2013 Shot Show

I had the chance to go to the Shot Show 2013 in Las Vegas this year. I happen to have a good friend that has a Internet forum that allows him access to the firearms world. He runs the mossbergowners.com website where he does all sorts of product testing and reviews. This is the 3rd year that he has gone to the Shot Show, this is where he cultivates contacts and vendors that helps grow his website. Like I said previously I had an opportunity to join him this year and I geared up and flew out with him. My main goal for the trip to be honest was to get as much free stuff as I could but I wound up getting educated on a grand scale. I was introduced to companies and fire arm systems that I would have never been able to see, feel or learn about anywhere else. I was schooled on all manors of optics, ammunition and weapon platforms. I came away from this trip with a greater understanding on how the world of firearms works and operates. I would like to chronicle my time out at the Shot Show from the view of a new gun owner that has had little exposer to assault rifles, optics, and ballistics. So, lets get started!

Let me fill you in on some of my background before I get into the meat of everything. I grew up in a normal(ish) family, I have a mother, father and a little sister. I grew up and lived in the great (now the most upside down) state of New York. My family wasn't much into the hunting aspect of upstate New York but guns have always been apart of my life one way or another. I grew up playing with plastic guns (that would get me killed now if I pointed them at any type of law enforcement) bows and arrows. My father always told me to treat any type of weapon as if it was able to kill something. At the age of 5 I didn't get the concept of death and killing so I would always point my toy guns at anything I saw and pull the trigger. That didn't fly with my father who would take the toy gun from me and destroy it right in from of me. I got the point real quick to never point a gun at anything unless I wanted to make it go bye-bye. Then as I got older I was introduced to real firearms. At the ripe age of 11 I shot my first gun, it was a glock 17 and it was provided to me by my cousin who was at the time a Marine. The second gun I shot was a full size AR-15, it didn't take me long to fall in love with firearms after that.

Fast forward 16 years and here I am. I have my CCP l, I own a Glock 19 and a Mossberg 500 20 gauge pump shot gun. I had fallen out of sorts with the firearms world but working in the security field had opened my eyes again to that world. I will be the first one to tell you that I have very little knowledge of assault rifles and I'm not going bullshit my way through a conversation. I am just not exposed to that world, until recently. I work with law enforcement where I am employed and they have taught me so things about the world of assault rifles but it wasn't enough for me. I wanted to know more and I wanted to know now! So when the opportunity to fly out to Vegas came to go to the shot show, I jumped on it!

Now onto the meat and potatoes of this so far uninformative rant I have going. My good friend Dan was my main point of contact for all the information that was pumped into my head. He owns numerous weapons and is highly educated in that world.

One thing that I couldn't figure out was why I kept seeing .308 and .223 every where but I rarely saw 7.62x51mm or 5.56. I thought that was slightly odd, and then I asked why this was? When I was told they were the same thing (.308 and 7.62x51mm are the same damn thing!) (along with the .223 and 5.56 which are virtually the same.... 5.56 having a bit more pressure behind it) it was just what part of the world you are in, metric and imperial forms. That blew my mind! Seriously, all this time I thought there was a huge difference in the 2 rounds. Nope all the same. So if you already knew this good job, but I will be the first one to tell you, most of the world doesn't know that!

Another aspect of the AR world that I had no idea about was the rifle it's self. There was so much you could have or do to it! From a gas system to a piston based system. I didn't really get to much into detail with that but what I gathered was that the gas system used the spent gases from the ammunition to cycle the weapon as oppose to the piston system that used rods and recoil to cycle the weapon (if I am wrong please let me know!). Dan owns a P.O.F AR and from what I saw and felt this thing was amazing and would perform amazingly. This was as opposed to the Mossberg AR I got to pick up and hold (sorry guys, just giving my opinion here). You can just tell how an AR will operate just by holding it. I have found that the lighter more solid the feel the better performance your going to get out of it. Also I had no idea that people literally build their own AR's. I was under the Assumption that you need to buy the whole rifle then you could change out things. Nope, I was told that I could buy the lower and then just start building from there! At that point my eyes opened up to the possibilities and my mind just took over from there.

