Fake Mustachio Day

My Thursday Randomness post brought back some good memories.  I can’t help but laugh every time I see the picture of us in our Western wear and fake mustaches.  I figured I might as well give everyone the story of how the infamous Fake Mustachio Day came to be. 
It was during a time in my professional life, note professional is used VERY loosely here, when moral in the company was very low.  The year was 2004 also known as Company Survivor season II, a group of my fellow co-workers and myself decided to take the task of boosting the moral in the work place for the remaining employees.  We created a committee, because being the good Southern Baptist that we were we knew a committee needed to be formed to accomplish any task.  So thus the *company name* Committee on Work Fun was created. (Left out the name of my company so I’m still very thankfully employed by this company)  Our first task, create very wordy emails exaggerating the most simple of task.  Moral of at least 4 employees was boosted by said emails.  Next order of business, find ways to bring enjoyment to the entire building.  But how could we do this and not get in trouble?  Theme days, that’s how!  So we rolled our underground theme day of Yellow shirt Friday into Hawaiian Shirt Friday.  Fliers were created and posted around the building encouraging everyone to wear flowered shirts to work every Friday.   Huge success, moral was boasted during the summer months.  Just when things are rolling along as they should, bang!  Cold weather hits.  Even though we liked the idea of wearing a Hawaiian shirt in the freezing cold, we just knew it wasn’t practical.  A new theme is needed, but what?  Western Wear Friday, what else?  We all rushed to our local Western wear provider, Perlis Truck Stop, and scoped up the clearance shirts, and bolo ties.  We decided to keep this mission a secret so everyone would be surprised.  Right before D-Day of Western wear Friday, a fellow co-founder decided we still needed to step it up, so he suggested it was time to wear fake mustaches to work.  A quick dash to our local, or not so local in this case, Party City and it was on.  D-Day, we all sneak in wearing our ridiculous clothes, we meet in the office picture was taken in, apply the mustachios, and stroll through the entire building two by two shoulder to shoulder, Armageddon style.

Now, if any of you have ever worked for a company that up holds a VERY strict dress code you know how brave and impressive of a feat this was.   We honestly had no idea the impression our dress would have of the work force.  I’d just like to thank Big and Rich for releasing “save a horse, ride a cowboy” because that became the theme song being sang to us as we walked through the building.  No lie, girls were signing that to us as we walked, nay, glided by.  Oh the fun we had, until we realized how itchy a fake mustache is, and then realized that the glue is only good for about two hours.  But really who wants glue on their face that last for much longer than that, just doesn’t seem safe. 
I’m not trying to brag, but several people compared me to the devilishly handsome Burt Reynolds.  What do you think?

Random Thursday

Wow, I’m so sorry about the lack of post lately.  I know all three of my readers have been wondering where I’ve been.  Well let me give you a very detailed description of my life lately.  Wake up, work, home, sleep, wake up, work, home, sleep, wake up, work, home, sleep.  Rinse lather repeat much?  Things have just been crazy busy.  I don’t even have the wits about me to witty right now.  So since I have to jump right back into work I figured I wouldn’t let everyone go empty handed.  Here are some of the most random pictures I could find.  Enjoy.

Wonderful Weekend

With the weather as nice as it, I've been out walking Mags and viewing the yard.  Seeing everything it gave me a few ideas for new projects, and I decided to take some pictures of some of the older projects that we've completed.  First is one of the things I saw today and decided to under take.  I decided to keep the trunk of our Christmas tree this year and use it in the yard.  I like the rustic look of a trunk that's had all the limbs cut off it.  Melissa and I have had this Auburn Bird house laying around for at least a year so I decided I'd mount it to the stump.  I did this awhile ago, so that's not the new part.  With all the storms we've been having our bottle tree got blown over and it broke the tree.  So I got the idea to take the bottles from the broken bottle tree and put them under the bird house on the old Christmas tree trunk.  I like the way it turned out.  I guess Melissa and I need to drink some more wine so I can finish the rest of the tree.  If anyone has any Blue wine bottles that you can part with please let us know.  Our single blue bottle broke when the tree fell.  I'm very heart broken over this because Blue is my favorite color.

Next is a project I did last spring.  Melissa got a steal on some crepe myrtle's so we planted them next to the drive way.  Then Home Depot had a big sale on landscape timbers so we bought 30 or so of them, didn't really have any ideas for them, just thought we'd find something to do with them.  The first thing I did find was to make these little boxes to frame our discount crepe myrtle's.  Nothing hard or special, just a project checked off the list. 

Sorry for the bad picture, Melissa has the camera so I took all of these with my iPhone.

at the end of the planting season last year K-Mart had a huge sale on all their trees.  We wanted some kind of flowering tree for the front of our house so we scooped up these three Bradford Pears.

