When did I get old??

I don't feel old. I still feel like I am in my 20's, but sadly I am not. I'm 47, but look much older. Here is a pic taken of me at my son's wedding. The one on the left is the original. The one on the right is after I messed with it a bit in psp.
I like the one on the right much better :P



My 30 year class reunion is coming up. Part of me really wants to go, part of me doesn't. The no part is going to win tho, since I am currently not working, I cannot afford to go. I looked thru the 'missing' list, and most of the people I hung around with are 'missing', lol. Still, I think it would be neat to see everyone again. Seems every reunion, I am out of work, or just out of money, lol.

Oh, as you can tell, I am not a blogger. I have long times between blogs. But, this just amazed me, how old I look :(

Scenic Route

Yesterday I was simply not in the mood to work. But, I got ready and went in anyway.

The way my job works, as it is thru a temporary agency, we get there up to an hour early and wait til 15 minutes before start time. Then we stand in line and they assign us our desks. Each agency has so many people assigned for the day. My agency always allows for more than what is required.

So, by the time I got to the desk, the fullfillment for my agency was met and I was sent home. (But I do get an hours worth of pay for showing up)

I decided I was not going home. I knew if I went home, I would sit in front of my computer all day and be thoroughy bored out of my mind. So I decided to drive up to the mountains. I went thru Townsend, which was the closer way from where I work.
It's a nice drive. I got to the Great Smokey Mountain National Park, and within a mile or two, came to a decision-making point, i.e. fork in the road, lol. I decided to go on up to Cades Cove.

There were a lot of people there. Maybe the 70+ temperatures were the reason, or that it was an absolutely beautiful day. I saw many horses and a lot of deer. The grass was still brown and the non-evergreen trees were still bare, but it was just what I needed. I stopped at the Primitive Baptist Church, or rather I followed a church group there, lol. I was curious, as I had been following them anyway.
Then I stopped at the midway point, where there is a grist mill and other houses.
Unfortunately, I was dressed for work, meaning I did not have my tennis shoes on, so doing any trails were out of the question. I browsed around the visitor center at the half-way point. Thought about buying some pear preserves, thought about buying this book I saw about this woman's life in the cove........but I knew my funds were low and I better not. I still wish I had bought that book tho as I really like books like that. I finished the loop and headed home.

I had decided to go home thru Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, just because I prefer going somewhere and coming home by different routes. But, halfway to the townsend cutoff, I got really hungry. So much so, that I started getting really irritable.
I found some crackers and ate those and felt a bit better. I passed the townsend cutoff and saw a sign saying it was still 18 miles to Gatlinburg. That is when I found a place to turn around and went back to the townsend cutoff, lol.

After finally getting home, I checked my balance on the computer then took off again.
I had been 'craving' bakery items. I did not know exactly what, but something made with phyllo. So I went to a local bakery, one I had been meaning to visit for years.
I got a danish with cherry filling, 2 pieces of baklava and a piece of chocolate cake. Then I stopped by arby's and got lunch.

I went home and ate my lunch while watching "The Indian in the Cupboard" on Starz on Demand. I had seen this movie long ago with my son, had gone to the theater to see it even, but had forgotten everything except the title, lol. Now, I know why it did not stick too well. David Keith, once again, played a drunken cowboy. Typical role for him, sadly. I love his acting, and he is from this area of the world, but I think the drink got a hold of him just a wee bit too much. He is, or was, a huge volunteer fan and used to sit right near the team at every game.

After lunch, I started my laundry, finished the movie and then watched "Blast from the Past". Watched that while finishing my laundry. Then I finally got on the computer, to sit and waste time until bedtime.

It's so frustrating now. I've always had some project going on the computer until now. I began by making icq skins, then started making things for the sims games, then started making things for Moove online. Went back and forth between the sims and moove a couple of times. Now, all that is over and I do not have any kind of project to work on. So when I get on my puter, I go between playing gunbound, playing games at pogo, doing a few psp tutorials, when I can get my psp to cooperate and reading newsgroups. I think my computer is slowly dying, or the graphics card is going. It came with the computer and used to work just fine. But, now with psp, selection lines mess up and I have a very hard time doing anything vector, as the vector lines disappear.

Last night, I got so frustrated that I decided to uninstall it and reinstall it back to the c drive. I went to the add/remove to uninstall, and it was not there. I had used a program called pspfix at one point and selected the mru removal. I guess that is what took it out of the add/remove. I ended up getting it done tho. Reinstalled it and reassigned folders, but it's still acting up. I am almost to the point of calling corel and seeing if there is a way to get pspx again, as I did buy it last year, but have lost the installation file due to a format.

All in all, tho, it was a good day :) Only downside, when I checked my messages last night, my agency had called to let me know that today was cancelled, so I guess I get my boring day today :P

Honesty is the best policy and never-sayers

Most of my adult life, I have always thought that honesty was the best policy.
However, I am now beginning to doubt that rule. Seems in some situations, it is better to lie than to be honest. I am finally getting over being pissed, so I thought I could sit down and write about it now.