What I want everyone to take out of this is; no one know unless they have a open mind and are willing to dive in and get educated. That's the main reason our government and the general populous are in an up roar over gun control. They are uneducated, if they want to ban something and strip away one of our constitutional rights then they need to be educated. Rather than having new rules for owning guns they should all take a gun course. That's what my wife did, she was terrified of me shooting a gun let alone owning one. We went (my wife and I) out took out carry and concealed course and after that she came away with a greater respect for firearms and wasn't afraid of them. People just need to be educated.

I will never give up my right to own fire arms, and if the government strips us of our constitutional right to bare arms then they will have to come and get them.

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

-Lead Monkey

Sh** I see as a security guard.....

As you all know by now I am a security guard at a mall down here in North Carolina (and if you didn’t know read my last post.....). So I get to see a lot of weird and down right stupid stuff at work, especially now that I work 3rd shift. It runs the gamete from a kid running into a concrete pylon to people dressed up like Boba Fett, and everything in between. Not to mention the crazy stuff my coworkers say and do (*shudder*). Its almost too much for me to put in one post (so I wont). So here is one notable experience I have had as of late....
*DISCLAIMER....ALL NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED OR OMITTED DUE TO LEGAL ISSUES * That being said I will however use nicknames, aliases or any other descriptive names that we have used in-lew of real names.

This actually happened today....

It is 8 o’clock and I am outside of our movie theater, and I look out into the parking lot and I see a man and his wife (assuming) get out of their car. No big deal right........ oh noooooooo..... as this guy hops out of the car I turn around to help a mall customer and then turn back to him and all I see is this guy in a wheel chair (not to be mean or make fun of handicapped people) with no legs and 2 metal rods sticking out of his stumps. The guy looks like a war vet so I pay him no mind and keep moving along on my patrol. The key part to this story is I was the only one to see this guy and you really don’t forget something like that. About an hour passes and we get a call over the radio that *a big chain shoe store* was hit, and the person that committed the larceny was in a wheelchair and had no legs. No one could give a good description of the guy because he was in an out of the store so fast that no one really saw him. At that point I am thinking to my self...... “ this can’t be some coincidence, this was the same guy I saw earlier...... its not everyday you see a double amputee.” So I get on the radio and give a description of the guy, bare in mind we are trained to give descriptions that everyone can get. So I had to tell everyone the guy had no legs and he had metal spikes coming out of his stumps (I wasn’t trying to be funny or mean it is just how we are trained to give out descriptions, you have to remember the more memorable the description the better chance we have of catching or finding the people.) Now we have the police that are off duty working the mall looking for this guy. I just happen to be outside our main entrance when 2 people approach me. They look really nervous and are kind of frantic. They tell me they are looking for a tall white female (now the next sentence I am going to say came directly out of their mouths) and she is pushing a guy in a wheelchair and he aint got no legs, they are stumps and we are his ride...... I cannot make this stuff up, even if I tried.... Also this is the first time that I have ever had a larceny happen and the get away driver can’t find the person and go looking for our help. So naturally I play dumb and I be super nice and get on the radio and tell everyone that I have 2 people that are looking for a man in a wheelchair with no legs ( everyone is already looking for this guy and knows what is going on) they are his ride and are worried about him. At that point the police come up behind me and as nice as he could be asks where they are parked (so he knows where to go to bust the guy if they do wind up finding him) and they are more than happy to tell him where they are parked. Now at this point myself, the police officer and 2 other security guards are in disbelief that these 2 people are basically going to lead us to the larceny suspect. Another 5 mins passes and low and behold they come BACK to me and tell me they found him, so again I get on the radio to let everyone know where this guy is and that the 2 people have found him. At that point the police go to where the suspect is and arrest him for larceny.

