BUT THAT'S GROSS!!!

Okay...the countdown continues at 44 days. As I mentioned yesterday, my sister and I are heading out to Denver next month. Cannot wait. I need a vacation. Could be a permanent vacation if the Teamsters don't vote in the "new" contract for YRC and save our asses.

So anyway, YRC, the parent company of Holland, have negotiated a five year deal with the Teamsters. The Teamster rank & file would be giving up just a shit load in concessions that many guys and gals have stood on picket lines for over the years. Sad, so sad. What makes me mad are the people in the ivory tower that thinks the company's woes are soley the result of the Teamsters. HELLO!!! People if it were not for unions, we would not be making the money we make or have the benefits we have now. Of course, now with the economy the way it is and the younger generation thinking they don't need unions, things are in the crapper. Well anyway, I kind of strayed from the reason for this rant. Our leader, Mr. Jeff Rogers, had a town hall meeting this afternoon to explain how the CEO of YRC, Mr. Bill Zollars is retiring (part of the union negotiations) and how we need the Teamsters to vote "yes" for the contract or we will be done and we will all be out of jobs. So when Mr. Rogers started at Holland, I roughly introduced myself at a town hall meeting. I asked him something about "What happens if YRC goes into the crapper. Will they cut us loose before they flush?" Needless to say, this one question made it's way to many of the terminals. Very funny. Very, very funny. Today, when Mr. Rogers asked for any questions, I raised my hand. He looked at me for a split second before he asked my question. I decided to play nice, so I simply asked "when is the vote?". After the meeting, my boss asked me what kind of chaos I stirred up in the meeting. (He knows me pretty well.) I said that I only asked one question about the vote. Then here comes Mr. Rogers down the cubicle hallway. Louie kind of called him into the cube and I confessed there were really two questions I wanted to ask. He said "what was the other question?" So I said "How much was Mr. Zollar's good-bye bonus?" He said "A lot." So I pushed it further "like over $7M?" He said "Yes, but that's gross." DUH...your damn right it's GROSS that the guy that has mismanged YRC for the last 14 years is only getting $7M gross. Like gross or net really makes much difference when you are getting something in the millions.

So that is my funny story for the day. Hope you enjoyed it!!! Stay tuned for more. I can foresee many new adventures in my near, near future.

COUNTDOWN GURU...WHERE ARE YOU???

So, Bev's Wild Adventures are fixin' to commence again. This time the destination is Denver, Colorado. Well actually my sister, Dianne, and I will be visiting my cousin that we visited in San Francisco two years ago. Only now, Tom and Cindy live in Centennial, Colorado. They moved a year ago September and they both love it there.

I formulated a plan a year ago for moving to Denver when YRC finishes kicking the crap out of us. So while we are out there, we are going to hook up with one of my best friends, Deb, who is in real estate. We want to check out the area so we can decide what area of Denver we want to relocate to when we do move. My sister is thinking about Golden,CO, as a possible location. She said if we don't have a mountain view, she is going to insist that we take a trip to Nepal to see Mt. Everest. I think a mountain view in the states would be a whole lot easier. (Please Debbie, find a place with a mountain view.)

Right now we are at 45 days and counting!!! Time is ticking away. I can't wait!!!

August Musings

Had a great weekend here in Holland, Michigan. I talked my sister into coming up from Chicago for the weekend. We both took Friday off to have kind of a mini-vacation. She arrived Thursday night and we went out to dinner at Crazy Horse. Just about died when they seated us in a section with Bev Doolittle's "Hide & Seek" print hanging on the wall. It was awesome to sit in the booth underneath it and be able to gaze at it off and on during dinner.

Friday we cruised up to Grand Haven to have a burrito at Butch's Beach Burrito. YUM...it was awesome!!! The Coast Guard Festive was going on and the town was super crowded so we drove past Lake Michigan and the state park and decided to head up to Muskegon to check out Kohls. So North we went and went to Target, the Sprint store, and Kohls. Had a great time shopping and decided to do a little more in downtown Holland. Holland has a great downtown shopping area. It's the old time type of downtown with great stores. We parked right outside The Seasoned Home so headed in there first. This is a spice store and when you walk in the spices hits your senses and it is just a great co-mingling of smells. I love it in there. Dianne bought some Beau Monde dip mix and then we headed over to Fustini's Oils and Vinegars. All Fustini's sells is high end olive oil and balsamic vinegars. Can't even tell you how many infused oils and vinegars they have. On to Jet's Pizza for dinner and then back to my place to eat and relax.

