Pizza overload

Walmart tried to give us Christmas dinner this week. Unfortunately caterers are few and far between in rural Kansas and simply not available at this time of year. Fortunately Domino’s recently opened a store in Independence. For the last two days most of the overnight shift pigged out on pizza. With the cold snap I normally would have got a pizza on the way home. Instead I got a frozen lasagna dinner big enough to last a week. Between that and the batch of beef stew I made up yesterday, I should be good for a week.

I got tonight off, but have to go in Christmas night. I have to work Tuesday night which is normally a night off. Having consecutive days off is standard practice on overnights. The other departments are lucky to have a stable schedule, forget about consecutive days off.

Slow going

Last night I had to go to work without a clue as to road conditions. Surprisingly the county scraped the dirt road connecting my house to the main road. The road into town was scraped, but the snow drifted back on the road in some spots. Once I got to town, the roads had not even been touched. All in all the dark was more of an issue than the snow. I even got to drive normally on the drive home. One more night and I am off for Christmas.

World Cup ends

The final game of the Wotld Cup was played today. Argentina beat France 3-3. If that sounds wrong, then you don’t believe a tie in basketball should be decided by a game of horse, a game of gridiron decided by a field goal kicking contest, or a baseball game decided by a home run hitting contest. Maybe Australian Rules was a little extreme by replaying the championship game the following week, but deciding a championship on penalty kicks is lame. Maybe making the second and subsequent overtime sudden death, removing a player and allowing a substitution each period would stop boring people to death.

Only three more months until football without fake injuries begins. It feels funny counting down so early. Usually I start counting down after the Super Bore. If gridiron is a good excuse for a nap, soccer is still a good excuse for a coma.

Bills and more bills

I wrote about the trend in corporate America of eliminating Christmas bonuses. I don’t mean renaming it holiday bonus or year end bonus. I mean not giving anything at the end of the year.

Unfortunately my major semi-annual bills are due in the next week. Between property taxes and car insurance, I will pay out about 1500 dollars this week. I have the money, but it does put a big dent in my savings account. I hate to think what my utility bills are going to be next month with the cold spell coming through. That bonus money would have come in handy. The good news is after the holiday, I can come in on one of my days off and work overtime due to the lack of help.

Holiday pay

As I posted earlier, Wally World has two holidays, Christmas and Thanksgiving. Neither of these are paid holidays. On the overnight shift we get the night before as the day off. Since I have Wednesday nights off, Thanksgiving is just like a normal week. Christmas falls on a different day of the week every year. This year it falls on a Sunday giving me Saturday night off. I thought this would leave me with a short paycheck, so I asked for ppto to make up the difference. When the schedule dropped for the week after Christmas, I realized I had to come in Tuesday night, which is normally my night off. I wish I would have known that before I put in for ppto.

Bowled over

Saturday starts the college bowl season.  Forty-one games starting with the Bahamas Bowl and the Cure Bowl.  If I had not seen this online, I would never had known.  Our local newspapers only cover local news, even the dailies.  The city papers pulled out earlier this year. 

Both Kansas schools are involved in this mess KU meete Arkansas in the Liberty Bowl in Memphis. This is an upgrade for Kansas whose football program has been in the toilet bowl for the past decade. Kansas State gets to go N’awlins to play Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. For Alabama thus is like taking the least ugly girl home at closing time.