The outside project that I have going right now is a big planter box using the rest of my landscape timbers.  Unfortunately 30 just wasn't enough to help level out my land and make the box look good.  So we're hoping they go back on sale some time soon, if not we'll have to pay full price to finish out this box.  Since I can't finish it with what I have I've just crudely laid the remaining timbers out so you can get an idea of what it'll look like.  None of the top layer is fastened, and the very front of the box is just laying on the ground.  I have one more level to put down to get it to it's finished height, then I'm going to have to get some fill dirt to fill in the box.  I have some big mounds of topsoil in the back that were left from when they built the house so I hope to use all of that off first.  In this box we have three more Melissa Super Sale finds that were being clearanced.  I believe she paid 5 dollars each for these large crepe myrtle's, they were even larger, but they had to cut the tops off of them to get them in her Jeep.  We also plan to fill in between them with some small shrubs and bulbs.  I'm thinking of moving two of our Forsythia's in between the myrtle's, but I haven't gotten clearance for that yet.

And finally is a finished project inside the house.  We picked up some bookshelves when they went on sale at Tarjay, notice a trend with us?  We put them together, moved my old TV stand in between them, hung my Thomas Kinkade, also bought on sale, signed and professionally highlighted by an artist trained by Thomas himself, in between the bookshelves.  (sorry for the computer on the desk, I'm on call and have been working all weekend.  This is just my on call setup, I'll take everything down when I return back to work.)

And since it's such a nice day I have the windows open and the ceiling fans going.  To my right are my "co-workers" for this weekend.

Snoogans' Story

Welcome to the first edition of Snoogans' story.  Snoogans is a Christmas present given to me years ago from Melissa.  He’s a full blooded blue point Siamese.  He’s the first one to greet me when I get home from work and wants nothing more than to be picked up and petted by me.  Well, that might not be entirely true.  Apparently he would like for me to take him to the vet more often to have his anal glands expressed.  It appears that his little problem with impacted anal glands hasn’t gone away.  We found this out the hard way Saturday morning as he was licking his bottom none stop.  As I tried to make him stop I noticed a big red spot on his bottom.  Turns out his right anal gland was so full that it ruptured.  Melissa and I jumped out of the bed and rushed him to the vet to have his bottom looked at.  Over 300 dollars later we returned home with the most loving drugged up cat you’ll ever see.  Melissa thought it was quite entertaining watching him try to walk.  What I didn’t find entertaining was that this medicine was making him sick so I was following him around cleaning up puke.  Living in a house of 4 cats I’m used to cleaning up the puke though.  Thank goodness he's back to normal now though.  I just have to give him oral antibiotics twice a day, which he LOVES by the way, sarcasm much?  So from now on, once every 6 to 9 weeks, Snoogs and I will be going to the vet on my off day to have his anal glands expressed.  I know you’re wondering why you’re just now hearing about this since it happened almost a week ago, but work has been super busy and I haven’t just been working late and too tired to sit down and bang this out. 

The Greatest Song never heard

I want to bring to everyone’s attention the greatest song that I don’t believe anyone has ever heard. I only know of three, including myself that has ever heard this song. Of us three, all three of us love the song. Granted it is also one of the most depressing songs ever written, but that doesn’t take away from how great it was. Now, let’s all go back to the golden area of 90’s R&B and Uncle Sam’s, “I don’t ever want to see you again” Enjoy it’s greatness.

Michael Lorrow

It is with a heavy heart that I write this blog.  Early this morning an all time great guy and friend of mine lost his long battle with cancer.  Michael Lorrow, you will truly be missed by everyone that ever knew you.  I know I got to visit with you yesterday before your final hours, but that is not the way I want to remember you.  You will always be “McLovin”.  Thank you for never losing your quick wit, humor, and smart ass mouth.  The way you handled your cancer has been an inspiration to me.  I will never understand how you could stay so positive and funny facing death and all the tribulations you were faced with.  This world will be a far less entertaining place without you on it.  Those of us who have known you will speak often of the experiences we shared with you.

Here’s to you pal!  Keep chasing those angels, you’ll be bound to catch one eventually.  Yeah Boy!  Giggity Giggity, Giggity Goo…