The other day I had a job interview. The position was for Customer Service in a call center for a security company. The interview went okay except the interviewer seemed to have a hard time understanding exactly what a temporary service was. After my 3rd explanation, I think she finally got it. Anyway, after the interview, the next step was to take these evaluations. Well the first one had to do with groups of four scenarios, of which we had to pick 2 that would make us the most uncomfortable. A lot of the groups, I would have no problems doing any of them, but I had to pick 2. The second part was the type where they give you a scenario and you answer in the form of 'I agree' to 'I disagree' range.......5 choices.

After I finished that part, someone took me to a room and told me that from those evaluations, they did not think I would be happy working for them. HOW THE HELL DOES ONE TELL FROM THOSE THINGS WHETHER OR NOT SOMEONE WILL BE HAPPY IN THE JOB!!!!
I've been pissed for days over that. But, I do have a feeling that they did not want me at all from the time they first saw me. The evaluations were a good excuse.

Usually, when I take evaluations like that, I try and answer them the way I think they would want. But this time, I decided to be perfectly honest, and look where it got me.

That job sounded like a dream job for me, the hours were good, and the pay was good and the situation was good..........guess I was not good enough for them.

I'm going to have a hard time finding work because of my work history. See, for some reason I cannot stay at a job for too long. Three years is my best, and that was basically part-time. Right now I am working thru a temporary agency at Talbots and I love it. I've put one application in for full time with them, and am about to put in another one. But my biggest problem is that I need to get out of where I live now and find my own place, but the work at talbots is really slow at this time of year........only 5 days scheduled for all of february. So, I am searching for another job........which is hard because of all my broken bridges :(


NEVER-SAYERS

New subject here :)
Whenever you see some company claim that they will never do something.........don't you believe it for a second.
When I first got a computer and got online, I purchased the license to Winzip. They said it was a one-time fee and all upgrades were included. And for the next few years, that was true. I lost the registration number a couple of times and was able to contact them and get it again. They even sent it snail-mail for my records.
However, now there is a new winzip.......version 10 and it is not included in my original agreement. Apparently, winzip has changed hands, so they are not honoring their agreements. You have to buy it again.

Another never-sayer.......Crosswinds webhost.
My very first host was Angelfire, but I outgrew it rather quickly. I went to Crosswinds because they had unlimited space and bandwidth. They also claimed they would never charge and they would always have unlimited space and bandwidth. Everything was fine and dandy, then boom, the shit hit the fan. They started charging and limiting space and bandwidth. Boy, people were up in arms about the whole thing.
Having had sites closed down for bandwidth usage, I really cannot understand why they ever made such claims, but they did.

I just bought a driver program that detects my drivers and lets me know which ones need updating. They say it is a life-time agreement..........but I wonder just how many months or years that means, lol. Experience tells me probably about 5 at the most.

One of these days, I am going to sit down here and write my life story and memories I remember. I need to do it soon, as I have found I am losing some of them, lol.
But for now, I'm done.

Ugh!!

Seems I have been tagged into making a blog of six things about myself. I needed to wait a couple of days to do this, so I would not ramble, lol.

1) I'm a bit selfish.
2) A bit lazy too :P
3) I'm very creative, not bragging here, I just am, lol.
4) I make friends easily but don't keep them easily.
5) I'm fairly healthy for a smoker :)
6) I've been told I am a good teacher, but I really don't have the patience for it.

There! Six things about myself :)

Oh and finally found a good genie outfit, right as I am retiring the bluegenie2 name, lol. See left.

Just messing

I've been playing around in Bryce 6 lately. I'm not a real good blogger, just write when I feel like it. No real issues going on now. A have a good friend and fellow blogger who is going thru a lot right now. I made a couple of images for her and thought I would post them here. She checks my blog regularly, lol. Soooo, ol' buddy, ol' pal, the images in this post and the one on the sidebar are for you :)

Some notes on my friend. We met online about 6 or 7 years ago. And who says online friendships are bad? We met in a newsgroup and clicked. We've met in person too a couple of times and I lived with her family for a month once. We've gotten to the point of being truely good friends, in as much as we know pretty much how the other works, lol. She can attest to the fact that I am truely a confusing person, to myself as well, lol.

Smokers rights.........or lack of them

I've been smoking cigarettes since I was 15.......over 30 yrs. When I started smoking, cigarettes were 55 cents a pack.....now they are over $3 here, up to $6 in other places. We are being pushed out of restaurants, bars, most public places and, in some areas, out of our cars (in a company parking lot). This post is mainly my gripes and agreements with the anti-smokers laws. In other words, I might find some evidence somewhere of my feelings, but don't count on it, lol.

