An Arizona Cheesehead's Thoughts

It's so cool having our own Margaritaville ! They did a VIP event last night that some of us got to go to. We heard about it on short notice or I would have done a lottery of all the local club members. Hopefully, we can do that next time. And, I really hope there is a next time! The shindig was from 7 – 10 and we got there a few minutes before 7. We checked in and they gave us nifty lanyards like the employees wear and keepsake (at least I'm keeping mine!) VIP badges. The lanyards have " Margaritaville " and "I love my job!" printed on them. I'm now using mine at work and it only took a few minutes before I got a comment about the loving the job part. OK, picture this. They opened the doors for us to walk in. On both sides of the entrance, there were servers lined up with each holding a tray. The alternating contents of the trays were open bottles of Landshark Lager and Margaritas. It was beautiful! They had other folks roaming around with tray...

Got this from Finnegan. You can get some cute results.

I was talking to Steven today about how it's dark out by the time I get home so I haven't gotten my tree and other holiday stuff out of the shed yet. He offered to swing by and bring it all in for me today. After getting a promise to shake the spiders off first, I happily accepted his offer. What was I thinking? He pulled everything out of the shed related to the season. The tree (which he did set up for me, very nice), two boxes of wrapping paper, another two of ornaments and decorations, the creepy moving Santa and Mrs. Claus, a milk crate full of lights and a big cardboard box that I'm afraid even to open. I don't even know where to start...

Which Sesame Street Character Are You? (Many outcomes) created with QuizFarm.com You scored as Rosita Rosita is exuberant and playful. She uses her hands when she communicates with others. She likes to convey her warmth with lots of touching and hugging. She's good natured and intelligent. Rosita is also bilingual. Rosita 75% Telly Monster 71% Grover 71% Ernie 68% Zoe 68% Abby Cadabby 64% Big Bird 64% Elmo 61% Bert 57% Cookie Monster 54% Prairie Dawn 50% Oscar the Grouch 39% Count Von Count 39%

What's Your 19th-Century Horror Character? created with QuizFarm.com You scored as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde You are the unfortunate changeling from Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novel, the victim of volatile emotions that stain your reputedly noble character. Through scientific experimentation, you have divided your social and primal selves into two separate physical entities, which grapple perpetually for control of your existence. Because of this tension, your life is a maelstrom of inescapable, private turmoil. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 71% Dorian Gray 62% The Invisible Man 59% Count Dracula 58% Frankenstein's Monster 50% The Headless Horseman 21%

So, I was sitting at home last night doing pretty much the usual stuff. Watching TV, emailing and IMing...all activities that do require electricity. At 8:22, the lights went out. This is at least the fourth time now since Oct. 10 when this all first started. And, it's starting to piss me off. Fortunately, The Rocket Scientist took pity on me (again) and invited me over to his place to wait out the outage and watch the end of the Philadelphia-New England game. By the end of the game, my check to see if my answering machine was back up showed that the power was back on. It was out for about an hour and 10 minutes. Today, I called Salt River Project to ask if there were any plans to address the ongoing issue. What I got was a "Well, these things happen" and a promise to mail me the outage history since September for my place. I guess I'm going to have to diagnose the issue for them. The biggest bummer was that I only recorded 22 minutes of Desperate Housewives so I...

I enjoyed all the hits on my blog that I got from the link at Buffettnews.com . I felt really popular there for a while. To give you an idea on how big it was, check out this chart: You can see the HUGE spike from the first day they linked to me. It's trailing off now and I'm almost back to my normal level. It's funny because on the one hand, I want to be really popular and have lots of readers but on the other hand, I'm quite comfortable with my "usual" gang. At least they leave comments so I know that they care.