Now this is where it gets funny..... to certain people. As they bring the suspect back to our office, they 2 people that I was so nice to and very helpful finally figure out that I was playing them for information on the whereabouts of the suspect come out of the main entrance that I am posted at. When I tell you if looks could kill..... i would have been a dead man. they stared me down the whole way to the door, going out the door and heading to their car. All I could do was laugh, because criminals and there friends are really really dumb sometimes. So now as the situation calms down and we locate the stolen merchandise we discover he has hit about 5 other stores in the mall as well (you never think of a man in a wheelchair to do stuff like that but in this line of work its common). After its all said and done the man is leaving our office to go to his car which is in the back lot of our office.

*IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED OR FIND THINGS THAT ARE WRONG UNFUNNY PLEASE SKIP THIS NEXT COUPLE OF SENTENCES*

As he is leaving the office he goes to leave and as he does one of our officers walks out side and finds the guy on the ground..... he misjudged the curb in his haste to leave, he basically face plants on the ground (yes people were laughing, not because he might have got hurt, it was because the guy was a douche bag). To make things worse he had been insulting the officer. So although he is disabled, karma is a bitch..... THEN his wife is driving the car and nearly (and when i say nearly she was about 3 inches away) hits the police officers car, needless to say I got most of this on camera (and no it is not worth losing my job to post the video).

That is just one experience I have had working this job. I have a ton more but they will have to wait till next time. Like I said before some will be sad, some will be funny and some will just leave you scratching your heads.






Till next time...... Yeknom now, or Yeknom later.... its all Yeknom!

This is becoming a regular thing now.....

Now that I have caught you up on the wedding, I shall go on and finish up where I left off in my life thus far. As I mentioned before I have acquired a new job.... in no small part to an awesome new friend. So let me tell you how I came upon this new job, it really started towards the tail end of my last post about my life. I was getting fed up with the GLOBAL car windshield replacement and repair company and I wanted to find something closer to my house. Naturally I go looking at the closest place i can find that has a bevy of options for me to inquire about...... the mall.... Yes I can hear you peoples of the Internet now.... “why would you leave a GLOBAL company to work at a mall” well the short answer to that is DISTANCE. Yes taking a pay cut does suck but when you live 5 mins away from our job, you make it up in the fuel you would have spent going to a job that's an hour away... every day.... in traffic.... in a jeep that isn't exactly the most reliable mode of transportation I have had. But that's a story for another time..... getting back on topic here. As I was searching the mall for my next “job”, I just happened to be in the right spot at the right time (well my wife was in the right spot at the right time... I was asking the cleaning crew at the mall if they had any spots open... that's how desperate I was to leave the shitty place.) when the security guard for the mall asked my wife if I was looking for work, and my wife being the super social butterfly that she is told her my life story. Turns out that the mall were looking to take on some new hires... (the first person to crack a Paul Blart joke will be maced and handcuffed o a cow that was fed burritos for dinner....) What I didn’t know at the time was the security guard that told me to apply was going to turn out to be a new good friend of mine. Jump to a few weeks later and BOOM... I got the job, mainly because of Toni (last name with held until I can clear it with her to use in my blog.) she really pushed for me to get this job... all after maybe talking to her for all of 5 mins. I really cant thank her enough, this job so far (i have only been working as a security guard for 6 months) has been the best job I have ever done. Wait I take that back.. that word JOB... I have worked jobs before but this... this is going to be my career. The sense of duty, pride and accomplishment I have working here is something I have never felt before. Yes I know right now I am only a mall security guard, but hey you have to start some where right? I have always wanted to get into the security field, but in NY it is very hard. Mainly because you have to pay to get a licences and that is very very expensive, and the only way to get a job in security is to have experience. So yeah go figure right, cant get the license because its expensive and cant get the job with out a license. Back to my topic yet again, I have found my calling.... people have always said I should be a bouncer or a body guard... mainly because I am built to look tough and mean. But working here has just made me realize the potential I have in my self to go far in this field. And now 6 months in I feel like I want to become a police officer. I can utilize my experience here in the mall and translate that in to a law enforcement career. I know its not going to be easy, and I know its not going to happen over night, but I am going to use this JOB as a mall security guard as a stepping stone to bigger and better things! My ultimate goal is to take all my security knowledge I have now and will get in the coming years and put that towards a career in law enforcement and hopefully take the law enforcement and turn that into a private security career. That's where I ultimately want to take all of this, Private Security. Nothing crazy like Academi, but something in those lines.