Saturday we got up early and my friend, Lorrie, was at my place about 8 am. We were heading back downtown. Art in the Park was going on and I've heard just fantastic things about it. We decided to eat first so we headed over to the Windmill Restaurant and had breakfast. We wanted to go to the farmers market before heading over to Art in the Park. Fustini's was doing a demonstration at the farmers market to show off their oils and vinegars and we wanted to pick up some tips for making great salad dressings. The farmers market was huge. Much bigger than I expected. It was also much warmer than I expected. We stayed for the demonstration, Dianne bought a lot of fresh fruit and veggies and then we walked up to Fustini's so that Dianne and Lorrie could buy some oil and vinegar to take home. Then it was on to Art in the Park which is in Centennial Park. There were so many booths set up it was hard to take it all in. I did buy a necklace that says "Woof". It was too cute. After sweating our asses off at the park, we stumbled back to the car and headed back to my place. We were all exhausted. Lorrie headed home and Dianne fell asleep on the couch. I actually went in the bedroom and napped with the dogs.

Anyway...that was my exciting weekend. Yet another "wild adventure" for Bev. LOL!!! Thanks for visiting and checking out my ramblings.

New Friend

I have a new friend at the apartment complex! Her name is Jane and she has a darling little long haired doxie named Sophie. I met her Tuesday as we were walking our girls and we walked around the complex together talking. She stopped over today and we walked our girls again. She told me that she had stopped at the office asking if anyone was looking for a work out partner. I told her, "YA...ME. I'll work out with you." So at some point we are going to start using the gym that we have here. She is a nice gal that had a jerk of an ex-husband. Kind of glad to have a new friend in this city. Although I have friends at work, I really don't do that much with them during the week. Plus if it means I will have a work out partner too...all the better!!!

Calgon Take Me Away

Well no wild adventures for me today. Just another mundane day at work. I've decided that my job sucks and I want to get the hell out of here sooner rather than later. Here's a synopsis of my job...

My title is Corporate Account Specialist which means I monitor some of the big accounts for our company. I'm the "go-to-person" for these customers. Oh yeah, I do corrective actions on our screw ups on shipments, too. Well that is if I have time to do all that stuff. I don't. What I end up doing all day is making sure that the correct load number is on the correct shipment so that we get paid for moving this freight around the country. One of my favorite accounts used to be Briggs & Stratton until a couple of weeks ago when I had to start updating "their" website. Their website SUCKS!!! It takes me a good 45 minutes to an hour to do this and I find all kinds of stuff that they never gave to us anyway. Oh yeah, and then we got GM back. So that's another hour or so of dinking around with their load numbers. It sounds pretty easy but it is mind numbing. MIND NUMBING PEOPLE!!!

I'm fed up and sick and tired. Thanks for letting me rant.

Happy Father's Day

Just a shout out to all the Dads out there. Happy Father's Day to all of you. I wish my Dad was still around to celebrate with but he will be gone 10 years now in October. Where does the time go? I tried to find a picture of him to upload but couldn't find the file. I only had really old pictures of him uploaded anyway. So love you Dad. Think of you and Mom everyday. For those of you that still have your dads, give them a hug and a squeeze today.

TOO MUCH STUFF!!!

Well I planned to organize and clean my stamp room today. I ended up sleeping in/dozing until almost 11am. Wild dreams about being in college and sharing a place with 4 other girls. Crazy...I am not in the mood to share my living space with 4 other people. Yikes...where do these dreams come from? Anyway it is now 2:35 pm and I did get my kitchen cleaned which I wanted to do anyway because I want to sort out my stamp sets for sale and put price stickers on them. I figure the kitchen counter will come in handy for that. When I was at my sister's house over Memorial Day, I brought back a third trunk full of stamping/scrapbooking items to consolidate in with mine or sell. I have a lot of my own stuff to sell so we figured we might as well get it all together in one place. Right? Does that sound about right and a damn good plan? Now I am not so sure. This stuff has taken over my house and my stamp room is a mess from stamping in there. I have a terrible bad habit of not putting everything away when I am done with it. Now I will probably have an hour of so of work just to get the supplies I do use all the time put away so I can get at the stuff I want to get rid of. YIKES!!! Why don't I learn that taking 5 minutes to put things away can mean a big difference in my time later?

Last week, my friend, Deb, and I went to a Copic marker class. We had a great time and learned so much about our favorite coloring media. We are now certified with Copic markers. I was very impressed with the class and even more excited about the markers themselves. Great product...pricey but so worth it in the end. I included the logo just to show off. HAHAHAHAHA!!!

Anyway...catch ya on the flipside.