I go to Sweetwater and read books on starting up businesses and write menu and drink ideas in my old fashioned paper brain.
So.... If you are still interested, how about if we start a new competition for the remainder of the month, your theme of choice, and get ready for The Fourth Annual Halloween Competition? And I will PM you my email address and phone number so you can keep me in line my friend, and make sure I have not been abducted by alien greys or FEMA. Cheers!
So Jake, my apology is there for YOU and the world to read. Cheers! my friend, to Horror films.
I am sorry, period. All apologies.
I have a few excuses all inter-related.
Back in November I picked up an old job again for the winter season while juggling shifts for three or four different local caterers. Next thing I knew I was volunteered to take my old job permanently and I was once again wearing the hat of "beer buyer" for a pretty big beer department in a big store in South Austin for the biggest liquor chain in the region.
I have been trying to catch up financially in life since the Great Recession started and so I began to work like a mule, putting in at least fifty hours at work per week and picking up any catering shifts on my days off. I became exhausted and unable by the last competition to focus on anything for two hours after getting home without passing out.
Add to that the FACT that the liquor store I was working at was a toxic environment, not just emotionally and psychologically, but chemically with pesticides being regularly sprayed inside our building but also the oft rumored presence of asbestos, I found myself more and more exhausted and developing strange headaches and "summer colds". I left that job in late July and my headaches slowly and mysteriously have lessened and almost completely disappeared. Oh yeah, pesticide-wise, all the baby birds outside our building died off in mass one weekend as well as hundreds upon hundreds of beetles that would crawl out of the wall to die on our floors. Yay!
My new job is taking a lot of energy because at forty years old I work faster and harder than my co-workers that are half my age, but I am ambitious and looking to square away a promotion and a raise ASAP. But I still get home tired and beat.
Two last excuses. My house of dogs, my dog kids, need more attention now when I get home than when they were born, and because I am that "Crazy Cat-Lady" as a guy with pooches, I have more dogs than I should, but as I've been told, they chose me not the other way around. Originally when my pups were born, I gave the vast majority away. Within weeks two of my grandkids were returned with stories I couldn't believe about how they failed to bond with new humans. One of these people, a veterinary tech told me that whether I liked it or not, in this case, Little Muta had chosen me and I HAD to keep her. And time marches on and I have a large brood and will probably be a single weird guy for the rest of my life. And I wouldn't change that now for anything. I love my kids that overwhelm me.
The last excuse is that a few months ago two things happened simultaneously: a great neighborhood bar opened up in my 'hood named Sweetwater (Cheap Pop), and I started working out on paper in an old-fashioned notebook an idea for a future business so I can stop slaving for others and making others rich and so I can start slaving for myself and make myself comfortably independent. The idea is a Latin themed bar and grill, and i don't know when I will make it happen, but I WILL make it happen in the next few years. I deserve it, and "That's the bottom line". And some day JAS will enjoy a cold libation and spicy meal with me at the future "T__ V____'s L____ B__ & G____" somewhere in Central Texas by a beautiful river. Salud! and Cheers! to that. So for a few months now after workdays I go to Sweetwater and read books on starting up businesses and write menu and drink ideas in my old fashioned paper brain.
So.... If you are still interested, how about if we start a new competition for the remainder of the month, your theme of choice, and get ready for The Fourth Annual Halloween Competition? And I will PM you my email address and phone number so you can keep me in line my friend, and make sure I have not been abducted by alien greys or FEMA. Cheers!
So Jake, my apology is there for YOU and the world to read. Cheers! my friend, to Horror films.