So now here comes the fun part.... I have caught everyone up on my life up until now.... Now its time to have some fun. I will be regaling everyone with my stories that I have acquired over the past few months. Some personal and some from work related happenings. Some of it might suck and be boring and hopefully some will be funny and intriguing. You all should know by now that I really don't hold back on here and I kinda speak my mind (because that's how I type... what ever comes out of my head goes down on paper.... not exactly English major stuff here but hell its my brain and this is how it works!) So sit back and enjoy the ride because I am going to be making this blog a regular thing now......


Till next time......

If you don’t know...... now you Yeknom!

The Wedding.....

Now on to the wedding…
I am not going to bore you fine people with the planning of the wedding but I will tell you this.. We both did not want a huge wedding and we both did not want a stuffy and boring wedding (sorry to those who have typical weddings and the lot but we aren’t like that.. but to each their own). So we decided on a VEGAS WEDDING! Not the little white chapel style but a semi-traditional wedding type. The biggest thing we wanted to get across in the wedding was that we wanted to have fun with the people we love. We wanted to share our happiness not hoard it to ourselves. The venue was the Hilton grand hotels roof, on April 9th 2011. We invited 25 of our immediate family and closest friends. When I said we were going to have a small wedding, I wasn’t kidding.

The wedding itself was pretty straight forward... the priest said some words... we repeated those words and boom... we were married. You guys know the part of the ceremony when the priest asks the father who is giving the bride away. Normal people would just say I and her mother do... but nope... not us. My wife tells my father in law to say “Daddy-o and Momma Dearest” (god i love my wife). You would think that on the most important and touching day of her life she would want to proper.. but nope that's why I married her.. because she can have fun in ANY given situation. And I have to admit when I saw Cyndi coming down the aisle I nearly lost it and almost broke down and cried.... you would have too!!!!! so shut up!


I asked my best and longtime friend Danny to be my best man. We go back… wayyyy back and I couldn’t think of anyone else that I would want next to me on such a big day. Oh and our reception was at Lowery’s …. If you haven’t been to Lowery’s YOU DO NO KNOW WHY YOU ARE MISSING! They have THE BEST and when I say THE BEST prime rib I mean it…. I know my meat! I got the King cut… that is over 2 inch thick cut of prime rib… on the bone.. and I ate it all… when I say all… I mean I gnawed on the bone for a good 30 mins. For the reception after the amazing meal we did the “traditional” stuff.... dad and daughter danced... then son and mother dance... you know the “normal” stuff. But the funniest thing of the night was when we did the throwing of the garter/flowers my mothers boyfriend (yes my parents are divorced) and my fathers girlfriend caught them...... yeah.... i busted out laughing!!!! Then we got into a party bus that was supposed to take us around the stirip and show us the sights... but that was sort of a bust because the limo service canceled on us at the last minute and we had to find a replacement.... this happened twice to us! But all in all this was the best wedding that I will ever have... I spent it with my best Friend, my wife and all of our closest family.

Ok I am jumping around here so bear with me… its 5 am and I am writing this as it comes to my mind.

But before all of that happened we got to spend a couple of days in Vegas baby! The first thing I did was head out to the casinos… and when I tell you I had lady luck on my side you better believe it. So I had a friend at work give me $10 to play on 31 at the roulette tables as a wedding gift. So there I am with my soon to be wife, my best man and 2 great friends (they are my wife’s best friend and her wife…. Yes they are partners…. Just letting ya’ll know). Now I am chomping at the bit to plop this $10 on a table and see where I takes me but my best man Dan tells me something that everyone should do. He says “you need to find a table that is packed with people so when you win big EVERYONE knows!” So we all go looking for the most packed table we can find… and we come across a table in the Paris hotel and casino that is so full that I had to sort of elbow my way in. I get my $10 in chips and put it on 31…. And let it roll! As the ball goes round and round the wheel I am thinking to myself “yeah 31 is not going to hit and I just blew $10 on a game a random chance and luck” but then as the ball started to make is final circle around the wheel I get this strange sensation like something is about to happen…. *tink tink* the ball drops on its final resting place….. 31….. all I can tell you is that everyone at the table stopped and looked at me (mainly because I was shouting and clapping my hands and high fivin anybody and everybody around me… and I might have said HOLY FUCKING SHIT…. In a not so subtle voice) but you know what… Dan’s advice worked… I won big ($310 which pretty much paid for the food and drinks for the honeymoon). This was a good start to what was going to happen while we were in Vegas.