Eat more Chicken

The gauntlet has been laid down for one of the world’s greatest accomplishments.  Coming this May, the Lawn Dart Champion of 1962, but most of you know him as the lead singer of Falcon 550, the one and only Mr.  Adam “Dubba” Landreth, will go for the Ultimate Chic-fil-a Triple play.  The Chic-fil-a triple play in its self is a great accomplishment, until Adam raised the bar by completing the triple play at three different restaurants.  But now!  Oh, I don’t know if you’re ready for this, Wait for it…  The three state Chic-fil-a Triple play.  That’s right ladies and gentlemen, 3 different states, 3 different Chic-fil-a's, 3 different meals!  Can this feat be accomplished?  When asked for a comment on this amazing feat Adam pondered the question and replied, “yes”, followed by “I can eat Chic-fil-a in three different states.”  When asked what he planned to eat for his 3 different meals, he deliberated and responded with “Chicken”.  Insightful!  Such a bold promise by such a young, and might I add handsome, man.    I’m sure everyone is wondering how such an impossible feat can be accomplished, I mean let’s face it not all states for Chic-fil-a, and of those states the Chic-fil-a’s may not be close to each other.  I’m not sure if any of you have looked at a globe, but a State is kind of a big thing.  Not in the Ron Burgundy sense, but in a more literal land mass sense.  (I said mass)    However, due to the recent invention of a contraption called an aero-plane, Adam will make his journey across the country allowing him to partake in “Chicken” in 3 different states.  The three lucky states you ask?  Alabama, Georgia, and Colorado.  Adam assures me that he has begun his training and will be ready for his date with Destiny, he ask that you please keep this a secret as his wife has no idea he’s seeing a stripper on the side.  In the immortal words of Dale Doback, “Boats and hoes”

Saturday night pictures

Here are pictures of my team from the scavenger hunt.  We came in dead last, but we all had fun so that's all that matters.

Extreme Weekend Update

To keep everyone abreast, I said breast giggity, with the goings on in the world of Cas, we lost our last regular season game pretty soundly. The first half of the game went by with us only being down by two points. We have a Shaq type player on our team that no other team can match up with. Basically all we have to do to win is get our Shaq into the low post and feed him the ball until they start to double and triple team him. When they do that we send one guy to cut through the lane, and spot up a shooter for a kick out pass. This play works like a charm through the entire first half. It doesn’t even matter that they have 15 players to our 5. Second half rolls around and everyone is feeling good, we all know that we’re going to keep riding our Shaq and hopefully get a few stops to put us in the lead. Well, everyone knows this but our Shaq. You see Shaq decided he wants to run point for the second half and shoot threes. So, yeah, that was pretty much the rest of the game. We’ll fog up a bad shot, they’ll rebound and run with their fresh legs.
Saturday, Melissa and I had plans to go to a friend’s birthday part in Atlanta at Dave and Busters. Melissa had been helping Extreme Make Over Home Edition most of the week, and the big reveal was Saturday. She was begged to come back and help on the Saturday so she did. They even gave her 4 VIP passes to give to friends to watch the family come home and yell “move that bus”. Melissa and I pride ourselves on being stand up people, and if we say we’re going to do something then by God we’re going to do it. I say this because just the weekend before we stood in Wal-Mart telling our friend that we were going to be at Dave and Busters for the birthday and we hate when people say they’re going to do something and then back out. Flash back to Saturday, Melissa has these four passes for this amazing once in a lifetime event, but we’ve already promised a friend that we would be at a birthday party. What should we do? Melissa knows how badly they need her help at Extreme, and so I told her to go and help them because it is an important thing she’s doing and we’re always down to help. But I decided to not take my VIP pass and to go on to Atlanta since we had already confirmed that we would be at the party.
The party was a ball, I don’t know if anyone knows about this, but at Dave and Busters you can hold a party there and they will give you your own room, a buffet, game cards, and send you out on a scavenger hunt. We were broken up into teams and sent out to the gaming floor to scavenge for our booty, yar. Only down side to this, this Dave and Busters is PACKED! You have an hour to complete your list, which is only 6 pages log of easy to complete task. Easy IF, you were able to walk through the building. After fighting through the crowd for about 45 minutes of the hour we called it quits and went back to the room to rest. We were pretty sure we weren’t going to win, but it was a good time none the less.
After the party I embark on my journey back home. Had Melissa been with me we might have stayed the night, Susannah, would you have a room to rent? Haha, j/k. But since it was just me I left the party a little early and headed back to Alabama. All was going well, it was late so traffic wasn’t all that heavy, until I made it close to the Varsity’s exit. All traffic comes to a grinding halt. Police cars have all 6 lanes blocked, and the exit ramp is also blocked so no one is going anywhere on 75/85. Ok, I’m in Atlanta, traffic is stopped, this is to be expected. What I didn’t expected was the four fire trucks to come rolling by me, two of which were the big ladder trucks. Now I’m intrigued as to what in the world could be going on? So I start flip stations on the FM dial, all stations are playing some prerecorded countdown or interview, no help to me. Swap to AM, finally after listening to WSB750 for a minute someone cuts in to announce that we have a jumper on the bridge right in front of me. This explains the ladder trucks and why the entire interstate is stopped heading south. After sitting with my truck in park, playing on facebook on my iPhone traffic starts to move again. The man has been talked down off the ledge and life goes on, for him and everyone else.
Sunday I was pretty much sick all day so I slept about 18 hours. I got up, got dressed, made Melissa and I waffles, which I thought tasted like crap, Melissa said they were good and tasted like a waffle. I guess my taste buds were off because I was sick. After fighting for about 2 hours I went and laid back down for what I thought would be a short nap, flash forward six hours, I awake.