We went out to one of the Humane Society facilities today. The Arizona Parrot Head Club sponsored a tree in honor of one of our club members, Craig Broadhurst, who passed away last year. It was a nice gathering and a fine way to acknowledge how much Craig is missed. Afterwards, we wandered through the kitty section. I was trying not to pay too much attention to the cats because I've been thinking about getting one for a while now. And, when I say I've been thinking, I've really been thinking. I just wasn't thinking about getting one today. However, I saw a female Maine Coon that intrigued me. That's the breed I want because they tend to talk a lot, they're trainable and very smart and they're quite dog-like in their behavior. So, I had them bring her into one of the meeting rooms and, well, she wasn't in to me at all. Her history said she was a stray and her entire focus was on bolting from the room. She did talk and let me pet her but her fixat...

This is a co-write by Tom Rath and Donald O. Clifton. The basic premise is simple. Each person has a bucket and a dipper. To be happy, your bucket should be full. Filling a bucket involves pouring in from the dipper (getting positive reinforcement and giving it, too). Emptying a bucket involves scooping out with the dipper (getting or giving negative comments/reinforcement). Really quite simple. But, perhaps harder to implement and live by. This was a very quick read but the idea has stuck with me. While I know it's healthier (both mentally and physically) to be positive and surround yourself with positive people, it's quite easy for me to fall into being negative. I guess it's something to work on.

Another book by Patrick Lencioni - same format as Five Dysfunctions of a Team . It starts with a "fable" then explains the model. The gist of this one is that employees are miserable in their jobs (no matter how glamorous or how much they're paid) if three things exist. If they feel anonymous, irrelevant or if their work is not measured then they will be miserable. The onus is on the manager to take a real interest in employees and their personal lives, reinforce the employees' impacts on co-workers and customers and provide a way to measure whether employees are improving their performances. Some good food for thought in this one. Though, being a manager (and maybe a lazy one), I do think there's some responsibility on the employee's side to try to find meaning and worth in a job.

The holiday season has officially started. I got my first Christmas card today. Dang Roger and Todd for being overachievers!

Karwin and Mulligan Having a Great Time. (Photos courtesy of Pirate Rick) Mark Mulligan and Bob Karwin put on a heck of a great show last night at Fiddler's Dream! There are some pretty funny trop-rock guys out there but I've yet to see the one who's funnier and as quick with the wit as Karwin. He was sharp as ever and he made Mark and the audience work to keep up with him. Karwin's new CD, Have Sun, Will Travel, just came out so Mark declared the show to be Karwin's CD Release Party. He also declared that every song had to end with a cha-cha-cha. Not sure why he made it so but it was funny and interesting to see how they segued to it in some of the songs. I actually got called out during the show. I think I may have even blushed. Karwin was shilling his first CD when Mark said, "Just how much are those, Bob?" Bob replied, "Since I touched this one, it's $75." He then wiped it across his brow to get a little sweat on it and said, "It...

Buffettnews.com posted a link to my Maragaritaville opening blog post this morning. I've gotten 296 hits on my blog since then. To the big kids in blog world, that may not seem like a lot but it's a pretty big number to me! Thanks for everyone who's stopping by.

We've been waiting for about a year for Margaritaville to open in Glendale. They had signs up in the windows but it didn't look like they were doing anything for a long time. Construction finally started but it seemed to go on forever. We waited as patiently as we could (because we had no choice). Originally, it was advertised as opening in the spring of 2007 but it finally came down to November. We have a couple of club members and the daughter of another member working there. Between them and the General Manager, we had some inside scoop on the opening. A few of us were lucky enough to get passes to the Friends and Family events before the actual opening. Those were designed to test the staff and the servers. We were told the soft opening was Friday night and the press opening was this coming Tuesday. I ended up taking a vacation day on Friday and Norene came up from Tucson for the big day. We were so ready! I sent out an email to the club members telling them I'd be ther...