Till next time......

Let the Yeknom be with you.... ALWAYS!

Oh look another post......

Well hello again people of the internet…. I have another post for ya’ll (don’t judge, I have been living in the south for 3 years now and their langue is rubbing off on me a little bit.) and this time you don’t have to wait 2 years for it! Woot…. Yeah I rock hahahah.

I last left off with the nail biting cliff hanger of me getting married. Well it wasn’t a big cliff hanger but maybe a little teaser. Any hoo… Yes I am happily married to the love of my life, my best friend my everything. In true fashion the proposal was not your everyday romantic grand gesture. I didn’t take her out for dinner and hide the ring in a cheese cake (why anybody would ruin perfectly good food by hiding a gold or any other type of metal object in it is beyond me), I didn’t put it in a champagne glass full of champagne (or any other liquid associated with a proposal). You get the point right? I didn’t do a typical romantic proposal… nor did I do an over the top write will you marry me in the sky or billboard or jumbo-tron way. I proposed to her on our “monthiversery” which was on October 21^st. Cyndi (who is the “her” in this story) was sick and stayed home that day… I just happened to be off as well. I picked the ring up the day before and I was itching to pop the question (I am horrible with keeping surprises or things of that nature). I carried the ring with me all day… we went to the grocery store to pick up so comfort food because like I said Cyndi was not feeling good and I wanted to make her happy. Ok back to the point now… now it’s the big moment… now is the time I made up my mind in my head how I was going to propose to her. She was lying on the floor (because that was the only position she felt comfortable in) and I asked her “what would make you feel better right now?” and her response was to look at her left hand (to those that don’t know why that hand is so important Google it) and sigh. At that point I got on one knee (the tears were already starting to flow… from her…. And from me) and I asked her “in sickness and in health….. will you marry me?” Queue the tears and screaming (as much as she could she did have a sore throat) and she said YES!!!!! Then to celebrate the momentous occasion… we had shake and bake chicken and milk… I told you this was not a normal proposal in any way.

Next you shall sit there in front of your computer and read about the wedding.... and other stuff that happened before the wedding....

till then... Yeknom and forget about it!

Its Been Awhile....

So I am back…. Again…. And I know I say this time I am going to stick around for a while and post more often… and this time it is true (partially).

Since I last left off I was starting a new job (again) and I had plans of telling everyone out here in Internet land that I recently got a new pup….. and got MARRIED! Holy crap did I say married? That’s right interwebz I got hitched and I am no longer a sad lonely guy on the web (not that’s there anything wrong with that life style if you choose it… or if it is the hand that fate gave you… no judgement.) But before that (yes you English majors and English freaks out there I suck at composing sentences and I don’t give a shit because this is what is spewing from my head as I type…) (great mental image there right!) I would like to tell you guys what has happened in the almost 2 years since I have last posted.