Let's start with the things I agree with. Yes, people should not smoke at work, except on break. Yes, smoking can irritate others in restaurants, bars and other public places. Yes, smokers should be considerate of non-smokers and VISA VERSA!!!

Does smoking lead to cancer? Yes, it leads to some forms of cancer, mainly lung cancer, but cancer is almost a generic term now and there are many that are not the result of smoking. I am a survivor of one such cancer, Hodgkins Disease. Luckily it was caught in time and if caught in time, it is curable. I did ask my doctor if it was related to my smoking. Although he hated to admit it, it did not. Yes, he told me that he hated to admit that it was not a result of my smoking........as he was always on my case to quit, lol. My mother died of ovarian cancer. She never smoked. My dad died of a staph infection occuring during treatment for chronic lymphocedic leukemia.........he smoked a pipe for a short while in college...over 40 yrs before he got sick.

Does second-hand smoke lead to cancer? My personal belief is no, it does not, although the general concensus is that it does. Now why do I believe elsewise?
Call it a gut feeling........from experiencing many other 'fads' the medical profession has laid on our heads in the past. Seems every 10 yrs it's a different warning......then things change, more evidence becomes clear and new theories are born and suddenly what was bad is not as bad anymore. I did a bit of searching and found This Site. You might want to just take a look to see how the wool has been pulled over our eyes here :) Yes, I do realize that anyone can find stuff to support their way of thinking online, but still, just take a look.

Going back to my agreements, let's examine the opposite side. Non-smoking restaurants......okay, fine, I'll just call in an order, pick it up and SAVE THE TIP!
Or, I will just go outside when I need a cigarette. Non-smoking bar........who wants a drink if I cannot have a smoke with it? I'll go to the liquor store and drink at home, tyvm. Non-smoking workplace......not a problem as I agree with that....BUT THERE BETTER BE A PLACE TO SMOKE ON MY BREAKS!!! Most places I have worked, in the last few years, have been non-smoking, but they have either a smoking break room or smoking break area. The place I work now, we have a smoking area outside. That's great in the spring, summer and fall........but it's cold out there in the winter. Plus the area is like a wind tunnel anyway. This brings up another point......would not it make more sense to have a ventillated room indoors, to keep your smoking employees as healthy as possible. Ohhh, that's right, we smoke so we CAN'T be healthy........how silly of me :P

CONSIDERATION
Now there is a big word. It's one of those words that is supposed to work for one group but not the other. We smokers are supposed to be considerate of non-smokers and not blow smoke in their face. But, non-smokers, they can be as rude to us as they please and still feel superior. Speaking for myself only, I do not smoke in other people's cars or houses unless I ask first and only then if they are smokers too. Yes, I do ask other smokers permission in their cars and homes. I do not purposely blow smoke in other people's faces...........but it does tend to follow the non-smokers :P I am currently renting a room of a non-smoker and I go outside to smoke and I have no problem with doing that. But, there are times when I would love to sit down somewhere warm and have a nice leisurely smoke.........that only happens in my car now.

One thing for certain, all smokers used to be non-smokers, but not all non-smokers used to be smokers. We understand non-smokers, but most do not understand us.
I took a class one time to try and quit smoking. The teacher was a man who had never smoked, never been overweight, never had any vices. How was he supposed to teach us how to quit? His assistant had decided to give up sugar while teaching us how to quit. I decided to give it a try anyway, despite my doubts. But it did not work out, and for this one reason. The main guy, he said to ask non-smokers what they did at stop lights, instead of lighting up. So I asked him what he did. He questioned my question and when I explained what he had said and why I was asking, he told me it had nothing to do with anything. I got up and walked out right there.
Will I ever quit? Probably not. The reason? Number one, I don't want to. Other reasons, it's my little rebellion against a society that wants me to quit. I feel it is my right to kill myself in any way I see fit :P But, seriously, if it gets to where I really want to quit, I will, but otherwise, it's my business and I really do not believe that smokers are killing others with their habit. Think about it, if all the world stopped smoking........people would still be getting lung cancer. From what? Look around you........look at all that exhaust from cars, buses, etc. Look at the smoke stacks of factories etc. There is your second hand smoke.........not from your neighbors.

I've rambled quite a bit here, sorry about that, but it is how I write. I saw a bit of the news today and I hardly ever watch the news, for this reason, it usually upsets me in one way or the other. This story was about the non-smokers rallying to make all public places smoke free here in my state. I know it's happened elsewhere, but I was hoping we could hold them back here. People like these ralliers make me sorry to be a baby-boomer. Seems we have been the cause of most of the politically correctness in the last few years. It just makes me sad. The baby boomers are the ones that like to stick their noses in where they don't belong and try and change the world to their liking, and to heck with those that disagree.

Nuff said for now :)

Just a new pic :)

Just made this today.........then fiddled with it in psp. It almost looks real now.