Today's race at Homestead was soooooo stressful. Jimmie led the first lap so he only had to finish 19th or better to clinch the championship. I had no worries that he would screw it up. I did, however, worry that someone would crash in front of him trying to win the last race of the year. The last ten laps were brutal to watch. Turned out to be a fairly clean race, everyone stayed away from Jimmie and his 7th place finish guaranteed him his second consecutive Championship. Yay! Within few minutes of the race's conclusion, NASCAR.com emailed me an offer to buy Jimmie Championship merchandise. Being the shopper that I am, I ordered a skin for my laptop and a championship t-shirt.

I have a club member who's in Germany and couldn't resist sending me this sign. "Pfister" is a term for baker in German. That's kind of funny in our family since Shorty is well known for his baking skills. Guess he's not too far removed from the original Pfister.

On our last day in Key West, Kathy O. asked us all what our favorite moment of the week was. Several of us came up with events from Saturday, including me. It could be because it was the only day I didn't work but we packed in a bunch of fun that day. First, the Babes, Jim, Darrel and I went to Meteor Smokehouse for lunch. They have an awesome spicy green bean dish and the BBQ is really good. I started drinking Diet Pepsi but the server talked me into an adult beverage. I picked their lemonade and it was fabulous! Darrel had their Hurricane and he thought it was great. After lunch, we went next door to the Green Parrot (an old Buffett haunt) for a beer then decided to go to Pepper's. But first, we had to buy some beer to take with us so we hit the mini-mart where I ran into Kelly McGuire. Kelly actually remembered Darrel from meeting him a few years ago in Belize. I'm always amazed at how good the trop rock musicians are at recalling faces. Here's the deal with Peppers....

One of the great things about Meeting Of The Minds is that, for one week, Key West has lots and lots of our favorite musicians for us to enjoy. I never get to see everyone; there just isn't enough time. But, I did get to see and talk to a lot of my favorite music types. I only saw Kelly McGuire in a mini-mart but we did get to chat and I got a big hug. He's still the best hugger out there. I saw Brent Burns several times (and kissed him more than once, but no tongue!). John Frinzi and I crossed paths several times while we were working but I managed to keep my cool around him (even though one time he looked like he just jumped out of the shower). Our first night into Key West is always spent at Margaritaville with Boat Drunks. The place was absolutely packed by the time we got there so we were in the upstairs section which made for not so good picture taking. They were jamming and sounded great and we really enjoyed their show. No trip to Key West is complete without seeing P...

I was originally supposed to go to the races at PIR this weekend but then I thought I would go to San Carlos. Then, I decided not to go to San Carlos but was still going to pass on the races because I am so very busy right now. But, then I got an offer I couldn't refuse. We recently started using FedEx at work for shipping out of our California facility and as a thank you, FedEx gave us two corporate passes and tickets to the Cup race on Sunday. Included in the deal: pit pass tour, race day scanners, seat cushion, food and drink, meet and greet with Denny Hamlin, gift bag which included a tee shirt, hat, die cast cars and race program in addition to the grandstand seats. I asked The Rocket Scientist if he wanted to go with me (of course, he said yes) and I was the crazy one to suggest we leave at 6 AM to miss the traffic. That's way too early for me but it was a good move. We got there in good time and got to spend an hour shopping at the merchandise haulers before the g...

I love my annual visits to Key West for Meeting of the Minds, the national Parrot Head convention. Being the social butterfly that I am, the best parts of the trips are spending time with old friends and making new ones. We usually have a big group from Arizona and try to spend some quality time together. There are a few folks that I just see at convention and we do the "good to see you" thing with each other. We really mean it, though. After all, we're in Key West with 3,000 Parrot Heads. What could be better than that? I also have an ever expanding group of people that I've met in Key West and am honored to call them close friends. Of course, there are a few people that I meet each year that I kinda hope I don't see again...but those are stories I won't tell here. (Buy me a cocktail or two and I might tell you, though.) The Babes and I started our trip at Sky Harbor with our traditional airport beer. For those that don't know, the Babes and I go way ...