Yes I did start a new job after I quite my last job working for T-mobile…. Well not really T-mobile but a shitty 2^nd party cell phone store that had the privilege of selling there phones and contracts. But anyway….. I found myself now employed by a large GLOBAL company that does windshield repair and replacements… not going to name names because like I said they are GLOBAL and in these days one little wrong word typed anywhere on the web can get you sued and taken to jail apparently… and I don’t really know anybody in Anonymous that would even bother to help me out if I got into any shit… but that’s besides the point. So here I am ready to embark on a new journey of employment. I started out as a part time CSR (customer service rep) at there in house call center. Oh I forgot to tell you that this job is about an hour away from my house…. That comes into play later on in this gripping story that is my life… (sarcasm does not translate very well in type… we really need hand and eye gestures to get that point across.) There I am all nice and sitting down (finally) at my new cubical waiting to be trained. Mind you I do have experience in customer service but I was not prepared for the type of bullshit I would have to pull out of my ass with this job. I will make a long story short….. like I said I was starting off as a part time CSR… then some one thankfully quit and I became a full time CSR…. Then a month or so after that I became the parts manager for this area (Raleigh, Durham, Fayetville , Greensboro and Wilmington) one would think that the title of manager would garner a higher pay rate… NOPE it was basically you will do this or we will fire you and find some other poor smuck to do it… and seeing how by the grace of god I have this job I was left with little choice. So I become the new parts bitch.. I mean manager, and it was great until I found out that a spot for a Market dispatcher came open…. With the promise of a raise that I desperately needed. So I applied for the position and I got it! Hooray for me… more responsibilities and more pay! Fuck yeah! I was told that I would be making good money soon I just needed to get through the 30 day probation period… which was understandable. The last 4… yeah that’s right 4! People that had this position either quit or had nervous break downs. And you think I am kidding you with the nervous breakdown parts… but I wish I wasn’t… the last guy that had my job one day got up from his cubical screamed and left the building and never came back….. fun right! But anyhoo back to me and my story….. so fast forward 6 months…. 6 whole fucking months and NO RAISE!!!!!! I am starting to get pissed and my moral is at a low right now… I am struggling to pay bills that me and my then girlfriend had… I was commuting an hour 1 way and that was killing me.. So I went to my boss who is now the new general manager and asked him what is up with my raise…. And he tells me that he has to wait till the new year….. well great time to tell me!!!! If you would have told me that in the beginning I would have been understanding but noooo you have to blow smoke up my ass and tell me its coming…. So I wait…. And the new year comes… and then they have the balls to tell me that I need to have a yearly evaluation before I can get my raise…. OK I ask him how that works and he tells me that I need to get with the operations manager… who is never around. But finally I get a hold of this crazy lady…. And ask her to do my eval… and this is the kicker right here folks…. SHE CANT DO IT!!!!! Only my manger can… who is the GM who told me that my operations manager has to do it…. HOLY FUCK PEOPLE DO YOU SEE THE VISCOUS CIRCLE OF SHIT I HAD TO DEAL WITH!@@#!@ OK…. Deep breath and exhale.. phew OK I good now. I finally get her to do my eval and then it needs to get kicked up to the GM who then kicks it back to me to sign off on the that kicks it back to the operations manger how has to sign off on it again to kick it back to the GM who has to sign off on it to kick it up to his in line manger to approve the pay increase to then kick it to HR to approve the approval of the sign off on the eval to then kick it back down the GM to put the raise into effect to then push off to pay roll….. :OASDHFLKADSHF:OASDHUIAHNDUIFGOJH ß that’s my brain exploding from the massive amount of bullshit that went on there. (and if you think I am blowing out of proportion…. I am not and I could easily show you the paper work if they didn’t delete it after I left). So yeah in the end I did not get the raise, my mind was shattered, my home life was falling apart because I was paying more to go to work than I was making. So I had enough… I went looking for another job… and when I tell you I was lucky when I found this job……. I was fucking LUCKY… Apparently there are no more jobs anywhere in the entire USA… I know this because I applied to ALL THE JOBS!!!!! I even applied to be a dishwasher at a hospital that worked 14 hours a day… they didn’t even call me back!!! So finally one day I went to my local mall and applied to every (almost) store in the place and finally one of the security guards that works the mall overheard me asking if the janitors were hiring. (I have my new lease on life and my new career to this guard who I have to get permission from before I can release her name). She literally took a big risk on my and told me to apply. So I did… and met with the director of security and BOOM! I got the job!!!!! YEAH BUDDY!!!! I am 5 mins away from the mall, I can see my wife (I will explain in the next post) and life couldn’t be any better. It could get better but I was still working for the other GLOBAL place. I went back and told them I am not working dispatch any more…. I want to work in the warehouse and only work 30 hours a week… they agreed… but not liking it. Again long story short, I worked for the warehouse for about 3 weeks and then they fired me on some bullshit reasoning that they have yet to prove to me and show me facts… but fuck them and there failing business…. They are a bunch of mismanaged assholes that will drive the company into the ground and they will all lose there jobs.. but yeah… I love my new job! Again I will explain what it is I am doing and what it is I want to finally do with my life later…. This is just a recap of what happened after my last post… as you can see it was a fuck ton… and there is a lot more coming later on!!!!

Till then,

Stay Yeknom my friends!

I'm Back the Redux

Well well well, I tried to make a comeback and thought I could stick it out and make some more posts but as you can clearly see... that was not the case. So let’s try this again, this time I think I can keep it going!

 

Ok so I left off with me going on vacation to Mexico, and I got a new job at T-mobile. Ok I am going to start off this come back with a BANG! The vacation to Mexico…… I cannot make this stuff up even if I was a master of litterateur.

 

So here we are on a plane to New Orleans to hop on a cruse ship to Mexico, this is the first ever vacation me and Cyndi are taking…. EVER! You would think that we would be super excited pee your pants happy... right? No…. well yes we were excited but here is the kicker, Cyn was sick. I’m not talking “oh I got a little tickle in my throat” sick I'm talking about turning 3 shades of green then white sick. She is having hot flashes, fever of over 100 degrees and a soar throat to the point of not being able to swallow. Here we are in New Orleans hours from getting on the ship and she is feeling miserable and to boot she has to put on a smile and everything so we could get on the ship. Ok to put this in perspective, the time we are getting on the ship was the same time the Swine Flu pandemic was in its height of paranoia. So anybody that was coughing or looked funny was not getting on the ship. There was no way we were going to miss this vacation so we had to look like a million bucks even though we (mostly Cyn) felt like death. Fast forward…… we get on the ship no problem and we are in our room now and Cyn is trying her hardest to put on a brave face and go out and have fun. That is just not happening; the first day on the ship was spent in the cabin sleeping. I am the kind of guy that will do anything for my girl even miss out on fun things because I want to make sure she is feeling good. I don’t mind it, people say “do you feel bitter for having missed so much on your vacation?” the answer is NO! If I was bitter or pissed about missing things then shit I would be a bitter grumpy 25 year old. I take things as they come and make the best out of it. Ok enough of that rant time to give the highlights of the trip.

 

Even though Cyn was running a fever of 104 and she couldn’t swallow her own spit, we still managed to have a blast on the ship. First off the food…….. Holy crap in a bag it was AWESOME! Dinner was freaking awesome, I felt like a king. I was ordered 4-5 different entrees for dinner. Braised lamb? Sure why not let me also get the steak, fish, chicken and throw in your first born as well. Man I ate like I have never eaten before! From the breakfast bar and me loading up on abo0ut 5 pounds of bacon a day to the all you can eat ice cream, yeah it was good. When I wasn’t eating everything in sight, we were in Mexico and had an amazing time. We saw the ancient Aztec ruins, did some amazing shopping and took tons and tons of pictures. Those were the highlights of the trip. It turns out that when we got back from the cruise to Mexico and we were back at home we found out that Cyn had the Swine Flu. At least that’s what the doctors told us (but who really listens to them anyway).

 

Ok now you have all the info you could get on our vacation to Mexico, now it’s on to the fun/boring/my life. As stated in my earlier post, I got a new job at T-mobile. This is where the fun begins, well sort of. My first week on the job I had already put in for vacation (the Mexico trip) and missed 2 training classes. That’s beyond the point, this job is idiot proof, and the location I work at is pretty rough (lower income Durham, NC). The first month I was there I was told never to make the bank deposit at night because I will get robbed (that’s comforting) and I was also told that I will get robbed, everyone at that mall has gotten robbed at least once (again comforting to know that). I made the most out of the situation, I thought to my self “I have a job, I am making money, and this is making Cyndi happy at home I can suck it up and do work!”

 

Ok it was fun for the first couple of months, but things started to go down hill from there. I was only making $8 an hour and the commission structure was complete bullshit. I had to hit a certain number a week and if I didn’t hit it I would not see a penny of commission. I was working 35 hours a week and not making any commission because at the mall I worked for the people there had no money and all the phones we had cost more than what the peoples unemployment checks had. Things were looking down for sales until I convinced my manager to get us some free phones, now things were picking up for me at the phone store. I was hitting commission and making some money. Then people started to quit, and I was left without a manager, and without any help. Isn’t that some bullshit, I am working 12 hour days 7 days a week and I don’t get any help, and the help I do get….. Oh this is good. I get a manager that is a midget with a napoleon complex and his obese coworker named Freeze (this asshole had that name on his name tag). Long story short they both got fired for hitting on a 15 year old girl and making lewd comments. They got what was coming to them (oh! And the midget was stealing phones form the company and selling them on Craig’s list, that guys was a freaking genius!). Ok it wasn’t all that bad I must say, I did meet some interesting people while working there. Such as the stripper mom that paid all here bills in $1 bills. Oh and a girl that got out of prison about an hour before comes in to get a phone and tells me she has no money but she will do sexual favors for a cell phone (WTF I have a girl friend that I love and she was nasty looking). Now the really fun part of my job, the sales contest. My boss was awesome, he is the owner and he was very hands on. He wanted to challenge us during the holiday season so the contest was to sell 50 phones in 3 weeks; the prize was trip to Vegas on his dime. Well all I have to say is that I won and boom Vegas baby!

 

I am thinking to myself now, I won a trip to Vegas and things are going to turn around for me at work. I was wrong, seriously wrong! The owner hired another manager for the store and this guy was a doozie! This guy had a rotten front tooth and looked like he was on meth 24/7. This guy would lie to me and not show up for his shift (which would put me again in 12 hour shifts). Finally I got fed up with his crap when he called out saying that he had to go pick up his kid from school and the next day I asked him why he didn’t show up for the next day shift and he told me he had mouth surgery the other day. LIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Now I am pissed off with his whole work situation and the kicker for me was the owner puts his coke addicted brother in charge of the store and this guy hires a new coworker. I don’t mind that he hired a new guy but he had no experience and he was just very very weird. I have been working for them for about 10 months and this new guy comes in and acts like he is the manager. Making the schedules and all that stuff. He even went as far as to make a schedule give it to the owner and then change it the next day and didn’t tell me, I drove to work and he told me that I had a day off. That’s when I decided to look for another job. It took me about a month to find a new job (where I am right now and I am very very happy with, I will detail that in the next entry). So I wanted to talk to the guy who hired me and made me all theses promises and such to tell him I was leaving and was putting in my 2 week notice. The sad part was I wanted to be professional about it and give my 2 weeks but when the owner doesn’t return my phone calls and blatantly ignores me; I lost all respect for him and decided to take things in my own hands. So my last day I worked a 12 hour shift, counted the money and walked out lock the door, took the key off my key ring and chucked it in the middle of the store. The next day when I didn’t show up to my shift the new guy (who doesn’t have my number) facebook messages me asking me if that was my key in the middle of the store. I told him yes and I quit! He goes on and says this ruins his plans and that I cant do that. HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH screw you buddy! 2 weeks later I go in to collect my last paycheck and the new guy starts to berate me and I am not having it. Mind you I am 5’10 290lbs football playing guy and this guy was a 5’6 fat boy that was getting up in my face. So I told him the nicest way “FUCK OF YOU SQUISHY FACED FUCKER!” then took my check and flipped him off.

 

Now we are caught up on the important things in my life that I want to go into today. Hey I need to have more things to write for later. So here is a preview for later entries; a new job, a new puppy, a new car and nuptials!

 

Till then

Stay in the light of the YEKONM!